In looking direct to the testimony of Scripture, how consistent do we find the deep spiritual teaching of its great Sacramental Truths. This surest of all appeals for refuting the traditions and "fond inventions" of men, which the Church of Rome has added to the Faith, our author has recourse to in the next section which comes under our review.

In the 2nd section, on "the Sacrifice of the Mass," Canon Trevor first states the Decree of the Council of Trent concerning it; and we must give a portion of the decree, in order to follow his argument :

"Art. 1. That on account of the imperfection of the Levitical priesthood, it was necessary to establish another priest, after the order of Melchisedek, that is to say Jesus Christ, who, though he offered Himself but once on the Cross, nevertheless, in order to leave His Church a visible Sacrifice, representative of that of the Cross, and applicatory of its virtue, did in quality of Priest after the order of Melchisedek, offer to God, His Father, His Body and His Blood under the forms of bread and wine, and gave it to His apostles, commanding them and their successors to offer it."

"Art. 2. That since Jesus Christ, who was immolated after a bloody manner on the cross, is the same who is sacrificed after an unbloody manner in the Mass, this sacrifice is propitiatory; and God being appeased by this offering, accords us the gift of repentance, and remits all our sins; because it is the same Victim which is offered, and He who offered Himself on the cross is the same who still offers Himself by the hands of His priests.'

He then proceeds:―

"To the first article of this decree the objections may be reduced to a question of words rather than things. The Body and Blood' of Christ mean in Scripture, and all Catholic antiquity, the crucified Body and outshed Blood of the Sacrifice of the Cross; and it is admitted by Roman Catholic divines that in this condition they are not really contained in the Sacrament, but represented by it.' Consequently, notwithstanding the expression, under the forms of bread and wine,' the sacrifice according to this article is only 'representative of the Sacrifice of the Cross, and applicatory of its virtue ;'-an application undoubtedly made to the faithful in partaking of the Communion. The language of the second article, though open to more exception, might also (with the omission of the last sentence) be reconciled with Primitive and Catholic doctrine, understanding first, that the Sacrifice really offered on the Cross is mystically commemorated in the Mass, and that this is the meaning of offering the same Victim after an unbloody manner, and secondly, that it is the Real Sacrifice, not the commemorative one, which 'appeases God,' and procures remission of sins. The last sentence of the second article, (viz., that it may be offered for the benefit of the dead,) and the whole of the sixth, (approving private masses,) are mere inferences unsupported by Scripture or Catholic antiquity. Setting these inferences aside, it will be found that it is not so

much the Decree of the Mass, as the tenet of Transubstantiation, which determines the character of the sacrifice in the Church of Rome."

"The Council of Trent further lays down:

"That by the consecration of the bread and wine, there is made a conversion of these two substances into the substance of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, which conversion the Church justly and properly calls Transubstantiation.

"That the Body of Christ is under the species of bread, and His Blood under the species of wine, by virtue of the consecration; but that by concomitancy the one and the other are under each of the species, and every part of them, equally as under the two together." "These limitations define the general statement, that after consecration Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained under the appearance of things sensible.' . . . An anathema is pronounced against all who shall assert that He is present in the Eucharist only in symbol, figure, and virtue.'

"Now in the Roman Mass the oblation is held to consist of the consecrated elements, thus converted from the symbols of Christ's crucified Body and Blood, into the reality of His living Person. This conception destroys the original character of the Sacrifice as 'representative of the Cross and applicatory of its virtue,' and introduces a totally different one in its place. . . . It is insisted (in the second article), at whatever hazard to reason and consistency, that the Cross and its commemoration are one and the same Sacrifice. The oblation which represents Christ crucified, is really and substantially the living Person of Christ glorified! This interpretation plunges everything into contradiction. ... It is a contradiction in terms to call a sacrifice unbloody, in which one of the things offered is the actual Blood of Christ, unless it be in figure and by representation. . . . It is admitted that the sacrament represents the Sacrifice of Christ's Death. It exhibits His Body and Blood sundered in two elements, as in the hour when the one hung lifeless on the cross, and the other lay poured upon the ground below. Now, if it were true that these-whether by Transubstantiation or otherwise-could be corporally and substantially contained in or under the sacrament, yet they are not 'whole Christ.' The Soul was certainly then absent from the Body, in Paradise. And though we believe the Divinity of the Word to have remained united to each by hypostatic union, even when the vital union was dissolved, yet there is no hypostatic union with bread and wine. Hence, neither can the Divinity of Christ be contained in the Sacrament. Transubstantiation itself could result in nothing but a dead Christ, and that apart from the Living Word. But the Lord is risen; His Body and Blood are no longer in a state of death in fact, and can only be so in the sacrament by remembrance and representation.

"True it is, that in partaking of them we partake of His life. The living Manhood of Jesus Christ in heaven is the channel of all grace and lite to men; and the object and result of the Holy Eucharist is to incorporate us more and more into Him who is the First-fruits from the dead. But means are not identical with the end. The means are Christ

Crucified, the end is Christ Glorified. The Sacrament exhibits the means by way of representation and symbol; for this it is indispensable to retain bread and wine; it is no sacrament without them. In receiving these, we receive indeed the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of our ascended Lord, in spirit and in faith; but it is a clumsy contradiction to put the unseen reality in place of the visible element ;-to make the same object at the same instant, bread and not bread-the symbol of Christ slain, and the reality of Christ risen. . . . The root of all this error seems to lie in confounding the phrase 'Body and Blood' as relating to our Lord's death, with the word 'Body,' as denoting His glorified Manhood in Heaven. To offer the memorials of the first is the Eucharistic Sacrifice of antiquity. Transubstantiation in seeking to present the other, would not only require Christ to die again, but make His Divinity part of the Sacrifice;-a heresy confounding the whole doctrine of the Atonement. It is the Atonement made by His Death which enables us to partake of His life."p. 14-21.

...

After summing up the Romish doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass in 5 propositions, he concludes:

"These dogmas, though wholly unprimitive, unscriptural, and, therefore, in themselves false and pernicious, might be comparatively harmless if the ministration were retained according to the Institution of Christ. He administered the Sacrament in both parts to every one present at the consecration, and left nothing of either element unconsumed. Nay, it would appear that the bread was thus disposed of, before the cup was taken and blessed. The consecration, delivery, and communion were one act, of which the parts overlapped each other. There was, in fact, no moment of time in which the Tridentine Presence could be affirmed, or the Sacrifice of the Mass be performed, or the consecrated elements be exhibited for adoration. These startling dogmas are all crowded into an nterval which had absolutely no existence in the original Institution. Neither is any interval between oblation and communion recognised by the apostle when he says, 'As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come.' The oblation and the manducation are concurrent parts of the Sacrifice; or rather, manducation implies oblation, while oblation without manducation is no Christian sacrifice at all... In allowing non-communicating attendance, and reserving the consecrated elements for other and alien purposes, an entirely new and unauthorised train of thought was introduced. The host was kept in churches, carried about in processions, exposed for adoration, and in fact regarded as a material embodiment of the Redeemer-an actual visible God! Then came the novelty of assisting at the sacrifice without receiving the communion, and finally of the priest offering it on behalf of the absent or the dead, to whom receiving is impossible. All was the result of disobeying the one original injunction to eat and drink. The churches are still everywhere agreed that 'the Body and Blood of Christ are verily taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.' What destroys our Catholic unity, is the perverse ingenuity which demands,

What is that of which Christ said, 'Take, eat,' when it is not eaten ?"-p. 30-32.

These are indeed significant words, and the warning they contain is of importance at the present day. It is a strong condemnation of the teaching and practice of that extreme party in our Church, who are perseveringly aiming at changing the essential character of our Holy Communion Service, from being the united participation of the assembled worshippers, to an outward ceremonial rite, in which the Celebrant partakes with but a portion of the congregation,or even by himself alone,-and the rest of the worshippers become little else than spectators, supposed to assist by their presence in the offering of the sacrifice by the Priest! This perversion of the Holy Communion in direct defiance of the express rule of our Church, has recently received a timely rebuke from the Bishop of Winchester, in his parting charge to the clergy at Oxford; and the Bishop of Salisbury also strongly condemned it in his late Bampton lectures. It has, however (we grieve to state), become an almost established custom in some of our extreme Ritualistic churches.

Before leaving the subject of the Roman dogmas, we must conclude with a striking and appropriate passage from the section on the Western liturgies. The author is comparing the view of consecration which prevailed in the Eastern liturgies, with that of the Western; stating the considerations that justify the early Western view, which was by the words of Institution coupled with prayer, independently of the Invocation of the Holy Ghost, or special benediction, customary in the east. He then concludes with these impressive remarks :

"A widely different notion arose in the dark age that descended on the West, after it fell under the barbarian yoke. The mere pronunciation of the mystic words by a priest was then thought to fix the Divine Presence in the material element, irrespectively of prayer, or after use in communion. The gifts exhibited in the Sacrament were mistaken for the Person of the Giver. It was no longer the crucified Body, and outshed Blood, to be received in a mystery, but the glorified Christ, in bodily presence, that filled the paten and the chalice. The gifts which He bestowed in two separate elements, to symbolize His Body and Blood sundered in death, were daringly brought together, first in actual mixture, then by the school dogma of concomitancy and the suppression of the cup. Whole Christ was row lodged in the bread; that inward and spiritual Presence of the living Redeemer, which He taught us to expect as the result of feeding on His sacramental Body and Blood, was transferred from its proper tabernacle in the soul,

to the material symbols of His Death. This so confounded the sacramental mystery, that the schoolmen, who had wrought the mischief, were driven to the further invention of transubstantiation, as the only logical loophole from despair. And so He, whom, S. Peter taught, 'the heaven of heavens must receive until the times of the restitution of all things,' was feigned to be brought down at the bidding of every priest, not to feed the hungry soul, but to be lifted up, or put down, upon altars without communicants; to be gazed at, or shut up in pyxes; to be carried about in processions without His will or consent; to be exposed for adoration by those who worship they know not what! These awful profanations, with other consequences revolting alike to decency, morality, and religion, were the offspring of the deplorable superstition, which converted the sacrament of our Lord's crucified Body and Blood into the reality of His glorified Person."-p.181-2.

The 3rd section is devoted to the Lutheran hypothesis, and a few extracts will suffice to indicate its treatment :

"Luther rested his doctrine, as the Romanists rest theirs, on the literal form of the words of Institution; but in fact this interpretation was further from the letter than any other. The words of Institution may mean, This is My Body in substance, in effect, or in figure;' as the words 'this is my estate,' may denote the land itself, the value of it, the title deeds, or a drawing or plan of the property, according to the nature of the object indicated by the pronoun 'this.' But on the Lutheran hypothesis the bread is not the Body, but accompanies the Body; which is a direct contradiction of the words of Institution. This hypothesis involved the further difficulty of presenting two objects to the adoration of the attendants instead of one; which the schoolmen escaped by the invention of Transubstantiation. For, although the Lutherans profess to worship, not the Sacrament, but 'Christ in the Sacrament,' yet if the two are corporally united, it is impossible to exhibit external homage to ono, without doing the same to the other."--p. 33-34.

"To locate Christ's glorified Bodyin the elements along with bread and wine, is not less injurious to a right faith in the Incarnation, than to imagine it in the paten and the cup instead of them. That Body (our Church affirms) 'is in heaven, and not here;' whatever glory it has acquired in the exaltation, it is still a real human Body; and of all bodies the distinguishing characteristic as opposed to spirit, is that they are bounded by form and place. Hence it is against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one... The co-existent teaching cannot escape the censure, which Hooker urges upon S. Augustine. That majestical body which we make to be everywhere present, doth thereby cease to have the substance of a true Body.' . . The words 'This is My Body' can only mean one of two things; either this is My Body under the form or appearance of bread ;-or, this is My Body in mystical signification and power. . . Bellarmine himself admits that if the pronoun this have bread for its subject, then it can be Body only in figure."-p. 40-41. "Some practical abuses were guarded against by attributing the consecration to the prayers of the Church, instead of the priest's utterance of the words of Institu

tion; and above all by the great Protestant canon,cited and accepted by Bishop Cosin,-that a Sacrament has no sacramental effect beyond the use assigned to it in the Divine Institution."-p. 33.

"What the fathers teach is that Christ's Body is in heaven, and its presence upon earth is due to the hypostatic union with His omnipresent Godhead. In this 'heavenly, spiritual, and immaterial way,' the glorified humanity of our exalted Lord is indeed peculiarly present, and partaken of by the faithful in the Holy Eucharist. This is not the presence of a body contained in, or united to another body, but a presence in spirit and effect of a Body locally absent.-p. 43-44.

It was this co-existent theory which compelled Luther to discard the Catholic idea of Sacrifice, and rest the controversy with Rome on the false issue of Sacrifice or Communion-a mistake blindly followed by too many other Protestants.

Mr. Trevor justly observes that :—

"A disposition has lately been manifested among ourselves to revive this co-existent theory as less opposed than transubstantiation to the letter of the 28th Article." He remarks at the same time (which is worthy of note) that "according to Dr. Dollinger, hardly any genuine Lutherans are now to be found in Germany."p. 36.

After thus considering the errors of the Roman and the Lutheran systems, the 4th section brings us to the assertion of the "Anglican doctrine," and it is supported by a variety of references to the standard divines of our Church.

Here we find the doctrine of the Real Presence, as held in the English Church, more directly treated. We will endeavour to give a general view of the author's clear enunciation of the doctrine, which has been already alluded to in considering the previous sections.

"The phrase 'Real Presence,' though not adopted in the Anglican formularies,—perhaps on account of the ambiguity introduced into it by the Church of Rome,-is received by our divines in its true and original meaning; viz., that Christ is really present to the faithful com municant in the eating and drinking of the consecrated gifts, and that not by the internal action of his own mindor faith alone, (which some people call a subjective presence), but by a real Presence from without, of the Person of the God-man. In this sense the Real Presence is held not only by the Anglican Church, but, as Bishop Cosin shows, by all Protestant Confessions, as firmly as by the Church of Rome or the Lutherans. The peculiarity of the two latter is the seating Christ's Person in the material elements apart from communion, even when there is no communion, save of the priest. This, the Church of England, in common with all other Protestants, steadfastly denies.

Now on the controversy so raised, it is important to remark at the outset, that Scripture and antiquity are wholly ignorant of it. The Eucharist is never mentioned in Scripture or any Catholic Liturgy, but with a view to com

munion; all that Is said of it by apostles or fathers is said in relation to a rite culminating in oral participation. Consequently nothing in their testimony can apply to consecrated elements which are not eaten, or to a worshipper who does not communicate. In the next place, it is a mistake to suppose that a communicant receives only what he orally eats or drinks. Even the Romanist allows that Christ must dwell in the heart by faith; but He is no nearer to the heart or soul in the hand of the priest, than at the right hand of the Father. He does not enter the soul by corporal contact, but by spiritual union; and to this nothing is gained by diminishing the local distance between His body and ours: so that all have recourse to the Spiritual Presence in the end. Thirdly, it is obvious that the Sacrament represents and communicates the slain body and blood, sundered in two elements, which therefore cannot be at the same moment the living Body of the Resurrection; nor are they ever called so in Holy Scripture. it is true, that in partaking of Christ's Death we are quickened with His Life. He Himself is not absent (as St Cyprian notes) from the Sacrament of His Death; but His Presence is the privilege of the faithful receiver, not of inanimate bread and wine. Our Lord's own words are, 'He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood (he only) dwelleth in Me, and I in him.' The Flesh in the bread, the outshed Blood in the cup,-each really though in a mystery, each with its distinct virtue and operation;and then, as the effect of eating and drinking these, Christ, the God-Man, personally and spiritually dwelling in us, and we in Him."—p. 47, 48, 49.

"Of the manner of the Real Presence, which all parties assert," the author observes that "the force of the Anglican, as of Scriptural and Patristic theology, lies in distinguishing between the objects which the Council of Trent labours to confuse. The Anglican divines hold the Real Presence (1) of the Divine Person of God the Word; by the omnipresence of God ever working with His gifts, but not comprehended or contained in them: (2) of His true Humanity, Body and Soul now glorified in heaven; by the hypostatic union of God and Man in Christ-'a presence (as Hooker phrases it) of true conjunction with Deity:' (3) of His Body broken and Blood shed on the cross; by mystical power- a presence of force and efficacy throughout all generations of men.' Each of these is a real presence, and in no degree the product of imagination or faith, but the genuine presence of an outward object, and the only presence (it may be reverently affirmed) which that object is capable of exhibiting to man. The province of faith lies in discerning and receiving each in the due sacramental order. First is the oral eating and drinking of the consecrated bread and wine, without which there is neither sacrament nor sacrifice, but a profane empty pageant. In so eating and drinking, the communicant partakes by faith of the Sacrifice of the Cross; he spiritually eats the Flesh, and drinks the Blood, which Christ gave for the life of the world; and with this the sacramental act is complete. But in so partaking of the Body of the Sacrifice, we receive the further gift of incorporation in the Body of the Resurrection. That glorified Humanity which is bodily at the right hand of the Father, is the Instrument-the opyavov-of all spi

ritual life to man-the true Bread of God which cometh down from heaven-the life-giving Flesh-the germ of our resurrection, and the food of immortality. Being cleansed by the sacrificed Body and Blood of the Cross, we are incorporated with this new Head of Humanity on high, and so nourished to eternal life. We dwell in Christ, and Christ in us; we are one with Christ, and Christ with us.' Hence we are one with God the Word, and in Him with the Eternal Father.

"Meantime, the glorified body of Jesus Christ 'is in heaven and not here.' Its presence in the Eucharist is a presence of conjunction with the Omnipresent Deity. What is here is, first, the personal presence of the Son of God, drawing with it the life-giving fellowship of His Humanity in heaven; and, secondly, the mystical presence of His sacrificed Body and Blood in the consecrated elements. The first is recognized by all Churches and Confessions as the main object of Eucharistic worship and participation: all acknowledge this Real Presence of the God-man; all, too, distinguish the spiritual act, which admits Him to the tabernacle of the heart, from the external reception of the Sacrament. . . . In this highest view of the Presence, all agree with Hooker, that it is to be sought, not in the Sacrament, but in the faithful receiver of the Sacrament."-p. 69 to 71.

·

"In participation alone" (as expressed in a subsequent section) "the Anglican formularies assert the Real Fresence. The Cathechism affirms that, the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper;' but it maintains a significant silence on the presence in the elements by consecration, apart from receptlon, asserted by the Tridentine and Lutheran definitions."

"The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist" (to quote from Bishop Cosins) "means His real reception into the soul of the communicant. There is no presence any but communicants, nor to them without faith."-p. 65.

to

"The controversy thickens round the mystical Presence in the consecrated elements: but holding fast by the words of Institution, the Body broken and the Blood shed, it is certain that these are present only iu force and efficacy, since Christ is no longer dead in fact. The Sacrifice was finished on the cross, and the state of death passed away in the resurrection; but the force and efficacy of that death remain with God and man for ever. Now, a thing is as really present in the place where it operates, as in the place where it simply exists in form and substance. Nay, the power is often the only certain presence; i.e., it is sure and cognizable when the substance it proceeds from is unknown and absent. Such a presence our Lord assigns to the Spirit. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth.' And to the question how His Flesh can be given us to eat, He expressly says, The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.'

·

"The Body and Blocd of the Cross, then, are now nowhere present, save in spirit, power, and efficacy; these our Lord so truly confers on the Eucharistic symbols, that the Body is not another thing united to the bread, or substituted under its form, but the bread is itself the

Body, and the wine the Blood, as His own words expressly affirm. The Divine thing' in the Sacrament is neither a Divine Person, nor a Divine substance, but a Divine quality (so to speak) imparted to the bread and wine, whereby they are made the communion of the Body and Blood of the Cross, and through these of the glorified Body in heaven."-p. 72, 73.

"The notion of 'base signs' is earnestly repudiated in our Articles and Homilies. The liturgical witness against it is consecration, on which no Episcopal Church ever wavered. If the faith of the receiver alone invests the elements with sacramental grace, consecration must be either nugatory or misleading. But consecration

meets us from the first. Our Lord Himself not only gave thanks to God over the bread and wine, but He distinctly blessed them, before delivering them to His disciples as His Body and Blood. The same condition precedent is repeated by the Apostle, 'The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ?' Symbols the elements are before consecration; after it they are Sacraments—i.e., symbols with a power and efficacy annexed, which makes them, to the faithful receiver, verily and indeed the Body and Blood of Christ. To deny this is to part at once with Scripture and antiquity."--p. 74.

"When 'there went virtue ont of Him' to the bodies and souls of men, it commonly passed by some material medium. Such was the 'hem of His garment,' of which St. Augustine finely says, 'Turba premit, fides tangit;' such was the clay applied to the sightless eyes, useless, it is true, without faith, yet not void of a Divine gift, since without it the miracle was not wrought."-p. 75.

"The Fathers regard the two sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist as each communicating Christ for its own purport: neither contains Him in substance but each is endowed with a special gift, whereby His, spiritual Presence is both pledged and conveyed to the fit receiver. The reality of this gift does not depend on the faith of the receiver, any more than on the worthiness of the minister, but on the commission and authority of Christ. It is not less really present because the unworthy communicant receives it not, any more than the sun is absent because a blind man cannot see it. The judgment pronounced on those who 'discern not the Lord's Body' implies its Presence, though it is a spiritual not a corporal Presence. Clear, however, as the distinction seems between a Divine Person and a Divine quality, it is to be regretted that many Protestants, and some, it may be feared in onr own Church, are still as unable to receive it as the Romanists themselves. The Romanists will have the living Person of Christ to be veiled under the forms of bread and wine.' With no less inconsistency, the ultra-Protestant can see nothing but an empty figure in that which Christ consecrated to the Real participation of His Body and Blood. Between the extremes the Church of England keeps the middle path of primitive truth. For Christ, she bids her children prepare the tabernacle which He loves, in the heart. To His one Sacrifice on the cross she refers all our propitiation. Yet with deepest reverence would she handle and on her knees ceive, the Holy Gifts, which are to us the Body and

Blood of that all-reconciling Sacrifice. For these are not symbols only, but symbols which the Holy Ghost has touched, and to the faithful receiver verily and indeed what they represent."-p. 77-78.

In the fifth section, Mr. Trevor examines and combats the "new Objective Theory" which has sprung up of late years. He meets the new theory with cogent arguments, but in no unfair or bitter tone. As far as it is directed against that presumptuous craving after new definitions of Divine mysteries, beyond what our Church ventures to assert as all sufficient for the guidance of her members, and into which no human intellect can penetrate, it meets with our hearty concurIn commencing, the author very justly laments that a new theory of the Presence should be attempted, when the Sacrament was becoming so much more devoutly realized and frequented :—

rence.

"After so many painful disputations, it was to be hoped that a new theory of Sacramental Presence would never again be attempted. The Church of England had especial reasons for accepting the exhortation of her most judicious divine, 'Let disputes and questions, enemies to piety, abatements of true devotion, hitherto in this cause but over patiently heard, let them take their rest.' The Blessed Sacrament had risen to a degree of reverence among our people, not surpassed in any Church since the primitive ages. Its celebration was becoming daily more frequent and devout. The cavils of the Puritans were forgotten; the rationalistic explanations of the eighteenth century were almost everywhere superseded by higher and holier expositions of Catholic truth; and at no time since the Reformation was the Liturgy so loyally rendered, both in doctrine and ceremonial. At such a time it is peculiarly distressing that the hope of still higher unity, in this central bond of light and love, should be imperilled by new scholastic definitions."

He next complains of the new term "Objective," as indefinite, and uncertain whether it might be intended to mean the corporal or spiritual Presence :

"What the 'Real Objective Presence' precisely means no one has distinctly explained; but as the word is not to be found in any of our elder divines, nor any equivalent to it in the fathers, it cannot escape the suspicion which justly attaches to every innovation on the terminology of the Church. We are not now to learn that new and unauthorised words imply new and unauthorised conceptions.

"The new term is put forward in supersession of the recogaised distinction of corporal and spiritual, and at first sight it is not clear to which of those antagonistic terms it is most closely allied. Its authors wish to mark more emphatically the reality of the sacramental Presence,

1" Eccl. Pol. v. lxvii."