^>?1^^^^^^H i oTPRJlvcf^ OG/CAL SEVA^ BV 600 .W219i Zk Keble, John, 1792-1866. On eucharistical adoration ON EUCHAEISTICAL ADOEATION. BY THE / REV. JOHN KEBLE, M.A., VICAR OF nURSLEY. "It pleased GOD the Woed to unite the created Flesh which is of Us without blemish unto Himself: therefore It is adored, with God the Worti, inasmuch as He hath deified It." — Anon. ap. Chrys., ed Sav., vi. 962. OXFORD, AND 377, STRAND, LONDON ; JOHN HENRY and JAMES PARKER. M DCCO IVII. rniNTED BY ME88R8. PARKEU, COUN-MAUKET, OXFOUD. It may be proper to state that the following pages were written before the writer had seen either "The Real Pre- sence," by Dr. Pusey, "The Principles of Divine Service," vol. ii., by Mr. Freeman, or Mr. Carter's " Treatise on the Christian Priesthood." t. Lord Jesxts Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. R. Preserve us from being earned about with, divers and strange doctrines. Almighty, everliving Father, Who hast promised unto Thy faithful people life by Thine Incarnate Son, even as He livcth by Thee j Grant unto us all, and especially to our Bishops and Pastors, and to those whom Thy Providence hath in any wise entrusted with the treasure of Thy holy doctrine amongst us, Thy good Spirit, always so to believe and understand, to feel and firmly to hold, to speak and to think, concerning the Mystery of the Communion of Thy Son's Body and Blood, as shall be well-pleasing to Thee, and profitable to our sovils j through the same our Lord Jestjs Christ, Who liveth and rcigneth with Thee in the unity of the same Spirit, One God, world without end. Amen. ON EUCHARISTICAL ADORATION; OR, THE WORSHIP OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR IN THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY COMMUNION. CHAPTER I. PROMPTINGS OF NATURAL PIETY. §. 1. The object of this Essay is to allay, and, if possible, Chap. I. to quiet, the troublesome thoughts which may at times, and now especially, occur to men's minds on this awful subject, so as even to disturb them in the highest act of devotion. For this purpose it may be well to consider calmly, not without deep reverence of heart. First, what Natural Piety would suggest ; Secondly, what Holy Scripture may appear to sanction; Thirdly, what the Fathers and Liturgies indi- cate to have been the practice of the Primitive Church; Fourthly, what the Church of England enjoins and recom- mends. § .2. For the first : is it not self-evident that, had there been no abuse, or error, or extravagance connected with the practice, all persons believing and considering the Real Pre- sence of our Lord in Holy Communion, in whatever man- ner or degree, would in the same manner or degree find it impossible not to use special worship ? — the inward worship, I mean, and adoration of the heart : for that, of course, is the main point in question; the posture and mode are se- condary and variable, and may and must admit of dispen- sation. The simple circumstance of our Lord Christ declaring Him- self especially present would, one would think, be enough for this. Why do we bow our knees and pray on first enter- B 2 Thvco Groiouh of special Adoration : Chap. I . ing the Lord's house? Why do we feci that during all our continuance there we should be, as it were, prostrating our hearts before Hini? Why is it well to breathe a short prayer Avhen we begin reading our Bibles, and still as we read to re- collect ourselves, and try to go on in the spirit of prayer? And so of other holy exercises : in proportion as they bring with them the sense of His peculiar presence, what can the believer do but adore? I firmly believe that all good Chris- tians do so, in the Holy Sacrament most especially, what- ever embarrassment many of them may unhappily have been taught to feel touching the precise mode of their adoration. And this may well be one of the greatest consolations, in the sad controversies and misunderstandings among which our lot is cast. It is as impossible for devout faith, contem- plating Christ in this Sacrament, not to adore Ilim, as it is for a loving mother, looking earnestly at her child, not to love it. The mother's consciousness of her love, and her outward manifestation of it, may vary; scruples, interrup- tions, bewilderments may occur; but there it is in her heart, you cannot suppress it. So must there be special adoration and worship in the heart of every one seriously believing a special, mysterious presence of Christ, God and man, ex- pressed by the Avords, This is My Body. §. 3. I say a special adoration and worship, over and above what a religious man feels upon every occasion which helps him to realize, what he always believes, that God is "about his path, and about his bed, and spieth out all his ways;" that in Him he " lives, and moves, and has his being." And this for very many mysterious and overpowering reasons. I will specify three, the most undeniable and irresistible. Pirst, the greatness of the benefit off'ered ; next, its being offered and brought home to each one personally and individually ; thirdly, the deep condescension and humiliation on the part of Ilim who offers the benefit. §. 4. When Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt, " tliey cried before him. Bow the knee.'' When Moses de- livered the first message from God to the Israelites in Egypt, concerning their deliverance, and the second message, con- Tho Greatness of the Benefit. 3 cerning the Passover, " tlie people bowed tlieir heads and Chap. I. worshipped." Would it not have been very strange, if, when the great promises were realized before their eyes, and they actually saw the token of the Lord's Presence, the fire coming down and consuming their first offering, — that fire which continued until it was quenched by their sins before the first captivity, — they had scrupled to own His Presence by like adoration ? They did the same, and much more, when Aaron, for the first time after his consecration, "lifted up his hand toward the people and blessed them, . . . and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people. And there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt-offering and the fat : which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces^." There was no one at hand to say to them, " Take care : people will call it fire-worship." And just in the same way did they acknow- ledge the finishing of the old dispensation by the building of the Temple. When David had completed his preparations, he said to all the congregation, " Now bless the Lord your God. And all the congregation blessed the Lord God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and worshipped the Lord and the king'\" When, upon the day of consecra- tion, " Solomon had made an end of praying, . . . and when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and wor_ shipped, and praised the Lord^" The outward act of worship was more lowly, and no doubt in religious hearts the inward adoration was deeper and more fervent, as the mighty bless- ing made its approach more manifest. §. 5. So, and much more, in the Christian Church. If we kneel, and bow the knees of our hearts, to receive a blessing in the Name of the Most High from His earthly representatives, Father, Priest, or Bishop, how should we do other than adore and fall prostrate, inwardly at least, when the Son of Man gives His own appointed token that He is descending to bless us in His own mysterious way ? And with what a blessing ! — "the remission of our sins, and all other benefits of His * Levit. ix. 22—24. ^ 1 Chroii. xxix. 20. " 2 Chron. vii. 1, 3. b2 4 The Kcanicss of the Blcsainy Chap, I. Passion !" His Flesh, which is meat indeed, and His Blood, which is drink indeed ! mutual indwelling between Him and us ; we living by Him, as He by the Pather ! Surely these are gifts, at the very hearing of which, were an Angel to come and tell us of them for the first time, we could not choose but fall down and worship. And now it is no Angel, but the Lord of the Angels, incarnate, coming not only to promise, but actually to exhibit and confer them. §. 6. Further, the Eucharist is our Saviour coming with these unutterable mysteries of blessing, coming with His glo- rified Humanity, coming by a peculiar presence of His own divine Person, to impart Himself to each one of us separately, to impart Himself as truly and as entirely as if there were not iu the world any but that one to receive Him. And this also, namely, the bringing home of God's gifts to the particu- lar individual person, has ever been felt by that person, in proportion to his faith, as a thrilling call for the most unre- served surrender that he could make of himself, his whole spirit, soul, and body : i. e. of the most unreserved Worship. Look at the saints of God from the beginning. God made a covenant with Abraham, He promised to give him a son of Sarah, and both times Abraham "fell on his face"^." PHs servant Eliezer " bowed the head and worshipped,'' when he found that he was miraculously guided to the person whom God had chosen to be Isaac's wife; and again, when her kinsmen had consented to the marriage*^. God descended in the cloud on Mount Sinai, and stood Avith Moses on the mount, in token that he had found favour in His sight, and He knew him by name : Moses " made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped^" The captain of the Lord's host appeared unto Joshua, and Joshua ''fell on his face to the earth, and did w'orships," The angel of the Lord went up in the flame of Manoah's altar, and Manoah and his wife looked on it, and "fell on their faces to the ground''." When young Samuel was so- lemnly "lent to the Lord," Eli performed a solemn act of adoration, and Hannah accompanied it with an adoring ^ Gen. xvii. 3, 17. « Gen. xxiv. 26, 52. ' Exod. xxxiv. 8. s Josh. V. 14. •• Judges xiii. 20. a GroKiu/ofsjjccidl Wornliij). E.va)iq)les : 5 hymn'. The Shunamite, wlien her cliild had been raised ])y Chap. I. EHsha, " fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground ^.'' §. 7. If we go on to the New Testament, and take a few in- stances out of many, we shall still find that it is the nearness as well as the greatness of the blessing which prompts the special worship or thanksgiving. " Whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come unto me .?" " Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." The leper worshipped Him, saying, "Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth His hand and touched him." On His walking on the sea, and quieting the storm, after the miracle of the loaves, those who were in the ship came and worshipped Him ; so did Jairus, so did the woman with the issue of blood : some of them before, some after the mercy received. So did the woman of Canaan; so the father of the demoniac, after the transfiguration; so the poor slave, over- whelmed with debt, in the parable of the unmerciful servant; so the mother of Zebedee^s children, asking the great wish of her heart; so the holy women, holding Him by the feet, when, being risen. He met them, and said, All hail! so the eleven, meeting Him by appointment in Galilee. So S. Peter, after the draught of fishes, "fell down at Jesus' knees'," the more overpowered by the greatness of the miracle, because of the nearness of Him who wrought it ; coming into his boat, and directing him where and when to cast the net. So Magdalene, drawn to Him by His presence in the Phari- see's house ; so the grateful leper, turning round to Him before He Avas out of sight; and the eager, rich young man. So Zaccheus, at His coming into his house ; so the blind man in S. John ix., " Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee .... and he worshipped Him." So S. Thomas, on His specially addressing him ; (for in- voking Him as his Lord and God was surely an act of wor- ship;) so Cornelius to S. Peter; so the jailor to S. Paul and Silas ; so S. John t j the Angel. §. 8. But three cases there are, which bring out this law of devotion (so to call it) in a peculiar and very wonderful way. ' 1 Sam. ii. 1. ^ 2 Kings iv. .37. Cf. 2 Chron. xx. 18; Dan. ii. 19. ' S. Luke V. 8. G llie Magnificat has the Tone of Eucharistical Worship. Chap. I. To Maiy of Bethany it was said, "The Master is come, and calleth for thee ;" for thee in particular, — for thee by name : what else can Mary do but hasten and throw herself at Jesus' feet? Not so Martha, who had not been sent for. And again, either of the same holy woman, or of another very like her, we read, " Jesus said unto her, INIary :" it was that, His calling her by name, His coming to herself per- sonally and individually, which had the thrilling effect upon her. She had heard before that He was risen, — she had heard of Him " by the hearing of the ear,'' — but now she heard Him actually speaking, and speaking to her ; and so her eye, which before only saw without resting on Him, came clearly to discern Him. It was the personal application to her by name which drove away for ever her melancholy dream that He was absent, and caused her to turn herself and ciy out " My Master !" with an adoring voice and ges- ture, as the context shews; for the saying, "Touch Me not," implies an attempt on her part to embrace His knees, or hold Him by the feet, or some such action : and even if it had not been written, who could have doubted it? And may we not here, too, remember that other Mary, her whom all generations shall call Blessed, when she not only saw and heard the Angel declaring the message of salvation to her, and to us all, but knew in herself that the Holy Ghost was come upon her, and the Power of the Highest overshadowing her, and that the Holy Thing that should be born of her was to be called the "Son of God?" What her feelings were we partly know by that hymn in which, as w^e may reverently believe, she even now joins with the Church continually : which hymn is surely as perfect an act of adoration as ever w^as performed on earth by any but her divine Son Himself. We know that her Maynificat begins Avith owning the Lord and God as her Saviour; with amaze- ment that He had regarded " the lowliness of His hand- maiden ;" that He had marked her out for a perpetual blessing, and had done to her great things. In respect of the Incarnation itself, then, it was not only the immensity of the Gift, but its inconceivably near approach also to the Receiver, which she was taught of the Holy Ghost adoringly No Gift so fjrcat or so near as the EacJiarist. 7 to acknoAvledge. Why or how should it be otherwise in re- Chap. T. spect of that which divines have truly called '^the extension of the Incarnation," — the participation of the Incarnate One by His true members, in and througli the spiritual eating and drinking of His present Body and Blood ? §. 9. Thus it would appear that God's holy Word from be- ginning to end abounds in examples to sanction those natural instincts of the devout and loving heart, which prompt to deeper and more intense adoration in proportion to the greatness of the gift, and the directness with which it comes straight to the receiver from Almighty God. Now the gift in the Holy Eucharist is Christ Himself — all good gifts in one; and that in an immense, inconceivable de- gree. And how can we conceive even Power Almighty to bring it more closely and more directly home to each one of us, than when His Word commands and His Spirit enables us to receive Him as it were spiritual mea); and drink ? entering into and penetrating thoroughly the whole being of the renewed man, somewhat in the same way as the virtue of wholesome meat and drink diffuses itself through a healthful body : only, as we all know, with this great difference, (among others,) — that earthly meat and drink is taken up and changed into parts of our earthly frame, whereas the work of this heavenly nourishment is to transform our being into itself; to change us after His image, " from glory to glorj'^," from the fainter to the more perfect brightness ; until '' our sinful bodies be made clean by His Body, and our souls washed through His most precious Blood ; and we dwell evermore in Him, and He in us :" " we in Him," as members of " His mystical Body, which is the blessed company of all faithful people ;" " He in us," by a real and unspeakable union with His divine Person, vouchsafod to us through a real and entirely spiritual participation of that Flesh and Blood which He took of our Father Adam through the Blessed Virgin Mary ; Avherewith He suffered on the Cross, wherewith also He now appears day and night before His Father in heaven for us. So that a h^y man of our own Church was not afraid thus to write of this^acramcnt : — 8 All Grounds of Worship made intense in the Eucharist : Chap. I. "By the way of nourishiucnt and strength Thon creep' st into my breast, Making Thy way my rest, And Thy small quantities my length, "Which spread their forces into every part, Meetiuff sin's force and art. " Thy grace, which with these elements comes, Knoweth the ready way. And hath the privy key, Opening the soul's most subtle rooms •"." §. 10. The Slim is this. Renewed nature prompts the Chris- tian, and Holy Scripture from beginning to end encoui'ages him, to use special adoration to Almighty God at the receiv- ing of any special gift; — adoration the more earnest and in- tense as the gift is greater, and the appropriation of it to the worshipper himself more entire and direct. So it is with all lesser, all partial gifts ; how then should it not be so when we come to the very crown and fountain of all, that which com- prehends all the rest in their highest possible excellency, and which is bestowed on each receiver by way of most unspeak- able participation and union, — that gift which is God Him- self, as well as having God for its Giver? ''Chi'ist in us," not only Christ offered for us ; a " divine nature" set before us, of which we are to be made " partakers." Must we cease adoring when He comes not only as the Giver, but as the Gift ; not only as the Priest, but as the Victim ; not only as "the Master of the Feast," but as "the Feast itself"?" Nay, but rather this very circumstance is a reason beyond all reasons for more direct and intense devotion. §. 11. This brings us to the third circumstance, mentioned above as an obvious motive of adoration in the Holy Eucha- rist. For consider, — to take the lowest ground first, — when men are receiving a favour from a superior, is not a sense of his condescension a natural ingredient in their loving ac- knowledgments? and if there is any thing generous and ™ G.Herbert's Kcinaiii.s, p. \)[), oil. " Bp. Taylor, Holy Living : Works, 1826. iv. 310, Hebcr'B edition. Especially that of Goifs deep Condescension. 9 grateful in their hearts, do they not honour and revere him Chap. T. the more for every suffering, humihation, debasement, in- dignity which he may have incurred in doing them good? and can they well endure to hide and repress their venera- tion for him ? are they not the more bent on avowing it, the more they see him slighted by others, possibly on this very account, that he had not spared so to demean himself for their sake ? Caleb " stilled the people before Moses,'^ when the spies were setting them against him". Joshua was jealous for Moses' sake, when some appeared to be prophesying without commission from himP. It is plain that their loyalty to him was quickened by the reproach they saw him enduring. So all the dark feelings and speeches of the unhappy Saul con- cerning David, served but to settle Jonathan's heart in loving and honouring him more than ever. So Shimei's cursing Dand in his affliction kindled the zeal of his soldiers and servants. And our Master, when He was with us in the flesh, more than once gave token of especial approbation and blessing to those who confessed Him the more unreservedly for the wrong that was done Him ; as to the sinful woman, who, un- consciously or not, supplied the Pharisee's discourtesy by a washing, anointing, and salutation of her own; to Simon Peter, speaking out before the rest, to own as the words of eternal life those sayings about Holy Communion, which had just driven away many of the disciples in disgust ; and very significantly to the man born blind, when he in dutiful and pious gratitude had stood up for Christ, his Restorer, against the Pharisees, and had incurred their scorn and hatred. "Thou wast altogether born in sin, and dost thou teach us ? and they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out ; and when He had found him, He said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God ? he answered and said, Who is he. Lord, that I might believe on Him ? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him^." The Pharisees' reviling of Christ, and " Numbers xiii. 30. ^ Numbers xi. 28. i S. John ix. 34— 38. 10 The Penitent Thief a Model of Eucharistical IForship. CnAP. I. of himself for Christ's sake, led him not only to belief, but to adoration. And what shall we say of the Thief on the Cross ? It may appear by the tenor of the sacred history, that the provi- dential instrument of his conversion was the revilings of the crowd and of his fellow-malefactor, — in which he himself at first ignorantly joined, — so meekly and majestically borne by the holy Jesus. When he saw that, he perceived at once that "This Man hath done nothing amiss;" and he became the first to know and own Christ, " and the powxr of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His deaths" The deep veneration he had conceived for our Lord, as for an innocent INIan receiving the due reward of such wicked deeds as his own, was re- warded with an adoring faith in Him as Lord and Judge of the whole world ; and he became the first example of those who should be saved by the blessed Cross. And beholding liis Lord's glory through the veil of His extreme humilia- tion, and taught fi'om above to understand that for that very humiliation's sake he was to surrender himself entirely to Christ, — to worship Him with all the powers of his soul, — lie became also a pattern for all who would be worthy commu- nicants. For what is that which we remember specially, and on which w^e fix our mind's eye in Holy Communion, but the same which he then saw with his bodilj'^ eyes ? — the Body and Blood of Christ, i. e. Christ Himself, offered up by Himself for that thief and for each one of us? And if he worshipped, and was blessed, why not we ? We seem to have been drawn up unawares, by this enu- meration of examples, from the contemplation of a high moral sentiment to that of a cardinal principle in the king- dom of heaven ; for such undoubtedly has ever been the rule of acknowledging Christ's Incarnation, and all His con- descensions and humiliations consequent upon it, by special and express acts of homage and worship, inward and out- waru, according to the time and occasion. But this topic may better be referred to the second and ' riiilipj). iii. 10. The Antecedent Presumption is in favour of Worship. 11 third heads of our proposed enquiry, — AYhat are the more Chap. I. direct bearings of Holy Scripture, and ancient Church tes- timonies, on the practice of worshipping Christ in the Eu- charist ? CHAPTER II. SUGGESTIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. § 1. After what has been alleged, it will not, I think, be assuming too much, if wq turn to those passages of our Bibles which more immediately relate to the Eucharist and the great theological verities connected with it, in the ex- pectation of finding the worship of Christ in that Sacrament rather enjoined than discouraged; seeing that therein are combined and concentrated, in a manner and degree past human imagining, the several reasons and occasions of spe- cial worship, such as, in minor instances, natural piety points them out to us, and as they are everywhere recognised by Holy Scripture and the Church. There is (1.) a peculiar Presence of the Most High; (2.) bringing with it an awful, an infinite blessing ; (3.) appropriating it, moreover, to each one of us in a way inconceivably near and intimate ; and (4.) with a measure of condescension smd humiliation on His part, such as could not have entered into the heart of man to conceive. Surely if, notwithstanding all this, our Lord's will is that we should not so adore Him, we might expect to find somewhere a distinct prohibition of the practice. The onus prot)andi lies upon those who would restrain us. We may require them, in legal phrase, to " shew cause'^ from the Word of God, as understood always, everywhere, and by all, why we should do violence to so many instincts of our nature. As Bishop Taylor has taught us to ask, " If Christ be there, why are we not to worship ?" I say again. According to all sound rules of argument, it is rather our right to call upon those who censure the practice to cite some text for- bidding it, than it is theirs to call upon us for one expressly enjoining it. It has been repeated over and over again, that neither our 12 Worship due to C/irisfs Manhood Chap. II. Lord, in the words of institution, nor S. Paul in his inspired comment on them, has said anything about worshipping Christ there present ''under the form" (or "outward part") '' of Bread and "VVine;" aud therefore, that to abstain from such worship is the safer way. " If it be not commanded, it is virtually forbidden." Perhaps the foregoing considera- .tions may lead some to invert the argument, and say rather, *'If not forbidden, it is virtually commanded." I proceed to point out in Holy Scripture what appears to me a very strong additional argument for the practice, — a complete justification, even if it do not amount to an im- plicit recommendation of it. § 2. Carrying on the idea with which the former section ended, may we not say, that throughout Holy Scripture, as afterwards throughout the traditions of the Catholic Church, is discernible an evident anxiety (so to speak) to preserve, and encourage, and impress on all believers this portion especially of the sacred doctrine of the Incarnation, That " the Manhood is taken into God ?" the human nature abid- ing in our Lord's Person, true and entire, from the very moment of His Incarnation; and thenceforth eternally re- ceiving from the Divine Nature, to which it is inseparably united, all such properties and perfections as it might en- joy without losing its reality and ceasing to be human. The manifestation, indeed, of these properties and perfections, — the " Beams of Deity," — restrained and enlarged themselves according to the exigencies of the marvellous work in pro- gress, known only to the great Buler thereof; but in deed and in truth the communication itself of the properties of the higher nature to the lower, (to use a comparatively late ecclesiastical terra,) was complete within the limit above- mentioned, fi'om the very moment that the Second Person of the Trinity became Man. § 3. With regard especially to that property to which the present enquiry relates, — the Epistle to the Hebrews ex- pressly declares, " When He bringeth in the First-begotten into the world, [eh ti-jv olKov/u,evi]v,) lie saith. And let all the Angels of God worship Him\" What is eh ttjv olKovfieurjv ? " Heb. i. 5 ; from Ps. xcvii. 7, and Deut. xxxii. 43. LXX. as taken into God. 13 "Into the created and inhabited worhl :" (such is the con- Chap. II. stant use of the word in Holy Scripture). Tlierefore the saying, " Introducing the First-born into the world/' lite- rally means " causing Him to become one of the creatures, one of the inhabitants of the world which God had made ;" as He describes Himself, "These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God* ;" or as the Holy Ghost describes Him by S. Paul, He is " the Image of the invisible God, the First-born of every crea- ture";" "the First-born among many brethren'^;" the First- born, not in time, but in rank, and in the counsel of God. Of course, when our gracious Lord began to be of the number of God's creatures^ i. e. at the time of His incar- nation and birth. He began to be the First-born in this sense. To that moment, and to no other, we may with some confidence affirm, the Apostle carries us back, — as the prophet David, whom he by the Holy Ghost is interpreting, carries us forward, — in the words, " And let all the Angels of God worship Him." The prophecy we know was literally ful- filled : to the Hebrew Christians, to whom the Apostle was writing, it was matter of well-known history. At the very time that the blessed Virgin Mary brought forth her First- born Son, the Angel appeared to the shepherds with the good tidings of great joy; but the multitude of the heavenly host, with their full hymn of praise, did not appear until the words of deeper humiliation were added, " Ye shall find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." A thing which has been often observed, and which is surely much to our present purpose : it has a doctrinal as well as a moral meaning. Read by the light which is thrown back upon it by the Apostle's saying to the Hebrews, it looks like a proclamation from the Great King, This is He whom I delight to honour, " worship Him all ye gods," all that is called God in heaven and in earth ; let the highest of created beings adore Him with a special worship by reason of His unspeakable humiliation, now that He is made man, "wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger;" let them understand that on this day the Father of all by the ' Rev. ii. 14. " Coloss. i. 15. * Rom. viii. 29. 14 The Angels conunanded to adore Christ's Manhood. Chap. II. Holy Gliost hath become the Fatlier of tlic Mau Christ Jesus, in that sense in which Christ vouchsafes to be " the Beginning, the First-born of ever\^ creature ;" in that sense in which it is said to Him, " Tliou art My Son, this day have I begotten Theey." God never said so to any of the An- gels, but He said it to Christ, when He "glorified Him to become an High-priest ■/' anointing the human nature that was in Christ with the Holy Ghost, without stint or mea- sure^. That was at the moment of His Incarnation, for from that moment it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell — " all the fulness of the Godhead bodily/^ To that, and not to anything added by the Holy Ghost which liad just descended upon Him, the word spoken from heaven at His baptism evidently refers : " Thou art My beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased." So also, I venture to think, does the quotation of S. Paul in Acts xiii. 33 ; although our translation would seem rather to connect it with the resurrection : " We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He hath raised up Jesus, [avaaTi](Ta• 1 Cor. ii. G— 8. ' S. Ignatius ad Eplies. c. 19. '' 1 Cor. xi. 10. a Token of our Lord's adorable Presence. 19 other hand, Satan was waiting at the very first Eucharist of Chap. II. all to enter into Judas Iscariot ; and Ave know what great and peculiar danger there is of his entering in and re-possessing unworthy communicants. Why are the Angels so especially present, — why is Satan so to be feared as near at hand, — in Holy Communion, more than in other Church ceremonies ? Surely because the Gift is greater and nearer, and more distinctly applied to each one, and that with more unreserved condescension on the part of the Giver, than on any other occasion in the Christian life. Surely because it is the Word made Flesh, personally pre- sent and revealed in the truth of His human nature, and offering thereby to make His own partakers of His divine nature also : and " wheresoever the Carcase,'' the holy slain Bod}^ is, ''thither will the eagles be gathered together;'' the good, and saintly, and angelical Spirits to feed on it, — the Judases and enemies of Christ to mangle and to scorn it. § 10. All this is no more than Holy Scripture, as in- terpreted by the ancient Church, plainly teaches; and all this plainly implies a Real objective Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ, and that to be both eaten and wor- shipped, in Holy Communion. It implies such an union of condescension and power for the deification (so termed by the Fathers) of each one of us ^, as the very Incarnation and Cross exhibited for the salvation and redemption of all man- kind. Therefore, as our Lord newly incarnate, and nailed to His Cross, was to be specially adored by men and Angels, so also in this Sacrament. § 11. Other scriptural facts and associations tending to the same conclusion are. First, The reverence ordained to be paid, and always paid from the beginning, to the Name of Jesus above all other names ; to the sign of the Cross above all other signs ; to the Gospels above other portions of Holy Scripture; and to Nazareth, Bethlehem, Calvary, above all other places. Secondly, The peculiar significancy and use of the term Son of Man. ' Cf. 2 S. Pet. i. 4. c 2 20 Jesus a Name of Humiliation , fherefore honoured Chap. II. Thirdly, The ways iu whicli believers, while He was yet on earth, found themselves gradually and instinctively drawn to worship Him present iu the flesh, and the manner in which He received that worship. Fourthly, and above all, The account constantly given of the rationale of the Holy Eucliarist itself, both as a sacrifice, and as a sacrificial feast, § 12. As the Body of Jesus during His earthly sojourn was marked out to be honoured by the holy Angels, so afterwards was the Name of Jesus also ; and, as we may reverently believe, for a like cause. The Body was to be especially glorified, as being the inferior part of Christ's in- ferior nature ; the very footstool, as the Psalmist speaks, of His feet ^ ; the flesh of the seed of the woman, which was to be bruised. In like manner, because Jesus is (humanly speaking) the name given to Him by a poor man as a poor woman's child, — the name by which He was ordinarily known when supposed to be a mere man among men, — because people called Him by that name while He went up and down as a carpenter's son, and Himself a carpenter, in the despised village of Nazareth : — because it was a name associated in the minds of all His acquaintance, during the first thirty years of His life, with the tasks and cares, and the very tools, of that ordi- nary trade; with recollections, indeed, of a most blameless and devout demeanour, but not as yet with anything tran- scendent, supernatural, or divine : — because it was the name which, being connected with Nazareth, (out of which town, it was taken for granted, no good thing could come,) proved afterwards through His whole ministry a most effectual stumbling-block to those who were unwilling to believe : because it was the name whereby He Avas described as a Nazarene, the name which His enemies in mockery wrote upon His cross, as contrasting most signally with His high and sacred claims : because it was the name whereby He should be named in scorn among all generations of the un- believing, — (whether worldly-minded Romans, who could not endure to be told "that there is another King, one Jesus;" or bigoted Jews, exasperated by the notion that " this Jesus "' Ps. xclx. 5. by Angels, good and bad; instrumental in Miracles. 21 of Nazareth sliall destroy this place, and change the customs Chap. II. which Moses delivered/' and convinced therefore, with Saul, that they ought to do the most they could contrary to His name ; or apostate Mahometans and heretics, in the East or in the West, delighting to call Him by that one of all His titles which they take to be merely of earth :) — in one word, because it is the name most expressive of His humiliation, therefore His thoughtful servants would instinctively select it in preference to all His other names for especial honour and reverence. § 13. And so we see they did, prompted not by their feelings only, but by the special inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, whose will it was that in this way the dignity of Christ the Son of God, and His most true Incarnation, might never want a witness. The Angels called Him by that name to His honour, remembering, no doubt, how they had brought it from heaven, "Be not affrighted; ye seek Jesus of Naza- reth, which was crucified";'^ and the evil Spirits in their tor- menting dread of Him, — " What have we to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God '?" " What have I to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth" ?" " What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the most high GodP ?" By that name, in preference to all others, the disciples proclaimed Him after His deaths, and the Apostles after His ascension "". In that name they wrought their miracles ^ : "In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk ;" " ^neas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole;" "I command thee in the Name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." By that name the forgers of lies pretended to cast out evil spirits : " I adjure thee," they cried, "by Jesus, whom Paul preacheth*." To the Name of Jesus were annexed all saving as well as healing powers ; " By the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole : neither is there salvation in any other ; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." ° S. Mark xvi. 6. ' Luke xxiv. 19. » S.Mark i. 24. • Acts iii. 6; ix. 34; xvi. 18. P S. Mark v. 7. * Acts xix. 13. 1 Acta ii. 22. 22 Preror/atives of the Name of Jcsas : Chap. II. Therefore to the Name of Jesus, rather than to any other, are to be referred the many promises made by God Al- mighty concerning His Name ; whether things are said to be done Tft) ovoixan, " by the use and instrumentality of it," as in S. Matt. vii. 22, " Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name ? and in Thy Name have cast out devils ? and in Thy Name done many wonderful works?" or ev tw ovo- fiari, implying that it is He, not the visible agent, who doeth the work, or obtaineth the blessing, as in St. Mark xvi. 17, "In My Name they shall cast out devils;" and S. Luke X. 17, "Lord, even the very devils are subject unto us through Thy Name ;" and especially in the gracious promises near the end of S. John's Gospel, " Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will do it";" — or et9 to ovofxa, when in a m3^stery men are made or accounted partakers of the name, or of Him who is named, as in S. Matt, xviii. 20, "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name;" xxviii. 19, (et? to ovofia,) " Unto the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;" and S. John i. 12, " But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name ;" which three texts declare respectively the virtue of the communion of saints, of baptism, and of faith, for the uniting of us to Christ; — or eVt rcS ovofMurt, "for the pro- nouncing or profession of it;" as in S. Matt, xviii. 5, "Who- soever shall receive one such little one in My Name, receiveth Me;" and xxiv. 5, "Many shall come in My Name, saying, I am Christ;" and S. Luke xxiv. 47, "Remission of sins should be preached in His Name ;" and Acts ii. 38, " Be bap- tized in the Name of Jesus Christ;" — or Sia to ovofia, "be- cause of the Name" outwardly called on them, and made a ground of persecution, as in S. Matt. xxiv. 9, "Ye shall be hated of all men for M}' Name's sake;" and in S.John xv. 21, "All these things will they do unto you for My Name's sake." § 14. The Apostle, gathering together in one all these and the like promises, and the manifold daily fulfilments of " In one instance the same form of tion of Persons in the Godhead itself; speech seems to indicate the distinc- S. John xiv. 26. Rule of Bowing at it ; Mystical Allusions to it. 23 them to wliicli he was witness, did by the Holy Ghost enact Chap. If. and pronounce this canon^ for the inward and outward wor- ship of all God's reasonable and understanding creatures, not only in time, but in eternity, That " at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow^," Why at the Name of Jesus, rather than at that of Christ, or Immanuel, or Saviour, or any other of His good and great names ? Why should Jesus be alone specified, as the Name which is above every name? Surely, if the Scrij)ture did not expressly inform us, yet, from its in- direct notices, such as have now been exemplified, a sufficiently probable answer might have been given to this question ; but now we are not left in the smallest doubt. It was because, " being in the form of God," He " thought it not robbery to be equal with God : but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men : and being found in fashion as a man. He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name which is above every name : that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth ; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lordj to the glory of God the Father.'^ As if he should say, Jesus is His title of humiliation ; therefore by that title He is evermore to receive especial homage. § 15. From Angels, both good and bad. He does receive it, as we have seen. In their several ways they bow, and ever will bow, their knees to the Name of Jesus. And the Holy Church from the beginning has venerated this Name above the rest, in affectionate reverence encouraging her children to refer to it on all occasions, in preference to any other of our Lord's names ; as the very sayings of her enemies suffi- ciently prove, who cannot contain themselves for scorn at the cold, and strained, and forced allusions to that Name (so appearing to them) which the writers of the first ages are continually finding or inventing, both in Holy Scripture and in the course of nature and of Providence. A single in- stance will sufficiently explain what is meant. S. Clement » Philipp. ii. 10. 24 Testimonies of Reverence to the Name of Jesus. Chap. II, of Alexandria, in the course of an essay in which he traces out the mystical tenor of each of the ten commandments, as indicated by the number which marks its place, says of the collective meaning of them all^, "The Decalogue taken alto- gether doth, by the letter I (==10) signify the blessed Name, setting before us Jesus, Who is the word." If you ask why this Name is set forth in preference to any other of His names, S. Augustine will answer for the rest : — " Jesus has one meaning, Christ another : Jesus Christ our Saviour being one only; Jesus, nevertheless, is His proper Name. As Moses, Elijah, Abraham, were so called by their proper names, so our Lord, for His proper Name, hath the Name Jesus ; whereas Christ is His sacramental Name ^ ;" or, as S. Augustine goes on to explain, His name of office, " as if you should call a man prophet or priest." That is why the Church has always distinguished the Name of Jesus above all other names, — because it is His very own Name : the Bride delights in it, because it is the very own Name of Him whom her soul loveth ; His own Name, which He as- sumed as the token of His taking her to Himself for ever, "^ and of the infinite, inconceivable condescension of His being made man in order to that union. Therefore, as a distinguished mediaeval commentator wit- nesses, "There is a common and laudable custom of the Church, whereby the Name Jesus is even more honoured than the Name God. For which cause, when the Name of Jesus is heard, the faithful people either bow the head or bend the knees ; which they do not on hearing the Name of GoD\" S. Bernard gives a testimony such as one might expect from the author of the " Jesu, dulcis Memorial Preaching on Canticles i. 3, Thy Name is oil poured out, he says ^, " I shew you a Name which is fitly compared to oil; how fitly, I will explain. Many titles of the Bridegroom you read here and there in every page of God's Book, but in two I will embrace them all for you. You will not, I think, find one which y Strom, vi. 145. ■ Abulensis, in Corn. A Lapide on * S.Aug, inl Ep. Johannis, tr. iii. Philipp. ii. 10. § 6. ^ Serm. xv. § 1, 3, 4. Honour to the Name Jesus, mediceval and Anglican. 35 sounds not either of the grace of Mercy, or the power of Chap. II. Majesty. . . TJiese tivo things I have heard, — that power he- lonrjcth iinto God, and that Thou, Lord, art merciful. E. g. * The Lord our righteousness' is a name of power ; ' Em- manuel/ of mercy. Now the name of majesty and power is in a certain way poured over into that which is of mercy and grace ; and the latter is poured out abundantly by Jesus Christ our Saviour. . . ' Run, ye nations : salvation is at hand ; the Name is poured out, which whosoever will call on shall be saved.'. .' I recognise the Name of which I have read in Isaiah, He will call His own servants by another name, wherein lohosoever is blessed upon the earth, shall be blessed in the Lord. O blessed Name ! O oil poured out in all directions ! "^v^here will it stop ? Erom heaven it runneth out upon Judaea, and thence over all the earth; and from the wholo world the Church crieth out, Thy Name is oil poured out, — poured out, indeed, so that not only hath it imbr.ed heaven and earth, but hath sprinkled also the un- s^Sn world, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should /bow, of things in heaven, and in earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess and say. Thy Name is oil poured out." It would appear that there was no need of enforcing this reverence by synodical enactment until one hundred years after S.Bernard; but in the second Council of Lyons, 1274, the Church uttered this among other most impressive warn- ings : " * Holiness becometh the house of the Lord ;' it is be- coming that He whose abode hath been made in peace, should be worshipped in peace with due veneration. Wherefore let men's entrance into churches be humble and devout. Let their demeanour therein be quiet, well-pleasing to God, com- posed in sight of men, such as not only to edify, but to soothe thoughtful observers. When they come together in that place, the Name which is above every name, besides tvhich there is none other under heaven given unto men, where- in believing they must be saved, i. e. the Name of Jesus Christ, who saved His people from their sins, — that Name let them exalt by manifestation of especial reverence. And that which is written concerning all, that * in the Name of Jesus 26 EiKjUsh Canons for Bowiny at the Name of Jesus. CnAP. II. every knee sliould bow/ the same let eacli for his own part fulfil in himself, (especially while the sacred mysteries of tlie Eucharist are being celebrated,) by bowing the knees of his heart at every mention of that glorious Name, and in wit- ness thereof at least inclining his head*^." § 16. Neither has the reformed Church of England ever had any sci'uple in continuing so dutiful a ceremony ; only it appears by the 52nd Injunction of Queen Elizabeth, 1559, that there was need to enforce it, not as a new thing, but as an ancient custom in more or less danger of disparage- ment. "It is to be necessarily received, . . . that whensoever the Name of Jesus shall be in any lesson, sermon, or other- wise in the Church pronounced, due reverence be made of all persons both young and old, with lowness of courtesy, and uncovering of heads of the men kind, as thereunto doth necessarily belong, and heretofore hath been accustomed"^." In what quarter, and from Avhat spirit, the necessity for this injunction arose, we may gather from the following pas- sage of Cartwright's first Admonition ^ : " When Jesus is named, then off goeth the cap, and down goeth the knee, with such a scraping on the ground, that they cannot hear a good while after, so that the word is hindered ; but when other names of God are mentioned, they make no curtesy at all; as though the names of God were not equal, or as though all reverence ought to be given to the syllables." What Hooker, on the part of the Church, replies to this, will be cited presently. Whitgift, affirming also the primi- tive origin of the ceremony, adds, in substance, the same account of it : — " One reason that moved Christians in the beginning the rather to bow at the Name of Jesus than at any other name of God, was because this name was most hated and most contemned of the wicked Jews and other persecutors of such as professed the Name of Jesus ^." The royal injunction, as everyone knows, was confirmed a few years afterwards by synodical authority : — " When in time of divine service the Lord Jesus shall be mentioned, "^ Hard. vii. 716. " Abp. Whitgift, Defence, &c., 749. '' Cardwell, Documentary Annals, ' Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. xxx. 3, and i. 198. ' note. Boicing at Jesus' Name warrants Eticharistical Worship). 27 due and lowly reverence shall be done by all persons present, Chap. II. as it hath been accustomed, testifying by these outward ceremonies and gestures, their inward humility, Christian resolution, and due acknowledgment that the Lord Jesus Christ, the true eternal Son of God, is the only Saviour of the world, in whom alone all the mercies, graces, and pro- mises of God to mankind for this life, and the life to come, are fully and wholly comprised s." And this regulation seems generally to have been acquiesced in, so far, at least, as that the Presbyterian divines in the Savoy Conference make no mention of bowing at the holy Name as one of the points which then disturbed meu^s consciences in the Prayer-book. § 17. Now all the reasons alleged from the beginning, and accepted by the universal Church and our own, for the honour- ing the Name of Jesus above all other names, hold with as great or greater force for special adoration of our Lord in the holy Eucharist, and make it still more imperative upon the prohibitors to produce some irresistible authority from Holy Scripture, or express Church law, if they would bring their prohibition home to a Christian man's conscience. Was Jesus the Name, among all His names, most expressive of His deep humiliation ? So are the sacramental elements among all the means of grace, both as being in themselves so cheap and ordinary, and as repi'esenting especially His Death and Passion. Was Jesus our Lord's proper Name^ brought from heaven, with a command that by It above other names we should make mention of Him ? So was the holy Eucharist divinely ordained, that by It above all other rites we should make memorial of Him. Is Jesus His Name as a Man — one of ourselves? So is the holy Eucharist that by which He, the Wisdom of the Father, delighteth to be among the sons of men"!. Is the Name of Jesus especially connected everywhere with the healing, saving works of the Son of God, and expressly made adorable both by men and angels? Yet no promise associated with it can surpass what He, who is Truth, has annexed for ever to the eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood. Has the reverence due to this Name been ever cherished in the Church, as one great safeguard of ^ 18th Canon, 1603. '' Prov. viii. 31. 28 So does Standing kj) at t/tc Gospel. ^"^^- ^^- the faith of Ilis true Incarnation ? So we know that against ancient heretics one topic for eflectually asserting that same faith in its integrity was the analogy between it and the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, testified by our adoration. It should seem, then, that whatever can be alleged for peculiar devotion to the holy Name, the same, and much more, can be alleged for peculiar devotion to the holy Thing received in the Sacrament; with this single exception, that we have no distinct form of words commanding us to adore in Holy Communion, as we have commanding us to bow at the Name of Jesus. But we have (as I hope presently to shew) declarations of our Lord fully equivalent to any such form of words. In the meantime, the simple fact that ado- ration is commanded at the mention of Christ's human Name might well warrant the Church in claiming it for the E-cal Presence of His holy Humanity. § 18. The same principle is recognised in the rubric which enjoins standing up while the Gospel is read; not, of course, as though it were more truly and entirely God's Word than the Epistle and other Scriptures are, but because it is that portion of God's Word in which He most abases Himself, hiding His Divinity and Majesty beneath that humble and lowly veil. So universal was this custom, that Sozomen, Avriting in the middle of the fifth century, knew but of one exception to it, and that was in the Church of Alexandria, where the bishop continued sitting even at that time '. The Apostolical Constitutions ^, which, in such matters, may pro- bal)ly be taken as representing the general mind of the Church, direct as follows: — "When the Gospels are in reading, let all the priests and deacons, and all the people, stand up in great quietness ; for it is written, ' Be still, and licarken, O Israel.' And again, * But do thou stand here and listen'.' " S. Chrysostom on the beginning of S. Matthew says, " Let us not therefore with noise and tumult enter in, but with the silence due to mysteries; for if in a theatre, when a great silence hath been made, then the letters of the king are read, much more in this city must all be com- ' ii. 57. ^ ii. 57. ' Dcut. v. 37. So docs the Primitive Custom of Crossing. 29 posed, and stand ivith soid and ear erect. For it is not the Chap. Tl. letters of any earthly master, but of the Lord of angels, which are presently to be read." The rationale of this, as of bowing at the Name, is ex- pressed by Hooker in words which it would be wrong to omit, because they contain in them the principle of all that has been now alleged : — " It sheweth a reverend regard to the Son of God above other messengers, although speaking as from God also. And against Infidels, Jews, Ariaus, who derogate from the honour of Jesus Christ, such ceremonies are most profitable.'' As if he should say, " Behold God Himself coming close to us, and humbling Himself to do so : so much the more ought we to adore Him.'' § 19. By the same rule that the Name of Jesus is to be honoured above all other names, the sign of the Cross has been set apart from the beginning to be honoured above all other signs. I say, ''from the beginning," for such un- doubtedly is the case : it is not here as in some other Church usages : the further we go back in Christian antiquity, the more distinctly and unequivocally does this devotion appear. If we look to the employment of it in baptism, and in almost every other holy ceremony, as well as in the practice of ordinary life, we have the well-known witness of TertuUian"'. If to the instinctive use made of it in emergencies and dangers, spiritual or temporal, we have the allusion of S. Cyprian", the statement of Origeno, and the earnest exhorta- tion of S. ChrysostomP. — If to the practical and mystical " De Corona Mil. c. 4, ap. Hooker, adds — which Origen refers to. Ap. V. Ixv. 2. Oper.Hicron.v. 95; Origen, ed. Beiied. " ii. 125. " Muniatur frons, ut sig- iii. 424. num Dei incohime servetur." p 21 Horn, de Statuis, t. vi. 611 : ° Fragm. from Origen on Ezekiel " Wlien thou art on tlic point of step- ix. 4 (after mentioning two otlier per- ping over the thresliold of tliy door, sons, with then- interpretations) : — " A utter this word first, ' I renounce tliee, third, professing to have beUeved in Satan, and thy pomp, and thy ser- Jesus, said that in the ancient alphabet, vice; and I enrol myself under Thee, Tliau resembles the sign of the cross, and O Christ.' And do thou never go out that the prophecy relates to the sign without this word. This shall be to made among Christians on the fore- thee a stall', a shield, an impregnable head, which all believers employ at tower. And with this word form thou the commencement of any transaction also the cross upon thy forehead : for whatever, but especially of prayers so, not only no man meeting thee, but and holy readings." It is the Sama- not even the devil himself shall be ritan Thau — so the editor of S. Jerome able to hurt thee at all." 30 The Cross a xcarrant for honouring the Eucharist. Chap. II. way of detecting allusions to it in nature, we have S. Justin MartjT referring the very heathen to itic cxposuit Sa- and of the "few small Fishes." 41 chief of the schoohnen undoubtedly taught, (grounding their CnAP. II. opinion mainly upon S. Paul's saying, '• For we being many are one bread and one body : for we are all partakers of that one bread ;") the Church, or mystical body of Christ, may be regarded as present by the real presence of His heavenly and glorified Body, stnd so as constituting — in a secondary sense, and one infinitely below the glory and dignity of the other, yet in a very true sense — the res sacramenti, or thing signified in Holy Communion"; then the circumstances of the miracle in question may seem to make it a sufficiently apt parable for the expression of that doctrine. The twelve loaves being a known symbol in the old dispensation for the twelve tribes, i. e. for the whole Jewish Church, and as such presented day by day in the temple; and seven being the number which from the beginning, in the figurative language of Scripture, had represented completeness^ ; the seven loaves, by no forced analogy, might be taken to represent the whole Christian Church, and the partaking of them after Christ's special blessing, to signify that union and incorporation of Christians one with another, Avhich, depending on their union with Christ their Head, is perfected more and more by every sacramental participation of Him ; according to His own prayer, offered in conjunction with the very original Eu- charist : " That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us ^." And since the fish is an acknowledged emblem both of our Lord and of His members, and in the former miracle the two fishes are considered by S. Augustine^ to represent Christ in His two characters of King and Priest, it might not, per- haps, be straining the exposition of this latter miracle too far, were we to conjecture that the few small fishes which "He blessed and commanded to be also set before them,^^ might cramentum Mensae Dominicsc." Cf. 4 : " Duplex est res hujus Sacramenti Serm. 229, 272. " Si vos istis Corpus . . . una quidem, qua? est significata et Christi et membra, mysteriura vestrum contcnta, scilicet ipse Cliristus ; alia in mensa Domiuica positum est : mys- auti-m est significata et non contenta, terium vestrum accipitis." scilicet Corpus Christi mysticum, quod " Aquinas, Summ. Theol. p. iii. qu. est societas Sanctorum." 60. 3 : " In Sacramento Altaris est " S. Aug. Serm. xcv. 2. duplex res significata, scilicet Corpus "^ S. John xvii. 21. Christi vorum et mysticum ■" qu. 80. ' Dc diversis qurost. Ixi. 2, t. vii. 25. ' 42 Other nif/vfcrioiis Hints concerning His Bod//. Chap. II, represent the holy martyrs and other eminent saints, few, and very small in comparison, but in some especial manner and degree having Christ imparted to them more than to the rest, and therefore especially called by the same title with Ilim; and the partaking of those fishes may answer to the Communion of Saints, as that of the loaves to our portion in the holy Catholic Church. The four thousand may be the multitudes coming in from the four winds of heaven — north, south, east, and west, — to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the spiritual feast, the kingdom of heaven. If the old method of interpretation be at all allowed, this would seem no improbable account of the second miraculous feast, occurring so soon after the first, and tending in its degree to deepen the impression that the Body of Christ was to be, in some mysterious way, all in all to those who should be saved by Him. § 29. Very shortly after, but not until His divine nature also had been more openly than ever declared to His disciples, by the benediction pronounced to S. Peter on his confession, — nor yet until He had begun to predict to them in detail what He was to suffer, — He took His three chosen into a high mountain apart, and shewed them that Bodj', in which He had so many ways invited them to trust, transfigured, — His face shining as the sun, and His raiment white as the light ; — thereby, as it may appear, giving them to understand something of the properties of His glorious Body ; at the Same time that, by the discourse in their hearing with Moses and Elias, He prepared them to see it in the lowest humiliation and suffering. And twice on the same occasion He taught them to believe that it was, and always would be, a real Body, and as such the instrument of all good to all believers, by touching, first, the three saints, (as Ezekiel and Daniel had been touched of old,) and so enabling them to endure the beatific vision ; and presently afterwards by touching the young man out of whom the evil spirit had been cast, and restoring him to his father, and to the state of probation and hope. Between the Transfiguration and the week of our Lord's Passion there is nothing: on record to draw attention to the The Anointing at Bethany. 43 prerogatives of His blessed Body, if we exeept perhaps what Chap. II. took place at the Feast of Tabernacles, in the last year of His preaching, — when, having asserted His Godhead, and seeing that the Jews were taking up stones to stone Him, Jesus made Himself invisil)le, " and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by V And " passing by," He healed the man blind from his birth ; not Avithout spitting, and making clay of the spittle, and anoint- ing the eyes of the blind man with the clay ; proceedings surely well calculated to impress those who knew of His Transfiguration, especially, with an increasing awe towards that Body which they saw so marvellously and peculiarly gifted, beyond the bodies of the sons of men ; and with a wondering expectation what Almighty God might be on the point of working thereby. § 30. The Holy Week itself begins with the anointing at Bethany, commended by our Lord Himself to all ages as a signal instance of devotion to His blessed Body, and ever understood by the holy Church as a warrant for sparing no trouble nor expense in pro^dding for that service especially, which acknowledges the mysterious continuance of the same among us. She must not be troubled nor interfered with ; " she hath done it for jNIy burial ;" — it was as impossible for her to help doing it now, as it was for her, or one very like her, to abstain from the like loving worship, when she first came to Me, loving much, and hoping, as far as she might dare hope, to have much forgiven ; — as impossible as it will be within a few days for her not to wait on Me with spices and ointments, when I am to be laid in My grave ; — " trou- ble her not," " she hath done what she could ;" " she hath wrought a good work on Me*^." And why was that work so significantly decreed to be spoken of throughout "the whole world," but that all might understand that they could not go too far in loving, honouring, adoring that Body which He had vouchsafed to take into His divine Person, by which He was about to save the world, which was soon to endure such humiliation for our sake, as nothing could equal, save the glory to which it was afterwards to be visibly exalted for our perfect salvation ? • S. John viii. 58. >» S. Matt. xxvi. 11. 44 Tlic Passion : the Water and Blood. CnAP. II. Moreover, in close connection ■with this comes another thought, indescribably fearful, as it seems to me, if we carry it out : — what manner of man he was who suggested to his fellow-disciples to have indignation and count it " waste," as though too much were being made of Christ's real, and then visible. Body, and the poor, His mystical body, were being robbed. Others in their simplicity for a moment adopted the notion, hut they presently received His correction; Judas, who had devised the scruple in hypocrisy, refusiug to be cor- rected, (though never surely were such gracious warnings addressed to any one that we read of,) went out to commit the two most outrageous sins that could be committed against that hlessed Body : first partaking of it with a heart and mind actually at the moment determined on betraying it, and so actually betraying it, as far as in him lay, to Satan, who forthwith entered into him ; and afterwards, openly in the sight of man betraying it — betraying the Son of Man — by a kiss ; — the loving penitent's token of adoration was the hypocrite's token of insult and unearthly malice. And then, as if to prove that the holy Flesh which endured all this, and was about to endure much more, was still, as ever, the Temple of the divine glory; first, by shewing Him- self, and declaring, "I am He," He forced His assailants to recoil and fall to the ground, either on their faces in involun- tary worship, or backwards as in despair. Presently after- Avards He touched Malchus' ear, and healed him. The cure was wrought by His touch, as in so many instances before. And since the man had been hurt in laying rude hands upon His Bod}'^, the healing may be received as a merciful token, that even unworthy communicants are not shut out from His mercy, and the benefit of the mysteries which they have pro- faned, except they persist in nuAvorthiness. § 31. Then it was that our blessed Redeemer, withdrawing, as it were. His power into Himself, gave up His Body to the sacrifice, with the words, " This is your hour, and the power of darkness." His disciples understood Him to signify that nothing more could be done for Him, and they might as well forsake Him and fly ; His enemies, both on earth and in hell, knew that they were left to do their worst with Him ; Tone of the Evangelist in reeording it. 45 and they did it imsparingly ; and wliile His Body was, in Chap. II. fact, winning the decisive and eternal victory for which He came into the workl, it seemed to the eyes of men, perhaps of all creatures, to be surrendered, for good and all, to suf- fering and insult. But the first thing seen, when the pre- ternatural darkness was over, and the light of day was again permitted to shine upon the cross and those standing by it, was the blood and water, flowing out from our Saviour's side, as soon as ever He was certainly known to be dead. There is no need here to explain at large the symbolical and sacramental meaning of that miracle, — a meaning wit- nessed by all antiquity, and adopted by the Church of Eng- land especially in her office of Holy Baptism, where she de- clares that, " for the forgiveness of our sins, Christ shed out of His most precious side both Water and Blood." "His most precious side :" the very phrase instinctively indicates what all devout persons have felt towards that sacred Form, drawn to it the more by this parting insult from those who were bent upon making themselves every way " guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ our Saviour." "VVe may perhaps realize those feelings most efi'ectually, by reverently imagining how they may have begun in the heart and mind of the beloved disciple, chosen by the Holy Ghost to testify the transaction to us, and of the blessed Virgin, and other holy women; the special alarm and horror which they must have felt as they watched the brutal soldiery breaking the legs of the two malefactors, and approaching their Lord's cross with the same intent ; the comparative re- lief when they saw that all that Avas done was ignorantly and wantonly to pierce His unconscious side ; the awful sense of Divine interference and of Divine consolation, when, knowing that He was already dead, they saw the stream gush out, not of blood only, but of water and blood. Probably, indeed, it was in this instance as is noted elsewhere in S. John's Gospel •= : " These things understood not His disciples at the first : but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of Him, and that" His ene- mies " had done these things unto Him." Yet the very tone ' Chap. xii. 16. 46 Sacramental Presence taHf//it in 1 >S'. Jo//n v, G — 9. Chap. II. of the narrative implies that even at that moment of exceed- ing grief and dismay, the Evangelist's mind — as often happens when dearest friends are departing — was deeply impressed with the circumstance, and would naturally go on wondering what it could mean. " He that saw it bare record, and his record is true : and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe '^" Perhaps it should be written "He know- eth," for the Greek words {KciKelvo^i olhev) Avill bear that con- struction; as though the historian were saying with S. Paul, " Behold, before God, I lie not." But that it should be in- serted with such an asseveration, calling such peculiar atten- tion to it, in this which may be eminently called the theolo- gical Gospel, — for this, we might reverently conjecture, if we did not know, some deep theological reason must probably exist. As it is, the knowledge of the reason is vouchsafed to ns; it is indicated in the Scripture quoted. The saying, "A bone of Him shall not be broken," carries with it the sacri- ficial character of our Lord's Passion, that it was the very antitype of slaying the Paschal lamb. And again, "They shall look on Him whom they pierced" is the prophetic de- claration of the mode of applying His Passion to the remis- sion of His people's sins: the "piercing" is the opening of " a fountain for sin and for uncleanness -" and it is signified that it would not take full eff'ect until the Lord had " poured out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications ;" i.e. until a beginning had been given to Christian baptism by the de- scent of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles gathered on Mount Zion, and the setting up of the kingdom of heaven. And the rationale, the principle of all this, is shadowed out in the farewell letter of the same Evangelist : " This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the AVord, and the Holy Ghost : and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood : and these three agree in one. If we receive •■ S. .Tolm xix. 35. Alhmons to the Worl: of the Spirit in the Sacraments. 47 the witness of men, the witness of God is greater : for this Chap. II. is the witness of God which He hath testified of His Son." What is this threefold witness, this witness of God, on which the Apostle would thus unreservedly rest our faith? It is Jesus Christ, God incarnate, coming to His Church, and to each one of us, by water, by blood, and by His Spirit. To His whole Church He came by water, Avhen, as the surety and representative of His people, He was baptized by S. John in Jordan ; by blood, when He died on the cross ; by His Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost. To each several child of Adam, whom He takes out of the world as one of His own, He comes by all three at once — by the Spirit, by water, and by blood, — in His two Sacraments, the one as well as the other : for water in Scripture signifies sanctification and cleansing; blood signifies satisfaction and atonement; and both these are, by His ordinance, in both the Sacraments, because in both the true gift is Participation of Christ, our life and our all, begun in Baptism, continued and growing in the Eucharist. And they are in the Sacraments by the special operation of His Spirit : " It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is Truth." The Spirit is that Truth which both declares and makes them to be what they signify, as our Lord declared of one of them : " The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life;" the words in this case being, for the one, ''This is My Body;" for the other, "I baptize thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." And ac- cordingly the Church, expressly or virtually, has always prayed for this descent of the Holy Ghost, — in Baptism, to " sanc- tify the water to the mystical washing away of sin ;" in Holy Communion, according to the old Liturgies, to make the ele- ments what our Lord declared them to be ; according to our own Liturgy, to make us, receiving them, partakers of those holiest things. To this doctrine, pi'obably to expressions of it even then in liturgical use, the Apostle alludes more than once: "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body^." And else- "^ 1 Cor. xii. 13. 48 Sacramejits, the Extension of the Iiirarnatioit. Chap. II. where ^ the Church service is described pnrth^ by the use in it of Psalms and hymns in the way of response, (so we may best understand " speaking to yourselves/') partly by its in- A'olving a continual sacrifice of thanksgiving, and that for all, in the Name of Christ, to the Father, — a definition of a Christian Liturgy, as far as it goes, critically exact. We may add the often-quoted passage in Horn. xv. 16 : " That I might be a minister of Jesus Christ unto the Gen- tile*, doing a priest's Avork in respect of the Gospel of God 8; that the off'ering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost ;'^ where S. Paul represents his calling as a missionary by an image borrowed from his other calling as a priest, the body of Gentile Christians being that which he had to offer, and requiring, in order to be ac- ceptable, sanctification by the Holy Ghost, as the proper sacrifice of Christians did. In a word, the patristical doctrine, that the Incarnation is not only applied, but extended as it were, by the blessed Sa- craments, supplies the sufficient and only interpretation, both of the mysterious opening of the Redeemer's side on the cross, when He was in the sleep of death, and of that which is always referred to by antiquity as the ordained type of that circumstance in the Passion, the piercing of the first Adam's side in his sleep, and the formation or building up of that which was taken out of it into the first woman, his spouse, and the mother of us all. And (it is a serious and alarming thought) if there be any who now scorn the doctrine, wilfully I mean, and in spite of helps to know better, we know for certain that they will not always scorn it. Holy Scripture tells of a moment to come, when that wound in our Lord's side, the fountain of Sacraments, and the door of life to us all, will be openly seen by all. " Every eye shall see Him, and they also who pierced Him :" even they who, by abusing His Sacrifice and Sacraments, shall have crucified and pierced Him afresh. ' " Speaking to yourselves in Psalms in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ." and hymns and spiritual songs, singing — E])h. v. 1 9, 20. and making melody in your hearts to k UpovpyovvTa rh fvayyfKtov tov the Lord; giving thanks always for Qtov. all things unto God and the Father Not// fug in Scripture to clicck Devotion to Christ's Bodij. 49 The scar in His side will be to them an especial conderana- Cuap. II. tion, as it will be a pledge of grace received and not wasted to all penitent and devout receivers. It is S. John again to whom this was revealed ''; the disciple whom Jesus loved is throughout, by special Providence, the great teacher of the doctrine of His life-giving Body, and of the devotion due to it. § 32. But whatever beginnings of high and hopeful thought the miracle of the water and blood may have occasioned in S. John's mind, to the outward eye the blessed Body was still in the lowest and most pitiable condition, — in the hands of enemies, exposed to the worst indignities, — until the moment when Joseph of Arimathea begged it of Pilate. This must have been an hour or two after our Lord's death ; for He gave up the Ghost at three, p.m., and, although the Sabbath did not begin until six, it seems that the taking down from the cross, the wrapping in linen clothes with the spices, and the entombment itself, had to be somewhat hastily performed. Some time, therefore, had probably elapsed be- tween the piercing of Christ's side and the application of Joseph to Pilate ; and since Nicodemus was near, a colleague of Joseph's, and known to have looked favourably on Christ, it is not perhaps exceeding the bounds of reasonable conjecture, if we suppose S. John to have applied to him, and through Him to Joseph, whose own new tomb was known to be near at hand, but who was not yet known for a disciple, as Nicode- mus was, and therefore, perhaps, less obnoxious to the Pha- risees. And so, between them, though, according to His condescension, our Lord's grave would have been " with the wicked," yet He was *^ with the rich in His death" and obse- quies ; unintentional testimony being thus borne by Pilate and others of His persecutors, that " He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth." Whatever the process may have been, whether it origi- nated with S. John or no, we know for certain that, from that moment forward. His true servants have never ceased to shew, in all possible ways, their entire devotion and love to that Blessed Body, enhanced beyond measure by all that they h Rev. i. 7. 50 I)}xtanci's of Dcrotion to Cln-id'>i risen Bodij^ Chap. II. were permitted to see and know of Its mysterious agonies ; and never was one word uttered from above to stay or check tliem, or imply that they were going too far. When Corne- lius fell down at S. Peter's feet to worship him, he was told, "Arise; I myself also am a man." When S.John did the like to the angel who was shewing him the heavenly vision, he was stopped by what, among men, would have been an exclamation of religious horror : " See thou do it not : I am thy fellow- servant, and of thy brethren that have the tes- timony of Jesus : worship God '." But nowhere in Holy Scripture will you find anything at all answering to this in respect of the worship and reverence shewn to Christ's Body, as if it were possible to exaggerate or carry it too far ; not one letter or syllable to interrupt or moderate the deep devotion of the Church for all these centuries that she has remained, with the beloved disciple, standing by the Cross, and with adoring love and wonder contemplating the blood and water as it flows from His pierced side ; seeing it, and bearing record, — and her record is true, and she knowetli that she saith true, that we all might believe. What, indeed, is the history of the three days of Christ's burial, and of the forty days after His resurrection, but a course of solemn acts of worship to His real Bodily Presence, offered on His servants' part and accepted on His own ? There are Joseph and Nicodemus, and the holy women, laying Him in the grave with their myrrh and spices, such as they knew that the Holy Ghost, by the prophets, had ap- pointed to be offered to the King's Son. There are the Maries coming to the sepulchre in the early morning to complete their religious purpose, and she first who loved best : and they have a great reward — they are permitted to be the first to see His risen Body, and hear His voice ; and as soon as they see and hear, they worship ; and so (as has been often noted) they obtain the privilege of preaching the Gospel of the Resurrection to the very Apostles themselves. There is S. John, who by his presence beneath the Cross, and when our Lord's side was pierced, may be supposed ' Rev. xix. 10. durimi the Great Forti/ Baf/s. 51 to have learned deeper thoughts of the prerogatives of His Chap. II. Body than were yet faraihar to any of the rest. As he was first of the Apostles at the sepulchre, so was he first to believe without seeing, and to recognise our Lord appear- ing suddenly at adistance'^; even as many years afterwards he knew Him by sight through all His glory in the heavens, in the midst of the golden candlesticks, and on the cloud of judgment, discerning "one like unto the Son of Man^" Certainly it is a remarkable fact, that the two most noted and most highly-favoured for their special love of our Lord, the Magdalen and the beloved disciple, should thus be marked out for their especial devotion to His Body. Then there is His sudden appearance on the road to the two disciples, and His no less sudden vanishing out of their sight, just as their eyes were opened, and they had come to know Him in the act of breaking of bread ; a history, the significancy of which in our present argument surely needs no elucidation ; as neither do the circumstances of His last appearance that evening, — the entry through the closed doors, the real Body with Its real scars, and Its real partici- pation of meat with them, at the same time that It was visi- bly breathing His own and His Father's Spirit into their hearts, and audibly giving them that commission which none could give but He that is equal with the Father. Who does not feel, as he reads or hears, a deepening veneration and inward worship of the holy Humanity of Him who thus spake and acted? How much more those who saw Him all along with their eyes ! who " looked upon" Him, and " handled with their hands" Him who is " the Word of Life"» !" A week more, and the doubts of S. Thomas are removed by the touch of the holy Body with Its scars, or rather, by that permission to touch It, whereby the timid Apostle might discern the omniscience of the speaker. With confirmed faith he makes his confession, the very confession of devout communicants in all ages, — ''It is my Lord and my God.'* Observe the answer he received, — a blessing, not so imme- diately for himself as for us, whose trial is, that the same Lord and Christ, the same Son of God Incarnate, is present '' S. John xxi. 7. ' Rev. i. 13; xiv. 14, "IS. John i. 1, E 2 52 T/ie Ptr^rnce of C//risf risen at tlic Disciples^ Meals. Cnxr. II. with us, and permits us to touch Him, as really indeed, but invisibly, and in a different kind of presence. "Blessed are they now, and blessed shall they all be hereafter, who shall believe and worship as thou now dost, without waiting for the actual sight, which has at last convinced thee." These are not words to make a Christian afraid of believing too much of his Lord's Presence in Holy Communion, or of adoring Him too eai'nestly. § 33. Rather it might perhaps not untruly be said, that one apparent purpose of our Lord's abode upon earth during those forty days was, that He might inure them to the faith and contemplation of a certain Presence of His now spiritual- ized Body among them, occasional only, and in the highest degree mysterious, but in itself most real and blessed, and associated with all the best gifts and fruits of His Incarna- tion — the evidence and conveyance of the eternal life to which He had risen. This Presence the sacred narrative (we may almost say) studiously connects with the meals which He took with them; as at Emmaus, as He sat at meat with them. He took the loaf, and blessed, and brake and gave to them, recalling to their very eyes the miracle of the five thousand and its antitype — the greater miracle of the Eucharist. The same day, at evening, having shewn them " His hands and His feet, while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered. He said unto them. Have ye here any meat ? And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And He took it, and did eat before them "." The following Sunday, as it may seem, He appeared unto the eleven (Thomas having now taken his place among them) "as they sat at meat." The remarkable appearance and miracle at the sea of Galilee, related in the last chapter of the last Gospel, and considered by S. Augustine" as ex- hibiting a kind of link or transition from Christ's earthly to His heavenly kingdom, had for its visible and immediate occasion the present hunger and destitution of the disciples. They had caught nothing that night ; the morning light " S. Luke xxiv. 40 — 43. dis, et in cnptura piscium commeiida- ° In S. Joan. Evang. Tr. 122 : — verit Ecclesiaj Sacraraentuni, qualis " Narratur hie (juemadinodum sc ma- futura est ultima resurrectionc mortu- nifestaverit Dominus ad mare Tiberia- oruni." Significance of Ilia jHirtakiny ivith them. 53 shewed Him to them standing on the shore, but not, as yet, Chap. II. recognised by them. He inquires of them, " Children, have ye any meat?" They answer, No. He tells them where to cast their net; they obey, and in a moment it is full of great fishes ; and not only so, but, before they could land any of these, their condescending Lord had provided for them " a fire of coals, and fish laid thereon, and bread ;" and His word is to them, " Come and dine ;" or, in more modern lan- guage, " Take your morning meal." Then, and not before, the disciples knew that it was the Lord. It was the third time of His shewing Himself to any number of them to- gether, and each time had been at a meal. The whole transaction looked back, as it were, not only to the similar miracle, the former extraordinary draught of fishes provided for the same persons on the same waters, but also to the two instances of supernatural feeding, when the hunger of those coming to Christ was satisfied by a few loaves and fishes. And did it not look forward also to the state of things shortly to take place in the Church? how that in our spiritual toil and hunger He would shew Himself to us by glimpses of His blessed Body ; standing on the shore, i. e. Heaven, and calling on us from time to time to partake of the heavenly food He hath provided for us, until the whole Church, the net full of great fishes, a hundred and fifty and three, (the perfect number of the elect,) be drawn after Him to the land, and the Bridegroom, Avitli them that are ready, go in finally to the marriage-feast. Perhaps it was not without meaning of this kind that the Holy Ghost, describing the intercourse of Christ with His disciples during those forty days, selected a word which, in its proper signification, stands for "eating salt with themP;" i. e. partaking of their meals. Forty days, in the symbolical language of Scripture, would represent the whole time of the Church's probation, until the day come in which she shall ascend with her Lord : and then His eating salt with her must be His presence at the celebration of the great sacrifi- cial feast of the new covenant, which He, in His unspeakable condescension, accounts Himself partaker of with us; as when 54 Significatice of the Apostles' Miracles. Chap. II. He says, " I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God ^ ;" " I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God '/' For His '' meat is to do" His " Father's will, and to finish His work^;" and where on earth is the Father's will and work more perfectly found than in holy and devout Communion ? There, if any where on this side heaven, is the " very image of" those '•' good things to come," which the gracious Lord encourages us to look on to in those words of unutterable condescension, "Blessed are those ser- vants, whom the Lord when He coracth shall find watching : verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and Avill come forth and serve them '." § 34. Then came the day of the Lord's Ascension, when His natural but now glorified Body was to go up to His Father's right hand, there to abide, in its visible form and substance, until the times of restitution of all things. As tliey saw His Body in the act of departing, " they wor- shipped";" He left them prostrate, or on their knees. Very strange it would have seemed to them, had they been told that His sacred Body was the less to be worshipped because it is now glorified, and must wear a veil over it to be en- dured by mortal sight. And when the Holy Comforter had come down upon them, and they were admitted fully into the kingdom of heaven ; besides their knowledge, now made perfect, of all doctrine connected with the Ascension, they would find, in the visible prerogatives with which both them- selves and others through them were endowed, fresh rejisons every hour for magnifying the holy Humanity of Christ, di- vinely ordained to be all in all to them. For by their com- munion with Him through His Spirit, as His chosen and select witnesses, chief members of His mystical Body, the works that He had done they were enabled to do also ; and for the more confirmation of this union, they were autho- rized to use the very words and gestures which their Lord had commonly employed in His miracles of healing. This 1 S. Luke xxii. 16. >■ S. Mark xiv. 25. " S. Joliu iv. 34. ' S. Luke xii. 37. " S. Luke xxiv. 32. How Christ's Body uris (jlorijied in them. 55 began with the very beginning of the Church, on the Day of Chap. II. Pentecost ; but the first instance particularly recorded is the healing of the lame man by S. Peter, in which there is the same combination of the divine Touch and the divine Word as in the majority of our Lord's own miracles, and also in the outward and visible parts of Ilis Sacraments : the Toucb, in that the Apostle took the patient " by the riglit hand and lifted him up;" the Word, in his saying, "In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and Avalk ^'^ So we read, afterwards, that " by the hands of the Apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people v /' that Ana- nias laid his hands upon Saul, and he recovered his sight; that S. Peter gave Tabitha his hand to complete her recovery after he had wakened her from death, besides saying, '' Ta- bitha, arise;" that S.Paul, upon the sudden death of Eu- tychus, went down, and fell on him, and embraced him, saying, " Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him ;" re- calling the remembrance of what Elijah and Elisha had done, and intimating to thoughtful persons the typical sig- nificance of their history, (and that miracle, we may observe, took place during a celebration of the holy Eucharist) : lastly, in Melita he cured a fever by prayer and laying on of hands. Moreover, from the members, as from the Head, of the Church, it was noticed that the healing virtue did, as it •were, overflow, communicating itself to their garments, and those even apart from their persons. From Paul's body " were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them." And in Acts v., still more remarkably, " they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them." The exceptions also to the rule of healing by touch appear to be of the same kind as those which have been noted in the Gospel history : they are, the casting out devils ; the infliction of punishments, as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, and of Elymas; special faith, affirmed in the case of the cripple at Lystra, and im- » Acts V. 12. »' Acts iii. 6. 56 Direct Argument for Eucharistical Adoration. Chap. II. plied ill that of ^"Eaeas; and all in that one only Name, whereby it might be known without question that Christ is the only Ilealcr, as He is known to be the only Baptizer and the only Consecrator. Who can doubt that the effect of all this was still to deepen men's reverence and gratitude to- wards the awful and blessed Body which they knew to be the fountain of it all ? which Body, be it noticed, was every day presented before them in a sacramental way in the holy Eucharist j for in the mother Church of Jerusalem, at least, we know that they "continued daily in breaking of bread." § 35. We may perhaps not unfitly close this series of scrip- tural facts by noticing that it is the Lamb which is selected, rather than the Lion, or any other animal, as that symbol of our Lord which may most meetly represent Him in His ce- lestial estate, all through the Book of Revelations ; in part, doubtless, for the same reason that the Cross is His chosen standard among inanimate things, and the Son of Man His chosen title : that wherein He abases Himself most, and is most evil spoken of, therein He may receive especial glory. And the general result of the survey comes, I think, un- deniably, to as much as this — that every where such encou- ragement is given to the worship of our Lord in His human nature, made adorable by its union with the Divine, as to create a strong probability, at least, that such worship would not be forbidden, but rather sanctioned and enjoined, in that Sacrament which, rather than any thing else, is the standing monument of the Incarnation, and extension of it. § 36. And such, in fact, is the case, as a very few words will shew. Worship is a personal thing; the true, real, pri- mary object of worship, in the proper and high sense of the word, for all reasonable and understanding creatures, must of course be some person, and that Person the Most High God. On this point there is no need of any abstract discus- sion ; it is settled for us at once on the very highest autho- rity : " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." The Person therefore of Jesus Christ our Lord, wherever it is, is to be adored — to be honoured, ItfoUoics immediately from the Real Presence. 57 acknowledged, sought unto, depended on, with all possible Chap. II. reverence, with the most entire and single-hearted devotion, incommunicable to any finite being — by all creatures whom He has brought to know Him. This proposition, though in the heat of theological warfare it may seem to have been denied, and that recently, cannot, I conceive, be really and advisedly denied by any one who believes the Divinity of our Lord. Taking it for granted, I will state it once again. The Person of Jesus Christ our Lord, wherever it is, is to be adored. And now I will add the next proposition in the argument, viz. Christ^s Person is in the holy Eucharist by the presence of His Body and Blood therein. From which, as will be seen, follows, by direct inference, that the Person of Christ is to be adored in that Sacrament, as there present in a peculiar manner, by the presence of His Body and Blood. It is on the second or minor of these three propositions, if on any, that opposition is to be expected, and explanation is necessary. It raises, evidently, the whole question of that which is denominated "the real objective Presence" of Jesus Christ in the holy Evicharist. That is to say, whereas the Divine nature in Christ is everywhere and always equally present, and so everywhere and always alike adorable ; but to us frail children of men He has condescended at certain times and places to give especial tokens of His Presence, which it is our duty to recognise, and then especially to adore : thus far, I suppose, all allow who in any sense believe the Creeds of the Church, that in the holy Eucharist we are very particularly bound to take notice of His divine Presence, as God the WoHD, and to worship Him accordingly. That which some in modern times have denied is, that He is then and there present according to His human nature, really and substan- tially present, as truly present as He was to any of those Avith whom He conversed when He went in and out among us; or again, as He is now present in heaven interceding for us. Both of these two last mentioned are modes of His hu- man Presence, acknowledged by all who confess Him come in the flesh. But that which some affirm, some deny, as part of the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, is a third and special mode of Presence of the holy Humanity of our Lord, denoted 58 No necessary Temptation to adore the Sic/n. Chap. II. and effected by His own words — " This is My Body, this is jNIy Blood ;" a Presence the manner of which is beyond all thought, much more beyond all words of ours, but which those who believe it can no more help adoring, than they could have helped it had they been present with S. Thomas, to see in His hands the print of the nails ; or, again, with so many sick persons to touch the hem of His garment, and so to be made whole. It is no more natural for them to think, one way or the other, of worshipping the Bread and Wine, than it was for the woman with the issue of blood to think of worshipping the garment which she touched, instead of Him Avho was condescending to wear it and make it an in- strument of blessing to her. If we may reverently say it, (using an illustration which is applied by the Church to a subject, if possible, still more awful than this,) *^as the reasonable soul and flesh is one Man," and as " God and Man is one Christ," so the conse- crated Bread and Wine, and the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, are one Sacrament. And as we know the soul of a man, Avhich we cannot see, to be present by the presence of his living body, which we can see, so the presence of that Bread and Wine is to us a sure token of the Presence of Christ's Body and Blood. We are not more certain of the one by our reliance on God's ordinary providence, than we are of the other by our faith in Christ's own word. And as persons of common sense are not apt to confound a man's soul with his body, because of the intimate and mysterious connection of the two, — (to bring men to that requires either extreme subtilty or extreme grossness of understanding); — nor yet can you easily bring them to doubt whether meat and drink serve to keep the two together, whether life can come by bread, because they cannot understand how, — so no plain and devout reader of Holy Scripture and disciple of the Church would, of his own accord, find a difficulty in ador- ing the thing signified, apart from the outward sign or form; or in believing that the one may surely convey the other by a spiritual and heavenly process, known to God, but un- known to him, and to all on earth. § 37. It is not the object of these papers to reason out at The Real Presence, as taught in S.John vi. 59 large that great, and comfortable, and (I will add) necessary cuap. II. truth, known to the faitliful under the name of "the Real Presence," but rather to point out the inseparable connection between it and the practice of adoration. But I must here borrow so much from the premisses of that argument as to assume that the sixth chapter of S. John really and pri- marily relates to the Sacrament of Holy Communion ; ac- cording to the well-known interpretation of Hooker, which is the interpretation of all antiquity, and lies so obviously on the surface of Scripture, that one can hardly conceive a sim- ple, unlearned reader giving any other turn to the discourse in that chapter, unless he were prepossessed by a theory. Allowing, then, that, as Hooker alleges, the Apostles at the Last Supper could not but understand the sayings and doings of our Lord as the intended fulfilment of His typical miracle and prophetic sayings a twelvemonth before, let us calmly consider what doctrine about Holy Communion they must have taught and believed, from that clay forward, or at least from the day of His coming upon them Who Avas to bring all Christ's sayings to remembrance. They must have believed that, as ordinary food and drink are necessary to ordinary temporal life, so His Body and Blood, sacramentally received, are necessary to spiritual life ; for " except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you :" — that as a common meal, with God's blessing upon it, has a virtue to keep us alive for a certain time, so this hea- venly meal has the like virtue in respect to the life everlast- ing ; for " whoso eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath eternal life :" — that it has a certain special quality of preparing our bodies for the general resurrection ; for " I will raise him up at the last day';" — that ordinary food and drink is but the shadow of this, the true Bread from heaven, and the fruit of the true Vine, in the same kind of way that Christ is the true Light, and this material light but a figure of Him; heaven the true riches, of which the earthly mam- mon is but a coarse and unreal image; and all other Gospel antitypes far more real and substantial than their legal or natural types : for which cause, mainly, (as I suppose,) Christ ' Cf. 1 Cor. XV. 45. 60 Use of the Title " Son of Man" in S. John vi. Chap. II. is called the Truth, in contradistinction to Mosaical shadows; so that in the Sacrament we eat and drink more really and substantially than on any other occasion : — all this they might gather from the saying, " For My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed." Again, they would understand that His Flesh and Blood in Holy Communion is the special means appointed by Him, not for beginning, but for continuing, spiritual life, — the in- strument whereby tlie members adhere to their Head, — as well as the remedial token and pledge whereby they know that they are very members incorporate in Him, and not yet cast oif for their many backslidings ; for " He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him." Finally, to set the most awful seal to the greatness and reality of all this, — to put down for ever the notion that He was merely using figures of speech, — the Holy Ghost caused them to remember that our Lord had said, " As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father : so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me "." § 38. And for a key to the whole mysterious transaction, so far as man might comprehend it. He had introduced the title, Son of Man, three times in the course of the conversa- tion, and apparently just at those points of it w^here it would come in most significantly, supposing His intention to be to intimate thereby the office of the Sacrament in extending and applying the benefit of His Incarnation. First, in leading His hearers to the whole subject, He had said, " Labour not for the meat which pcrisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you : for Him hath God the Father sealed''." Him the Father had "sanctified and sent into the world," anointing His holy Manhood with the Holy Ghost and with power without measure, for this especial purpose, that He, being the Son of Man, might give you the meat that endureth unto everlasting life. Secondly ; when, in His gracious disclosures, keeping even time (so to speak) with the stubborn and insolent answers of the Jews, He had arrived at that saying, so offensive to the ' S. Joliii vi. 57. ^ Ibid. 27. Bearing of ChvisVs Ascension on the Eiidiarist. Gl ear aud heart of philosophy falsely so called, " The Bread Chap. II. that I will give is My Flesh ;" it began, as soon as spoken, to be a cause of strife: for in regard of this doctrine espe- cially has the saying ever been too truly fulfilled, " I came not to send peace on the earth, but a sword/^ And accord- ingly the Jews, at the very first hearing of it, began to strive with one another, saying, "How can this Man give us His Flesh to eat*^?" Whereupon our Lord, in repeating it, with the addition that they must drink His Blood, was careful to point out to them that it was the Flesh and Blood of the Son of Man : " Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you.'^ As Son of Man, He had decreed to bestow on them His Flesh and Blood, that it might be within them, to be the very life of their souls. Once more, when the trial and agony caused by the " hard saying*^" seemed at the keenest, in His prophetic mercy and pity He warned them of an event which would make it harder still: "What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before?" He accompanied the warning with a significant repetition of the title. Son of Man ; which, when the time was come, His disciples would under- stand to imply that His going up to heaven bodily, in His human nature, was indeed a most essential link in the chain of wonders which began with His Incarnation. His work as Son of Man would be very incomplete without it ; He could neither sit as a King on His Father's right hand in heaven, " until His enemies be made His footstool," nor stand before Him, either there or in earth, as " a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." Since the commemorative Sacrifice in heaven was necessary for the efficacy of the Eucharist of- fered on earth, — which, indeed, is only efficacious by being joined to the oblation above, — the Communion, however blessed a thing, cannot be understood as having done all its Avork before the glorious Ascension of our Lord. Mary must not touch Christ, because He hath " not yet ascended to His Father,'' to send down, as the first-fruits of His priestly office in heaven, the Holy Spirit, by Whose regenerating power mortals might be united to Him, and made worthy to touch = S. John vi. 52, 53. ^ Ibid. GO. G2 The Holy Spirit's Work in the Eucharist. Chap. II. Him spiritually. Such is S. Cyril's exposition of that mys- terious saying, " Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father." And if any one hesitate to accept it, as incon- sistent with our Lord's offering His Body, as He did so often, to the touch of His disciples dm-iug those forty days, he may consider that such permission was granted, by way of mira- culous evidence, to such as were yet imperfect in the faith of the Resurrection ; whereas the blessed Magdalene seems to have had no doubt, but only wanted to kiss His feet, as be- fore His death, in loving adoration. Her touch would repre- sent the ordinary approach of believers to Christ's Body in the holy Eucharist, and should therefore be deferred until she had been purified by the Holy Ghost. To return for a moment to His own words in the sixth chapter : " What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before?" Understood in this connection, they do in a wonderful manner intimate the three great mysterious Unities comprised in the idea of Christian re- demption : first, the Unity of the Father and the Son, im- plied in " where He was before ;" next, the Unity of God and Man in the Person of Christ, implied in the title. Son of Man ; thirdly, the Union and Communion between Christ and His saints, in that partaking of His Body and Blood is here connected with His Ascension. And in the next verse He turns our thoughts towards that other Divine Person, Who, as Holy Scripture informs us, is in some heavenly way the bond and principle of each of these divine unities. " It is the Spirit that quickeneth." The Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, of whom the Church says*^ that in His unity the Son liveth and reigneth with the Father; and whom our Lord, speaking to the Father, seems in one place to entitle, "The Love wherewith Thou hast loved Me'';" by Whose power, overshadowing the blessed Virgin, the God- head and Manhood were united for ever in Christ : — He it is that quickeneth the souls and bodies of men dead in tres- passes and sins : He also (so our Lord seems to speak) shall descend upon the earthly creatures which I by My priests shall bless, and cause them to be the Flesh and Blood of the ' Collect for Whitsunday. ' S. Jolin xvii. ult. Chrisfs Person is the Bread of Life. 63 Son of Man, life eternal to those who go on worthily rcceiv- Chap. II. ing them. " The flesh profiteth nothing :" not even the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, could you conceive it separated from His divine Person and Spirit, — much less the Bread and Wine used as a charm, — could ever do your souls any good : any such superstition or witchcraft could only come of this earth, or worse ; but " the words that / speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." But whatever turn may be given to this verse in parti- cular, surely there is nothing in the above-mentioned way of stating the general drift of that chapter of S. John, but what the words will very well admit of: and the mere state- ment of it shews sufficiently what an exact analogy it bears to the Scriptural accounts of the other portions of the divine process of salvation, — how naturally it finds its place among them. § 39. Now to apply all this to the question of adoration : is the Person of Christ, God and Man, present in the holy Eucharist by this transcendental Presence of His Body and Blood ? The affirmative seems distinctly proved by His own words in the same discourse; in that He more than once interchanges the first personal pronoun, I, Me, &c., with the phrases, " This bread, My flesh," &c. I will not dwell on the 3.2nd and 33rd verses s, which in our English translation would seem to exemplify this ; for it may be that the sentence which is rendered, "The Bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world," should rather be rendered " that which cometh down from heaven ;" although the word ''giveth" strongly suggests the idea of Vi person acting, and is distinctly so employed throughout the New Testament, with two exceptions only, and those of a poetical cast: "the moon shall not give her light;" and, "the hea- vens gave rain ^." But be this as it may, two verses further on our Lord dis- tinctly identifies the Bread of Life with His own Person: " I am the Bread of Life '." And so the Jews understood e '0 Xlarrip jnov SiSuxTtf vfui/ rhv &pTOV toO ovpavov, Koi faijjj' 5t5ous t^ KScficp. fn Tov ovpavov rhv a.\7)0iviv. 'O yap '' 8. Matt. xxiv. 29 ; S. James V. 18. &pTos TOV deov iarrlv 6 KUTafiaivuv 4ic ' Ibid. 35 : cf, 41, 48 — 51. Gl The Bread of Life, being Chrisfs Person, is adorable. Chap. II. Him, for tlicy murmured at His saying, " I am tlic Bread which came down from heaven ;" and He, instead of correct- ing, confirms their thought, re-asserting more unequivocally, more at large, and in a more startling form, tlie truth at which they had taken offence, and leaving it with them, and with all his hearers, to he an occasion of falling to the one sort, a wholesome exercise of faith to the other. " I am that Bread of Life," He repeats ; " I, in My Person, Jesus Christ, God and Man." "Of Life:" in that while "your fathers did eat manna," which was called "Bread from heaven," "and are dead, this is the Bread that cometh down from Heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die." Then, as if to preclude the notion that the bread He was speaking of was any mere gift of His, anything short of participation of His very Self, He proceeds to qualify that Bread as living, and as having come down from heaven : " I am the living Bread which came down from heaven;" not life-giving only, but living; not here Kara^aivwv, but KaTa^d Apol. § 64. '' De Spectaculis, 25. 78 Sacramental Drift of the Epist/c to the Ilehrcics. Chap. II. § 18. But now, to confirm out of Holy Scripture the sacrificial meaning of the words of institution, let us turn first to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which may perhaps not inaptly be considered, from beginning to end, as one grand theological harmony, its theme being the pregnant saying. That " the Law hath a sliadoio of good things to come, bvit not the very image of the things '','' What is the difference between a shadow and an image? Not simply that, both being representations, the one is solid and stationary, the other unsubstantial and fugitive, but this also, which, if I mistake not, is all-important in our present argument ; — that the Avord '' shadow" may be used of any thing, which by ever so remote an analogy or faint resemblance calls a given ob- ject to the mind ; whereas " image" implies a real similitude, an actual copy more or less exact, of something definitely known to the memory, or bodied forth by the imagination. And "the very image" {avri) t) elKoov) adds the idea of perfection as an image, — instructs us that in this case we are to regard it as the authorized and authentic copy, the most perfect likeness of the thing represented which the material employed could admit of. The phrase seems to answer very nearly to the well-known philosophical form instanced in avTodv6pa>7ro