NOTE J.-P. 402.

"AND SINGLENESS OF HEART. apeλórns-plainness, guileless simplicity of obedience and faith; free from questionings and speculations. He has commanded, I obey-He has promised, I believe. What a contrast does this apλórns present in partaking of Christ to the subtle mysticism and presumptuous speculation by which the Sacrament of Oneness with Christ, and in Christ with one another, has been made the bone of endless theological contention!

NOTE K.-P. 403.

HOLY COMMUNION, THE SPECIAL SERVICE OF THE
LORD'S DAY.

So long as the temple worship continued, and a Church of believers in the Lord Jesus remained at Jerusalem, the daily celebration of the Holy Communion was the necessary Christian counterpart of the daily service in the temple; but after the spread of the Gospel beyond the reach of Jerusalem, it became simply the one distinctive feature of Christian, as distinguished from all other, worship. The first day of the week, now called the Lord's Day, was observed as the day specially set apart for Christian worship in public assemblies, and as such it was the day on which the Holy Communion, as the central act of that worship, was celebrated. From Acts xx. 7, it appears that there was a stated day, the Lord's Day, on which the disciples assembled to "break Bread;" and to this agree all the testimonies of the early Church as to primitive usage. However in some parts the practice of daily communion might be kept up, and the Eucharist be connected with the prayer for "daily bread" in the Lord's Prayer, in the Church at large it assumed the character of the spiritual Bread of the Lord's Day, and so it continues in theory, though unhappily not in practice, to the present time, in our own branch of the Church Catholic.

NOTE L.-P. 405.

THE MYSTERY OF SPIRITUAL SUSTENANCE.

The process of assimilation, by which one nature is capable of converting another nature into itself, is, even more than that of procreation, or the perpetuation of the same nature in a succession of individuals, one of those deep mysteries of which the Almighty Creator alone has the key. As a matter of fact we see in the material world the plant taking up from the soil, from the atmosphere, and from the sun, nourishment, which it converts into its own substance. The vegetable substance thus produced is in its turn taken up by the animal, and converted into organized substances of a higher order. And this again, as well as the vegetable substance, is taken up by man, and converted into human flesh and blood, constituting the vessel and the instrument of the im

material soul. In the material world, which thus affords numerous illustrations of the process of assimilation, the order of that process is conversion of the lower into the higher substance. In the spiritual world this order is inverted. It is the higher nature which, by imparting itself to the lower nature, converts the latter into its own likeness, makes the creature so assimilated,-the soul of the regenerated man, -partaker of the higher, the Divine nature. Human nature, spiritualized by the indwelling Godhead in Christ, becomes the sustenance, "meat" and "drink" (St. John vi. 54-56) of the new man, and converts him into the likeness, (1 John i. 2) yea, into the very substance (Eph. v. 30) of Christ Himself. Ought not the very inysteriousness of that process to restrain us from all attempts to speculate upon it? Should it not lead us,-in humble acknowledgment of the fact that in the nature of things it must transcend our comprehension,-in simple obedience to do what He has commanded, and in childlike faith to believe that the purpose for which He has ordained it will assuredly be brought to pass by His mighty working in us,-His "inworking (êvépyɛta)—whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself"? Phil. iii. 21.

NOTE M.-P. 407.

REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM: THE TRUE MEANS, AND ONLY HOPE.

This thought is more fully developed by the writer of the present treatise in the Word of Love and Hope" addressed by him to the "Old Catholics" of Germany on the occasion of the Cologne Congress :— "We all occupy different, variously diverging, perhaps even seemingly antagonistic standpoints; and so long as we direct our eye upon the greater or lesser distance at which we stand from each other, we cannot at all conceive how we shall ever come together, or so much as approach one another. But when we, each one of us from his own standpoint, look up to Him who from the throne of Eternal Majesty looks down upon us all, and draws us up towards Himself with the magnetic power of Truth and Love, the differences which separate us grow more and more diminutive and unimportant. The nearer we from all sides approach the Divine Centre of the Christian Life, the more easy does it become for us all to come to an understanding with each other. Doubtless it would be a premature, and therefore an idle expectation, if we fancied we could by mutual conference all at once adjust our differences. And even if this were possible-which it most assuredly is not-such an agreement could not be otherwise than forced and superficial; its result, not living unity or concord, but at best only a dead uniformity. It is not by one another that we must measure ourselves, but by the stature of Christ. Every Church which bears within herself the Apostolic seed, and has developed it in a

fashion of her own, must impose upon herself the task of subjecting the course of her development, and the fruits it has borne, to a rigid examination. While doing this, much, it is true, will be discovered on all hands that is not in accord with, perhaps even in contradiction to, the pure and original ideal of the Church as founded by the Lord Christ through His Holy Apostles. All such like perversions, mutilations, or excrescences of the Church's life, whether in the domain of doctrine, or of worship and discipline, every particular Church must be left to eradicate within herself, and so to correct her outward form and amend her inward condition. To no Church does it belong to take in hand this process of Reformation in any of her Sister Churches. If any one Church should,-as indeed the Roman Church has for centuries done, or at least attempted to do,-presume to set herself up as the universal standard and guide of her Sister Churches, a suitable rebuff might be addressed to her in the words of the Saviour:-" Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam in thine own eye. and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy sister's eye."

In connexion with, and furtherance of, the great cause of the Reunion of Christendom, the writer may perhaps be permitted to refer also to his correspondence with Dr. Michelis "De Unitate Ecclesiæ, et de Concilio Ecumenico convocando," translated into English for the Colonial Church Chronicle, and published in a separate form (Rivington's); and followed up by his "Plea for the assembling of an Ecumenical Council" (Mozley's).

NOTE N.-P. 407.

THE FORCE OF HABIT OVER PRINCIPLE.

One instance would strikingly illustrate the preponderance of the force of habit over principle. That participation of the Holy Communion, which is an integral and essential part of true Christian Worship, must be infinitely more edifying, and calculated to build up the soul in Christ, than any-though it be the most eloquent-discourse, no one would upon reflection dream of denying. Yet while no Church-goer would scandalize the congregation, or show disrespect to the preacher, by marching out of Church before the Sermon, hundreds may be seen every Lord's Day leaving the Church before the commencement of Holy Communion. The disrespect they would not shew to the human preacher, they habitually shew to the Lord Jesus, whose gracious invitation to feed upon Him they contemptuously disregard; and while they would not willingly forego the edification derived from a Sermon preached by human lips, they deliberately defraud themselves of the far higher and richer edification to be derived from the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. So much are men creatures of habit; so little account do they make of principle, and of spiritual realities!

NOTE O.-P. 407.

THE DECAY OF SPIRITUAL LIFE, AND THE ONLY TRUE REMEDY.

In special reference to the Anglican branch of the Church Catholic, the writer of the above treatise trusts he may, without incurring the charge of presumption, be permitted to conclude in words addressed by him, when officially called upon to do so, to his brethren in the ministry: 1-" Is it not astonishing"

1 On the occasion of the Meeting of the Ruridecanal Chapters of the United Deaneries of North and South Grantham, on the Wednesday in Whitsun Week, 1873; the subject, which was selected from among those proposed by the Bishop, being "On the Deepening of the Spiritual Life."

-he ventured to ask, after setting forth the teachings of Christ and His Apostles, touching the nature and effect of the partaking of Christ's Body and Blood as the means of bringing us to Oneness in Christ-" Is it not astonishing, yea, and lamentable, that those leading facts, those fundamental verities of the Spiritual Life should have been lost sight of to such an extent that to have recourse to this means of deepening the Spiritual Life in the soul should, among professing Christians, have become the exception and not the rule. Can it be matter of surprise that where this was the case the standard and level of the Spiritual Life should have sunk lower and lower? That it has so sunk down, we none of us can deny, we all of us must deplore. How truly lamentable is it that, when this low condition of the Church is felt and deplored, men should be so slow in discerning, yea and still slower in adopting, the true and only remedy-a return to that true spiritual worship of God through Christ, whereof the partaking of the Godmanhood of Christ is an essential feature and the central principle! Yea, and how much more lamentable, how much more pernicious- -one of the pitfalls into which Satan is ever busy to lure the souls of men-that when at last a sense of the neglect of that great Mystery in which we are made partakers of Christ has been discerned as the true cause of the decay of Spiritual Life in the Church, the adoption of the true and only remedy should be evaded by a mimicry of that life-giving Ordinance which our Saviour Christ has appointed, that in Him we might have Life, and have it more abundantly! To substitute for living communion with Christ the God-man, in the spiritual partaking of His most Blessed Body and Blood, an outward and idolatrous adoration directed to the creaturely elements, the vehicles and symbols under which He is pleased to veil Himself, and has promised to impart Himself unto us-to be gazers where He has bidden us to be partakers-is not only a glaring act of disobedience, it is a fearful profanation-a presumptuous trifling with the Holy Things of God! 4

8

May we all beware of, may we all, my brethren, be preserved from, this subtle delusion, whereby the Arch-deceiver is endeavouring to baffle, to perplex, and to mislead the growing sense of a need of deeper spirituality, which has begun to make itself felt in so many souls! May we have grace to stir up one another to greater frequency, to deeper earnestness and solemnity of communion with the God-man Christ Jesus on that heavenward path, that new and living way which, through the veil of His Flesh, by the sprinkling of His Blood, He has consecrated for us, as the way of entrance into the Holiest of Holies, even into Heaven itself! In the strength of that Flesh, which is meat indeed,' refreshed with that Blood, which is 'drink indeed,' in the power of that Life by which He rose from the dead, and ascended to His Father's Throne of Glory, let us, my brethren, amidst the contradictions and afflictions of this evil world, 'fight the good fight," and war the good warfare,'s wherein he that overcometh ' has the glorious promise -To him will I grant to sit down with Me in My Throne, even as I also overcame, and have sat down with My Father in His Throne.'"7

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XII.

A REVIEW, GIVING A GENERAL EPITOME, of A TREATISE by the Very Rev. E. M. Goulburn, D.D., DEAN OF NORWICH, ON THE PRACTICE

OF:

1.-FASTING COMMUNION,

2.-NON-COMMUNICANT ATTENDANCE, 3.-AURICULAR CONFESSION; and on 4. THE DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE, and 5.-EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE.

INTRODUCTION.

A general impression prevails among all those who have the welfare of the Church of England at heart, that we have now reached a crisis in her history, full of anxiety and peril for the future. Her established position as the National Church of this country, is not only assailed by unrelenting foes from without, more eager than ever for her downfall, but the outcry against her is being re-echoed by a disloyal party within her pale, whose undisguised object is the mere escape from all legal restraint to the free indulgence of their self-will in matters of ritual, ceremonial, or vestments. At the same time, the obvious want of more power of self-government in the Church for the correction of unsoundness in doctrine, and those abuses in practice, which are openly persisted in by some of her clergy, in defiance of Episcopal authority, is a source of grave misgiving to many sincere Churchmen, from the want of confidence it causes in the integrity of her teaching. Without the means of ensuring respect for her laws and authority from all her members, of whatever school of opinion, and without the power of repressing false doctrine, heresy, and schism within her own bosom, which the Church inherits by Divine right, she will assuredly be rent asunder by faction, and as a ship without helm, drifting helplessly at

the mercy of the waves, be in danger of stranding on the deceitful shoals of superstition, or perishing on the rocks of infidelity.

Truly we might say with the Apostle, "We are troubled on every side: without are fightings, within are fears!" By far the most anxious thought for the future, which weighs on the minds of those of her children who love her best, is whether the Church of England will still prove faithful in her day of trial—as by God's grace she did in days of old-to that sacred trust committed by her Divine Lord to her charge,-the preservation of His Truth "whole and undefiled," as revealed to her in His Holy Word, and the propagation of that Truth in its primitive purity throughout the world. May the promised blessing to one of the chosen tribes of old be hers, and let it be her motto-" As thy days, so shall thy strength be."

This is a time then when words from a recognized leader have an influence and weight beyond what would ordinarily attach to them. The vast mass of deep and anxious thought now swaying to and fro in the Church, prone, even by its own earnestness, to lean either to the right hand or to the left, is craving for the directing light, for the guiding voice of some Master in Israel, accredited alike by piety, learning, and moderation.

Such a voice has now spoken; and unless we are much mistaken, many will thankfully listen to its wise and gentle counsels, upon subjects whose importance is almost equalled by the amount of bitter party feeling which has been manifested on their behalf.

The work we here refer to is a small treatise lately published by the Dean of Norwich on the several subjects enumerated at the head of this review, and intended to form an "Appen

dix" to the author's "Commentary on the Office of the Holy Communion." It was not until we had brought to completion the 12 Parts of this serial work, "in vindication of AngloCatholic principles," which we had undertaken with the aid of those eminent divines and authors who have contributed to it original treatises and portions of their published works— that our attention was directed to this recent and valuable addition to Dr. Goulburn's former Commentary, a large portion of which forms the fifth Part of this series. Though of humble pretensions, it discusses with so much learning and discretion, and in so conciliatory a tone, the questions which have been the special subjects of our consideration in the latter Parts of this work, that we feel the aim we have had in view would not be adequately fulfilled without extending our limits to a Supplement before completing the volume, in order to give our readers a comprehensive review of Dr. Goulburn's treatise, containing, as it does, his matured judgment on these revived practices in connection with the Holy Communion.

For our own part, we welcome with cordial satisfaction the timely appearance of such an earnest, sensible protest against the superstitious and Rome-ward tendency of these mediæval observances, some of which the English Church wholly rejected, and others restored to their original purpose freed from the corruptions that marred them, at her Reformation. The loyal attachment to the principles and teaching of our Church, which is a leading feature in every page, and the cogency of the author's arguments against the errors of the practices in question, afford a moral support to our own efforts in vindicating the same Anglican principles, which we cannot but appreciate. And we notice with peculiar gratification the author's express acknowledgments, at the commencement of the book, of "his heavy obligations to the admirable papers of Mr. Le Mesurier, and the late Dr. Biber in Part XII. of 'Anglo-Catholic Principles Vindicated.""

Adhering to the same manner of treating his subject-explanatory rather than polemical-as he observed in his larger work on the Holy Communion, Dr. Goulburn devotes the five chapters which compose the book to the consideration respectively of the several subjects enumerated above, the first of which is that on 66 Fasting Communion."

We must give the author's prefatory remarks at full length, as they form a general introduction to the special subjects treated in each chapter. He rightly urges the duty of our meeting the questions now agitating our Church, in reference both to Eucharistic doctrine and practice, in a spirit of watchful defence of the truth, and an uncompromising resistance to the first approaches of error.

"To put forth a new edition of a work (however humble its pretensions) on the English Communion Office, without any explicit notice of the beliefs and practices which are growing up amongst us in connexion with the Eucharist, and finding a ready acceptance with many devout minds, seems to the author to be in itself an act of moral cowardice, and a withholding from his readers of that guidance which, as readers, they have some right to expect from him. He feels moreover that all questions of this kind are of deepest interest and importance. In a most instructive and valuable paper,' on the subject, written shortly before his death, Dr. Biber has shown that 'our spiritual life and communion in Christ, by the power of His Resurrection, in the Sacrament of His last Supper, is the true bond of Christian Unity—the true"Eirenicon." If this be so, what a surpassing interest must attach to the doctrine of the Eucharist, and to those practices in connexion with it, which are not purely ceremonial or ritual, but (like the practice to be commented upon in this and the following Chapter) carry doctrine with them, and are its outward exponents. May it not indeed be said generally, without exaggerating the importance of the subject, that the doctrine of the Eucharist which any man holds, is very much the key of his theological position? The profound Hooker begins his consideration of the Sacraments by a disquisition on the two natures and one Person of the Son of God,-a clear indication this, that in the mind of that great thinker, these sacred symbols were not (as some, with the characteristic shallowness of our time, conceive of them) mere appendages and adjuncts of Christianity, but had their roots grappled into its most fundamental doctrines. This being the case, we cannot be too jealous of the purity and integrity of Eucharistic doctrine. And a very evident corollary follows. We cannot be too jealous of the purity

1 See Part XII. Treatise 3.

and integrity of Eucharistic practice. Devotional habits which seem on the surface plausible and attractive, and which are doubtless adopted with the view of doing reverence to Christ's ordinance, and securing a higher estimation of it, may yet have the seeds of corruption latent within them, and be fraught with danger. So the writer believes it to be with the three practices commented upon in this and the two following Chapters. They are practices known by him to be already widely prevalent, and which it is sought by the warmer advocates of them to erect into universal rules of devotion. But whether he regards the grounds on which they are rested, or the results to which they may be expected to lead, he cannot but view them with serious alarm. Let it be remembered that the more precious any gift of Christ is, the more certain it is (such is the evil in the heart of man, and such is the jealousy of our choicest treasures which the Devil shows) to be depraved, or, at least, misused. It is matter of history that this has been the case with the holy Eucharist. This Sacrament, Christ's best and holiest legacy to His Church, at once the epitome of the Gospel, and the means of applying its best blessings to our souls, has been erected by the doctrine of Transubstantiation into an object of idolatrous worship; one of its chief features has been profanely struck out of it by the withholding of the Cup from the laity, and the validity of the ordinance has been thereby (if we cannot say, annulled, yet) seriously imperilled; and the whole ordinance has been, by these deviations from true doctrine and correct practice, un-spiritualized, materialized, carnalized, sensualized. Surely, we ought to profit by the experience of the Church. The human mind having already in times past gone so far astray on this great subject, we should be very watchful over our minds for the future, lest any teaching should insinuate itself into them out of harmony with that of holy Scripture and the Primitive Church. Such teaching should be resisted in its earliest approaches; for we may be very sure that, however specious and plausible it may be, it cannot fail to be mischievous."

SECT. 1.-FASTING COMMUNION. The Dean then enters more particularly upon the first of his five subjects of discussion, Fasting Communion, defining it as the practice,

On

adopted vigorously and strictly in the Roman Church, and rapidly creeping into our own, of "abstaining from all food, solid and liquid, before our reception of the Sacrament." which he emphatically remarks, "It is not however against the practice itself, but against the erection of it into a law of conscience, obligatory upon Christians, and indispensable to profitable reception, that we would enter our protest." We do not hesitate to express our hearty concurrence in this protest, and have no doubt that it will commend itself to the common sense of the great majority of English Churchmen.

The way in which the Dean handles this question is remarkable for its spirit of em. bracing charity :-" As a voluntary act of devo tion on the part of individuals, who may find themselves quite capable of it in point of bodily strength, and may really feel that entire previous abstinence tends to make the mind more unclouded and calm than it can be after the reception of food, no right-minded and unprejudiced person can entertain any objection to it. Let such persons by all means be allowed and encouraged to do that which their own experience finds to be most edifying to themselves." "God forbid that, in direct violation of what His Apostle has taught us, we should despise or look down on any fellow-Christian, who may find edification to himself in the observance of a restriction, which does not approve itself in at all the same way to our minds. Only then, as I will be careful not to 'despise' a Christian brother-nay, as I will seek to please him for his good to edification,--so, on the other hand, I will not allow him to 'judge' me, nor indeed in a certain sense to 'judge' himself. He must not make a law of conscience of his rule, either for me or for any one else. He must not teach for doctrines the commandments of men, and thereby hazard the depraving and nullifying of God's commandments. He must not add unto the words of the book of this prophecy at the peril of having the plagues that are written in this book added unto him. And this is what, if hearsay may be trusted, corroborated as it is by facts which have come to the actual knowledge of many of us, is at present going on in our Communion. Church people are being taught in some quarters by their ordained pastors that it is a deadly sin to communicate after the reception of food, however slight, that the elements of the holy Supper