ported them all in death, although not to all of them was the great Object of faith revealed with equal clearness. What an august company is now with Christ in Paradise, waiting till the Elect are numbered, and the grave call Him to come and save!

Let us cherish in our nearest approaches to the Throne of Grace the thoughts of joining them at that Day. Let us fortify ourselves by their example; and thinking of them as spectators of the course which we are ourselves running, let us scorn to do anything unworthy of the good confession which they witnessed in their day, and the record of which is left for our encouragement. But, above all, let us fix our eye steadily upon the great Central Object of Faith, the Glorified Form, who stands at the end of the course with the garland of victory in His Hand; for it is only by not allowing it to wander from Him, that we too shall prove in the end more than conquerors; "Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, LOOKING UNTO JESUS, THE AUTHOR AND FINISHER OF OUR FAITH."

Let me conclude with some reflections which the first part of our subject has suggested, on the thankfulness which it behoves us to feel for the position which Divine Providence has assigned to us as Members of the Church of England. If well-balanced views of Scriptural Truth, equally remote from the Romanizing and Rationalizing tendencies of the day, if the union of Scriptural Doctrine with Apostolic Discipline, be any security for the soundness of our faith and the steadiness of our religious principles in these dangerous days, surely we, whose Prayer Books furnish us with such views, and whose ecclesiastical Constitution presents this happy union, ought to be thoroughly fortified, under God's blessing, against errors and innovations. But, alas! it must be confessed with shame and sorrow, the great majority of English Churchmen only yield their Church a nominal allegiance; their Churchmanship is not at all the result of choice and reflection, but the merest accident of their position. Where will you find a discriminating appreciation of the excellence of our Liturgy, Catechism, and Articles? Could our Services be so cold, so thinly attended (except where there happens to be a popular preacher

another name often for a showy and unsound one), and so languidly responded to, if people had given the least amount of careful study to their Prayer Books? Alas! all that the great majority know of the Book, which is for them the interpreter of Holy Scripture, is derived from hearing the Morning and Evening Prayer read in their ears every Sunday, and from some hazy disagreeable reminiscences of the quaint English of the Catechism, when administered to them as a lesson in youth.

And thus it comes to pass that, in the midst of some notorious extravagances in the direction of Rome, and in the direction of Latitudinarianism, which it is fashionable to decry, the religion of the majority of our people is of a low type, a religion intolerant indeed of Romanism and Rationalism, but having no real ground of its own to stand upon, and consisting merely in a few impressions derived from Sermons, and a few evangelical phraseologies picked up from Books,-a religion whose Creed, if it had a Creed at all, would probably run thus; “I believe that Faith is the only Grace, and that Preaching is the only Ordinance." Surely the devout and attentive study of the Prayer Book would lead us to some better and more definite form of Religion than this; would give us more especially those hard and clear conceptions of Christian Doctrine, which must after all be the nerves and stamina of practical religion. A religion of mere sentiment will break down under stress of trial; we need in that hour a religion of well-ascertained princi. ples, which we have tested by bringing them to the criterion of Truth.

For us, members of the Church of England, let us be thankful for that glorious heritage of our forefathers, "The Book of Common Prayer." And let us show cur thankfulness by pondering the meaning of those words, which Sunday after Sunday slip so glibly over our tongues in worship, that they leave little or no impression upon our hearts.

It was the petition of the disciples, that Christ would teach them to pray (would give them, that is, an authorized Form of Prayer), “as John also taught his disciples." It is a petition which for ourselves is already answered. The Providence and Goodness of God has given us a Liturgy, which is a faithful echo and expansion of Our Lord's own model Prayer. But as it is with the model itself, so it is with this faithful echo of it. The sound of both is in the

ear, while the sense of neither is in the mind. Pray we then, "Lord, as Thou hast graciously taught us to pray, teach us to understand our prayers; so that, when we recite them, we may pray with the spirit, and with the understanding also!"

SECT. 10.-THE POST COMMUNION.

The Administration of the Communion is the climax of the Ordinance, for which all that precedes has prepared the way, and to which the succeeding Prayer, and Hymn, and Blessing form an appropriate conclusion.. If we have been faithful and believing communicants, the act in which we have been engaged has been instrumental in uniting us to Christ, and making us one Spirit with the Lord. And the exceeding closeness of that union who shall describe? It is symbolized to us in this Sacrament by the union of food with the bodily frame. Now the food which we receive, in process of time becomes part (and an indistinguishable part) of ourselves; it becomes muscle, or bone, or flesh; is assimilated, in short, to the substance of the body. This, and nothing less than this, is the union which the Lord appoints to be symbolical of His Oneness with His true Church. Such is an outline of the train of thought by which we pass from the Administration to the first Post-Communion Prayer, and the "Gloria in Excelsis.”

Now as the Introductory part of the Communion Office is designed to get the mind into a suitable frame for the Ordinance, so the latter part is designed to indicate the spirit which we should cultivate, if we wish duly to follow up our Communion, and still to inhale its atmosphere. I do not regard either part of the Serrice as having fulfilled its whole design to the mmunicant, when it has been read through responded to in Church. The Lord's Prayer t merely destined for use as a piece of devoit is throughout a teaching Prayer, ? us upon what blessings our hearts e most fondly set, for what blessings we ion modestly and with great reserve, -it towards cur fellow-men we must d, and a thousand other precious no tongue or pen can exhaust. h Services are (of course in a 't still in their measure) cone same principle; they not our mouth when we pray us also privately, if we

study them, both how we should pray, and also how we should desist from Prayer. It is on this view of their significance, that we shall here make some remarks on the Prayer and Hymn which follow the administration, and which go by the name of the Post-Communion.

Our Blessed Lord, after instituting the Holy Supper, and apparently before He left the "large upper room furnished," which was the scene of the Institution, offered up the great High-priestly Prayer, which is recorded in St. John xvii. Then, before quitting the chamber (it is thus that the events of that solemn evening best arrange themselves) He sang with His disciples a Hymn,-in all probability the latter part of the great Hallel (or Hymn of praise) usually sung at the Jewish Passover, and consisting of six Psalms, the one hundred and thirteenth to the one hundred and eighteenth inclusive. That there should be, then, certain public Devotions after the Communion seems to be a

practice traced upon the primitive Institution, and quite accordant with our Lord's example.

Our Lord's Prayer in the chapter referred to is called the Great High-priestly Prayer. It consists of an intercession for His disciples to the end of time. But this Intercession, though a most important feature of the prayer, does not seem to be the centre or nucleus of it. Christ's Intercession is grounded on what He has done for His Church. Accordingly, in the heart of this Prayer He mentions His consecration of Himself (more correctly, I should say, He consecrates Himself) for the work of Atonement, which on the following day He was about to take in hand. "For their sakes," says He, "I sanctify" (consecrate, set apart) "Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the Truth." Here is the great High Priest devoting Himself to offer on the morrow the sin-offering in His own Person; taking up into His mouth the language which had been put there long ago by prophetic anticipation: "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." This is His oblation of Himself, His soul and body, to be a "full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."

And now what do we find to be the key-note of our first Post-Communion Prayer? Is it not the presentation of the Christian's reasonable Service, the oblation of himself, "his soul and body," to be "a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto God?" This oblation is indeed in

no sense (like that of Christ) propitiatory. It is made, and is acceptable, only on the ground of Christ's finished work, in the merits and virtues of which the faithful communicant is a sharer. We have just been united-in wardly by faith, outwardly by the Ordinance-with a bleeding and a dying Christ, a Christ wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. Being truly united to that meritorious Death, we too in Him have died,-have died to sin in its condemning guilt, and in its domineering power. And the old man in us having died, we offer the new man or better self unto God, feeling that He now accepts us only, but constitutes us a royal priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to Him through Jesus Christ. Being members of this royal priesthood, we must have somewhat to offer. The somewhat is ourselves. And accordingly we offer ourselves, re-echoing, while we do so, the precept of the Holy Apostle: "I beseech you therefore, Brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service," and re-echoing also, in our measure, and according to the vast difference of our position in God's Kingdom, Our Lord's consecration of Himself at the first institution of the Communion; "For their sakes I sanctify Myself."

Let us see to it, then, that we leave the Holy Table in a spirit of self-sacrifice; and let us strive that after every Communion this spirit may more and more take possession of our hearts, and struggle into an outward expression in our lives. Sacrifice is the very soul of true religion. The Sacrifice of Christ is the very centre of Christianity; and the sacrifice of the Christian is the legitimate consequence of the Sacrifice of Christ,-the development in each individual member of the Divine Life which is in the Head. As our Blessed Lord, after instituting the Holy Supper, consecrated Himself to do God's Will on the Cross, and to make a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for our sins; so let us also, after partaking of the Rite, by which the benefits of His Offering are conveyed to us, yield ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

There is another leading topic of our Lord's High-priestly Prayer, which finds its echo also in our Post-Communion. It is a prayer not

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only of dedication for Himself, but also for the unity of His followers. 'Holy Father, keep through Thine own Name" (literally, in Thine own Name-in the acknowledgment of it) "those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as we are." "Neither pray I for these alone; but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me."

We have spoken of holding the awful and attractive perfections of God before the eyes of our minds, and of thus walking in the Light, and having fellowship one with another. The same idea repeats itself with a very slight modification in the Hymn "Gloria in Excelsis," with which the people's share of the Office concludes. It is a very ancient Hymn, frequently mentioned by Chrysostom as forming part of the Communion Service, and used apparently by the primitive Christians as a Hymn for Morning Devotions. The blossom out of which this beautiful flower unfolds itself is the Song of the Angels at the Nativity, of which the whole Hymn is an expansion. This song was first sung at Bethlehem,- -a village whose name means the House of Bread-a name not without deep significance; for it was here that the living Bread was first found, which came down from Heaven;-in other words, it was here that Our Lord was born. His Body He gives in this Sacrament to be the food of our souls; ar therefore at the celebration of this Sacrament which His Body is represented and conve we appropriately sing the Song of the Nati "Glory be to God on high, and on earth goodwill towards men," and enlarge up with appropriate sentiments of devotion whole piece falls into three Paragraphs,sion pointing to the Three Persons of the Trinity, each of whom is confessed in clause.

The third Paragraph again rises ir guage of praise, ascribing glory to Trinity, and especially to Him who, Mediatorial Kingdom, is the Ce: the Sacred Three, and the T God to the creatures; "T'. Thou only art the Lord; Thou with the Holy Ghost, art n. of God the Father."

WE offer, Lord, th' appointed sign,

The strength'ning Bread, the gladd'ning Wine,

To God and men thus showing forth

The Sacrifice of endless worth!

We join Thy Priest in solemn prayer,
That we, these Gifts who duly share,
May all partake of Heavenly Food,
The Saviour's Flesh, the Saviour's Blood.

The Bread he breaks and pours the Wine
In memory of Thy Love Divine;—
Pierced were Thy Hands and Feet,-Thy Head
Torn with the thorns, Thy Blood thus shed!

SECT. 1.-THE COMMEMORATIVE SACRIFICE, AND THE REAL SPIRITUAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST'S BODY AND BLOOD TO THE FAITHFUL COMMUNICANT IN THE SACRAMENT.

A portion of his last Charge, prepared by the late ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and Published by his Son after his death.*

THE bitterness of the controversy which has now unhappily existed for several years in connexion with the Rubric respecting the ornaments of the Church and the Ministers thereof, is very deeply to be deplored, and cannot fail to be a subject of great anxiety to those who desire to maintain due order and discipline in our Church. There is no doubt that its correct interpretation involves the consideration of several most intricate questions; and the simple fact that lawyers of the highest eminence have given conflicting opinions on the subject, indicates difficulties of no ordinary character. But the greater the difficulty to persons of acknowledged intellectual power and great professional skill, the greater is the marvel that individual Clergy

* Our best acknowledgments are due to Henry Longley, Esq., for his ready compliance with our request, to be permitted to republish this Charge -ED.

men should have taken upon themselves to cut the knot, and, acting upon their own private opinion, should, in the presence of these facts, have undertaken, with an unwise precipitation, and without taking counsel with those set over them in the Lord, to affirm the legality of the disputed ornaments.

There is an amount of moral and circumstantial evidence against them, which they would have done well to ponder. In the first place, there is the invariable usage of our Church for three centuries, during which 700 of her Bishops have without exception acquiesced in an interpretation of the Rubric adverse to their views, and sanctioned the use by the Parochial Clergy of the surplice and hood alone at all times of their ministrations. And not only is there this acquiescence, but (which is of still greater weight in the scale) the contemporaneous interpretation of the legislators themselves is directly adverse to these innovations.

It is obvious that if any order or discipline is to be maintained in our Church, it will be impossible to allow each single Clergyman to change the customs and Ritual according to his

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own private opinion, and to set himself up as judge of what is lawful and what is not. Anarchy will necessarily be the fruit of such a system. The Preface to our Prayer Book suggests a way in which the evils resulting from the exercise of this self-will may be obviated, in the well-known passage which says, "For the resolution of all doubts concerning the manner how to understand, do, and execute the things contained in this Book, the parties that so doubt or diversely take anything, shall always resort to the Bishop of the Diocese, who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same, so that the same order be not contrary to any thing contained in this Book."

It is a matter of great thankfulness to me, that as far as I am aware, or have been able to ascertain from inquiry, there is not a single Clergyman in my Diocese who adopted either the vestments or incense. If the proportion of those in each Diocese who have really any Romanizing tendencies were accurately ascertained, I am persuaded that their numbers would be found comparatively very small. They are a noisy, but not a very numerous section of our Church; and by their forwardness in giving publicity to their views, they leave an erroneous impression that they are a more important body than they really are.

On the whole, then, I am compelled to confess that the conduct of those who have so rashly adopted the use of the vestments savours very little of Christian modesty or Christian moderation; and were the consequences of their conduct as regards the peace and welfare of the Church less grave than they are, it would not be undeserving of censure. But when one reflects upon the condition to which our Church has been brought by their rashness and selfwill; when we witness the feeling of exasperation which prevails so largely, even among those earnest, loyal, hearty Churchmen who have never been religious partisans, but who cannot help looking upon these demonstrations as indicative of a desire, openly avowed in some quarters to undo the work of our Reformers,* their conduct does indeed merit strong reprobation. We hear it however sometimes urged that it is inconsistent with even-handed justice to condemn those who offend in excess of ritual, while we refrain from animadverting upon those who

The italics here and elsewhere, excepting in the citations, are not in the original Charge.-ED.

habitually violate the Rubrics on the side of omission. It is not for me in any way to countenance such shortcomings, but I could not say with truth that those who have been following irregular practices which custom had long sanctioned, are equally to blame with those who introduce innovations, with a special object, which we believe to be foreign to the letter as well as the spirit of our formularies. It transpired in the course of the evidence given before the Ritual Commission, that some of those who insist most on the strict observance of Church order are wont to omit certain parts of the Church Service when it suits their convenience to do so. I desire, however, to remind all those who have, either through negligence or under the influence of custom, deviated from the directions of our Church, how much they thereby weaken the side of order, and embarrass the administration of even-handed justice by their shortcomings. It is fair to acknowledge that good progress had been made in many quarters where that negligence had been observable towards greater solemnity in the performance of Divine worship, and towards the restoration of churches that had been suffered to remain in a state of decay and deformity dishonourable to that Holy One in whose honour they were erected. It is much to be feared that the approximation towards the ritual of Rome which is to be seen in many churches will check this movement.

It is constantly pleaded in behalf of those who have adopted a very advanced Ritual, that they are self-denying and devoted men, who sacrifice every thing for their Lord's sake and for the temporal and eternal welfare of their flocks -who devote their best energies to relieve the sufferings and soothe the sorrows of the poor and destitute. Such characters, in whatever communion they may be found, are worthy of all honour and respect. But these meritorious exertions cannot undo the great mischief which their conduct and proceedings have caused, cannot atone for every extravagance they may please to adopt, which startles and estranges those whom it ought rather to be their aim to conciliate. There may be zeal without knowledge, and zeal without charity; that charity which refrains from things which are not expedient, even though they be lawful, for the welfare of the Church in general.

It is far from my intention to impute to all those who have taken this ill-advised step of