adopting the Sacrificial Vestments any sympathy with Roman error; but 1 am constrained to avow that there are plain indications in some of the publications which have been issued as manifestoes of the opinions of that section of our Church, that some of its professed members, yea, even of her ministers, think themselves at liberty to hold the doctrines of the Church of Rome in relation to the Sacrifice of the Mass, and yet retain their position within the pale of the Anglican Church with the avowed purpose of eliminating from its formularies every trace of the Reformation, as regards its protest against Romish error. The language they hold with respect to it is entirely incompatible with loyalty to the Church to which they profess to belong. They call it "a Communion deeply tainted with Protestant heresy ;" "Our duty," they say, is the expulsion of the evil, not flight from it." It is no want of charity, therefore, to declare that they remain with us in order that they may substitute the Mass for the Communion; the obvious aim of our Reformers having been to substitute the Communion for the Mass. Doubtless the Church of England admits of considerable latitude in the views that may be taken of that most mysterious of all mysteries, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And so long as those solemn words of its original institution, "This is My Body," "This is My Blood" shall remain in the sentence of consecration (and they never can be erased from it), so long will there be varieties of interpretation of these words, all of which may be consistent with a true allegiance to our Church, provided these three conditions be observed :

1. That they be not construed to signify that the Natural Body of Christ is present in the Sacrament:

2. Nor to admit of any adoration either of the Sacramental Bread and Wine there bodily received, or of any corporal presence of Christ's Natural Body and Blood:

3. Nor to justify the belief that the Body and Blood are again offered as a satisfaction for Sin; seeing that the offering of Christ once made was a perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, original and actual.

These are the limits which our Church imposes upon the liberty of interpretation of the words of our Blessed Lord.

Leaving to the workings of their own conscience those who deem it consistent with

their allegiance to our own Church to preach or publish that against which she has formally protested, I will confine myself to the case of those who really believe that their tenets are agreeable to the spirit of our formularies, though they may find it somewhat difficult to reconcile them with their letter. And as it is the duty of those who are set over you in the Lord to express our opinions distinctly on those subjects which at present distract and divide our Church, I will dwell more at large on the topics which bear on the subject of the vestments in connexion with the Holy Eucharist.

Let me first impress upon you the great importance of not indulging in language on this most solemn subject which is not strictly authorized by the formularies of our Church. If we venture to put our own gloss and interpretation upon the terms used by the Church, we are in fact giving new definitions of doctrine, and are following the example of the Church of Rome, which has entangled itself in inextricable difficulties by such a process. And in warning you to avoid this error, I would wish you to remember that it is not every expression respect.ing the Holy Eucharist to be found in the writings of the early Fathers which will justify the use of the like by a divine of the Church of England. Many of the Fathers indulge in figurative and rhetorical language where modern and Western judgment and taste would have led to greater simplicity of expression; language which they themselves elsewhere modify and correct, so as to neutralize the effect of words poured forth under the influence of excitement. This point I shall have an opportunity of illustrating hereafter.

Then there is a distinction to be drawn between terms adopted in controversy, where there is ample room for explaining and qualifying them, and such as may be used in the pulpit and in general teaching, where the like opportunity is not so readily found. And in general I would say, without attempting to define accurately the limits of opinion on the Holy Eucharist, I cannot think that a Clergyman is justified in propounding anything to his people save that which fairly respresents the tone and language of the Church of England.

Having premised thus much, I would observe (what you are all doubtless aware of) that the use of these vestments is in the minds of many intimately connected with the idea that an essential element in the Holy Communion is

the offering to God a Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, which abide with the elements in a mysterious manner after the act of Consecration. The minister wears the vestments at that time as a sacrificing Priest. According to this view it would seem that the most important part of this Holy Sacrament is what we offer to God, not what we receive from him.

This view is not recognised by the Church of England in her formularies. The general definition in the XXVth Article states that Sacraments are "certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace, by the which [God] doth work invisibly in us," and it is said specifically of the Lord's Supper, (Art XXVIII.) that it "is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death; insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ." The idea of the Sacrifice of that Body and Blood finds no place in either of these strict definitions. The Catechism speaks the same language when it defines a Sacrament to be "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us." Nor will an examination of the Office of the Holy Communion itself give any countenance to the idea in question. The only distinct oblation or offering mentioned in that Office is previous to the Consecration of the elements, in the Prayer for the Church Militant, and therefore cannot be an offering or sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ; and the only sacrifice which we are spoken of as making is the offering of "ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice1." Our Church seems most studiously to have avoided any expression which could countenance the notion of a perpetual Sacrifice of Christ, while on the other hand it speaks of Christ's death upon the Cross as "His one oblation of Himself once offered as a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world." No room is left for the repetition of that sacrifice, or for the admission of any other sacrifice for sin.

The Romish notion of a true, real, and substantial Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, as it is called in the Council of Trent, entailed the use of the term altar. But this term appears nowhere in the Book of Common

1 See Proctor on the Common Prayer, p. 320.

Prayer, and was no doubt omitted lest any countenance should be given to the sacrificial view. The notion, therefore, of making in the elements a perpetual offering of the Body and Blood of Christ, is as foreign to the spirit and the letter of our Service as I hold it to be to the doctrine of the early Fathers, as well as of the leading divines of our Church. This latter point also I shall endeavour to establish hereafter.

Meanwhile, it cannot be denied on the other hand, that the doctrine of the Real Presence is, in one sense, the doctrine of the Church of England. She asserts that the Body and Blood of Christ are "verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." And she asserts equally that such presence is not material or corporal, but that Christ's Body “is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner" (Art. XXVIII.). Christ's presence is effectual for all those intents and purposes for which His Body was broken, and His Blood shed. As to a presence elsewhere than in the heart of the believer, the Church of England is silent, and the words of Hooker therefore represent her views: "The real presence of Christ's most blessed Body and Blood is not to be sought in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament."

ניי

All agree in believing that the Holy Eucharist is a commemoration of the Sacrifice of our Blessed Lord upon the Cross; a representation of it, or pleading of its merits before the Throne of Grace. Some of our divines also have applied the word Sacrifice to it, but in some part of their writings or other have explained their meaning to be a Representation of the true Sacrifice, and not a real Sacrifice in itself.

In the general view which I have briefly sketched of the mind of our Church on this subject, I am firmly convinced that she fully harmonizes with the Primitive doctrine as stated by the early Fathers. They are very consistent in the opinion that spiritual sacrifice was the

1 This sentence of Hooker's has been sometimes mistaken to mean of the Real Presence absolutely, that it is not in the Sacrament; but the statement" not to be sought" does not justify such an inference. It would caution us rather not to affirm or define the spiritual reality of the "Res Sacramenti," otherwise than Christ's own words teach us: "Take eat, this is My Body." It is simply, in fact, a question of the sense in which the word "Sacrament" is used, being sometimes understood of the consecrated elements only, instead of the whole ordinance.-ED.

satisfactory and conclusive as to St. Augustine's meaning is that in his letter to Bishop Bonifacius on infant baptism (Ep. xcviii. §. 9): "Was not Christ sacrificed once for all in His Very Self? And yet He is sacrificed in the Sacrament not only throughout all the celebrations of Easter, but every day for the people." A strong expression this, no doubt, seemingly favouring the idea of a repetition of the Sacrifice of Christ; but how does he proceed to explain his meaning in the use of this word? "And he verily does not lie, who, on being questioned, should answer that He is sacrificed: for if the Sacraments have not a certain resemblance to those things of which they are Sacraments they would not be Sacraments at all." Exactly in accordance with this view, he says elsewhere, "That which is called Sacrifice by all is a sign of the true Sacrifice;" showing plainly that if he ever uses the word "sacrificium" in reference to the Body and Blood of Christ in the celebration of the Holy Communion, he does so under a figure, a metonymy; things being often called by the name of that which they represent. When on Easter Day we say, "Jesus Christ is risen today," we no more mean that the Resurrection is actually repeated every Easter, than one of the Fathers means that the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are actually offered again to the Father every time the Holy Eucharist may be styled by him "a Sacrifice." He so calls it, often in the figurative way in which St. Austin tells us it may be used. Theodoret (vol. iii., p. 595), in commenting on Hebrews viii. 4, says: "To those who have been instructed in Divine things, it is manifest that we do not offer any other sacrifice; but we perform the memorial of that one and saving Sacrifice; for thus the Lord Himself commanded, 'Do this in remembrance of Me,' in order that by contemplation we may call to mind the image of the sufferings which He underwent for us, and influence our love towards our benefactor." Eusebius ("Demonstratio Evangelica," lib. i. c. 10): "And to finish all, a certain marvellous Sacrifice and choice Victim He offered to His Father; and He delivered to us to offer to God continually a memorial of the same instead of a Sacrifice."

The word molirel is sometimes urged as a strong argument in favour of a real Sacrifice. But several distinguished Roman Catholic

18t. Luke xxii. 19.

authorities, e.g. the learned Jesuit, Estius, refuse to acknowledge it as any proof in favour of the Sacrificial doctrine; and it is remarkable that the word is only found in one of the four Evangelists. Had it been so all-important a word as some would have it to be, it seems impossible to believe that the Spirit of Truth should have failed to bring it to the remembrance of the other narrators.

Now there is no doubt that those to whom we are indebted for the composition of our formularies were thoroughly versed in all the branches of our controversy with Rome, and were stored with learning which eminently qualified them for the arduous task they undertook: and we may well be thankful for the way in which they accomplished it. That our Church, as represented in them, pays due respect to the authority of ancient Doctors of the Church, is manifest from various passages in the Book of Common Prayer. In the Preface of 1549, for instance, "Concerning the Service of the Church," the compilers, vindicating the Liturgy previous to its corruption by the Roman Church, declare that its "first original and ground, if a man would search it out by the ancient Fathers, will be found not to have been ordained but for a good purpose and for a great advancement of godliness." In the same treatise it is lamented that for many years past "this godly and decent order of the ancient Fathers hath been altered, broken, and neglected," and the new Order of Prayer is spoken of as "much agreeable to the mind and purpose of the old Fathers.”

Seeing, then, the complexion which the Reformers, with all these expressions of respect for the ancient Doctors of the Church, have given to our Communion Service, it seems impossible to doubt that they had weighed well those passages of the Fathers which are generally adduced in favour of the Sacrificial view, and had judged that the corrections and explanations to which I have alluded were the true key to their real opinions. Wherefore they treated the Holy Office throughout as merely the commemoration of the great Sacrifice, or if it is to be treated as a sacrifice in itself, only as a spiritual sacrifice or act of worship, without any reference to the offering of the elements, either before or after consecration.

Let us see next what view our Reformers and leading Divines have taken of the matter.

Ridley (p. 211) says, "What the meaning of the Fathers was it is evident by that which St.

Augustine writeth in his Epistle to Boniface, and in his book against Faustus the Manichee, besides many other places; likewise by Eusebius, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Fulgentius, Bertram, and others, who do wholly concord and agree together in this that the whole substance of our sacrifice, which is frequented of the Church in the Lord's Supper, consisteth in Prayers, Praise, and giving of thanks, and in remembering and showing forth of that Sacrifice once offered upon the altar of the Cross." "1

The author of the Homily on the Sacrament was evidently well acquainted with the Fathers, and there we find this sentiment in accordance with the above: "As that worthy man, St. Ambrose, saith, He is unworthy of the Lord who doth otherwise celebrate that mystery than it was delivered by Him. We must then take heed lest the memory of it be made a sacrifice, In these matters let us follow the advice of Cyprian in the like cases; that is, cleave fast to the first beginning: hold fast the Lord's tradition: do that in the Lord's commemoration which he Himself did, He Himself commanded, and His Apostles confirmed."

Bishop Poynet is often quoted as a great authority by those who hold high views as to the Eucharistic Sacrifice. But he too gives us a clue to his real meaning in the following passage, whatever strong expressions he may elsewhere have used in another direction :-"The very words of Cyprian sufficiently show that the letter is not to be followed in those things which are said concerning this Mystery, that we must drive away from our minds every sense of a carnal kind, and that every expression must be referred to a spiritual meaning, that to this bread comes the presence of the Divine Virtue, the efficacy of life eternal, that the Divine Essence is poured into it, that the words are Spirit and Life, that a spiritual formulary is handed over to us, that it behoves us to receive this Body, this Bread and Flesh, this substance of His Body, not in a common manner, nor as human reason dictates, but that it should be so named, thought of, believed in on account of certain exalted effects, virtues and properties conjoined, which are natural to the body and blood of Christ, inasmuch as it feeds our souls, and makes alive, at the same that it prepares our bodies for the resurrection and immortality." (Diallacticon, p. 33.)

1 Works, Parker Society.

Bishop Andrewes is constantly advanced as a supporter of the high Sacrificial doctrine. It is true that there are passages in his writings which may seem to countenance such doctrine. But I must once more maintain the rule I have before laid down, and hold that doubtful passages must be interpreted by other passages from his writings. In this case also I shall add, words written comparatively early are explained by those of later life. Now he writes thus to Cardinal Bellarmine: "We believe a real presence no less than you do. We dare not be

so bold as presumptuously to define any thing concerning the manner of a true presence, or rather we are not even anxiously inquisitive concerning it; no more than in Baptism, how the blood of Christ washeth us."1 That he is speaking of a Sacramental, not a Personal Presence, appears from the following, which he never could have written otherwise :-"His person is taken out of our sight; all that we can do will not reach unto it. But His Name hath He left behind unto us that we may show by our reverence and respect to it, how much we esteem Him, how true the Psalm shall be, Holy and reverend is His Name."

Ten years later, and not long before his death, Andrewes wrote his answer to Cardinal Perron. The Cardinal had produced certain passages from the Fathers in favour of Eucharistical Adoration. Andrewes replied that the expressions adduced amounted not to adoring, but only implied honour and reverence. He did not argue that it is Christ who is adored in the elements. And in enforcing the duty of kneeling at reception he says, "What other gesture befits people praying?"-not adoring. Truly we may say that all acts of faith and thanksgiving are acts of adoration : in this sense, and in this only, all faithful Christians unite in adoration.

Bishop Jeremy Taylor is a divine who gives reins to his imagination, and with respect to whose writings the same caution would seem to be necessary which he himself gave to those who would study the Fathers with advantage, namely, against putting unwise dependence on their hyperbolical expressions. But his "Dissuasive from Popery" contains his last treatise on the subject of the Holy Eucharist, and may be supposed to contain his matured and settled opinions. In this treatise he writes, "We by

1 Resp. ad Apol Bellarm c. xi.

2 Seventh Sermon on the Resurrection.