the conditions under which it is brought near (p. 24). Mr. Carter must know, from the history of the controversy that gave rise to this Article, that the object was not to preach a homily on the duty of right preparation, but to declare that without faith there is no reception of the Body of Christ, as against that Roman doctrine of absolute unconditional Presence which he now re-asserts; according to which, the instrument which receives the Body of Christ is not the faith but the hand, of the man; and a Turk or a Buddhist receives the Body of Christ if he receives the consecrated wafer. But Mr. Carter's own words on the

same page confute him. "Being a spiritual Presence, it is to be received by the spirit." Exactly so; and where the spirit is not, it is not received at all.

On the whole consideration of the subject, the result to which we are brought is this:-There is a Real Objective Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament when received. More than this, nobody can say, with any authority, at least, from Scripture, from the Primitive Church, or from our own Church. For in the institution by Christ, and in the pages of Scripture, the Sacrament is no otherwise conceived or spoken of than in reception;

in the Primitive Church the prayer for the Presence was simply and expressly limited to the end and purpose of reception; and in our own Church, consecration is followed immediately by reception, and the Presence is only spoken of as having place actually within the recipient, and only in the faithful. This is the utmost that is authorized, sanctioned, revealed. Anything more is but the fruit of human imagination, generated by restless speculation. And why should more be said? This answers the whole purpose for which the Holy Sacrament was instituted, viz., that we might "eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood."

that we might "dwell in Him and He in us." This Presence is effected by the Holy Spirit, acting upon the recipients and upon the elements" Send Thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts" (liturgies), quickening the subjective faith of the recipients, and so sanctifying the elements as to make them the channels by means of which the Body and Blood of Christ are objectively presented to the soul, to be assimilated by the soul which the Spirit has made capable of apprehending and taking into itself the Body of the Lord and His Blood, and receiving thereby His whole Divine saving Presence.

A PRAYER AFTER THE CONSECRATION, BESEECHING OUR HEAVENLY FATHER TO ACCEPT OUR "MEMORIAL OF THE DEATH OF HIS SON;" AND AN ACT OF ADORATION TO OUR BLESSED SAVIOUR, FOR ALL THE BENEFITS OF HIS DEATH AND ATONEMENT.

O eternal God, Our heavenly Father, accept, I beseech Thee, of the representation we make before Thee of that all-sufficient sacrifice which thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ made upon the cross: let the merit of His sacrifice plead effectually for the pardon and forgiveness of all my sins, and render Thee favourable and propitious to me, a miserable sinner; let the power of It prevail against all the powers of darkness; let the wisdom of It make me wise unto salvation; and let the peace of It reconcile me to Thee and bring to me peace of conscience.

I adore Thee, O blessed Jesus, my Redeemer, Thou that sittest at the right hand of God, who didst endure the painful and shameful death of the cross, to recover me from a state of sin and misery; I admire Thine infinite condescension, who wert pleased to be made miserable, that I might be made happy; poor, that I might be enriched; and didst die, that I might live for ever. With all my soul, O Blessed Jesus, I love and praise Thee for these stupendous expressions of Thy bounty and goodness towards me. O lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me; O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant me Thy peace. Amen, Lord Jesus, Amen.

By Thine Agony and bloody Sweat, by Thy Cross and Passion, by Thy precious Death and Burial, by Thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and by the coming of the Holy Ghost,

GOOD LORD DELIVER US.

SECT. 3. THE COMMEMORATIVE SACRIFICE IN THE HOLY EUCHARIST, WITH FURTHER REFERENCE TO THE LAST CHARGE OF THE LATE BISHOP OF SALISBURY.

I pass on to speak of the doctrine of Sacrifice as connected with the Holy Eucharist.

There is probably no point on which the cast of thought and the consequent mode of speaking prevalent among the great mass of English Church people, and the members of all Protestant or reformed communities differ so largely from the language and thought of the Early Christian Church, as the subject of the Eucharistic sacrifice. The ancient Church spoke without any hesitation or any fear, of the celebration of the Lord's Supper as bearing a sacrificial aspect, and as taking, in the new economy, the place of much of the sacrificial system of the older covenant. It was felt that the ancient sacrifices had referred by way of prefiguration to the great offering of the Son of God, and had done so without interfering with, or derogating from, the honour of that one, sole, singular, only meritorious and atoning Sacrifice, which had no second and no like, without predecessor and without successor; and not only had not derogated from Its honour, but had in a measure enhanced Its honour, in that, with all their holiness and splendour, they had been only attendants upon It, introducing It, and giving way to Its supreme dignity and value when at last It entered.

And the commemorations of that one Sacrifice in the ordinance of the Eucharist were in their turn considered by the early Church as attendants upon the great Offering, serving to keep up Its honour by way of reflection and remembrance. There was now no need of bleeding victims and smoking altars, such as of old had

* By the Rev. WILLIAM MILTON, M.A., of Newbury.

been necessary to raise the dim sight and slug gish faith of God's ancient people to realize the coming Sacrifice. The Sacrifice had come. It needed only memory to retain, not foresight to create, the knowledge of that atonement offered; and a little bread broken, and a little wine poured out, were enough to bring back, by their deep significance, and yet more by His authoritative appointment, the remembrance of Him and His atoning death. The Church knew that there was no true sacrifice but that Onenever had been, never could be; and therefore no thought of encroachment upon that One disturbed her as she contemplated all those prefiguring shadows and all these commemorative figures, as crowds that went before and that follow after, swelling the triumph of the one grand, central Object of the whole sacrificial Procession.

But this happy simplicity of her faith was destroyed when the restless speculations of men and the development of human devices began to give what almost amounted to independent atoning efficacy to the Christian commemorative sacrifice. Having carried, as we have seen, the Real Presence out of the act of reception, they deemed that they had on the altar the very Body and Blood of Christ; then they came to regard it as their office to offer them to God; then they considered that in so doing they offered Christ to His Father, which at once gave a meritorious, atoning or propitiatory efficacy to their sacrifices. It is a righteous protestation against these errors, made in the interest of truth,-but, as so constantly happens, going too far in the opposite direction,-which has caused the whole doctrine of the Christian commemorative sacrifice to be regarded with such suspicion and distrust, not to say hostility, that it has altogether fallen out of our ordinary

K

teaching. Nor, indeed, can it be safely restored until it is put upon its true and primitive footing and cleared from all those corruptions and superstitions which have drawn down upon themselves the strong expressions of our Church, "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits " (Article XXXI).

The consideration of the sacrificial element in the Lord's Supper is greatly facilitated by a study of the ancient liturgies, and especially by a right appreciation of the prayer of invocation used by the Primitive Church as follows:"We beseech Thee, O God, send down upon us and upon these holy gifts that lie before Thee,or these loaves and these cups (Lit S. Mark),— Thy Holy Spirit, that He may sanctify them and may make this bread the Holy Body of Thy Christ, and this cup the precious Blood of Thy Christ, that they may become to all of us that partake of them, unto faith, healing, remission of sins," &c. For this is the great foundation principle of the Eucharistic sacrifice, that the Church, or minister, or priest, does not offer to God the Body and Blood of Christ, but does offer before God bread and wine-symbols, types, memorials of the broken Body and outshed Blood of the Lord. For in all the Primitive Liturgies the oblation or sacrifice is made, finished, completed; the elements being offered as bread and wine, with direct remembrance and recital of our Lord's death and passion. Then, and not till then, the Spirit is invoked upon "these gifts" (S. James), these loaves and cups (S. Mark), these symbols, these antitypes of the Holy Body and Blood (S. Basil and Apost. Const.), that by His Presence He may make them to be or exhibit them the Body and Blood of the Lord for the purpose of reception. During the whole oblation or sacrifice, the gifts are considered to be, not the Body, but the commemorative symbols of the Body, consecration not having yet taken place. I will quote in support of this view the words of the Liturgy of St. Clement, found in "The Apostolic Constitutions" of which Neale 66 says we shall do well to assign them to the third century; but the liturgy which they contain is probably of a far earlier date." After reciting the institution, it goes on, "Wherefore, having in remembrance His passion, death, and resurrection, and His future second appearance, we offer to Thee, our King and our God, according to His institution, this bread and this cup, giving thanks to Thee through Him, that Thou hast thought us worthy

to stand before Thee and to sacrifice unto Thee. And we beseech Thee that Thou wilt look graciously on these gifts now lying before Thee, O thou God that needest nothing, and wilt be pleased to accept them, to the honour of Thy Christ. And send down thy Holy Spirit upon this sacrifice the witness of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, that he may make (or exhibitάophy) this bread the Body of Thy Christ, and this cup the Blood of Thy Christ, that they who shall partake of it may be confirmed in godliness, may receive remission of their sins," &c.

Here we observe that the elements are not consecrated by the recital of the institution, but by the prayer of invocation, according to the strenuously maintained view of the Eastern Church, which consecrating invocation comes after the oblation or sacrifice has been made; so that that sacrifice consists, as expressly stated, of "this bread and this cup," "these gifts," to be accepted" for the honour of Christ."

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This is the tenor of all the Ancient Liturgies, the sacrifice precedes consecration and rightly so; for, as we have seen, consecration had only reference to reception, which followed immediately upon it. The sacrifice was a commemoration, and therefore necessarily symbolical, therefore an oblation of symbols or types of the great Sacrifice, not an oblation of the substance of that Sacrifice itself. And this is in accordance with the whole analogy of the two covenants. In the ancient dispensation, all sacrifices prefigured the offering of Christ yet to come; in the Gospel, the Eucharistic sacrifice postfigures the offering of Christ which has come. The ancient sacrifices were symbols, gross and heavy with bloodshedding, of the Lamb of God: the Gospel oblations are symbols, but bloodless and more spiritual, — -so to speak, more refined, -symbols of the Lamb of God; but symbols still, and therefore always other than that which they symbolized as Augustine says,"The Flesh and Blood of this Sacrifice was promised before the Advent of Christ by means of victims bearing resemblances to them; in the passion of Christ, it (the flesh and blood,' or human nature) was rendered by the very Truth Himself; since the ascension of Christ it is set forth by means of the Sacrament of commemoration." And again: "This visible Sacrifice is the Sacrament of an invisible Sacrifice; that is to say, it is a sacred sign." And again: "That which is called sacrifice by all

"1

is a sign of the true Sacrifice." So again: "In that Sacrifice of yours (i.e., in the Eucharist) there is a thanksgiving and a commemoration of the flesh of Christ, which he offered for us."2 Eusebius says: "Christ, after all things done, making a most acceptable oblation, offered to His Father a wondrous sacrifice and slaughtered victim for the salvation of us all, and left to us also a memorial to be offered continuously to God instead of a sacrifice." So St. Clement or the author of the Apost. Constit.: "Offer ye the Antitype of the royal body of Christ."

This plain action of the Church, as exhibited in her liturgies, became confused in the Roman liturgy by innovations which were introduced into it. That liturgy retains the ancient, true, and catholic oblation-"Hanc igitur oblationem quæsumus ut placatus accipias "-then follows an invocation very similar to the consecrating invocation of the Eastern Churches; then follows the recital of institution (in this liturgy only placed after invocation), which Rome declares to be the formula of consecration. And after that a second oblation is interpolated in this form, "We offer to Thy Majesty out of Thine own donations and gifts a pure sacrifice, an immaculate sacrifice, the holy bread of eternal life, and the cup of everlasting salvation" -not even now making a direct oblation of the Body and Blood of Christ-but still of the elements as they are bread and wine, God's "donations and gifts" to man. But by placing an oblation after consecration, which everywhere else came before it, Rome opened the door to the uncatholic error, that the Body and Blood of Christ were offered to God. That this second oblation was an interpolation, is proved by the fact that it is not to be found in the Milan rite, which, at some early period, branched off from the Roman.3 In fact, as Palier states, on reviewing the several liturgies of Christendom, "None contain a verbal oblation of Christ's Body and Blood. This is not found in the Roman Liturgy, nor is it a form that has at any time been used in the Christian Church." This is of very great importance, for it proves that the dogma of offering the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice is an invention or development later than even the latest alterations of the liturgies.

Quoted by Bp. Jewel, vol. ii. p. 736, Parker Soc.

2 lb. p. 716.

Palmer's Origines, ii. p. 82, note. • Palmer's Origines, ii. p. 85.

At this moment it is no more than a gloss upon the Roman canon of the Mass, and finds no expression in the office itself. It cannot therefore be regarded otherwise than as a serious error in the [late] Bishop of Salisbury's Charge, that he lays it down that the priest offers the Body and Blood of Christ in sacrifice (p. 50); then it follows by the force of the hypostatic union (see p. 50), that he offers Christ to God -a proposition condemned in the most vehement terms by our Church in her XXXIst Article.

This is one of the errors, perhaps the most dangerous of all, that have grown up in that interval which man has invented between consecration and reception. The growth of the error may be traced as follows:

The ancient Church observed universally in the Eucharistic Office this order :

I. The oblation, or sacrifice, by the ele. ments, with commemoration of the "economy " and recital of the insti

tution of the memorial.

II. The consecrating invocation of the Holy Spirit to effect the Real Presence for reception.

III. The reception of the Real Presence by the faithful.1

The Church of Rome has, in the course of time, altered the order thus:

I. The oblation of the elements, without commemoration of the " economy," except in fragments by special prefaces on high days.

II. An invocation almost the same as that used by the Eastern Church for perfect consecration.

III. The consecration by the formula of institution.

1 It may seem presumptuous to call in question the opinion of a man so intimately acquainted with Ancient Liturgies as the late Dr. Neale; but he has certainly committed an important error in his statement of the constituent parts of all liturgies. He says, "Under the Consecration we

have

Words of Institution for the Bread and Wine,
Oblation of the Body and Blood,

Prayer for the Descent of the Holy Ghost, Prayer for the Change of the Elements." ("The Liturgies Translated," p. xiii.) This assertion, that every liturgy contains "Oblation of the Body and Blood," is absolutely unfounded, for no such oblation is found in any known liturgy. Dr. Neale might think that an oblation after the words of institution must be an oblation of the Body and Blood, but the liturgies did not think so, not even the Roman (see below); and Dr. Neale's own words confute him, for after this supposed oblation he places the prayer for the change of the elements.