y^j PPTTSrCT^TON. N. J. '^* Scudamore, W. E. 1813-1881. The communion of the laity Shelf. . ,,..-^i«f *. yl^Ail-: THE COMMUNION OF THE LAITY. BV THE SAME AUTHOR. I. THE OFFICE of the INTELLECT in EELIGION, With especial reference to the Evidences of a Revelation and the Proof of Chi'istian Doctrine. Price 8s. LETTEES to a SECEDER from the CHURCH of ENGLAND to the COMMUNION of EOMB. Price 6.«. Gd. III. ENGLAND and EOME. A Discussion of the Principal Doctrines and Passages of History in common Debate between the Members of the two Communions. Pricp 10*. 6(i. THE COMMUNION OF THE LAITY. AN ESSAY, CUIEFI.Y HISTORICAL, ON THE EXILE AND PEACTICE OF THE CHUECH WITH RESPECT TO THE RECEPTION OK THE (ffonsecratcti Elements, AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST, W. E. SCUDAMORE, M.A. HECTOR OF DITCHINGHAM, AND LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOUN's COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. LONDON: EIVINGTONS, WATEELOO PLACE. DEIGHTON, BELL, & CO. CAMBRIDGE. .1. II. Sr JAMES PARKER, OXFORD. 1855. (ilLBKKT AM) IIIVINGIMN, PHI.NTKM.S, ST. John's squaue. "fROPERfF^ fiEC. APR 1882 I "^VyrTYNjV*^ CONTENTS. INTEODIJCTION. Pp. 1, 2. CHAPTEE I. Pp. 3—69. Section I. Of Divine service in the primitive Church. All present at the celebration of the Lord's Supper communicated. Questions to which this rule gave rise. TertuUian. — Augustine. — Ambrose. — Clemens Alexandrinus. Note '', p. 6. Peculiar use of the word synaxis. Note ^, p. 10. Frequency of celebration in the early Church. Sect. II. The Scriptural accounts of our Lord's institution militate against the division of the rite into a Sacrifice and a Sacrament. Sect. III. The analogy of the Jewish sacrifices equally against it. Note ^, p. 20. Josephus misquoted by Mr. Wilberforce. Note ^, p. 23. Mistakes of Mr. Wilberforce with regard to the Passover. Sect. IV. 'i'lie Sacrament and the commemoration inseparable ac- cording to the Fathers. TertuUian. — Basil. — Augustine. — Chry- sostom. — The Council of Toledo. We commemorate the sacrifice of Christ by partaking of the symbols. Basil. — Augustine. — Cyril of Alexandria. — Leo. — Pseudo-Ambrose. Remission of sins ascribed not to the sacrifice, but to the Communion. Hippolytus. — Cyprian. — Ambrose. — Cyril of Alexandria. — The an- cient Liturgies. Inference from this. Sect. V. Early language respecting the Consistentes a proof that in the opinion of the first ages there could be no offering without partaking. Peculiar custom at Alexandria. Clemens Alexandrinus. — Timothy I. — Eusebius Alex. Sect. VI. Only mortal sin held to disqualify for Communion. Origen. — Cyprian . — Chrysostom. — Augustine. — The author De VI CONTENTS. Sacramentis. — Eusebius of Alexandria. — Gennadius Massil. — Isidore of Seville. — Rabanus. — Walafridus Strabo. — The Third Council of Tours. — Zonaras. Agreeably to this principle, S. Chrysostom declares that all who do not receive must be considered penitents. Sect. VII. Ecclesiastical decisions against the pi-esence of non- participants. — The ninth Apostolical Canon. — The Council of Antioch, a.d. 341. The version of the Apostolical Canon by Dionysius Exiguus. — Its autho- rity in the West. — Followed by Cresconius, Regino, Burchard, Ivo, Gratian. Interpretation of the Apostolical Canon by the Eastern canonists. Zonaras. — Balsamon. The origin of the Aniidoron. Note ", p. 5G. Opinion of Zonaras misrepresented. Note ^, p. 59. Earliest notices of the Antidoron. Sect. VIII. Testimony of writers, from the eleventh to the six- teenth century, to the primitive usage of communicating all present. Micrologus. — Speculum x\non. — John Beleth. — Petrus Blesensis. — Scriptor Anon. De Off. Div. — Hugo Cardinalis. — Durant. — Ralph De Rivo. — Aquinas. — De Lyra. — Denys a Ryckel. — Gemma Animse. — Clichtovseus. — Cochlseus,— Cassander. Sect. IX. Testimony of Roman Catholic writers since the Council of Trent. Bona. — Sala. — Mabillon. — Schelstrate. — Dupin. — Van Espen. — Martene. — Cigheri. — Maskell. CHAPTER II. Pp. 70—99. Section I. When the primitive rule was no longer obsei'ved, non- participants left before the Communion. Sect. II. In the sixth century they were ordered not to leave before the Bishop gave his blessing; — which was before the Communion. Note ^, p. 74. The Canons of Agde and Orleans on the departure of non-participants. The mass considered over before the Communion began. Note *, p. 78. On the use of the Lord's Prayer and the blessing after the consecration. Sect. III. Glowing neglect of Communion by the laity. Attempts to check the evil. Sect. IV. Rise of solitai-y and private masses. They were con- demned at first as involving a contradiction ; but defended by Peter Damian, Innocent III., &c. CONTENTS. Vll Sect. V. Theory of spiritual reception. The priest liekl to re- ceive for the people, as the mouth for the members. Strabo. — Hugo Victorinus. — Honorius Augustod. — De Lyra. — Vincent Ferrer. — Eggeling and Biel. — Clichtovasus. — Myconius, &c. Sect. VI. State of things at the time of the Reformation. Ei'asmus. — Bucer. — Council of Trent. CHAPTEE III. Pp. 100—128. Section I. The Jirst Book of Edward VI. ordered non-participants to leave the quire ; the second, to leave the Church. — A proposi- tion, A.D. 1559, that they should leave before the Nicene Creed. The order to leave the Church imposed, as the nearest practicable approach to the primitive rule. Cranmer. — Guest. — Jewel. Sect. II. Testimonies of English divines before the last revision of the Liturgy. Whitgift. — Hooker. — Whitaker. — Field. — Overal. — Audrewes. — Bedel. — Laud, Juxon, Wren. — Montague. — John Forbes. — L'Estrange. — Cosin. Note 2, p. 110. Overal and Cosin misrepresented by Mr. Wilberforce. Sect. III. The warning to depart withdrawn at the last revision, because no longer necessary, and, therefore, not appropriate. Its principle still approved by our Divines. Payne. — Beveridge, — Johnson. — Bingham. — Waterland. Sect. IV. Undue reverence towards the consecrated elements. Adoration of the host. Tendency to such excesses in the English advocates of staying without receiving. Condemnation of gazing and adoring by the English Church in ac- cordance with the teaching of the early Fathers. Origen. — The Bishops at Nicsea.— Athanasius. — Augustine. — Nilus. Conclusion. ^ PKINCETOH \ REC. APR 1882 ^ HEQLOGIC&Iv/ THE COMMUNION OF THE LAITY. INTRODUCTION. The following pages have been written in the hope of throwing some light on several questions relating to the attendance at the Lord's Table of persons who do not communicate. The subject is in itself a simple one ; but it has, unfortunately, been much perplexed by the representations of Mr. Robert Wilberforce, in the concluding chapter of his trea- tise on the Eucharist. It is probable that the secession of that writer has caused many of his readers to suspect the general tendency of his previous teaching, and proved, through the mercy of God, their safeguard from much evil. But there are not wanting some who still defer to his opinions, and receive his statements without inquiry or mis- giving; and it appears that, through their influ- ence and ability, his ill-advised suggestions are B ) 2 INTRODUCTION. likely to become a matter of practical and deeply serious importance. Under these circumstances, an historical review of the chief points at issue may prove an useful guide to many who, with re- stricted means of information, are conscientiously endeavouring to understand the merits of the case. It will be seen that the compiler regards the views which Mr. Wilberforce endeavoured to recommend as unscriptural and uncatholic. He trusts, how- ever, that he may not be thought to reflect in un- kindness on any of those good and zealous men whose actions show that they have arrived at a different conclusion from himself. His words may fail to carry conviction, and induce a change of practice ; but he will, at least, strive to " speak the truth in love," and not inflame the wound which he desires to heal. CHAPTER I. RULE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. PRINCIPLES AND ANALOGIES ON WHICH IT WAS BASED, EARLY AND MEDIEVAL TESTIMONIES. CON- FESSIONS OF LATER DIVINES IN THE COMMUNION OF ROME. The common worship of the first Christians mi^ht chap. i. ^ SECT. I. be said to consist wholly in a solemn, frequent, and ' — v — ' stated celebration of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It is true that they offered prayers which had no direct reference to it, and chanted hymns, and heard God's Word in their assemblies both read and preached; but these were not duties peculiar to the faithful, and therefore, when prac- tised by them, were not viewed as the substance of their sacrifice, but rather as accessories to the one great distinctive rite of Christian liturgy. The first believers at Jerusalem did not forsake the public worship of their countrymen, but after their conversion " continued daily with one accord in the Temple." If they assembled by themselves " in a house or chamber V' it was specifically to "break ^ Kar oiKor, Acts ii. 46. " Learned men," says Beveridge (Cod. Piin). Eccl. Vind. 1. ii. c. iii. § ix. Works, vol. xii. p. 26. Oxf. 18 IS), "have observed that kut' oIkov is tlie same as tv oiKip, ... in B 2 4 THE CELEBRATION OF THE EUCHARIST bread." When the disciples at Troas, nearly thirty years later, were gathered together on the first day of the week, it is not said that this was to hear Paul preach, but again, " to break bread "." That this was the great recognized and stated object of the assemblies of the first Christians is also implied in the Apostolic rebuke of the disorderly Corinth- ians : — " When ye come together into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper ^ ;" — as if he had said, " The very purpose for which Christians meet is the celebration of the Supper of the Lord ; but you^ by your disorders, defeat that object, and deprive your celebration of every title to that cha- racter." To the same effect, Ignatius, the disciple of S. John, speaks as if this ordinance were iden- tical with common prayer, or, at least, insepar- ably connected with it, when he relates of certain heretics, that they " abstained from Eucharist and prayer because they did not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Christ *." Much later also, at a time when other offices of public prayer are known to have been provided, which manner the phrase is explained in tliis place by both the Syriac and Arabic versions." It is so used in Rom. xvi. 3, 5 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 19 ; Col. iv. 15 ; Philem. 2. By olsoe in these passages and in Acts viii. 3, understand the chaniber in which the Chris- tians assembled to break bread. See Schleusner, Parkhurst by Rose, &c. '" Acts XX. ?. '"■ 1 Cor. xi. 20. ■* Ad Smyrn. c. vi. PP. Apost. torn. ii. p. 412. Oxon. 1838. THE PROPER WORSHIP OF CHRISTIANS. 5 the morning service, of which the holy Communion chap. i. was an inseparable part, was still regarded as the ■.■ — essential and proper worship of the Church. This is apparent from the language of S. Macarius, who died in 391. Illustrating the spiritual service of the Christian in the " temple of the heart " by the external service of the Church, he refers still to the breaking of bread and prayers of the Apostles, though speaking of them, of coui'se, as they were exhibited in the more elaborate ritual of his own day: — "Unless the lessons, psalm-singings, and the whole sequence of the Church's order came before, it would be improper for the priest to cele- brate the Divine Mystery itself of the Body and Blood of Christ ; and again, even if the whole eccle- siastical canon were observed, but the mystical thanksgiving of the oblation by the priest, and the communion of the Body of Christ did not take place, the order of the Church would not be fully kept, and the Divine Service of the Mystery would be defective ^" It appears from S. Chrysostom, who became Archbishop of Constantinople in 398, that at this period the general term avva^ig, a gather'vng^ was in perfect strictness employed to denote solely those general assemblies for public worship at '" De Caritatc, c. xxix. In Galland. torn. vii. p. 207. 6 ALL PRESENT NECESSARILY which the Eucharist was celebrated. This could only have arisen from its universal recognition as the great purpose for which Christians met to- gether. His words are : — " The awful mysteries . . . which are celebrated at every si/?iams, are called the Eucharist (thanksgiving), because they are a commemoration of many benefits ^." By a still more remarkable modification of its meaning, the word was also used, and unquestionably owing to the same cause, to sigTiify the Sacrament itself ^ It is evident that, if the object for which the brethren " came together " was " to break bread," all who were present on any such occasion must have been expected to take a part in that holy action. To decline would be to renounce the communion of the faithful. Nay, so universal was 6 Hom. XXV. in S. Matt. Ev. 0pp. torn. vii. p. 352. Par. 1834 —1839. ' Chrysostom, Hom. ix. de Statuis (0pp. toin. ii. p. 115) has been often cited as an example ; but tliis is clearly a mistake, as he is exhorting his hearers to come to synaxis, though tliey may have broken their fast. Another supposed instance given by Suicer and Casaubon is in Epiphanius, Adv. Hger. 1. iii. tom. ii. c. xxii. (0pp. torn. i. p. 1104. Par. 1622) ; but see the notes of Petavius, in tom. ii. p. 349. Pseudo-Dionysius, however, frequently uses it in this sense, and inquires why that which is common to the Eucharist and other rites should be " ascribed to it pre-eminently, and it alone should be called communion and synaxis?" Eccles. Hierarch. c. iii. § i. 0pp. tom. i. p. 282. Antv. 1634. The reason Jie gives is sufficient!)' im- probable ; viz. the union between Christ and His people, which is the result of faithful participation. Ibid. See the paraphrase of Pachymeres, p. 315. JOINED IN THE COMMUNION. 7 the desire to partake of the sacred symbols at chap. i. every celebration, that before the middle of the — — second century a custom was established of sending portions to those who were unavoidably absent. We learn this from Justin Martyr, who, in a brief account of the Christian worship, intended to correct the false notions of the heathen, after men- tioning the consecration of the elements, describes their distribution in the following terms : — " Those who are called Deacons with us give to each of those present of the bread and wine tempered with water, that have been blessed, to partake of, and carry thereof to those who are not present ^." In some countries the laity were permitted to take a part of the consecrated elements home with them, and were thus enabled to sanctify those days on which they could not assemble with their brethren by a private observance of the proper act of Chris- tian worship. The earliest mention of this prac- tice occurs in TertuUian, at the end of the second century ^. The Clementine Liturgy cannot be cited as a cotemporary witness to the opinions and practice 8 Apol. i. c. G5. 0pp. torn. i. p. 266. .lenae, 1842. ' Ad Uxor. 1. ii. c. v. 0pp. torn. iii. p. 74. Sim. De Orat. c. xiv. ; torn. iv. p. 15. Halse, 1829. Other allusions occur in Cypr. de Lapsis, Tract, p. 132 (Brem. 1690) ; Ambr. de Exc. Fratr. 1. i. n. 43, Opp. torn. vi. p. 526 (Venet. 1781) ; Greg. Naz. Or. xi., Opp. torn, i. p. 187 (Colon. 1690) ; Basil. M. ad Cresar. Ep. cclxxxix., Opp. torn. ii. p. 1055 (Par. 1618), &c. The practice was forbidden by the Council of Saragossa, a.d. 380; can. iii. Labb. torn. ii. col. 1009. 8 VAEIOUS TESTIMONIES CHAP. I. of the very first age; but it is competent to show SECT I ^ — '^^—' what they were thought to have been at a some- what later, but still early, period. Now in this ancient formulary we find it ordered that, after the Bishop, Presbyters, Deacons, &c., have communi- cated, " the children and then all the people " shall receive '. — In the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius, which is of great value on the same ground, we have a full account of the man- ner in which the Eucharist was celebrated, as he and his cotemporaries supposed, in the first cen- tury. According to him, after Psalms had been sung and the holy Scriptures read, " the Catechu- mens, and beside them the possessed and those in penance, went without the sacred precinct, while those who were worthy of the sight and participa- tion of the Divine things remained ^." Again, he says of the Bishop, that " uncovering the undi- vided bread, and dividing it into many pieces, and dealing out the cup to a//, he symbolically multi- plies and distributes the unity \" The same prac- tice is supposed in the fabulous Lives of the Apos- tles under the name of Abdias *. Thus in the life of S. Thomas : — " Having blessed the bread, he communicated it to all;" and in that of S. ^ Tr. prefixed to Brett's Dissert, on Liturgies, p. 10. Lend. 1838. " C. iii. sect. ii. Opp- torn. i. p. 284. 3 Ibid. sect. iii. n. 12 ; p. 299. Sim. in the paraphrase of Pachy- meres, p. 327. 4 Apost. Hist. 1. ix. p. 103. Basil. 1.'552. TO THE ORIGINAL PRACTICE. 9 Matthew: — "When they had answered, Arnen chap. \. •' SECT. I. and the mysteries of the Lord had been celebrated, ' — — and all the Church had received mass V' &c. In the Liturgy ascribed to S. Chrysostom, is a prayer addressed to Christ (which might, or might not, have had a place in the earlier form on which that Liturgy was founded), that he would "vouch- safe to impart His undefiled Body and precious Blood" to the officiating clergy, and "through them to all the people"." Even so late as the middle of the ninth centurv persons were still found who thought themselves bound by the old rule. " There are some," says Walafridus Strabo, " who think it enough for the dignity of the sacraments to communicate once in the day, even if present at several masses; but there are others who wish to communicate, as in one, so in all the masses at which they are present in the day '." " There were then in the time of Strabo," observes Cardinal Bona, "some so tena- cious of the original custom of communicating in the mass at which they were present, that they did not hesitate to receive the communion more than once in the day, if they were present at more than one mass ^" 5 Ibid. 1. vii. p. 91. 6 Lituvg. PP. p. 103. Par. 1560. Brett, p. 39. 7 De Reb. Eccl. c. 22, apud Hittorp. de Div. Off. p. 109. Colon. 1568. " Rcr. Liturg. lib. i. c. xiv. Opp. p. 233. Autv. 1723, 10 SCRUPLES OF INDIVIDUALS. CHAP. I. Of the original rule, then, it is not possible for SECT. 1. ' — V — ' US to entertain a doubt. There was, however, an occasional inconvenience in its observance, which led in the course of time to some very important changes. It might easily happen, especially in those Churches which had a daily ^ celebration, 9 Justin Martyr, writing at Rome about the year 150, speaks of the Sacrament as celebrated every Sunday, Apol. i. u. s. It has been inferred from the expression stato die in Pliny's well-known letter to Trajan, that the same custom prevailed in Asia Minor in the early part of the same century. Epp. 1. x. Ep. xcvii. p. 566. Ed. Gesner, Lips. 1805. TertuUian, writing at Carthage about fifty years after Justin, implies a more frequent celebration ; for he speaks of those who scrupled to receive on the Fast days. De Orat. c. xiv. ; torn. iv. p. 15. Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus, a. d. 220, speaks of the Body and Blood of Christ as rfa% consecrated. Fragm. in Prov. ix. 1. 0pp. tom. i. p. 282. Hamb. 1716. S. Cyprian in Africa, some thirty years later, mentions daily communion, as if it were the usual practice of all. De Orat. Dom. Tract, p. 147 ; Ep. Iviii. ad Pleb. Thibar. p. 120. Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine expresses himself in the same manner in the early part of the next centiiry. Demonstr. Evang. 1. i. c. X. p. 37. Par. 1628. S. Basil in Cappadocia, a.d. 370, de- clares daily communion to be useful, but says that the practice of his own Church was to have it four times a week (on Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday), and on the days of the Martyrs. Ad Caesar, as in note ^, p. 7. The Council of Toledo, a. d. 400, decreed that any clergyman living where there was a church, and not presenting "the daily Sacrifice," should be deposed. Can. v. Labb. tom. ii. col. 1224. S. Jerome, who died in 420, says, that it was "the cus- tom at Rome for the faithful to receive the body of Christ constantly " {semper), (Ep. xxx. pro lib. in Jov. Apol. Opp. tom. iv. col. 23. Par. 1706), and that the Churches of Rome and Spain were said to receive daily. Ep. lii. ad Lucin. col. 579. There can be no doubt that S. Augustine's account of the matter was true of the ages before him as well as his own : — " There are some customs which vary in different places and regions, as that some fast on Saturday, others not ; some daily communicate in the Body and Blood of the Lord, others receive on certain days ; in one place riot a day passes THEIR TREATIMENT BY THE FATHERS. 11 that a person was indisposed to communicate, chap. i. SECT. I. though, at the same time, not willing to forego — -'-^ the privilege of united prayer. An illustration occurs in a curious scruple mentioned by Tertul- lian about receiving on Fast Days : — " Most think that on the station days they ought not to be pre- sent at the prayers of the sacrifices, because the station must be broken by receiving the Body of the Lord." He meets the difficulty by suggesting a com- promise : — " Will not your fast have a greater so- lemnity, if you have stood at the altar of God ? — ^If you take the Body of the Lord and reserve it, [till the fast is over,] both ends will be gained, — ^parti- cipation in the sacrifice, and fulfilment of the duty '." The scruple about daily communion is treated by S. Augustine in the following manner, in a passage which it may be desirable to give at some length: — "I have observed with grief and groans, that many of the anxieties of the weak are occasioned by the contentious obstinacy or super- stitious fearfulness of certain brethren, who, in matters like this, which can never be determined without the offering, in another it is only on the Sabbath and the Lord's day, in a third on the Lord's day only." Ep. i. ad Janiiar. § 2. Ep. liv. 0pp. torn. ii. col. 18G. Par. 1836—1838. Sim. S. Jerome ad Lucin. ii.s. who adds: — " UnaqucEqiie provincia ahundet in sensu suo, et prcscepta majorum leges j4posfoUcas arhitretur. From Acts XX. 7 compared with ii. 42, 4G, it has been inferred that the sanie diversity of practice existed under the Apostles ; there being, it would seem, a weekly communion at Troas, and a daily at Jerusalem. ' De Orat. c. xiv. ; toin. iv. p, 14. 12 SENTIMENTS OF S. AUGUSTINE CHAP. I. with certainty, either by the authority of holy ' — V ' Scripture, or the tradition of the universal Church, or by their tendency to promote amend- ment of life, (only because some argument for them, such as it is, has come into the man's head, or because he was accustomed to do so in his own country, or because he has seen it in his travels which he imagines to be the more learned the farther they have been from his own people, ) raise disputes so merely factious, that they think no- thing to be right but what they do themselves. One would say, that the Eucharist ought not to be received daily. Should you ask, why ? — Because, says he, certain days ought to be chosen, in which a man lives more purely and continently, that he may more worthily approach so great a sacra- ment. For ' whosoever shall eat unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself.' On the other hand, another says : — Nay, if the wound of sin and the violence of the disease are so great, that the use of such remedies must be deferred, every one ought to be removed from the altar by the authority of the Bishop that he may do penance, and be reconciled by the same authority. For receiving unworthily is receiving at a time, when one ought to be doing penance ; — not that a man may either .remove himself from communion, or restore himself to it at his own pleasure, when he likes. Moreover, if a person's sins are not so great UPON DAILY COMMUNION. 13 that he be judged worthy of excommunication, he chap. t. SECT, 1 . ought not to separate himself from the daily ^ — . — medicine of the Lord's Body. Some one perhaps more rightly settles the dispute between them, who advises that above all things he remain stedfast in the peace of Christ. But let each one do what according to his faith he piously believes ought to be done. For neither of them dishonours the Body and Blood of the Lord, but they are vying with each other in giving honour to the most salutary sacrament. . . . The one in his respect for it dares not receive daily; the other in his dares not miss a single day ^" There can be no doubt that the controversy supposed by S. Augustine was suggested to him by the actual occurrences of his day; for we find S. Ambrose, several years before, speaking of some who abstained from communion as a self-imposed penance, though in a state, as he conceived, to profit by it : — " There are those, who think it a penance, if they abstain from the heavenly sacraments. These persons are too severe judges in their own case, — who impose on themselves a punishment, decline a remedy ; — who ought even to grieve for their punishment, because by it they would be deprived of heavenly grace ^" There were three modes of actino^ in such a case. 2 Ad Januar. Ep. i. §§ 2, 3 ; inter Epp. liv. ; toin. ii. col. 18(5. 3 De Pcenit. 1. ii. c. ix ; torn. v. p. 293. 14 FIHST BREACHES OF THE RULE. CHAP. I. A person who did not wish to receive could absent ' — ^A-^ himself from the common worship of the faithful, or he could be present, and either remain to the end, or leave before the celebration. It is proba- ble that on common days, most would prefer to be absent altogether; but on the Lord's day, and other festivals, as long as no other public service was provided, this course was almost precluded, as it would inevitably expose those who adopted it to the suspicion of apostasy. Nor would they be free from all risk of a similar misconstruction, if they attended the first part of the service only and withdrew with the Catechumens, or with the Penitents ; while to retire at any other time would necessarily produce confusion, as no such depar- ture was contemplated, or provided for, in the prescribed ritual of the Church. They naturally would prefer, — and there is evidence that they did prefer, — to remain till the conclusion of the ser- vice. Nor was this course, it would appear, dis- countenanced by all the clergy, "some" of whom, accordino- to Clemens Alexandrinus, "after di- viding the Eucharist, as the custom was, left it to each of the people to take their share," on the ground that "conscience is the best guide in taking or declining ■*." It is not probable that in those days of rule and discipline the matter would « Strom, i. 0pp. p. 271. Colon. 1688. ITS PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATED. 15 be allowed to remain lon^ in this unsettled state, chap. r. . SECT. I. The Church would soon interfere, to sanction or ' — -^ — ' forbid the rising practice. When her authorita- tive decision was first pronounced cannot be said with certainty; but from the above statement of Clemens, who died about the year 220, we may infer that the question was at least ripe for legis- lation by the middle of the third century. II. Before we proceed to show how the Church sect. n. dealt with this important subject, it may be well to set forth the grounds on which we must suppose her earliest decision to have been based. It is conceded, I believe, by all, as implied in the narration of holy Scripture, that under the Apostles all who were present at the celebration partook, as a matter of course, of the consecrated elements of bread and wine. But, if I mistake not, it may be inferred further, from the plain teaching of our Lord and of S. Paul, that they could not have done otherwise, and that the grounds, on which a different course is sought to be justified, involve a serious misconception of the true nature of the Sacrament. A distinction is drawn by Mr. Wilberforce and others between the Sacrament and the sacrifice, and we are asked, why it should be thought unlawful to "join in the sacrifice, without going on to the Sacrament ^ ? " The first reply to '•• Wilberforce on the Eucharist, ch. xiii. p. 387, 3rd ed. 16 NO DISTINCTION MADE IN SCRIPTURE CHAP. I. this inquiry is, that in Scripture the whole ordi- ' — ', — ' nance is clearly represented as indivisible and one, and the reception as an essential and integrant part of it. Christ gave to His disciples bread and wine, and said, " Take, eat and drink," before He declared the one to be His Body that was broken, or the other, His Blood poured forth ^ Again, when He commanded, " This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me V His words assuredly imply that the remembrance of Him in- tended, viz. the commemoration of the sacrifice of His death, is altogether dependent on our eating and drinking of the ordained symbols of that sacri- fice. He does not first institute the memorial, and then command us to partake thereof, but He commands us to partake, and when we are so doing, then to remember Him. S. Paul, commenting on His words, brings out yet more distinctly the re- lation, or rather the identity, which they exhibit between the commemoration and the Communion. " For as often," he explains, " as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come ^" We show, therefore, His death, « Matt. xxvi. 26—28; Mark xiv. 22—24; Luke xxii. 19, 20; 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25. ■ 1 Cor. xi. 25. ^ 1 Cor. xi. 26. Clichtovseus, a strong opponent of the Reforma- tion, says : — " That the reception itself even of the Body and Blood of Christ is in remembrance of His passion S. Paul shows clearly, when he writes thus to the Corinthians, ' As often as ye eat,' " &c. Eluci- BETWEEN THE SACRIFICE AND SACRAMENT. 17 we commemorate His sacrifice, when we partake of chap. i. that bread and that cup which represent Him ^-^'/ ' > offered for our sins upon the Cross. This is the prescribed mode, the only prescribed mode, of that commemorative action. Unless we eat and drink, we do not " show His death." In short, by the very nature and appointment of the rite, we cannot "join in the sacrifice without going on to the Sacrament;" for without that which is here termed the Sacrament, there is no proper representation of the Sacrifice of Christ. It should be remarked also that there is a pecu- liarity in every certain mention of this Sacrament occurring in holy Scripture, which is in strict accord- ance with the apparent teaching of the above-cited texts. Communion, and not oblation, is the most prominent idea in all. Thus in S. Paul's reason- ing : — " The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ ? For we being many are one bread, one body ; for we are all partakers of that one breads" Even when he proceeds to a comparison between the Christian ordinance and the sacrifices of the heathen, the point of resemblance on which he dwells is not the offering, but the feast : — " Ye datorium Eccles. P. iii. Can. Ex])Os. ; ad id Hcec quotiescuiique ; fol. 1.'57, fa. 1. Basil. 1517. ' 1 Cor. X. 16, 17. C 18 THE ORDINANCE ONE WHOLE. CHAP. I. cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of ^ — J-^ devils \" His preference for this aspect of the Sacrament is made the more striking by its having led him, in carrying out the parallel, to designate the heathen altar by the somewhat unusual name of table : — " Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils ^" Similarly, when he is condemning an abuse of the Eucharistic feast, he does not say : — " When ye come together, this is not to show the Lord^s death^' but " this is not to eat the Lord's Supper ^^ Even where an altar is mentioned in the Epistles, the use of it to which reference is made is properly that of a table: — " We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat^ who serve the tabernacle *." It is clear then, as it appears to me, that, accord- ing to the intention of our Blessed Lord, and to the mind of His Apostles, the Eucharistic com- memoration of His sacrifice is inseparable from the Communion of His Body and Blood, — and, therefore, that we can have no special interest in the one, unless we are partakers of the other also. SECT. III. in. We are led to the same conclusion by the analogy of certain sacrifices under the law, in which 1 1 Cor. X. 21. 2 Ibid. The Jews used the word table to denote an altar, though not commonly. See Ezek. xxxix. 20; xli. 22; xliv. 16; Mai. i. 7, 12. 3 1 Cor. xi. 20. * Heb. xiii. 10. THE ANALOGY OF LEGAL SACRIFICES. 19 the lay worshipper, who provided the victim, was chap. i. under an obligation to eat of it. They were of ^— n!^ — ^ three kinds, all included under the general title of Peace -offerings ; but our attention may be confined to one, which has a peculiar bearing on the subject, viz. the Peace-offering for thanksgivings which the devout Israelite was encouraged to offer as a token of gratitude for mercies received. There is a strict correspondence, so far as the nature of the dispensations will permit it, between this ordi- nance of the Law and our Christian rite of Eucha- rist, or Thanksgivings for the inestimable bless- ings which have been bestowed on us through Christ. But it was a law of this kind of sacrifice, and, what is more to the purpose, a law peculiar to it, — that after one stated portion of the victim had been consumed on the altar, and another given to the priest, the whole of the remainder was to be eaten on the same day by those who offered it ^ In the case of Peace-offerings for a vow, or of spontaneous devotion, a part might be eaten on the second day, and if any then re- mained, it was to be burnt; but with the Peace- offering of Eucharist, no such alternative was permitted; it could only be eaten, and it must be eaten at once : — " When ye will offer a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving unto the Lord, offer it at your * Levit. vii. 15. " He (z. e. the offerer) shall not leave any of it until the morning." c 2 SECT. III. 20 THE OFFERER BOUND TO PARTAKE CHAP. I. own will. On the same day it shall be eaten up, ye shall leave none of it until the morrow. I am the Lord"." This fact furnishes a complete an- « Levit. xxii. 29, 30. Yet Mr. Wilberforce (Eucharist, p. 389) says: — "To all other parties except the sacrificing priest the eating of the victim appeal's to have been optional." To prove this he pro- fesses to quote, not the Bible, from which he would have learnt (lifTerently, but Josephus : — " For the overplus, says Josephus, they that offer the sacrifice may eat of it during two days." He infers that their eating was optional from the use of the word may, to which he calls attention by printing it in italics. Yet, if Josephus had ex- pressed himself thus, his obvious meaning would have been, not that after one prescribed poi'tion had been burnt, and another given to the priest, the offerer might eat of the remainder or not, as it pleased him, but that he had two days allowed him to consume it in. But the fact is, that Josephus does not use the word may, or any thing equivalent to it. Mr. Wilberforce has not consulted him, but trusted to Wilson's translation, in which I find the passage as he quotes it. What is it then that Josephus does say 1 He actually tells us, in the passage to which Mr. Wilberforce refers (see text, p. 22), that such sacrifices as he is there speaking of were "trans- acted by feasting of the sacrificei-s," and that "the offerers feast (not may feast) on the flesh that is left for two days." De Antiq. 1. iii. c, ix. 0pp. tom. i. p. 121. Oxon. 1720. Josephus is inexact in saying " two days " without distinction ; for the statement is not true of Thank-offerings, properly so called ; though it is of other Peace- offerings. Maimonides says similarly of all Peace-offerings, " that they were eaten within two days and one night." De Sacrif. tr. i. c. x. ^ xiii. p. 49. Lond. 1683. Yet other Jewish authorities, as Abar- banel and Philo, have observed the distinction, and accounted for it. See De Compeigne's note on Maimon. u. s. Furthermore, there were, among the Rabbis, two explanations of the general Hebrew word for Peace-offerings, which were founded on the notorious circumstance, that "in this kind of sacrifices, God, the offerers, and the priests, each had their share." Some derived it from Dp^ to be at peace ; because the common feast of God and man was a token of peace between them : others from the same word in the sense of payiny; because a prescribed portion was assigned as a due to each of the aforesaid several parties. Outram de Sacrif. 1. i. c. xi. IN THE SACRIFICE OF THANKSGIVING. 21 swer to the representation of Mr. Wilberforce, chap. i. . ^ ^ SECT. II r. that the priest only was under an obligation to ' — -^ — ' partake of the victim. The priest consumed a part, but the remainder, as we see, was also ordered to be eaten. Now how could obedience to this commandment be secured, unless it was made incumbent on some certain persons to partake of the remainder ? And who could they be but those who made the offering, and sought to have the sacrifice imputed to them ? There really can be no doubt whatever that it was as much the duty of the lay worshipper to eat his portion, as it was of the priest to consume his. Indeed, the law implies that in Peace-offerings, i. e. in all those sacrifices in which the offerer was permitted to eat of the victim, such eating was of the very essence of the rite, and a condition of its being- imputed : — " If any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his Peace-offering be eaten at all on the third day, it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be imputed to him that offereth it ^" The remain- der of the victim, then, was to be consumed within a prescribed time, by a company of lay worship- pers, or the sacrifice was not acceptable to God, or imputed to him that offered it. We are not § i. p. 114. Lond. 1677. These explanations both imply that the worshipper was as much bound to consume his portion, as he was to burn that wliich was assigned to God. 7 Lev. vii. 18. 22 THE CUSTOM IN THANK-OFFERINGS. CHAP. I. told, indeed, in so many words, that he was him- SECT. HI. . . ' — x^ — ' self actually to partake ; but it is most unreason- able to suppose, indeed it is quite incredible, that the person, or persons, who provided the victim, whose gratitude for some benefit received was the avowed occasion of the public acknowledgment of a Thank-offering, should have been held at liberty to call in a party of strangers to do that which was to secure their interest in the sacrifice, while they themselves stood by, and joined not in the feast. I presume that no other evidence will be thought necessary to confirm an inference so palpable and certain. It may be found however, if it should be asked for, in the actual practice of the Jews. It is a matter of fact, that, according to their custom, it was the offerer who consumed the victim. Jo- sephus, for example, tells us that such sacrifices were " transacted by feasting oithe sacrijicers^'' and again, that after sprinkling the altar with the blood, burning the fat, &c. and " giving the breast and right shoulder to the priest, the offerers feasted on the flesh that was left ^" And simi- larly Abarbanel : — " The remainder the masters of the sacrifice eat ^." The Passover was of the nature of a Thank- offering, being appointed to commemorate the '^ De Antiq. 1. Hi. c. ix. 0pp. torn. i. p. 121. ^ Exord. Comment, in Levit. ad calc. Majemonida Tract, de Sacrif. pj). 247, 333. THE ANALOGY OF THE PASSOVER. 23 deliverance of the children of Israel from the chap. i. bondage of Egypt. Moreover we learn from — I — ^ Scripture that it was an express type of the Sacri- fice of Christ, the Lamb of God'. A strong analogy must therefore be supposed to subsist between this ordinance, and the Sacrament by which we commemorate our deliverance from a bondage typified by that of Egypt, and show forth the same Sacrifice by retrospect and in remem- brance. But it is manifest that all who were com- prised in the command to keep the Passover were under a strict obligation to eat of the lamb therein offered. In fact, by "keeping" it, the law ex- plained itself to mean " eating it, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs ^ ;" while it declared that those who "forbore to keep it" should be "cut off from among their people ^" ^ 1 Cor. V. 7. 2 Num. ix. 11. "They shall keep it, [and] eat it with unleavened bread and bitter [herbs];" — the second clause being in apposition with the former. ■'' Num. ix. 13. "The man that is clean and is not in a journey, and forbeareth to keep the Passover, even the same soul shall be cut off from among his people." Mr. Wilberforce, p. 390, says that "there is no injunction in Scripture that women should eat of it." Neither, it might be answered, is there any injunction that they should offer it. His argument required that they should be enjoined to offer, though not enjoined to eat. There can be no doubt, however, that women were required to keep the Passover, and that they were included in the general commands of Holy Scripture. It is notorious that the Jews were of this opinion. " Men and women," says Maimo- nides, " were equally bound by this precept." Tr. i. de Pasch. c. i. § i. p. 3. The only distinction made by the Rabbis was, that if women from any defilement, or physical hindrance, or other innocent 24 INTEEENCE FROM THE LEGAL RITE Our inference with regard to the Christian Passover, may be expressed in the words of S. Athanasius : — " Our Saviour, since He was chang- ing the typical for the spiritual, promised them that they should no longer eat the flesh of a lamb, but His own, saying, ' Take, eat and drink ; this cause, did not keep it at the proper time, they were not considered bound to observe it, as men similarly situated wei-e, on the same day of the next month. Ibid. c. v. § viii. p. 27; c. vii. § iii. p. 35. Mr. Wilberforce quotes from the Gemara Hieros. to the effect that "it was held by the Jews illegal to offer the lamb for a sodality in which none were able to partake of it. " This tells against him, for it implies that those who could not eat were not allowed to offer. He adds, therefore : — " But the incapacity of some members was no reason why it should not be offered for the sodalit}' at large." For this he appeals to the same authority, giving the following extract in a note : — " Pro comedentibus suis, et pro non comedentibus suis ; pro annumeratis et pro non annnmeratis ; pro circumcisis, et prsepu- tiatis; pro immundis et mundis, est legitimum." Gemara Hieros. c. v. § iii. in Ugolini's Thesaur. Antiq. Sacr. tom. xvii. col. dccxc. But Mr. Wilberforce appears to have misunderstood his author. The meaning is, not that those who could not eat were supposed to have an equal interest in the sacrifice with those who could, but that it was not vitiated by the victim's having been offered in the name of some who proved unable to partake of it. If it happened that none of those in whose names it was slain partook of it, the sacrifice became unlawful, and was expiated by a sin-offering. See the Gemara, c. vi. § x. ; Ugol. u. s. col. dcccxxiv. Moreover, in di- rect opposition to the opinion of Mr. Wilberforce, it was actually a principle with the Jews that, if any member of a sodality, on whose behalf the victim bad been slain, did not eat of it, he lost his part in the ojfering, as well as in the feast : — " If one should slay for persons of whom part could eat a piece of the size of an olive, and part could not, &c., he would not be at fault, forasmuch as those who were qualified would eat as the law prescribes ; but the rest would be excluded, as if they had not been in the mind of him who slew the victim." MajemoH. u.s. c. ii. § v. p. 12. But Mr. Wilberforce has been able to find one Rabbi who " goes so far as to say that if the TO THE CHRISTIAN SACRAMENT. 25 is My Body, and My Blood.' When we are, then, chap. i. nourished by these things, we shall also, my ' — — ■ beloved, properly keep the feast of the Passover \" In arguing from a Jewish sacrifice to the Chris- tian sacrament, no inference, however probable, can lamb fell short, so that none remained for a person who was legally bound to eat, he was exempted from the duty of repeating the rite, because the blood of the first victim had been sprinkled in his name." If this had been found in the Bible itself, it would have been to the purpose ; though an exceptional case, and that neces- sarily of most rai-e occurrence, could have given no adequate sanc- tion to the general practice which it is sought to introduce. As it is, however, this extreme opinion of a single Rabbi, for such it is con- fessed to be, is entitled to no weight. It is obviously one of those expositions, though comparatively an innocent one, by which the Jewish casuists "made the commandment of God of none effect," Mr. Wilberforce's last argument from the Passover is, that " the benefits of the ordhiance, regarding it as a sacrifice for the nation at large, were not supposed to be confined to those by whom it was eaten." Tliis may be true, but it is wholly beside the question. We should not deny that the celebration of the Eucharist is a means of benefit to the Church at large ; but the point at issue is, whether it is a means of special benefit to individual members of the Church, who, though present at it, decline to partake of the consecrated elements. * Festal Epistles, Ep. iv. p. 34; Engl. Tr. Oxf. 1854. It is singular that while one peculiarity of the Church of Rome is de- fended by maintaining that eating of the paschal lamb was left optional ; an argument in favour of another is sought from the fact that it was not optional. Thus Bishop Fisher urges the analogy in support of transubstantiation : — "That old lamb was a kind of a figure and a shadow of this new ; and similarly that Passover, of our Passover. Wherefore that this our Truth, that Christ Jesus, I saj', our true Lamb, may answer in some manner to the past shadow, it is necessary that He also should be corporally eaten. But that no where takes place but in the Eucharist, imder the appearance of bread. Wherefore it is also inferred that He is truly present there, forasmuch as He is truly eaten by us." C. Qlcolamp. 1. v. Praef. 0pp. pp. 1132, 3. Wirceb. 1597. 26 THE INFERENCE DRAWN BY S. PAUL. CHAP. I. be considered certain, unless it is confirmed by the - — C — ^ inspired writers of the New Testament. Without the seal of their authority the argument may be sufficient for the purpose for which it is now em- ployed, namely, to overturn a conclusion drawn from an erroneous statement of the same premises ; but it can affi^rd no positive guidance either as to the doctrine, or as to the use of the evangelical ordinance. In this instance, however, we have the direct testimony of an Apostle to the interpreta- tion which we have put upon the Scripture of the Old Testament. Our appeal to the Levitical law is in reality superfluous; for we are plainly taught by S. Paul that, in those sacrifices to which the Eucharist may be compared, the Jew became " par- taker of the altar " by being partaker of the offer- ing: — "Behold Israel after the flesh. Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar * ? " He not only asserts the principle as holding good of the Jewish rite, but extends its application to the Christian ; for it is solely with a view to illustrate the latter that he refers to the Mosaic ordinance at all. We may infer, then, without fear of error, from the analogy of those sacrifices to which the holy Eucharist is compared in Scripture, as well as ^ 1 Cor. X. 18. Wicelius, a Roman Catholic divine, a.d. 1534, draws the same inference, viz. that offering and eating are in such a case equivalent to each other, quod oblatio et esus nihil inter se dissideant. De Each. p. 324. Colon. 1549. THE DOCTEINE OF THE FATHERS. 27 from such accounts of it as are preserved therein, chap. i. '- SECT. 111. that, unless we partake of the consecrated symbols, ' — — we do not commemorate aright the Sacrifice which they are ordained to represent; in other words, that unless we eat we do not " offer ;" and conse- quently that those who " assist without receiving," have no greater interest in the celebration than they would have, in common with the whole Church, if they were not present. IV. This identity of the Sacrament with the sect, i v. commemoration, of the Communion with the sacri- fice, is constantly recognized in the language of; the early Christian writers. With them to have a part in the sacrifice was to receive, and to " offer " was the same thing as to communicate. We have already seen this in Tertullian, when he advises those who scrupled to communicate during a fast to reserve the Sacrament until the fast was over ; by which means, he says, they would both " par- ticipate in the sacrifice," and fulfil their other duty ®. S. Basil directs that certain penitents shall only stand with the faithful for a time " without partaking of the oblation," but when that time has expired, shall "partake of the Sacraments '." Similarly, " to be removed from the altar " means in the language of S. Augustine and of the ancient Church to be forbidden to communicated S. Chry- ^ De Orat. c. xiv. ; torn. iv. p. 14. See p. 11. ' Ep. Canon, ad Ampliil. can. Ivi. ; torn. ii. p. 775. * Ep. I. ad Januar. § iii. See p. 12. SECT. IV. 28 PARTAKING EQUIVALENT TO OFFERING. CHAP. I. sostom says : — " Many partake of this sacrifice once a year, some twice®," &c. — meaning that they com- municated so often. So again, he speaks of one who had "received the precious Body, and par- taken of so great a sacrifice'." With the same Father, to "approach the sacrifice" is to "partake of the mysteries," or " of the Body of Christ ' ;" and " to have the benefit of the sacrifice " is equivalent to " having the benefit of the table ^" In a decree of the Council of Toledo, a.d. 681, to "partake of the sacrifice," to " eat of the offering," and to " partake of the altar," are expressions employed to signify precisely the same act and privilege. In condemning certain priests, who, when obliged to celebrate more than once a day, communicated only at the last celebration, the Council argued thus : — " Behold the Apostle says. Are not they which eat the victims partakers of the altar ? . . . What kind of sacrifice will that be of which not even the sacrificer is known to have partaken ''?" The truth taught indirectly by such parallelisms 9 Horn. xvii. in Ep. ad Heb. c. x.; torn. xii. p. 242. * Honi. c. Ludos, torn. vi. p. 328. ^ Horn. iii. in Ep. ad Eph. c. i.; torn. xi.p. 24: Horn. i. in Prod. Jud. ; torn. ii. p. 454. 3 Horn. Ixxxii. in S. Matt. xxvi. 26 ; torn. vii. pp. 889, 890. •• Cone. Tolet. xii. cap. v. Labb. torn. vi. col. 1230; Gratian, P. ii. Dist. ii. c. xi. Relatum est. The phrase altaris jiarticipatio is used to this day in the canon of the Mass for comtnunicating ; wlien the priest prays, "ut qiiotquot ex hac altaris participatione sacrosaiic- tum Filii Tui corpus et sanguineai sumpserimus, onuii benedictione coelesti et gratia repleaniur." WE COMMEMORATE BY PARTAKING. 29 as these is also implied whenever it is said that chap. i. we commemorate the sacrifice of Christ hy par- ' — J — '- taking of the appointed symbols of His Body and Blood. To this effect S. Basil tells us, " that we must eat the Body and drink the Blood of the Lord for a memorial of His obedience unto death ^ ;" and S. Augustine, that " Christians cele- brate the memorial of that same accomplished sacrifice by the most holy oblation and participa- tion of the Body and Blood of Christ *'." Else- where the latter Father says : — " We call that only the Body and Blood of Christ, which, taken from the fruits of the earth, and consecrated by the mystic prayer, we duly receive to our spiritual health for a memorial of the Lord's passion for us ^" S. Cyril of Alexandria : — " The table with the shewbread signifies the unbloody sacrifice, through which we receive blessing, when we eat the bread from heaven ® ;" and again : — " The participation of the holy mysteries is a true con- fession and commemoration of His dying and rising again for us ^" S. Leo says that it is God's mercy in Christ, " whereby the Passover of the Lord is lawfully celebrated in the unleavened * Mor. Reg. xxi. c. iii. ; torn. ii. col. 304. 6 C, Faust. 1. XX. c. xviii. ; torn. viii. col. 542. 7 De Trin. 1. iii. c. iv. n. 10; torn. viii. col. 1225. ^ De Ador. in Spir. et verit. 1. xiii. Opp. torn. i. p. 457. Par. 1638. ^ Comm. in S. Joh. Ev. c. xx. v. 16. 1. xii. ; torn. iv. p. 1105. SECT. IV. 30 KEMISSION OF SINS CHAP. I. bread of sincerity and truth ; while, the leaven of the old wickedness being cast away, the new crea- ture is inebriated and fed from the Lord Him- self." In the commentary on the Epistles which passed long under the name of S. Ambrose, we read: — "Because we are delivered by the death of the Lord, mindful thereof, we, in eating and drinking the Flesh and Blood which have been offered for us, signify that we have obtained the New Testament in these. . . . The Testament was established by blood, because blood is the witness of God's benefit. In a fisrure whereof we receive the mystic cup of Blood for the protection of our body and souP." The early Christians believed unanimously that remission of sin was one of the graces imparted to the penitent faithful through the holy Eucharist. Now if the distinction which Mr. Wilberforce adopts between the sacrifice and sacrament be truly ancient and legitimate, we should expect to find this gift especially connected with the sacri- ficial part of the ordinance. Propitiation, or the impetration of favour, confessed to be undeserved, which includes, of course, forgiveness, has been the main object of sacrifice in all ages, and among all nations of the world ; and it was emphatically and especially the end and effect of that sacrifice, ^ Serm. Ixiii. de Pass. xii. Opp. torn. i. col. 247. Ven. 1 753. - In 1 Cor. xi. 26; inter Ambr. Opp. torn. vii. p. 174. . ASCRIBED TO PARTICIPATION. 31 which is commemorated in the Eucharist. But is chap. t. SIXT. IV. it under this aspect that we find the Eucharist ^ — ■. — ' affirmed by ancient writers to convey the pardon of our sins ? — Far from it. Sometimes, indeed, they ascribe the gift in general terms to the Divine ordinance as a whole, but far more fre- quently to the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ which it imparts : and never, unless I am strangely deceived, to any supposed sacrifice distinct from that communion. Thus S. Hippo- lytus : — " He gave us His Divine Flesh and His precious Blood, to eat and to drink them for the remission of sins ^" S. Cyprian : — " After drain- ing the Blood of the Lord, and the cup of salva- tion, . . . the woful and sad breast, that was oppressed by torturing sins, may be loosed by the joy of the Divine pardon ^" S. Ambrose : — " He who receives shall not die by a sinner's death ; for this bread is the remission of sins \" And again : — " Be there, prepared that thou mayest receive to thyself a defence ; that thou mayest eat the Body of the Lord Jesus, in which is remission of sins, entreaty for reconciliation with God, and for eternal protection ^" Cyril of Alexandria : — " Eat bread that purges out that ancient bitter- ness, and drink wine that deadens the pain of that 3 Fragm. in Prov. ix. I. 0pp. torn. i. p. 282. •• Ep. Ixiii. p. 153. * De Patriarch. Bened. c. ix. n. 39; torn. i. p. 469. " In Ps. cxviii. Heth, n. 48; torn. iii. p. 319. SECT. IV. 32 REMISSION THROUGH PARTICIRATION. CHAP. I. wound ^" And similarly, if I mistake not, in all the ancient Liturgies ; as in the Clementine : — " That all who shall partake of it may be con- firmed in godliness, may receive remission of their sins, may be delivered from the devil and his wiles," &c. ^ ; in that under the name of S. James : — " We give Thee thanks, O Christ our God, for that Thou hast thought us worthy to par- take of Thy Body and Blood for remission of sins and life eternal " ;" in those of Basil : — " Grant that we may without condemnation partake of these undefiled and life-giving mysteries, for the remission of sins, for the communion of the Holy Ghost'." A similar petition occurs in that as- cribed to Chrysostom, in which also the priest is directed to say to himself and to the deacon while communicating : — " This hath touched thy lips and will take away thine iniquities, and tho- roughly purge thy sins^" Expressions of the same doctrine were preserved in the corrupted Liturgies of the early heretics ^" The inference which I would draw from the universality of this 7 Horn, in Myst, Ccen. Opp. torn. v. P. ii. p. 374. Many such examples occur (incidentally) in the collection of passages recently published by Dr. Pusey in "The Doctrine of the Real Presence." See pp. 414, 460, 469, 603, 690, 691. * Brett's Liturgies, p. 7. ■■> Liturg. Patr. p. 37. Brett, p. 21. I Lit. PP. p. 66. Brett, pp. 54, 61. = Lit. PP. p. 106. Brett, p. 42. 3 See those of Nestorius and Severus in Brett, pp. 72, 83. CASE OF THE CONSISTENTES. 33 belief has been already intimated, viz. that the chap. i. early Christians knew nothing- of that distinction, ^;J1l. for which Mr. Wilberforce and his followers con- tend, between the sacrifice and the Sacrament. If they had thus divided the institution of Christ into a communion and a sacrifice available even to those who do not communicate, the very nature of a sacrifice would have compelled them to ascribe the gift of pardon, which it conveys, to the propi- tiatory power of the oblation, rather than, as they did, to an actual reception of the Sacrament. V. But perhaps the clearest evidence that we sect. v. can give, to prove that in the early Church to offer meant to communicate, is found in the lanffuao-e of those ancient canons, which speak of the form of penance known by the name of consistentia. In many churches at least, if not in all, and from a very early period, penitents in the last stage of their probation were allowed to "communicate with the faithful in prayers," though still forbidden to partake of the holy Eucharist. This communion in prayers, however, is generally thought to imply their presence, as non-communicants, during the celebration''; and their supposed presence is ac- ^ By the prayers, are understood those of the Communion Office. " This part of the service being wholly spent in prayer, and that by the communicants only, is therefore peculiarly distinguished by the name of tiixai TTiaTuiv, The Prayers of the Faithful, by the Council of Laodicsea (Can. xix. Bev. Pand. torn. i. p. 461), which speaks of them as coming after the prayers of the Catechumens, and their D 34 THE CONSISTENTES WERE NOT PRESENT CHAP. I. cordingly pleaded as an early witness to the prin- SECT V ^ — V— ^ ciple of "offering without partaking." We are asked, " If they did not offer the sacrifice without eating, what were they there for at all ^ ? " We might reply, that it was the very gravamen of their penance to behold others in the enjoyment of a blessing of which they were unworthy, as in an earlier stage, it was their punishment to remain at the church door while others entered. The ques- tion, however, is one which ought not to be asked ; for it is a matter of perfect certainty that, for whatever purpose they might be there, it was not, as conjectured, that they might " offer the sacri- fice " without communicating. The proof of this is both direct and decisive. The Council of Ancyra, A.D. 315, speaks of the consistentes, as "communi- cating in the prayers'^," or "communicating with- out oblation V for a fixed time, and at the end of that "attaining to the perfect," i.e. being admitted to partake in the holy Eucharist. Ten years later, the Nicene Fathers directed that the penance of dismission. In other canons they ai-e called the common prayers of the people, and absolutely the prayers, without taking notice of any other prayers in the Church." Bingham, b. xiii. ch. i. sect. iii. ; vol, i. p. 555. Waterland was of opinion that the consisfentes were not present at the celebration. See Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, ch. xiv. Works, vol. iv. p. 791. Oxf, 1843. ^ Right of all the Baptized to be Present, &c. ; p. 24. Masters, Lond. 1854. ^ Cann. iv. xxiv. Pandect. Bevereg. torn. i. pp. 377—399. " Cann. v. vi. viii. Ibid. TO OFFER WITHOUT PARTAKING. 35 voluntary apostates should conclude with two years chap. i. of " communion with the people in prayers with- ^;^ out oblation'.'' Towards the end of the same century we have frequent mention of the co}i- sistentes in the Second Canonical Epistle of S. Basil. They are then spoken of as "abstaining from the oblation," until admitted " to the com- munion of the good," i.e. the Eucharist;— as " standing with the faithful, but not partaking in the oblation," until their term had expired, but after that " partaking of the Sacraments ^" There is no escape from the conclusion to which this language drives us. It proves incontestably, that in the mind of the early Church offering included partaking.^ and partaking implied offering, — and, consequently, that the " separation of the sacrifice from the Sacrament," for which some now contend, was utterly unknown to it. If, however, the subject should be thought by any to require further elucidation, it may be found in the commentaries of the Greek canonists. Ac- cording to Zonaras, " to communicate without oblation" is "to pray with the faithful without being allowed to receive the Sacraments'." Alexius Aristenus says that it is "to communicate with the faithful in the prayers to the completion of * Can. xi. Pand. torn. i. p. 71. ' Ep. ad Amphil. can. Ivi.; torn. ii. p. 775. ' In can. Nic. xi. Pand. torn. i. p. 72. d2 36 NONE WERE SUPPOSED CAPABLE CHAP. I. the mystic rite, but without having a part in the SECT. V. , , . 1 Tk 1 1-1 ' — V 'Divine reception^;" and Balsamon explains that "to be admitted without oblation" is to be "taken into communion with the Church without being thought worthy of the Divine Sacrament," or as he also expresses it, " of the Divine reception ^" But granting, it may perhaps be said, that it has been a great mistake to plead the presence of the consistentes as a proof that we can "join in the sacrifice without going on to the Sacrament," is it not possible that the early Church, in using the language that has been adduced, and the Greek canonists in explaining it, may have been contemplating the case of the consistentes only, and thus intended to express a fact with regard to them, rather than a principle ? Is it not possible that, notwithstanding that language, they might after all have supposed that in the very different case of persons who had not been excommunicated, but felt reluctant to receive from want of special preparation, or other such cause, there could per- haps be an acceptable offering without reception ? Such a conjecture would, I believe, be fully an- swered by what has been said in Section IV. ; but as the case suggested did actually occur, it will be well to adduce such notices of it as are to be met with in early writers, and to consider which way their testimony leans. We may, then, reply fur- 2 In can. Ancyr. Ibid. p. 377. ^ In can. Nic. x. Ibid. p. 72. OF OFFERING WITHOUT PARTAIUNG. 37 ther, that for five centuries or more it was only chap. i. SKCT, V. in the Church of Alexandria, so far as I can learn, ' — . — ' that persons not under penance were encouraged, or permitted without the imputation of irregu- larity, to be present to the end without receiving. The language, however, of those from whom we have the knowledge of this exception affords no sanction to the hypothesis that has been now stated. S. Clement, as we have already seen, merely says that some of the clergy " after dividing the Eucharist" left it to the conscience of each person present whether he would receive or not \ Towards the end of the fourth century, Timothy I., a Patriarch of the same Church, in reply to a question respecting the lawfulness of celebrating in the presence of heretics, says : — " In the Divine oblation, the Deacon, before the kiss of peace, cries out, ' Ye that are not communicants walk out.' They ought not to be present then, unless they promise to repent ^" The custom for some to remain who did not partake is clearly implied in the question, and tacitly allowed in the answer. If none had been permitted to remain, the Bishop would certainly have said that not heretics only, but all who did not partake must be excluded. A third notice of the custom, belonging probably to the middle of the fifth century, is a distinct re- ■» Strom, i, p. 271. See p. 14. '" Pandect. Bever. torn. ii. p. 1G7. SECT. V. 38 EUSEBIUS OF ALEXANDRIA. CHAP. I. commendation of it. It proceeds from a Bishop, always described as Eusebius the Alexandrian, though over what Church he presided is not known : — " If conscience condemns thee of wicked and flagitious actions, decline the Communion un- til thou hast corrected it through repentance ; but stay during the prayer, and leave not the Church until dismissed^." "Finish thy prayer, on no ac- count quitting before the dismission." Not one of these writers makes the least mention of " offering without partaking," and yet from the last it seemed absolutely required, if he had held that such a thing was possible. Surely, if he had been of the opinion of Mr. Wilberforce, he would have said : — " If you are unfit to communicate, at least do not fail to offer; the sacrifice is of avail even to those who do not partake of the victim." But he says nothing of the kind, and his silence is a clear proof that, though he believed a person not communicating would be benefited by "finishing his prayer," he did not believe, any more than S. Chrysostom, that he could by remaining obtain a special interest in the Churches commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ. The question probably never occurred to Eusebius, but it did happen to the great Father whom I have named to speak fi De Die Dom. § ii.; in Gallaiul. torn. viii. p. 252. The first clause in the original runs thus: — Et U KaraKpivu at rb ffvveiSbg iv Troviipolg K-ai ctTOTTOiQ ipyoig, ti)v jU£f KoiViovlav Trapairijaai, ju«X("f "-V ^lopQuyayg kavTt)v ha utTai'oiag, S. CHEYSOSTOM. 39 separately, in a passage of rapid thought, of a chap. i. worthiness of the reception and a worthiness of ' — v — the sacrifice, and his language shows that he believed one who was not fit to partake must also be unfit to offer : — " Art thou not worthy of the sacrifice nor of the participation ? " He is ad- dressing persons who wished to stay without re- ceiving, and he assumes that, if they had their wish, the sacrifice would profit them as little as the participation. His conclusion is that they ought not to stay at all : — " If so, then neither art thou of the prayer," i. e, of the prayers used at the celebration ^ It is evident, then, that, when the case before us, of a person in full communion with the Church declining to receive though present, was actually brought under the consideration of the early Fathers, they had no disposition to regard him as "joining in the sacrifice." Some few thought his attendance a proper act of devotion ; 7 Horn. iii. in Ep. ad Eph. c. i.; torn, xi. p. 26. "He does not mean that prayer in general requires the same preparation that the Commmiion does, or that every one who may be properly admitted to the former may be as properly admitted to the latter also But w hat Chrysostom meant was, that it was very absurd and even down- right impudent for a man to claim a right to stand by, all the while that the Communion was administered, and to join in those most sacred and mystical prayers and hymns which were proper to it, and at the same time to pretend that he was not worthy of it ; for if he really was not worthy to receive, he was not worthy to be present during that holy solemnity, or to bear a pai't in the prayers which pe- culiarly belonged to it." Waterland's Review, c. xiv.; vol. iv. p. 790. 40 MORTAL SIN CONSIDERED CHAP. 7. others condemned it strongly; but they agreed in SECT. V. , , . ' — V — ' this, that they supposed him to remain to pray^ and not to offer. The same thing might be inferred, a fortiori., from an early rule which forbade the clergy to receive offerings for the use of the holy table from persons who did not intend to partake of them at it ^ They were not even allowed to supply the elements, and how can it be imagined that they were believed by those who thus stigmatized them to be able, if present in church, to "join in the sacrifice" for which the elements were provided? It is quite certain, then, that in the early Church there could be no inducement to permit the pre- sence of a non-communicant from the existence of any belief that he could offer without partaking, or, as Mr. Wilberforce expresses it, that he could derive benefit from "joining in the sacrifice with- out going on to the Sacrament." SECT. VI. YI. I next proceed to show that the opinions, which prevailed generally for several centuries re- specting fitness for the reception of the Sacrament, were not such as would in themselves have induced those who held them to recommend persons to be present without partaking. Some of them might have permitted or even urged it upon other grounds ; but they could not have done so for the chief reason that we hear alleged as a motive for " Cone. Illiber. circ. A,D, 305, can, xxviii. Labb. toin. i. col. 973. THE ONLY BAR TO COMMUNION. 41 encouraging the practice among ourselves; viz. chap. i. ■,,,., . . SECT. VI. tnat an habitual communicant may sometimes, ^ — •, — - though free from great sin, esteem himself unfit to communicate, and yet desire to be present at the celebration. The common persuasion seems to have been that all who were not guilty of deadly sin not only might communicate, but ought by all means to do so, whenever they were able, infirmities notwith- standing, or rather as a remedy against them. In other words, all who were not excommunicated, or deserving of excommunication, were held bound to receive constantly ; i. e. as often as the rite was administered, unless kept away from the assem- blies of the faithful by sickness, necessary busi- ness, or other lawful cause. Thus Origen sup- poses those whom he warns not to partake to have sinned grievously and to be in danger of perdi- tion : — " When thy soul is sick and oppressed by the maladies of thy sins, art thou at ease, dost thou care nought for Gehenna, and despise and mock the punishment of the eternal fire ? Dost thou esteem lightly the judgment of God, and despise the warning of the Church ? Art thou not afraid to partake of the Body of Christ, approaching the Eucharist as if thou wert clean and pure, as if there were nothing unworthy in thee, and in all these things dost thou think that thou cscapest 42 SS. CYPRIAN, CHRYSOSTOM, AUGUSTINE. CHAP. I. the judgment of God"?" Cyprian, commentinor SECT. VI ^ — ^ — '- on the Lord's Prayer : — " We daily ask for this bread to be given to us, lest we, who are in Christ, and receive the Eucharist daily for the food of salvation, should by the commission of some more grievous sin (while, being kept away and not communicating, we are forbidden the bread of heaven,) be separated from the body of Christ'." S. Chrysostom: — "Let no one be there who is insincere, no one who is laden with iniquity, no one who has poison in his mind, lest he partake to condemnation. I do not say this to frighten you, but to make you safe. . . . Let no one there- fore have wicked thoughts within; but let us purify our mind; for we are approaching a pure sacrifice. Let us make our soul holy; for this may he done even in one day. How and by what means ? If thou hast aught against thine enemy, put away wrath; heal the wound; make an end of the enmity, that thou mayest receive healing from the Table-." S.Augustine: — "Take care then, brethren ; eat the heavenly bread spiritually : take innocence to the altar with you. Though your sins be of daily commission, in any wise let them 9 Horn. ii. in Ps. xxxvii. § 6. Opp. torn. ii. p. 688. Par. 1733. 1 De Orat. Dom. Tract, p. 147. The passage is quoted by S. Au- gustine c. Epp. Pelag. 1. iv. § 25; torn. x. col. 894: and De Don. Per- sev. § vii. ; col. "1398 ; and by many other early writers. * Horn. i. in Prod. Jud. ; torn. ii. pp. 453, 454. THE AUTHOR DE SACRAIVIENTIS. 43 iiot he mortal. Before you approach to the altar chap. i. attend to that which you say : — ' Forgive us our ^ — ^^ — ^ debts, as we forgive our debtors.' Forgive: it shall be forgiven thee. Approach without fear : it is bread, not poison ^" For mortal sins, i. e. " for sins of which the Apostle says, They who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of hea- ven," he prescribed abstinence, but as a recognized part of public penance, to which he advises the secret sinner to submit: — "Let such a sentence proceed from his own mind, that he judge himself unworthy to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, that he who fears to be separated from the kingdom of heaven by the last sentence of the supreme Judge may for a time be separated by ecclesiastical discipline from the sacrament of the heavenly bread ^" Again : — " We may not prohi- bit any one from communion (although this pro- hibition is not yet for death, but for remedy), unless they have either confessed of their own accord, or been accused and convicted in some court, either secular, or ecclesiastical ^" The author of the work on the Sacraments, formerly ascribed to S. Ambrose : — " Receive daily that which may daily profit thee. So live that thou mayest daily deserve to receive. He who does not •' Tract, in Job. Ev. xxvi. § 11 ; torn. iii. P. ii. col. 1983. ^ Serin, cccli. cle Util. Poenil. § 7; toin. v. P. ii. col. 2011. ' Ibid. § 10 ; col. 2015. 44 EUSEBIUS ALEX., GENNAD. MASSIL., CHAP. 1. deserve to receive daily ^ does not deserve to receive S ECT V I ^ — :■ — ' at the year''s end, . . . Thou hearest, then, that so often as the sacrifice is offered, the death of the Lord, the resurrection of the Lord, the lifting up of the Lord, and remission of sins are signified, — and dost thou not take daily that bread of life ? — He who has a wound seeks medicine. There is a wound, for we are under sin. The heavenly and venerable sacrament is the medicine ^" Euse- bius of Alexandria, who seems to have written in the fifth century, has been already cited'': — "If thou hast a pure conscience, draw near and partake of the Body and Blood. But if thy conscience con- demn thee of wicked and flagitious actions, de- cline the communion till thou hast corrected it through repentance ;" i. e. through penance. Gen- ** De Saci-arri. 1. v. c. iv. ; inter 0pp. Ambr. torn, v. p. 239. ' See p. 38. The words rendered wicked and flagitious are 7rovr]poTg Kai aroiroiQ. They are employed together by S. Paul (2 Thess. iii. 2) to describe men without faith, who opposed him and the Gospel. The class of crimes to which aroTrote applies may be inferred from S. Polycarp (ad Philipp, c. v. PP. Apostol. tom. ii. p. 476. Oxon. 1838): — OiVt TTopvoi, ovTt /jLaXoKoi, ovre apatvoKolrai, ^affiXtiav Qiov KXrjpovo- fiijcTovaiv (1 Cor. vi. 9), cure ol TroiovvTec rd, aroTva; where Dr. Jacobson quotes Hesych. "Atottu' Trovrjpa, aivxpa. I mention this because I am told that much reliance is placed on this passage of Eusebius, as a witness to the views put forth by Mr. Wilberforce ; — as if he sanctioned abstinence from communion for less than deadly/ sin. If those who quote him in this sense have really considered his language, they must, apparently, suppose him to be dealing with the two sevei-al cases of those guilty of irovitpa, and those guilty of UTOTra, and under- stand by droira mere follies, irregidarities, or minor inconsistencies, — a meaning which it evidently does not bear. ISIDORE, EABANUS, STRABO^ 45 nadius of Marseilles, A. d. 495:— "A daily recep- chap, i- tion of the Eucharist I neither praise nor blame. > . Nevertheless, I advise and exhort to communion every Lord's day; provided the mind be free from sinful affection; for I say that one who has still the will to sin is rather hurt than cleansed by receiving the Eucharist. Therefore, though a man have remorse for sin, if his will is not to sm for the future, let him, when about to communi- cate, make amends by tears and prayers, and trust- ing in the mercy of the Lord, who is wont to par- don sin on a devout confession, let him come to the Eucharist free from fear and anxiety ^" Isidore of Seville, more than a century later:— " He that eateth unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself; for this is to receive unwor- thily, if one receive at a time when he ought to be doing penance. But if his sins are not so great that he is deemed worthy of excommunication, he ought not to cut himself off from the medicine of Christ's Body He who has now ceased to sin should not forbear to communicate ^" The words of Isidore are adopted by Rabanus Maurus ', Arch- bishop of Mayence in the ninth century. Wa- lafridus Strabo, a contemporary of Eabanus, says 8 De Dogm. Eccl. c. liii. ; in the collection of Ciglieri, torn. ii. p. 163. Flor. 1791. 9 De Eccl. Off. 1. i. c. 18; in Hittorp. p. 7. 1 De Instit. Cler. 1. i. c. 32. Hittoip. p. 327. 46 CONC. TURON III., ZONA HAS. to the same effect : — " When more grievous stains of mind or body do not stand in the way, let us seek without intermission the Bread and the Blood of the Lord, without which we cannot live; and let us take them rather with a desire of His pro- tection, than a presumption of our own purity ^" The third Council of Tours, in the same century, directs that " laymen shall communicate thrice in the year at least, if not oftener, unless prevented by any greater crimes ^" Much later still, the Greek Canonist Zonaras, commenting on the decree of Antioch, a. d. 341, by which persons were condemned who came to Church, but "turned away from the holy reception of the Eucharist in a disorderly manner," says that it was directed ag-ainst those who shrunk from receivinof " out of reverence, it might be, and, as it were, from humility." His reason is that any worse feeling would deserve a greater punishment than that awarded *. It is quite clear from the above extracts that, for a long period, only some " greater crime," for which a public penance was thought the proper remedy, or at the most a wilful persistence in less serious sin, was allowed as a sufficient reason for 2 De Reb, Eccl. c. xx. Hittorp. p. 405. 3 Cone. Turon. a.d. 813, can. i. Labb. torn. vii. col. 1269. Grat. P. iii. Dist. ii. can. xvi. Et si 7ionfrequentius. * In can. Antioch. ii. Pand. torn. i. p. 432. SECT. VI. WHO BOUND TO RECEIVE. 47 abstaining from the Table of the Lord. There ciiAr. i. was no difference in this respect between Eusebius, who advised the conscience-stricken sinner to remain without partaking, and S. Chrysostom, who bade him "not be present." All who be- lieved themselves penitent and free from sinful af- fection were expressly told that they ought to com- municate. Writers who held such language as this might have allowed the plea of a mind pre- occupied by grief, or by necessary business, as an excuse for occasional absence from Church, espe- cially when (as in the case which we have seen considered by S. Augustine) there was a daily administration of the Sacrament; but they could not have understood, much less would they have undertaken to justify, the conduct of one who, though free from gross sin, and actually present and able to give a devout attention ^ to every part of the holy office, should, notwithstanding, decline to join in that which is its chief and crowning act. Such persons they declared bound to re- ^ This is supposed by Mr. Wilberforce : — "The greatest benefit which, according to the ancient writers {what ancient writers ?), is attained by individuals through participation in the Eucharistic sacri- fice, is the acceptableness which it confers upon their prayers. Not only are their emotions more intense, but their petitions are more effi- cacious. ... It is a foretaste of the beatific vision," &c., p. 413. Similarly the anonymous writer of " The Right of All the Baptized to be Present," &c., pleading for the admission of " others than actual communicants," speaks of "the devout soul gazing thereby at Christ, whom the sacred elements represent, and reminding itself of the Body pierced and the Blood shed on Calvary." Pref. p. 3. SECT. VI. 48 DECISION OF S. CHRYSOSTOM CHAP. I. ceive. The only one ^ who advises the presence of non-communicants does not contemplate their case ; but assumes that none will be non-communi- cants, who are not great sinners. It is obvious, however, that many who would not confess them- selves such might yet desire at times to avoid communicating; and it would soon be a question how to treat them. At Alexandria they would, of course, have been permitted to remain, but sub- ject to the suspicion of grievous sin. S. Chrysos- tom told them that only penitents were non-com- municants, and that if they did not receive, they ought to leave the Church with the penitents : — " Thou hearest the herald (z. e. the deacon) stand- ing and saying, 'As many as are in penitence, all depart.' As many as do not partake are in penitence. If thou art one of those that are in penitence, thou oughtest not to partake; for he that partakes not is one of those who are in pe- nitence. Why then does he say, ' Depart ye that are not qualified to pray,' whilst thou hast the effrontery to stand still ? But no ! Thou art not of that number. Thou art of the number of those who are qualified to partake^ and yet art indif- ferent about it, and regardest the matter as no- thing. . . . Thou hast sung the hymn (i^o(?/, Holy^ Sfc.) with the rest. Thou hast declared thyself to be of the number of them that are worthy by not * Euseb. Alex. u. s. See note ', p. 44. AND OF THE ANTE-NICENE CHURCH. 49 departing with them that are unworthy. Why chap. i. SKCT. VI. stay, and yet not partake of the Table ? — ' I am — ->/ — unworthy,' thou wilt say. Then art thou also as unfit for that communion thou hast had in the prayers," i. e. the prayers proper to the Eucharist ^ VII. The disorder censured by S. Chrysostom sect. vn. had called for the authoritative interference of the Church a full century, it is most probable, before he wrote ; for there are two canons in the Ante- Nicene, or Pseudo-Apostolical code, which bear directly on it. They will be found, as might be expected, in strict accordance with those Scrip- tural views which we have seen prevailing through several centuries with regard both to the nature of the Sacrament and fitness for its reception. The eighth directed that any clergyman who did not communicate when the Sacrament was adminis- tered, should be " suspended V' unless he could show "reasonable" cause for the omission ^ The ninth runs thus : — " All the faithful who come in and hear the Scriptures, but do not remain at the <■ Honi. iii. in Ep. ad Eph. ; torn. xi. pp. 26, 27. I use here tlie Oxf. Tv. 1845, pp. 132—134. See note ?, p. 39. ** a0opt$lflr0w. In the case of a layman this cKpopiofibe was a tem- porary abstention from the Euchai-ist; of a clergyman, suspension from the exercise of his functions. See Morinus de Poenit. 1. iv. c. iii. ; p. 172. Antv. 1682. Laymen so punished neither offered, nor partook : — " Peccata leviora sola oblationis offerendce et partici- pandae abstentione (sen cKpopiafii^) puniebant." Ibid. c. iii. § 1. ; p. 170. * Pandect. Bevereg. torn. i. p. 5. E 50 THE NINTH APOSTOLICAL CANON. prayer, and the holy reception, must be suspended, as bringing disorder into the Church'." These canons would be explained to those for whose guidance they were intended by the traditional sentiment and custom of the cotemporary Church ; but there is an ambiguity in the latter of them which presents a difficulty to those who are with- out that assistance. To "remain at the recep- tion," does not necessarily mean to remain for it, and from this it has been argued that the canon merely obliged all who came to the service to stay to the end, whether they communicated or not. It therefore becomes our duty to inquire how it was understood by the Church itself. The ear- liest comment on its meaning is found in the second canon of the Council of Antioch, a.d. 341, the decrees of which form part of " The Code of the Universal Church." By this it was provided that " all who entered the Church and heard the sacred Scriptures, but did not communicate with the people in prayer, or turned away from the holy reception of the Eucharist in a disorderly manner, ^ Ibid. p. 6. Mr. Wilberforce, p. 408, says that " this is quoted by Bingham as though it ordered all who were present to receive daily." I have searched carefully, but cannot find that Bingham draws from it any inference as to a daily reception. Of course those who were present daily would receive daily ; but then they were at liberty to stay away if they thought proper. Thus Espencseus, though affirming with Mr. Wilberforce that those present were not obliged to com- municate, affirms equally that neither were they compelled to be present. De Publ. et Priv. Miss. Opp. p. 1226. Par. 1619. THE SECOND ANTIOCHENE. 51 should be cast out of the Church ^" It seems chap. i. SECT. VI r. probable, from the use of the particle or, that at ' — v — ' this period, some were accustomed to stay, if not to the end, yet through some material part of the service, without partaking; whereas the earlier canon, in condemning those who did not remain at the prayer and the reception, seems to imply that the custom then was to take part in both, or in neither \ The later decree has also been sup- posed by some to have been directed principally against the Quarto-decimans *, whose irregularity in the observance of Easter is condemned in the - Pand. Bev. torn. i. p. 431. 3 By the prayer I of course understand the Eucharistic Office, called "the prayer of the faithful." There was a preliminary service, at which the catechumens, penitents, and even the heathen were pi'esent, and in this they might have joined, though they did not " communicate with the people in prayer." See note *, p. 33. * So Schelstrate De Cone. Antioch. Dissert, iv. Can. ii. Schol. § 6, p. 179 (Antv. 1681), who is followed by Fleury, Hist. Eccl. 1. xii. 0. xii.; by Waterland, Review, c. xiv. ; vol. iv. p. 78G; &c. This, how- ever, is little more than conjecture ; though Mr. Wilberforce (p. 410) speaks of it as if it were a matter of perfect certainty: — "This Antiochene canon is not the expression of a general principle, or designed to guard against any separation of the sacrifice from the Sacrament, but it is merely a local injunction, founded on the pre- valence of a particular heresy." It is possible that it had regard, in the first instance, to a custom of those who followed a particular heresy ; but Mr. Wilberforce has no more right to assert it in this positive manner than he would have to affirm the contrary. I must say too that it is, at least, singular to stigmatize this canon as " merely a local injimction," Whether it primarily concerned the Quarto- decimans or not, it was of universal application, and was, in truth, adopted by the whole Church. Nor was it very necessary for Mr. Wilberforce to assure us that it was not " designed to guard against E 2 52 MEANING OF THE CANONS. canon which immediately precedes it. It is pro- bable too that the offence, of which the Fathers of Antioch complain, did not consist in simply turn- ing away from the Sacrament. Perhaps they do not mean that such a proceeding was in itself dis- orderly ; but that those whom they censure did it " in a disorderly manner," as if in contempt of the Church, or of the officiating clergy ; — for it is not unlikely that at this time, as we know to have been the case somewhat later, those who did not wish to communicate might be at liberty to leave the Church before the office began, provided they did so in a quiet and orderly manner. These considerations, however, do not affect our point; and I only refer to them, because a different re- presentation has been made by Mr. Wilberforce and others. The part of the canon with which we are concerned is little more than a repetition of the Ante-Nicene rule, and therefore we are quite warranted in interpreting the ambiguous clause in that by the more clear language of the former. But " to turn away from the reception" must mean to decline to receive, whether the person so doing remained in the Church or not. The earlier canon, therefore, as explained by the later, obliged all who entered the Church, not only to remain to the end, but to communicate. any separation of the sacrifice from the Sacrament," — an impossible piece of caution, as no such notion had yet been broached. CONSTANT ATTENDANCE NOT ENFORCED. 53 If it should be said that, in this case, the lay- chap. i. SECT. VII. man was more hardly treated than the clergyman, "^ — v — ' as the latter was allowed to plead a "reasonable" excuse for not receiving^, the answer is very ob- vious. The clergy were obliged to be present at every service, while a layman who did not intend to communicate had the alternative of staying away. The laity were never required by canon to attend the week-day services, and the fear of having a wrong construction put on their absence would be removed, as soon as the Church declared that she preferred it to attendance without recep- tion. Nor was it until the Council of Elvira, in or about the year 305, that a penalty was any where attached to their non-attendance on the Sunday, and, as that only inflicted suspension when the offence was repeated on three successive Sundays ^, there could have been no practical hard- ship in their being required to communicate when- ever present even then. It should be remembered * Sudden illness or excitement of any kind are suggested as reason- able excuses for a priest not communicating by the 11th Council of Toledo, A. D. G75 : — " Cavendum ne horis illis atque teinporibus qui- bus Domino psallitur vel sacrificatur, unicuique Divinis singulariter officiis insistenti perniciosa passio vel corporis quaslibet invalitudo occurrat." To obviate such a risk, the Council ordered that, where circumstances permitted it, the officiating priest should always be attended by another, who could take his place, if he were obliged to break off from any such cause, c. xiv. Labb. tom. vi. col. 553. * Can. xxi. Labb. tom. i. col. 973. Moreover, it only affected those who lived in towns, and therefore had a church at hand. This canon is mentioned by Hosius when proposing the eleventh canon of Sardica, a. d. 347; tom. ii. col. 637. SECT. VII. 54 THE APOSTOLICAL CANON, HOW CHAP. I. also that by the fourth century, if not before, there was at least one public service every day in city Churches, and perhaps elsewhere, at which the holy Eucharist was not administered ^ ; so that when the primitive fervour had abated, and the majority now shrank from a very frequent recep- tion of the Sacrament, means were provided through which they might have communion with their brethren in prayer, without giving offence by departing from them when engaged in the highest act of Christian worship. More direct evidence as to the meaning of the Apostolic canon is supplied by the Latin version of Dionysius Exiguus, which was published at the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century \ This version, says Dupin, " was approved and re- ceived by the Church of Rome, according to the testimony of Cassiodorus, and by the Church of France and other Latin Churches, according to that of Hincmarus ^" It was necessarily, therefore, 7 See Bingham, Book xiii. c. ix. sects, viii. — xiii., and the two following chapters. Mr. Freeman (Principles of Divine Service, ch. i. § ii. Oxf. 1855) maintains that such a service existed from the earliest ages. His reasons, however, do not appear conclusive. It must be supposed, of course, that Christian friends and neighbours would from the first often meet to read the Scriptures and sing psalms and hymns together ; but I can see no trace during the first three centuries of any service provided bj' authority, and conducted by the Bishop or presbyter in the usual place of common worship, at which the holy Eucharist was not celebrated. ^ See Bevereg. Annot. in Cann. App., p. 1. Pand. torn. ii. 8 Nouv. Biblioth. Cent, vi. Dionys. Exig. Engl. Tr. vol. i. p. 549. Dubl. 1723. The readers of Mr. Wilberforce are likely to have a very inadequate notion of the authority of this version. He says : — INTERPRETED IN THE WEST. 55 in accordance with the tradition, if not altogether chap. i. SECT. VII. with the practice, of the Western Church from ' — — ' the sixth century downwards. Dionysius, more- over, was thoroughly versed in the Greek writers ', and could not fail to know how the ambiguous clause in question was understood throughout the East. His testimony, therefore, is virtually the testimony of the whole Church. The following is his rendering of the canon : — " It is meet that all the faithful, who come into Church, and hear the Scriptures, but do not persevere in prayer, no7' receive the holy communion^ be deprived of com- munion, as bringing disorder into the Church ^" Later translators, or editors, bore witness to the same tradition, though by so doing they con- demned the existing practice of the Church. In a manual of Church law compiled by Cresconius, an African Bishop of the ninth century, the ver- sion of Dionysius is given without the slightest alteration ^ The translation, or rather para- phrase of Regino, a.d. 892, condemns those who " enter the Church on the Lord's day, and hear the Scriptures of the Apostles, and the Gospel, " The conclusion which Bingham derives from this canon, and which he founds upon the Latin version of Dionysius Exiguus, is not borne out by the Greek original." P. 409. Was Mr. Wilberforce not aware that the version of Dionysius, whether exact or not, was the authoritative version of the Western Church? ^ See Dupin, u. s. » Codex Cann. Eccl. p. 30. Lut. Par. 1G28. ^ Breviar. Canon, c. xii. 0pp. Venant. Fortun. et Alior. col. 841. Par. 1850. 56 THE APOSTOLICAL CANON, HOW CHAP. I. |)ut do not persevere in prayer until the mass is SECT. VII. ^ . ' — — ' completed, nor receive the holy communion ^." In Burchard, a.d. 996^, and Ivo, 1092^, the canon speaks of those who "meet at Church on the sacred festivals," but the disputed clause is given in the very words employed by Dionysius and Regino. It is similarly expressed in Gratian, a.d. 1131 ^ From the Latin Canonists, let us now turn to the Greek. By Zonaras, who flourished at the beginning of the twelfth century, we are told that the ninth Apostolical canon " requires all, during the performance of the holy sacrifice, to persevere to the end in prayer, and the holy reception ; — for the laity," he adds, " were then required to co7n- municate constantly ^" Balsamon, nearly a cen- * De Discipl. Eccl. 1. i. c. cxciii. sig. g 2. HelmEest. 1659. « Decret. 1. ii. c. Ixvii. fol. 58, fa. 2. Par. 1549. 6 Decret. P. vi. c. 163. 0pp. P. i. p. 211. Par. 1647. C. 164 is another version which omits the words "on the sacred festivals." ^ P. iii. De Consecr. Dist. i. c. Ixii. Omnes fideles. ^ Comment, in Cann., p. 6. Par. 1618. Pand. Bever. torn. i. p. 6. Johnson (Vade Mecum, P. ii. p. 9. Ed. 3) says that both Balsamon and Zonaras are willing to make this canon speak the sense of their own degenerate age, viz. " that it was sufficient for men to stay in the Chmxh, not necessary to partake of the communion." So in a letter ascribed to the late Dr. Mill (confessedly the result of " no very ex- tensive search "), which was published in No. 7 of "Tracts on Chris- tian Unity :" — " With respect to the laity or such clergy as might be in the congregation, the practice, if they did not communicate, was rather to stay throughout the celebration to the end than to introduce disorder (ara^iav) into the congregation, and show aversion from the communion by retii'ing before. So Balsamon and Zonaras interpret the 9th Apostolical canon as well as . . . the 2nd of the Council of Antioch," p. 2. We shall see presently how far this is true of Bal- samon. Meanwhile, let me say that I can find no evidence whatever for the representation as it regards Zonaras. SECT. VII. EXPLAINED BY THE GREEK CANONISTS. 57 tury later, says : — " The decree of this canon is chap. i. very severe; for it suspends those who come to Church but do not stay to the end, and do not communicate. But other canons decree similarly that all be prepared and fit to receive^ and sus- pends those who do not receive for three Lord's days ^." Balsamon's testimony to the received interpretation of the canon is the more valuable from his avowed dislike of it. He would fain have brought the stricter rules of the Ante-Nicene Church into accordance with the laxer practice of his own day. Thus elsewhere he explains the Apostolical canon by the Antiochene, insisting that it only condemned those who abstained " in a disorderly manner," i. e. as he chose to understand it, " those who left the Church in a disorderly way from feelings of contempt and arrogance ' ." In the same spirit he tells us that some applied the eighth Apostolical canon to Bishops and priests only, and to such deacons as were actually en- gaged in the celebration, but that " some thought that every person in holy orders, who did not partake, was suspended by the canon;" which, however, he considers, "very burdensome ^" In his answer to some questions on various matters of ritual put to him by Mark II. of Alexandria, ^ Pandect. Bev. tom. i. p. 6. * Comment, in can. Antioch. ii. Paud. tom. i. p. 431. - Pand. tom. i. p. 5. 58 NATUEE AND OEIGIN he goes still further, and adopts a similar relax- ation of the ninth canon : — " Though some desire, by means of this canon, to oblige those who come to Church, to receive the Divine Sacraments even against their will, yet we do not interpret the canon thus ; for we decide that the faithful are to stay in Church to the end of the Divine sacrifice, and the concluding prayer of the celebrant, and the rece-ption of the Antidoron ; and we hold the threat of the canon over those who fail to do this ; but we do not force them to communicate ^" It must not be supposed, however, that Balsamon varied in his opinion of the literal meaning, or ancient interpretation, of the canon. He is merely telling his correspondent how he enforced the dis- cipline of his age by an appeal to the early rule, without denying that it had been framed to guard a different practice. I infer this from what he says elsewhere of the origin of the Antidoron. This was 3 Resp. xvi. ad Marc. Alex, in Jure Grseco-Rom, 1. v. p. 371. Francof. 1596. Another Greek canonist of unknown age and name, whose gloss is added in the MSS. to that of Balsamon, cuts the knot with more decision : — " That we all, the lay faithful and those in orders who do not handle the holy things, ought to partake daily of the Sacraments, or if not, to be suspended, is neither the sense of the canon, nor is it a thing possible." Pand. tom. i. p. 6. He therefore says openly that the eighth and ninth Apostolical canons were only intended to oblige all who came to Church " to stay until the holy Communion had been received by the worthy." His stumbling-block was the false assumption that those canons contemplated a daily service (including Communion), at which all were obliged to be present. OF THE ANTIDORON. 59 a piece of bread, . blessed with a special prayer, chap, i, and given as a substitute for the Sacrament to " — [. — ^ those who did not communicate. "Its distribu- tion," he says, "was thought of, as it seems, on account of the threat in the eighth and ninth Apos- tolical canon, and the second Antiochene; so that even they who are not able to partake of the unde- filed mysteries stay of necessity until the prayer and the dismissal, to receive the blessing of the conse- crated piece from the hand of the oificiating priest *." It appears evident from this that Balsa- mon did not mean to deny the traditional inter- pretation of the ambiguous clause in the ninth Apostolical canon. But he thought it "very severe and burdensome," and was therefore led to sanction a new application of the old rule. In other words, he consented to accept a reception of the Antido7'on^ as a sufficient observance of the law, from those who could not be persuaded to communicate. This custom of giving the Antidoron after the celebration, to those who did not communicate, may be traced with certainty as high as the ninth century ^ At that period, then, the primi- ■* Pandect, torn. i. p. 431. ^ I believe this practice, i. e. the use of bread blessed by the priest as a substitute for the Sacrament, to have been introduced later than is generally supposed. The earliest certain notice of the Antidoron, if I mistake not, is by Hincmar, in some Capitula which he drew up for the direction of his clergy, a. d. 852, cap. vi. 0pp. torn. i. p. 711. SECT. Vlll. CO MOTIVE OF THE ANTIDOEON. CHAP. I. tive interpretation of the Apostolical canon must SECT. VU. M 1 /» 1 -r> 1 ' — V — ' have still generally prevailed ; for, unless Balsamon is mistaken as to the motive of the rite, it was, to speak plainly, only an acted subterfuge, a Jesui- tical expedient, by which men sought to satisfy their consciences, while they were disobeying what they confessed to be the rule and order of the Church. VIII. It has been already shown that the me- diseval canonists of the Latin Church exhibited the ancient rule in their collections in such a form as to put the sense in which they understood it Par. 1645. Another mention of it, belonging to the same period, occui's in one of the canons ascribed to a Council of Nantes, and published by Labbe and Mansi among those of the end of the ninth century. The canon in which it is found (No. ix. Labb. torn. ix. col. 470) is given by Regino, 892, as ex Concilio Nannetensi (1. i. c. ccexxix.); but they are clearly only a compilation from various sources. See Dupin, Cent. ix. ch. xi.; vol. ii. p. 119. Nantes was in ruins at this time. Pagi in Mansi, torn. xi. col. 61, St. Augustine is often quoted as alluding to the practice (De Pecc. Mer. et Rem. 1. ii. § 42) ; but his'allusion is to the salt given to catechumens. See Bona, Rer. Liturg. 1. ii. c. xix. § vii. ; p. 371. Other early authorities frequently cited as witnessing to it are speaking either of the custom of giving or sending pieces of bread that had been blessed (at one period of that which had been consecrated in the Eucharist) as a token of com- munion and Christian love {e.g. Cone. Laodic. cann. xiv. xxxii. : Greg. Naz. Orat. xix. : August, ad Alyp. Ep. xxv. : Paulin. ad August. Ep. xxxi. inter epp. Aug. : Greg. Turon, Hist. Franc. 1. vi. c. v.; 1. viii. c. ii. : Cone. Aquisgr. can. Ixviii. [in Capitul. Reg. Franc, tom. i. col. 587] : &c.), or of the distribution among the clergy and others of the bread and wine which had been oflered for the use of the Sacrament, but not consecrated ; to which see reference in Socrat. Hist. Eccles. 1. vii. c. xii. : Theophil. Alex. can. vii. (in Bever. Pandect, tom. ii. p. 172) : &c. For an account of the strange development of this rite among the later Orientals, see Covel's Greek Church, ch. iii. p. 88. Camb, 1722. SECT. VIH. MEDIAEVAL TESTIMONY. 61 beyond the question of a doubt. We shall now see chap. t. that the primitive practice was equally well known to a wide range of ritualists and other writers in the West during the same lengthened period. Thus in " Micrologus," a work on ritual, belonging to an uncertain author of the eleventh century, we are told that "according to the ancient Fathers, only those who communicated were wont to be present at the Divine mysteries; whence also it arose, that before the oblation, the catechumens and penitents, — to wit, those who had not yet pre- pared themselves to communicate, were ordered to go out. Which is also intimated in the form of celebrating the Sacrament, in which the priest prays not for his own offering and communion alone, but for those of others, — and above all in the prayer after communion he seems to pray only for persons communicating ^" " ' This at least,' says the anonymous author of Tours in his MS. Speculum, 'ought not to be unknown, that every day of old, in the primitive Church, those who were present at the canon of the mass were wont to communicate.' ... In much the same manner speaks John Beleth in his Book of Divine Offices, c. 120 : — ' In the primitive Church it was ordered that every day the Body of the Lord should be received ;' . . . in which words," remarks Martene, " he asserts . . . that all the faithful assisting at 6 De Eccles. Observ. c. li. Hittorp. p 460. 62 MEDIEVAL TESTIMONY TO THE CHAP. I. the mass were daily partakers of the Body and SECT. vrii. '' ^ •' ^ — ^ ' Blood of the Lord ^" " In the first Church," says Peter of Blois, Archdeacon of Bath, 1160, "as many as were present at the consecration of the Eucharist used to communicate in the same ^" So an unknown writer on the Divine Offices, from whom Cassander gives an extract : — " In the pri- mitive Church as many as were at the consecra- tion of the Eucharist communicated ^" Husfo De S. Charo, a.d. 1245: — "In the primitive Church all, as many as were at the canon of the mass, com- municated every day, and if they did not wish to communicate, they went out after the offertory; to wit, after the mass of the catechumens '." Durant, the ritualist, 1285: — "In the primitive Church all who were present at the celebration of masses used to communicate every day ; forasmuch as the Apostles all drank of the cup, the Lord saying. Drink ye all of this ^" Ealph De Eivo, Dean of Tongres, a.d. 1390, says: — "All ought to com- municate," and shows that the prayers in the office are for the communicants alone \ Aquinas: — " In the primitive Church it was ordained that the ^ De Antiq. Eccl. Ritibus, torn. i. p. 154. Antv. 1763. s Serm. xvi. 0pp. p. 354. Mogunt. 1600. « Liturgica, c, xxx. 0pp. p. 71. Par. 1616. 1 Comment in S, Luc. Ev. c. xxiv. ad id Fax vobis; Comm. torn. vi. fol. 275, fa. 2. Venet. 1600. ' Ration. Div. Off. 1, iv. c. liii. fol. 201, fa. 2. Antv. 1570. 3 De Canonum Observ. Prop, xxiii. Ferrar. pp. 673, 674. SECT. VIII. COMMUNION OF ALL PRESENT. 63 faithful should communicate daily ^" De Lyra : — chap. i. " In the primitive Church not only the ministers of the Church took this Sacrament, but the whole people daily'." And the Ecstatic Doctor : — "In the primitive Church . . . daily communion was prescribed to the faithful ^" Statements such as the last three imply, as Martene has pointed out, that only those who communicated were permitted to be present. It is similarly implied that all present received in such statements as the follow- ing from the Gemma Animse, a.d. 1130: — "It is said that formerly the priests used to receive flour from every house or family (which the Greeks observe still), and made the Lord's bread of it, which they offered for the people, and distributed to them after consecration. For every one of those who offered the flour was present at the mass, and for them it was said in the canon: — 'And of all standing around, who offer to thee this sacrifice of praise.' But after the Church increased indeed in numbers, but fell off in sanctity, it was decreed, because of the carnal, that they who could should communicate every Lord's day, or on the Lord's day, or at the chief festivals, or thrice in the year ^" 4 Summ. P. iii. Q. Ixxx. Art. x. ad 5™, p. 184, Colon. 1604. * In Luc. XV. ad id Et manducemus. Bibl. cum glossis, P. v. foL 165, fa. 2. Bas. 1501-2. ^ Dionys. Carthus. in Lib. iv. Sent. Dist. ix. Q. 1, p. 110. Colon. 1535. 7 C. 58 ; in Ferrar. p. 695. 64 CONCESSION OF CLICHTOV^US, The confession of Clichtovseus and Cochlscus, two of the most ardent opponents of the reforming movement in Germany, will show that the fact was in their time supposed to he too well esta- blished to admit of question even from those who would have rejoiced, had they been able, to think otherwise. By the former of these we are told that " the rite according to which the celebrating priest delivers the sacrament of the Eucharist to the assisting laity, as often as he celebrates the mysteries, is ancient, and agreeable to the custom of the primitive Church in which the faithful daily received the communion of the Eucharist, accord- ing to that decree of Pope Calixtus : — " The con- secration being over, let all communicate^," &c. Cochlseus says: — " The reason why masses were not so frequent formerly, nor priests so numerous, I take to be this ; — that formerly all, both priests and laity, whosoever were present at the sacrifice of the mass, when the oblation was finished, used to communicate with the sacrificing priest. . . . But now, as that custom of communicating is no longer observed among us, through the sloth and * In Can. Missje, quoted by Cassander, Liturg. c. xxx. 0pp. p. 79. The sentence ascribed here to Calixtus (from Gratian, P. iii. Dist. ii. c. X. Peracta) is often quoted in this controversy. It is taken, how- ever, from one of the Forged Decretals (Anacleti Ep. i.), and more- over, though it appears when read by itself to concern the laity, as well as clergy, the context in the Epistle from which it has been detached shows that it can refer to the ministrant clergy only ; as may be seen from a longer extract in Gratian, P. iii. U. i. c. lix. Episcopus. COCHLiEUS AND CASSANDER. 65 I. SECT. VIII. negligence, not less of the laity, than of the priests, ciiap the Holy Ghost has found out and introduced a pious compensation for this negligence in the fre- quent use of masses which the priest performs alone ^" The excellent Cassander, who lived for three or four years after the lawfulness of private masses was finally affirmed, and the practice sanctioned by the Council of Trent, will fitly close this series of testimonies : — "In this public action the custom long obtained of distributing the Eucharist of the Lord's Body and Blood to all present. For at this mystic action and consecration only the faithful, and those fit to communicate, were present, who were wont to ofi^er both bread and wine for the use of the mystery, and religiously partook of the same when consecrated; the catechumens, penitents, energumens, and the other non - communicants being dismissed by the proclamation of the deacon, and shut out '." IX. It is obvious that the course taken by the sect, ix Church of Rome at Trent, with regard to private masses, has subjected her learned members to a temptation to deceive themselves upon the point " Sacerdotii, &c. Defens. c. iii. fol. 58, fa. 2. Par. 1545. Similarly in c. i. fol. 15, fa. 2, he says that "it was permitted to no one to be jn-esent at the celebration who was not a partaker of the sacred com- munion." ^ Prsef. in Oid. Rom. 0pp. p. 91. Sim. Liturgica, c. xxvi. p. 55 ; Consult, de Solit. Miss. p. 996. F 66 BONA, SALA, MABILLON, CHAP. I. into which we have been inquiring. I find ac- >^ 1 — '-^ cordingly that many late writers of that commu- nion deny that the holy Eucharist was received by all present in the first ages of the Church; — though they do not appear to have any positive reason for their denial, but rest it solely upon grounds of theory and conjecture. There are many, however, who, to their honour, have not shrunk from the avowal of a truth, which it was so much their interest, as controversialists, to hide. As their testimony to the early practice derives a peculiar weight from their position, I will adduce it briefly in their own words ; though I am sensible that I shall be only accumulating evi- dence in proof of a point already beyond dispute. Cardinal Bona asserts that in the infancy of the Church "no one was permitted to be present at the sacred mysteries, but those who were able to offer, and to partake of the things offered ; — which custom," he adds, " evidently continued a long- time ^" The truth of his statement is acknow- ledged by his editor, the learned Sala ^ Mabillon is another illustrious witness on the same side ; for we find him expressing an opinion that a warning to non-communicants to quit the Church, mentioned by Gregory I. in a passage that will be cited here- 2 Rer. Liturg. 1. ii. c. xvil. § ii, ; p. 361. Sim. 1. i. c. xiii. § ii. 2 See his notes on 1. i. c. xiii. § ii. Bon^ 0pp. torn. i. p. 265. Aug. Taurin. 1747. He quotes Beleth, and draws the same inference with Murtene, Jideles omnes Missce assistentes quotidie communicasse. SECT. IX. SCHELSTRATE, DUPTN. 67 after, is " to be understood not only of penitents, chap. i. but also of any other persons who did not commu- nicate \" Schelstrate repeats and assents to the statements of Bona; though afterwards, in de- scribing himself the practice of the first Chris- tians, he inserts a qualifying clause: — "All the faithful used to communicate in prayer, as if with one soul, at the time of the sacrifice, nor did any one go out, but all partook of the sacred commu- nion, or if for any reason they abstained once or twice they remained in the Church, praying to the Lord, to the end of the sacrifice ^" There was a period of which this account may be admitted to be exactly true ; but he should have acknowledged that, when the Church interfered by a canon, she forbad the presence of those who did not intend to communicate. Dupin's view of the matter may be collected from his account of the notices of it, which are found in the writings of Cassander : — "He shows that it was long the custom of the Church to distribute the Body and Blood of Christ to all assistants." " He thinks that, since formerly no men assisted at the mass who did not communicate^ all men that now assist ouoht to be in a condition to offer sacrifice with the priest, and to participate in the Divine Sacraments, either by actual receiving, or at least by a religious " Liturg. Gallic. 1. i. c. iv. § xiv.; p. 35. Par. 1685. See p. 79. * De Cone. Antioch. Diss. iv. c. vii. § 3 ; p, 223. f2 SECT. IX. 68 VAN ESPEN, MARTENE, CHAP. I. desire ^" Van Espen has much upon the sub- ' ject : — " It is certain that originally the mass was so instituted, and all the prayers so ordered, that not the priest only, but the bystanders also are supposed to communicate; nay, anciently none hardly but the communicants were allowed to be present ^" Elsewhere, when speaking of the ear- liest period, he says, without any limitation, and adopting in part the words of Bona : — " It is cer- tain, and a proved fact, that in the infancy of the Church all the faithful, who were of one heart and one soul, continued daily in communicating and breaking of bread, nor was any one permitted to be present at the sacred mysteries, except such as were able to offer and to partake of the things offered ^" Martene has been already cited ° as inferring from a statement of John Beleth that " all the faithful assisting at the mass were daily partakers of the Body and Blood of the Lord." He is not content with this ; but proceeds to esta- blish his conclusion by reference to ancient canons and other testimonies. Cigheri: — "When the peace of the Church was restored and the love of the faithful waxed a little cold, even then, if any " Nouv. Biblioth. Cent. xvi. Cassander. Eng. Tr. vol. iii. pp. 700, 707. 7 Jus Eccles. P. ii. sect. i. tit. v. c. iii. § iv. 0pp. torn. i. p. 416. Lov. 1753. 8 Schol. in Cann. Apost. ; can. x. ; torn. iii. p. 49. 3 See note "i, p. 62. CIGHERI, MASKELL. G9 did not communicate as often as they assembled, it chap. i. Till! • SECT. IX. was accounted a crime '." It should be mentioned ' — -^ — ' that Bona, Van Espen, Martene, and Cigheri, all quote the Apostolical canon as bearing witness to their statements. To these testimonies of Roman Catholic writers we will add that of Mr. Maskell, though written before his unhappy secession to their communion : — "It is so well known that, during the first five centuries at least, the universal practice was to allow no one to be present except communicants, and the last class of penitents, that it would be a waste of space and time to repeat authorities which have been cited over and over again." After referring the reader to Bona and Bingham, he adds : — " I pass on thus briefly only because the fact of the practice of the earliest ages of the Church is both so certain and so gene- rally owned; and not because it is of little im- portance in the decision which we ought to come to in this matter; for, on the contrary, it is not simply of importance, but in all doubtful matters of obligation, both by the decision of the Church of England herself, and by the united testimony of her best divines. So that even allowing that there was no more to say, we should already have learned enough, having discovered the rule that governed the first five centuries ^" ' De Dogm. Eccl. P. ii. tract, iv. prol. § 34; torn. ix. p. 27.3. - Ancient Liturgy, Pref. ch. v.; p. Ixxix, Ed. IS 16. CHAPTER II. AUTHORIZED DEPARTURE FROM THE PRIMITIVE RUtE. CONSEQUENT INFREQUENCY OF RECEPTION BY THE LAITY. RISE OF PRIVATE MASSES. GROUNDS ON WHICH THEY WERE DEFENDED. STATE OF THINGS AT THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION. CHAP. II. It has been shown in the last chapter, by the con- current testimony of the primitive and of the me- diseval Church, confirmed by the less willing wit- ness of Roman Catholic divines, that during the first ages all present at the celebration of the holy Eucharist were under obligation to communicate. We have also seen that such a rule and practice are in accordance with the intent and nature of the Sacrament, whether as prefigured in the law, or more plainly taught us in the Gospel, and with the opinions that are known to have prevailed, both on that subject and on due fitness for reception, among the early doctors of the Church, I now proceed to a brief sketch of the several chano'es that took place, and the varieties of practice that obtained in western Christendom, from the first deviation from the primitive rule down to the middle of the THE PRIMITIVE RULE FORSAKEN. 71 sixteenth century, when the full-blown result of chap. ii. ages of corruption was formally adopted and esta- blished in the twenty-second session of the Council of Trent. I. By the latter part of the fourth century, it had sect. i. evidently become impossible to enforce a strict observance of the Apostolic rule, and opinions differed as to the best course to be then taken. At Alexandria, as we have said, the laity who did not communicate had long been permitted^ as a cen- tury or less later they were encouraged^ to remain till the dismissal '. But the more general custom was for them to leave before the communion. Whether they ever left with the penitents, — the course indignantly suggested by S. Chrysostom to some whom he found staying without receiving, — may be thought doubtful. The reasons which made this course distasteful at an earlier period would still exist ; though the growing laxity of the age must have impaired, in some degree, their force. It should be remembered, too, that a much longer service was now in use, which gave them a suitable opportunity of withdrawing somewhat later than the penitents. There was, in fact, a con- siderable interval between the departure of the latter and the offertory, which was employed in ' See p. 37. From the course which custom took at Aloxandiiii, I should douht if the Apostolical canon were ever enforced there. 72 THE TIME OF DEPARTING. CHAP. II. secret supplication, and in praying, at the dictation ,J^^_^ of the deacon, for the world and the Church, in a form which was the original of our Prayer for the Church Militant ^ The conclusion of this, as it was immediately followed by the kiss of peace and other preparations for communion, was clearly a very proper time for non-communicants to with- draw. There is, notwithstanding, unless I am much deceived, no evidence to show that they any where took advantage of this opportunity. The only notice of the time of their leaving with which I am acquainted occurs in a homily of S. Csesarius, and he says most distinctly that they " went out of the Church after the reading of the lessons V' *• ^• 2 The Council of Laodicaa (most probably, a.d. 365) orders that after the sermon by the Bishop shall be said the prayer for the cate- chimiens, and when they have withdrawn, that for the penitents, and that after the latter have received imposition of hands, and departed, the three prayers of the faithful shall be said, " the first secretly (Sia these was the so-called General Council of Trent, by which the following canon was established in 1551: — "If any one shall deny that all and sin- gular the faithful of Christ of either sex, when they have come to years of discretion, are bound to communicate every year, at least at Easter, according to the precept of holy mother Church, let him be anathema '." IV. When the laity had learnt to neglect the sect. iv. communion, and to satisfy themselves with hear- ing mass^ it would of course often happen that, although many were present, the priest was the sole communicant. How early such a result be- came observable it is impossible to say. Some writers quote S. Chrysostom to show that in- stances of it occurred, occasionally, at least, in the fourth century : — " In vain is there a daily sacrifice. To no purpose do we stand at the altar. There is no one to communicate ^" This 3 E. g. see the Counc. of Sens, a, d. 1269, can. iv., in Labb. torn. xi. P. i. col. 914; of Nismes, a.d. 1284, ibid, col, 1210; of Boiuges, 1286, cap. xiii. ibid. P. ii. col. 1252; Ravenna II., 1311, Rubr. xv. ibid. col. 1586; Valladolid, 1322, cap. xxvii. ibid. col. 1707; Avig- non, 1337, cap. iv. col. 1853; Toledo, 1339, cap. v. col. 1871. * Sess. xiii. De Eucb. can. ix. 2 Horn. Ixi. ad Antioch.; cited as a testimony to private masses by Harding, Answer to Jewel, Div. 34, in Jewel's Reply, Art. i. p. 65 (Lond. 1609) ; by Espencseus, De Eucb. Ador. 1. i. c. ii. Opp. p. 1071, col. i. Comp. c. iii.; p. 1074, col. 2. 88 WHEN MASSES BEGAN TO BE CELEBRATED CHAP. II. is however, I am persuaded, no more than an SECT. IV. ' 1. / ' — V — ' example of the hyperbolical language so common with this Father ; for it is really incredible that a teacher so zealous and influential as S. Chrysos- tom should have failed, — and that in Antioch, the fourth great city of the world, — to induce at least some few of the laity to receive at every cele- bration. His meaning must have been that only a few — or perhaps a few compared with the vast numbers who flocked to hear his preaching — were wont to partake at the daily communion. In the seventh and eighth centuries, however, it was probably a very common thing for the priest to receive alone ; for in the early part of the ninth, there appear clear traces of a still further develop- ment of the corrupt practice which we have seen sanctioned by the Councils of Orleans and Agde. In 813 the Council of Mentz found it necessary to forbid priests to say mass when no one else was present \ The same prohibition was thought ne- cessary in France a few years later : — " A blame- worthy custom," says the Council of Paris, a.d. 829, " has in very many places crept in, partly from neg- ligence, partly from avarice, viz. that some of the presbyters celebrate the solemn rites of masses with- out attendants \" The same prohibition occurs in ^ Can. xliii. Labb. torn. vii. col. 1251. * Cap. xlviii. Ibid. col. 1628. iBY THE PRIEST WITHOUT ATTENDANTS. 89 the Capitulary of the French kings \ and in the chap. ii. SF.CT. IV. excerptions of Herard, Archbishop of Tours, 858, ^ — v — ' made for the use of his own clergy *'. Regino, A.D. 892, ascribes a similar but spurious decree to Anacletus ^ ; and after him the tradition was handed on by Burchard, a.d. 996^; by Ivo, 1092^; and Gratian, 1131 '. The three last named quote from a decree falsely assigned to Soter, which orders that "no presbyter should presume to celebrate the solemn rites of masses, unless two persons were present, and answered him, so that he himself made the third." The practice here forbidden was unquestion- ably one consequence of the general remissness with regard to the holy Eucharist, which had been encouraged by the almost authorized neglect of that which all men knew to be its most im- portant part. Doctrinally, however, it might be made to stand on very different grounds from the corruption that gave it birth. It may be highly ^ Lib. V. c. clix. ; torn. i. col. 855. Sim. in Addit. see c. ix. col. 11, 37. ^ Cap. xxviii. Capit. Reg. Franc, torn. i. col. 1289. 7 Lib. i. c. cxxxii. In c. cxci. he ascribes a decree very similar to those of Mentz and Paris to a Council of Nantes, which is not in the collection of canons under that name in the Concilia. Mansi, torn, xviii. col. 165. See note ^, p. 60. These multiplied prohibitions, however, whether we know their source or not, equally illustrate the rapid progress of the evil. ^ Deer. 1. iii, c. Ixxiv. ; fol. 93, fa. 1. 9 Deer. P. ii. c. 127. Opp. P. i. p. 71. ^ P. iii. Dist. i. c. Ixi. Hoc quoque. 90 EARLY OBJECTIONS TO THE SOLITARY MASS. CHAP. II. inexpedient to permit a priest to administer the SECT. IV. ' — ^^ — ' oacrament to himself, without witnesses, when none of his people are willing to partake with him; but apart from the consideration of expe- diency, there is, perhaps, little to object to it; and it has appeared to some a lawful subject of regret^ that the indevotion of the many should have been allowed to intercept the blessing which the more frequent commemoration of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, though by a solitary worshipper, may be expected to bring down upon the Church at large. My own opinion is, that perhaps upon the whole the general good is better consulted by the retention of our pre- sent rule, except in the communion of the sick, when from the infectious nature of the disease, or other causes, the required number cannot be obtained. In the ninth century, however, men had less experience of past evil to teach them caution, and it is probable that a practical ab- surdity involved in the solitary mass led to its condemnation far more than any doctrinal diffi- culty, or anticipation of bad consequence. The Councils above quoted, in common with many early writers, ask, " How can the priest say. The Lord be with you^ when there is no one to answer. And with thy spirit? Or, for whom can ^ See a note of Bishop Cosin in NichoUs on the Book of C. P. ; vol. i. Addit. Notes, p. 53. See p. 110, note *. ANSWERS TO SUCH OBJECTIONS. 91 he be supposed to pray when he says, Remember^ chap. ii. Lord^ all those who stand around^ when none but ' — — '-" himself is there ? " When the abuse had fully established itself, some writers, as Peter Damian, a.d. 1057 ^ Odo of Cambray, 1105 *, and Stephen of Autun, 1112 \ attempted to meet the above-mentioned difficulty by suggesting that the priest addressed himself to the absent Church " as present by faith, and com- municating in the Sacraments by charity," and made the responses in its name, one member answering for all. This explanation is approved by Cardinal Bona^. Others, as Innocent III., said that the angels present at the mass were the by-standers to whom the prayer in the canon must be referred''. V. The ingenuity of the mediaeval divines and sect. v. their successors in the Church of Rome was exer- cised on many other speculations in defence, or, as they would view it, in explanation of the novel practice. For example, since all acknowledged ^ He wrote a treatise on the subject, with the title, Domimis vo- h'lscum. It is in the collection of Ferrarius de Divin, Offic. Rom. 1591. See especially c. 10; p. 374. ■* Can. Miss. Expos. Dist. ii. ad id Et omnium circumstantium ; in Biblioth, PP. torn. xii. col. 404. Colon. 1G18. 5 De Sacram. Alt. c. xiii. 0pp. Honor, et Alior. col. 1289. Par. 1854. « Rer. Liturg. 1. ii. c. v. § i.; p. 319. Sim. Sala, note C"*) to 1. i. c. xiii. § vi. ; torn. i. p. 275. *■ De Myst. Miss. 1. ii. c. xxv. 0pp. tom. i. p. 344 Colon. 1575. 92 THEORY OF SPIRITUAL RECEPTION. CHAP. II. that the sacrifice of the mass was incomplete un- ' — C—^ less the victim was consumed ^, it became necessary to provide a mode of reception that did not require actual communion. " The taking of this Sacra- ment is of three kinds," says one ; " that which is sacramental only, i. e. when sinners take it ; that which is spiritual only, in which manner the pious take it through an ardent desire, both in Church, and out of it whenever they please, when they do not actually take the Sacrament; and that which is both sacramental and spiritual, in which the righteous receive, when they actually take the Sacrament "." This doctrine held its ground in England until the abolition of the practice which it was introduced to justify. Thus Tunstal, a.d. 1538, in a reply, drawn up at the command of Henry, to the ambassadors of the Protestant Princes of Germany, employs the following argu- ment : — " If things are closely examined, private masses will amount to a sort of private communion, where if circumstances are duly managed, if the ^ Thus Bonacina argues from 1 Cor. xi. : — " Hence it may be inferred that the fruit and the effect of the sacrifice is not given ex opere operato, except where there is reception ; forasmuch as recep- tion belongs to the essence of the sacrifice." Disp. de Sacram. iv. Q. viii. Punct, ii. § 7. Opp. tom. i. p. 83. Par. 1632. Sim. Jodoc. Lorichius Thesaur. Theol. ; De Sacram. Each. c. xvii.; p. 1728 (Frib. Brisg. 1609) : Summa Sylvestrina, P. i. p. 344; De Euch, c. iii. § 2 (Lugd. 1593), &c. ' Lorich. u. s. c. xvi. ; p. 1725 : Aquinas, P. iii. Q. Ixxx. A. i. ad 3"; p. 180: &c. ONE StoPOSED TO RECEIVE FOR ALL. 93 laitv there present are under dispositions for re- chap, il J r ^ ^ SECT. V. pentance, if they be heartily sorry for their sms " ' and address to God for His pardon, if they ' present themselves a living sacrifice acceptable to God,' there is no question but that they communicate with the priest in a spiritual manner, though their number is small, and they abstain from a corporal receiving'." The next step was to maintain that the priest received sacramentally for and in behalf of the people, while they communicated spiritually, by which means all were enabled to offer a perfect sacrifice. A notion somewhat resembling this seems to have occurred to thinking men, almost as soon as the difficulty was presented to their minds by the corrupt custom of the Church. Thus Strabo argued in the ninth century : — " That the same holy celebration of masses may be believed to benefit not a few but many, we may and ought to say that the others (i.e. those who do not communicate), perse- vering in the faith and devotion of those who offfer and communicate, are said to be and are partakers of the same oblation and communion. . . . When the priests celebrate masses alone, it may be under- stood that they for whom those offices are cele- brated, and whom the priest in certain responses 1 Collier, Eccl. Hist, P. ii. B. ii. p. 147. It is astonishing that writers who speak thus of the preparation for hearing mass do not perceive that persons so disposed are wrong in not receiving. 94 THE PRIEST SAID TO EAT FOR THE PEOPLE, CHAP. II. represents, co-operate with him in that action -." SECT. V. o • ' V ' In the course of time, when communion was, except at Easter, almost universally neglected, the notion in which the serious had found consolation, and the irreligious an excuse, assumed with some, as might be expected, a more precise and formal shape. Thus Hugo de S. Victore, in the early- part of the twelfth century : — " The communion, which is then sung (after the Agnus Dei), inti- mates that all the faithful communicate in the Body of Christ, because the minister takes it sacramentally for all, that it may be received spiritually by himself and all \" Honorius of Autun, a cotemporary of Hugo, declares his belief that if any one in danger of death " were to refuse, in his zeal for righteousness, to receive the com- munion" from a wicked priest, "and did not doubt but that he communicated daily by the mouth of the priests in the unity of the Church, he would be saved, if he died, by that faith*." "Every Chris- tian, says Lyranus, a.d. 1320, "is still bound to be refreshed by this Sacrament once in the year. He is also refreshed by it daily; for the priests not only take this Sacrament for themselves, but for the people too ^" Similarly S. Vincent Ferrer : — " The mouth eats and receives food, and all the 2 De Reb. Eccl. c. 22. Hittoip. p. 410. 3 Specul. Myst, Eccl. c. 7. Fenar. p. 727. ^ Elucidarium, 1. i, § 30. 0pp. col. 1131. Par. 1854. '-" In Luke xv. Et tnanducemus. Bibl. P. v. fol. 165, fa. 2. AS THE MOUTH FOR THE OTHER MEMBERS. 95 other members are refreshed. The same with the chap. ii. , SECT. V. Sacrament of the altar. All Christendom is one v — ' body, united by faith and charity, having many members. The priest is the mouth of this body. When, therefore, the priest communicates all the members are refreshed ''." And again : — " As the mouth eats for all the members, so the priest spiritually for all Christians ^" Eggeling and Biel, about 1480 : — " We have all been baptized into one body. The prelate, or priest, is the mouth of this body. . . . That bread, therefore, which is daily eaten by any priest, — by that bread the whole body, which is the Church, is daily refreshed. . . . The priest who communicates daily is a member of the Church: therefore all the members of the Church eat that bread daily ^" This principle was employed to explain those passages in the canon which implied a general communion of all present. Thus Clichtovseus, who died in 1543, commenting on the prayer, " Grant that this most holy mixture of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ may become health of mind and body to us who receive^^^ — says that it is a petition that " it may become health of mind and body both to the priest who offers, and to all who by wish and ^ Serm. in Epiph. ii. ; Sermonum P. Hiemal. fol. Ixiii. fa. 1. Lugd. 1513. ^ Serm. in Oct. Corp. Christ.; Serm. P. iEstiv. fol. cviii. fa. 2. ^ Can. Miss. Expos. Lect. Ixxi.; fol. clix. fa. 1. Par. 1516. 96 ABUSE AND NEGLECT OF COMMUNION CHAP. II. desire receive spiritually through the priest °." ^ .. — '-" The Protestant ambassadors, in their address to Henry VIII., speak of this as the common opinion of that day, nor is the truth of their assertion questioned in the reply of Bishop Tunstal \ SECT. vr. VI. For a long period before the Reformation there seems to have been as little alteration in the habits of the people as in the opinions of their teachers. The picture which Erasmus gives us of the popular religion of his day exhibits, therefore, with sufficient truth the state of things prevailing in the West for many generations. " There are some," says that writer, who is by no means always the most willing witness against corruptions which the Church had fostered, — " there are some who ask for a communion in the mass. So (I confess) was it ordained by Christ, and so was it wont of old to be observed. But it is not the priests who stand in the way of a return to this practice, but the laity, in whom charity, alas ! hath grown too cold. That heavenly food must not be thrust on the unwilling, or those who nauseate it. It wiU 9 Elucidat. P. iii.; fol. 148, fa. 1. * Collier. P. ii. B. ii. ; p. 144. Controversial writers did not fail to take advantage of this notion, when obliged to defend the denial of the cup to the laity. Thus Eckius, the opponent of Luther : — " The priest in the person of the whole people offers and receives under each kind; in whose person the whole people ought joyfully to believe that it drinks the blood of Christ by a kind of spiritual recep- tion." Enchiridion adv. Luther, c. x. in fine ; fol. 76, fa. 2. Ingolst. 1541. SECT. VI. AT THE PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION. 97 not be denied to those who earnestly seek it. Now chap. ii. what communion can there be, when in some places the Churches are well-nigh empty at the time of communion? Some go home as soon as they are aspersed, and make their exit before the introit. Others after they have heard (but not understood) the Gospel. Yet, after the priest has said. Lift up your hearts, and Let us give thanks, then were the people's chief part;— when, the priest keeping silence, each one is speaking with God. And they meanwhile are gossiping in the market-place, or drinking in the tavern : — thouirh even these act with more reverence than those who are trifling through the whole sacred rite in the Churches I" In throwing the whole blame upon the laity, Erasmus implies that as a body the clergy desired the communion of all present. It is quite clear, however, that no such desire could have been generally entertained, or some attempt would have been made to re-establish the ancient practice. At the same time it is probable that Bucer, to whom we owe a very different repre- sentation, has exaggerated as greatly on the other side. He tells us that it was a most rare thinii to find a priest who " thought that the Sacrament ought to be distributed in masses — and that, not only in those private masses, as they were called, 2 De Amab. Eccl. Concord. 0pp. torn. v. col. 503. Lugd. Bat. 1704. H 98 THE ABUSE PEKPETUATED CHAP. II, with which they filled every corner of the SECT VI '^ — J — '-" Churches, nay, even of private houses, but even in those which they called public and great, as being celebrated on the high altar, and with greater solemnity." He adds that, "in France matters had in consequence arrived at such a pass, that persons intending to communicate in the Eucharist, thought that they ought to hear mass first, and afterwards receive communion of the Eucharist in another place ^" The Council of Trent had it in its power to provide an effectual remedy for these evils by a resolute condemnation of private masses, and a strict return to the early rule. Nevertheless, it contented itself with a very faint expression of disapproval, and deliberately perpetuated the practice to which so many abuses, and so much error in doctrine, could trace their rise. " The most holy Synod could wish," it said, "that in every mass the faithful assisting would commu- nicate, not only in spiritual affection, but also by the sacramental reception of the Eucharist, that more abundant fruit of this most holy sacri- fice might accrue to them; and yet, if that may not always be, it condemns not for that reason, as private and unlawful, those masses in which the priest alone communicates sacramentally, but 3 De Coen. Dom, Admin. 1. ii. c. xxix.; pp. 271, 272. Neubr. Daniib. 1546. BY THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 99 approves, and so recommends them ; forasmuch chap. ii. SECT. VI, as those masses also ought to be esteemed in ' — -^ — ' reality common, partly because in them the people communicate spiritually, but partly because they are celebrated by the public minister of the Church, not for himself only, but for all the faithful who belong to the body of Christ ^." We see that the Council has here adopted fully the scholastic distinction between sacramental and spiritual communion, and teaches that the people may truly communicate, though they purposely neglect the only mode of doing so ordained by Jesus Christ. By this means it has not only per- petuated the custom which it aifected to regret, but has provided a ready answer to every future demand for a return to the Apostolic practice. * Sess. xxii. cap. vi. De sacr'if. Misses. h2 CHAPTER HI. NON-COMMUNICANTS ORDERED TO LEAVE THE QUIRE IN THE FIRST, AND THE CHURCH IN THE SECOND REFORMED OFFICE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. OPINIONS OF OUR BEST DIVINES BEFORE AND SINCE THE LAST REVISION. THE CONDEMNATION OF GAZING AND ADORING IN OUR FORMULARIES AGREEABLE TO THE TEACHING OF THE FATHERS. CHAP ^^ ^^^^'^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ P^^* ^^ ^^® question which _Jll^ , immediately concerns ourselves, viz. the rule of the reformed Church of England, with respect to the presence of persons who do not communi- cate. SECT. 1. I- In the first reformed Office, published in 1549, the sentences of the offertory were followed by this rubric : — " Then so many as shall be partakers of the holy communion, shall tarry still in the quire, or in some convenient place near the quire, the men on the one side, and the women on the other side. All other (that mind not to receive the said holy communion) shall depart out of the quire, except the minis- ter and clerks '." There is evidently some error in this rubric as it stands, for it implies that " the minister and clerks " may be non-commu- 1 In Records appended to Collier's Eccl. Hist. n. lix. III. SECT. I. OPINION OF CliANMER. 101 nicants. The last clause, which excepts them, chap. should probably be omitted. Even thus there is great awkwardness of expression, which can only be remedied, so far as I see, by supposing that the second sentence was intended to run thus : — " All other (that mind not to receive the said holy communion) shall depart out of the Churchy A hasty correction from change of opinion, or by a second hand, may perhaps ex- plain the peculiarity. However, as the rubric was published, and as we must take it, it cer- tainly does not forbid the presence in Church of those who do not receive, but only expels them from the quire. Cranmer, who was at the head of the commission for the construction of this liturgy, was certainly willing at that time to permit the presence of non-communicants. In fact, in his reply to the Devonshire rebels in the same year, while arguing against forced com- munion, he speaks in a manner which, unless he purposely so expressed himself as to avoid raising the question, seems to imply that the alternative of sending them out of Church had not yet presented itself to his mind : — " Although I would exhort every good Christian man often to receive the holy communion, yet I do not recite all these things to the intent that I would, in this corrupt world, where men live so ungodly 102 SECOND BOOK OF EDWAED VI. CHAP, as they do, that the old canons should be restored III. . SECT. I. again, which command every man present to receive the communion with the priest; which canons, if they were now used, I fear that many would now receive it unworthily "." It is clear, too, from the language of Bucer, in his Animadversions on the Book of Common Prayer, written at the end of 1550, that little or no progress had as yet been made towards a return to the old cus- tom: — "All means should be employed to bring about that those who are present at the com- munion be partakers of the Sacrament \" How- ever, in the revision of 1552, though the primitive rule, which obliged all who came to prayers to stay and receive, was not restored, the reformers made as near an approach to it as was then practicable, by ordering all to leave the church who did not intend to communicate. An exhort- ation appointed to be read immediately after the prayer for the Church Militant contained the following passage: — "Whereas ye offend God so sore in refusing this holy banquet, I admonish, exhort, and beseech you, that unto this unkind- ness ye will not add any more: which thing ye shall do if ye stand by as gazers and lookers 2 Answer to Rebels, art. iii. Works, p. 172. Camb. 1846. 3 Censur. in Ord. Eccl. c. xxvii. Script. Anglic, p. 495. Basil. 1577. THE COMMISSIONERS OF ELIZABETH. 103 Oil them that do communicate, and be no par- chap, III. takers of the same yourselves. . . . Wherefore, sect, i. rather than that you should do so, depart you hence, and give place to them that be godly disposed *." At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, in 1559, several changes in the Liturgy were proposed, though but a few were carried into effect. The exhortation above quoted was left untouched; but among the alterations agitated was one which would have brought the practice of the Church of England still nearer to its professed model of antiquity. It appears, from a letter of Guest, one of the commissioners of revision, and after- wards Bishop of Kochester, addressed to Sir Wil- liam Cecil, that there was a desire on the part of some to send away the non-communicants before the recital of the Nicene Creed : — " The Creed is ordained to be said only of the com- municants, because Dionysius, and Chrysostom, and Basil, in their Liturgies, say that the learners were shut out, or the creed was said; because it is the prayer of the faithful only, which were but the communicants. For that they which did not receive were taken for that time as not faithful. Therefore Chrysostom saith, That they which do not receive, be as men doing penance for their * Cardwell's Liturgies Compared, p. 285. 104 THE ORDER TO DEPART CONSIDERED sin ^" This further change, as I have said, was not effected ; but from the language of Guest we may infer that the principle on which the Elizabethan divines continued to exclude the non-communicants was the same on which the question had been decided by S. Chrysostom more than a thousand years before. And here let me ask whether, with this fact before us, it would be too much to assume that their martyred predecessors had introduced the cus- tom because they knew that it was in conformity with the ancient principle and rule. Mr. Wilber- force, without a shadow of proof, asserts that their " sentence of exclusion " was introduced by " the Puritan party "." Another writer on the same side has ventured to speak of it as " that spawn of Cal- vinistic theology '." Are these assertions true ? There can be no doubt that they were acquainted with the ancient canons. We have heard Cran- mer quote them, though in 1549 he did not yet see how to adapt them to the times. Other * Cardwell's Conferences, ch. ii.; p. 51. ^ Eucharist, p. 380. In p. 379 he speaks of it as " this order to send the midfitude away." The allusion to Matt. xiv. 15 is infeli- citous, if not profane. That multitude was fainting for lack of food, and to send them away to seek it when Christ was at hand showed some forgetfulness of His power, or of His willingness to relieve every distress ; but in the case before us, the multitudes, though affectionately pressed to eat, refuse to do so. Can it be wrong to send such away ? 7 Right of all the Baptized, p. 21. A RETURN TO ANCIENT PRACTICE. 105 evidence from the writings of those who framed chap. and sanctioned the exhortation to depart I have sect. i. been unable to find; but Jewel, who may be said to have been almost one of them, asserts that in this, as in every thing else, they claimed to be, and believed themselves to be, followers of the early undivided Church. " Good bre- thren," he says, in his well-known sermon at Paul's Cross, in the spring of the year 1560, "I will make it plain unto you through God's grace, by the most ancient writers that were in and after the Apostles' time, and by the order of the first primitive Church, that then there could be no private mass, and that whoso would not communicate with the priest was then com- manded out of the congregation." He accord- ingly quotes the Apostolical canon and other autho- rities, and then apostrophizing those to whom he appeals, proceeds : — " If we be deceived therein, ye are they that have deceived us Thus ye ordered the holy communion in your time: the same we received at your hands^ and have faithfully delivered it unto the people ^" It is probable that some time elapsed before the order under consideration met with universal com- pliance. In the Second Book of Homilies, pub- lished in 1562, an allusion to the condemned 8 Serin, at Paul's Cross, pp. 56, 57. Loud. 1609. Sim. in Apol. ill Enchir. Theol. vol. i. p. 217. 106 OBEDIENCE TO THE ORDER practice was still deemed necessary : — " Every one of us must be guests and not gazers, eaters and not lookers Of necessity we must be our- selves partakers of this table, and not beholders of others^." Nay, it is not unlikely that it subsisted here and there several years later; for we find Cartwright affirming, in 1573, that " in divers places the ignorant people that have been misled in Popery have knocked and kneeled unto the consecrated bread, and held up their hands whilst the minister hath given it, — not those only which have received it, but those which have been in the Church and looked on'." He adds that he "spoke of that which he knew and had seen with his eyes ;" but he does not say when he saw it. It may have been some years before he wrote. If it should be asked why the notice to withdraw was not at once observed in every Church in Eng- land, the answer is very obvious. It was not en- forced by any penalty. Non-communicants were exhorted to depart, but were not driven out if they insisted upon staying. This is clear enough from the manner in which the new rule was put forth ; namely, as a solemn warning to those who neglected communion, and not in a rubric or canon ; ^ Homily of the Worthy Receiving, &c. part i. ^ Reply to Ans. to Admon. p. 130. Sect. iilt. in Whitgift's Def. of Ans. Tr. xv. ch. i. div. vi. Works, vol. iii. p. 85. Camb. 1853. NOT AT ONCE UNIVERSAL. 107 but we are also told it, in so many words, by chap, Bishop Jewel. His opponent, Harding', had said sect. i. that it " appeared by his sermon (at Paul's Cross) that all the people ought to receive or to be driven out of the Church-." To this Jewel replies (a.d. 1565) : — " You know this is neither the doctrine nor the practice of our Church. Howbeit the ancient doctors have both taught so, and also practised the same. Anacletus saith, After the consecration is ended, let all receive, unless they will be thrust from the Church ^" II. It is desirable that we should ascertain next, sect, n what were the sentiments with regard to the chief point in question that prevailed among our best divines between the Reformation and the last re- vision of the Liturgy. One ground of complaint perversely urged by the early Puritans against the Church was that it permitted a few to receive by themselves, while the majority of the congregation' went away^ - Harding's Answer, div, 32, in Jewel's Reply to Ans. art. i.; p. 57. Lond. 1609. 3 Reply, u. s.; p. 59. See p. 64, note ". * Cartwright suggested as a remedy, that " those which would withdraw themselves, should be, by ecclesiastical discipline at all times, and now also, under a godly prince, by civil punishment, brought to communicate with their brethren," p. 117, sect. 3; in Whitgift, u. s, c. V. div. xi. p. 552. On the other hand, in the Admonition, in defence of which Cartwright came forward in his Reply, the Church was vilified for too great strictness in this respect, and accused of " thrusting men in their sin to the Lord's Table." Whitg. u. s. p. 553. The latter became the general view of the 108 WHITGIFT, HOOKER. " This Sacrament," they said, " is a token of con- junction with our brethren, and therefore by com- municating apart from them we make an apparent show of distraction ^" To this Whitgift replied that " the Book of Common Prayer doth greatly commend and like the receiving of the whole Church together, but if that cannot be obtained (and it cannot, and they will not have men com- pelled unto it), it seclude th not those that be well disposed, so they be a competent number. And the Book doth exhort those to depart which do not communicate, with a warning from whence they depart, so that you may well understand that the meaning of the Book is that all that be present should communicate "." Hooker's reply to the same cavil shows that at the time when he wrote it had become the general custom for those who did not receive to leave the Church, and that he approved thoroughly of their so doing : — " I ask them on which side unity is broken, whether on theirs that depart, or on theirs that being left behind do communicate. First, in the one, it is Puritans, and at the Restoration their wish was, to have no rule what- ever for the communion of the laity. See Cardwell's Conferences, eh. vii. ; p. 321. The Bishops, in their reply to this demand, remarked : — " Formerly our Church was quarrelled at for not compelling men to the communion; now, for urging men. How should she please?" Ibid. p. 354. * See Hooker, Eccl. Pol. b. v. ch. Ixviii. § 10; vol. ii. p. 376. Oxf. 1841. " Defence of Answer, Tr. ix. c. vi. div. viii.; vol. ii. p. 519. WHITAKER, FIELD. 109 not denied that they may have reasonable cause of chap. departure, and that then even they are delivered sect. n. from just blame. Of such kind of causes two are allowed, namely, danger of impairing health, and necessary business requiring our presence other- where. And may not a third cause, which is un- fitness at the present time, detain us as lawfully back as either of these two ? True it is that we cannot hereby altogether excuse ourselves, for that we ought to prevent this and do not. But if we have committed a fault in not preparing our minds before, shall we therefore aggravate the same with a worse, the crime of unworthy participation ? . . . There is in all the Scripture of God no one syllable which doth condemn communicating among a few when the rest are departed from them^" In one of the controversial works of Whitaker, who died in 1595, it is affirmed that "anciently the whole Church used to assemble to partake of the Lord's Supper, and that, in some places, daily ^" From Field's Book of the Church I borrow the following testimony : — " It is known that the cele- bration of the holy mystery and Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood had the name of mass from the dismissing of all non-communicants before the consecration began, so that none stayed but such " Eccl. Pol, u. s. « Pi-celect. Controv. Sec. Q. vi. c. iii.; p. 474. Cantab. 1599. 110 BISHOPS OVERAL, as were to communicate "." Our next witness is Bishop Overal, who has left this approving com- ment on the exhortation to depart then in the Liturgy : — "A religious invective added here against the lewd and irreligious custom of the people then nursed up in popery, to be present at the communion and to let the priest communicate for them all, from whence arose that abuse of private masses; a practice so repugnant to the Scripture and to the use of the ancient Church, that at this day not any but the Romish Church through all the Christian world are known to use it, as the Greek, Syrian, Armenian, and Ethiopian Liturgies do testify : nay the Roman Liturgy itself is full against the Roman practice." He then quotes the Apostolical canon and S. Chrysostom's Third Homily on the Epistle to the Ephesians, before cited', and concludes with a conjecture which has probably occurred already to the reader : — " So that this Preface and Exhortation seem to be taken out of S. Chrysostom's words : they are in all points so like one to the other -." 9 App. to b. iii.; p. 187. Oxf. 1635. » See p. 48. 2 Nichols on the Common Prayer, vol. i. Addit. Notes, p. 43. Lond. 1710. Yet Mr. Wilberforce claims Overal and his disciple Cosin as witnesses on his side. In the Table of Contents to his work on the Eucharist, it is said (p. xx.) that the Second Book of Ed- ward VI. "for the first time excluded commimicants from the sacri- fice, when unprepared to partake of the Sacrament," and that the " mis- ANDREWES, AND BEDEL. Ill In the year 1620, Bishop Andrewes had occasion chap. to consecrate a chapel near Southampton. This sect. n. led him to prepare the form known by his name, which has since been much used in the consecra- tion of Churches. He made provision in it for the administration of the holy communion, and in the first rubric that relates to it gave the following direction : — " All the people not intending to communicate are dismissed, and the doors shut ^" A letter of Bishop Bedel to Archbishop Usher, written in 1630, shows incidentally what was the practice of the Church in Ireland at the same period. He is speaking of one who desired to be reconciled to him before receiving the holy com- munion: — "As I was at the Lord's Table, be- ginning the service of the communion before the sermon, he came in, and after the sermon was done, those that communicated not being departed, chievous effect " of this order was "regretted by Overal and Cosin." Referring to the book itself, we find a similar statement in p. 381 : — "The sentence of exclusion . . . was withdrawn, a.d. 1662; .... but the habit of attending once lost was not easily recovered Not that there were wanting those who saw and regretted the abandonment of the ancient usage. Such was Bishop Overal," &c. Happily Mr. Wilberforce has given his authority, which proves to be a note of Cosin on the consequences of the law which forbids a priest to receive the communion by himself. See p. 90. This is a very different matter, and regret at the operation of the one rule is quite compatible with approbation of the other. That Cosin, as well as Overal, did cordially approve of the notice to depart, is shown by another of his notes that will be given in the text. 3 Works, vol. V. p. 326. Oxf. 1846. 112 THE SCOTTISH LITURGY, MONTAGUE. CHAP, he stood forth and spake to this purposed" The SECT. 11. Scottish Liturgy of 1(337 retained the warning to depart, although the part of the exhortation in which it occurred was in some other respects altered ^ The Office was drawn up in Scotland, but as it was overlooked and approved by Laud, Juxon, and Wren ", it furnishes a clear proof that the opinion of those divines was in favour of the established English rule. In 1639, Bishop Mon- tague, in a synod held at Ipswich on the 8th of October, is said to have given the following direc- tions to his clergy for the orderly administration of the Sacrament : — " After the words, or exhor- tation, pronounced aloud by the minister standing at the communion table to the parishioners, as yet in the Church, Draw near^ &c.^ all intending to communicate are to come out of the Church into the chancel All being come in, the chancel door is to be shut, and not to be opened till the communion is done, that no communicant depart till the dismission, no ^o;z-communicant come in among them, no boys, girls, or gazers be suffered to look in as at a play '." These instructions, though they excited the indignation of the Puritans, appear ^ Life by Burnet, p. 54. Lond. 1685. * BuUey's Variations of the Communion and Baptismal Offices, p. 29. " Ibid. Pref. p. xviii. " Prynne's History of Laud's Trial, p. 100. Lond. 1645. JOHN FORBES, l'eSTRANGE. US nevertheless to make one serious concession to the unruly temper of the age. They suppose that some persons would remain in the Church without communicating; — it is probable that all would not allow themselves to be excluded; — but they cut them off from the communicants by the chancel- screen and its closed door, and they forbid them to look in. It is quite clear that Montague was not providing for the convenience of any who might desire, in the language of Mr. Wilberforce, " to join in the sacrifice without going on to the Sacrament." The prohibition to look in and gaze was practically universal ; for it would be impos- sible for those who had to enforce it to know whether a gazer was influenced by devotion or curiosity. About six years later appeared the Instructio Historico-Theologica of John Forbes, a Professor at Aberdeen, and son of the good Bishop of that city, in which he argues at some length against the practice of remaining without communicating ^ The first edition of L'Estrange's Alliance of Divine Offices was published only three years before the last revision of the Liturgy, at which the warning to non-communicants was at length left out ; but we find him as clear and positive as any of our earlier authorities as to the usage of the first Christians: — "True it is that, according to the primitive rules, no man 8 L. xi. c. vii. § 13; p. 550. Amst. 1645. I 114 BISHOP COSIN. CHAP, of the faithful might stay behind and not com- municate, upon pain of excommunication ^" We remark the same thing in Cosin, who was himself employed in the revision : — " The true etymology of this word missa or mass^ we do yet retain in our Churches in the dismission of the people; namely, of the ancient and genuine mass, in which not only hymns may be sung, prayers made. Scriptures read and expounded, bread and wine blessed and consecrated, but even distri- buted to eat and to drink to all that are present; for such a mass, or celebration of the Sacrament, our Lord appointed, and commanded to be fre- quently used to His coming again \" It may be observed that Jewel, Overal, Forbes, and L'Estrange refer to the Apostolic canon as one authority for their assertion, and all agree in understanding it according to the version of Dionysius. III. Such being the practice and opinions of our divines between the first compilation and the final revision of the Liturgy, it will be asked why the warning to non-communicants was not retained? The answer is very sim- ple. It was no longer necessary. The cus- tom of staying without receiving had died out, and to aU appearance, as we have seen, before 9 Ch. vi. Aiinot. M; p. 269. Oxf. 1846, 1 Additional Notes to Nicholls on the C. P., in vol. i.; p. 52. THE USAGE OF CATHEDRALS, A. D. 1642. 115 the close of the sixteenth century. There was chap. no exception even in the case of the cathedral sEc^in, choristers. In a calumnious attack on the clergy '^ of Durham, published in 1642, one charge pre- ferred against them is that they " took for their assistants at the communion the whole quire-men and children which communicated not, contrary to the custorn and practice of all Cathedral Churches'^:' Under these circumstances, that part of the exhortation in which the non-com- municants were warned to withdraw was not needed, and as its retention prevented the use of the remainder, it became expedient to remove it. This part was accordingly omitted, and the exhortation, only slightly altered in other re- spects, was appointed to be read as a notice of communion, "in case the minister shall see the people negligent to come." As it is undeniable that the altered habits of the people had rendered the change necessary, we cannot doubt that they were the cause of its being made. There is a direct proof, however, that the divines of 1662 were actually influenced by this fact, when they withdrew the warning to depart. Bishop Cosin, it is well known, was " one of the principal commissioners " for the revision, and it so happens that there have come 2 A Catalogue of Superstitious Innovations, &c. p. 28 ; in Hienir- gia Anglicana, p. 363. i2 116 THE ORDER TO DEPART, WHY WITHDRAWN. down to US some memoranda which he made of "Particulars to be Considered, Explained, and Cor- rected in the Book of Common Prayer," to which it appears that " the Reviewers had very great regard, they having altered most things according as was therein desired." Now among these notes is one which points out that the first and second exhortations (as they then stood) were "more fit to be read some days before the communion than at the very same time when the people are come to receive it;" and one of the reasons as- signed is, that " they that tarry are not negligent, and they that are negligent be gone^ and hear it not\" That this was the true reason for the change is proved further by the fact that no advantage was taken by any party of the repeal of the prohibition. At least, I do not remember to have read of any attempt, either by the divines of the Restoration or their successors, to revive the prac- tice which it had suppressed, nor am I aware that a single instance has been cited by Mr. Wilber- force or his disciples. On the contrary, our later writers agree entirely with their predecessors, both as to the nature and the propriety of the primitive usage. Thus Payne, one of the ablest opponents of the Church of Rome in the time of James 11. , after quoting the Apostolical canon and that of ^ App. to Nicholls, vol. i.; No. Hi.; p. 69. TESTIMONY OF PAYNE. 117 Antioch, says : — " So great a crime was it for ceiap. any not to keep to constant communion, which sect. in. was to be done as much by all the faithful as by the priest himself; every Christian in those devout ages who was baptized, and had not notoriously violated his baptismal covenant, so as to be put into the state and number of the public penitents, did always communicate, as often as there was any Sacrament, which was, I believe, as often as they assembled for public worship; and he that had not done that in those first and purest times would have been thought al- most to have been a deserter, and to have re- nounced his Christianity. . . . Only the TrttrroJ, faithful^ who received the communion were al- lowed to be present at the celebration of it; which is a very good argument against our ad- versaries' opinion of the sacrifice of the mass; for, had they believed the Eucharist, though received only by the priest, had done good as a sacrifice to those who were present, although they did not partake of it, as they now do in the Church of Rome, what need they have put out and excluded all those who were non-communi- cants ■* ? " Similarly Beveridge, commenting on Justin Martyr's description of the holy Commu- nion : — " From these words of this Apostolic man ■• Sacrifice of tlie Mass, in Gibson's Preservative, tit. vi. ch. ii.; vol. ii, p. 74. Loud. 17.'36. 118 BEVERIDGE, J. JOHNSON, it is clear that on every Sunday or Lord's day all the Christians, whether living in towns or in the country, were wont to meet together. When assembled, they heard the writings of the Apos- tles or other Scriptures, and offered their common prayers and thanksgivings to Almighty God; after which they celebrated the Eucharistic prayers and thanksgivings, that is to say, those by which the elements are consecrated to be the mystic Body and Blood of Christ; — which, being consecrated, w^ere distributed to all present, to all who had been at the prayers and heard the holy Scriptures, and were partaken of by them. No one, therefore, went out before he had been fed with this spiritual food. So that these two Apostolical canons (viii. ix.) prescribe nothing else, but that the Apostolic discipline of the first Christians, described by S. Justin the Mar- tyr, should be strictly observed by all who desire to remain in the communion of the Church ^" The later practice might have been expected to find patrons, if any where, among such of our divines as adopted that view of the holy Eucharist which is maintained in Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice; yet we do not find that they either endeavoured or desired to effect its restoration. Johnson himself says: — "I only speak of the * Codex Prim. Vind. 1. ii. c. iii. § x. Works, vol. xii. p. 22. Oxf. 1848. BINGHAM, WATEELAND. 119 efficacy of the oblation in behalf of such as were chap. , . . Ill- detained from the Communion by some involun- sect. m. tary and invincible obstacle; and am so far from having any good opinion of the solitary masses among the Papists, that I am fully satisfied that in the primitive Church the oblation and com- munion were inseparable ; and that they had but one altar in every Church, where all, both clergy and people, both attended and received **." Bingham, who has treated the subject at some length, affirms that "the most ancient and pri- mitive custom was for all that were allowed to stay and communicate in prayers, to communicate in the participation of the Eucharist also, except only the last class of penitents. . . . These only ex- cepted, all other baptized persons were not only admitted, but by the rule of the Church obliged to communicate in the Eucharist, under pain of ecclesiastical censure ^" Waterland, speaking of the decree of Agde, which ordered all to wait for the Bishop's blessing, says : — " Though the dismission of the non-communicants might per- haps be deferred somewhat later now than in Chrysostom's time, yet dismissed they were be- fore the communion properly came on, and the absurdity which Chrysostom complained of, ^ Unbloody Sacrifice, ch. ii. sect. ii. ; vol. i. p. 401. Oxf. 1847. ' Antiquities, b. xv. ch. iv. sect. i. ; vol. i. p. 769. 120 ROMAN ADOKATION that of staying out the whole solemnity without communicating, never was admitted in those days ^" TV. Enough, perhaps, has now heen said to show both the intention of the Church herself and the conviction of her most eminent divines. There is, however, one more than probable result of the practice now struggling to regain a footing in our country, to which it is desirable that we should advert briefly before we conclude. In the Church of Kome, where attendance at mass without communicating has been for cen- turies regarded as the chief ordinary duty of religion, a habit necessarily grew up of viewing the host, as exhibited in the hands of the priest and on the altar, with feelings of intense rever- ence, which led at length to its becoming the avowed object of a direct adoration. That Church, with her usual policy, instead of labour- ing to recal her children to the more healthy simplicity of the first ages, cherished the mis- * Review, ch. xiv.; vol. iv. p. 793. Wateiland thought, with Schelstrate, that both the Apostolical and the Antiochene canon ought to be received "with a softening explication;" because, says he, "it is not reasonable to think that a modest and sober departure before communion began .... would be looked upon as a disturbance ; but if it were done out of dislike, or contempt, and upon factious principles, then indeed it would be apt to make great disturbance." These writers do not seem to have paid sufficient attention to the fact that the alternative of staying away altogether was always, within reasonable limits, permitted to the laity. See p. 53. OF THE CONSECRATED ELEMENTS. 121 taken devotion by every means at her command, chap, and in the end, at the Thirteenth Session of sect, i v. Trent, declared the worship of latria^ that is, the same worship that is paid to God Himself, to he due to the Sacrament ^ This result was of course facilitated by that unprimitive view of the Real Presence, which she has so long adopted ; but it is evident that there is danger of a tendency to the same practice from every extravagance of language upon this sacred subject. And the danger is especially great when the people are taught that by "assisting" merely, without communicating, at the " action wherein Christ's very Presence is exhibited on earth," they may receive an earnest of " that privilege which is perpetually afforded to the saints in bliss, a foretaste of the beatific vision '." This superstitious tendency has betrayed itself already among the English advocates of attend- ance without participation. Thus one of them (whose taste for opprobrious epithets is not to be commended), argues in its behalf, that "Anglo- Zuinglians, or Anglo-Calvinists, at any rate, who regard 'the sacred elements as bare signs of a thing absent,' may not on their own principles refuse permission to the devout soul to gaze thereby at Christ, whom the sacred elements ^ Sess. xiii. De Euch. c. v. and can, vi. ^ "Wilberforce, pp. 413, 414. 122 GAZING AND ADORATION CONDEMNED CHAP, represent ^" Mr. Wilberforce seems to have SECT. IV. been somewhat in advance of this a considerable time before he joined the Church of Rome. In an anonymous tract on Spiritual Communion, of which he is stated to be the author, he sup- poses the objection : — " Is there no danger of unduly paying worship to the creatures of bread and wine?" To this he replies: — "No more than there was danger of Moses unduly worship- ping the Burning Bush, when he worshipped our Blessed Lord Really Present in it; — or rather, since the Bread and Wine become in Reality His own Body and Blood, no more than when those who worshipped Him, as did the Wise Men, in His Visible Body on earth, were in danger of worshipping His natural creatures of human flesh and blood which composed It ^" The former of these writers suggests, " that to bring about ' the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ,' even a rubric, if needful, might be immolated ^" I shall not be thought to speak lightly of the immolation of a rubric, if I observe that this person has proved himself equal to a far greater sacrifice. In the Twenty-fifth Article of Religion, to which, if a clergyman, he has subscribed a solemn assent, it is 2 The Right of all the Baptized, &c. Pref. p. 3. 3 Tracts on Catholic Unity, No. 8 ; p. 7. * The Right, &c. p. 26. BY THE CHUKCII OF ENGLAND. 123 declared that " the Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon^ .... but that we should duly use them." To the same purpose are we taught in the Second Book of Homilies that at Christ's "heavenly Supper every one of us must be guests and not gazers, eaters and not lookers \" In equal contrast with Mr. Wilberforce's defence of adoration is the decisive language of the Twenty- eighth Article : — " The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not, by Christ's ordinance, reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped ;^^ and of the declaration appended to the Communion Office : — " No adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and wine, then bodily received, or unto any corporal presence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood. For the sacra- mental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored (for that were idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians). And the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one." The teaching of the Church of England upon this point is too clear to be questioned, and her authority will determine the conduct of all her dutiful children. It is a satisfaction, however, to know that her decision is in accordance with the * Serm. on the Sacrament, pait ii. 124 OEIGIN OF THE WORSHIP CHAP, religious wisdom of the first ages, her avowed SECT. IV, model in doctrine, and, where it has been possible, in discipline likewise. By excluding those who did not receive, the primitive Church saved them at least from the temptation to gaze and adore. One reason of that exclusion was, as we have seen it stated by S. Chrysostom, that those who are not in a meet state to communicate must be equally unmeet to join in the Eucharistic Office ; but occasionally this objection is expressed in a manner yet more to the point of our inquiry; — as when the same Father says : — " Many laden with numberless sins, when they see the festival come, as if they were driven to it by the day itself, touch the sacred mysteries, which it is not lawful for them, while so disposed, even to see ^" The author of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, describing the celebration of the Sacra- ment, says : — " They remain, who are worthy of the sight and communion of the Divine things ^" But how was it with those who did receive ? It must be confessed that after the second century there was much in the language used by divines with respect to Christ's presence in the Sacrament which, unless explained and corrected by their other teaching, would naturally lead in time to an undue reverence for the material symbols of His * Horn, de Bapt. Chi-isti. 0pp. torn. ii. p. 441. 7 C. ii. § 2. 0pp. torn. i. p. 315. OF THE CONSECRATED ELEMENTS. 125 death. They never thought of worshipping them, chap. and seldom directed the eyes of the people towards them^; but when they spoke (for example) of " seeing the Lord crucified and lying '^ " on the altar, or told their hearers that " He had passed into the earthly element and made it heavenly ','' or warned them not to judge of it by taste or sight ^, they were certainly, when understood to the letter, laying a foundation on which a less instructed age might build a formal practice of creature-worship. We may well doubt whether they were alive to the danger which might result from such expressions. Their own disciples understood them, and we have no right to blame them because they did not fore- see the clouds of ignorance and barbarism which * The strongest instance that occurs to me is in S. Chrysostom, in Ep. i. ad Cor. Horn. xxiv. sub fin, (Opp. torn. x. p. 256) : — "This (tovtI) mystery makes earth heaven. Only throw open then the gates of heaven and look through ; or rather, not of heaven, but of the heaven of heavens, and then thou wilt see that which has been said. For the most precious of all things there will I show thee lying upon the earth. For as in kings' houses, the most honourable thing of all is not walls, or golden roof, but the person of the king seated on the throne ; so also in heaven is the Body of the King. But this it is now permitted thee to see upon the earth." Yet this passage and its context are so worded that they are quoted by Jewel as an instance in which S. Chrysostom " withdraweth the minds of the people from the sensible elements of the bread and the wine, and lifteth them up by spiritual cogitations into heaven." Reply to Harding, art. viii. div. 21 ; p. 298. ^ Chrysost. de Sacerd. Serm. iii. c. iv.; p. 42. Oxon. 1844. * Gaudentius, Tr. ii. de Pasch. Biblioth. PP. tom. v. p. 946. Lugd. 1677. - Cyrill. Hier. Catech. Myst. iv. § iii. Opp. p. 294. Oxon. 1703. 126 THE EARLY CHRISTIAN were destined, before the lapse of many centuries, to overspread the Church. It has, moreover, been so ordered, that in their writings are found many passages in which they labour to raise men's thoughts above the outward sign, and fix them in faith on the unseen reality which it denotes. We are thus furnished with an incidental protest on their part against the very evil to which the extreme language that they at times employed was calculated to conduce, and with a proof that such language was not prompted by the habit of " gazing " or " adoring," or by any sentiment which would have led them to approve of it. Thus Origen : — " Not that visible bread which He held in His hands did God the Word declare to be His Body, but the word in the mystery of which that bread was to be broken. Nor did He say that that visible drink was His Blood, but the word in the mystery of which that drink was to be poured forth ^" The Fathers at Nicsea: — "Let us not fix our thoughts unworthily on the bread and the cup set before us, but lifting up our mind, let us by faith deem that on that holy table is lying the Lamb of God ^" S. Athanasius : — " Speaking of the eating of His Body, and seeing many scan- dalized thereby, the Lord said, ' Does this offend 3 In S. Matt, Ev. Comm. § 85. 0pp. torn. iii. p. 898. ■* Hist. Cone. Nic. Gelasio Cyzic. ascr. c. xxx. Mansi. torn, ii, col. 888. TAUGHT TO LOOK UPWARD. 127 you ? What and if ye shall see the Son of man chap. ascend up where He was before ? It is the Spirit sect. iv. that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.' .... For, for how many would His Body suffice for food, that this should be the food of the whole world ? But He made mention of the ascension into heaven of the Son of man with a view to withdraw them from the corporeal notion, and that they might also understand that the flesh, of which He spake, is heavenly food, from above, and a spiritual nourishment given by Him ^" S. Augustine : — " We receive visible food, but the Sacrament is one thing, the virtue of the Sacra- ment another." "'This,' then, 4s the bread which Cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die ;' but it is that which belongs to the virtue of the Sacrament, not that which belongs to the visible Sacrament : it is he who eats inwardly, not outwardly, he who eats in his heart, not he who presses with his tooth ^" S. Nilus : — " Not as of common bread and wine to the satis- fying of the belly do we partake of that awful and desirable table in the Church; but a share is given to us of a small portion by those who minister to God, and we partake gazing intently 5 Ep. ad Serap. iv. § 19. Opp. torn, i. P. ii. pp. 567, 568. Patav. 1777. The Eucharist is not expressly named in this passage; but the allusion cannot be doubted. 6 Tract, in Joh. Ev. xxvi. §§ 11, 12; torn. iii. P. ii. col. 1983. 128 CONCLUSION. CHAP, aloft with the eyes of the soul^ that we may be ciNCL. cleansed from our sins, and attain to holiness and salvation ^" Thus thought and spoke the pious teachers of the early Church. With the most reverent belief in Christ present, and " verily and indeed received by the faithful" in this holy ordinance, and though perpetually, as was most natural, and as He Him- self had taught them, giving the Name of the Divine Reality to that which signified It, they yet remembered that the symbol is but the instrument that conveys Christ, and not Christ, in absolute identity, Himself. Him therefore they adored, not it. The earthly sign did not detain them upon earth. They looked beyond, they looked above. Through that which lay before them, their faith could see, as through a veil, Jesus once offered. The eye might rest on the material sign ; but the soul beheld " the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." 7 Epp. 1. ii. Ep. cxliv.; p. 186. Rom. 1668. THE END. GILBERT AND EIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN's SQUARE, LONDON. i