THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF THE MEMORIAL SACRIFICE AND THE PARTICIPATION OF THE SACRAMENT BY THE FAITHFUL.

A Review of a Treatise by the Rev. GEORGE TREVOR, Canon of York.*

THE Church of England has certainly one characteristic, and we doubt whether any other Church or communion of Christians shares it with her it is that of appealing unreservedly to Scripture and Antiquity. She appeals with conti

dence to the testimony of the Catholic Church in the early age of Apostolic purity, in confirmation of the witness she bears to God's revealed Truth, as contained in His written Word. That was her watchword at her great epoch of self-review and self-reform in the 16th century; and he is no true son of the English Church, be his zeal or devotion what it may, who does not take up that watchword.

It was here that the ultra-Protestant or 'Evangelical' party failed, and was found wanting, viz., in that it set up an 'Evangel' or Gospel system of its own, regardless of antiquity, leading to a disparagement of the inward grace of the Sacra

This Review of Canon Trevor's work on "The Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrifice and Participation of the Holy Eucharist (Mozley, 1869), appeared in the English Churchman of October last, and is now re-issued with additional extracts.

ments, and resulting in a narrow and partial conception of the Gospel. It is here that the extreme school of High Churchmen, or 'Ritualists,' at the present day, fails no less, and can never be a safe guide to the English Church, or become anything more than a school, simply because their standard is not Catholic Antiquity, but Medievalism-that departure from primitive Truth which provoked the stern protest of Christendom, and still precludes our holding communion with Rome.

But chiefly do the two schools we have alluded to show their un-English- because un-primitive and un-Apostolic-teaching, in their diverse views on the doctrine of the Holy Communion. And the object of the valuable work we are now about to notice, is to state and vindicate, as against both these opposite schools, the true Catholic and Anglican doctrine respecting the "sacrifice and participation of the Holy Eucharist."

In regard to the principles maintained by the author, and the Eucharistic doctrine vindicated, we have no hesitation in saying they will be found in general harmony with the teaching of such leading authorities in the Church among others as the present Bishops of Winchester, Lincoln, Lichfield, Gloucester, and Salisbury, the Deans of Chichester, and Norwich, Dr. Jelf, Archdea.

F

con Freeman, &c., and, let us add, by the late Archbishop of Canterbury, in his last charge, published after his death, in which he especially sets forth the Catholic teaching of our Church on this Sacrament.

It is indeed a bona fide pursuit of truth, regardless of mere party prejudice, whatever may be the direction in which it leads; but especially is it a refutation of the teaching of that extreme School, which is now striving to re-import into the English Church medieval traditions, both in doctrine and practice, with regard to this great mystery; to emancipate herself from which perversions of primitive truth it cost this Church of England the great contest with Rome at the Reformation, and the lives of so many of her holy martyrs, who by their steadfast protest, bore witness to the true Catholic Faith, even unto death! In much that we hold in common with this party, we gladly acknowledge their many tokens of zeal and self-denial, but it must be confessed, that to the plain lessons taught by past history, they do indeed seem perversely blind.

As stated in the preface :

"The work is designed to vindicate from recent misconceptions the old Catholic doctrine of the Memorial Sacrifice and Real Participation of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist; and the authorities adduced in exposition of Holy Scripture are the Councils, Liturgies, and Fathers before the division of East and West, together with the Liturgy and standard divines of the Church of England. The same authorities have been lately claimed for conclusions to which they are, in truth, strongly opposed. The old Catholic phraseology is unhappily being more and more limited to the Tridentine interpretation. The Real Presence, which Bishop Cosin affirms and proves to be common to all Protestant Confessions, is now sought to be restrained to the Church of Rome, and one section of the Anglican communion. The Eucharistic Sacrifice, taught by all our great theologians, is to a large extent confounded with the Sacrifice of the Mass. It is a natural though startling sequel, that one of these miscalled 'High Churchmen' at last reaches the conclusion that England and Rome are absolutely at one on the very doctrine which historically formed the chief ground of their separation!"-p. iii., iv.

Canon Trevor pays a graceful tribute of thanks to Archdeacon Freeman, for his revision of the proof sheets, and for access to the valuable stores collected in his Principles of Divine Service; and also acknowledges the encouragement he received from the late Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Lord Primate of Ireland, the Bishop Primus of Scotland, the Presiding Bishop of the

Church in the U.S. of America, and from 21 other Bishops of the Anglican communion. Without attempting to pronounce a verdict on his treatment of every point, we may yet safely affirm that Mr. Trevor has made a most valuable contribution to the study of this great and mysterious subject, on which, by reason of its mysteriousness, there will doubtless be always among the best and wisest of men some different shades of opinion: although guided by Scripture and Christian Antiquity, the devout Christian will never be at a loss to realize the blessing of the Heavenly Gift, assured to every faithful communicant.

We propose to devote to the consideration of this work a larger space than usual for reviews, regarding it as a treatise of more than ordinary importance, in the present divided state of parties and opinions in the Church, and as one tending to form a bond of agreement among all sincere Churchmen, by its vindication of her Scriptural and Catholic teaching concerning this Sacrament. We will endeavour to give our readers such an insight of its treatment of the subject, as shall enable them to judge of its merits; and we heartily recommend the book itself to their attentive perusal.

The great principle throughout, which the author seeks to uphold, is ably expressed in the following passage, taken from the preface :"The Churchmanship of our day happily revolts from all that goes to lower or rationalize the Christian mysteries. In view of the secular tendencies of the age it clings the more fervently to the Catholic traditions, which may soon be our only bond of union, when temporal establishments may have ceased to exist. The present Essay is an appeal to Catholic tradition; to Church authority against private judgment; to the simplicity of the universal faith against an overbearing scholasticism, which, in seeking to localize the spiritual, darkens what it affects to define, and desecrates the Ark it presumes to uphold. It is the diversity of doctrine which creates and gives importance to our Ritual diversities. These can never be satisfactorily adjusted while the standards of teaching are misunderstood. Happily no new and independent exploration of the fathers is required; the citation is best limited to the beaten path of our own theology. It is not what, the private judgment of learned men may now find in antiquity, but what the Church of England has taken from it as Catholic truth, that her children require to be told."--p. iv., v.

"The Church of England solemnly appeals to the age immediately succeeding the Apostles, in vindication of her reformation, and of her claim to be a genuine branch of the Catholic Church. For private persons to

put their own construction on antiquity, and then affirm that such is the mind of our Church, in defiance of the contrary utterance, or the not less significant silence of her actual formularies, is a grievous insult to her authority."-p. 12.

This appeal of our Church to Scripture and Antiquity, Mr. Trevor keeps steadily in view, and this is the great merit of his treatise. He shrinks from no accredited utterance of antiquity, however perverted by later interpretation, distinguishing at the same time private speculation from general faith, as expressed in Canons and Liturgies.

The first section is devoted to upholding and explaining the primitive use of the word "sacrifice" as applied primarily to the whole action of the Eucharist, and secondarily to the sacred elements used in the oblation. This double meaning is also traced in the use of the term in Holy Scripture.

The second section treats of "the Sacrifice of the Mass," and ascribes the Tridentine perversion of the word to the mediæval doctrine of transubstantiation, which changes the elements mystically representing the Body and Blood of the Crucified Redeemer, into the whole Person of the Living, Glorified Christ. We give a few extracts in illustration, from these sections :

"The Holy Eucharist is universally acknowledged to be not only the principal means of grace, but the highest act of worship in the Christian Church. . . Comprehending the prayers, praises, and thanksgivings of the Church below, it offers them to God in union with the sacrifice of His dear Son upon the Cross, of which it is the appointed remembrance till He comes to translate us to the Church above. When it is disputed whether this service be itself a sacrifice, the question turns wholly on the meaning of the word. It arises, in fact, out of the erroneous conception of sacrifices in the modern Church of Rome. Nothing is more certain than that in the Catholic Church, before the division of east and west, the Holy Eucharist was universally regarded as a sacrifice. This is its common appellation in the Liturgies and Canons; and no one point of doctrine and discipline is more firmly established by the consent of the Fathers. Primarily and principally the term was used of the whole service as a "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,"-a phrase still retained in our own Liturgy. It was the same under the Old Testament, where the "sacrifice," properly speaking, meant the whole act of worship, including the spiritual devotion of the worshipper, and not only the material symbol by which it was presented. But as under the law the material offerings were called in a secondary sense "sacrifices," as expressing the true inward sacrifice of the man, so the Church applied the sane word to the visible elements in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The bread and wine were solemnly 'offered,' before they were partaken of; this liturgical act was

termed the 'Oblation'; and the things offered were called 'oblations,"gifts,' and 'acrifices.' The true intent and meaning of these expressions is a main article in our long controversy with Rome; to reject them altogether would be to cut away from under our feet the whole body of evidence on which we appeal to the primitive Church. To the objection that the Eucharist is not called a sacrifice in the New Testament, the answer is obvious, that neither is it there called a sacrament. If it be rejoined that the qualities of a sacrament are affirmed of it, so also are the qualities of a sacrifice. The two words, in fact, come from the same original, and are distinguished only in the use. A sacrifice is an offering from man to God; a sacrament is a gift from God to man; and communion means a partaking of the same thing by God and man. In the New Testament the bread and wine are declared to be the Body broken and the Blood shed, i.e., the Flesh of Christ offered in sacrifice on the Cross. The participation of them is a participation of that sacrifice; and the whole celebration is a showing forth of the Lord's Death. Now these are the qualities of a sacrifice under the Old Testament. The Levitical offerings were all designed to represent, more or less directly, the one True Sacrifice of the Lamb of God, and minister participation in its benefits. To whatever extent these purposes are fulfilled in the Eucharist-and it is certain that they are more truly and beneficially realized in the commemoration than in the type-to the same extent the Eucharist must be a sacrifice. The word, in short, is a Scriptural one; and by the Scripture, not by modern prejudice, its use and meaning must be determined. . .What the apostle teaches is, that there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin.' But the sin-offering under the law admitted of no participation, either by priest or people... Hence it is a great point of superiority in the Gospel dispensation, that we have an altar whereof they have no right to eat who serve the Tabernacle.' Communion in the sin-offering, always inexorably denied to the Jew, is the prerogative of the Christian in the Holy Eucharist. . . So far from abolishing that class of sacrifice (the peace-offering) to which the Passover belonged, the Eucharist was given to make it new in the Kingdom of God.' Hence the Apostle, referring to this rite, says, 'Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the Feast.'" -p. 1 to 6.

We must here remark that we should have preferred to see the above definition of the word "Communion" more clearly expressed; we should rather explain it as our partaking of that renewed Human nature which is in Christ -the Word made Flesh."

The author further shows the especial character of the Eucharistic "sacrifice," as being commemorative, or a "memorial," of the one true Sacrifice for sin; giving quotations in support from the Fathers. After some remarks on the peace-offering by which the Israelites "partook of the altar," he observes :

to God,' which distinguished this class of sacrifice, is the very name assigned by our Lord Himself to the Holy Eucharist: Do this in remembrance of me,' or more literally for My remembrance, (or memorial)

....

(εις τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν). . . . . This was the precise character of the Eucharistic Sacrifice in the Primitive Church. The fathers uniformly represent the Sacrifice of the Cross as the one true meritorious sinoffering, or satisfaction for the sins of the world: and the Eucharist a commemorative, representative rite to apply its virtue. 'What men call sacrifice,' says Augustine, 'is the outward sign of the sacrifice. The memorial of a thing, on account of its resemblance to that of which it is the memorial, receives the same name.'. . So Chrysostom: 'We offer not another sacrifice but the same; or rather, we celebrate the memorial of the sacrifice.' And Theophylact: Him we offer always; or rather, we make the memorial of that offering.' Now a memorial rite is obviously not the identical sacrifice, nor necessarily the same kind of sacrifice, with that which it commemorates; yet it may be a true and proper sacrifice of its own kind, as the peace-offerings under the law were sacrifices, though very different from the sin-offering and the Holocaust... The commemorative sacrifice is not a sin-offering, efficacious by its own merits, but only a means of communicating the Sacrifice of the Cross."-p. 6 to 8.

·

"That external sacrifice is worthless, in comparison with moral and spiritual devotion, is the doctrine of the Old Testament no less than the New.. Yet the assertion of this truth by the prophets was not meant to abolish the sacrifices of the Law... Our Lord Himself ordained the use of material elements in Baptism and the Holy Eucharist; if these can be made channels of grace to man without injury to spiritual religion, it does not appear why they may not be also the visible signs of a holy and spiritual Sacrifice."-p. 10, 11.

This explanation of the "sacrifice" is well summed up in the following statement of the true objects of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, to be found at the commencement of the 4th Section, which treats of the "Anglican doctrine" :

"1. To praise God for the mercies of Creation, Providence, and Redemption. 2. To plead and commemorate the Sacrifice of the Cross, communicating the Body and Blood there offered to the faithful receiver. 3. To offer ourselves, in union with Christ, a living sacrifice unto God. It follows that none who do not communicate, or who communicate unworthily, either assist in the sacrifice, or partake of the Lord's Body and Blood: since these are not substantially contained in, or united to, the elements, but exhibited in mystery, and realized in faithful reception. For the same reason, though 'no one eats without adoring Christ,' our adoration is not offered to anything in the paten or the chalice but to His Glorified Body, which is in Heaven and not here." "—p. 46, 47.

The other leading principle which it is the main purpose of the work to vindicate from mediæval perversion,-and equally from the

present attempt to return to the same practice in our Church,—is the necessity of participation in the outward elements, not only to constitute the service a real Sacrament and Communion, but also as essential to the spiritual sacrifice offered by each worshipper who takes part in it. This we find very clearly stated in the following passages from the 1st section :

"Both characters of a sacrifice and a communion are inalienable from the Eucharist; when the Church of Rome had perverted the one and mutilated the other, the aim of our Church was to restore them to their true relations. In Scripture and Antiquity the Sacrifice and the Participation are inseparable. The Apostle says that we show the Lord's death'-which is the office of the Sacrifice when we eat this bread and drink this cup.' St. Augustine expressly observes 'that to eat bread is the Sacrifice of Christians.' Bishop Andrewes, pointing out that the sacrifice is Eucharistic, remarks-' Of that sacrifice it was ever the law that he who offers it should partake of it. He partakes,' he continues, by eating and drinking, as the Lord commanded, for participation in the prayers only is a novel and illicit sort of participation.' What our Church sought, then, was to restore the sacrifice and the participation to their original unity. The sacrifice is not denied, but vindicated by insisting on communion. For it is in eating and drinking that we show forth the Lord's death, and without eating and drinking there is no sacrifice. What Christ has joined together, let not man put asunder." p. 12, 13.

This same principle-the necessity of participation as essential alike to Communion and Sacrifice will be found also traced in the 2nd section, when treating of its perversion and omission in "the Sacrifice of the Mass." This section exposes the errors and contradictions involved in the doctrine of Transubstantiation; and here, as in other parts also, the author lays great stress on the distinction between the Body and Blood of Christ slain on the Cross,— mystically exhibited in the Eucharist in two separate elements, e.g., in a state of death-and the Person of the Risen Christ, living in glory. To a confusion of these objects, he traces the whole controversy regarding Christ's Presence. As in Baptism-" when we were baptized into Jesus Christ we were baptized into His Death," -so in Holy Communion, "if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him." The Christian life must ever begin at the beginning: "Death worketh in us first"Resurrection afterwards,—and this is equally true of the second Sacrament, as of the first. For new supplies of Grace and Life, we must ever go back to the wondrous Death which alone kills the old nature, and keeps it in a mortified condition.