^RV OF PRI??%^, SEP 16 1988 <^tQGlCAl Sl\^^^ A BX 5945 .B9 1849 Butler, C. M. 1810-1890. The Book of common prayer BX Bu Th THE Boor of Common Prayer, INTERPRETED BY Its History. Rev. C. M. BUTLEK, D. D., PROFESSOH OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN THE DIVINITY SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA AUTHOR OF "lectures ON THE APOCALYPSE;" " ST. PAUL IN ROME," ETC. ETC. ScconU JSTrftion, Complete. PUBLISHED liY THE PHOTESTAXT EPISCOPAL SOCIETY FOR THE Pi;OMOTION OF 1:VAX(tEI.ICA1. KXOAVLEDGE, 3 BIBLE HOUSE, NEW-YOKK. Entered, according to Act of Cone^'ess, By C. M. BUTLER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Distriot of Cokimbia. ,, (Eoutents ■■■' t^-t , V.V^t ^ Advantages of Forms ofPfS^f^ 1 II. Historical sketch of the Liturgy 23 III. Doctrinal System of the Church 45 IV. The Morning Prayer 69 V. The Morning Prayer (continued) 89 VI. Sundays and Holy Days 106 VII. The Lord's Supper 126 VIII. The Lord's Supper (continued) 164 IX. The Lord's Supper (continued) 186 X. The Lord's Supper (continued) 219 XL Infant Baptism 248 XII. The Baptismal Services and The Catechism 278 XIII. Confirmation 305 XIV. Matrimony, Visitation of the Sick, &c 322- XV. The Articles 344 ^.^Dantagcs of loxms of JJlraijcr. To attain the ends of public worship, it is necessary that we should "pray" both "with the spirit and with the understanding." In our public assemblies for the worship of God we should, therefore, adopt such a method as is best calculated to effect that object. The Church, throughout all ages, imitating Scriptural exam- ple, has adopted forms of prayer. That branch of the Church to which it is our privilege to belong, by pro- viding for our use that Liturgy, Avhose history, origin, and doctrine it is my purpose briefly to unfold, has de- clared it her opinion that this object is best secured by the use of such a prescribed formulary of prayer, as shall both meet the wants of the spirit and satisfy the demands of the understanding. An examination of the grounds of this opinion will show it to be firmly founded. It is proper to remark, at the entrance upon this ex- amination, that the reasonings which may be adduced in favor of forms of prayer in general, will be conducted with special reference to the peculiar advantages pos- sessed by our own formulary in particular, in enabling 1 !i ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER, the worshippers who rightly use it to "pray with the spirit, and with the understanding also." That there is such a thing as praying with the spirit, without the understanding, may be inferred from the language of St. Paul. The Corinthians, to whom he addressed himself, might be placed under such circum- stances as that, while they could pray with the spirit, . they could not pray with the understanding. Coming to their assemblies with the spirit of devotion, with hearts full of penitence, faith, and love, they might experience deep religious sensibilities even during those prayers which were uttered in an unknown tongue. Hearing the tones, and reading the language of prayer and praise, made visible by gesture and expression, they might join in spirit with the spirit of supplication or of thanksgiving which pervaded the assembly. But such prayer the Apostle considered imperfect. It was destitute of one of the essential elements of real wor- ship. He contends for the necessity of praying, not with the spirit only, but with the understanding also. He would 1 ave religious feeling grow out of the clear perception and deep realization of religious truth. Therefore it is, that he censures a course of proceedings in the religious assemblies of tlie Corinthians, which tended to put asunder what God had joined together. St. Paul desired to see exhibited by his converts, not the fluctuating fervor of a pietism which arises from feeling and impulse only, but rather the bright and steady flame of devotion which ever aspires heaven- ward, — the blended homage of the understanding, the conscience, and the heart. It is to the production of ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. 3 such a spirit of prayer that we contend that forms of prayer in general, and our own in particular, are emi- nently adapted. I. It will not be difficult to prove that the possession of a form of prayer for the public worship of God enables those who use it to pray with the understanding. 1. By the use of a form of prayer we are secured against presenting or joining in any praises or petitions whose meaning we do not understand. Being already familiar with our forms before we enter upon public worship, we are not called upon to join in, or add our "amen" to prayers whose meanings have not received the deliberate sanction of our understandings, as involv- ing right views of the character and government of God, and of the position, duty, and privilege of man. As the worship of our Liturgy is grounded upon the truths of God as they are generally set forth in sacred scripture, we are not liable to have our understanding perplexed and dissatisfied by prayers and praises whose language is constructed in reference to controverted and difficult points of doctrine. It is surely an essential condition of true and acceptable worship, that the mind should fully and readily comprehend the prayers which it offers up to God. But can this essential condition be secured when we are called upon to offer up our prayers in the language of another — language of which we can know nothing before it is uttered, and which may be based upon or announce doctrines, of the truth of which our understanding is not satisfied ? 2. While the argument apphes to all classes of hear- 4 ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. ers, it has peculiar force when viewed in reference to the case of the poor and the uninstructed, with a view to whose benefit all the parts of public worship should be particularly arranged. The same remark is appli- cable to another argument, which we derive from the style and language of the Liturgy. The language of our forms of prayer is eminently perspicuous, simple, scriptural, and easy to be under- stood. "And," says the Apostle, "unless ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken ? For ye shall speak unto the air.'" "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for the battle ?"^ The lan- guage of the devotional portions of the Prayer Book gives no uncertain sound. It may be comprehended by the meanest capacity. The precise meaning of all its sentences is recognised at once. Its chaste and elo- quent beauty satisfies the most cultivated taste, and its transparent clearness commends it to the humblest un- derstanding. It does not deal in vague, exaggerated, metaphorical, mystic language, constituting to all but the initiated an unknown tongue,^ It does not wrest the figurative terms and historical incidents of Scripture from their original connection and signification, and adapt them to new, remote, and conventional meanings. '1 Cor.,xiv., 9. 2 1 Cor., xiv., 8. ' " There is perhaps a manner of speaking in an unknown tongue even when the language of our own country is used ; a height of composition, an abstruseness of thought, an obscurity of phrase, which common Christians cannot understand." — Doddridge on 1 Corin., xiv. ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. Not called upon to put his mind upon the search after the meaning of the petitions or praises which he em- ploys, the devout worshipper is enabled, by the use of our forms, while he prays with the spirit, to pray with the understanding also. 3. The same important object is promoted by the impressive exhibition of Gospel truth presented by our formulary of "Common Prayer." In it are included all the melting, subduing, uplifting doctrines of the cross. The sinfulness of man, the holiness of God and his law, the mediation of the Saviour, the life-giving influences of the Spirit, are recognised and implied in all its offices. It is a summary of Gospel truth. There we find the blessed truths of God's Holy Word, not in the lifeless and skeleton form of a system, but as a liv- ing, breathing, pulsating, moving body. There they are animated, as by their heart and soul, with earnest and glowing feelings. Often repeated and meditated, as the truths of the Gospel must be by those who truly join in the worship of our Church, they may become thoroughly understood. Thus the great doctrines of the Bible are laid away in the chambers of the under- standing, anointed with the fragrant and consecrated oil of holy feeling, and whenever they are brought forth^ the odor of that ointment filleth all the building. Vividly does the understanding retain what the heart thus hallows. The understanding may first present the truth to the heart ; but if the conscience be quick- ened, and the heart moved by that truth, they send it back into the understanding invested with a vividness, power, solemnity, glory, which it never possessed before. 6 ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. Fervid feeling burns into the substance of the under- standing the truths which before were but pictured upon its surface. The mode in which religious truth is pre- sented in the Liturgy is thus found to aid an intelligent devotion ; to be greatly instrumental in enabling the worshipper to pray with the spirit, it is true, but with the understanding also. 4. Nor let any think it a matter of light moment that we should pray with the understanding. St. Paul did not so regard it. No one can so regard it who will con- sider what an important influence prayer with the un- derstanding has upon prayer with the spirit. When the understanding has calmly decided upon the duty and the privilege of prayer ; when it has investigated the grounds upon which the petitioner may hope for an answer to his supplications ; when it has looked at the weighty motives and glorious results of prayer, then has the best provision been made to secure a steady fervency of spirit in addressing the Almighty. Then, when the heart is pouring itself out in the deepest fervor of penitence and love, its blessed current is not checked and chilled by the suggestions of an ill-formed under- standing that the grounds of its earnest emotion may be all delusion. On the contrary, the calm decision of the understanding is, that in view of the awful and yet cheering truths of revelation, the heart cannot and will not feel enough. It brings the momentous re- alities of eternity to bear upon the heart, and cries shame upon it for its coldness and indifference. It reasons, it expostulates with the sluggish heart. It says to that blind heart, "Can you look on God's ^ ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. 7 holy law, by you violated, and not tremble ?" It says to that hard heart, " Can you look upon a buffeted and bleeding Saviour, and not mourn ?'' It says to that earthly heart, " Can you see Jesus at the right hand of God, your exalted High Priest and King, and do otherwise than rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory ?" When the understanding thus reasons with the heart, and the heart feels in accordance with the dictates of an enlightened understanding, then we need not fear but we shall be able to pray with the spirit and with the understanding also. We are thus led to inquire whether our forms of prayer, which we have found favorable to praying with the understanding, be not favorable to praying with the spirit, also. II. What is to pray with the spirit ? It is to have permitted access to the mercy-seat of God. It is to have a realized communion with the Father of our spirits. It is to have the soul abstracted from the things of time and sense, and intently absorbed in high and holy fellowship with the Invisible. To pray with the spirit, is to have the heart abased in penitence when the hps are confessing sin ; to have it touched with rapture at the utterance of praise ; to have it thirst and long for grace upon the pouring forth of supplication. 1. The first and indispensable requisite for praying with the spirit — we speak now, of course, of public prayer, in which a whole congregation unite — is that the language be adapted to produce and express such sentiments and emotions. The language of our Liturgy O ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRATER. is, we think, adapted to this end. Its confessions of sinfulness and of sin are full and deprecating, embody- ing the very spirit of that self-abasing penitence accept- able to God, which exclaims, "God be merciful to me a sinner !" Its prayers for holiness of heart and life breathe a spirit of such earnest sincerity, and are ex- pressive of so true a yearning for high attainments in the Christian life, as can be fully sympathized with only by those who are spiritually-minded and alienated from the world. Its anthems of praise are the out- pourings and ascendings of a sense of gratitude which ascribes to God all the glory of man's renovation and salvation. Its supplications for all orders and de- grees of men manifest wide and catholic love for all mankind. They are general, without coldness, and minute, without offensive specification. That they are adapted to the expression of our deepest religious feel- ings, may be proved by an appeal to the consciousness and experience of those who have rightly and devoutly used them. To such we put these questions, with no doubtfulness of the answer. When you are in the great congregation, under any peculiar circumstances which have awakened your religious sensibilities, do you not find these forms fitted to express those feelings ? Have you, under such circumstances, ever been so deeply penitent for your sins, so cast down in utter self-abase- ment, that the words of this book were not fully equal to the expression of that penitence ? Have you ever so magnified Christ in your heart as your Saviour and' your King, as that its hymns of praise failed to give to your feelings full and satisfying utterance ? Has ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. 9 the Spirit ever so comforted and blessed your soul, as that its grateful words proved insufficient to express your thankfulness ? Rather have you not found that they are cold only when you are cold, that they are formal only when you are formal ? We are confident that you will reply, that instead of desiring to drop the language of the Liturgy, as inadequate to express your feelings when awakened or sublimed, you have looked to it and clung to it as the only fit vehicle of expressing the emotions burning and beating at your heart, and said to it, " Lend, lend your wings !" And when lifted up on its soaring praises, and borne towards heaven's gate on the wings of its importunate supplications, you have been able to exclaim, "I mount! I fly!" 2. By the use of our forms of prayer we are enabled to pray with the spirit in the public worship of God, because such forms are best adapted to give expression to those general wants, feelings, -confessions, and sup- plications which are in common experienced by, and appropriate to, sinful humanity. We meet in the sanc- tuary of God for common and united prayer. Our Liturgy secures us alike against the incompetency and the vary- ing feelings of individuals. We are always provided with language fitted for its object. We enter the house of God in full confidence that our prayers will be pre- sented before the throne in language sober, reverent, and fervent, embodying all we feel, all we need, and all we desire. Without such security, we may be exposed 10 ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. to have many of our deepest feelings and most earnestly realized wants unexpressed. If he whose duty it is to lead the devotions of the people, were incompetent to present them fully and fervently, the service would prove unedifying and unsatisfactory. If otherwise com- petent, his devotional feelings would be liable, as all men's are, to become at times cold and stupid, and he would then sometimes offer up hesitating, heartless, and formal prayers. And if, from temperament or educa- tion, or any other cause, he was one who gave undue prominence to any particular class of duties or of doc- trines, such a peculiarity would be manifested in his public prayers. If, then, the chastened fervor and ful- ness of our forms be not favorable to the production of the fever-fits of devotion, neither do they allow the soul to be seized upon and prostrated by its deadly chills. If the soul, under their moulding and shaping influence, may not exhibit exaggerated development in some of its forms, at the expense of a puny growth in others, it may yet gi-adually assume, under their equal pressure, a form of symmetry and beauty remotely assimilated to that of our divine Exemplar! 3. Again: by our forms of prayer we are secured against another impediment to praying with the spirit, which we must always be liable to encounter without them. We are not under the necessity of having prayers offered up in which we cannot in conscience or consist- ency engage. And, at the present day, when a spirit of sincere but misguided benevolence would convert the Church of the living God into an agency for the further- ance of other and lesser objects than the salvation of ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYKR. 11 the souls of men, objects concerning the necessity or excellence of which there are wide differences of opin- ion, this is a matter of no light importance. Nor is this an imaginary impediment. It not unfrequently happens that he who leads the devotions of an assembly of wor- shippers who use no forms, maybe so deeply persuaded of the excellence of a cause in which his affections are engaged, as to pray long and earnestly for the further- ance of an object whose success he accounts a blessing greatly to be desired; while many of the congregation regard the object as chimerical, pernicious, or unjust. How, under such circumstances, can a congregation offer up united prayer? How can they pray with the spirit and with the understanding? Let us as churchmen be thankful that we are not exposed to such violent inter- ruptions to our devotional feelings. We are sure that there are no petitions or praises in our service in which a Christian cannot join. We are sure that there will be no phrases in that service consecrated to a system or a sect, the arousing watchwords which wake, even in the house of God, the hateful spirit of partisanship and strife. We are familiar with all its words, and are not called upon to exercise the discrimination of the understanding when we would pour forth the feelings of our hearts! The soul flows on in its accustomed channel, now dark and deep under the shadows of penitence; now the mirror of heaven in its tranquillity; now murmuring grateful praise, and sparkling in the sunshine of joy, and not liable to meet obstructions against which it must chafe, rage, and foam!^ * That the evils of extemporary forms of worship — for fonns all must have, and the choiccis only between good ones and poor ones 12 ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. 4. But we take higher ground on this subject. We contend that forms of prayer are demanded by the wants of our mental and moral nature, and that those wants are fully satisfied only by such a provision as is made in our Liturgy. As social beings, we crave, and love to express, and hear expressed, sympathy and affection. All our feel- ings are deepened by being shared and mutually ex- pressed. True as the remark is in reference to all human feelings, it is pre-eminently true of religious feeling. It delights in sympathy. Sympathy is the breath which fans it into flame. Hearts melted by holy — are beginning to be felt by those who use them, is evident from several indications. From the preface of "The Service Book for the Use of the Church of the Disciples," — an Unitarian congrega- tion who meet in the Masonic Temple, Boston — the following passage is taken as evidence of the truth of the remark : " Seeing advantages in the forms of the Episcopal Church, in the silent wor- ship of the Q,uaker, in the congregational singing of the Lutheran and Methodist, and in the extempore prayer usual in our New England churches, we have endeavored to blend them together in liturgic forms which shall be at once rich and free, avoiding the extremes of barrenness and poverty on the one hand, and of stiff formality on the other. We have allowed in these services ample room for variety." Perhaps if so ample room had not been allowed for variety, there might have been a remedy in this Unitarian wor- ship for the fatal necessity imposed by the theory of the Unitarian congregational discipline, for the minister who composed this form to admit to his pulpit the avowed infidel, Theodore Parker. If these liturgic forms had not been at once so " rich and free," Mr. Parker might not have been willing to have used a form of worship which treated the Scriptures as not made up of fables, and the Sa- viour as at least as good a reformer as we have yet had, or have reason to expect. ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. 13 feeling are attracted towards and blend with each other. When this is the case, how pleasant it is with united hearts and voices to praise and pray! We find this want and feeling expressed in some assemblies of Christians by audible exclamations, indicative of sympathy and assent with those who lead the prayers and praises of the congregation. Our Liturgy has admirably provided for this social feeling of the heart by an arrangement which calls upon the people to add their loud "rtwicn/" or their responsive thanksgiving or supplication to those which are uttered by the officiating minister.'' Nor only so. This social feeling, softening and affecting as it is when experienced in reference to those who worship under the same consecrated roof, becomes sublime and elevating when it breaks abroad beyond the precincts of the Church in which it is awakened, and takes in its warm grasp all in distant and separated places, who are occupied in worshipping God with the same prayers and praises. It makes us imperfectly to realize the commu- nion of the saints, when we reflect that earth is almost encircled by a continuous echoed strain of our pleading Litanies and exulting Doxologies. It unites us with the saints of all ages, and with the church triumphant in Heaven, when we remember that some of the language which we employ has conveyed consolation to the hearts of Apostles and holy men; some has expressed the de- * The people echo out amen, like a thunder-clap, says St. Jerome. And Clemens Romanus, " We raise ourselves on our tip-toes at this last acclamation of our prayers, as if we desired that the word should carry up our bodies as well as our souls to Heaven." — H. L'Estrange's Alliance of Divine Offices, p. 76. 14 ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. votion of pious hearts through succeeding ages; some has trembled on the lips of expiring martyrs; some is ascending, in the temple not made with hands, to the Lamb that was slain. 0, how poor, though breathing all the fervor of a true devotion, are prayers and praises,, which are destitute of this rich provision for the wants of our moral nature.*^ 5. But it is sometimes said that it is impossible to express the feelings of the heart in forms of prayer ; ®The preeminently wise Lord Bacon, in his "Certain Consider- ations touching the better Purification and Edification of the Church of England," in describing such a Liturgy as a sound judgment de- mands for worship, includes a provision for this social feeling of he heart. His words, indeed, describe our Liturgy as it is, though they seem to imply that the form should not be absolutely and unchangeably binding. "So as none, I suppose, of sound judgment will derogate from the Liturgy, if the form thereof be in all parts agreeable to the Word of God, the example of the primitive Church, and that holy decency which St. Paul commendeth. And, therefore, first, that there be a set form of prayer, and that it be not left to an extem- poral form, or to an arbitrary form. Secondly, that it consists as well of lauds, hymns, and thanksgivings, as of petitions, prayers, and supplications. Thirdly, that the form thereof be quickened by some shortness and diversities of prayers and hymns, and with some interchanges of the voices of the people as well as of the minister. Fourthly, that it admit some distinction of times and commemorations of God's principal benefits, as well general as particular. Fifthly, that prayers, likewise, be appropriated to several necessities and occasions of the Church. Sixthly, that there be a form, likewise, of words and Liturgy in the administra- tion of the sacraments, and in denouncing of the censures of the Church, and other holy actions and solemnities." Lord Bacon's Works, vol. ii, p. 426. ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. 15 that their use inevitably induces coldness, formality, and hypocrisy. It is objected that feelings so deep and fervent, as are those of the real Christian, disdain the trammels of a prescribed service, and find adequate ex- pression only in the outpourings of spontaneous, unpre- meditated prayer.' Let us examine this objection. Let us see if it be true that human nature rejects a form of words for the expression of its deeper and holier feelings. It was thought to have been a striking observation, ''Give me the making of a people's songs, and I care not who makes its laws." The observation proceeded from a deep knowledge of human nature. It implied that he who can give popular expression to the feelings of patriotism and affection — he who can place in every man's hand an instrument through which the vaguely struggling impulses of his heart can find expression, wields an influence in the formation of a nation's char- 'This objection has never been better or more wittily answered than by Samuel Wesley. " Form stints y spirit, Watts has said, And therefore oft is wrong; At best a crutch the weak to aid, A cumbrance to the strong. Old David, both in prayer and praise, A form of crutches brings ; But Watts has dignified his lays, And furnished him with wings. E'en Watts a form for praise can use. For prayer who throws it by ; Crutches to walk he can refuse, But uses them to fly. ^' [Whitehead's Life of Weslexj, p. 68. 16 ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. acter mightier than that of legislators and laws. It pro- ceeded on the supposition that the human mind needs, seeks, and loves such a vehicle for its deepest emotions as commends itself to the sympathies of our common nature, and is expressive of the feelings of universal humanity. And it will be found that the more frequently any vehicle for the expression of feeling is used, the dearer does it become. The deepest emotions will find fittest utterance in the words which have most frequently expressed them. All that is sacred and affecting in the past, comes and clothes the language which gives utter- ance to the wants or feelings of the present. Hence, the enthusiasm w^hich gathers about those national songs through which the awakened patriotism of a people has burst forth in frequent and earnest expression. Hence, the exile from his native hills will weep when he hears the songs of his country, as they come to his ear laden with the memory of happy days. For the expression of casual and passing feelings, new and lighter lays, which have no old associations, may suffice. But when the heart is stirred to its foundations, it likes not novelty of expression. It asks for the old words and the old tunes. The language of universal humanity is, " Sing aloud Old songs, the precious music of the heart !" Every where and always, it is found that the deepest emotions of the human soul are best expressed in those fervid words, around which seem to linger something of holy enthusiasm from all the hearts which they have successively touched and thrilled. But here is a marvellous thing! When we seek a fit ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. 17 expression for those feelings which are deeper than love, and stronger than patriotism; when we would find words to convey the rapture of pardon, the gladness of gratitude, the joy of love, the triumph of faith, the sor- row of penitent humiliation, we are told to discard this principle. For the expression of the deepest and most solemn feelings of which the human soul is susceptible, we are told that unconsidered words, spoken from the sudden promptings of the heart, are the best vehicles. Can it be so? Is nature so variable in her teachings? Is God so unstable in his laws? Shall w^e find that a principle, estabUshed by God, ceases to operate just at that point where, from all analogy and all observation, we should expect to observe its most perfect operation? When we would oflfer adoration and prayer, is it no in- citement to our devotional feehngs that the language we use was uttered by holy men of old, consecrated by ages, and spoken by the same household of faith in many lands? When we would emulate q. martyr's faith, is it no aid to us to use a martyr's prayer? When we would express our gratitude and praise to the Almighty, and glorify Christ because of the glory which he had with the Father Tefore the world was, and because of his condescension and love in man's redemption, shall we not send our souls upward upon that triumphant " Te Deum,^' on whose wings so many Christians have ascended and skirted the battlements of heaven, and caught over them bright glimpses of the paradise of God? Truly, if our hearts are right towards God and man, then when we use our forms we may adopt the 18 ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. Apostle's language, " I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also."® Such are some of the grounds on which we feel, that by the use of forms of prayer, we can best render that true devotion, which consists in offering up those praises and petitions, which the heart embraces as it receives them from the understanding. Let us, then, as church- men, and as Christians, realize the obligations which are laid upon us by the possession of our treasured Liturgy. Let us show forth to the world, by lives emi- nently blameless and devoted, that we make earnest and diligent use of our blessed privileges. It does not become us to be ever marching with boastful banners, around the walls of our spiritual Zion, marking with proud satisfaction her impregnable bulwarks, and count- ing with elated heart her lofty towers. It becomes us to kneel in penitence at her altars. It becomes us to fill her courts with the incense of true devotion, and to offer *• The same thought is found admirably expressed in Dr. Coit's excellent sermon on forms of prayer, " Fault-finders with Litur- gies have insensibly adopted the unfortunate mistake that prayer is an exercise for the head rather than for the heart, and must, there- fore, exhibit incessant variety. It is not true, as a fact, that the heart covets or loves that variety which is (by some) presumed to be indispensable to fervent worship. The heart, the affections, love unchangeable things, love old things, love things which endure, like the hills of earth and the stars of heaven. Few understand the deep philosophy as well as benevolence of the Church in her provision for the service of God's house. In the chancel, she gives the heai-t what it loves — sameness ; in the pulpit, she gives what the head de- lights in — variety; thus providing for all the wants of our craving and exacting nature." ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. 19 up the acceptable sacrifice of a contrite and consecrated heart. It becomes us to remember that the forms of devotion may remain in their purity when the spirit of devotion shall have fled. Symmetiy and loveliness may linger in the lifeless corpse. The walls may remain without a breach, and the gleaming turrets may lift themselves in the sunshine, from a silent Necropolis — a city of the dead! Let us not be high-minded, but fear! It is difficult for us to estimate the debt of gratitude which our Church owes to her forms of prayer. That the Church has hitherto been enabled to maintain unity of faith on the fundamental points of doctrine, may be due less to our formularies of faith than to our forms of devotion. If that unity is to be continued, it is, I ap- prehend, to be effected, not so much by entire harmony of sentiment upon the exp/anatio7is of creeds and arti- cles, as it is by a heart-felt unity of spirit in the use of our Scriptural forms of prayer. Perhaps thei;e never was a period in the history of our Church, when the value of her devotional services was put to a severer test or received a more triumphant demonstration, than at the present time. United prayers may be twined into soft and silken bonds, which shall hold in lovinsr and unforced unity, those who, if they were bound to gether only by the iron fetters of articles and confes- sions, would snap them asunder, and assault each other with their broken fragments. What degree of blessing in answer to the prayers of those who have prayed with the spirit, and with the understanding, has descended upon Churches and individuals, eternity will disclose ! 20 ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. Let US, then, faithfully improve the privileges which we enjoy by means of our Common Prayer. We shall never know its value until our hearts go up on its devo- tional words 'vvith something of the fervor and faith with which those by whom they were framed ascended. What a change might be made to come over our be- loved Church, if we would but heed one of her briefest rubrics, — Let us pray ? Great things are promised to united prayer. We should seek them. We should expect them. In our public services we should pray as those who are addressing a present God ; as those who unfalteringly believe that he hears and answers prayer. Shall thousands of worshippers, prostrate at once in prayer, pour out with united hearts and voices her humble confessions, her solemn vows and her burning praises, and no large blessings follow ? Shall neither Churches, ministers, nor members, re- ceive grace and strength ? Shall not the careless be awakened, the lukewarm enlivened, the doubting and the distressed be cheered ? Has God forgotten to be gracious ? Is his ear heavy that it cannot hear ? Is his arm shortened that it cannot save ? No. God hears ; but do we pray ? It is not prayer to follow with tne eye, or ear, or lip, the words of supplication. " Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Unaltered or expressed !" Let us pray ! The sins of our own souls are grievous to be borne ; the aid of the Spirit must be constantly extended to us, or we cannot keep out of perdition ; sinners are falling into eternal death ; the darkened nations of the earth are throwing wide their doors, and AnVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. 21 raising the Macedonian cry for our prayers, our sym- pathy, and our aid ! Let us pray ! When the members of our Churches shall have learned to prepare, in private devotion, for public worship as for one of their highest privileges and most sacred duties ; when they shall all come duly at the appointed hour, so that nothing shall mar the hushed solemnity of the sacred service ; when they shall realize that the Lord is in his holy temple, and that it is none other than the house of God, and truly the gate of heaven ; when they shall feel it to be a fearful thing to allow their minds to wander when they are professedly addressing the Lord God Almighty; when they shall speak aloud the responsive service, and allow the intonations of the voice to give expres- sion to, and deepen the emotions of, the heart ; when the heart shall be prepared to utter with true feeling every spoken word, then will the frivolous and the worldly be made to feel that God is in his sanctuary ; then will the Church throw off the spirit of heaviness, and be clothed with the garments of praise ; then will he who leads the devotions of the people, no longer be subjected to the charge of a dull, uninterested, or formal discharge of the duties of his sacred office, but it wiU be with a beating heart and fervid voice that he will besiege the throne of grace, leading in the van, and speaking in the name of earnest and urgent sup- plicants. And, finally, let us remember that out of the house of God there is a transcript of the pages of our Book of Common Prayer known and read of all men. It is spread out to the world's easy perusal, and in their 22 ADVANTAGES OF FORMS OF PRAYER. busiest hours men will catch and read some passages. Our lives and conversations will be read as the living transcripts of that volume by those who never open its pages. Oh! that they may see and be won to the ac- knowledgment that as that volume is but the Word of God converted into prayer, so our lives are but the exhibition of that prayer, transcribed in our practice, and realized in our life ! May they see in us its hal- lowed meekness, its realizing faith, its ardent love ! II. i^istcrual Skctil) of lljc Citurgw. It is no part of the design of these chapters upon the history and doctrines of the Book of Common Pray- er, to give an account of the causes and progress of the Reformation. A general knowledge of that great event must be supposed. Nevertheless, a very slight sketch of the progress of religious opinion during the reign of Henry VIII, and an account of the publication of several religious documents during the same period, seem necessary to a full history of the Liturgy. Very little progress towards purity of doctrine was made during the reign of Henry VIII. Nevertheless, preparation for progress had been made. In casting off the supremacy of the pope, in translating the Word of God, in ceasing to offer public prayer in an unknown tongue, measures had been taken,* under which sprang up the strong and irrepressible spirit of free inquiry. Knowledge of, and contact with, the Lutheran Reforma- tion, had convinced many minds that the claims of the Romish Church to purity of doctrine were as ground- less as her scouted pretensions to universality of power. Notwithstanding, therefore, that Henry started back at 24 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. the rush and roar of the stream of public opinion for which his own hand had opened the channel ; notwith- standing that just before the termination of his reign all the essential errors of the Church of Rome, with the exception of the supremacy of the pope, were establish- ed by the Six Articles; notwithstanding that the ])opish party, favored by the king, were in the full ascendant; yet Protestantism, in seclusion, meditation, and prayer, was preparing for high achievement and marked suc- cess. But as yet there was only preparation. In the language of Hooper, " The king cast out the pope, not popery." ' In tracing, therefore, the history of our Book of Common Prayer, we should expect to find, correspondently with the progress of religious know- ledge, but little actually accomplished, during the reign of Henry VIII., towards the formation of a pure for- mulary of public worship ; while at the same time, we should look for evidence that such preparation had been made for a purer worship as needed but a propitious time to be matured into a spiritual and holy ritual. The first step towards the reformation of the worship of the English Church was the publication of the King's Primer. It was published apparently without the royal approbation in 1535, the same year in which the pope excommunicated Henry and his adherents. It consists of various tracts, then first collected in one volume.* ' Cardwell's Two Liturgies of Edward compared, p. 6. 'Stripe's Memorials, vol. i, p. 217. Shepherd's Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of Eng- land, p. ii. HISTORICAL SKETCH OP THE LITtJRGY. 25 After passing through a variety of editions, it was published, by authority, in the year 1545. "The ob- ject of its publication was to furnish the unlearned with The following abstract of the Primer of 1535 is taken from Shepherd : " The larger editions, after the preface, began with an exposition of the commandments, another of the creed and a confession, wherein all are directed to examine their lives by the rule of the com- mandments. These are followed by two pious and judicious tracts, entitled, Directions concei-ning Prayer and Jin Exposition of the Lord's Prayer ; a caution concerning the use of the ^ive JMaria, or the angePs salutation, with a prayer to our Creator ; prayers for Bishops and rulers, for husbands and wives, Sfc, or an office for all states ; a tract on good works, and an exhortation to expect the cross, and to bear it patiently. Then follow matins, lauds, evenso'iig, &c. After these stand the seven penitential psalms, and the Litany, different copies of which, in different editions, vary almost as much from each other as some of them do from our present form. After the Litany, is a contemplation 07i Psalms li ; a prayer to our Saviour ; the history of Christ's Passion, taken from the Gospels, and divided into ten sec- tions ; a practical discourse on the Passion ; instruction for children ; a catechetical dialogue ; prayer against blindness and hardness of heart ; several prayers and thanksgivings from Scripture, and the Dirige, or office for the souls of the dead, with a preface prefixed, which inveighs against the practice of misapplying to the dead passages used by the living to excite the compassion of friends. ' We have rung and sung, mumbled and murmured, and piteously pewled in a certain sort of Psalms, which make no more for the purpose than Te Deum or Gloria in Excelcis.'' In the Dirige there is nothing taken out of Scripture that makes any more mention of the souls departed, than doth the tale of Robin Hood.''' Then follow COMMENDATIONS, &c. In somc copies, the Collects, Epistles and Gospels throughout the year, are added, and, in others, expo- sitions of them. But in the smaller volumes, many of the Arti- cles already enumerated are omitted. 2 26 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. such parts of the Church service as were most required, as well as to supply them with the creed, the Lord's prayer, and the ten commandments, in the vulgar tongue.'"' The Litany, varying but little, in other respects, from the present form, contains petitions re- questing the prayers of angels, saints, and martrys, as also to be delivered from the tyranny of the Church of Rome. It contains, also, prayers for the dead. Besides this first step towards the reformation of the forms of public worship, there were several formularies of faith put forth in the English tongue during the same reign. A very general notice of them must suffice. None of these documents are of any authority at the present day ; but they are interesting and im- portant in tracing the history of religious opinion. The first document was "The Articles devised by the king's highness' majesty to stablish Christian quietness and unity among us, and to avoid contentious opposi- tions, which Articles be also approved by the consent and determination of the whole clergy of this realm, Anno Domini L536." The second formulary of faith was " The godly and pious institution of a Christian man, containing an exposition of the Creed, of the seven Sacraments, of the Ten Commandments, of the Lord's Prayer, together with Articles upon Justifica- tion and Purgatory." This was published in 1537. The third was a republication and enlargement of ''The pious institution of a Christian man," and was called, " The necessary Doctrine and Erudition of any "'Short's History of the Church of England, pp. 278, 279. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. 27 Christian man." An examination of these formularies of faith will confirm the opinion before expressed, that but little progress towards purity of doctrine had been made during this reign. Nevertheless, these articles and formularies, in con- nection with other causes, removed many obstacles in the way of reformation. The clamor, excited among the papists by their publication, attests their influence as preparatory to more important changes. The in- junctions set forth in the name of the king in the same year with the articles contributed to the same result. By them the clergy were enjoined to explain what were articles of faith, and what related only to discipline ; they were bidden not to extol images, to discourage pilgrimages, to instruct children in the principles of religion ; they were enjoined to refrain from games, and from frequenting public houses, and to devote themselves to the study of the sacred Scriptures, These were the dawnings of a bright day for the English Church. She had thrown off the iniquitous external bondage of the Church of Rome. During the reign of Edward VI, she cast off the doctrinal corruption of that Church also, and came forth clad in the shining livery of truth. In 1547, a most important step was taken to reform the public worship. A communion service, by the direction of an act of parliament, was composed, which provided that the Holy Couununion should be received by the laity in both kinds, and excluded the superstition of the mass. This service is very similar to, though shorter than, that which formed part of the Book of Common Prayer, published the following year. OfS HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. But it was in the following year, the first of King Edward VI, that the whole service was put forth in the English tongue, and all the worshippers thus enabled to worship with "the spirit, and with the understanding also." Henry VIII died in 1547. Edward VI, a pure and Protestant child, succeeded him. The injunctions issued at the commencement of his reign, indicate the clear purpose to sweep away all human superstitions. "Item. — That they, the present above rehearsed, shall make, or cause to be made, in their churches, and every other cure they have, one sermon every quarter of the year at the least, wherein they shall purely and sin- cerely declare the word of God; and in the same exhort their hearers to the works of faith, mercy, and chanty specially prescribed and commanded in Scripture; and that works, denied by men's phantgisies, besides Scrip- ture, as wandering to pilgrimages, offering of money, candles, tapers, or relicks, or images, or kissing, or licking of the same; praying upon beads, or such like superstition, have not only no promise of reward in Scripture for doing of them; but, contrariwise, great threats and maledictions of God, for that they be things tending to idolatry and superstition, which of all other offenses God doth most detest and abhor, for that the same diminish most his honor and glory. ^ The advocates for reform, Cranmer and Ridley, then rose into ascendency. Public disputations were held at Oxford, and at Cambridge, on the doctrine of Transub- ■* "Injunctions given by the most excellent Prince Edward VI, by Grace of God, King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith," &c. — Liturgical Tracts, M>. 1. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. 29 stantiation. At Cambridge the theses sumiped up by- Ridley were that '' Tran substantiation cannot be proved from the direct words of Scripture, nor be necessarily collected from it; nor is it confirmed from the early fathers; that in the Eucharist no other sacrifice is made than the remembrance of Christ's death and sufferings." Thus was the way fully prepared for the first Liturgy, which was published in the year 1549. This, the original Book of Common Prayer, though in its general appearance like that at present in use, differs from it in many particulars, some of which are important. It contains some of the errors of the Church of Rome which were afterwards rejected. It has been justly said to form a connecting link between the Missal and the Book of Common Prayer.** A committee of thirteen bishops and divines, with the Archbishop of Canterbury at their head, were appointed to prepare this service of the Church." " In order to this," says Burnet, " they brought together all the offices used in England."' "So it being resolved," says the same 5 Short. •^ Such is the statement of Fuller. Burnet says. " Some had been , in King Henry's time, employed in the same business, in which they had made a good progress, and were now to be brought to a full perfection." Burnet names twenty-four on the commission. Shepherd remarks, that " the commission is not probably on record, and in the statute the archbishop only is named. The other com- missioners are there called inof.t learned and discreet bishops and divines.'" The same author remarks, that " the work probably passed only through the hands of a few." — Shepherd on Common Prayer, p. 18. 'Burnet, vol. ii, p. 114. 30 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. authority, " to bring in the whole worship of God under set forms, they set one general rule to themselves (which they afterwards declared) of changing nothing for novelty's sake, or merely because it had been form- erly used."* The whole of the service was in the English tongue. In the Funeral Service there were prayers for the dead. The custom of anointing with oil is retained in the Office for Baptism, and in the Visitation of the Sick, when it is required. In the Office of Baptism also, there is a form of exorcism to expel the evil spirit from the child. The form of the cross was retained in consecrating the elements in the celebration of the communion, in matrimony, in con- firmation, and in visiting the sick. The arrangement of the service was also, in several particulars, different from that of the present service. The Morning and Evening Prayer began with the Lord's Prayer, and the prayers for the king, the royal family, and the clergy, were wanting in the end of the service. A prayer for rain, and one for fair weather, were placed at the close of the Communion Service. The ancient offices of the Church of England were not, as might be inferred from the above language of Burnet, the only souices whence our Liturgy was de- rived. It was greatly indebted also to the labors of the continental reformers. Says Dr. Cardweli, a learned ritualist of the present day," " In the great body of this work indeed they derived their materials from the early ** Burnet, vol. ii, p. 116. ^ The Two Liturgies of Edward VI compared, p. 16. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. 31 service of their own Church; but in the occasional of- fices, it is clear, that they were indebted to the labors of Melancthon and Bucer, and through them to the older Liturgy of Nuremburg, which those reformers were instructed to follow." " It is a strong indication," he adds, ** of the prudence and discernment of the English divines, and especially of the primate who pre- sided over them, that they drew up so temperate a form of public worship, when the great body of the people, for whom it was designed, were totally unfitted for any further alteration.""' '"The following is the title and table of contents of the first book of Edward VI. " The Book of the Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church ; after the use of tlie Church of England. Londoni in officino Edwardi Whitchurch. Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum Anno Do. 1549. Mense maii. The coi\tents of this book. 1. A Preface. 2. A Table and Kalendar for Psalms and Lessons, with necessary Rules pertaining to the same. 3. The order for Matins and Evensong throughout the year. 4. The Introits, Collects, Epistles and Gospels, to be used at the celebration of the Lord's Supper and Holy Communioau|tf througii the year, with proper Psalms and Lessons for divers* Feasts and Days. , 5. The Supper of the Lord and Holy Communion, commonly called the Mass. 6. The Litany and Suffrages. 7. Of Baptism, both public and private. 8. Of Confirmation, where also is a Catechism for children. 9. Of Matrimony. 10. Of Visitation of the Sick, and Communion of the same. 32 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. Here, then, we have the first form of the Book of Common Prayer, the first and besi gift of the Reforma- tion to the Church. Though it needed alteration in several particulars, it was yet, under the circumstances, an unspeakable blessing to the Church, and gave birth to a spirit which demanded and effected its purification from the few Romish errors which yet spotted its else perfect purity. In 1552, but three years after its formation, it was revised. Cranmer and other divines, probably the same as originally compiled it, subjected it to a full review. " While this was in progress, two learned foreigners, who were then in England, were consulted on the sub- ject, and their opinions seem to have coincided with, or to have influenced the decisions of the English bishops, for most of the points objected to by Bucer were subse- quently amended, and the sentiments of Peter Martyr appear to have been very similar to those of Bucer." Says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, " The truth is, that al- though they framed the Liturgy with the greatest con- sideration that could be by all the united wisdom of church and slate, yet, as if prophetically to avoid their being charged, by after ages, with a crepescidum of re- 11. Of Burial. 12. The Purification of Women. 13. A declaration of Scripture, with certain Prayers to be used the first day of Lent, commonly called Ash-Wednesday. 14. Of cereinonies omitted or retained. 15. Certain Notes for the more plain explication and decent minis- tration of things contained in this book. " Short's History of the Church of England, p. 281. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. 33 ligion — a dark, twilight, imperfect reformation — they joined to their own star all the other shining tapers of the other reformed churches, calling for the advice of the most ejnineiitly learned and zealous reformers in other kingdoms, that the light of all together might show them a clear path to walk in. And this their care pro- duced some chaniic; for, upon consultation, the first iorin of King Edward's first service book was approved, with the exce])tion of a very few clauses, wliich upon that occasion were reviewed and expunged, till it came to the second form and modest beauty it was in the edition of 15.0'2, and which Gilbertus, a German, ap- proved as a tianscript of the ancient and primitive forms.'"' The Prayer Book, thus "reviewed and ex- punged," differs very little from the one now in use in our Church. The introductory sentences, the exhorta- tion, the confession, and the absolution, were then in- troduced, and were taken in great part from a Liturgy composed by Calvin." The Ten Commandments were then also introduced into the Communion Service, pro- bably from the same source.'* A very important addi- tion to the work was the introduction of a service called " The form and manner of making and consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons." The introit, a psalm used before the collect, was omitted, together with the name of the Virgin Mary, the sign of the cross in the consecration of the elements, and the invocation of the Word and the Holy Ghost upon them which accompa- '« Bishop Taylor's Works, vol. vii, 288. "Lawrence, Bampton Lectures, p. 207. "Short, p. 281, note. 2* 34 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. nied it, and the mixture of water with the wine. In baptism, the forms of exorcism, of anointing with oil, and of the trine immersion, were omitted. The sign of the cross, and the giving of gold and silver in matri- mony were omitted. In the Visitation of the Sick, the anointing and the directions for private confession, were omitted. In the Burial Service, the prayers for the dead, and the Office of the Eucharist at funerals, were omitted. Thus, in the most significant manner, were all these practices condemned. The Book of Common Prayer thus came forth from the hands of the Reformers the most perfect formulary of worship which the world ever saw. When, soon after the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the throne, Protestanism was re-established in Eng- land, in 1560, this second Liturgy of King Edward was adopted with few and unimportant alterations.'' '*This is a proper place to specify, once for all, what these changes were. They are thus concisely stated by Short : " The changes specified in the act of uniformity, 1st Elizabethae, are with one alteration of certain Lessons to be used every Sunday in the year, and the form of the Litany altered and corrected, and two sentences only added in the delivery of the sacrament to the com- municants, and none other or otherwise." Of these, the changes in the Lessons are not considerable. In the Litany the petition to be delivered from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome was omitted, and that for the dueen altered. And at the communion both the clauses at the presentation of the elements, which had stood in the first and second of Edward, were put together forming the words now used. The clause in the act of uniformity, 1st Elizabethae, about dresses is, " Such ornaments of the Church and of the min- isters thereof shall be retained and be used, as was in the Church HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. 35 In 1604, during the reign of James I, in consequence of a conference Avith the Pre^-byterian divines, held at Hampton Court, a few changes were introduced into the Liturgy, but such as had no legal authority, be- cause only sanctioned by royal proclamation, not by the authority of the convocation and of parliament. In 1661, the Common Prayer was submitted for al- teration to the convocation then sitting. After the restoration of Charles II, there had been a fruitless conference at the Savoy between the Bishops and the Presbyterian divines. The Book of Common Prayer was then put into the form in which it now stands in the Church of England. The alterations w^hich were made at this revision were many of them changes in the arrangement of the services. The new version of the Bible was adopted, except in the Psalms, the Ten Commandments, and the sentences in Communion Service. The prayer for parliament, for all conditions of men, the general thanksgiving, and some new col- lects were added. The service for the baptism of those of riper years was introduced, and also the form of prayer to be used at sea. Some minor changes it is not regarded as important that we should notice. of England by authority of psiiliament in the second year of the reign of Edward VI, until order shall be therein taken by the authority of the dueen's majesty," by the advice of the ecclesia.s- tica! commission or of the metropolilan of this reahii. " I am not aware that any such order was ever taken by dueen Elizabeth. And by the act of uniformity, Charles II, 14th, and the rubric, this is now the law of the land." (Short, 282.) We shall have occa- sion hereafter to refer to the subject of habits. 36 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. We have thus rapidly brought down the history of the Book of Common Prayer until its completion as it is now in use in the Church of England. It remains for us to narrate the circumstances under which the Litur- gy of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country was adopted. The situation of the members of the Episcopal Church in this country, after the war of the Revolution, was pecuHar and unprecedented. Before that period, they had been a branch or Diocese of the Church of England, under the Episcopate of the Bishop of London. When this country became independent of England, the mem- bers of the Episcopal Church became, of necessity, severed from all connection with the Church of England. What, then, was their condition ? The union with the Church of England was dissolved ; but their unity with her was maintained, because they still retained the same Creeds, Liturgy, and Articles. What was the position of the several Episcopal congregations to- wards each other ? There was unity among them all, — but was there also union .' Manifestly not. Each congregation dropped off from the authority which as a golden thread running through them united them, and became a Church, complete and independent, at unity with all other Episcopal congregations, but not in union. But it was both the duty and interest of all Episcopal congregations in the country to be not only in unity in the faith, but united also in ecclesiastical government as one body. Providentially left as separate Churches, in unity without union, it was their duty, on Gospel principles and primitive usage, at once to effect a HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. 37 union in each separate State. How was that effected ? First, the several congregations in each State met in convention and adopted a constitution and canons which made them separate and independent Dioceses in each State. One step from unity to union here was taken. There was union between all the Churches in each State. But the Church thus one in one State, was not yet in union with the Church in any other State. We will now briefly detail the steps which were taken to bring about that union of all the Churches under one constitution, by means of which they became the one Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. ^- The first step towards forming a collective body of the Episcopal Church in the United States was taken at a meeting, for another purpose, of a few clergymen of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, at Brunswick, New Jersey, on the 13th and 14th of May, 1784. These clergymen met for the purpose of con- sulting upon the renewal of a society formerly existing for the support of widows and children of deceased clergymen. Here a meeting was appointed to be held in New York, in October, to confer on some general principles of union. The meeting accordingly was held. The general principles which they agreed should be the basis of union were, the continuance of the three orders, the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and the establishment of a representative body of the Church, consisting of clergy and laity, who were to vote in distinct orders. They recommended to the '* Hawk's Constitution and Canons, pp. 5-8. 38 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. Church to send clerical and lay deputies to a meeting to be held in Philadelphia, on the 27th of September, of the following year. On the 27th of September, accordingly, in 1785, a convention of clerical and lay deputies from seven of the thirteen States assembled in Philadelphia. The States represented were New York, New Jersey, Dela- ware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South CaroUna. They made such changes in the Book of Common Prayer as were necessary to accommodate it to the changes in the State. A general ecclesiastical constitution was proposed ; measures were taken to obtain the Episcopacy ; changes in the Prayer-Book and Articles were proposed and published in a book, never adopted by our Church, called the Proposed Book. It remained to be seen whether the Episcopate could be obtained, and whether the union thus pro- posed would be ratified and effected in a subsequent General Convention. A committee was appointed with power to reassemble them, if it should be deemed necessary or expedient, at Philadelphia. Having received an answer from the English Bishops to their appHcation for the Episcopacy, the convention was reassembled in Philadelphia, June 20, 1786. The Bishops of the English Church expressed a wish to comply with the request, but delayed to take measures for that purpose until they saw what alterations in the form of faith and worship were to be adopted in con- vention. The convention, by an address, acknowledged the friendly letter of the Bishops, and declared a de- termination of making no further alteration in the Arti- cles and Liturgy than a change of circumstances made HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITDRGY. 39 necessary, or than was conducive to a union of the Churches of the several States, The answer to this address was soon received, in which the Bishops enclosed an act of parliament, authorizing them to consecrate Bishops for America, and in which they also expressed a desire to be satis- fied with regard to the omission of the article in the creed which expresses a belief of Christ's descent into hell. They were also dissatisfied that no express pro- vision was made for the presidency of Bishops in conventions. The General Convention reassembled at Wilmington, Delaware, removed these objections, and signed the testimonials for the consecration of the Rev. Drs. Provoost, of New York, White, of Penn- sylvania, and Griffeth, of Virginia, who had been duly chosen by the conventions of their respective Dioceses. On the '2Htb of July, 1789, the General Convention having again assembled, the Episcopacy of Bishops White and Provoost — Dr. Griffeth not having been able to proceed to England to obtain it — was recog- nised, and the constitution of 1786 remodeled and amended. Assembled again in September, 1789, the constitution thus remodeled and amended v^'as, with slight alterations, adopted ; the Book of Common Prayer, reviewed and slightly altered, and thus amend- ed, became our formulary of faith and worship. Thus the Episcopal Churches in the various States became the one Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, with our present constitution and Liturgy. " " Bishop White's Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 40 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. These brief" historical details have been given, that it may be seen precisely whence and how we received and adopted our Book of Common Prayer. Having traced it as a whole, in its external history, as it came forth from the hands of the Reformers, and as it passed down through the successive periods of English and American history, till we see it as it now hes upon the desks of our churches, we shall, on subsequent occa- sions, open its golden pages, and read its sound forms of faith, and its burning words of prayer. Here we pause to make a few concluding inferences and remarks. 1. We call the reader's attention to the fact, that the Church of these United States is perfectly independent of the Church of England, and of all other Churches. Even when we speak of her as a branch of the one holy catholic Church, nothing more can be meant by the expression than that she is united in the unity of the faith, on fundamental articles, with the true Churches of Christ of every clime and of every age. The uniform language of each of the Dioceses, and of the General Convention, is in substance that which was uttered by the Diocese of Maryland: "We consider it the un- doubted right of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in common with the other Churches, under the American Revolution, to complete and preserve herself as an entire Chuirh, agreeably to her ancient usages and professions, and to have a full enjoyment and free exercise of those purely spiritual powers which are essential to the being of every congregation of the faithful, and which, being derived from Christ and his Apostles, are to be main- tained independent of every foreign or other jurisdic- HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. 41 tion, SO far as may be consistent with the civil rights of society.""* 2. If this Church be thus entire and independent, then her Book of Common Prayer, her Creeds;, Articles, and forms of worship, constitute the law for the faith and practice of the ministers and members of that Church. Much loose, radical, disorganizing speech on this subject has, of late years, been heard among us. It has been customary for some to speak as if the ministers of this church have a far wider range in which to form their opinions, and from which to adopt their practices, than our own Church standards specify. They have spoken as if we were connected with the Church Cath- olic, not by the unity of faith in fundamentals only, but in such binding sort as to be under obligation, or to be at liberty to adopt tenets or rites not provided for or enjoined by our own Church as authorities. But what is the fact of the case ? Our Church has adopted such fun- damental articles of faith, and such rites and services from the Church Catholic, as she judged conducive to the promotion of godliness of heart and life; and these are the rules and limits for her children. For indi- viduals, who have bound themselves to her standards, to go beyond them and select for themselves what they may choose to call catholic truths, or catholic customs — what is it but a most arrogant and undutiful exercise of private judgment against the teachings of their mother Church? what is it but a shameless violation of holy '* A declaration of certain fundamental rights and liberties of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Maryland. Smith's Sermons, vol. ii. 42 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. VOWS? This Church knows no laws as authoritative but her constitution and her canons; no formularies of faith as hers but her Creeds and Articles; no rites, ceremo- nies, or prayers, as by her to be practised or allowed, except those which are contained in her Book of Com- mon Prayer. He who, travelling back into the dark ages, becomes enamored of childish mummeries and a corrupted faith, might press their introduction into our Creeds and Articles, if they 'were now to be anew adopted, with whatever of eloquence or of logic he might possess; but to hold them and continue in con- nection with a church from which they have been cast out, is to be recreant to principle and to honor. 3. But though the church in this country be inde- pendent, in fact and right, of the Church of England, it is with gratitude that we acknowledge her to be in- debted, under God, for " her first foundation and long continuance of nursing care and protection," to that venerable mother. It is with pride that we claim a close resemblance in forms of faith and worship, though not in ecclesiastical organization, to her who numbers among her sons so many saints and martyrs. Though the Bishops of the English Church hesitated to convey the Episcopacy to this Church, from fear that important deviations from the faith and practice of the English Church would be introduced, they soon found their fears to be groundless. We glory and we joy in being thus, in unbroken line, connected with the blessed martyrs of the Reformation. Let who will glory in being' of yesterday; we rejoice that the fathers of the English Church are our fathers. We press this Liturgy closer HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. 43 to our hearts, that in it they being dead yet speak. Yes, we can read its form of .sound words, and hold com- munion with the cahn, even-balanced, judicious, judi- cial mind of Cranmer. We can lay its fervent prayers upon our hearts, and feel vibrating from them still, through their every fibre, the throbbings of the pure, strong, noble, lion heart of the sainted Ridley. We can mount on its triumphant anthems as on eagles' wings, and find ourselves soaring in companionship with Lati- mer, and Bradford, and Taylor, and Philpot, and Rogers, for whose high hearts they furnished rejoicing death- hymns. Nay, we rejoice that in these services we can be united in spirit with whatever of pure piety lived and glowed in the hearts of God's children of " the ages all along;" esteeming the grains of pure gold none the less that they have been washed down to us by the stream of time, overlaid and buried in the detritus of the Middle Ages. And if any oppose to us the argu- ment that we should reject it because it hns been in the Romish Church, we meet the statement with the only answer which such argument deserves — the answer of King James to the Presbyterian divines at Hampton Conference — ''The papists wear shoes and stockings, therefore we must go barefoot." Because this book embodies much of the old forms which were heard in the Churches of the East, which Paul planted and ApoUos watered, and which were afterwards transferred to the Churches of the West, we cling to it with the deeper love. And when one comes to us with the hack- neyed words of accustomed censure upon our forms, as inducing coldness of spirit, and checking the free out- 44 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE LITURGY. flow of the feelings, we answer, with the memories ot the past glowing in our hearts, that the expression which conveys the thoughts of one mind and the feel- ings of one heart, cannot satisfy him who has been filled with the expression which conveys the collective mind of centuries, and whose heart has been bound up by our prayers in one sweet brotherhood with the warm, beat- ing hearts of holy men of various climes and of every age. Yes, this is our answer to such ungrounded cavil: "Mine is no solitary choice ; See here the seal of saints impressed ; The prayer of millions swells my voice, The mind of ages fills my breast !" III. Doctrinal Sustcm of tl)c Cl)xircl). Having rapidly traced, in our last chapter, the ex- ternal history of our Book of Common Prayer, we shall now proceed to open its pages, and inquire after their meaning. If we shall be able to fix upon a right method of investigation, and to ascertain the general scope or system of doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer, that we may thereby be furnished with a key to unlock each passage in detail, then the inquiry may be profitably and satisfactorily conducted. I. First, let the object which we have in view stand out distinctly before our minds. Here is our formulary of faith and worship. We desire to know what is the meaning of its Creeds, Articles, and Prayers. That is the object of our investigation. That is the only object. We have heard that there is a diversity of opinion as to what are the doctrines of this Protestant Episcopal Church of these United States, and we are desirous of ascertaining for ourselves what they are. .They are contained in this Book of Common Prayer. Let us open 46 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. it and read. But different individuals, upon opening it, come to different conclusions, as to what its real mean- ing is. Some say it embodies the doctrinal system of Calvin. Others say, " Nay, but it favors the Arminian scheme." Some contend that it embodies semi-popish views of the word, the ministry and the sacraments. Others say, " Oh, no, it is purely and wholly Protestant in its character." This is precisely what different parties say of the Bible, and furnishes presumptive evidence at least, that the Prayer Book is like, and embodies the doctrines of, the Bible. Now, it is mani- fest, in this diversity of opinion, that it will not avail us to ascertain what different men say is the meaning of this book. We must ourselves endeavor to get at its meaning. Our object, then, is not to ascertain what any man, or set of men, in the Church, or out of it, think to be the doctrines of this book. Our object is not even to learn what a majority of the members of this Church suppose or have supposed to be its doctrine — for majorities are not infallible. Our one object is, with a teachable and hone.st mind, to solve this inquiry, "What mean the words of this book?" II. This being our object, what method of investiga- tion shall we pursue? I think we shall be able to fix upon some principles, sanctioned by reason and common sense, which will guide us to a right method. Here, let it be remembered, that our object is to ascertain the meaning of this Book of Common Prayer of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. In some respects it differs from that of the Church of England. DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. 47 The historical sketch which was given in our last chapter may guide us to a right method of investiga- tion. We may first take the formularies of faith pub- lished in the reign of Henry VIII. If there be any ambiguity in their language, we can turn to the known and recorded opinions of those who framed these docu- ments. We shall be fully persuaded, by such a method, of their prevailing character. In the same w^ay we may take the first Liturgy of Edward VI. If there be any doubt as to the meaning of any part uf this book, great light may be thrown upon it by a knowledge of the opinions, on the point in question, of those by whom the Liturgy was framed.* And here great care should be taken that the opinions of its framers, at the time of its formation^ should be ascertained. As the Reformers came very gradually to the adoption of those views in which they ultimately rested, it would manifestly throw no light on the formularies which they composed at one period, to ascertain their different sentiments at a pre- vious period. For instance, it is well known that Cran- mer did not renounce the doctrine of Transubstantiation until the year 154.5, when he was convinced of its falsity by Ridley. Now, it would manifestly give an erroneous view of the Communion Service framed under the direc- tion of Cranmer, in 1548, to refer to his writings pre- vious to 1545. By this method we shall be Tble to determine the doctrines of the first book of Edward VI. Again: when we find the book revised and republished in 1552, we may be able in the same way to ascertain its meaning. We turn to the history of the change. We learn with what view certain portions of the servke 48 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. were introduced and others omitted. We find certain other authentic and authoritative documents issued at the same period and by the same authority. We resort to them for Hght. Now, as our single inquiry is, "What is the meaning of that book?" which is a different in- quiry from this, "Did the great mass of the clergy and people of England at that time believe the doctrines of that book?" we are not concerned to know the private opinions of men who had no paYt in framing the service, but only the meaning and intent of those by whom it was framed and authorized. In this way we ascertain the doctrines of the second Liturgy of Edward VI, which remain fixed as thus aacertained, whatever may be the private views of any officers and ministers of the Church until again changed. If any changes are au- thoritatively introduced, we adopt the same method as before. In like manner, after we have thus traced the Book of Common Prayer to its present form in the English Church, we ascertain what changes from that form have been made in the American Book of Common Prayer, and with what view those changes have been introduced. Now, if these plain principles be correct, we shall be able, from the vast mass of books which surround the Liturgy and claim to illustrate its meaning, to select such as have a i-ight to be heard upon this subject. Doubtful or ambiguous passages in the Pi'ayer-Book of Edward VI, can best be illustrated by resorting to the writings of those who framed it, and to the other au- thoritative documents of the Church during the same period. When, subsequently, changes are introduced, DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. 49 we may ascertain by the history of those changes, how far the doctrine of that formulary of faith has been modified by them. When, having crossed the Atlantic, and become the standard of the faith and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, the Book of Common Prayer is subject- ed to other changes, we may, by the same method, learn what, if any, modifications of faith or practice are thereby introduced, A course of thorough investi- gation, therefore, would be to reject all merely private and individual interpretation of the Book of Common Prayer, and confine ourselves to the works of those who framed it, and to other authorized documents put forth at the time of its formation. Pursuing this course, we should resort to the writings of Cranmer and Rid- ley, and other Reformers, by whom, or under whose oversight, the Liturgy was framed. Then we should examine the Catechism and the Homilies put forth at the same time, and by the same authority. Here we should have the great body of doctrine as established in the Church of England. Our task, then, would be substantially completed ; for it is confessed that the great body of doctrine remains unaltered as it was established by the second Liturgy of Edward VL When the Liturgy was re-established under Queen Elizabeth, it was with so few changes as to leave it substantially the same. Here, however, we find a most important and authorized work put forth expressly to explain it — Jewel's Apology of the Church of England. It was approved by all the Bishops as a true explana- tion of its doctrines. 1 know no work to which we 3 50 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. can resort, which may be regarded as so authoritative in fixing the doctrines of the Book of Common Prayer. Says Bishop Short, " It may be deemed a book author- ized by the Church of England." It was published at the command of the queen, and ordered to be set up in churches. ' It is quoted in the Canons of the Church of England. ^ Says Bishop Whittingham, of Mary- land, " The Apology of the Church of England bears nearly the same relation to that Church that is pos- sessed, with regard to the Lutheran Church of Ger- many, by the symbolical books. Like the latter, the Apology is a statement of doctrine and disciphne put forth for the purpose of refuting the calumnious mis- representations of the Romish Church. Like them, it is an explanation and defence of the avowed principles of the communion of which it bears the name. Like them, it was formerly acknowledged as such by ike whole body of the communion.'''''^ And again : "In another paper relative to the same Convocation [he is speaking of a Convocation held soon after the publication of the work] supposed by Strype to be the production of Archbishop Parker's secretary, it was proposed to extract from the Apology articles for general assent. When it is remembered that these propositions were brought before the Convocation in which the Cate- chism and Articles, as they now stand, were discussed and adopted, the high ground occupied b}'^ the Apology as a standard of the Church comes clearly into view."^ ' Short, 124, note 7. "^ Canons of the Church, p. 228. 'Standard Works, vol. iii, p. vi. ^ Id., p. ix. DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. 51 With these sources of information before us, and with a careful eye on the few subsequent changes in the Book of Common Prayer, it would seem to be a task not impossible of accomplishment, to ascertain accu- rately its doctrines. Obviously just as these principles are, it is curious to observe how summarily they are disposed of by certain writers who are determined to find in a latent, if not in a developed state, all the private and individual notions which they baptize with the name Catholic. " They ought to be there, and therefore they are !" is the argu- ment. Keble, ''" in his Introduction to Hooker, ex- pressly admits that his (Keble's) views of Episcopacy do not appeal- in the writings of the Reformers, by whom the Liturgy was framed, nor in the writings of those who immediately succeeded them. What then .' Shall we infer that they did not hold them ? O, no ! says Mr. Keble, they held them ; but they did not avow them because of their relation to the foreign Pro- testants ; because they wanted the full evidence of antiquity, and because of the influence of the court. Can any man believe a thing so absurd ? Here are doctrines which, by their very nature, are regarded by those who hold them as fundamental; as holding the front rank in importance; as those upon which rest right views of the method of salvation; nay, as those on which sal- vation itself is, ordinarily, dependent. And yet men who went to the stake for principles which they regarded as fundamental, did not hint these necessary truths, when * Keble's Hooker, Introduction, pp. xxxi-vi. 52 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. they professed to be proclaiming and recording for future times their whole system of religious truth- And this course they pursued from the most unworthy and cowardly motives. And the proof of this strange state of mind, — where is it ? It is not found in any private records or letters by which the true mind of those most reserved Reformers can be ascertained ; but it is rea- soned forth in syllogisms whose conclusions would not follow even if their premises were granted. // is obvious, says Mr. Keble, that, in these doctrines, the true strength of their cause was found ; they must have occurred to them, because they were the received doc- trine of the Church down to their time ; therefore they must have held these doctrines ; therefore, having withheld the expression of them, it must have been on account of these reasons which have been specified, because no better reasons can be found. This is the argument. It is obvious to Mr. Keble ; but we may be sure that had it been obvious to Ridley and Cranmer, we should find them proclaiming their convictions. They must have occurred to them — and so did the doctrine of Transubstantiation — but the Reformers were very far from adopting every doctrine that occurred to them. The truth is, that the system of doctrine held by the Reformers and embodied in our formularies, is, by many, not regarded as sacredly binding on the con- science. What ought to have been there ; what has ^ subsequently been developed and held by individuals or by schools, are the doctrines of many who subscribe to the unchanged standards of the Church, with the conscious or unconscious proviso in their minds that DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. 53 they are to be understood, not as they were when first established, but as developed, though without being authorized, by wiser men of later times. If this method of ascertaining the doctrine of the Church be sound, the search is manifestly hopeless. All doctrines and systems may be found in our Book of Common Prayer, in germ if not in flower, by the decision, on the part of individuals, that certain grounds were obviously the true and strong ones for the Re- formers to assume, and thence arguing, that they must have reservedly held, and disguisedly expressed them, in words which, to the casual observer, seem to convey other meanings. There are some sign-boards so inge- niously constructed, that from a certain point, as we stand before them, they convey one announcement, and as we move away from them and look back, they are found to convey another. Some such device must have been adopted by the Reformers of the Church. As we stand before, and fix a direct gaze upon the fair and strong structure which they have erected, the word Protestant, in bold, bright characters meets the eye; but, as we move away from it and turn a backward glance, the word Catholic is found to have usurped its place ; and if we move far enough — it is said by some — we will find, in red and glaring characters, the word Roman. ® •'That we have correctly represented Mr. Keble's views is evi- dent from the following passage. Here, however, instead of a development of views previously, though latently existing, we find it distinctly intimated that the views advocated by the new class of vrritera, wero such as they had not previously held, such as they 54 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. If we bear in mind the principles which we have here unfolded, we may hope to be preserved from ma- terial error. III. Having stated the precise object M^hich we have in view, and having indicated the method by which that object may be accomplished, it will greatly aid us in unfolding the meaning of particular passages, if we can, at this stage of our inquiry, ascertain the general scope or system of doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer. In the Church of England there have been, at vari- ous times, those who embraced the doctrinal system of Calvin, and who have contended that they did so in consistency with the Articles of the Church. Does our Book of Common Prayer set forth the system of doc- trine called Calvinism ? That it does not set forth or involve that system, we acquired by unlearning opinions heretofore entertained. On eitiier hypothesis — though both, manifestly, cannot be true — the same fact is acknowledged, namely, that the views of Episcopacy for which Mr. Keble contends, do not appear in the writings of the Reformers. " It were easy to multiply quotations ; but enough has been ad- vanced to justify the assertion, that, while Hooker was engaged in this great work, a new school of writers on Church subjects had begun to show itself in England ; men who had been gradually un- learning, some of those opinions which intimacy with foreign Pro- testants had tended to foster, and had adopted a tone and way of thinking more like that of the early Church." Keble's Hooker, p. xxxv. The writers of Mr. Keble's school have, of late, adopted gener- ally the latter explanation. They have overcome all reluctance to accuse the Reformers of incompetency and radicahsm. DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. 55 think can be very briefly and clearly proved. The system is too well known to make it necessary that I should here describe it. 1. In the first place, we may remark, that the offices of our Church were not drawn from, nor materially influenced by, nor completely reformed upon the model of the Calvinistic, but rather upon that of the Lutheran Church. The only trace of the Calvinistic formularies to be found in our Liturgy is the introduction of the Sentences, Exhortation and Confession, at the begin- ning of our service, from the translation of a form pre- pared by Calvin for the Church of Strasburgh. This is not a servile copy, but the adoption of a general plan, with several variations. They, however, involve no peculiar views of doctrine. It is evident to one familiar with the history of the time, that Lutheranism was the system which had most influence over the minds of the framers of the Liturgy. The fact that Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer were consulted in the revision of the Liturgy, in 1552, has been adduced as evidence of the necessary Calvinism of the Church standards. But Bucer was a Zwinglian, — not a Calvinist. Martyr was indeed a Calvinist ; but it is remarkable that none of his suggested amendments of the Liturgy referred to the points involved in Calvinism. Indeed, it was not until after his return to the continent, during Mary's reign, that Calvinism in its fullness as a system was maintained. ' Cranmer, it is well known, was, at the time of the formation of the Liturgy, a Lutheran in all ' Lawrence, Bampton Lectures. 56 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. points but that of Consubstantiation. " To ascertain his peculiar sentiments," says Dr. Lawrence, " is to as- certain those of the Reformation ; for under his direc- tion, and by his individual aid, were prepared the offices of our Church and the articles of her Creed."* So extensive was his correspondence with the German divines upon the single subject of a General Council, that he employed an agent, whose sole business it was, under his direction, to conduct that correspondence. He translated a Lutheran Catechism, in 1547, two years before the Liturgy appeared. He was in constant correspondence with the celebrated Melancthon. The divinity chair of Cambridge was kept open for Me- lancthon during all the period that the Articles were in preparation. It is well known that Melancthon, with whom Cranmer had such cordial sympathy, had, with the assent of Luther, expunged from the Augsburgh Confession the article which asserted an unconditional election and reprobation. The Articles of the Church, which Cranmer confessed to his persecutors to have been his composition, are found, upon comparison, to be strikingly similar to the Confession of Wirtembergh, published the same year in which our Articles were completely arranged by Cranmer. The resemblance does not consist in the occasional use of a phrase, similar or the same, but, in many cases, entire extracts were made without the slightest omission or variation. It is clear, therefore, that our Liturgy is not drawn from Calvinistic creeds, and was not modified by the preva- ^ Bampton Lectures, p. 18. DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. 57 lence of Calvinistic views on the part of those who framed it. In addition to these conclusive reasonings, it may be remarked, that Calvin himself was very far from being satisfied with our Liturgy and Articles, as he certainly would have been, had they contained his sys- tem. Writing to Cranmer, he said, " I hear such a heap of papal corruptions has been spared, as must nearly overwhelm the pure and genuine worship of God." Of the second Liturgy, he wrote to the Eng- lish residents at Frankfort, that it contained many fool- eries which might for the present be endured."^ But though our Articles of faith were not derived from Calvin, it may be asked. Has not our Church, in the exercise of her independent judgment, adopted the same system ? It can, we think, be clearly proved by the admission and conduct of Calvinists in the Church, that she has not. During the reign of Mary, many of the Reformers resided on the continent, and there a number imbibed the views of Calvin. After the return of those exiles, upon the restoration of Elizabeth, these views acquired great prevalence among the divines of the English Church. Yet, be it observed, the standards of the Church remained unchanged. The Calvinists have shown that they are not completely satisfied that our standards exhibit their system, by repeated attempts to make them more explicit. In 159.5, the two divinity professors at Cambridge having differed on this subject, ' The facts in the above paragraph will be found in Strype's Me- morials, and in Lawrence, Bampton Lectures. 3* 58 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. the matter was discussed in the Archbishop's palace, and the Lambeth Articles, as they have since been called, agreed upon. These contained the full system of Calvin . They were not, however, drawn up by any authority, and are in no sense part of the Creed of the Church of England. This is manifest from the fruitless efforts of the Calvinists to procure the insertion of the Lambeth Articles among the Established Articles of the Church. The effort was made at the Hampton Court Conference. The proposal was there made b}' Doctor Reynolds, that those Articles be added to those already adopted, and that the others be altered in various par- ticulars to agree with them. Having failed, under James, to correct what they called the "errors and im- perfections of the Church, as well in matter of doctrine as discipline," they commenced, in the reign of Charles I, by the authority of parliament, a reformation of our Articles. This they did, says Neal, the historian of the Puritans, that they might "render their sense more ex- press and determinate in favor of Calvinism." They proceeded as far as the fifteenth Article, modifying them all to suit the Calvinistic system, and there aban- doned the work, either because they found the Articles incorrigibly opposed to them, or because they discerned the prospect of being able soon to form a new creed completely conformable to their views. These facts show conclusively, the Calvinists themselves being judges, that their views were not necessarily contained in our standards. That we have an Article on Predes- tination no more proves that we hold the Calvinistic view of Predestination, than the fact that we have Arti- DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. 59 cles on the Sacraments proves that we hold the Romish views of the Sacraments. Belief in a doctrine of Pre- destination — held in some sense by every Church — is surely to be distinguished from belief in the doctrine as held by Calvin. The testimony of history is clear that our Liturgy does not set foith, and is not constructed upon, the system of Calvin. 2. Is the system of doctrine called Arminianism that of our Book of Common Prayer? If it be, it cannot be because it was adopted from Arminius or his successors, because th^ir system had not been proclaimed when our Liturgy appeared. But does it embody that system of doctrine? Certain it is that during the primacy of Laud, Mhat was called Arminianism was as prevalent among the divines of the English Church, as 'Calvinism had been in the later years of Queen Elizabeth. But still the Church standards on these points remained un- changed. Much that was then called Arminianism, it is believed, is not to be found in the system of its founder and of its continental disciples. Indeed, it would be difficult to , systematize the low^ and unscrip- tural views at that time going under the name of Ar- minianisni. It was a party name to designate those wlio agreed with Laud. Perhaps the answer of Bishop Morley to the country gentleman who asked him what the Aj-minians held, is as good a one as could be given: "They hold," says he, "the best bishopricks and dean- eries in England.'''' Arminius, a disciple of Calvin, began to differ from his master in 1591, on the subject '" Short, History of English Church. 60 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. of Election. The chief difference between his system and that of Calvin, is that he regarded Election as con- ditional on the foreseen repentance and faith and perse- verance of the elect; whereas Calvin regarded Election and Reprobation as unconditional. Our Church has not defined the ground of Predestination to be the foreseen faith of the elect, but has designated the predestinated as those whom "he hath chosen in Christ out of man- kind." Our Liturgy, therefore, does not set forth Arminianism. 3. Does our Liturgy set forth Lutheranism? We have already shown how much it is indebted to the Lutheran Church, and how much resemblance there is between its doctrinal system and that of the Wirtem- bergh Confession. But inasmuch as it rejects Consub- stantiation, and retains the three orders of the ministry, it cannot be said to set forth the Lutheran system. 4. In the last place, is the general system set forth in our Creeds and Articles, that of Semi-Popery, or as it was termed by Bishop Griswold, Low Popery? There have been those in the Church, at various periods, who have held a system which is thus appropriately termed. They could not be said to be papists, because they re- jected the supremacy of the Pope and the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Or if, in some cases, they have not rejected the latter doctrine, they have declined to ex- plain it and avow it with the same particularity and fullness as the papists. Still, although rejecting these doctrines, they have contended for the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the elements, and have re- garded the Lord's Supper as a sacrifice, propitiatory for DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. 61 sin, the presbyter a priest, and the table of the Lord an altar. They have described Baptism as the source and cause of the inner spiritual regeneration. They have encouraged prayers for the dead. They have attributed efficacy to the prayers of the Virgin Mary. They have denied the doctrine of justification by faith. They have introduced tradition, as a joint rule with Scripture, of faith and practice. They have preached the practical infallibility of the Church. They have introduced the distinction between venial and mortal sins. They have favored the reintroduction of the confessional, and con- tended for the power of authoritative priestly absolution. In short, they have embraced doctrines of which it is a mild description of them to say that they are Semi- Popish. Is this the system of our Book of Common Prayer? The question may be answered distinctly by referring to the history of the Liturgy. In the "Articles about Religion," in "the Necessary Erudition," and the "Pious Institution of a Christian Man," most of the doctrines of the Romish Church, with the exception of the Pope's supremacy, are retained. But when the first Liturgy of Edward VI was formed, most of them were omitted. Yet some of those views which belong to the system which we have called Low Popery still lingered in this first service. Had they been continued there, it might be said that the Liturgy favored this system. But as they have been cast out, it cannot for a moment be maintained. In the first Liturgy, in the prayer in the Communion Service, there is a thanksgiving for "all the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all the 62 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. saints," and "chiefly in the most glorious and blessed Virgin Mary." This is omitted in the second Liturgy. In the same prayer there is a petition for the dead that they may rest in peace. This is omitted likewise in the second Liturgy. In the first Liturgy, the words ad- dressed to the communicants on delivering the bread was "the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto ever- lasting life." Lest the words should be misapprehended, and be supposed to involve the doctrine of the real pre- sence in the elements, they were omitted, and these words used: "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving." This fact shows the anxiety of the Reformers to clear themselves of any suspicion even, of holding popish views. The same anxiety was shown by another change. In the Communion Service there was a prayer of oblation, (which, because it con- tains nothing really objectional, has been restored in our American Prayer Book,) which contained a supplication for the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the bread and wine, which, because it was supposed to represent a sacrifice, was omitted in the second Liturgy of Edward, and never again restored to the English Book of Com- mon Prayer. Now, take these facts in connection with the statements of our Articles upon the sufficiency of Scripture; upon Justification by faith only; upon sin after Baptism; upon Purgatory; upon the Sacraments as signs and seals of grace, and means of grace to those only who receive them in faith; upon the wicked who eat not the body of Christ in the Lord's Supper, and DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. 63 upon the one oblation of Christ finished upon the cross; take all these testimonies together, and it is clear that the system of Low Popery receives not the slightest countenance from the Liturgy of the Church. 5. But it may be asked. What then is the system of the Book of Common Prayer? If it teaches neither Calvinism, nor Arminianism, nor Lutheranism, nor Semi-Popery, what does it teach? We answer that it is its peculiar glory that it calls no man master; that it sets forth no human system. It was framed by men of large learning, great experience, fervent piety, and consum- mate wisdom. They had before them the creeds and offices of all times and nations. They were familiar with the writings and persons of the continental Reform- ers. Preparing offices not for a sect, but for a nation, for a branch of the great Church Catholic, they laid under contribution the theological treasures of all time. They made selection of what they judged to be agree- able to the Word of God, and the mind of the Spirit, from the ancient creeds and liturgies, from those in use in the English Church, as well as from the creeds and offices of the Reformers. They were careful to avoid all human speculations, and to embody only the great doctrines of the Bible, in the way in which they are presented in the Bible itself, setting forth each truth in its fullness, without binding it within the chains of hu- man definitions. The spirit in which its offices were framed, is that wise and temperate one manifested upon the subject of Predestination, by Ridley, in cor- respondence with Bradford, when both were in prison. "Know you that concerning the matter you mean. 64 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. (namely, Election,) I have in Latin drawn out the places in Scripture, and upon the same have noted what I can for the time. Sir, in these matters I am so fear- ful, that I dare not speak further, yea, almost none otherwise than the very text does, as it were lead by the hand*"" Happy had it been for the Church, had all imitated this wise and humble fearfulness!' And this moderation of Scriptural statement of the truth is the reason why men who have adopted human systems, suppose that they find their own scheme in the Prayer Book, because they find here and there expressions which favor their particular views. The Calvinist finds in it an Article on Predestination, and statements as strong as himself would make, on the necessity of pre- venting and assisting grace, and straightway thinks that he has found Calvinism, and that he must explain other parts of the same book by the sam.e system. It is pre- cisely the way he treats the Bible. The Arminian finds in it constant warnings to take heed lest he fall, and concluding that the Prayer Book sustains the idea that we may fall from grace, decides that it must teach Ar- minianism. It is precisely the way he treats the Bible. The Semi-Papist finds the language of the Bible on the subject of the sacraments in the Prayer Book, and hence draws from the one the same inference that he does from the other. Are not these facts evidence that the SYSTEM OF THE ChURCH IS THE SYSTEM OF THE BiBLE? No one ever mistakes the meaning of the Westminster Confession, and accuses it of Arminianism. No one ' ' British Reformers, Ridley. DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. 65 ever takes the confessions of Arminian Churches to be Calvinistic! If our formularies set forth distinctly one system or the other, no one could mistake their mean- ing. But the Church has avoided human definitions of Scripture doctrines, while she has set forth every Scrip- ture doctrine itself in all its fullness and all its glory. This is the boast, this the honor of the Church to which we belons. Let her willingly submit to the ignorant reproach, that men of every creed can find in her some- thing to favor their views, while she shares this reproach with the Word of God. It is this fact which fits her for universality. In this fact is found her power. Having thus distinctly presented the object of our inquiries, having indicated the mode of investigation proper to be adopted for the attainment of that object, having ascertained the general scope and character of the Book of Common Prayer, we shall in our next chap- ter be able to enter upon the consideration of the Morn- ing and Evening Prayer. We shall be prepared to find the materials of the services gathered from every quar- ter, while, at the same time, we shall expect to find the simple truths of God's Word presented in glowing full- ness, unincumbered with the rash and impertinent defi- nitions and speculations of human reason. This is the system of our Book of Common Prayer; this the pure truth for whose maintenance the framers of the Liturgy perished at the stake. For this, they were cast into prison. Because they would not recant or disown it, they were burned. If looking upon it as we have, at this time, as a whole, any thing could endear it to our hearts more than its intrinsic excellence, it is 66 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. the fact that not one word of it would be given up by its framers; that it was baptized, as it were, in the heart's blood of them that framed it. When Cranmer, and Ridley, and Latimer, and Bradford, were thrust into the Tower, this, by the description of the good old Latimer, was their occupation. "Mr. Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury," said he, "Mr. Ridley, Bishop of London, that holy man, Mr. Bradford, and I, old Hugh Latimer, were imprisoned in the Tower of London, for Christ's Gospel preaching, and because we would not go a massing. The same Tower being so full of prisoners, we four were thrust into one chamber, as not to be ac- counted of. But God be thanked, to our great joy and comfort, there did we read over the New Testament with great deliberation and painful study; and I assure you, as I will ansM'^er before the tribunal of God's majesty, we did find in the Testament of God's body and blood no other but a spiritual presence, nor that the mass was any sacrifice for sin." Beautiful picture of holy faithfulness unto death, reaching forth for the imperishable crown, hung out amid the flames! The voice of this martyr-spirit was echoed from another prison, where another valiant witness for the truth of Christ, John Rogers, refused to modify or recant the doctrines of this our cherished book. "That we have preached the very doctrine of the Apostles and none other, we are sufficiently able to declare by their writ- ings, and by writing for my part I have proffered to prove the same as it is now often said. And for this cause we suffer the like reproach, shame, and rebuke, of the world, and the like persecution, losing of our lives and DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH, 67 goods, forsaking as our master Christ commands, father, mother, sister, brethren, wives, and children!" And from the miserable coal-hole of bloody Bonner's palace, where, though cold and hungry, and almost dead, the soul of Philpot burned with the fire that man cannot quench, there issued a trumpet-tone of joy, and victory, and exultation. "This is the day that the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad in it! This is the way, though it be narrow, which is full of the peace of God, and leadeth to eternal bliss. Oh, how my heart leaps for joy, that I am so near ihe apprehension thereof ! God forgive my unworthiness and unthankfulness of so much glory. I have so much joy of the reward that is prepared for me, wretched sinner, that, though I am in a place of darkness and moaning, yet I cannot lament, but both night and day am joyful as though I were under no cross at all." And again, after having been exposed to the pain and ignominy of the stocks, this is his heroic exclamation: "Better is it to sit in the stocks of this world than to sit in the stocks of a damnable conscience!" And after Cranmer and Latimer had been in succession baited and insulted by the commissioners at Oxford, and witnessed each a good confession, this is the voice of stout-hearted Rowland Taylor, himself a prisoner, which reached them in their bondage. "I cannot utter with my pen how I rejoice in my heart for you; three such captains in the foreward under Christ's cross, banner, or stand- ard, in such a caus-e and skirmish. This, your enter- prise, in the sight of all that be in heaven and all God's people in earth, is most pleasant to behold. This is 68 DOCTRINAL SYSTEM OF THE CHURCH. another manner of nobility than to be in the forefront of worldly warfares. For God's sake pray for us, for we fail not daily to pray for you. We are stronger and stronger in the Lord, his name be praised, and we doubt not that ye be so in Christ's own sweet school. Heaven is all and wholly of our side. Therefore Gaudete in Domino, semper et iterum gaudete et exultate. Rejoice always in the Lord, and again rejoice and be glad.'"^ Out of such hearts came the Liturgy. For its truths such hearts dared death. By its influences were such hearts moulded. May we catch the fervor of their sainted spirits! May we not become the degenerate branch of a noble vine! ''Works of the British Reformers. IV. ^\)t iHorning Jprawcr, "The order Tor Morning and Evening Prayer" is the subject to which our attention is now to be direct- ed. • I. Arrangement. It will be found to be admirably arranged to meet the wants of the soul when we go up to the house of God. The first words which usually break upon our ears at ' The subject of daily Morning and Evening Prayer has of late been considerably discussed in our church. It is contended by some that it is the duty of every Episcopal Minister to read daily the Morning and Evening Prayer in the church. We are well per- suaded that no such duty is imposed upon us; but that, by the omission of the Rubric, which is in the English Prayer Book, whicii prtsmbedlhe duty, our own Church has released us from the performance of the Daily Service as a duty, and left it to be adopted or omitted by each clergyman as he shall judge that the circum- stances of his position shall require. "All that the heading of the Morning and Evening Prayer would seem to imply is, that when public worship happened to be held on any day, the following ser- vice was prescribed." (Key to the Prayer Book, p. 48.) '''O THE MORNING PRAYER. the morning service are these : " The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him." They are fitting words to prepare the soul for solemn audience of God. Then follow other and encouraging sentences declarative of the pardoning mercy of God to the penitent. They are words well chosen to uphold the trembling soul of him who feels himself in the pres- ence of the God whom angels hymn as the thrice holy. An exhortation to confession of sins is then made. A lowly and united confession of sins follows. What can we better do in so dread a presence, than fall down with awed Peter when convinced of Christ's divinity, and cry, " Behold I am a sinful man, oh, Lord"? Then a comforting declaration of the absolution of the sins of the truly contrite is pronounced by God's commissioned Minister. With this blessed assurance falling on our heart, can we longer kneel and pray ? Oh, no ! we must rise and sing praises unto God, for his tender mercy and loving-kindness. But how shall we find words to praise him ? " Oh, Lord, open thou our lips," bursts from the mouth of the Minister, and the response of the people is, " And our mouth shall show forth thy praise." Then swells the exulting authem, " Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord !" The heart thus attuned to praise and worship, finds further expression for all its feelings in the Psalms of David. Then is it not in a fit state to drink in, with thirsting ear, the word of life from the sacred book ? A chapter from the Old Testa- ment is read, and as we are musing on the noble works which God did in the days of our fathers and in the old time before them, the fire burns in our hearts, and we THE MORNING PRAYER. tl must again sing the praises of the all-merciful and won- der-working God. The Te Deum waits, as a chariot of fire, to bear our souls to heaven. Again, we listen to the Gospel in which life and immortality are brought to light ; and again, we sing the glad " Jubilate,'^ or the grateful " Berhedictus.^'' But a child of God cannot be satisfied with the expression of his own wants or feel- ings. He gathers together all those precious truths, on which his hope rests, and from which his joy springs, and making his public confession of Christ before men in the use of the .Apostle's Creed, he prepares, having been engaged in confession and praise, to offer up sup- plications for himself, for his brethren, and for all the world. Bowed in prayer, there go up from all the con- gregation of God's people, according to the exiiortation of St. Paul, united " supplications, prayers, interces- sions, and giving of thanks for all men." Fervent prayers for "/jeacc," for "^/Y/ce," for the President of the United States, and all our rulers, are then offered. The pleading Litany for deliverance from evil and from sin ; for power to discharge all duty, and for mercy to the suffering and the sinful, then rises up to Him who has assured us that his ears are opened to our prayers. Then, after a general prayer for trust in God's promised mercy, and a general thanksgiving for all the blessings of providence and grace, and the invocation of God's promised answer to the prayers of those who are gath- ered in his name, the service closes with the Apostolic benediction. The Evening Prayer, which is similar to the Morning Prayer, with the exception of the Litany, and of the 'J'2 THE MORNING PRAYER. Ante-Communion Service, — which properly belongs to the Communion Service, — will hereafter claim our notice. The Morning service, as far as the Apostle's Creed, will furnish us with an ample subject for our present chapter. II. History. The first Liturgy of Edward com- menced with the Lord's Prayer, without the Sentences, Exhortation, Confession, and Absolution. It was fol- lowed by the versicles, as in our Prayer-Book, with the addition of these two, which are still retained in the English service. ^^ Priest. Oh, God, make speed to save me."" " Jlnswer. Oh, Lord, make haste to help me." After the doxology, in answer to the Priest w^hen he says, " Praise ye the Lord," the people are directed to say, from Easter until Trinity Sunday, "Hallelujah." This was afterwards omitted, and the answer now is as in our service, " The Lord's name be praised." Then follows in order the " Venite exult e?nus ;^^ the Psalms for the day ; the " Gloria Pat?-P^ after the Psalms ; the first Lesson in the Old Testament; the " Te Detim,''^ or the " Benedicite omnia Opera;'''' the second Lesson, and the ^'' Benedictus,''^ which has fourteen verses instead of four. The alterations in this portion of the service when the second Liturgy of Edward was published, were the in- troduction of the Sentences, Exhortation, Confession, and Absolution, and the anthem ^'^ Jubilate i)eo," in ad- * Me is changed to tw, in the present Enghsh service. THE MORNING PRAYER. 73 dition to the ^' Benedictus.^' The Sentences began with that, which in our Liturgy is the fourth, from the 51st Psahn, " The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit," &,c. ' This portion of the service is precisely the same in the present English Prayer-Book, with one exception. In the declaration of Absolution the word Minister, in Edward's book, is changed to the word Priest. It is supposed to be one of the unauthorized changes of Arch- bishop Laud, which having been introduced without authority, are still continued. '' ^The first Liturgy had directed that ^' the Priest, being in the quire, should begin with ii loud voice the Lord's Prayer." A rubric, at the beginning of the second Liturgy of Edward, directs that " the Morning and Evening Prayer shall be used in such place of the churcli, chapel, or chancel, and the minister shall so turn him, as the people may best hear." The place at which prayer should be read will be noticed in a subsequent chapter. * Laud denies that he was the author of those changes, asserting that " the alterations were made either by the king himself, or some other about him, when he was notat court." (Troubles and Trials, quoted in Neal, vol. i, p. 314.) This is an acknowledgment that the changes were made. Certain it is that the word Minister, in the second of Edward, was not changed to Priest at the revision of the Liturgy under Elizabeth, nor yet at the last one under Charles ; and yet Minister ha.s disappeared, and Priest is in its stead. Another alteration, which has been ascribed to the Archbishop (Laud) in later times, but does not seem to have been made matter of accusation in his own, was the substitution of the word " Priest" for " .Minister," in the rubric prefixed to the absolution or remis- sion of sins. It is not easy to discover how this change originated, for on an examination of the editions of the Common Prayer be- longing to that period, it is found that the words were used as if no distinct meaning were assigned to them. The editions of 1607 and 1627 have " Minister." The form of prayer for the fast in 1625; 4 74 THE MORNING PRAYER. This portion of our American service is nearly identi- cal with the present English service. The first three sentences were newly introduced. The two versicles after the Lord's Prayer, which we have already noticed, were omitted. After the Psalms, direction is given that the Gloria Patri, or the Gloria in Excelsis, shall be said or sung. The Gloria Patri is not enjoined, as in the English service, to be said at the end of every psalm. In all other respects, the sevices are the same. III. Sources. The Sources, whence this portion of the Liturgy was derived, is the next subject of our inquiry. We have already stated that the introductory Sen- tences, Exhortation, Confession, and Absolution, are borrowed and slightly changed from a Liturgy compos- ed by Calvin. The excellence of the arrangement consists, as we have shown, in its adaptation to the wants of the true worshipper. The Lord's Prayer was used in the beginning of the service in the Churches of England, as may be seen in the breviaries of Salisbury, York, Herefoid," &c. ® "The versicles have been and the Prayer-Books of 1632 and 1633, have " Priest." But the editions of 1634 and 1639, again have the word "Minister," and therefore are sufficient evidence that if the alleged alterations were made clandestinely, the blame cannot reasonably be imputed to Archbishop Laud. Cardwell Conferences, 237. We do not see how the facts vindicate Archbishop Laud. The charge made may have no proof; and, if so, ought not to be made. But surely there is nothing in the facts mentioned by Cardwell to show that Archbishop Laud could not have been the author of the change. ^Palmer's Antiquities of the English Ritual, vol. i, p. 217. TkE MORNING PRAYER. 75 used from time immemorial," says Palmer, " by the English Church." The Glaria Patri occurs h-et[mn\t\y in the ancient liturgies, and is here appropriately intro- duced. The Venite exultemus is found in the ancient offices of the English Church. The use and position of the Psalms for the day are taken from the matin service of the English Church. The reading of Les_ sons alternately with Psalms, is also an ancient custom of the British Churches. The Psalms were arranged to be read through in the order of daily service once a month. The composition of the Te Deum has been ascribed to St. Augustine, or St. Ambrose. It is cer- tainly as old as the fifth century. The Benedicite, and the Jubilate Deo, are selected from the offices of the English Church. Thus we see, even in this short por- tion of the service, the truth of the remark, that the Reformers selected whatever they judged best for the public worship, retaining in their Liturgy many of the prayers used in the old English offices, and which had been retained in the days of Roman supremacy, and in- troducing large and important portions of the service from the Liturgy of one of the continental Reformers. They no more committed themselves to the system of Popery by the one act, than they did to the sybtem of Calvinism by the other. We see, also, how large a portion of the service, thus far, is taken from the Word of God. It has been observed, that in the American Book of Common Prayer, some alterations, from the present form of the English Prayer-Book, have been made. It may be well here to refer to the views and principles IfQ THE MORNING PRAYER. of those who composed that book, and to sketch a his- tory of its formation. We have already described the successive steps by which the scattered Episcopal Churches in the several States became the one Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. The Convention of 1785 undertook to make such alterations in the English Prayer-Book as should fit it for use in the United States. " They also proposed such improvements in the service and the Articles as they deemed to be proper." - " A moderate review," says Bishop White, "fell in with the senti- ments and wishes of every member." The committee, consisting of Bishop White, Dr. Smith, and Dr. Whar- ton, prepared and published what has since been called the Proposed Book. From the manner in which their duty was discharged, it is clear that the Convention and the committee regarded themselves as having full authority to make any such changes in the statement of doctrines, or in the forms of prayer, as they deemed advisable and important. Accordingly, they proceeded to bring the XXXIX Articles within the number of XX. A change of expression was made in the Articles on Pre- destination and Original Sin. An important change in the Baptismal Service for infants was introduced, in the omission, after the baptism, of thanks to the Father, that it hath pleased him " to regenerate this infant by his Holy Spirit." The language of the framers of this book in the preface distinctly shows that they felt themselves at perfect liberty to frame it according to ® Bishop White's Memoirs, p. 103. THE MORNING PRAYER. 77 the views held by those who then constituted the Church in this country. They quote the language of the Church of England, declaring the necessity and expediency of occasional alterations and amendments. They refer to a commission issued in 1689, to a num- ber of bishops and other divines, for a revision of the Liturgy, and enumerate thirteen queries proposed by them, having reference to the improvement and altera- tions in the work. " When, in the course of Divine Providence," they continue, "these American States became independent, with respect to civil government, their ecclesiastical independence was necessarily inclu- ded, and the different religious denominations in these States were left at full and equal liberty to model and organize their respective churches, and forms of wor- ship and discipline, in such manner as they might judge most convenient for their future prosperity, consistent- ly with the constitution and laws of their country."^ This, and more language of the same kind, is retained in our present preface to the Prayer-Book. When, at the meeting of the next General Convention, this Proposed Book was not adopted, it was not from any idea that they had not power to make such alterations, but simply be- cause the alterations proposed were not such as met their approbation. Says Bishop White, our highest authority on this subject, " In the appointment of a committee on the different departments of the Book of Common Prayer, Dr. Parker proposed that the English book should be the ground of the proceedings held, ' Preface to the Proposed Book. 78 THE MORNING PRAYER. without any reference to that set out and proposed in 1785." This was objected to by some, who contend- ed that a Liturgy ought to be formed without reference to any existing book, although with liberty to take from any, whatever the Convention should think fit. " The issue of the debate was the wording of the resolves, as they stand on the journal, in which the different com- mittees are appointed to prepare a Morning and Even- ing Prayer ; to prepare a Litany ; to prepare a Com- munion Service ; and the same in regard to other de- partments, instead of its being said, to alter the said services, which had been the language in 1785." '^ These facts conclusively prove that the American Church did not feel herself bound to adopt, in a body, all the doctrines and language of the English Church; but that, on the contrary, as stated in the preface to the Prayer-Book, they felt themselves at liberty "to estab- lish such other alterations and amendments therein, as might be deemed expedient." We have dwelt upon these points, not only as necessary to a full understand- ing of the position of the Church in this country, but that we may remind the reader, that if a doctrine be proved to be held by the English Church, it is not, therefore, necessarily proved to be held by our Church also, unless it can be shown that we have made no change, addition, or omission in the language of the English formularies. We notice this principle, because we are about to apply it to that portion of the service now under consideration. ** Bishop White's Memoirs, p. 147. THE MORNING PRAYER. 79 IV. Doctrine. Having noticed the arrangement, and sketched the history, and indicated the sources of this portion of our service, we are now prepared to speak briefly of the doctrine involved or embodied in it. We need not pause to dwell upon the harmony of the Exhortation with the language of Scripture, of the self- abasing spirit that breathes through the Confession, and the fervent devotion which burns in the inspired an- thems and the Gloria in Excelsis. Our attention will be confined to the Confession of Sins, and the Declara- tion of Absolution. An examination of our Liturgy, in connection with the history of that of the Church of England on this subject, will show that our Church neither enjoins, nor recommends, nor sanctions private confession to the minister, but that, on the contrary, by what she has retained and what she has omitted, has plainly indicated that she has been satisfied to prescribe to her children confession of their sins to God, leaving to the conscience of all the measure and the mode of confessing their sins to each other. In the first Liturgy of Edward, the Confession stands in precisely the same form in which it is now found in the English and American Liturgies. But in the Ex- hortation, read the day before the celebration of the Communion, the people are allowed to use or abstain from auricular confession. This is its language: "Re- quiring such as shall be satisfied with a general confes- sion, not to be offended with them who do use to their further satisfying the auricular and secret confession to the Priest; nor those, also, which think needful or con- 80 THE MORNING PRAYER. venient for the quieting of their own consciences, par- ticularly to open their sins to the Priest, to be oiFended with them that are satisfied with their humble confes- sion to God, and the general Confession of the Church." This permission to use auricular confession was after- wards withdrawn. Yet the Church of England has retained, in her service for the Visitation of the Sick, a rubric, which directs that particular confession of sins should be recommended. The rubric is as follows: "Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession, the priest shall absolve him, (if he humbly and heartily desire it,) after this sort." Now, not only has our Church omitted the permission to use auricular confes- sion, but she has also omitted this rubric in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick. She has thus signifi- cantly shown that in no sense does she sanction or re- commend private auricular confession. On the subject of Absolution, also, it will be seen, that she has manifested wisdom and moderation, and in no way authorized the language which is sometimes used with regard to the power of the Ministry to absolve the sinner. We do not, at this time, touch the ques- tion of the priestly power by which absolution is pro- claimed, but only the force of the act itself. It is to be observed, that the form of Absolution is called "a declaration of the Absolution or Remission of sins." And this word declaration^ we think, expresses the doctrine of our Church on this subject. She does not claim a power on the part of her Ministers, authori- THE MORNING PRAYER. 81 tatively to absolve penitents from their sins, but only to declare and pronounce to God's people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins. Neither is this a dii^tinction without a difference. It marks the difference between a mere messenger, employed by the king, to announce his pardon to returning and confessing rebels, and a vicegerent, holding delegated authority from the king, to extend, in his own name, pardont o the penitent. Our Church assumes for her Ministers no more power than that which belongs to authorized mes- sengers who convey the message of their king. Herein she has, as we think, most wisely departed from the example of the Church of England. Bishop Jeremy Taylor has truly observed, that there are, in the English Church, three forms of Absolution; 1, the declarative; 2, the optative; and 3, the authori- tative, or that which is pronounced by a delegated authority.^ The Declaration of Absolution or Remission of sins in the Morning Prayer, is an example of the declarative absolution. The form which occurs in the Communion Service, is an example of the optative absolution — a form which invokes, in the way of a blessing, God's pardoning mercy. That which occurs in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, (in the English service,) is an example of the authoritative absolution. We have already spoken of the exhortation to a special confession of sins to the Priest, which is found in that office. It is immediately followed by an absolution in this authoritative form: "Our Lord Jesus 9 Works, vol. vii, pp. 308, 309. 4* 82 THE MORNING PRAYER. Christ, who hath left power to his Church to absolve (not simply to declare the absolution, but to absolve) all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgives thee thine offences, and by his au- thority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.'"" This is language which our Church has not pre- sumed to put into the mouth of her Ministers. She has altogether omitted this form of Absolution in her Office for the Visitation of the Sick, and has nothing like it in any other of her offices. She has retained but the declarative and optative, or supplicatory form, which is of no higher force than the declarative. Nay, so careful has she been to avoid even the appearance of forgetting for a moment, that in no sense can any for- give sins but God only, that she has not retained the language of the rubric before the form in the Commu- nion Service, which, in the English book, directs the Priest to "pronounce their absolution," but has changed it to this modest form — "Then, the Priest shall say to those who come to receive the Holy Communion." In view of this statement, it is simply false and foolish to ^" This form of absolution is thus vindicated in the "answer of the Bishops to the exception of the Ministers" at the Savoy Con- ference. The form of absolution in the Liturgy is more agreeable to the Scriptures than that which they desire, it being said in John X : "Whose sins you remit they are remitted," not Whose sins you pronounce remitted ; and the condition needs not to be expressed, being always necessarily understood. — CardweWs Conferences, p. 361. THE MORNING PRATER. 83 say of our Church, that she usurps God's prerogative of forgiving sins. That the Church of England has laid herself open to charges upon this subject which do not apply to us, is from this history clear. Indeed, we cannot but think, that the Church of England, by re- taining this portion of the Olfice for the Visitation of the Sick, has inadvertently sanctioned a doctrine, not elsewhere claimed by her, and not claimed for her by the best expositors of her views. The testimony of Bishop Jewel, in his Apology, — which, says Bishop VVhittingham, of Maryland, "bears nearly the same relation to the Church of England, as is possessed with regard to the Lutheran Church of Germany by the symbolical books," — is very clear and explicit. He does not claim for the Church of England the power of authoritative absolution. This is his lan- guage : "And we say that the office of loosing consisteth in this point, that the Minister, either by the preaching of the Gospel, ofFereth the merits of Christ, and full pardon, to such as have lowly and contrite hearts, and do unfeignedly repent themselves, pronouncing unto the same a sure and undoubted forgiveness of their sins, and hope of everlasting salvation: or else that the same Minister, when any have offended their brothers' minds with some great offence, or notable and open crime, whereby the}^ have, as it were, banished and made them- selves strangers from the common fellowship and body of Christ — then, after perfect amendment of such per- sons, doth reconcile them and bring them home again, and restore them to the company and unity of the faithful." Here the Bishop speaks of a declaration of the terms of 84 THE MORNING PRAYER. pardon to the penitent, and of the readmission of ex- pelled communicants, as descriptive of the Church's power of Absolution. The truth is, that to contend for a power of authori- tative absolution, is to contend for that which, in its nature, is impossible. The power of authoritative ab- solution cannot be committed to man; because the only condition upon which it is possible to exercise it, is one which man cannot possess. If man be commissioned to pardon, — to say, '■'■I absolve thee,''^ — then he must be gifted also with the divine faculty of knowing that the individual whom he absolves is truly penitent, because, on this condition alone, can sins be forgiven. This power, then, it is not possible that man should exercise. Nor can any intermediate power, between that of au- thoritative declaration and authoritative abaoluiion, be attributed to the Minister of God. It must be an abso- lute or a conditional act. If absolute, omniscience is required. If conditional, it can be but a declaration of that which is suspended on the fulfilment of the condi tion. This is but an authoritative declaration. This point has been argued with consummate ability and convincing clearness, by Bishop Taylor, in his "Ductor Dubitantium." The following passages contain the substance of his argument on the subject; an argument which is hardly to be reconciled with his statements upon the subject of Absolution, to which we have already referred. "The soul is not, cannot be, properly subject to any jurisdiction but that of God. Now, none can give laws to souls but God; he only is Lord of wills and un- derstandings; and therefore none can give judgment or THF MORNING PRAYER. 85 restraint to souls but God. But as by preaching, the ecclesiastical state does imitate the legislation of God, so by the power of the keys, she does imitate his juris- diction. For it is to be observed, that by the sermons of the Gospel, the ecclesiastics give law to the Church; that is, they declare the laws of God; and by the use of the keys, they also declare the divine jurisdiction."" "But the use of the keys does differ from proper jurisdiction in this great thing. That if the keys be rightly used, they do bind or loose respectively; but if they err, they do nothing upon the subject, they neither bind nor loose. Now, in proper jurisdiction it is far otherwise; for, right or wrong, if a man be con- demned, he shall die for it; and if he be hanged, he is hanged.'"* This sober and Scriptural view of the subject will prevent us alike, from too highly exalting, and from too lightly regarding, the power of binding and of loosing, committed to the Ministry of Chris*. Our sense of the danger of regarding a Ministry, as the possessors of an authoritative and absolute power of pardoning sin, we have no words fully to express. If the voice of the past could reach us, its testimonies on the subject would appal the heart. Sinful man cannot suppose himself the possessor of this fearful power, without finding that the demon which sleeps or wakes in every man's heart, rises and laughs outright, and seizes a fiery sceptre and mounts the soul's throne, and "Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium, lib. 3, chap. 4, § 11. 'Md.,§12. 86 THE MORNING PRAYER. reigns henceforth inexorable and supreme. Such a privilege and power were too much even for a good man, while there is within him a principle of pride and selfishness and love of rule, to which it might appeal. Why, the holy Apostle Paul, when he was permitted but to see those heavenh' things, which it was not law- ful for him to describe, needed a buffeting from Satan, and a thorn in the flesh, lest he should be exalted above measure. But to have the power and the prerogative of Heaven, bestowed on a body of men, among whom there are not many St. Pauls — what would it be but to place the sword of Michael in the hand of Lucifer? True, the time is past, when an arrogant and cruel priest, could, by his spoken excommunication, breathe over his victim a moral leprosy; deprive him of every means of grace and every hope of glory; cut him off from human converse and human sympathy; rob him in life of all that makes life tolerable, and at death cast out his unburied body for the ravens, and give his name to execration and to infamy.'^ But restore this power to the Priesthood, and the time may come again. Re- store this power to the Priesthood, and the injury which would ensue to them, and the terror and agony of the hearts which would cower under the power of God, wielded by the hand of sinful man, no language could portray. God have mercy on the people whose sins are forgiven them by men! Nor let us look at the power of an authoritative decla- ration of absolution, as one which is to be regarded with "See Hallam's Middle Ages. THE MORNING PRAYER. 87 low esteem. Some cast the reproach upon this view, that it makes the power of binding and loosing, com- mitted to the Ministry, no more than a power to pro- claim the terms of pardon — no more, in short, than the power committed to them of preaching salvation through the cross. And is that a power to be lightly esteemed? Is the assurance of salvation, given by a commissioned and accredited ambassador, to be regarded with indif- ference? What would we have more? What can we have more? We must either receive an absolute pardon, or we must receive the authorized proclamation of the terms of pardon. As the first is a power not committed to man, because it could not be exercised — the latter power is the only one that remains. And that is a blessed one for the heart. That is sufHcient. That is pronounced under circumstances which are calculated to give to the heart deep, sweet pev ce. If condemned criminals hear a rumor that their pardon has been pro- nounced by a merciful government, on certain condi- tions, the mere rumor awakens joyful hope. If, from their prison-house, they hear the authorized heralds pro- claiming those good tidings, their hope heightens into glad assurance. But if, under circumstances calculated to impress the solemnity and blessedness of the act deeply on their minds, they are ushered into the august presence of the offended power, and there with united voice confess their transgressions, and assent to the terms of pardon; then they feel most deeply grateful, when the authorized heralds proclaim that their penalty is remitted, their offence pardoned. Similar are the feel- ings of the pardoned sinner, when the sentence of abso- 88 THE MORNING PRAYER. lution is pronounced. He comes into God's holy temple, where his special presence is; and there, with fellow- sinners, audibly confesses his transgressions, and renews his consecration; and it is with no ordinary emotion that he hears God's commissioned Minister declare — not, / absolve thee, but, "He pardoneth and absolveth all those who truly repent and unfeignedly believe his Holy Gospel." If he is corscious that he complies with the conditions, he may appropriate the promise! V. (Ill)c ittornlng JJrapcr. CONTINDED. In our last chapter we noticed the admirable arrange- ment of the Morning Prayer; sketched the history and traced the sources of that portion of it which extends to the Apostle's Creed, and unfolded the doctrine of our Church on the subject of Confession and Absolution. We now turn our attention to the Psalter, the Lessons, the Creeds, the Litany, and the concluding prayers. One of the most delightful portions of our daily service is the use of the Psalms of David. Every experience of joy and sorrow, of comfort and perplexity, of assurance and of doubt, of rapture soaring to the gate of heaven, and of gloom sinking to the gate of death, is here most vividly portrayed. They have ever furnished to the Church her choicest expressions of devotional feeling. The custom of having them read over once a month is very ancient. Says St. Chrysostom, speaking of this custom, "In the Church's vigils, the first, the midst, and the last, are David's Psalms. In the morning, David's Psalms are sought for, and the first, the midst, and the last, is David, And in funeral solemnities, the 90 THE MORNING PRAYER. first, the midst, and the last, is David. In private houses where the virgins spin, the first, the midst, and the last, is David. "1 The Psalter. The arrangement of the Psalter in the present English Liturgy and in our Book of Common Prayer is the same as was established at its first formation. The translation which was made in the reign of Henry VIII, is retained. Besides the Psalter, regularly divided, as it is in the English Church, we have also ten selections to be used instead of the Psalms for the day, at the discretion of the Minister; an arrangement which enables the officiating clergyman, under circumstances of a peculiar character, to bring the Psalms into harmony with the spirit of the occasion. In addition to this, we have anthems for the five principal festivals of Christmas, Ash-Wednesday, Good Friday, Ascension Day, Whitsunday, to be used instead of the Venite exultemus, when any of the fore- going selections are used. Bishop White strongly ad- vocated the plan of allowing the officiating Minister to use the Psalms, at his discretion, on the grounds that "many of them retained more of the severity of the legal, than of the mercy of the evangelical dispensa- tion;" and that most of the Psalms were "expressive of peculiar states of mind, none of which could be supposed descriptive of any body of people convened on a com- mon occasion of devotion." The objection was charac- teristic of that venerable father of our Church, whose ' Sparrow's Rationale, p. 28. THE MORNING PRAYER. 91 modest and humble piety, and whose calm and tranquil spirit made him fearful of ever using language warmer than his feelings. The selections were made with a view, in some measure, to obviate this objection. Though it seems, in the abstract, a plausible objection, yet I think the experience of the Church, in the use of the Psalter, would testify that it is not well grounded. That which is legal in the Psalms is, by the light of the New Testament which shines upon it, viewed in an evangelical sense. The particular states of mind which they express, are those with which God's children are familiar. Under the peculiar Lntluence of public wor- ship, they can live over again the varied experiences of the past, and make them present. And the very fact that they are expressive of peculiar states of mind, is that which makes them so dear to the Church's heart. Each individual finds in them something which he pe- culiarly needs, and he receives it as a precious gift sent him directly from his God, and hides the good word in his heart. The Lessons. The general plan upon which the reading of the Scrip- tures is arranged in the English Prayer-Book, is as follows: The Old Testament is appointed for the first Lessons at Morning and Evening Prayer, and the New Testament for the second Lessons. For the ordinary daily Morning and Evening Prayer, the Church begins the year with the beginning of Genesis for the first Lesson, and St. Matthew for the second in the morning; and Genesis again for the first, and St. Paul's Epistle to 92 THE MORNING PRAYER. the Romans for the second in the evening. By this arrangement the greater part of the Old Testament is read through once in a year, the Gospels twice, and the Epistles three times. For the Sundays, Lessons are selected appropriate to the several seasons. For Saints' days, the first Lessons are usually taken from the Apoc- rypha, and the second from such portion of the New Testament as contain notices of their history. While our Church retains this general plan, she has in detail introduced many alterations, which are great improve- ments. All the tables of Lessons in the English Prayer- Book were revised with much care and labor. In many cases the Lessons have been changed for those which are more appropriate. In the English book, for most of the Sundays of the year, no second Lesson is particularly appointed, and that Lesson is, therefore, to be found in the table of daily Lessons, for the day of the month on which the Sunday falls. From this defective arrange- ment, it is manifest that that connection of subjects and homogeneousness of expression so strikingly character- istic of our own service, and in which so much of its excellence depends, must be often wanting. And again, thccselections for the several sacred seasons have been changed with decided improvement. For instance: in the English Liturgy, for the three Sundays preceding Lent, and for those of the Lent season, the book of Genesis is read for the first Lessons. In the place of them, we have adopted the sublime and appropriate chapters of the Prophets, which expostulate with Israel for her sins, and call her to repentance, fasting, and humiliation. An examination of other portions of the THE MORNING PRAYER. 93 selections for the Lessons, would show a similar im- provement. The Lessons from the Apocrypha, appointed for Saints' days, are much fewer in number than in the English Liturgy. I am aware that they have been pointed at as shreds of the Babylonish garment, which are still hanging upon us. I grant that we should be justly liable to censure, if we read or appealed to them as God's Word. But we expressly declare that we use them only for instruction in life and conversation. Thus used, there can be no more objection to them than to the reading of homilies or the preaching of sermons. This full and frequent reading of God's Holy Word is a feature of our Church for which we have great reason to be thankful. God's truth is the soul's food. It gives life, and sustains life. All of it is needful for the soul's health. Its early records, its types, its prophecies, its histories, its psalms, its narratives of Christ and his disciples, its epistles, all in their place and proportion, minister to the spiritual life. Where it is withdrawn, there is death. Where it is administeied partially, and according to the feelings of individual minds, there is distorted, unhealthy life. If we are, as a Church, to be preserved from the inroads of heresy, from the sway of superstition, from the corruption of doctrine and the decay of godliness, this, we believe, is to be our secu- rity. Nothing, indeed, but God's grace can preserve individuals or churches from falling. But the best security, in dependence on that grace for ourselves and our children, is to hide in our hearts the truths of God's Word, so that when error comes with her sophistries, and sin with her blandishments, those divine truths shall 94 THE MORNING PBAYER. spring from the memory, like armed guards, and disarm these stealthy emissaries of Satan. To have these truths frequently and solemnl}' read in the public worship of the Church, is a great means of fixing them in the heart. May we understand our privileges, realize our dangers, and duly feel our high obligations to our own and other souls! The Creeds. After the reading of the Lessons, and the singing of the anthem, follows, in our service, either the Apostles' or the Nicene Creed. The Apostles' Creed was first introduced into the second Liturgy of King Edward. It stood, and in the English Liturgy still stands, alone in the morning and evening service. The Nicene Creed has, in the English Liturgy, always followed the Epistle and Gospel. Besides these Creeds, the Athanasian Creed, as it is called, has always been in use in the English Chuich, upon the chief festivals. Our Church, it will be observed, has retained tfie Apostles' Creed, in the daily Morning and Evening Prayer; has trans- ferred the Nicene Creed from its position in the Ante- Communion Service, to the daily Morning and Evening Prayer, to be used in the place of the Apostles' Creed, at the discretion of the Minister; and has altogether omitted the Athanasian Creed. " That which is called The Apostles' Creed, is •merely the ancient creed of the Church of Rome, and is no more entitled to that name than any other of the ancient creeds."^ Its name is retained by us, not be- ^ Good's Divine Rule of Faith and Practice, vol. i, p. 9G. THE MORNING PRAYER. 95 cause it is supposed to have been framed by the Apos- tles, but because it contains the Apostles' doctrine. That no precise form of words was left by the Apostles as the Christian creed, is evident from the fact, that the creeds of the ancient church diifer in their forms, and in the number of articles of faith which they ex- press. Scripture is silent as to the production of any such form by one or all of the Apostles. ^ They in- deed required a confession of faith from the candidates for Baptism, but no precise form of words vvas provided in which that confession should be made. The Ethio- pian eunuch simply declared, " I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." The Philippian jailer was bidden "to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." The command to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, was no doubt administered only upon profession of belief in them. Here we can trace the origin of the Apostles' Creed, and of various other ancient creeds, which contain an expression of belief in the prominent facts concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It is an evidence of the considerate kindness of our Church for her children, that she re- quires of those who are to be baptized a belief in no more than is contained in the Apostles' Creed. ^ I suppose it will be news to many intelligent readers of God's Word, to hear that the Creed "is delineated and recognised in Scripture itself, where it is called the hypotyposis, or outline of sound words." Such is Mr. Newman's understanding of 2 Tim. i, 13 : " Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of mc," &c. This Creed is supposed by him to be quoted by St. Paul, in 1 Cor. xv, 3 : " I delivered unto you first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins," &c. 96 THE MORNING PRAYER. The Nicene Creed, so called, because in its first form drawn up at the Council of Nice, in the year 325, is fuller and more doctrinal in its Articles than the Apostles' Creed, and was prepared with a view to coun- teract the Arian heresy. Arius had maintained that the Son was inferior to the Father, in nature and indignity. This creed declared that he was of the same substance or essence with the Father. The creed which is called Nicene, is more properly the Constantinopolitan — hav- ing been put into its present form, by the Council of Constantinople, in the year 381. The Athanasian Creed, so called because it was long supposed to have been framed by Athanasius — though that opinion is now relinquished — contains a fuller and more minute statement of the doctrine of the Trinity than the Nicene Creed. It was excluded from our Prayer-Book, probably because of objection, in part, to its minuteness of explanation, upon a subject beyond human comprehension; and more particularly because of what are called its damnatory clauses, which declare that " he who will be saved must thus think of the Trinity;" and that whosoever will be saved, unless he keep this faith whole and undefiled, " without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." Bishop White declares, that if the Archbishops of the English Church had made the restoration of this Creed an indispensable condition of conferring the Episcopate on the American Church, "the matter would have been desperate." Here, as in so many other cases, we have reason to admire the wisdom and firmness of the fathers of our Church in excluding a portion of the English formulary which has THE MORNING PRAYER. 97 been the source of vast contention and of bitter obloquy and reproach. Here we are led to notice the historical fact above alluded to, that some objection was made by the Arch- bishops and Bishops of England, to conveying the Epis- copate to the American Church, on account of our rejec- tion of the Athanasian, and an omission in the Apostles' Creed. As there has been no event of more importance to us as a Church, than the consecration of our first Bishops, it may be useful and important to narrate the circumstances connected with their consecration. In 1783, the clergy of Connecticut recommended the R«v. Samuel Seabury, D. D., to the English Bishops for consecration. Failing of success in their application to that quarter, he applied to the Non-juring Bishops of Scotland, and was consecrated by them. When, there- fore, the Convention of 1785 met at Philadelphia, there was already a Bishop in Connecticut. Neither Con- necticut nor any of the Eastern States were represented in that Convention. Connecticut declined at first to join with the seven States then met in Convention, on the ground of objection to some of the provisions of the proposed constitution. They objected that the power of Bishops was too much circumscribed, and that the laity were allowed a seat and voice in Conventions. Such was the state of things when the Convention of 1785 applied to the Archbishops and Bishops of England for the Episcopacy. Their address Avas forwarded to John Adams, then minister at the British court, and by him presented and recommended. In the spring of 1786, the committee received an answer to their letter from two 5 9S THE MORNING PRAYER. Archbishops and eighteen of the twenty-four Bishops of England, declaring their wish to comply with the appli- cation, but delaying measures to that effect until they should have seen the proposed alterations in the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Church; as they had been led to fear, from private sources of information, that essential deviations from the Church of England were about to be made. Not long after, the committee re- ceived another letter from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, to whom the management of the business had been left, in which they express their dissatisfaction at the omission of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, and of the descent into hell in the Apostles' Creed. They objected, also, to an article in the constitution which they erroneously supposed subjected future Bishops to a trial by Presbyters and laymen. After the receipt of tne first letter, the General Convention reassembled in Philadelphia, on the 20th of June, 17S6, at which time another address was prepared and sent to the English prelates, in which they acknowledge their friendly and affectionate letter, and avow their determination not to depart from any of the essential doctrines of the English Church. On the receipt of the second letter, the Con- vention again met in the following October. The of- fensive article in the constitution had been already re- moved, before the arrival of the objection of the Arch- bishops. The omission of the Nicene Creed had been regretted, and it was without any difficulty restored. The clause in the Apostles' Creed, of the descent into hell, was also, after considerable debate, restored. The Athanasian Creed was rejected. Thus all obstacles but THE MORNING PRAYER. 99 the restoration of the Athanasian Creed, were removed. Its restoration was not pressed by the Englissh prelates. A special act of parliament, authorizing the Archbishop of Canterbury to consecrate American Bishops, was procured. The Rev. Samuel Provoost, rector of Trinity Church, New York, and the Rev. William White, were chosen respectively Bishops of New York and Penn- sylvania. On the fourth of February of the following year, they were consecrated in the chapel of the arch- episcopal palace of Lambeth, by the Most Rev. John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury. Thus was the completeness of the Episcopal Church in this country providentially provided for. In 1789, the Bishop and Convention of Connecticut acceded to the constitution, and the Episcopal Churches in this country became one. Thanks be to God, who, by his gracious Providence, so harmonized the varying judgments of the Churches of the different Dioceses, as to unite them at last in the unity of the spirit, and in the bond of peace ! The Litany. That most fervent portion of our service, the Litany, now claims our attention. Its fullness and fervor com- mend it to the Christian's heart in his most earnest moods, and shame him into feeling and fervor in his mood of coldness and indifference. The origin of Litanies in the Churches h thus de- scribed by Palmer. " At first, the term was applied in general to all prayers and supplications, whether public or private. In the fourth century, the word Litany became more especially applied to solemn offices, which 100 THE MORNING PRAYER. were performed with processions of the clergy and peo- ple." " Socrates relates that in the time of John Chry- sostom, the Arians of Constantinople, being obliged to perform divine service outside of the walls, were accus- tomed to assemble themselves within the gates of the city, and sing anthems and hymns suited to the Arian heresy, for a great part of the night. And early in the morning, singing anthems of the same sort, through the middle of the city, they went out of the gates, and proceeded to the places wheie they celebrated their worship. Chrysostom, fearful that his people might be induced to join the Arians by these processions, estab- lished them on a greater and more splendid scale in his own Church. By the liberality of the Empress Eu- doxia, the people were furnished with silver crosses, bearing wax lights, which were carried before them. Such processional offices were called Litanies. The custom of processions and solemn prayers for special emergencies, was borrowed by the Western from the Eastern Churches. The English Church appears to have received stated Litany days from the Galilean Church, and formerly on those days there were pro- cessions. Later, this custom was confined to one day, on which the people perambulated the bounds of their parish. According to the injunction or advertisement of Queen Elizabeth, the office for that day was to con- sist of the two Psalms, beginning Benedic mea Anima^ &c., the Litany and Suffrages, and a Homily especially appointed for the occasion. This office was recited in the Church on the return of the people from the pro- cession; and, in the course of the procession, the curate THE MORNING PRATER. 101 was to admonish the people to give thanks to God, with singing the 103 J Psalm. A distinct service, as is now said without the procession, is in accordance with the ancient rites of the English Church. Of the petitions which are comprised in the Litany, it may be observed that they are of remote antiquity in the English Church. Mabillon has printed a Litany of the Church of England, written probably in the eighth century, which contains a large portion of that which we repeat at the present day, and which preserves exactly the same form of pe- tition and response which is still retained." These remarks, made w'ith reference to the Englisli Litany, are applicable to our own, inasmuch as there is scarcely any other change, than that of the four petitions for the king and royal family, into the one which contains a prayer for all Christian rulers and magistrates. Collects. Upon the prayers which precede and follow the Lit- any, we need not dwell at length. Their Scriptural character, their simple majesty, their supplicating fer- vor, are familiar to the reader's mind and heart. In King Edward's book, two prayers followed the Creed and the versicles — that for peace and that for grace. Our Liturgy and the English retain the same. Then fol- lows, in the English, a prayer for the king and royal family; in the American, a prayer for the President of the United States, and all in civil authority. Then follows the Litany. After which, follows the repeat- ed and responsive versicles, " Oh, Christ, hear us." ''Lord, have mercy upon us," which were of very an- 102 THE MORNING PRAYER. cient use in the Eastern Churches. Then, to the end of the services, the prayers in the English and Ameri- can services are ahke, except that the general thanks- gi\ing, which is in our Morning Prayer, is, in the Eng- lish book, printed among the occasional thanksgivings. All of these prayers, however, are to be used in the Eng- lish book; while part of them are left discretional in the American. The prayer, for all conditions of men, to be said when the Litany is omitted, is printed in the American book in the Morn'ng Prayer, and in the Eng- lish with the occasional prayers. The Prayers and Thanksgivings upon several occa- sions, to be used before the two final prayers of morning and evening service, enable the Church to meet all those peculiar and more individual dispensations, which fur- nish proper subjects for prayer and praise in the house of God. In King Edward's second Liturgy, there were prayers "for rain," "fair weather," "in time of dearth and famine," "in time of war and tumults," and "in time of any common plague or sickness," and "for the high court of parliament." These are retained substan- tially the same in the English service, and in our own, except that we have a prayer for Congress, instead of that for the high court of parliament, and several other prayers are added. By comparing our Liturgy with the English, it will be seen that we have several prayers and thanksgivings which they have not, having refer- ence to the sick and the afflicted, and to those who are going to, or returning from, sea. Having now sketched a history of the Morning Prayer, and noticed such doctrines involved in it as seemed most THE MORNING PRAYER. 103 to demand our attention, we shall be prepared in our next chapter to take up some of the occasional offices of the Church. The order for Evening Prayer, being so similar to that of the Morning, with the exception of the Litany and the Ante-Communion Service, need not detain us. We trust, that while these details may have wearied the reader, they may, at the same time, "have strength- ened in his mind the positions which we have assumed, and confirmed and increased his love for our formulary of worship. It is evident that our service is not the product of a few minds, or a few ages. The piety of the past and the present, beams with blended light from every page. The venerable remains of ancient worship are everywhere intermingled with the rich and spiritual forms of later ages. From every part of the service there go forth innumerable threads of holy fellowship with the past, some reaching to the founders of our American Church, others extending to the Reformers, and others stretching out to the gray fathers of the early Church, binding all together as one in Christ Jesus. Let us remember that as these things constitute our privileges, they constitute our obligations also! And let me, in conclusion, having in previous chap- ters spoken the words of congratulation for our privi- leges, here speak the word of warning. We need, as a Church, to be warned nut to rely too much on her ex- ternal organization, or the excellence of her services. We must not too much rely, as a Church, or as individuals, upon the excellent Creeds and Articles and Liturgy which we possess, as that which will inevitably 104 THE MORNING PRAYER. secure the same purity of doctrine in the living Church as is found in the established formulary. We have been accustomed to speak, I fear, too boastfull}^ of our Liturgy as that which secures to us, almost beyond fear of loss, the truth as it is in Jesus. We have triumphantly pointed to those sects which, being without the Episco- pacy and Liturgy, have run into every species of heresy, terminating, often, in open infidelity. Doubtless it is a great advantage of our forms and creeds, that error of doctrine is not likel}'^ to proceed so fast or far as in de- nominations which are not guarded like our own. But on this subject it surely becomes us, at this time, not to boast, not to be high-minded, but to fear. It becomes us to remember that churches with Liturgies, and with pure doctrines, too, have fallen. It becomes us to re- member that churches and individuals are now upon probation; that it depends upon their watchfulness, prayerfulness, and holiness of living, whether they hold fast the truth, or be seduced from it by the watchful adversary. No external advantages can secure churches against the danger of falling into error. The promise of God, that the gates of hell never shall prevail against it, is not a promise to the separate true churches of the Redeemer that they shall never fail, or fall, or err, but a promise that God's church shall never fail on earth; that somewhere his true people shall be always found. Let us rely, then, not on old and steadfast creeds, not on time-hallowed and holy services, but upon God's grace, given to those who embrace them with a living faith, and use them with an earnest heart. The spirit of error and delusion — there is no disguising it — is THE MORNING PRATER- 105 abroad. Let uf hold fast to our forms, and supplicating God to till them with his spirit, live and grow under their influence. Let us be not Churchmen only, but faithlul, fervent, humble, and American Churchmen, moulded by our system as it is peculiarly our own. Wiser and holier men than shaped, and were shaped by, that sy^tem, the world has never seen! In a day of confusion and error and sadness for the Church, let u.s go /and meditate over the graves of a White and a Dehon, a Moore and a Griswold, and by the light of their saintly lives, and^beautiful examples, learn alike what, as American Churchmen, our Church should be and do to us, and what we should be and do for her. *'0h, Lord, we beseech thee let thy continual pity cleanse and defend this thy Church, and because it cannot continue in safety without thy succor, preserve it ever more, by thy help and goodness, through Jesus Christ, our Lord!" VI. 5ittnbaB0 ant i^olg Ba^5. One of the most beautiful and beneficial arrange- ments of the Church is its system of Holy Days. The mind is carried by it through the whole round of Gospel truth, and receives influences from each, which, when combined, give to the Christian character harmony and completeness. The great events in the Saviour's life — each of which is linked to some eternal truth; the exam pies of holy men; the various practical duties; and the prominent spiritual experiences which belong to the child of God — all are brought forth in such wise successions and in such excellent combinations, that only the heed- less and culpably negligent can fail to derive, from the yearly round of sacred services, the most strengthening and sanctifying influence. Let us walk, in spirit, around the sacred circle of divine truth, of which the Saviour is the centre, and at every point we may walk under the beamings of his grace. The Collects. There is perhaps no part of the service more endeared to the devout Churchman, none which takes stronger SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. 107 hold of his heart and abides more blessedly in his memo- ry, than the Collects which are connected with the Holy Days. It may be fanciful to remark that they have always seemed to the writer to occupy the same place in prayer, which the sonnet occupies in poetry. Each of them is, as it were, one breathing of the heart. Each is the expansion of a single desire or sentiment of the soul. And the language in which this sacred feeling or aspiration is breathed forth, stands unmatched for its simple and venerable gravity and ardor. Nor is there any portion of the work of our Re- formers which more signalizes their wisdom, and evinces the absence of a blind and undiscriminating hostility to all that was practised by the Church of Rome, than the retention of several festivals and feasts. They had seen the evils and abuse of an undue multiplication of Holy Days. They had observed how saint worship had well nigh banished the worship of the Saviour. And yet they retained only as many as were profitable, and cast aside as many as were mischievous, with as wise discrimination as if their minds had been subjected to no bias of partiality. The Collects connected with the Holy Days are, for the most part, of a venerable antiquity. The source whence they have been derived are thus indicated by Palmer:' " The majority of these (the Collects in the Engli^sh ritual) occur, in the Latin language, in the an- ' Orio;ines Liturgicse. From Bishop Broiiwell's commentary on the Prayer Book, we subjoin, in Appendix No. 1, the following series of Tables, which show precisely the source and mark the changes of each Collect. 108 SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. cient Missals of Salisbury, York, Hereford, &r., and they are also in the Sacrainentary of the English Chinch, written before the Norman conquest. We meet them in all the ancient MSS. of Gregory's Sacramentar}^, as used in the Roman, Italian, and other Western Churches, and thence show that they formed part of that Sacramentary when it was first introduced into England by Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, and in consequence have been used in the church in this country for above twelve hundred years. Many of the Collects, however, are much more ancient than the time of Gregory, A. D. 590; they occur in the Sacramentary of Gelasius, Patriarch of Rome, A. D. 494; and some may be traced to the Leonian Sacra- mentary, used in the Roman Church about A. D. 483. " The Eptstles. The custom of reading an Epistle or portion of Scrip- ture from the writings of the Apostles in connection with another from the Gospels, was practised in the primitive Church. It was formerly called '^ the Apostle." ^ By the injunctions of Edward VI, in 1547, it was to be read in the pulpit, or in some convenient place; and by the injunctions of Queen Elizabeth it was to be read in the ^Mr. Palmer has arranged in parallel columns the English text and the Laiin extracted from the litursricai offices of the Church of Salis- bury, — "with which those of York and Hereford almost always agree" — from which it may be seen how large a number of the Col- lects have reached us from the earliest period of the English Church. See Origines Liturgies, vol. i, p. 347-393. ^ Palmer, vol. ii, p. 42. SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. 109 Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, by a special reader, entitled an " Epistler," who was to be habited in a cope. ^ " Almost all the lessons now read as Epistles in the English liturgy have been appointed tn their present place, and used by the Church of England for many ages. They are found in all the liturgies of the Eng- lish Church used before the revision of our offices in the reign of Edward the Sixth, and they also appear in the monuments of the English liturgy before the invasion of William the Conqueror. It is in fact probable that they are generally as old as the time of Augustine, A. D 59.0; since we find that the most ancient lectiona- ries of the early Church of Rome contain nearly the same selections, and therefore Augustine probably brought these selections into use in England. In this view, the lessons entitled Epistles in our liturgy have been used for above twelve hundred \ ears by the Church of England.'' We must consider this more as a subject of interest and pleasure than of any great importance, since 'all scripture is given us by inspiration of God, ' and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correc- ' tion, for instruction in righteousness.' Yet we may remark, that the extracts read from the Epistles are generally devotional and practical, and therefore best adapted for ordinary comprehension and general edifi- cation." " ■* Palmer, vmI. ii, p. 44. ' I have enfleavored to trace ihe antiquity of the Epistles in chap, ill, to which I beg to refer the reader for further information. "Palmer, vol. ii, p. 45-46. lid SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. The Gospels. Immediateiy before the Gospel is read it is the cus- tom, in the Church of England and in our own, for the Choir to sing, or the congregation to say, " Glory be to thee, oh, Lord!" It is the only part of our service which is universally practised without being prescribed. The custom prevailed in all the Churches of the East and West. " When the deacon had ascended the pulpit and announced the title of the Gospel, the people with one voice exclaimed, ' Glory be to thee, oh. Lord!' " The liturgy of the Episcopal Church in Scotland re- tains it, not by custom only, but as part of the pre- scribed service. The portions of scripture appointed for the Gospels are for the most part the same that have been in use in the Church of England for twelve hundred years. This use and position of the Epistle and Gospel — immediately before the sermon — is a very expressive recognition of the source whence the teachin";s of the sermon were to be drawn. It seems to be a solemn proclamation to the people, "To the law and to the testimony ! If they speak not according to this word, there is no light in them.'''' It appears to have been in- tended to pre-occupy their minds with the truth of God's word, that tiiey might with the more profit listen lu its explanation and development. It seems, at the same time, as an admonition to the preacher that he beware, lest he contradict by his teachings the authoritative word which is yet sounding in the ears of the people. Considered in this connection, this portion of the ser- vice is of great importance, and should least of all be SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. HI omitted by those who are most earnest in maintainino- a harmony between the pulpit and the Word of God. Rather let this portion of the service be esteemed as among the most valuable, inasmuch as it is all from God, and not from man, and surrounds the soul with those truths, and impresses it with those feelings which fit it best for a right reception of the preached word from the lips of the minister of Christ. How much it was valued by those who first introduced it, is evident from the exclamation of praise when the Gospel was read, ^' Glory be to thee, oh. Lord!" and from a similar excla- mation at the close of it, which is still used in many churches in England, " Thanks be to thee, oh. Lord, for thy Holy Gospel," or "Thanks be to thee, oh. Lord!" We should most tenaciously retain those por- tions of the service which make most prominent the blessed Word of God. Sundays. We have had occasion repeatedly to remark, that it is less our object to trace the nutkority foj- the usages and doctrines of the Church, than it is to ascertain the meaning of her services and declarations. We shall therefore only intimate the authority on which the first day of the week is celebrated as the Christian Sabbath. Our attention will be directed mainly to the considera- tion of the manner and spirit in which it was intended that that day should be observed. God has embodiedwith the moral law but one specific enactment— that which consecrates the seventh day as holy to the Lord. The duty of solemnly and statedly 112 SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. worshipping God is moral and eternal. The designa- tion of the seventh day was a positive and changeable regulation. The Saviour as "Lord also of the Sabbath day," seems to have designed a change of the day,*" which was carried out in the practice of the Apostles.' From the Scriptures we learn that this custom of celebrating the first day of the week, as the Lord's Day, was established by the Apostles; and by St. John, in the Book of Revelations, it received the name of "the Lord's Day."^ "But it may still be asked, Where is the difference between your observance of the Christian Sabbath and the Jewish? We answer, they differ considerably both in strictness of literal enactment, and in the severity of the penal sanction by which they are enforced. All kinds of work, withscarcely any exception, were for- bidden to the Jews on their Sabbath, under pain of death. ^ Whereas, all works of piefy, charity, and neces- S'ity,^^' are in strict accordance with the spirit of the Christian Sabbath, and may be performed without scru- ple or hesitation by the enlightened Christian, who regards this holy day not so much as a restraint upon his liberty, as a blessed opportunity of glorifying God, 8 Mat. xii, 1, 12. Luke xiii, 10, 16. Jno. v, 9, 18, ix, 4. ' Jno XX. 19, 26. Acts xx, 7. 1 Cor. 16, 2. '^ Rev. i, 10. In some of the churches of the East, out of regard for the feelings of the Jews, Saturday was observed as a day of devotion, but not as a Cliristian Sabbath. — See Wheatley, (American edition,) p. 196. 9 Exod. xxxi, 14, 15. Numb, xv, 32, 36. '"Matt, xii, 5, "piety," vii, 9, 13, "charity," 1, 4, "necessity." SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. 113 and doing good to his fellow-creatures; in short, a be- ginning of heaven upon earth, a foretaste of eternal rest." But to attempt to revive the rigid severity of the Jewish Sabbath in a Christian age and country would, we conceive, be a returning to the legal spirit of the Mosaic dispensation, instead of follow ing out that which our Blessed Lord both taught and exemplified.'- At the same time, great care, self-denial, and watchful self-examination must be exercised, lest the liberty of the Gospel should degenerate into licentiousness, and "an occasion to the tlesh.'"'" The true spirit of Sabbath observance under the new dispensation seems to be as completely, as it is beautifully, delineated in the words of the Prophet: "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, (so as not to trample upon its sacredness,) from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call ihe Sabbath a delight.) the Holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him; not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleas-ure, nor speaking thine own words : Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, &c."'^ The service of the Church for the Sundays of the year aie in harmony with this discriminating passage. In avoiding Jewish strictness, our Reformers did not run into the low views of the Christian Sabbath which prevailed at a subsequent period, when "a Book of Sports" for Sunday was prepared, by authority, under King James; and the continuation of wakes enjoined by a proclamation of King Charles. The language of the "Heb. iv, 9. '« See Page 96, (1.) 's 1 Cor. viii, 9. Gal. v, 13. 1 Peter ii, 16. 'Msaiahlviii, 13, 14. 114 SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. Homilies on the subject is no doubt a true index of the prevailing feeling of the Reformers. '° '*" But, alas! all these notwithstanding, it is lamentable to see the wicked boldness of those that will be counted God's people, who pass nothing at all of keeping and hallowing the Sunday. And these people are of two sorts. The one sort, if they have any busi- ness to do, though there be no extreme need, they must not spare for the Sunday; they must ride and journey on the Sunday ; they must drive and carry on the Sunday ; they must row and ferry on the Sunday ; they must buy and sell on the Sunday ; they must keep markets and fairs on the Sunday ; finally, they use all days alike ; work-days and holy-days, all are one. The other sort is worse. For although they will not travel nor labor on the Sunday as they do on the week-day ; yet they will not rest in holiness, as God commandeth ; but they rest in ungodliness and filthiness, prancing in their pride, pranking and pricking, pointing and paint- ing themselves, to be gorgeous and gay , they rest in excess and superfluity, in gluttony and drunkenness, like rats and swine ; they rest in brawling and railing, in quarrelling and fighting; they rest in wantonness, in toyish talking, in filthy fleshliness : so that it doth too evidently appear that God is more dishonored, and the devil better served, on the Sunday, than upon all the days in the week besides. And I assure you, the beasts, which are commanded to rest on the Sunday, honor God better than this kind of people ; for they oflTend not 3rod, they break not their holy day." An account of the differences which prevailed at different times in the observance of Sunday may be found in Hallam's Constitu- tional History of England, American edition, page 227, 228. It is defective in fairness, we think, inasmuch as it seems to allow no sentiment in the Church on the subject, which was not extremely lax on the one hand, or extremely .Jewish on the other. Mr. Neal, with his usual unfairness, (vol. i, page 208, American edi ion,) speaks as if all the " governing clergy" were in favor of such a loose observance of the Christian Sabbath as would allow of worldly occupations and amusements. SUNDAYS ANn HOLY DAYS. 115 The lir.st visitation of England, after the accession of Edward, was set forth under injunctions which convey a scriptural and discriminating declaration of the nature and duties of the Christian Sabbath. The Articles and Injunctions for the visitation of 1547 declare: "That the Holy Day being instituted at first that men should give themselves wholly to (iod, yet God was generally more dishonored upon it than upon the other days, by idleness, drunkenness, and quarrelling, the people thinking they sufficiently honored God by hear- ing mass and matins, though they understood nothing of it 10 their edifying; therefore thereafter the Holy Day should be spent according to God's holy will, in hearing and reading the Holy Word, in public and private prayers, in admending their lives, receiving the Communion, visiting the sick, and reconciling them- selves to their neighbors; yet the Curates were to de- clare to their people that in harvest time they might, upon the Holy and Festival Days, labor in their har- vest."" Our Saviour's Festivals. The Saviour has instituted the commemoration of his death, as a great and perpetual Sacrament in his Chui'ch. He has thus sanctioned that instinctive feeling which seeks to commemorate the life, and deeds, and death, of those whom we venerate and love for their virtues and their services tu the world. The Church has wisely yielded to the instinct of her grateful love to the Saviour, " Burnet, (folio,) vol. ii, p. 28. 116 SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. by setting apart sacred days devoted to a commemora- tion of the great eras and incidents of his history. It is a practice, the abuse of which alone could have ever made it distasteful to pious hearts, and which needs vindication only in the case of those prejudiced and biased minds with whom the vindication would have no influence. '^ " " We allow, tliat the Apostle Paul reproved the Galatians for observing Jewish Feasts.' But this, we think, arose not from the sinfulni'ss of the practice, which he had allowed to be indifferent, in the Epistle to the Romans,^ but from the spirit which it manifested, and the principle upon which it was performed. These converts from heathenism were deceived by the supei-'stitious notion, that the Jewish rites were necessary to be observed by Christians, in order to their perfection in holiness; and that by such observances they would, in part at least, be justified.^ Against such a pernicious opinion, the zealous Apostle contends with all his pjight ; and par- ticularly marks whatever in their conduct seemed to lean that way. Such was the case before us. But we are not thence to conclude rashly, that all festivals and holy days of man's appointment are superstitious and vain. The Jews, we know, kept the feast of Dedication, in remembrance of the purification of the temple, a merely human appointment, which our Blessed Lord so far from censuring, himself honored with his presence.'' Again, when the Apostle, writing to the Colossians, says, "Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a Holy Day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath Days, &c." * We think he must be un- derstood in the same way; namely, as guarding them against a return to the Jewish yoke; not against all observance of Holy Days and festivals whatever. The Sabbath Day itself, we see, was not exempt from this condemnation, as far as respected the ceremonial ob-servance of the seventh day. But the Lord's Day Sabbath still held its authority unimpaired by the Apostle's denunciation. Upon 1 Gal. iv, 10. 2 Rom. Xiv, 5, 6. 3 Gal. iii, 3 ; v, 4. 4 John X, S2. 5 Col. ii, 16, 17. sundays and holy days. 117 Saints' Days. The memoirs of the Martyrs were preserved and honored in the«early Church, by the celebration of days devoted to their honor. This was the commencement of a practice which degenerated into the grossest super- stition and excess. Before the Reformation the names of Saints crowded each other on the sacred calendar. Saint-worship well nigh excluded the worship of the Saviour. In view of the monstrous abuses resulting from the worship of these ''gods many," we should not have been surprized, had the Reformers swept every human name from the calendar. We cannot but feel that more than was sutficient for the purposes for which alone they should have been introduced — that is, for holy examples — were retained by the niother Church of England. We are rejoiced that our own Church has not cast out the names of Apostles and holy men of the Gospel history, as unworthy of commemoration, while she has not enshrined those of later ages. The sober and rational views with which these Holy Days were continued may be learned from the language of Hooker, which, it will be seen, accurately harmonizes with the views expressed on the subject by the authority which established them. Hooker thus beautifully vindicates the practice in a the same grounds we affirm, that this inspired statement does not affect the power of the Church to appoint feasts and fasts for public edification ; provided they be not too many, and so prove burden- some to the conscience, nor abused, as the Popish Holy D^ys were, to su]>erRtitious purposes and the grossest idolatry." — Key to Com- mon Prayer, p. 101, 102. 118 SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. passage which has few equals even in his own eloquent and lofty pages: "Forasmuch as we know that Christ hath not only been manifested great in himself, but great in other his Saints also, the days of whose departure out of the world are to the Church of Christ as the birth and coro- nation days of kings or emperors; therefore, especial choice being made of the very flower of all occasions in this kind, there are annual selected times to meditate of Christ glorified in them, which had the honor to suffer for his sake, before they had age or ability to know him; glorified in them, which knowing him as Stephen, had the sight of that before death, whereinto so acceptable death did lead; glorified in those sages of the East, that came from far to adore him, and were conducted by strange light; glorified in the second Elias of the world, sent before him to prepare his way; glorified in those Apostles, whom it pleased him to use as founders of his kingdom here; glorified in the angels, as in Michael; glorified in all those happy souls, that are already pos- sessed of heaven. Over and besides which number not great, the rest be but four other days heretofore annexed to the feast of Easter and Pentecost, by reason of gen- eral Baptism usual at those two feasts."'* The preamble to the act for establishing Fasts and Holy Days, which was passed in 1552, sets forth "that men are not at all times so set on the performance of religious duties as they ought to be; which made it ne- cessary that there should be set times in which labor '" Eccles. Pol. V, 70, (8.) SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. 119 was to cease, that men might on those days wholly serve God; which days were not to be accounted holy of their own nature, but were so called because of the holy duties then to be set about; so that the sanctifica- tion of them (was not any magical virtue in that time, but) consisted in dedicating them to God's service; that no day was dedicated to any Saint, but only to God in remembrance ofsuc/i Saints; that the Scriptures had not determined the number of Holy Days, but that these were left to the liberty of the Church. Therefore they enact that all Sundays, with the days marked in the calendar and Liturgy, should be kept as Holy Days, and the Bishops were to proceed by the censures of the Church against the disobedient.'^ The reader will observe in the above passage that the institution of the Lord's Day as pre-eminently the Holy Day, does not stand forth from other Holy Days with the marked prominence to which, in his view, it is en- titled. It was not an unusual sentiment, of that period, that it was in the power of the Church to designate the day which should be kept holy as the Lord's Day, and that it was rather to the uniform practice and the con- sentient legislation of the Church, than to the example of the Apostles, that the authority for the consecration of the first day of the week, as the Christian Sabbath, was to be referred.^ This opinion, however, in no de- '9 Burnet Ref., vol. ii, p. 191. '"Hooker believed that, in like manner, it was in the power of the Church to set aside Episcopjfty, and to organize the ministry in any other form should it become necessary or highly expedient. Yet he held, of course, that Episcopacy was an Apostolic institution. In 1641 15J0 SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. gree interfered with a just view of the character of the Christian Sabbath, and the mode in which it should, by divine direction, be observed. Nevertheless, this ad- vancing of Holy Days to an equality of sacredness with the Lord's Day, and the injunctions that they should be kept with the s-ame kind and degree of religious obser- vance and abstinence from worldly employments, must have proved very injurious to the proper observation of the Sunday.''' As there would, unavoidably, be much secular employment on the Holy Days, and as this could not be regarded in itself sinful, it was natural that the Sunday should be treated like the Holy Days, to which there had been attributed an equality of sacredness. This undue exaltation of Holy Days and the prohibition of secular employment upon them, no doubt diminished that strong sense of the sacredness of the Lord's Day, the committee appointed by the House of Lords, in the enumera- tion of innovations in the doctrine and discipHne of the Cliurch of England, include the following: "10. Some have maintained that the Lord's Day is kept merely by ecclesiastical constitution, and that the day is changeable." — Proceedings of the committee appointed by the House of Lords. Card- loell's conferences, p. 27L '^And yet so early as 1536, the superior sanctity of the Lord's Day seems to have been recognised. In an act passed that year, "for the abrogation of certayne Holy Days, language is employed which seems to involve a juster sense of the superior sanctity of the Lord's Day than subsequently prevailed. "And sith the Sabbath Day was ordeyned for man's use, and therefore ought to give place to the necessitie and behove of the same whensoever that shall occurre, mouch rather any other Holy Day in- stitute by 7nan. — Liturgical Tracts. SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. 121 which should have prevented the license which pre- vailed in the days of James, and at some subsequent periods." Fasts. The duty of fasting is plainly implied in the lan- guage of the Saviour to his Disciples. " When ye fast" is a phrase which involves the recognition and accep- tance of the duty. The Fasts set apart by our Church are of great antiquity. It is to be observed of them that they are generally appointed in connection with some fasts in the Saviour's history, which call for our hu- miliation. The forty days of Lent enforce repentance for the sins which made necessary the sacrifice which is commemorated on Good-Friday. Friday is a perpetual fast, because on that day Christ gave himself to the death of the Cross. The benefit and the true end of fasting are well indicated in the Collect for the first Sunday for Lent, where we pray " that God would give us such abstinence that our flesh being subdued to the spirit we may ever obey its godly motions in righteousness and true holiness." The Injunctions issued during the reisns of Edward and Elizabeth, and the articles of visi- tation and inquiry put forth by the Bishops, indicate no **Short, in a note to his history, (American edition, p. 188,) re- fers to the fact, that dining the reign of Clueen Elizabeth, all sorts of amusements were indulged in on Sunday, (Strype's annals, vol. 3, 558.) On her reception at Kenilwortli, in 1.575, tlie lords and ladies danced in the evening with lively agility. {Ih. 5, 202.) Tiiere were sports at the Paris garden, the Lord Mayor was pre.sented to the Clueen, plays and interludes were acted. {lb. 5, 211, 485.) It should be remarked, however, that the practice of the court is a poor ^ide to the doctrine of the Church, 6 iUi StJJfCA¥§ Am tiOL¥ BA¥«, other than the same wholesome sentiment on the sub- ject. Indeed, we are led to feel that too low, rather than too elevated, views of the duty were at that time prevalent. More stress is laid on its economical than its spiritual bearings. ^^ The views of the framers of the Book of Common Prayer are set forth with admirable discrimination in the Homily on Good Works. After showing why God approved the Publican rather than the Pharisee, with all his uncomnianded fasting, the Homily thus sums up the uses and benefits of fasting: " There be three ends, whereunto if oiu' fast be di- rected, it is thei' a work profitable to us and accepted oi" God. "The first is, to chastise the flesh, that it be not too wanton, but tamed and brought in subjection to the spirit. This respect had St. Paul in his fast, when he said, I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection, lest by any means it cometh to pass, that when I have j)reached to others, I myself be found a cast-away. "The second, that the spirit may be more earnest and fervent to])rayer. To this end fasted the Prophets and Teachers that were at Antioch, before they sent forth Paul and Barnabas to preach the Gospel. The ^^ Another act enjoined the eating of flesh on those days of fast- ing wiiich had been appointed by the Roman Catholic Church. The oliject of this enactment was declared to be " the support of the fi.sheries, and not any rehgious difltrences as to the S|iecies of food used." Sliorl's Hislory of the Ckurcli of England. Similar injunctions were issued in the reign of (^ueen Ehzabeih to tlie same pinjiose. SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. 123 same two Apostles fasted for the like purpose, when they commended to God, by their earnest prayers, the congregations that were at Antioch, Pisidia, Iconium, and Lystra; as we read in the Acts of the Apostles. " The third, that our fast be a testimony and witness with us before God, of our humble submission to his high Majesty, when we confess and acknowledge our sins unto him, and are inwardly touched with sorrow- fulness of heart, bewailing the same in the affliction of our bodies." -^ The ecclesiastical year commences with the season -■' Hence it is thai the greatest discoveries that God hath made of himself to men, and the most powerful efTects of the spirit upon them, have usually been when they were fasting, and so in a right disposition for them. Thus Moses io«.s fasting forty days and forty niglUs, even all the time that he was conversing with God upon Mount Sinai, and received the law from him. Ex. xxxiv, 28. Eiias had fasted forty days and forty nights, when God discoursed so familiarly with him upon Mount Horeb. 1 King's, xix, 8. Oar Lord himself, though he had no need of it, his body being al- ways perfectly subject to his soul, yet for our example and imita- tion, fasted forty days and forty nights; even all the while he was in the wilderness overcoming the Devil, and had the angels to minister unto him. Mat. iv, 2-11. Daniel was fasting when the Angel Gabriel was sent to acquaint him with the precise time of the Saviour's coming. Dan. ix, 3-21. Cornelius, by whose con- version the door of salvation was open to the Gentiles, was also fasting when the Angel was sent to instruct him how to get to Heaven. Acts x, 30. By all which it appears that when men arc fasting and so their bodies are subject to their souls, then God takes the opportunity of manifesting him.^elf and his pleasure to them, and also directing and assisting them in the way to bliss; and by (•■mspf|uence that fasting is a duty of greater moment than it is com- monly thouglu to be. — Beveridge's Sermons, vol. i,p. 80. 124 SUNDAVS AND HOLY DAVS, of Advent, which occupies the four Sundays next be- fore Christmas day. It commemorates the first and second Advent of the Saviour. The Collects for these four Sundays are of matchless beauty — perfect models of lofty and earnest devotion. The Ember Days occur four times in the year, and continue for three days. They occur on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the first Sunday in Lent, Whitsunday, the 14th of Sep- tember, and the 13th of December. The Church of England has set them apart by canon- ' as days of fasting and prayer, preparatory to ordination. In this country "we have no such canon, and it has not been found prac- ticable to limit ordinations to the Ember weeks. Yet by retaining the days in the calendar, the Church has tes- tified her respect to this arrangement; and it is to be hoped that when the Church shall become more com- pact in this country, it will become convenient to ob- serve these days with great solemnity. When should the Church be up07i her knees^ if not before the ordina- tion of her ministering servants? The round of sacred days, including Christmas Day, THE Epiphany, the season of Lent, Easter Day, the Ascension and Whitsunday, together with many others devoted to the Holy Apostles, would delay us long and profitably, if it were not our design rather to interpret the meaning of those portions of the service, concerning which there have been differences of opinion, than to unfold the blessed and practical lessons con- tained in those, the sense of which is not contested. '^ Cann. xxxi. SUNDAYS AND HOLY DAYS. 1*25 The determination ol oiu Church to keep alar fiom Rome is manifest in the arrangement of her Holy Days. She rejiders no idolatrous homage to the dead. She commemorates only the life and character of the Sa- viour, and her immediate and conspicuous Apostles and Ministers. She does not even, like the Church of Eng- land retain in her table some chosen names selected from the crowded catalogue of the Romish calendar, to render to them a partial honor.-'' May we learn to fol- low God's "blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys which he has prepared for those who unfeignedly love him."-' ^^ There are something like sixty names of Saints and Holy Days in tlie English Prayer-Book — among them Holy Cross Day, and St. Dunstan''s Day, besides a large number of others in honor of Saints whose names are known only to the most elaborate students of Ecclesiastical history. '^'' Collects for All Saints' Day. VII. (Jll)c Corii's Supper. In the course of our examination of the sublime and beautiful office for the celebration of the Lord's Supper, the falsity of the charge that it has been drawn from the Church of Rome will evidently appear. It will be seen that the Church of England rejected the gross supersti- tions and silly puerilities of the Mass, and with a wise discrimination selected from the Liturgies of the ancient Churches such portions of them as she judged to be agreeable to the Word of God, and suitable to aid the soul in commemorating the love and sacrifice of the Saviour; and added whatever else she deemed necessary to give completeness, fervor, and edification to the blessed commemoration. If our own service and that of Rome have any thing in common, it is because the latter has here and there retained in her offices some fragment of the purer doctrine which she had so large an agency in corrupting. ' ' The continental Reformers were not unfrequently compelled to show that an absolute difl'erence on all subjects from Rome, was not necessary to the preservation of the truth. Fanaticism has this ■:l\Q\% gyjIogisiTj eyer at }}^pa i " ^qm is i^ »}) things M^F9P^- "WJlS?- THE lord's supper. 127 Upon comparing our service with the present service of the Church of England, it will be seen to be almost identically the same. The Lord's Prayer, the Collect following, and the Ten Commandments, are in both. The chief differences in the remainder of the service are, that instead of the Saviour's summary of the Ten Commandments and the Collect in our service, which may or may not be said, in the English service are two prayers for the Queen, one of which only is to be offered; that the Nicene Creed which follows the Gospel in the English service, is not printed in our Communion Office, and is to be used only when neither it nor the Apostles' Creed have been said in the Mornmg Prayer; that after the prayer of Consecration, the Oblation and Invocation are not in the EngUsh service, and that the prayer which, in our service, follows the Invocation, in the English service succeeds the administration of the elements, and is placed immediately after the Lord's Prayer. The other variations in the service are chiefly in the rubrics, and are slight and unimportant. We shall take our own service as it stands, and make it the subject of inquiry ever is directly opposite to Rome, is thrrefore right." Melanctlion thus alludes to this subject in his " Respomio ad Scriptum conciona- lorum Hambv.rgensium. de adiophmis.'''' " Ought we, as in the case of factious and parly spirit, from mere hatred of our adversaries, to reject even those ancient usages, con- sonant with God's Church, handed down from our first parents ? It was in this spirit that a certain Cinesias at Athens, used to celebrate festive days opposed to those sactioned by the people; and so the Asiatics sacrificed swine and established another beginning for the ypixr, merely to ?|jt»w tha|; |hey wrf-e iJiqt)|!r( froir, ihe la)'iielilp^," 128 THE lord's supper. in connection with the present and past services of the English Church. As we have aheady mentioned (he citcunistances under which the first Communion OtKce was formed, we may here take up its separate parts, and give them that degree of attention which our limits will allow. The changes of phraseology which we shall notice, will be seen, by the attentive reader, to be often significant of a desire to avoid or express certain views of this Holy Sacrament. ' The name of this Sacrament is derived from Scrip- ture, being called in one place "the Lord's Supper,"' and in another place the " communion" of the body and blood of Christ. ' In the first book of Edward it was called the " Supper of the Lord, and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Mass." At the re- *But the alterations of 1552 were of such a nature as to be consis- tent with the belief that the sacred elements had no neto virtues whatever imparted to them, and that Christ was present in the Eucharist in no other manner than as he is always present to the prayers of the faithful. That this important change was actually intended 13 evident from the words addressed mdridually to the communicants, which may fairly be considered as the cardinal point of the whole service. These words were no longer " The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life," but merely " Take and eat this in rememberance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving;" and the new form seems to have been suggested from the ritual of a Church of foreigners then resident in England, who were most remarkable for their re- jection of ancient practices and distinct confessions of faith. Cabdwell's His. of Conferences, p. 6. n Gom, %ifm *l Com j^, IS> THE lord's supper. 129 view of this book in 1552, the title assumed its present form. The first rubric authorized the Minister to repel from the Communion any " notorious evil liver," or any one who may " have done such wrong to his neighbor by word or deed as that the congregation are thereby of- fended " The second rubric conveys the same power to the Minister in the case of those " betwixt whom he perceiveth malice and hatred to reign. " No doubt a real power of repelling from the Communion is hereby entrusted to the Ministers of the Church. When they perceive the malice to reign, and take note of the " no- torious evil liver," they are to exercise the power. But it is a power which they are particularly called upon to exercise in the meekness of wisdom." It is a power limited to the cases specified. The Minister has no right to set up qualifications which his own judgment dictates should have been specified, or to prohibit what he thinks should have been enjoined by the Church. The recom- mendation of the Hou?-(.^ of Bishops to all the members in communion with the Episcopal Church to abstain from certain specified amusements, * invests the Minister with ^EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS. "Tuesday, May 27, lt<17. The House met. Present eis yes- terday. " Resolved, That the following be entered on the Journal of this House, and be sent to the House of Clerical anS Lay Deputies to be read therin: " The House of Bishops, solicitous for the preservation of the purity of the Church and the piety of its members, are induced to impress upon the Clergy the important duty, with a discreet but earnest zeal, of warning the people of their respective curee, of the 6* 130 THE lord's supper. a moral power of reproof and dissuasion, in effect little short of law in the case of those who frequent such scenes; but still it clothes him with no legal power to repel those w^ho are addicted to them, unless they are so far devoted to them, as in the estimation of the Minister, to be " notorious evil livers." In all cases, where this power is exercised, it is provided that the Minister should " give an account of the same to his Ordinary, (or Bishop,) so soon as conveniently may be." This regulation is taken from the English rubric, and im- plies a power of appeal on the pirt of the repelled com- municant. It is difficult to see the propriety of such a regulation, if it does not suppose a right on the part of the Bishop to ratify or reverse the sentence. ** danger of an indulgence in those worldly pleasures which may tend to draw the affections from spiritual things. And especially on the subject of gaming, of amusements involving cruelty to the brute creation, and ef theatrical representations, to which some peculiar circumstances have called their attention — they do not hesi- tate to express their unmiimous opinion thai these amusements, as well from their licentious tendency, as from the strong tempta- tions to vice which they afford, ought not to be frequented. And the Bishops cannot refrain from expressing their deep regret at the information that in some of our large cities, so little respect is paid to the feelings of the members of the Church, that theatrical repre- sentations are fixed for the evenings of her most solemn festivals." The same subject is enforced in the Pastoral Letter of the House of Bishops for that year. The Convention of the Diocese of Vir- ginia in the year 1818, passed a resolution similiar to that of tY\e House of Bishops. There is a Canon of the Diocese of Maryland, with the title, "Theatrical Exhibitions, and other light and vain Amusements, forbidden." The sense of the Church as to the in- compatibility of such amusements with a Christian profession, is seen to be distinct and emphatic. 6 Bishop Brownell's Common Prayer, p. 362. THF, lord's srpPER. 131 Bill though this power be limited to the cases speci- fied, it is still a real power, not as in the English Church, almost nullified in practice by the conflict of the regulations of the Chinch with those of the state.' Though in particular cases it might seem that the purity of the Church could be better maintained were the regulations more stringent, yet a larger view of the bearings of the whole case, and particularly of the power of persuasion and rebuke which the Ministry enjoy, may lead us to rest satisfied with provisions which are framed in the spirit of the Master and the Gospel, whose chiefest attribute is mercy. There is a rubric in the English service, which is omitted in our own, which requires that those who "in- '"A fruitful source of contention has arisen from the collision of tlic English Canon and Civil laws. The Canons require the clergy- men to repel certain offenders from the Communion without allow- ing him any discretion, any power whatever. But the Test Acts, which bring so many persons to the Communion, in order to qualify themselves for offices, civil and military, make no allowances for their exclusion in any case, nor have any proviso to indemnify the Minister for proceeding according to tlie rubrics or Canons in deny- ing them the Sacrament. And by a statute of Edward VI, it is enacted that 'the Minister shall not, without a lawful cause, deny th« Sacrament lo any person that devoutly and humbly desires it. If we inquire what constitutes a lawful cause. Bishop Andrews in- forms us that liie law of England will not suffer the Minister to juf'ge any man a notorious offender, but him who is so convicted by some legal sentence. And the English civilians and canonists seem to agree that nothing amounts to notoriety in the law, but proof by confession in open courts, or cimviction by a sentence of the judge." — Bishop Brownell's Book of Common Prayer, p. 361. Also Shepherd, vol. ii, p. 147, 1G4. 132 THE lord's supper. tend to be partakers of the Holy Communion shall signify their names to the Curate, at least some time the day before." The omission of this rubric by our Church did not arise from any indifference to the qual- ifications of those who were to be admitted to the Com- munion, but "probably from the inconvenience of con- veying the notice in our scattered congregations."* The usage of the Church in this particular — a usage so uni- form as to have become an unwritten law — is that persons desirous of coming to the Lord's Supper for the first time, should make their wishes known to the Minister. Indeed, the regulations of the Church upon the subject of adult Baptism and Confirmation — which in all cases are to precede admission to the Lord's Supper — imply such a personal examination of the fitness of the person presenting himself for Communion, as to make the notice required in the English rubric unnecessary.^ In the first book of Edward, the next rubi'ic which followed prescribed that in the administration of the Holy Communion the Priest that should execute the holy Ministry should put upon him the vesture ap- pointed for that ministration; "that is to say, a white ** Bishop Brownell's Prayer Book, 360. "This rubric, until the revision of 1661, provided that the names should he given in over nio;ht, or in the morning; before the begin- ning of Mornnig Prayer, or else immediately after. This regula- tion shows 'hat the Communion Office was distinct from the Morn- ing Prayer, and that an interval occurred between them sufficiently long to allow such notice to be given, and inquiries to be instituted, as were necessary, before the person applying could be admitted to the Lord's Table. THE lord's supper. 133 albe plain, with a vestment or cope.'- Those who as- sisted the officiating Minister were required to wear albes or tunics. This rubric also contained a clause to the effect that the Priest should say the Lord's Prayer and Collect "standing in the midst of the altar.'''' The first part of the rubric was omitted in tlie second book of Edward, and the word altar chanired into table — a change made wherever the word occurred throughout the service.'" In the next review of the Liturgy under Elizabeth, the old rubrics of the first book of Edw^ard, with regard to ornaments and vestments, were again brought into authority by the first rubric before the Order for Morning Prayer, which is as follows: "And here is to be noted that such ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof, at all times of their min- istration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England by the authority of parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VL" The attempt to carry out this rubric — which, though never revoked, has long become obsolete — has caused much dilficulty and discussion, of late, in the English Church. ]t need not be remarked that, as we have nut retained the rubric, we have no authority to introduce the garment> wliich it specifies. Indeed, we have no law upon the subject. The use of the Bishop's robes, and of surplices and gowns, has no other sanction than that of custom; and if this be a sufficient law for their Use, it is a law equally sufficient to limit the clergy to '" Dr. Can] well's Two Litui^ies of Edward VI compared, p. 266. 134 THE lord's supper. the use of those only, and of those in the mode and place, which custom has prescribed." The third rubric directs that the table, at Communion time, having a fair linen cloth upon it, shall stand in the body of the church or chancel. The position of the Communion Table has furnished a subject for much discussion; but it is sufficient to remark here, that the usual custom — in this country the universal — is that the table stands within the chancel. The Minister is directed to perform the service "standing at the north side of the table, or where the Morning and Evening Prayer " It is very evident that the old rubric of Edward was reintro- duced to gratify tlie dueen ugainst the wishes of the Reformers. In a paper submitted by Guest, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, and "one who lield sentiments on doctrinal matters congenial to the dueen," but "who had not found himself, in every instance, able to comply with the instructions given him by Cecil, in favor of the first book of Edward — CardweWs Conferences, p. 21, — we find this emphatic testimony to a protestant view of the Sacrament: "Because it is thought sufficient to use but a surplice in baptizing, reading, preaching, and praying, therefore it is enough also in cele- brating the Communion. For if we should use another garment herein, it should seem to teach us that higher and better things be given by it than be given by the other service, ivhich we must not believe. For in Baptism we put on Christ ; and in the Word we eat and drink Christ, as Hierom and Gregory write. And Austin saith the Word is as precious as this Sacrament, in saying "He sinneth as much which negligently heareth the Word, as he which willingly letteth Christ's body fall to the ground. And Chrysostom saith, He that is not fit to receive is not fit to pray ; which were not true, if praying were not of as much importance as the Com- munion. — CardiveWs Conference, pp. 50, 51. THE lord's supper. 135 are appointed to be said." The rubric directs that the Minister shall stand at the north side of the table which — as the churches in England were, after the ancient models, so constructed as that the table was at the east end — was the right side of the table. As our churches are not uniformly constructed so that the table is placed - at the east, custom has properly determined that the Minister shall stand at the right side of the table. The expression "or where Morning and Evening Prayer are appointed to be said," has been sometimes supposed to indicate the Lord's Table as the proper place for the performance of that service. As this is a subject which has excited some discussion, and has led to diversity of practice, it is somewhat important to ascertain, if possi- ble, what was the intention of our Church. We may, perhaps, best ascertain it by an historical analysis.'^ The first book of Edward contained a rubric at the beginning of the Morning Prayer which directed that "the Priest, being in the quire, should begin with a loud voice the Lord's Prayer, called the Pater JVoster.^^^^ This direction seems to determine the Morning Prayer, as well as the Communion Service, to be said at the "The whole subject is obscure. Itsjobscurity no doubt arises from the great diversity of practice. Cecil complains that "Some say the service in the chancel ; others in the body of the church ; some officiate in a seat ; some in the pulpit, with their faces to tlic people." — Collier ii, 493. '■'And yet the injunctions issued by Edward in 1547, immediately on his accession, enjoin "that the church wardens at the common charge of the parishioners of every church shall provide a comely and honest pulpit, to he set in a convenient place within the same, for the preaching of God's Word.'' — Liturgical Tracts. 136 THE lord's supper. Communion Table. It was changed at the next revision to a direction that "the Morning and Evening Prayer shall be used in such place of the church, chapel, or chancel, and the Minister shall turn him, as the people best may hear.'" All controversy which might arise was to be referred to the Ordinary. Much diversity of practice having arisen on the accession of Queen Eliza- beiH," the rubric was changed, and directed that "the '^ An investigation of the whole subject leads us to the following conclusion. In many cases, the piactice of turning their backs to the people, as in popish times was continued. The Governors of the Church set forth injunctions intended to correct the practice, and to have the .service read in a desk or pew, the minister having his face to the congregation. In some cases the directions were obeyed, and in others not. This accounts for two opposite repre- sentations, and seeming authorities on the subject. On the one hand it is represented by the Puritans, in the way of objection, that the "Minister sitteth in the chancel with his back to the people." — Cartwright in Hooker, Keble v, 30. On the other hard there are representations to the effect that the service is performed by the Minister with his face towards tlie peo- ple, and niJiny directions and iryunctions like the following, which enforce the practice of reading the service in a pew in the same atti- tude. In 1569, Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich, orders for the great churches a convenient seat in the body of the church, and in the smaller churches a convenient seat outside the chancel's door. — Hook''s Church Dictionary, art. Peiv. Archbishop Griadal gives a similar direction, {Remains, 123.) Scambler, Bishoj) of Peterborough directs that the Common Prayer, accustomed to be said in the choir (according to the first direction of Edward) be brought down into the body of the church. — Strype Annals, xi, 90. The 4th Canon of 1604 directs that a convenient seat be made to ftad service in. See, also, for other authoritiea to the same effectr-"How shall we conform to the Liturgy," p. 68, et sequent. THE lord's supper. 137 Morning and Evening Prayer should be used in the accustomed place oi the church, chapel, or chancel.'""' This rubric is somewhat ambiguous, though probably it refers to such places as had been accustomed luider the direction of the rubric, which provided that the prayers should so be read as that the people best might hear. By being retained after Reading Desks were established, not only by practice, but by order of Convocation, in the beginning of the reign of King James, it indicates clearly the Reading Desk or Pew as the accustomed place. "^' This being the intention of the lubric before '*Wlieatly reluctantly admits, thai probably by the uccustomed place, "the reading desk was intended. The present Bishop of London* speaks as follows : "I do not think it to be the intention of our Church, that the officiating Minister, when reading prayer, shSW turn his face to the east, with his back to the congregation." '"This interpretatioir is corroborated Ijy the report of the pro- ceedings of the Committee appointed by the Hou.se of Lords, touch- ing innovations in tlie doctrine and discipline of the Church of England. Upon this Committee there were ten Bishops, among whom were Williams, Moreton, Montague, and Usher. So far as they recommend changes, they may be entitled to no more deference than tlirir individual intelligence and character demand. But in their testmiony to the fact of what were mnovations, they are cer- tainly entitled to full credit. Among innovations they specify the following : 1. The turning of the holy table altar-wise, and most commonly calling it an altar. 2. Bowing towards it or towards the east many times with three congees, but usualty in every motion, access or recess in the church. 3. Advancing Candlesticks in many churches, upon the altar so called. 4. In reading some part of the Morning Prayer, at the Holy Table, when there is no Communion celebratetl-^CartlmH's Cojt/innces^ 872 138 THE lord's supper. the Morning Prayer, the expression in this rubric before the Communion Office, which seems to have reference to the old practice of reading in the choir, is admitted by Whately'^ to have been retained through inadvert- ence, and is spoken of by Shepherd as that which ought to have been expunged "after the place was transferred from the Table to the Reading Desk.'"" It is clearly then the direction of the Church of England, that the Morning and Evening Prayer are not to be said at the Communion Table, but in the Reading Desk.'-^ Our Church, by retaining the practice of the Church of England, although she omitted the rubric which di- rected that Morning Prayer should be said in the accus- tomed place, may properly be supposed to occupy the " Whately, p. 1 13. '» Brownell's Prayer Book, 3G2. '"'l"he question is often raised, whetlier extemporary prayer may lawfully be used before and after the sermon. The custom of "bid- ding prayers" in the English Church seems to ejive a sanction to the practice. Neither the English Church nor our own have ever committed itself, by authoritative declaration or legislation on the subject, against the practice. In the first Convocation of Charles II, as we learn from Kennett Regi-ster, p. 576 : "In one of the same sessions (the 40th) the Bishops came unanimously to a vote in favor of some constant forms of prayer to be used before and after sermons. By so doing, they were extinguishing the last, and per- haps the most earnest, hope of the Non-Conformists for an oppor- tunity of exercising what they styled the gift of prayer. For pru- dential reasons, however, g, during the Exhortations. Kneeling to be then resumed, and continued until after the prayer of Consecration. islanding, at the singing of the hymn. Kneduig, when receiving the elements, and during the posl- coiiimunion, or that part of the service which succeeds the deliver- ing or receiving of the elements, except the Gloria in Excelsis, wliich is to be said or sung standing. After which the congregation ?)iQu)4 a^ajn Ifiml tQ recpjyp fh? (>NRit)g:. 140 THE lord's supper. in which we renew our consecration to God, and pro- fess to repent of all past violations of His laws, and take u])on ourselves new vows to have respect to all His commandments. Then follovy the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the day; after which, notices of the holy days that are to be observed, and of the Communion, are to be given. Then succeeds the sermon, after which, when there is a Communion, the Offertory is to be .said. "' We need not detain the reader with details upon these obviously appropriate portions of the service. *' As the practice of using the OflFertory weekly has been resumed in some portions of our Church, we give the following extract from a Letter of Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont, which shows how unau- thorized the custom is in our Church: " It is notorious that this order of the Offertory, which made it a constant part of the JJnte- Communion Service, went out of use by very general consent in England, long before the period of tlie American Revolution ; so that the almost universal practice was to close the service with a collect and the Apostolical benediction immediately after the morning sermon, even on Communion days ; and tlien allow the non-communicants to depart, before proceed- ing to the Offertory : while on other days the whole congregation were dismissed at the same time, with the larger benediction of the Communion Service, precisely as our own mode was after- wards fixed, and as, with very few and recent exceptions, it still continues. How far this change of practice ought to influence the present judgment of the Prelates of our mother Church, is a mat- ter for them and not for me to consider. But I adverted to the fact in order to account for the striking difference, which the fathers of our American Church established in our rubrics, by conforming them to the then prevailing custom of the Church, instead of copying them from the English Prayer-Book. '^Tlie disjiiijction thus 6o.o8i'm§4 WfH be pepfeatly ftpparenf. srt # THE lord's supper. I4l The prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church mili- tant here on earth, was, in the first Liturgy, merely called the prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church, and contained a commemoration of the Virgin Mary, and prayer for the dead. At the next revision the comparison of the English rubric with our own, which is as fol- lows : " '1 Then shall follow the sermon ; after which the Minister, when there IS A CoMMiiNioN, shall return to the Lord's Table, and begin the Oflertary, saying one or more of these sentences following,' &.e. " Here we perceive that the words ' when there is a Commu- nion,' which, in tlie Enghsh Liturgy, are placed after, in our Litur- gy are placed before the Otferlory. From which it is obvious that our rubric authorizes the Offertory only when there is a Communion ; whereas, the English rubric orders it in all cases where there is a sermon fullowing the ^nte- Communion Service. Hence the famil- iar practice of ail our regular Churches to dismiss the non-com- municants with a collect and the benediction after the sermon, was thenceforth in agreement with our rubric, because the Offertory was now fixed as a part of the ordinary public administration of the Sacrament, and the placing of tlie alms and other devotions of the people upon the holy table, was connected with the prayer for Christ's Church militant, as being offered by those only tvho re- mained for the purpose of communion. Consequently, while the Bishops of the mother Church do indeed innovate upon the pre- vailing custom amongst their own parishes, by ordering the Offer- tory to be used every Sunday and holy day, whether there be a communion or not, yet they can fairly allege their rubric in justifica- tion. Whereas, we cannot authorize such a course without directly contravening our rubric, which agrees with the usage of the Church in England, and which our venerated fathers arranged in its present form, for the very purpose of making the written lau' harmonize with the general custom.''^ 142 THE LOftD-S nvppm, commemoration of the Virgin and the prayer for "the dead were omitted, and the words, " militant here on earth," were added to the title; changes expressive of a final emancipation of the framers of the Liturgy from some of the last and clinging errors and superstitions in which they were trained. In no part of our services could this prayer be more appropriately introduced. The Exhortation which follows, and is to be read on the Sunday or holy day immediately preceding the celebra- tion of the Holy Communion, and that which is to be used "if the Minister shall see the people negligent to come," are amongst the most perfect specimens of faith- ful, affectionate, and Scriptural preaching, anywhere to be found. At the time of the celebration of the Holy Communion there follows another Exhortation, to come to the feast with self-examination, penitence, faith, charity, and thanksgiving. It is such an exhortation as he who is about, with the people, by the lifting up of his heart with theirs, to enter into the very presence of Christ, may well address to them. It will be observed, that this Exhortation is addressed to those who are about to receive the Communion, while the other two are directed to the whole congregation. Originally (in the first Liturgy) the Exhortation wliich stands first in our present service was placed second, and the rubric directed that it should also " some time be said at the discretion of the Curate;" while that which now stands second was first, and was directed to be read (not on the Sunday previous, but on the same Sunday, when the Communion was administered) at certain times when the Curate saw the people negligent to come to THE LofiC-S StJpPBlt. 143 the Holy Communion. The changes were made at the last revision of the Liturgy, in 1662, at the suggestion of the Presbyterian divines. There are several changes and omissions in these Exhortations significant of the advance made in purity of doctrine from the first Litur- gy of Edward, to which the reader's attention hereafter will be called. All things being now ready, the communicants are invited to draw near and take the Holy Sacrament to their comfort, confessing, and listening to the })roclama- tion of pardon for, their sins. Then follow four senten- ces from Scripture, admirably calculated to cheer and elevate the heart. Then the versicles, so suitable to an eucharistic service, " Lift up your heart," &.c., to- gether with the trisagion, prepare us for the blessed feast which the Apostles kept with " gladness and sin- gleness of heart, praising God." This delightful part of the service is found in all the ancient liturgies of the Church, and usually is the commencement of the ser- vice. The trisagion, or hymn of the angels, was al- most universally connected with a long eucharistic enumeration of the glories of God and his blessings to mankind. After the example of the ancient liturgies, this portion of the service in the first book of Edward, commenced immediately after the Offertory, and before the prayer for the Church militant. A prayer is said by the Priest in the name of all the people, inunediately before the consecration. Then the Priest, standing before the table, repeats the prayer of consecration. The elements are consecrated as the memorials of the Saviour's body and blood, by the whole prayer, in l44 THE LORD^S SUPPER. which are included, historically, the words of the Sa- viour at the institution of the Sacrament. In the Eng- lish Liturgy, the prayer of consecration closes with the words of the Saviour, " Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me." One of the petitions, how- ever, contained in our invocation, are included in it; namely, " Grant that we, receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jrsus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood." The Oblation and Invocation were restored to our service, from the first Liturgy of Edward, by our General Convention, in 1789. It was omitted in the second book of King Edward at the instance of Bu- cer and Martyr, and has never been restored in the English office. There is great beauty and propriety in connecting these ancient prayers wjth the eucharistic service. They contain a formal and solemn offering up of ourselves and our services to God, and a fervent sup- plication that God would bless the consecrated elements to us, and us in the reception of them, that we may ob- tain all the benefits of his passion. What more proper than that, when we are receiving one of God's greatest blessings, we should offer up our most solemn sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, and renew the consecration of ourselves to his service ? After the singing of a hymn, a regulation not found in the English Church, the Priest receives the Communion in both kinds himself, and proceeds to deliver to the Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, (if any be present,) and then to the people. The elements are received by all THE lord's supper. 145 devoutly kneeling. '- In the first service of Edward, only the first clauses of the sentences " the body," &c., " and the blood," &c., were repeated at the institution of the elements. At the first interview under Edward, that part was altogether omitted, and the portion which forms the second clause in each of the sentences was introduced. At the review under Elizabeth, both clauses were united as they are at present. The omission of the expressions, "the body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul to everlasting life," and ''the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee," &c., probably arose from the anxiety, which we trace in all their changes, to omit any thing which might appear to favor the doctrine of the real presence. The introduc- tion of the other clauses, in which the single idea of a memorial is found, shows what view of the Sacrament was held by the Reformers. The re-union of the two by Elizabeth was made for the double purpose — one of which marked all her reign — of conciliating the Papists, and of guarding against low and radical views of the Sacrament, which were, or were supposed to be, held by some Protestants on the continent. After all have communicated, then the Minister with the people repeats the Lord's Prayer; then he offers a thanksgiving for the blessings connected with the Lord's ** A sufficient defence of this custom, if it need any, is found in these words of good Bishop Wilson: "No posture can be too humble when we receive a pardon — and a pardon which must deliver us from death eternal. " Bishop Brownell's Prayer-Book, p- 388. 7 146 tHE lord's SUPPEtt. Supper. Then follows, by all standing, the Gloria in Excelsis, and the Benediction. The Collects at the close of the service are such as may be said after the Collects at Morning and Evening prayer, or at the Communion, at the discretion of the Minister. Such is a brief description of the Communion Office of our church; a service which, for holy beauty, devo- tional fervor, and Scriptural purity of doctrine, has, probably, no equal in ancient or modern days. The dignity of the Sacramertt, and the importance of right views upon it, will render no excuse necessary for making it the subject of somewhat protracted consider- ation. The nature and office of this Sacrament being con- tained in a few passages of the Bible, it would seem not difficult to ascertain. Let us, for a moment, forget that there has ever been any controversy on the subject, and turn to the holy record to ascertain what it teaches in regard to this Sacrament. There are three separate accounts given of its institu- tion by St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, besides the olie given by St. Paul. The following is the account of its institution as given by St. Matthew :'^ "Now, when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve," &c. (v. 20.) "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, and said. Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to thein, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the «3 Matthew xxvi, 20, 26, 30. THE lord's supper. 147 New Testament which is shed for many for the remis- sion of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink hence- forth of the fruit of the vine, until that day when f drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." Now, let us observe what is included in this account. 1. Bread and wine constitute the matter of the Sacra- ment; the one broken and given to the disciples to be eaten; the other presented to them to be drunken. 2. The blessing at the taking of bread, and the giving of thanks at the taking of the cup. 3. The declaration, by the Saviour, that bread was his body and the cup his blood of the New Testament, which was shed for many for the remission of sins. 4. The cup is the blood of the New Testament or Covenant; that is, the seal of the New Covenant for the remission of sins through the blood of the Redeemer; a seal which God affixes to his covenant, and to which we anew subscribe our faithful adherence as oft as we drink it. 5. A declaration, (which forms no part of the institu- tion,) that he would not drink of the fruit of the vine, &.c. In explanation of the second point, it is to be observed, that whereas, in the English version, the reading is, "he took bread and blessed ?7," in the original the word it is not. expressed, and, by the learned Greisbach, the word Gorf is supplied. The meaning of the expression, then, would be, that he blessed God. When the Sa- viour declared the bread to be his body and the cup his blood, were his words to be literally taken? Is the whole account literal? Clearly not. He calls the wine the cup Here is one figure. Again, he calls the cup 148 THE lord's supper, which stands for the wine, the fndt of the vine, after he had declared it to be his blood of the New Testament. Here is a second figure. If the cup or wine was not literally his blood, after he had called it so, we conclude that the bread was not literally his body, after he had called it so. If not literally and really so, then the}'- must have been so symbolically; if not his body and blood, then they represented them. With this — its own explanation of its own meaning — the passage conveys these points, included in the institution of the Sacra- ment by Christ, as there recorded: 1. Bread and wine, the elements or matter of the Sacrament; the one to be broken and given to the dis- ciples, to be eaten; the other to be presented to them, that they might drink it. 2. Blessing and thanksgiving to (iod before present- ing the bread and wine. 3. The bread and wine, the symbols which repre- sented the body and blood of Christ. 4. The cup, the seal of the New Covenant for the remission of sins through the blood of the Redeemer; a seal which God affixes to his covenant, and to which we anew subscribe our faithful adherence as oft as we drink it. The following is the account of the same scene, given by St. Mark : "And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said. Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them; and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the i THE lord's supper. . 149 New Testament which i.s .shed lor many. Verily 1 say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God."-^ The same points are included in this narrative as in that of St. Matthew. The more brief account of St. Luke is as follows: "And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, "This is my body which was given for you; this do in remembrance of me. Like- wise, also, the cup, after supper, saying. This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you."'" Here there is nothing contraveryng those points al- ready developed; w hile two of them are not brought out with the same fulness as they are in the records of St. Matthew and St. Mark. For instance, while it is recorded that he gave thanks, the mention of blessing is omitted; while, as above, he calls the bread his body, he calls the cup "the New Testament or Covenant in his blood;" language so manifestly figurative as to fix upon the words a symbolical meaning, as evidently as the expressions in the other Evangelists, which desig- nate the blood, so called, as "the fruit of the vine." But a new point is brought out in this brief record of St. Luke, in the words, "do this in remembrance of me." Here the Saviour declares that the object of these rep- resentations of his body and blood is, that they may serve for a memorial of him. S'' Mark xiv, 22, 25. 2*Lukexxii, 19,20. 150 THE lord's supper. We now turn to the record of St. Paul, contained in the first Epistle to the Corinthiaris : "For I have re- ceived of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he brake it, saying. Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner, also, he took the cup when he had supped, saying. This cup is the New Testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew the Lord's death till he corne. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord un- worthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. '^'^ This passage contains essentially all the points hitherto developed. We have, 1, the bread and wine; 2, the blessing at the taking of the bread, and also of the wine, for "he took the cup after the same manner;" 3, the bread called the body, and the cup the blood, because they represented them, as is manifest from the fact, that they were called bread and the cup by the Safiour, after they were spoken of by hijn as his body and blood. In this account, also, we have the idea fully developed which may be involved, but is not expressed, in the Evangelists St. Matthew and St. Mark, and is more 26 1Cor.xi, 23-30. THE lord's supper. 151 briefly indicated in connexion with the bread in St. Luke. The bread and wine which represent the body broken and the blood shed, are to be memorials of the Saviour's death. When Christ presents the bread and the wine to his disciples, he says, "This do," and "This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as oft as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come." The bread and wine are to be memorials of the Saviour's death. Besides these points, there are others also brought out in this passage of St. Paul. 1. The Lord's Supper is to be a perpetual institution; the Lord's death being showed in it till he come. 2. The unworthy partaker is declared to be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, and to eat to his condemnation or judgment, because he does not discern the Lord's body; that is, because he discovers nothing more in, and is no more benefitted by,, this Supper, than by a common meal. 3. The duty of examining himself before eating that bread and drinking that cup, so that in them (bread and cup still) he might discern the Lord'> body. 4. Thi^ commemorative ser- vice will be a perpetual showing forth to the world in a manner, striking and significant, the death of the Lord until he come again. In the language of Dr. Stone, " It carries with it the evidence of a moral monument to the truth and divine origin of T-hristianity, and to the identity of the Church throughout all ages." Another passage in St. Paul's Epistle to the Corin- thians refers to the same blessed institution. " The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the comrauniou of iZ THE LORD 8 SUPPER. e bloud ol Christ ? The bread which we break, is it )t the communion of the body ol" Christ ? For we being any are one bread and one body; for we are all par- kers of that one bread."*' The word here translated mmunion, is everywhere else in the New Testament ndered by the word ftllrmiship, ox participation^ ^ and metimes by the terms distribution '"' or cui}tribution. " \\e idea thus expressed by it is that of fellowship or irticipation, and that usually in the sense of receiving 'nefits. Taken in connection with the verse that fol- \vs, the translation of Macknight, who renders it the iut partiripiition, is, perhaps, the most accurate that luld be given to the word. The meaning of the pas- ge, then, is, that in the reception of this bread and ine, which are the memorials of the Saviour's death, p jointly partake or have fellowship in the body and ood of Christ; that is, we are partakers of (he benefits his death. " The passage also involves the idea, " 1 Cor. X, 16, 17. »' 1 Cor. i, 9; 2 Cor. vi. 14; Acts ii, 42. » 2 Cor. ix, 13. *' Romans xv, 26. " Thai this is tlie srnsc of ihc passngr may Ik" niar pariiri- tion of the benefits of Christ's death, then it exprrmes the idea it we receive and partake of his real body and blood, — hm man flesh. This cannot be, for thai which is called the com- inion or fellowship of his boassing over from the visible symbols to the crucified Saviour, lays hold of that sac- rifice as the soul's redemption, righteousness, and sanc- tification — this reception oi the consecrated symbols quickens and sanctifies the soul. The commemoration thus becomes a means of grace. Faith's remembrance ol' the union of Christians with each other, and of all with Christ; of the fact, that we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread;"" faith's remembrance of this blessed truth ^* 1 Corinthians x, 17. 156 THE jlord's supper. awakens love to Christ and to each other in the heart of the worthy recipients. In this way it is a means of grace. And, again, that it is a means of grace, is im- plied in the direction to examine ourselves before we eat and drink; and in the assertion, that the unworthy eat and drink judgment, not discerning the Lord's body. By these expressions, it is implied that they who worthily partake of the Lord's Supper, do it not to their condemnation, but to their approval and acquittal in the sight of God; and that it becomes us to examine our- selves, that we may be prepared to partake worthily of the holy feast, with an eye which discerns the broken body of our Lord given for our salvation, and a heart that appropriates him as all our salvation and all our desire. It is believed that there is no important element in the Scriptural description of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper omitted in the above enumeration. That each of the points enumerated are found in their right place and proportion in our admirable service, is what we shall, in another chapter, endeavor to demonstrate. At present, it will suffice, in the conclusion of this chapter, to ascertain what is the chief design of this holy service. "Christ crucified" is the great central doctrine of the Gospel. It is the key-stone of the arch which supports the weight of a lost Avorld's redemption. Other Scrip- ture truths, disconnected from it, neither support any thing, nor are supported. St. Paul determined to know nothing; else among those to wlion) he was sent. The prophesies of the Old Testament point to it. The types of the Old Testament shadow it. In short, it is the THE lord's supper. 157 substance of God's revelation lo lost man. It is that on which the sinner must depend for iorgiveness, for redemption, for tlie renewal of his nature, for his title for admission into Heaven. Without figure and without abatement, "Christ is all in all" to ( ondemned and polluted man. The design of all revelation, from its beginning to its close, is to hold up Chiist slain as the world's ransom. Now-, it is before thi> dread, myste- rious, potent, life-imparting, throned truth — Christ CRUCIFIED — that the soul of man must be brought and detained, that it may render to it homage, receive from it law, accept from it forgiveness, obtain the renewing spirit, be drawn by the power of the sweetly constrain- ing love beaming from it, till all its powers are surren- dered to Christ, and filled with Christ. Of this great truth, Christ has left a great, significant, and blessed MEMORIAL. As we assign the first place among Scrip- ture truths to the revelation of Christ ci ueified for us, so should we assign the first place among all the ordi- nances appointed by Christ and his disciples, or insti- tuted by the Church to that commemorative service in which the Saviour is again evidently set forth crucified among us. In instituting the Sacrament of his death, ('hrist had respect to the same design which he had in view in submitting to the crucifixion. It was by his death, believed in and accepted by the sinner as his soul's atonement, that man was to be saved. But this truth he knew would be foolishness to the wise, and a stumbling-block to the carnal. He knew that sinful men would hate it, and that Satan would veil it from the view of a perishing world, whose only hope it was. He 158 THE lord's supper. therefore made provision that this great saving truth should be preserved, and evidently seen of all men to be THE TRUTH, by the reception of which alone men could live again. He instituted but one oft-to-be-re- peated Sacrament in his Church. He established no memorial of his mysterious Incarnation, his shining Transfiguration, his mighty Resurrection, or his glorious Ascension By the Sacrament of his death provision was made that this great saving truth should be per- petually showed forth till his coming again. He was lifted upon the cross, that he might offer a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. He was symbolically lifted upon the cross, in the memorial of his death, in the breaking of bread and the pouring forth of wine, that men might be directed to his atoning merits, and that those who com- memorated his sacrifice might vividly realize it through that commemoration, as its expressive sign; and might, with humble confidence, appropriate its blessings, by tlie reception of the Sacrament as a heaven-stamped and assuring seal. He who loves the Saviour, and trusts only in his merits, will love and honor the memo- rial of his dying love. " When, therefore, you have the elements, the bread and wine, delivered into your hands, do but seriously think with yourselves, ' Now God is delivering a broken, a bleeding Saviour unto me. If I will by faith receive him, he testifies and seals by his bread and wine that I shall certainly receive remission of my sins and ever- lasting life through him.' Let us, therefore, say, 'Lord Jesus, I now accept of thee upon thine own terms, on THE lord's supper. 159 the very conditions on which thou art pleased to tender thyself unto me. I take a broken Christ for my entire Saviour; a Christ crowned with thorns as my alone King. He shall be my Prophet, whom the blasphemous Jews buffeted and derided with a * Prophesy who smote thee !' As I reach forth my bodily hand to receive the bread and the wine, so I reach forth the spiritual hand of my faith, to receive that Christ whose body was thus broken, and whose blood was thus poured forth' Now, to those only who thus by faith receive Christ Jesus, who thus eat his flesh and drink his blood, the Sacra- ment doth seal and confirm that they shall have eternal life by him, and shall be raised up at the last day to that glory with which he is invested." *^ '* Bishop Hopkins on the Two Sacraments. VIII. «JI)c Cork's !5u|3|3cr. CONTINUKD. In our last chapter upon the Lord's Supper, we evolved from Uie accornt of its institution given by the Evangelists, and from other references to it found in the Word of God, u'hat we supposed to be the prominent characteristic of that blessed Sacrament. The convic- tion was confidently expressed, that every truth which Scripture contains in reference to this holy institution, will be found transferred to that sublime service in which the Church commemorates the Redeemer's dying love. It is a characteristic ol that divine wisdom which is manifold, that it connects with those works and institu- tions which have one great primary object, other and subordinate ends and uses. The Sabbath sacredly set apart, in commemoration of God's rest from the work of the world's creation, for worship, and for cessation from all works other than those of necessity and charity, was also designed to commemorate the release of the Is- raelites from Egypt, ' and as a sign of the separation of ' Deut. V, 15. THE lord's supper. 161 the Jews from all other nations, to make them remember that it is the Lord who sanctified them. ■ It will be entirely in analogy with God's providential dispensa- tions, and with his other positive institutions, if we find in the Lord's Supper one primary intent connected with other subordinate and kindred aims. What, then, is the nature of the Lord's Supper ? What is its chief character, its main design ? What is that primary and prominent characteristic which should give it its name ? Several of the points which we have gathered from the Scripture account of this institution, have reference to the manner in which it was established and to be celebrated; and some of them to the ends and blessings connected with its chief design. If in the brief Scrip- ture records on this subject we turn to those only expres- sions which bear on the subject of its nature and design, their meaning seems clear and unequivocal. When our Saviour, instituting the Sacrament, said, " Take, eat, this is my body," and '< Drink ye all of this," cup, " for tliis is my blood of the New Testament," we have seen, that inasmuch as he regarded the wine as wine after he had called it his blood, his meaning was that the bread and wine were the signs or representatives of his bodv and blood. ^ In the gospel of St. Luke, we find the Saviour, in enjoining it, expressing the purpose for which it was enjoined: "This do in remembrance of me." When the risen Saviour communicated to St. 2 Ezek. XX, 12, 20; Ex. xxxi, 13. ^This point is very fully and convincingly proved by Dr. Stone. Mysteries Opened, p. 285. 162 THE lord's supper. Paul the account of its institution, the instituting words which describe the nature and object of the Sacrament are prominent and repeated : " This do in remembrance of me;" " This do ye, as oft as y^ drink it, in remem- brance of me." And again; "As oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come." Now, as the Saviour does enjoin it upon his disciples to partake of this Sacrament in remem- brance of him, and does not specify any other object of its institution, there can be no possible error in the inference, that the primary object of its institution was, that it should be a perpetual memorial of his death upon the cross, as an atonement for the world's sin. That word describes its primary object; that is the name which designates its generic character. To this divine- ly instituted and obligatory memorial of his death, Christ has assigned several offices, and attached various bless- ings. It is a seal of the New Covenant wherein for- giveness of sins is pledged; it is a sign of the spiritual union of believers; it is a perpetual witness to the world of the sacrifice of the cross; it i.s a means of grace whereby the faithful recipient obtains quickened faith, deep^ love, and new graces of the spirit. Such as we have found this Sacrament in the Word of God, we shall find it also in the Book of Common Prayer. Its primary design, its various usts, its atten- dant blessings, and the mode of its institution, will all be found in their proper place and proportion in our admi- rable service. I. Immediately on entering upon that portion of " The THE lord's suppfr. 163 Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper," which has direct reference to the Sacrament, we are met by expressions which indicate that its primary na- ture and design is that of a memorial. Does the Minis- ter give warning that he will admini.'>ler the Sacrament to those who are " religiously and devoutly disposed ?" It is " to be by them received in remembrance of his meritorious cross and passion, whereby, (that is, by the cross and passion,) alone we obtain remission of our sins, and are made partakers of the kingdom of heaven. " Does he earnestly expostulate with those who, being 'Movingly called and bidden by God himself," refuse to come to the holy feast ? The ground of the solemn duty is, then, expressed in these explicit words. "And as the Son of God did vouchsafe to yield up his soul, by death, upon the cross for your salvation, so it is your duty to receive the Communion in remembrance of the sacrifice of his death, as he himself hath command- ed." Is the table of the Lord spread, and does the Priest exhort the people to come in a right spirit to the blessed commemoration ? His pointed injunction is that, ^^ above all thiiigs, they are to give humble and hearty thanks for the redemption of the world by the death and passion of their Saviour Christ, both God and man;" and this is followed by his explicit assertion, that the object of the institution was, that they might ever remember that precious death. And to the end that we should always remember the exceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour, thus dying for us, and the innumerable benefits which, by his precious blood-shedding, he hath obtained for us, he hath insti- 164 THE LORDS SUPPER. tuted and ordained holy mysteries as pledges of his love, and for a continual remembrance of his death, to our great and endless comfort. Does the officiating Minister, standing before the table, pronounce the con- secrating words ? They are the words which the Sa- viour revealed to St. Paul, in which he bids the disci- ples eat and drink in remembrance of him. Does he, after the consecration, in the name of himself and the people, declare his compliance with the Saviour's dying words, and offer the privileged service for God's forgiving acceptance ? His language is, " We, thy humble ser- vants, do celebrate and make here before thy divine majesty, with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded us to make, having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death." Does he invoke God's Holy Word and Spirit to bless and sanctify the bread and wine } It is " to the end that we, receiving them according to our Saviour Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood." Are the consecrated ele- ments delivered to the kneeling and solemnized com- municants ? The same object which has been seen to pervade all the preceding service is here briefly and finally enjoined. " Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving." " Drink this in remem- brance that Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful." The primary nature, the end, the design of the Lord's Supper, is thus found to be, in this service, as in the THE lord's supper. 165 Scriptures, that it may be a memorial of the Saviour's sacrifice lor sin. This Sacrament, whose name and cliaracter is memorial, has many blessings connected with it, all of which are recognised and set forth in our service as they are in the Word of God. Every part of that service will be found to have significance and propriety in connection with some one or other of the ends and uses assigned to it in the Scriptures. And here it may be proper to notice the principle upon which our Church has constructed those services in which ordinances of divine institution and obligation are celebrated. While siie has retained in them all things necessarily and inseparably connected with their original institution, she has not felt bound to abstain from the exercise of her "authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church, ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to eili tying,'" by such additions to the original mode of their institution, as carry out more fully, or harmonize with, their original design. On this ground, she intro- duces the sign of the cross at the service of infant Baptism. This principle of the Church was violently attacked by the Puritans, and defended by Hooker, with his usual calm, comprehensive, and conclusive reason- ing. While Cartwright insisted, that "it was best to come as near to the manner of celebration of the Supper which our Lord Christ used, as may be," Hooker con- tended, that "to do throughout every the like circum- stance which Christ did in this action, were by follow- * Article XXXIV. 166 THE lord's SUPt»Efti ing his footsteps in that sort to err more from the purpose he aimed at, than we now do by not following them with so nice and severe strictness,"'' The intro- duction ol" the commandments, the offering of alms and oblations, and other portions of the service, while they form no part of the original institution of the Lord's Supper, will be seen to harmonize with the design of its establishment. II. We have seen that one of the important designs of the Lord's Supjjer is, that it should be "a seal of the New Covenant for the remission of sins, made through the blood of the Redeemer; a seal which God affixes to his covenant, and to which we anew subscribe our faith- ful adherence-as often as we commemorate the Saviour's death in this memorial." This office of the Lord's Sup- per gives us a high idea of its importance, and of the solemnity with which it should be approached. We come to renew our solemn covenant with God. We come to see the Saviour graciously re -impress the seal of his foi'giveness of all o\u' sins, and the conveyance of all other benefits of his passion, on the condition of renewed repentance and faith; and to sign anew our promise of a faithful fulfilment of the terms prescribed. Well may the Apostle give the admonition, "Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup!" Well may the Church warn Us of the "peril of the unworthy receiving thereof !" Well may she with affectionate fervency admonish us that. ^Hooker's Eccl. Pol., vol, i, p. 418. THE lord's supper. 167 "as the benefit is great if, with a true penitent heart and lively faith, we receive that holy Sacrament, so is the danger great if we receive the same unworthily." In this renewal of our covenant with God, it is mani- fest that we must make a new and solemn profession of compliance with its conditions. Those conditions are repentance and faith, and the renewed consecration to God of our lives and substance, presented to him as an offering, which we beseech him to accept, "not weigh- ing our merits, but pardoning our offences." A large portion of the service is occupied with incitements and exhortations to the faithful performance of these condi- tions, with the prayer that we may, or with the profes- sion that we do, comply with them, and with an outward act — the offering of ahiis — significant of the same. Viewed in this light, how appropriate it is that the Ten Commandments should stand at the entrance of the service, at once to present to us our rule of life, and to convict us, by the remembrance of their repeated viola- tion, of the sin which makes it necessary that we should lay hold upon the New Testament in Christ's blood ! How cheering, under the felt condemnation of the law, to listen to the teachings and messages of the Epistles and the Gospel, and to see those living epistles, the lives of apostles, saints, and martyrs. It is in perfect har- mony with the same design that the sermon, which it may be supposed will refer to the manner and spirit in which we should come to the holy table, should succeed. How appropriate, also, in view of the same end, that we should have presented to us the simple but sure test of our glad consecration to God and love to man, which is 168 THE lord's supper. furnished by the Offertory; in which we are enabled, by an immediate act, to give a pledge of the sincerity of our professed subjection, and a significant symbol of the entireness of our consecration. It is an expression of the same spirit of surrender to him and love to his people, which, in the prayer for the Church militant, presents the offered alms and the oblations of the bread and wine for the Sacrament to God for his acceptance, and utters a fervent prayer for the universal Church. The Exhortations, which are to be addressed to the communicants on some occasion previous to the celebra- tion of the Lord's Supper, contemplate the same object, and admonish those who expect to come, that they recall their sins, that they make full purpose of amend- ment, that they make restitution for all injuries and wrongs done by them, and that they forsake all sin. At the time of the celebration, with the same great end prominently in view, they are bidden to examine them- selves with searching faithfulness, whether they have "a true penitent heart and hvely faith," that they may worthily, and to their great benefit, receive the holy Sacrament. And when the invitation to draw near is pronounced, it is extended to those only who "do truly and earnestly repent of their sins, and are in love and charity with their neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking henceforth in his holy ways. Then in the confession follows the act of penitence; and in the absolution the authorized declaration that if their repentance be sin- cere, and their faith real, their sins are pardoned, and they may worthily receive and subscribe to the heavenly THE lord's supper. 169 e;eal of forgiveness. Comforting sentences of Scripture confirm that autlionzed declaration of remitted sins, that the hearts of God's covenanting children may not doubt or waver in their faith. Then their, hearts are lifted into the serene realization of their privileges as God's children, and pardoned sinners join with sinless angels in the anthem of heaven to their common God and Father. ' After, bv the j)rayer of Consecration, the elements of bread and wine are set apart in ''memory," or as a memorial "of the full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world," there follows on the part of the Priest, in behalf of all the people, a solemn oblation of those holy gifts, as the memorial commanded by the Saviour. We have professed to exercise repentance and faith. We have presented our alms," oblations, thanksgivings, and "In addiiion to the alms to be offered at the Communion, provi- sion was made by the first Injunction of Edward in 1547, for a larger supply of the wants of the poor, tlirough the offerings of the people to the poor chest, which was permanently fixed within the church. Here is the regulation upon the subject. "They (i. e. Deans, Prebendaries, &c. , &c.) shall provide and have, three months after this visitation, a strong chest with a hole in the upper part thereof, to be provided at the charge and cost of the parish, having three keys, whereof one slTall remain in the custody of the parson, vicar, or curate, and the other two in the custody of the church war- dens, or any other two honest men, to be appointed by the parish from year to year ; which chest you shall set and fasten near unto the high Altar, to the intent that the parishioners should put into it their oblations and aims for their poor neighbors.'.*— />ywnc/iloitpd bis ruin, he had on his finger the ring which King Henry liad given him, and at the sight of it they ceased all aciion and snbrnissur'y resorted to the king, and then fawned on him they would have ruined. — Le Bas's Cranmer, vol. i, p. '213. '"ICor. X, 17. THE lord's supper. 183 of the grace of life, as all joint heirs with Christ of the heavenly kingdom. There we realize, that notwithstand- ing their human imperfections, they bear the image of our dear Redeemer. There we learn the lesson of for- giving and forbearing love. There we are reminded of the promised feast with Chri.st himself in heaven. There we are made to see that God's children are a peculiar people, strangers and pilgrims in the world, and there- fore needing each other's sympathy and love. There, being in charity with all the world, we have a taste of that enjoyment of which David spake, "Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" 4. And, after this, need we say that this Sacrament is a means of grace, and should be as such greatly valued? In all the particulars above enumerated, it is found to promote our spiritual welfare. But it is most of all as a commvnion with Christ himself, in which we enjoy such a sense of his presence and such a partici- pation of the blessings of his redemption as is expressed by eating his flesh and drinking his blood; it is in this respect most eminently a means of grace. The Sacra- ment of the Lord's Sujiper has every ordinary condition to which the promise of the Spirit's sanctifying power is attached, besides those which are peculiarly its own. Cliri.-^t, for instance, promises to meet, and be with his people, who are gathered together in his name. They are so gathered at that heavenly feast. He promises grace in answer to his people's prayers. There they ascend under circumstances calculated to make them earnest and desiring. His richest gifts are reserved for 184 THE lord's supper. the strongest exercise of faith. There faith is aided in its exercise by visible signs and seals of invisible gifts and graces. Blessing is connected with the discharge of every duty, and the reception and thankful acknow- ledgment of every privilege. There the grateful child of God complies with the Saviour's dying injunction, and gladly opens his heart for the reception of the pro- mised benefits from that kind Father whose commands aie also always gifts. Coming to the commemoration of. the Saviour's death, in which all these blessings meet and unite upon his heart, how can he, if he come in penitence and faith — how can he do otherwise than enjoy communion with his Saviour Christ? How can he fail to dwell in him, and have him dwell in his own opened heart, prepared with welcomes for his coming? He hears the injunction of Christ, that in this memorial he should show forth his death until he come. He realizes that in it he is continuing to hold up Christ crucified to the world He perceives that is a glorious office of the (JIuuch with which he is united, from age to age, to present to the world, in symbol, a continued and repeated crucifixion of that Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. He feels that he lays hold of that chain of repeated commemorations which, reach- ing from the upper chamber where the Passover becomes the Supper of the Lord, extends to him, and on beyond him, through the successive generations of believers, till it is united to Christ as he comes again to take his faithful ones to higher feasts and more immediate inter- course! "All one in Christ Jesus!" is the exclamation of his kindled spirit, as he realizes the blessedness of THE lord's supper. 185 the fellowship. Along that chain, which unites Calvary to the mediatorial throne, there come vibrating through his spirit, now the influences of redeeming mercy from the cross, and now renewing and sanctifying graces from the throne. Cold is the heart and dead the faith which finds little or no blessing in the memorial of tHte dying Saviour! IX. ^\)c Cork's Slipper. CONTINUED. The comparison of our Communion Service with the testimony of Scripture on the subject of the Lord's Sup- per, has shown how completely our Church has, in that service, adopted the language, and carried out the inten- tion of the blessed Saviour in its institution. It would have been an advantage to this view of the subject, previously to have shown the fact, that the Reformers who composed that service held the views of this divine institution which we have drawn from the Word of God; and then to have come to the Communion Service with this knowledge of the mind of its framers. But as we traced the correspondence of the service with the Word of God, we found it so obvious and complete, as to make such a course unnecessary. But for the fact that great and prevalent error, on the subject of the Lord's Supper, shelters itself under our Communion Service, we might leave the opinions of the Reformers and the history of the service altogether untouched. In attempting to designate erroneous views upon the subject of the Eucharist, we feel the necessity of dis- THE lord's supper. 187 criminating between language which may be injudicious at the present time, and liable to lead to error, but which is susceptible of a sound meaning, and has the sanction of direct or analogous Church usage, and doctrines dis- tinctly avowed, for the explanation and enforcement of which such language is confessedly applied. It would be unfair to charge error upon those who, without avowing their adherence to an erroneous system, use a phraseology which, while it is susceptible of an unsound, is also susceptible of a wholesome interpretation. We may lament such a course as injudicious. We cannot blame it as heretical. Endeavoring to bear this principle in mind, our aim will be to show what views, advocated by some mem- bers of our Church, are, in our opinion, inconsistent with the word of God and with our standards, and of dangerous consequence to the purity of the Gospel scheme of salvation, and to the spiritual interests of those by whom they are embraced. It will be remembered that our service speaks with the utmost unreserve of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man; of our dwelling in him and of his dweUing in us. To speak, then, of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and of our eating and drinking his flesh and blood, is to adopt language sanctioned — by analogy, at least — by the Church. If, along with the language of the Church, her explanation of the meaning of that language be adopted and ex- pressed, no one can be censured for its use. Our cele- bration of the service, our presentation of alms and oblations, and of "the holy gifts" of bread and wine, 188 THE lord's supper. and ol' prayers and thanksgiving, and of ourselves — our souls and bodies — is called a ^'sncrifice,^^ and "sacrifices'^ unto God. If this language of the Church be adopted and applied to the same objects, and used in the same sense in which it is used in the Communion Service, no one can properly object to this authorized usage that it is in itself improper, however its habitual and unex- plained use may be, at the present time, ill-judged. The same may be said of the word Priest. Even the word Altar, though banished from this service, because of its liability to bring along with it the error with which it had been long associated, yet, because found in other services, may be rightfully — we say not wisely — used, if along with its use there is ever implied or expressed the meaning intended by the Church. With these preliminary observations, we proceed to designate those views which we regard as erroneous. The "real presence," as explained b}'^ the writers to whom we refer, is not the presence of Christ, by his Spirit, to the heart of the believer, nor the presence of his once broken but now glorified body to the faith which "lifts up the heart" to heaven, and sees him there, and lays hold of him — crucified, risen, glorified — Prophet, Priest, and King — and appropriates him as right- eousness, sanctification, and redemption, and receives from him the pardon of sin and the graces of the Spirit; thus spiritually eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man. "The real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the elements, as distinguished from wlint would be understood by the presence of Christ at the Sacrament, is unequivocally atfirmed, even THE r.ORD's SUPPER. \^9 the ptef,encp of that vpiy fle.sh and hlood whirh were given and shed for the life of the world !" ' It is said to be "literally true," that "the consecrated bread is Christ's body."- "The real and essential presence of Christ's natural body and blood at the Communion," is athrmed.' The exj)lanatic)iis which are made of these expressions disappoint the charitable hope that they may have been used with a >ound meaning. A figura- tive or symbolical presenrp is contemptttously disowned. A presence of the body to t'aith is discarded, for it is declared "to be there iiidi pendently of oui' faith," ■■ and to be to the sinner "his Redeemer's very broken body, and his blood which was shed for the remission of sins." Tlie saciifice of the Eucharist is not a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise, and the offering of ourselves as sacrifices to God in a new and holy life. It is de- scribed as the offering up of the consecrated bread and wine, made the body and blood of Christ, as a sacrifice commemorative of that offered by the Saviour upon the cross; and that by it, offered by the Priest, the remis- sion of the sins of the whole Church is obtained, and that the souls of the departed righteous are refreshed by this sacrifice. '^ The words "Priest" and "Altar," are used in correspondence with this word sacrifice, to signify, the one, the place on which the sacrifice is ' Mysteries Opened, p. 256. " Tract No. XC. 3 Tract No. LXXXVI. * Dr. Pusey's Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, p. 86. * Dr. Pusey's Sermon on the Eucharist. *Sec Goode's Divine Rule of Faith and Practice, vol. ii, p. 112, et seq. 190 THE lord's supper. offered, and the other, the sacrificer or the offerer up of the sacrifice which is to be presented. ' Our object, it will be remembered, is not so much to show the disagreement of these views with the Word of God, as to prove that they are not to be found in our Communion Service. We are confident of making it appear, not only that our Church rejects these gross and sensual views of the Eucharist, but that throughout this service she contemplates and admits no other real presence than that of Christ, by his Spirit, in the hearts of the communicants, or that of his now glorified body to the view of faith, which ascends to meet him and embrace him ; no other sacrifice than that of our prayers, praises, services, and renewed vows of consecration; no othei- Altar than a Table figuratively called Altar; and no other Priest than a Presbyter, sometimes called Priest, in the generic sense of a minister of God, but never in a specific sense as the offerer of a sacrifice (sacerdos) for sin. In referring to the history of the Communion Service, in proof of these positions, we shall show how carefully any sanction of such views was avoided by the framers of that service. I. By the use which they made of the ancient Liturgies. II. By the care which they mani- fested, on a revision of the Liturgy, to expel from it whatever seemed to sanction such views. III. By refer- ence to the recorded opinions of those by whom the ' These views, and the multiplied proofs that they are correctly represented, may be seen more at length in Goode's Divine Rule of Faith and Practice, Dr. Stone's Mysteries Opened, and Bishop Hopkin's "Third Letter." THE lord's supper. 191 service was framed, and of some others near to them in time, whose testimony on the subject is regarded as authoritative; and IV. By an account of the views of our own Church in the adoption of the Communion Service as it now stands in our Book of Common Prayer. I. That our Communion Service was framed, in part, upon the model of the ancient Liturgies, and, in some parts, closely resembles them, has been already inti- mated. A comparison, however, of the revised Liturgy of Edward with those ancient Liturgies, will show that, in many j)articulars, the framers of that service deviated from their example. They refused to adopt expressions found in those offices, which appear to sanction the views which we have described, lest they might seem to countenance errors against which their lives and deaths were earnest protests and testimonies. Let us collect some of the expressions of those Liturgies which were not adopted, or if at first adopted, were, on more mature consideration of their tendencies, promptly ex- cluded. In the Clementine Liturgy, regarded as one of the most pure and ancient, we find these petitions: "And send down thy Holy Spirit, the witness of the suffer- ings of the Lord Jesus, on this sacrifice, that he may make this bread the body of thy Christ, and this cup the blood of thy Christ.'' The rubric directs that the Bishop shall give the oblation, saying, "The body of Christ; the blood of Christ; the cup of life." The Liturgy of St. James has this expression: "We sinners offer to thee, O Lord, this tremendous and unbloody sacrifice, be- seeching thee," &c.; also this petition: "Have meicy 192 THE lord's supper. upon us, O God, according to thy great mercy, and send down upon these thy gifts which are here set be- fore thee, thy most Holy Spint.''^ In the same Liturgy is found the following prayer for the dead: "Father, we offer to thee for all the saints who have pleased thee fiom the beginning of the world, the Patriarchs, Pro- phets, righteous Men, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Bishops, Priests and Deacons, Sub-Deacons," &c., &c. In the Clementine Liturgy a rubric directs that after the Bishops, Priests, Deacons, &c., have communicated, then "afterwards the children, and then all the people in order." In St. James's Liturgy we find this lan- guage: "Then he takes the cup and says, 'Likewise after Supper he took the cup and mixed it with wine and water, and presenting it to his God and Father, he gave thanks, and sanctified and blessed it, and filled it with the Holy Ghost.^^^ In the Liturgy of St. Mark there is a prayer for the dead; the elements are signed with the sign of the cross; the wine and water are said to be mixed; of the cup it is said that Christ "blessed it and filled it with the Holy Ghost. '^ The Liturgy of St. Chrysostom contains a prayer that God would change the bread and wine by his Holy Spirit; a commemoration of the Virgin Mary, which changes to an invocation to her in these words: "We magnify thee, mother of God," and the burning of frankincense before the Altar, with many other ceremonies unknown to us. "After the Priest has received, he decently and revei'ently wipes the holy cup and his own lips with the veil, saying, 'This has touched my lips and shall take away mine iniquities, and purge me from my sins, now and ever- THE lord's supper. 193 more.'" "The Deacon draws near, and bending down once, says^ 'Behold, 1 draw near to thee, itnmortal King."' The Priest says, "Thou, O Deacon, the ser- vant of God, receivest the precious and holy body and blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, for the re- mission of sins and eternal life!'^'* The Liturgy of St. Basil, and the Ethiopian Liturgy, contain many similar expressions to those above extracted. This very brief view of the ancient liturgies will suffice to show in how many and important particulars our Church has, in her Communion Service, deviated from their example. Whether all these expressions of the ancient services are capable of a sense which har- monizes with the Scripture doctrine, is not the point before us. Our object is, to show how carefully they have been avoided by the framers of our service, and that this fact proves conclusively, that they rejected the views which these expressions may be supposed to sanction.^ '=' Brett's Ancient Liturgies. " In Bishop Jewel's famous challenge to the Romanisls, to find "a sentence out of any old Catholic doctor or father, or General Council, or Holy Scripture," in favor of any one of twenty-seven specified articles, we find the following: "That the Priest had this authority to offer up Christ to the Father; or that any Christian man called the Sacrament his Lord and his God; or that the people were then taught to believe that tlie body of Christ remaineth in the Sacrament as long as the accidents remain there without corruption; or that the sacrament is a sign or token of the body of Christ that lieth underneath it; or that whosoever said the Sacrament was a figure, a pledge, a token, a remembrancer of Christ's body, had, 9 194 THE lord's supper. In these extracts from the ancient liturgies, we find the prayer that God would change and make the ele- ments to be the body and blood of Christ. The bread and wine are given as the body and blood of the Saviour, without any expression which intimates that they are so only as a Sacrament or memorial. These expressions are regarded by Romanists and the Oxford Tract writers as favoring their views of the real presence. The ele- ments are presented as a tremendous and unbloody sacrifice, and the touching of the lips to the wine is de- scribed as purging sins and taking away iniquities. Here the doctrine of the Eucharist, as a sacrifice for sin, seems sanctioned. The words Altar and Priest are freely used in these services in a way which has been avoided in our own Liturgy, however capable it maybe, as used in those services, of being explained in har- mony with our own. It will be observed, also, that Christ was said to have filled the cup with the Holy Ghost; that the dead were commemorated in the prayer; that the Virgin was magnified by invocation; that the wine of the Sacrament was mixed with water; that children partook of the Eucharist; that the elements were signed with the sign of the cross; and that frank- incense was burned before the altar. Now, turn to our Communion Service, and how dif- ferent is its language! how carefully has it avoided all expressions which are liable to perversion! how skilfully therefore, been adjudged for an heretic." This challenge is a proof of the confidence of the Reformers that the fatiiers, in the use of lemguage strongly figurative and hyperbolical, held the same views with themselves. THE lord's supper. 195 has it separated what is pure and Scriptural in these services, from what is error in its seed, if not in its growth and flowering! Instead of the prayer that the Holy Spirit would change the elements and make them the body and blood of Christ, the petition is, "Vouch- safe to bless and sanctify with thy Word and Holy Spirit these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, [so called after consecration,] that we, receiving them ac- cording to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy in- stitution in remembrance of his death and passion, may he partakers of his most blessed body and blood!" The prayer is not that the elements may be changed into Christ's body and blood, but that God, by his Word and Holy Spirit, would make them to us visible signs of in- ward grace, and seals of promised forgiveness, and of other benefits of Christ's passion, that we may so par- take of them in this their consecrated, holy, spiritual character, as to become partakers of Christ's body and blood. It is not a prayer that the bread and wine should be made the body and blood of Christ, but that we may partake his body and blood as we receive their signs. When the elements are distributed, it is with the in- junction which explains that they^xe not called Christ's body and blood. "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life!" That is, may Christ crucified become your salvation! Take and eat this [bread, as it is called after the consecration] in remembrance that Christ died for tliee, and feed on him thus remembered, as the body feeds on tliis bread, in tkij heart hy faith with thanksgiving!" The real corporal presence re- 196 THE LORD^S SUPPER. ceives not even seeming sanction in these words, as it may be supposed to do in the words of the Clementine Liturgy. Instead of the tremendous and unbloody sacrifice, the reception of which is described as taking away sin, no other sacrifice is spoken of than a sacri- fice of praise and thanksgiving, and the livmg sacrifice of ourselves to God. Instead of the word Altar, the word Table is uniformly and carefully adopted. There are no expressions which countenance the idea that the Holy Ghost is joined to or mixed in the element of wine; no commemoration of the dead, nor invocation to the Virgin; no mixing of water with the wine; no admis- sion of children to the Eucharist; no signing of the elements with the sign of the cross, and no offering of frankincense before the Altar. When we remember the reverence of our Reformers for the fathers of the Church, and their uniform assertion that their testimony on the subject of the Eucharist, rightly understood, was in favor of their own views, it will give us a high idea of their determined opposition to the errors we have specified, to find that they have deviated from the language of the fathers, whom they venerated so highly because they deemed it not essentially erroneous, but liable to be perverted and misunderstood.'" '"The difference between our Connmunion Service and the ancient liturgies is sufficiently apparent from the history of the Non-Jurors, as they were called, who, at the Revolution of 1688, refused to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary. A party of them formed anew liturgy, partly on the model of the first book of Ed- ward, and partly on that of the ancient services, with the expressed view of restoring to the English Church some of those features which THE lord's suppfr. 197 n. The care whicli our Reformers manifested, on the revision of the Liturgy, to exclude whatever appeared we have noticed as contained in the early liturgies, and not found in our own. The "wsiiffes," as they were called, consisted of four points: the mixing of water with tfie wine in the Sacramental cup. the commemorating of the faithful departed at the Altar; the conse- cration of the bread and wine, and the using of the prayer of Obla- tion before distributing the elements. (In the English service it fol- lows the distribution.) Although our American Book of Common Prayer has retained the two latter points enumerated among the usages, it is in a different manner from what they were found in the ancient services, as it will be seen also that they differ from the same portions of the service in the first book of King Edward. As we have mentioned the Non-Jurors, we would remark that there is a Prayer-Book composed by Deacon, the leader of the sep- arating Non-Jurors, which we should suppose would precisely suit the Tractanan writers who mourn over the mutilated condition of our Liturgy, which Calvinistic hands have rifled, as they say, of so many precious Catholic rites and usages. This book was composed in 1734. It is called the Book of Com- mon Prayer. It has an order for Morning and Evening Prayer. After it, there are prayers for the catechumens, the enurgumens, the candidates for baptism, and the penitents. The enurgumens were supposed to be" possessed of evil spirits, and prayers suitable to their condition are provided. Next follows a penitential office, to be used by the faithful and penitents, on Wednesdays and Fridays. Then follows the Communion Service. Besides the m.ixture of water with wine, the Priest is directed to sign his forehead with the sign of the cross, and to administer the elements to Deaconesses and in- fants, saying simply, (as in the Clementine Liturgy,) "The body of Christ, and the blood of Christ, the cup of life." Chrism is used in Confirmation, and the rite is ordered to be administered to infants. In Baptism, the form of exorcism, the annointing with oil, and the trine immersion are retained. Milk, honey, and white garments, were given to the child, Deaconesses were to baptize females. 198 ' THE lord's supper. to sanction the views which we have spoken of as erro- neous, is another proof that they utterly and strongly rejected thern. We need but briefly to repeat what has been said with regard to the first formation of the Communion Service. The formularies of faith conLstructed finder Cranmer's eye, during the reign of Henry VIII, all unequivocally assert the doctrine of Transubstantiation — a doctrine then held undoubtingly by Cranmer. From the first Liturgy of Edward this doctrine was excluded. In that Liturgy, however, there were expressions which, while they could not be made, even seemingly, to sanction the full Romish doctrine of Transubstantiation, and sac- rifice for sin in the Eucharist, might be supposed to fa- vor a corporal presence in the elements, and a sacrifice other than that of praise and thanksgiving and personal consecration. The care with which these expressions were modified or omitted, is conclusive evidence that such views are designedly excluded from the Offices, as they are from the Articles, of the Church. In the first Communion Service of Edward, the word Altar is repeatedly used in the rubrics, but is altogether omitted in the second. In the Exhortation, to those who are about to receive the Communion, there is found this expression: "And to the end," &c., "he hath left in those holy mysteries, as a pledge of his love, and a There is a form for consecrating milk and honey. There are col- lections for private devotion, for morning and evening prayer, for the ancient hours of prayer, and offices for daily private communion, and for the commemoration of the dead. Latheurv's History of the Non-Jurors, p. 496. THE lord's supper. 199 continual remembrance of the same, his own blessed body and precious blood for us to feed upon spiritually." Now although the latter clause explains the method in which we are to feed on Christ, in a way which excludes the idea of a corporal local presence, yet as the body and blood are said to be left in the holy mysteries, this lan- guage was omitted, and the sentence stands thus: "He hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries, as pledges of his love and continual remembrance of his death to our great and endless comfort." The change is indica- tive of a jealous scrutiny for the detection and exclusion of every expression which might be supposed to convey the idea of a corporal presence in the elements. In the Exhortation, to those who are negligent to come to the Communion, we find this expression: "For whom (us his unworthy servants) he hath not only given his body to death and shed his blood, but also doth vouch- safe, in a sacrament and mystery, to give us his said body and blood.'''' That the body and blood are given in a sacrament and mystery in reality guards the expres- sion for a Romish sense; but inasmuch as the expres- sion the said body, (referring to that which was crucified,) might be misunderstood or perverted, it was altogether omitted, and this simple expression substituted in its place: "He hath given his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, not only to die for us, but to be our spiritual food and sustenance." The word corporas found in one of the rubrics — a word whose use in the Romish Church implies its recep- tion of a body — in connection with the direction that the bread be laid upon it, was omitted in the revision. 200 THE lord's supper. A commemoration of the Virgin Mary, and a prayer for the dead, is found in the prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church. It is as follows: "And here we do give unto thee, most high praise and hearty thanks, for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all thy saints, from the beginning of the world, and chiefly in the glo- rious and most blessed Virgin Mary, mother of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord and God; and in the holy Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs, whose examples, (0 Lord,) and steadfastness in thy faith, and keeping thy holy commandments, grant us to follow. We commend unto thy mercy, (0 Lord,) all other thy servants, which are departed hence from us with the sign of faith, and now do rest in the sleep of peace; grant unto us, we be- seech thee, thy mercy and everlasting peace; and that, at the day of the general resurrection, we and all they which be of the mystical body of thy Son, may alto- gether be set on his right hand, and hear that his most joyful voice, Come unto me," &c. With a caution we may regard as excessive, the revisors of the service not only altogether omitted the commemoration of the Vir- gin Mary and holy men, and the prayers for the dead, but they excluded also that form of petition, now found in the English service and our own, to which no objec- jection can be made — "Beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that niith them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom!" In the prayer of Consecration is this petition, "Hear us, (0 merciful Father,) we beseech thee, and with thy Holy Spirit and Word vouchsafe to bl-^ess and sanc-|-tify these thy gifts.and creatures of bread and wine, that they THE lord's supper. 201 may be wxto us Ike body and blood of thy most dearly be- loved Son Jesus Christ." The language is changed from a petition that the elements may be to us the body and blood of Christ, into a prayer that we may so re- ceive them — "the creatures of bread and wine" — "that we may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood. "'^ After the Consecration, the Oblation and Invocation follow in the first book of Edward. The revised book contains the Consecration — w^ith the omission which we have mentioned — hut omits the Oblation, and has placed the Invocation after the distribution of the elements. To the latter fact, we shall have occasion to refer as con- clusive of the point, that the framers of the Liturgy con- templated no other sacrifice than that of praise and thanks and vows. Immediately before the invitation to the communicants to draw near and make their humble confession, there are found in the first service these words: Then the Priest shall say, The peace of the Lord be with you. The Clerks. And with thy spirit. The Priest. Christ, our Pascal Lamb, is offered up for us once for all when he bare our sins in his body on the cross; for he is the very Lamb of God, that taketh "The second cause why the foresaid prayer is to be refused, is, for ihiit it prays that the bread and wine may be Christ's body and blood, which makes for the popish transubstantiation, which is a doctrme which hath caused much idolatry; and though the Doctors so speak, we must spnak otherwise, because we lake them otherwise than they meant or would be taken. "--Gwes(<<> ►Sir Win. Cecil, p. 53. 9* 202 THE lord's supper. away the sins of the world; wherefore, let us keep a joyful and holy feast with the Lord." For what object these words were omitted we cannot tell, unless it were to remove expressions which might be explained to favor the idea of a feast upon a sacrifice : — an idea intimately connected in the minds of many with the doctrine of an Eucharistic offering for sin. We have before adverted to the fact, that, upon the distribution of the elements, they were presented with these words only: "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." At the revision of the service, these words were omitted, and this form adopted: "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving." "Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful." It is well known that the change was made from an apprehension, that the first form would tend to counte- nance and keep up in the minds of the people an idea of a corporal presence of Christ in the Sacrament. The two forms were connected at a subsequent revision under Elizabeth, because the latter clauses were re garded as forming an explanation of the meanuig of the former. In the offering of thanks after all had communicated, this absolute form of expresssion tvas adopted: " We most heartily thank thee, that thou hast vouchsafed to feed us, in these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food THE LORP's srPPF.R. 203 of the most precious body and blood of thy Son our Sa- viour Jesus Christ." This laii2;uage might be interpre- ted to import that all the partakers had actually fed upon the body and blood ot the Saviour, whether they had exercised faith or not, and thus to imply a presence of Christ, '^^independent of faith." This expression — significant of a design to express the opposite sentiment — was introduced: "• Thai thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteriest^ with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood o{ thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ."'- Upon a review of these changes from the first service '- T e astoumlin? iissertion of Palmer, (on the Churcli, vol. i. p. 475,) thai " it uppertrs, ihen, that, during the reign of Edward VI, the Church nnade no idieration in doctrine, [from that of the fur- iiiulari<'.«! of Henry VIIF,] except in leaving the mode of tlie real presence in the Eucharist undetermined,'' has been well exposed by Bishop Hopkins, in his "Third Letter." It is true, that Mr. Palmer afterwards strangely clianses his language after this sort: "Altogether! do not Sfc that there is ani/ very great contradiction between these twn for nularies, [the XXX.IX Articles and the Npcp.ssarv Docirinr,) in matters of doctrine." This latter ex- pression we i',an harillv reconcile with the former. By the first senten<'.e it is declared, tjiat "the Church made no alteration m doi-irine, except.''^ &-.; while, by liie latter, it is admitted that there is contradiction, though not a very gieiU one. Of degree:* of contradiction, Tracianan writers may be able to form some con- cention, bat the rest of the world know nothing. If the Article." be contradictory to the Necessary Doctrine, they arc contradictory, and that is the end of it. I su.iiiose W'- are to reconcile the two assertions of Mr. Palmer, in the same way that he reconciles these two opposite foriTiularies of faith, by the eminently Tractarian explanation that there is no very great contradiction between them. 2.04 THE lord's supper. of Edward, introduced into the second, which was pub- lished but three years after, nothing can be clearer than the fact of the determination of the framers of the Lit- urgy not only to bring down the upas tree of Romanism, but to root out its minutest fibres from the soil, that it might not sprout again in the garden of the Lord, and cast blight and death over the trees of righteousness which their hands had planted. After those giant men had, with panting and earnest blows, cut through the close-grained trunk, the compact growth of centuries, and brought it, with a crash that startled the nations, to the ground, and with efforts of herculean strength moved off the broken and heavy limbs, and the rotten rubbish — the nests of foul birds on its topmost boughs — they addressed themselves with patient labor to grub out the clinging and tangled I'oots of error, each fibre of which was instinct with an evil life. How thorough and suc- cessful their labors were, our Liturgy is the witness. They have removed every expression which appears to imply a presence of Christ's body in the elements, or any presence of that body in the Sacrament other than a presence to the faith of the recipient. They have removed every expression which might be worried into a leluctant witness that the doctriiJe of the offering up of the elements, or the performance of the whole service, '' '^ Bishop Hopkins (Third Letter) has shown, that when we speak of the Sacrament as consisting of both the outward sign and itivvard grace, wc may speak of Christ's real presence in the Sacrament, that is, his presence to the hearts of the faithful. In this sense it was that Cranmer professed his behef in the presence of Christ at the Sacrament. " When I used to speak sometimes THE lord's supter. 205 was a sacrifice propitiatory or impetratory for the sins of the Hving, or refreshing to the spirits of the departed. There is no commemoration of, or prayer for the dead. The Romish doctrine of the Eucharist is not there either in its development or its principle. " as tlm old authors do, that Christ is in the SacraiK'nrs, F mean ilic same as they did understand the matter; that js. not of Christ's carnal presence in the outward Sacrament, but ~:'>anjlimi;s of his sacramental presence; and sumetimes by this wnd Sacrament, I mean the whole administration and receiving of the Sacranienls either of Baptism or of the Lord's Supper. And so the nU{ writers tnany times do s;iy that Christ ani the Holy Ghost be nrr'sent in the Sacraments, not meaning; by that manner of speecli that Christ and the Holy Ghost be present in the water, bread, ami winr, (whicli be only the outward visible Sacraments,) but in I'n; due ministraj lion of the Sacraments, according to Christ's ordniance and insti- tution, Christ and his Holy Spirit be truly and imli^ed present by this mighty and sanctifying power, virtue, and grace, in all them THAT WORTHILY RECEIVE THE SAME.'' What is here Said of the presence of Christ may be applied also to the sacrifice of the Eu- charist. We have shown that the tvhole ministration of the Sacra- ment,-^the offering of alms and prayers, and the gifts of bread and wine, and the celebration of the Lord's Supper, — i*callod a sacrifice, but it ia a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. The above extract from Cranmer is exceedingly valuable, as showing in the preface to his book on the Sacramen'., what is liis meaning throughout. The next chapter contains exiracts frmm the book itself, which confirms the view which he here ex|)res3es. '■* It niust be confessed, however, that the Church services have several times narrowly escaped the re-introduction into them of a semi-popish system. At the time of Laud, and at the revision of 166'2, when the Nation and the Church were at the most distant point of re-action from the Puritans, it would seem to h.ivu been inevita- ble, thai such modifications of the services would have been made, as would have given them a liigh and non-juring tone of doctrine. 206 THE lord's supper. It will be observed, that hitherto we have made but slight allusion to the terms Priest and Altar, and the Cardwell shows in his Conferences how nearly such a result was ac- complished. (Conferences, 389, 91.) "The fear, which the Commons seem to have contracted, that occasion would be taken for introducing into the Liturgy the re- ligious sentiments of Archbishop Laud and his school of theolo- gians, was not altogether without foundation. It might, in the first instance, have been suggested by the remembrance of what was done in the reign of King Chai'les I, when, under the directions of the Archbishop and Bishop Wren, the Liturgy was revised for the use of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. But it had stronger grounds to support it. There is still in existence a copy of the edition of 1634, with a great number of corrections in manuscript, prepared for this convocation, and carrying so much the appearance of completeness and authority, as to contain minute instruction for the printer. The corrections are all of them in the hand of Mr- Bancroft, who was at that time chaplain to the Bishop of Durham, [Cosln,] and was soon after appointed by the convocation to super, intend the Prayer-Book in its progress through the press. The copy itself, it may fairly be presumed, was drawn up by Mr. Sancroft, under the directions of Bishops Cosin and Wren, and was produced in the convocation of the 21st of November, when the (lominittee, of which these Bishops were leading members, seem to have re- ported that the preparations were already made, and that the whole house might immediately proceed to the work of rrvision. How- ever this may be, the corrections contain, logeilier with many ini- portant impirnvcments, s/rong indications of such sentiments rpsperlin;; the real, presence in the Eiichti}ist, and praijers for the dead, as were en- tertained by the Bishops above mentioned, and became afterioard the dis- tinguishing creed of the non-juring clergy. Doubtless the Liturgy for Scotland was before them when they made their corrections in the English service. It is clear that they were indebted to it in several of their alterations; although they have constantly improved upon it, THE lord's supper. 207 erroneous doctrine connected with, and fostered by their free and unexplained use. We have felt it the less necessary from the conviction that if the doctrine of a real, in the sense of corporeal, presence, either in the elements or in the communicants, and that of a sacrifice available to atone for sin, or avert wrath, or benefit the living and the dead, were proved to be ungrounded, the connected errors of a sacrificing Priesthood and an Altar of propitiation and atonement would fall with them. As the attempt, however, has sometimes been made, by confounding the functions of the Jewish and Christian Priesthood, to fix upon the latter a character which made a sacrifice necessarily connected with his office, it will be proper to devote a few pages to the consideration of the office and function of the Gospel Priest. in some instances taking a higher, and in others a more subdued tone of doctrine." Something, but not much, of tliis upward tendency appeared in the services as actually revised. How much would have been in- serted but for the watchfulness of those who were yet true to the Protestantism of the Church, appears from the following fact, men- tioned by Cardweil: (Conferences, p. 289, note.) It IS worthy of notice that in the form of prayer for the 30th of January, which was put fTth in the preceding year, (1661,) by royal authority, these words appear in one of the Collects, hut were erased by the Convocation when the service was afterwards revised and annexed to the Liturgy: " We beseech thee to give ns all grace to remember and provide for our laiter end, by a careful f^udious imitation of this thy blessed saint and martyr, and al! other thy saints and martyrs that have gone before us, that we may be made worthy to receive benefit by their prayers, which they, in com- munion with thy Church Catholic, offer up to thee for that part of it here militant, and yet in fight with and danger from the flesh." 208 THE lord's supper. The ambiguity and lliictuation of language has on this, a-^ on so many other subjects, caused much confusion. The word Priest is used, sometimes in a more general and sometimes in a more specific sense. Attention to this circumstance will tend to clear up the subject to our minds. Under every dispensation, God has employed and em- powered some men on his behalf to speak in his name, and make known his message to the world, and to offer up, in the name of the people, their sacrifices, prayers, prai'^es and thanksgivings. At first, the head of every family discliarged this office. This was the arrange- ment until the establishment of the Jewish dispensation. Then the tribe of Levi was set apart for the sacred office of ministering to men on behalf of God, and of offering homage and sacrifice and prayer to God on be- half of man. When Christ came, the office of this class of commissioned agents for God ceased. A third class of divinely commissioned Ministers, not belonging to the tribe of Levi, were then sent forth, with power to perpetuate their succession as the servants and messengers of God to the people. All these classes agreed in this, that they were agents and messengers of God to men. They differed, however, in the mode of dischai'ging that agency, as they stood before or after Christ. The first two classes, being both before Christ, ag eed (■-.scntialiy in the mode of their ministration, and differed chieHy in the facts that the first class con- sisted of all tlie heads of families, whereas the latter were taken from a single tribe, and that the duties of the latter were prescribed with minute particularity in THE LORD'S SUPPER. 209 a divinely revealed and divinely obligatory ritual of service; whereas no such minute directions were given to the former. The Ministers of God, after Christ, differed in the mode of their ministration from those who were before him. Not thai they had nothing in common even in the modes of their ministration, but that the prominent features of those modes were diverse. They both, for instance, "taught the people" God's Word. But the prominent work of the Jewish Minister of God was, that he should offer up, and be occupied with the services connected with the offering up of, a sacrifice to God for the sins of the people. He presented constant sacrifices for the expiation of the violation of the ceremonial law, and for the remission, in some cases, of the penalties annexed to the violation of the moral law. The promi- nent work of the latter was to preach and teach "the Gospel of the kingdom." The one was to set forth a coming Saviour, and the salvation which he was to bring, by outward and typical signs, sacrifices, and ceremonies. His chief work was to offer sacrifice. The other was to show forth, hy proclaiming, a Saviour, who had come and gone. His chief work was to preach. The one was to teach chiefly by the outward action of sacrifice; the other chiefly by word. Now, as the mode of minis- tration on the part of these two classes of God's com- missioned agents was different, so were their titles. The one class were called Priests. The other were called Ambassadors, Apostles, Heralds, Elders, Pro- phets, Evangelists, Teachers, all words expressive of proclaiming and teaching. Alike in this, that they were 210 THE lord's supper. both commissioned agents on the part of God to treat with man, they differed in this, that the chief function of the one was to offer up sacrifices, and of the other to present, in teaching, the great truth which was glad tidings alike to Jew and Gentile. To sacrifice, then, is peculiar to a Priesthood, except when the term is used in a figurative sense; and to preach and administer the Sacraments (a more impres- sive preaching) is peculiar to the Gospel Ambassador- ship. '•' '^The gz'eat Lord Bacon, whose mind embraced all sciences, and detected the sources of error with wonderful acuteness, has thus given his opinion upon the use of the word Priest: "That the word Priest should not be continued, especially with offence, the word Minister being already made familiar. This may he said, that it is a good rule, in translation, never to confound that in one word in the translation, which is precisely distinguished in two words in the original, for doubt of equivocation and traducing. And, therefore, seing the word aperi()vt£{>oi and Ispsvi be always distinguished in the original, and the one used for a sacrificer, luid the other for a Minister; the word Priest being made common to both, whatsoever the derivation be, yet in use it confoundeth the Minister with the sacrificer." Lord Bacon's Work's, vol. ii, p. 426. The essence of the Priesthood has been defined by one as a "minis- terial intervention for the forgiveness of sins," and by another, as a "ministerial intervention for the salvation of man. " The former is an imperfect and the latter a complete definition, it seems to us, of the essence, not of Priesthood, but of all ministerial agency on the part of those who are commissioned by God to convey ta man the terms and method of pardon and salvation. Of this commissioned agency, whose character is ministerial intervention for the forgiveness of sin and the salvation of man, Priesthood is one species, Ambassador- THE lord's supper. '211 It would lead us much too far should we entei into detailed proof of these positions. Let it sulTice to call the reader's attention to two facts which speak a clear and loud testimony on this subject. The first is the fact that when Christ first sent the -postles lorth, it was with the injunction, "And as ye go, preach., say- ing, The kingdom of heaven is at hand ;" and when he gave to them their final commission, it was that they should go and teach all nations, bai)tiziag them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The other ship is another. To sacrifice is the peculiar and prominent duly of the one; to preach, the prominent function of the other. In confirmation of the second definition of Priesthood, that its essence is intervention for man's saltation, it seems to us not by auy mean.s conckt.sivc to quote tlie passage in Hebrews, (v. 1.) that a "Priest is ordained for men in thingspertaining to God." This Uin- guage occurs in a description of the office of the Jcwisli Priest- hood, and is spoken of the High Priest. It is not used in reference to wliat is specially characteristic of Priesthood as such, but of what is applicable indeed to the Jewish Priesthood, but to that in common with every other species of commissioned agency for man from God. For if we limit its application to the High Priest of whom it is spoken, then it excludes the Christian Mmistry from this character, an exclusion not intended by the author who has quoted the passage.* It seems to us that much confusion on this subject has arisen from assuming that every cominissioned agency from God is a Priesthood — that such is the generic name which belongs to such a commission — and then gathering the functions which were peculiar to one class of Ministers for God, the Jewish, and transferring them over to another class, the Christian. Each has its appropriate character and office. The one was abolished when the other was introduced. *Two Lectures on tJ»c terms, Priest, Altar and Sacrifice. Balitinore, 1843. 212 THE LORD'S SUPPER. fact, still more remarkable, is, that the Apostles and those whom they commissioned, are 7j^er called Priests in the New. Testament. When we recollect that these Apostles were all Jews, we can find the explanation of this remarkable fact only in ihe supposition that they were divinely restrained by the Spirit, from the use of a term to which they were so much accustomed, but which designated a Ministry which had passed away. It appears surprising, inasmuch as they had known no Ministry of God, but that of a Priesthood, that they should never have used, even by way of accommoda- tion, the term appropriated to the Ministry under one dispensation, to designate them under another. And what adds to the significant singularity of this fact is, that in the single instance"' in which the word Priest- hood occurs in an accommodated or figurative sense, it is used with reference not to the Ministry, but to the taithful disciples of the Saviour. Such being the facts with regard to the word of God, we turn to the Book of Common Prayer. There we find the word Priest freely used. It is acknowledged by all, that, in a majority of cases, it is used as an ab- breviation for the word Presbyter, the second of the three divinely constituted orders of the sacred Ministry. But, in other cases, it has been contended that it has another sense, as descriptive of a function which can only be expressed by the word priestly, as contradis- tinguished from the function appropriate to the Presby- ter, as the second order of the Ministry. Now, if by '«JPeteriii5, 9. THE lord's supper. 213 this it were meant that in our Prayer-Book the word Priest and Priesthood were sometimes used to desig- nate that general Ministry in behalf of God, which Priests under the law, and Presbyters under the Gospel, alike discharge ; or that these words were figuratively employed to describe the duties of the Ministry under the Gospel by those under the law, we should not be anxious to controvert such a position. This extended and figurative use of a word, originally api)lied with a narroM-er meaning, is common in all speech, human and inspired. We do not believe, however, that even such a use of the term is to be found in the Book of Common Prayer. We are fully persuaded that wherever the term occurs, it has reference to the second order of the Ministry, and to the functions appropriate to that order as contradistinguished from that of the Diaconate. That it is used in the Prayer Book to designate any function which is not appropriate and peculiar to the Presbyter ; that it is used in such an extended mean- ing as to take in any of the functions peculiar to the Jewish Priesthood, as a specific Priesthood, we do not grant. " The rubric before the forms of Absolution, and the larger Benediction, and the Office for the administration of the Holy Communion, and that of the Institution of Ministers into Churches," have been adduced as in- stances in which the word Priest is used with reference not to the functions which are appropriate to the Pres- byter, but in reference to what may be rightfully con- sidered ^'priestly acts," or "sacerdotal functions." We have already shown that the word Minister stood 214 THE lord's supper. in the rubric before the form of Absolution, and that its change to the word Priest, however it may have oc- curred, was unauthorized. Tliis shows, even at a time when the minds of our Reformers had not become fully emancipated from the prejudices of their Romish educa- tion, that they did not regard the declaration of Absolu- tion as a priestly act, and that they did regard it as a ministerial act. It may have been innocently intro- duced, with the intention of m5,king a distinction be- tween the Exhortation and Confession, which might be said by a Deacon, and the solemn form of declarative Absolution, which, on account of the lower office of a Deacon, there was a propriety in confining to the Pres- byter. The larger Benediction is to be pronounced by the Priest, or Bishop, if he be present. This has been supposed to be an act not appropriate to the Presbyter as such, or to the Bishop as such, but of another kind, belonging to each in a higher or different character, and partaking of the characteristics which were peculiar to the Priesthood. It is obvious to remark, in reply to this, that a Bishop does not cease to be a Presbyter, and to perform all the functions peculiar to that office, because, in his character of Bishop, he has other powers conferred upon him.'' In the Institution Office, it must be granted that the word Priest is used in many instances as synonymous with the word Presbyter. The Institutor, for instance, " "The Elders among you 1 exhort, who am also an Eldtr,'" says St. Peter tlie Apostle. (1 Peter v, 1.) THE lord's supper. 215 is sometimes called Presbyter, and sometimes Priest. But inasmuch as the terms, "sacerdotal function," and " sacerdotal relation," occur in this service, they have been supposed to designate an act of a specifically priestly character. We have expressed the belief that the word Priest is never used, even in an extended or figurative sense, as descriptive of the Gospel Ministry. Here, however, the words sacerdotal function — terms synonymous Wiih priestly function, in the Jew'rsh sense — must be used either in a figurative, or literal sense. If it be used in a literal sense, then our interpretation of this whole subject has been wrong. Then the Min- istry of the New Testament, according to our Prayer- Book, is a Priesthood in another sense than that of being a Presbytership. How else shall we decide this point, than by examining what the service specifies as belonging to what is here called a ^'' sacerdotal func- tion r^ We venture to say that there is not a syllable in the enumeration of the functions thus designated, which extends them beyond what is either appropriate to the Presbyter, or common to every Minister of God; not a word which expresses any thing peculiar to that specific kind of ministration which belongs to a Priesthood. He is "to feed the flock;" he is "to dispense the Word, to lead the devotions of the people, (not make offerings /or them,) to exercise discipline, and to be a pattern to the flock committed to his care." That it is only in a figur- ative or accommodated sense that this term is employed, is evident from this enumeration of what is included in the sacerdotal function, and also from the second Collect 216 THE lord's supper. after the anthem, in which the Ministers of Apostolic succession are mentioned in connection with the offering up of the sacrifice of prayer and praise. If the sacrifice were other than figurative, the ministry would have been called an Apostolic Priesthood. Conversely, if the sacerdotal function mentioned had been used in other than a figurative or accommodated sense, the duties specified as belonging to that function would have been other and more than those which belong to the Presbyter. With regard to the use of the word Priest, in the Communion Office, it is sufficient to refer to what has been said upon the subject of a sacrifice, and without which there can be no Priest. That the celebration of the Holy Communion should be limited to Presbyters and Bishops, is in accordance with its Scriptural insti- tution and Scriptural usage. The word Altar has been shown to have been ban- ished from the Communion Service altogether, and, therefore, does not, on this occasion, call for more ex- tended examination. Our church has not sanctioned, but has set the seal of her disapprobation on its use, in any sense, in connection with the Communion Service. The injunction of Bishop Ridley was, that "the Lord's board should be after the manner of an honest board, and not of an altar, that the simple may be turned from the old superstitious opinions of the Popish Mass, and to the right use of the Lord's Supper." The use of the word in the Institution Office is too manifestly an ac- commodated one, to call for remark. The two doctrines of the Eucharist which we have presented in this chapter are essentially diverse. They THE lord's supper. 217 proceed on different views of the nature of the Gospel, of the office of the Ministry, and the design of the Sac- raments. The one regards the Gospfel as a system of TRUTH, which, by means of the written and preached Word and the Ordinances, the Spirit takes, presents to, fixes upon, and burris into the very substance of the soul. By this it is convicted, converted, and sanctified. The other does not regard the truth of Scripture as the chief instrument of the Spirit in its work upon the human soul, but supposes the Sacraments to be filled and instinct with grace, residing in them by God's ap' pointment, and conveyed to the souls of those who receive them from the hands of the divinely commis- sioned administrators. The one regards the Ministry as the dispenser of the Word of Life, in preaching and in Sacraments. The other regards it as a vehicle of grace, connecting on to an unbroken succession of such, from the time of Christ, the primal source of grace, by which the Sacraments, else forms void of life, become sources of spiritual influence. The one regards the Sac- raments as signs of grace and seals of covenanting mercy, the right reception of which secures directly from God the full blessing which they guarantee, an^ the full grace they signify. The other regards them, when administered by the divinely commissioned Min- istry, as that in which grace irtfheres, and from which it is derived to the hearts of the recipients. The one brings the heart directly to God as the source of grace; the other interposes the Sacraments which hold gathered grace for all, whence it is distributed to each by the commissioned dispensers of the same. 10 218 THE tOkS's StipPES.- These varying views of the very nature of the Gospel, the design of the Ministry and office of the Sacraments, branch off into widely different developments of the intent of each Sacrament, and the meaning of its details. The error of regarding Sacraments, not as institutions on God's part, by which he testifies of promised grace on conditions, and as acts on our part by which we signify our grateful reception of such promised grace by the fulfilment of the conditions specified, and which, when thus received, are the occasions and instruments of bringing the soul to God, to receive immediately from him, and not from them, spiritual gifts and graces; but rather as the reservoir of grace interposed between the fountain head and them, whence each is to derive it to his own soul; — this is the ei-ror which is germinant of sensual views, which rob the soul of its spiritual portion. From supposing the grace to be fixed in the Sacrament; from regarding "the cup as filled with the Holy Ghost," and the bread as holding divine influence within itself, the transition is not difficult to the grosser view of the bodily presence in the elements — the presence of a body, natuial or spiritual, but still of a real body, as contradis- tinguished from a body present only by sacrament and symbol. Rome stands Ibrth as an example of the fruit of such teaching, if we would not reap her harvest, we must not sow her seed ! X. (illjc Corii'a Supper. CONCLUDED. III. What degree of importance should be attached to the teachings of Cranmer and Ridley, and the Re- formers who were associated with them, as individual doctors of the Catholic Church of Christ, in our search after the true interpretation of the Word of God, is a question upon which there may be great differences of opinion. It would seem,, however, that there could be but one sentiment as to the decisive weight of their testimony, when we inquire after the meaning of those articles and otiices which they themselves composed. Had there been, in the circumstances in which they were placed, any controlling influences which would have compelled or induced them permanently to have embodied in the formularies and offices of the English Church, sentiments repugnant to their own, there might be some reason to look with suspicion upon their indi- vidual writings as the true key to the interpretation of the public services which they framed. But when those services were revised and shaped into their present form, there were no such influences. Cranmer and ^^0 THE lord's supper. Ridley, and their associates, had the management of ecclesiastical affairs in their own hands. They were no longer overawed by the stern and peremptory tyrant, Henry. They were the guides of the pious and tho- roughly Protestant boy, King Edward. They were at perfect Hberty to introduce into the Liturgy every truth which they believed to be of God, from the least im- portant to the most fundamental.' While they so con- ' That there were those among the commissioners appointed to examine and amend the offices of the Church, who were opposed to the views of Cranmer and Ridley, there is no doubt. (Burnet, ii, 99.) That the Archbishop, from prudential considerations, ab- stained from making, in the first book of Edward, the complete change in the Communion Service which he contemplated, is also highly probable. If so, it is an evidence of his moderation and wisdom. The discussions at Cambridge and elsewhere, which were held between the formation of the service and its revision, enlight- ened and prepared ihe public mind to receive the service purged of all Romish corruptions. That Cranmer had a controlling influence on both occasions is perfectly evident. Palmer (on the Church, vol. i, 465.-91) speaks as if the doctrinal views of the standards of Henry VIII were continued on unmodified during the reign of Edward, and that whatever Cranmer may have written as "a private theologian," has no decisive weight in ascertaining the doctrme of the Church of England. The attempt to deny or disguise Cranmer's controlling influence in modeling the Liturgy of the Church of England, and to make it appear that the doctrinal standards of the Church remained unchanged under Edward as they were under Henry, is one of the hardiest experiments on the presumed igno- rance of his readers, of which we have ever known a respectable author guilty. Says Le Bas, (Life of Cranmer, vol. i, 256,) "To assign to every individual engaged his proper share in this glorious performance, (the Liturgy,) would be an impossible attempt ; but it has never been doubted, that Cranmer loas the life and soul of the ttn- THE lord's supper. 221 structed the formularies as to give them, in matters unessential, that comprehensiveness which is indispen- sable in standards intended for a national Church, they admitted nothing which they believed to be contrary to the Word of God. When we recollect that the greater part of their writings which remain, were composed expressly to defend or explain the doctrines of the Book of Common Prayer, we surely are authorized in resort- ing to them for the purpose of explaining the meaning of its articles and oiHces. If the fathers of the Church are regarded as the best interpreters of the meaning of the Scriptures, because, being nearest to them in time, they are most likely to have known the mind of the sacred writers, we may at least grant to the fathers of the Reformation, that they are the best interpreters of their own productions, being, as we suppose, best ac- quainted with their own mind and meaning. In collecting the testimony of these venerable men, dertalcing ; and it is highly probable that Ridley and Goodrich were his most effective auxiliaries, and that Holbeach, May, Taylor, Haynes, and Cox, a.l of them men of distinguished ability and learning, continued throughout to aid the compilation." This refers to the first Liturgy. Strype gives the same testimony with regard to the second. At the disputation at Oxford, in 1554, by Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, on the one side, and Weston and other Ro- manists on the other, the charge was made by Weston, that "a renegate Scot took away the adoration or worshipping of Christ in the Sacrament." Strype remarks, "but there was no Scot that ever I could read or hear of that assisted at the review of that Commun- ion book. And, indeed, Cranmer, Ridley, and Cox were the chief that managed that affair, though they consulted with Bucer and Peter Martyr."— MesjobiaJvS, vol. iii, p. jn. 222 THE lord's supper. We shall select sueh passages, chiefly, as have reference to the real presence of Christ and to the sacrifice of the Eucharist. If their testimony on those two points shall be found to be clear, there will be little need of showing their sense of the Priesthood and the Altar; — doctrines which stand or fall with those of the bodily presence and the sacrifice. Cranmer has himself inforrried us of the workings of his mind on this subject. "There are few readers," says Dr. Wadsworth,^ " who. will not admire the sober and pious language of this excellent man, on occasion of its being objected to him by Dr. Richard Smith, that he had maintained in his ' short instruction in Christian religion.' printed in 1548, the doctrine of the carnal presence. After denying the truth of Smith's allega- tion, he thus proceeds: 'But this I confess of myself, that not long before I wrote the said Catechism, I was in that error of the real presence, as I was many years past, in divers other errors, as of Transubstantiation, * of the sacrifice propitiatory in the Mass, and many other superstitions and errors that came from Rome, being brought up from my youth in them, and nourished in them for lack of good instruction in my youth; the out- rageous floods of papistical errors at that time overflow- ing the world. For which and other mine offences in youth, I do daily pray unto God for mercy and pardon, saying, ' Good Lord, remember not mine ignorances and offences of my youth !' ^Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. iii, p. 186. ^ Here we observe, that Cranmer distinguishes the error of the yeal presence from that of Transubstantiation, and disclaims both. THE lord's supper. 228 ** ' But after it had pleased God to show unto me by his holy Word a more perfect knowledge of his Son Jesus Christ, from time to time, as I grew in knowledge of him, by little and little I put away my former igno- rance. And as God of his mercy gave me light, so, through his grace, I opened my eyes to receive it, and did not wilfully repugn unto God and remain in dark- ness.' " The work in which this change of view, especially on the subject then most discussed, is brought forth, is thus described by Mr. Le Bas: "The first part con- tains an exposition of the true doctrine of the Eucharist, and a brief enumeration of the various abuses by which it had been corrupted. The second part is devoted to the subject of Transubstantiation, and its object is to show that the notion is contradictory to the Word of God, to the reason and senses of man, and to the belief of the ancient fathers of the Church. The third part explains the meaning of the assertion that Christ is present in the Holy Supper; and its object is to show that ' as our re-generation in Christ by Baptism is sphitual, even so our eating and drinking is a spiritual feeding; which kind of regeneration and feeding re- quires no real and corporeal presence of Christ, but only his presence in spirit, grace, and effectual operation.' "* This description of an impartial historian, confirmed by an extract from the great work concerning which he writes, is, itself, evidence of the highest kind for the position which we aim to establish. ♦ Le Bas'B Life of Cranmer , vol. ii, p. 50. 224 THE lord's supper. Let it be remarked, that while Crannier and the Re- formers rejected Transubstantiation, and a real presence of the natural body and blood, or of the glorified spiritual body ° of Christ, they yet spoke without hesitation of his body and blood as present at the Sacrament, and as really partaken of by the faithful communicant. '^ It excites no surprise to find those who framed our service using such language, since we find it also, agreeably to the Scriptural phraseology, freely adopted in our Com- munion Office. There are at least four different senses in which Christ's presence is frequently and familiarly ad- mitted. 1. He is spoken of as present, because he is present in Sacrament or by symbol. Hence the bread and Aj'ine are called his sacramental body and blood; language which does not imply that it is a new kind of body, a nameless, tertium ^Mirf existence, called a sacra- mental bod}-^, but that it is a body only sacramentally or symbolically. 2. Christ's body is said to be present by its " grace" or " virtue;" that is, by its redeeming and san^etifying efficacy. 3. Christ is said to be present in the Sacrament, as a whole service, in the sense of being- present by his Spirit, not in the elements, but in the hearts of the believing and repenting recipients. These ^ In the sense of St. Paul, 1 Cor. xv, 44, where he speaks of the risen body as a spiritual body. * In my book I have written in more than a hundred places that we receive the self-same body of Christ that was born of the Virgin Mary, that was crucified and buried, that rose again, ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; and the contention is only in the manner and form how we receive it. CUANMEB ON THE SaCBAMENT, p. 370. THE lord's supper. 225 two latter statements are substantially the same. 4. Christ's body is described as being present to the be- liever, not because it comes down with a local or non- local ' presence, but because the believer's faith ascends to it in heaven, and feeds on it, as the all of salvation and of life. In such sense was the expression, " lift up your hearts," and the answer, "we do lift them up to the Lord," repeaU'dly explained both by the fathers and the Reformers. VVe do not hesitate to say that whenever the Refor- mers speak of the real presence of Christ, it will be found that one of these senses is necessarily imposed upon the expression by the immediate context, or by other portions of their writings. We have already quoted one passage from Cranmer in which he t xpl•^^in^ what his own meaning is through- out his work on the Sacrament. Here is another, con- sisting of a part of his examination before the commis- sioners at Oxford. " Now, as concerning the Sacrament, I have taught no false doctrine of the Sacrament of the Altar; for if it can be proved by any doctor above a thousand years after Christ, that f'hrist'sbody is there really, I will give over. My book was made seven years ago, and no man hath brought any answer against it. I believe that he who soeateth and drinketh that Sacrament, Christ is within him, — whole Christ, his nativity, passion, resur- rection, and ascension — but not that corporally that 'See Tract XCt 226 THE lord's supper. sitteth in heaven." * Here Christ is described as within the believer, but not really or corporally. The truth and the benefit of his nativity, passion, resurrection, and ascension, which could be only within the soul, and by faith, are within the believer. This is the spiritual presence of Christ in the believer's heart. The same signification is perceived to belong to the term really in the following passage: " As for this word really, in such a sense as you expound it (that is to say, not in jmantasy and imagination, but verily and truly,) so I grant that Christ is really not only in them that duly receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, but also in them that duly receive the Sacrament of Baptism, and in all other true Christian people at other times when they receive no Sacrament.^' ^ Christ's presence "in those who duly receive Baptism," and " in true Chris- tian people when they receive no Sacrament," is that presence of which St. Paul speaks, when he pr^ys that " Christ maydwelP^ in the hearts of the Ephesians, " by fuijih.^^ By really it is plain Cranmer does not mean corporally. But we will arrange our quotations from him in such order as to show that it is in one of the four senses above specified, that this master-builder of the Communion Service always speaks of the presence of Christ: 1. Christ is described as sacramentally present in the following passages : JL^ .. "And as before is at length declared, a figure hath s Wadsworth, Eccl. Biography, vol. i, p. 218. ^Cranmer on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, (Parker So- ciety Edition,) p. 140. »'V' S> THE lobd's supper. 227 the name of a thing that is signified thei-eby. As a man's image is called a man, a lion's image a lion, a bird's image a bird, and an image of a tree and herb is called a tree or herb ; >o were we wont to say ' our lady of Walsingham,' 'our lady of Ipswich,' 'our lady of Grace,' ' our lady of Pity,' ' St. P«ter of Milan,' and ' St. James of Amias,' and such like ; not meaning the things themselves, but calling their images by the name of the things by them represented." " So doth John Chrysostom say, that we see Christ with our eyes ; touch him ; feel him ; grope him with our hands ; fix our teeth in his flesh ; taste it, break it, eat it, and digest it ; make red our tongues and dye them with his blood, and swal- low it, and drink it." "And in a Catechism by me translated and set forth, I used like manner of speech, that with our bodily mouths we receive the body and blood of Christ. Which my saying, divers ignorant persons, not used to read old ancient authors, nor acquainted with their phrase and manner of speech, did carp and reprehend for lack of good understanding '"" This passage has a threefold value. It proves how readily Cranmer spoke of the symbol as if it were that which it signified ; it shows in what manner he under- stood the stronfjest expressions of the fathers which appeared to imply a bodily presence ; and it conclusive- ly vindicates him from the charge of having been a Con- substantiationist at the time he translated and published the German Catechi>nj of Justus Jonas. Cranny oiLibe Sacraraem, 325, 2?6. ^ 228 THE lord's supper. " The bread and wine be not Christ's very body and blood, but they be figures which by Christ's institution be unto the godly receivers thereof sacraments, tokens, significations, and representations of his very flesh and blood ; instructing their faith, that as the bread and wine feed them corporally and continue this temporal life, so the ver}'^ flesh and blood of Christ feedeth thein spiritu- ally, and giveth them everlasting life."" " And although Christ in his human nature, substan- tially, really, corporally, naturally, and sensibly, be present with his Father in Heaven, yet, sacramentally and spiritually, he is here present. For in water, bread, and wine, he is present, as in signs and sacraments; but he is indeed spirituaUy in those faithful Christian peo- ple, who, according to Christ's ordinance, be baptized, or receive the Holy Communion, or unfeignedly believe in hiin."'^ In this passage we have the description both of the sacramentarpresence of Christ in the water, the bread, and wine, and his spiritual, presence in the hearts of the believing recipients of either Sacrament. The idea, so often repeated by him, that Christ was present in the Holy "Communion no otherwise than in Baptism, sufficiently shows what kind of presence he allowed. 2. Christ's presence by his grace and virtue is de- scribed in the following passages : " And they be no vain or bare tokens, as you would persuade, (for a bare token is that which betokeneth 11 Card well's two Liturgies Compared^ p. xxix. i' Cranmer on the Sacrament, p. 47. THE lord's supper. 229 only and giveth nothing, as a painted fire which giveth neither light nor heat,) but in the due administration of the Sacraments, God is present, workiii;^ with his Word and Sacraments." ''And therefore you gather of my sayings unjustly, that Christ is indeed absent; for I say, (according to God's Word and the doctrine of the old writers,) that Christ is present in his Sacraments, as they teach also that he is present in his Word, when he worketh might- ily by the same in the hearts of his hearers. By which manner of speech is not meant that Christ is corporally present in the voice or sound of the preacher, (which soon perisheth as soon as the words be spoken,) but this speech meaneth that he worketh with his Word, using the voice of the sj)eaker as his instrument to work by; as he useth also his Sacraments, whereby he worketh and therefore is said to be present in them.''''^' The presence of Christ in the Word is a presence of his grace and spirit. Such, says Cranmer, is his presehce in the Sa- crament. A multitude of passages conveying this sense may be found in the writings of Cranmer, and a still greater number in those of Ridley. The sense of the above passage is brought out very clearly in the preface to his book against Bishop Gardiner. "Moreover, (says he,) when I say and repeat many times in my book that the body of Christ is present in them that worthily receive the Sacrament, lest any man should mistake my words and think that I mean, that although Christ be not corporally in the outward visible signs, he is corporally '* Cranmejr on the Sacraraen:, p, U. 230 THE lord's supper. in the persons that duly receive them, this is to adver- tise the reader that I do no such thing. But my mean- ing is, that the force^ the grace, virtue^ and benefits of Christ's body that M^as crucified for us, and of his blood that vpas shed for us, be really and effectually with them that duly receive the Sacrament." 3. Every page of the work on the Sacrament has tes^timonies in every form to the spiritual presence of Christ in the believer's heart, as that whereon by faith he feeds and lives. "But here you take such large scope that you flee from the four proper matters that be in controversy, unto a new scope devised by you that I should absolutely deny the presence of Christ, and : ay that the bread doth only signify Christ's body absent; which thing I never said nor thought. And as Christ saith not so, nor Paul saith not so, even so likewise I say not so; and ni}^ book in divers places, saith clean contrary, that Christ is with us spiritually present, is eaten and drunken of us, and dwelleth within us, although cor- porally he be departed out of this world and is asceiided up to heaven."" The absence of Christ's body is here denied. Its presence is affirmed How is it present? not corporally, for so he is in heaven. He is spiritually present as opposed to corporally. He is present by faith in the believer's heart. That this is his meaning is clear beyond all possibility of mistake from the fol- lowing passage : "And if Christ had never ordained the Sacrament, ** Cranmer on the Sacrament^ p. 12 THE lord's supper. 231 yet should we have eaten his flesh and drunken his blood, and have had thereby everlasting life; as all the faithful did before the Sacrament was ordained, and do daily when they receive not the Sacrament. And so did holy men that wandered in the wilderness, and in all their lifetime very seldom received the Sacrament; and many holy martyrs, either exiled or kept in prison, did daily eat of the food of Christ's body, and drank daily the blood that sprang out of his side, or else they could not have had everlasting life, as Christ himself said in the Gospel of St. John, and yet they were not suffered with other Christian people to have the use of their Sacra- ments."" How precisely this language corresponds with that of the rubric in the Communion Office for the Sick! Again: "The true eating and drinking of the said body and blood of Christ is, with a constant and lively faith^ to believe that Christ gave his body and shed his blood upon the cross for us, and that he doth so join and incorporate himself to us, that he is our head, and we his members, and flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, having him dwelling in us and we in him. jJnd herein.: standeth the whole effect and strength of this Sa- crament.'^ (p. 43.) And again: "\ye say, as the Scripture tearheth, that Christ is corporally ascended into heaven, and, never- theless, he is so in them that worthily eat the bread and drink the wine given and distributed at his Holy Supper, that he feedeth and nourisheth them with his flesh and blood."" '^ Cranmer on the Sacrament, p. 25. See also, p. 75. '«ld,,p. 54. 232 THE lord's supper. And, finally, on this point. "And, therefore, in the Book of Holy Communion we do not pray absolutely that the bread and wine may be made the body and blood of Christ, but that unto us in that holy mystery thet/ may be so;^' that is to say, that we may so worthily receive the same that we may be partakers of Christ's body and blood, and that therewith in spirit and in truth we may be spiritually nourished." (p. 79.) Quotations to the same purport might be almost in- definitely multiplied; but it is believed that these are superfluously sufhcient to confirm our position. 4. In common with Jewel, Cranmer also speaks of the real presence of Christ's body to the believer, be- cause his faith ascends to embrace it in heaven. "And so the old doctors do call this speaking of Christ typical, figurative, anagogical, allegorical; which they do iuterpiet after this sort, that although the sub- stance of bread and wine do remain and be received of the faithful, yet notwithstanding Christ changed the ap- pellation thereof, and called the bread by the name of his flesh, and the wine by the name of hi> blood, non rei veritate sed significanie mysterio; that is, 'not that it is so in very deed, but signified in a mystery;' so that we should consider not what they be in their own nature, but what they impart to ua. and signify; and should understand the Sacrament not carnally but spirit- ually; and should attend not to the visible nature of the Sacraments, neither have respect only to the outward " Reference is here m8i(}p to the ComKi union Service of the fifSt book of Edward. THE lord's supper. 233 bread and cup, thinking to see there with our eyes no other things but only bread and wine; but that lifting up our minds we should look up to the blood of Christ with our faith, should touch him with our mind, and re- •ceive him with our inward man; and that, being like eagles in this life, we should fly up into h none hut demoniacs, and that was uncharitable to imngine ihni all wore demoniacs who came bapii-sm, it was ihought | rudeni by our Reformers to leave it out ot the Liturgy, when they took a review of ii, in ilie fifth and sixth of Kinjr Edward. — Wheatlet, p- 367. 252 INFANT "BAPTISM. ♦ be word renounce i.s used instead of forsake. An im provpiTient is introduced into our service, by addintr to (lie promise, "Iwill," the expression "by (jod's help." The benedictory supplications which follow, were intro- duced into the second Liturgy of Edward. The first rubric which followed in the first Liturgy, directed the child to be dipped in the water three times. This trine immersion, as it was called, was afterwards omit- ted, an tliis service was a those who were to bf lau^rht |)reviously to being baptized, is sufficiently iiiaiiilVst, thoujjli by one who will find nothing in the pa>t but what is to be a(1mired, it is di.-missed with this remark, that "it is not easy to determine the exact rea-^ons" tor the custom.' The introduction to our Bap- tismal Olfice is said to be derived, in some measure, tliuugli with such changes as make it suitable to a Bap- tismal service, from that l"or the admission of persons as catechumens. A remnant of that seivice retained in the first draught of the Liturgy — namely, the signing of the child with the cross — has been already noticed. The addiess to the congregation bears great resemblance to, and appears to have been borrowed from, one in use in the Archbishoj)ric of Cologne, com{)Osed by Bucer and Melancthon. The second Collect in the seivice, is one which was used in the ancient services of the English Church. The portion of St. Mark's Gospel which follows, is also found in the introductory office for making a catechujnen, in the Churches of Salisbury and York. The renunciation of Satan, which, in our service, is merely verbal, was anciently, in the Eastern Church, accompanied by a turning on the part of the candidate to the west, the place of darkness and the 'Palmer's Antic|uiiies of English Ritual, vol. ii, p. 168. 254 INFANT BAPTISM. supposed dwelling of Satan, and renouncing him with gestures and .spitting, indicative of rejection and abhor- ence. The profession of faith was usually made by a repetition of the Creed. The benediction and the con- secration of the waters, are in forms very similar to ours, found in all the Eastern and Western Churches. The sign of the cross has been always in use in this service. In addition to it, other emblelSiatic rites were retained in the early church, such as clothing the bap- tized in white raiment, as symbolical of purity obtained through Baptism; giving them milk and honey, as rep- resenting their new taste clnd nature as babes in Christ; and anointing them with oil as emblematic of the unction of the Spirit. These rites were properly re- jected. The other portions of the service, whose origin we have not indicated, were probably composed by the framers of the Litiu'gy, by the aid of, and upon the model of, some of the continental offices. We sometimes hear the Church of primitive times referred to as little less than perfect in all its doctrines, jites, and its pervading spirit. All its practices are held forth as worthy of devout adoption. Notwith- standing the great reverence which the framers of our Liturgy felt for the early Church — a reverence breathing through all their writings, and conspicuous in the Homi- lies — it is manifest that such was not their judgment. From the history of the Baptismal service, it is clear that they have placed the stainp of their disapprobation u[)on many of the rites almost universally prevalent in the primitive Church. And a mmd, it appears to me, must be strangely constituted, to which some of those INFANT BAPTISM. 255 rites do not seem gross and improper; some puerile and tending to superstition; and some based upon or coun- tenancing erroneous doctrine. In what has been re- jected, and what has been retained by the f'ramers of our service, we have adchtional proof of tJieir wisdom, and oi the j)resence with tlieni of that Coil who guides minds, whicJi are submissive to his power, into all truth. They have rejected, as we have seen, the introductory service which was used to make catechumens, and with it the anointing with oil, the exorcism, and the pre- sentation of salt, with which it was accompanied. The all but universal ancient custom of baptizing persons, divested of all clothing, under covered baptistries; the trine immersion; the clothing of the baptized person with a chrism or white garment; the anointing of him with oil, and the presentation to him of milk and honey to eat, are all omitted. Here are eight distinct ceremo- nies or customs in the single service of Baptism, uni- versally prevalent in the primitive Church, which were rejected by the framers of our Liturgy. And this they did in the exercise of that liberty which is proclaimed in our XXXIVth Article, that "it is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one or utterly alike." On the contrary, the Church of Rome has re- tained and multiplied these superstitious and puerile customs, and it is in explaining and exalting them, that the childish rhetoric of its writers, suited to its theme, grows most tawdry. Says Moehler,^ ''Symbol iscrowrled upon symbol, in (jrder to express in the most manifest 'Symbolism, p. 296. 256 INFANT BAPTISM. way the one idea, thai a total permanent change is to orciir in man, aiid a new, higher aad lasting existence i^ hrncel'oi ward to commence." Yes, alas! symbol is crowded upon symbol, until the one spiritual idea of" a new nature disappeais under them, instead of being maniiested //i/oM^/i them; some of these symbols having dug its grave, while others stand, pompous and boastful monuments, over the place of its departure. Beside the mere act of Baptism, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we retain one rite which is expressive and proper, that of signing the child's fore- head with the sign of the cross, in token of his conse- cration to the service of the Crucified. So much does this significant rite commend itself to the minds of all, tijat although it may be omitted when those who present the child shall desire it, I have never known or heard of a case in which the desire to have it omitted has been expressed The canons of the Church of Eng- land," which explains the lawful use of the sign of the cross, declares that "it is no part of the substance of that Sacrament," that "it doth not add any thing to the, virtue or perfection of Baptism, nor, being omitted, doth detract any t-hing from the effect and substance of it." We retain the custom of sprinkling or pouring instead of imrhersion, because although we regard immersion as a common method of Baptism in the Apostles' days, and th.) e immediately succeeding, we do not regard that particular method as having been ever enjoined or always practised, or as essential to the Sacrament. The '" Canons of the Church, 228. INFANT BAPTISM. 257 words translated ''baptism " and "baptize," which are confidently said to mean vinilormly immerse^ have been critically examined by a ripe scholar of our own l/hurch, and the result is, that out of ninety-three places in which the words occur, they have the sense of immer- sion in but two.*" In other places they express the meaning to dip partially^ to wet, to pour, to sprinkle. The custom of having godfathers and godmothers is a wise and kind provision for the training of children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In our attemjit to develop the doctrinal meaning of our service, the necessity for sponsors will be apparent. Indeed, on what we regard as the Church's view of Infant Baptism, the provision of sponsors is essential to its performance. If Infant Baptism is to be performed, it can only be, as we think, upon the profes.sion of faith and penitence on the sponsors' part. Had we space, then, to show that, in the language of our Article, "the Baptisin of young children is in any wise to be retained in the church as most agreeable with the institution of Christ," we should in so doing show how the office of sponsors is inseparably and necessarily connected with it. Taking for granted, at this time, that Infant Baptism was, in the design of Christ, to be retained, it will aj>pear how necessary a j>arl of it is the sponsors' promises and profession. The meaning and intent of this service has been and is a subject of unceasing discussion. By one class it has been represented as setting forth the doctrine that, *^ Chapin's Primitive Church. 258 INFANT BAPTISM. in and by virtue ol" Baptism, as instituted by Christ, the child receives the remission of his original sin, and a signed and sealed admission into the privileges of the covenant of redemption — privileges secured to him in the act of Baptism, and extended to him as soon as he is capable of receiving them. By another class, the service is regarded a-» teaching not merely the remis- sion, but the removal, of original sin; not only the secured admission to the privileges of heaverdy citizen- ship, but such an actual reception of transforming grace as makes the infant to be born again, by a change of his mora! nature. Upon a subject so much controverted, we can hope, in the brief space that remains, to do litUc more than express our own strong convictions, and leave the brieily indicated giounds of those convic- tions to the further examination and retlection of the reader. Much of the perplexity upon this subject has aiisen, we believe, from the different senses in which the word " Baptism" is used. In Scripture, we find it generally used in one of three ditTerent senses. Sometimes it means the outward rite of Baptism, sometimes the in- ward change, the new nature given by grace through the exercise of faith in Christ and repentance towards (iod, of which outward Baptism is the sign and seal. At other times, it is used in a sense which embraces both (he outward sign and the thing signified. This is a [)omt very important to be borne in mind. An example of the first sense is found in the address of St. Peter, upon the day of Pentecost, when he said, " Repent, every one of you., and be baptized." John the Baptist's INFANT BAPTISM. 209 derlaratinn, that the Saviour >li()ul(l l>apti/t' with the Holy fihost and with fire, is an example of the second sense. The declaration of St. Peter, that " Baptism doth now save us," is an example of the last sense, in which both the sign and the thing signified are included, as is evident from the fact, that he adds, it is not the outward part, but the inward, which brings us into a state of salvation ; '' not the puttina: away of the filth of the Hesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards (rod." And yet it was not the inward part, as discon- nected from, hut as united to the inward, which saves. Roth the outward sigii and the inward grace, then, are, meant, whfMi it is said, " Baptism doth save us." Now it will be granted, that when Baptism is spoken oi' in Scripture, as the initiatory rite into the Church of Chri>t, it has leference generally to the baptism of adults. At the first promulgation of Christianity, it was of ne- cessity adults w'ho were first admitted into the Church. Wherever outward Baptism is mentioned in connection with adults, it is ever spoken of, not as the means by whicli the inner Baptism, the converted heart, was to be obtained, hut as that which was to follow that inner Bap- tism, as il^ expressive sign and its attesting seal. Such we find to have been the case with the covenant seal of CJod, even under a less spiritual dispensation. The rite of circumcision held the same place under the Jewish, as Bapli~in under the Christian, dispensation. St. Paul tells us, that " Abraham received the sign of circumci- sion — not as the instrument of imparting to him righte- ousness — but as a seal of the righteousness which he had, yet being uncircumcised," This is the uniform 260 INFANT BAPTISM. (estimony ol the New Te.staiuent. It is by tife Word, hy faith in, Christ, that the soul's new birth is said to be effected, and tlien Baptism is applied as its sign and seal. " Whosoever beUeveth that .Jesus is the Christ, is born ol God." The three thousand who were converted, under the preaching of St. Peter, were pricked to the heart or convicted of sin, and gladly received the Word — both of these being the effects of the Holy Spirit — and were then baptized. Cornehu.> and the Gentiles with him, after there was poured out upon them the gift of the Holy Ghost, were then baptized in the name of the Lord. The jailer was bidden by the Apostles, when he asked them what he must do to be saved, not to be bap- tized, that he might be made regenerate, but to " be- lieve in the Lord .lesus Christ, and he should be saved." After hearing the Word of God, he and his household were baptized. The Ethiopian eunuch was assured, tliat if lie believed Jesus to be the Son of God, he might be baptized. Now, when we are told that none can be- lieve Jesus to be the Son of God but by the Spirit, we find in this instance, also, that the " spiritual baptism preceded, or was profes.sed to have preceded, the bap- tism of water." We take it, therefore, as an established Scriptural principle, that in Adult Baptism, the inner and spiritual washing preceded that outward baptism, which was its significant symbol and its appropriate seal. And now we come to advert to the fact already no- ticed, that Baptism is often used in Scripture as expres- sive both of the outward sign and the inward grace. " By a common figure of speech, also, that is sometimes INFANT BAPTISM. 261 attributed to the outward rite, which belongs either to the inward grace alone, or to the inward grace and the outward sign together." Having learned from Scrip- ture histoi-y that the inward grace precedes the outward sign, we are not liable to explain passages in which this cotnplex use, or this use of one part for the whole, of the word " baptism" occurs, as teaching that the outward rile precedes the inward grace as its cause ; but that, al- though thus mentioned, the relation between them is that indicated by such Scripture as we have adduced. Now here are the simple principles — and the more they are tested by Scripture the more evident will they be — by means of which all the language of Scripture receives an easy and consistent explanation. Does Ananias say to Paul, " Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins ?" We do not conclude that a new doctrine meets lis here, and that the outward baptism is the means by which sins are washed away. We believe the Scripture harmonizes with all the rest. Turning to the history of St. Paul's conversion, we find that Ananias was sent to him by .Jesus, that he might receive his sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. Then, he arose and was baptized. When Ananias thus bid- him to arise and be baptized and wash away his sins, he used baptism in the sen.se of that completing ordinance, by which the washing away of sins, which was effected by faith in Christ, would be symbolized and visibly attested and secured by God's established seal. And thus when- ever, in Scripture, baptism is connected with the remis- sion of sins and with .spiritual regeneration, it will be found either to include the idea of both the inward and 262 INFANT BAPTISM.* outward baptism ; or, it it be expressive of the outer rite, it will be found to be on the supposition, or in con- nection with the fact, that it has been or is to be pre- ceded by the inner spiritual baptism. Such various use of the word is natural, and has its numerous analogies in social and civil life. I might speak of the inaugura- tion of the President of the United States, and truly say it conferred upon him no powers as President. Then I should speak of it as a mere outward act, which could have been of no force or benefit, but for his previous election by the people, in accordance with the provi- sions of the Constitution. The ceremony did not con- fer, but signified, sealed and formed the initiatory mode of his entrance upon the possession of a power already his by the Constitution and the people's will. Or I might truly say, that his inauguration conferred upon him the power of President ol the United States ; and then I should use the word as expressive, of the com- pleting ceiemony which, in connection with wirat h;ul gone before, was a significant outward method of for- mally, finally, solemnly, investing him, upon his taking the oath required by the Constitution, with that posses- sion — namely, the power and prerogative of his otiice — which had previously been conferred upon him, but which he could not enjoy iintil this ceremony hud taken place. So in Scripture, we find that Ba])tism, the mere outward rite, is said not to convey salvation ; " not Wif putting away of the filth of the Mesh,''' l)y the outwanl rite, "saves us," says ^t. Paul. i>ut Raptisni saves when it is tl)(» anssver of a good coiiscience towards God. That is, when llit- outward ritr has been preceded INFANT BAPTISM. 263 by the inward grace, then we say it saves us; as when inauguration has been preceded by a right election, it may be said to convey, to him who is elected, the powers and prerogatives of President ot" the United States. Now, with one additional remark with regard to Bap- tism as described in the Bible, we shall be prepared to examine the services and teachings of" the Church upon the subject. It is found that many of the cases of Baptism, men- tioned in Scripture, are accompanied, or enjoined with, or followed by, the promise of the bestowal of the Holy Gho^t. This gift of the Holy Ghost is to be distin- guished from the precedent gift of the Spirit which pro- duced the work of penitence and faith in the sinner's soul. It was usually in the Apostles' days a miraculous gift of tongues or miracles, and no doubt was accompa- nied by the sanctifying grace which ever renews the soul into a completer image of the Master. Turning to the Church, we find these views of Scrip- ture corroborated to our minds, by observing the same language upon the subject of Baptism, as we find in the Word of God. The authoritative doctrine of the Church upon the subject is found in her Articles. The XXVIIth, 'istance of heaven. 5. It is a covenanting and sealing ordinance, in which the forgiveness of all sins, and all the privileges of adopted children are secured and to be extended, by God on his part, to the child, upon the fulfilment, on his part, of the promises made by the sponsors. . And now, in conclusion, we repudiate the charge, that it is a want of faith, and a want of reverence for the Sacraments, and a rationalizing spirit, which rejects that interpretation of the Baptismal Service which makes the child to receive the inner and spiritual grace, by and cannot perforn)) nor upon the faith and repentance of their natural parents or pro-parents, or of their god-fathers or god-mothers, but upon the ordinance and institution of Christ. But it is requisite that when they come to age they should perform these conditions of faith and repentence, for wh ich also their god-fathers and god-mothers charitably undertook on their behalf And what they do for the in- fant in this case, the infant himself is truly said to do, as in the courts of this kingdom daily, the infant does answer by his guar- dian; and it is usual to do homage by proxy, and for princes to mar- ry by proxy. For the further justification of this answer, see St Aug. Epis. 2.3, ad Boniface." The answer of the Bishops to the exceptions of the ministers. CardwelVs Conferences, p. 357. INFANT BAPTISM. 275 through the waters of Baptism. Faith is true only when it rests on truth revealed ; and that infants are thus trans- formed in Baptism is not revealed. Reverence becomes superstition, if it be exercised upon error. We reject this interpretation, not because we doubt that God could, by this Sacrament, so change the nature of the child, but because we have no proof or promise that he does and will. We reject it, because it is opposed to the uniform teaching of the Bible, that the spiritual prere- quisites, repentance and faith, must ever precede Bap- tism as its condi'iou, and never follow it as its result. VVe reject it, because our Church, by her Articles and Catechism, and tlie provision for sponsors, testifies that such repentance and faith must precede in the cases of adults and infants alike — in the one case personally, and in the other sponsorially — the reception of the Sacra- ment. We reject it, because it runs counter to the universal Scripture truth that it is through the Word, through faith in a proclaimed and offered Saviour, and through this means alone, that the heart is won, through conviction and godly sorrow and true belief, to the Lamb of God that taketli away its sins. We reject it, because it accustoms the mind to regard it as a settled principle, that Sacraments operate with spiritual influence upon the unconscious, unthinking, and unfeeling soul of in- fancy; and because from this principle, the step is brief and easy to the btlief that they may also operate, of their inherent force, upon the stupid, unexercised, im- penitent, careless heart, which is brought under their influence; — a belief ruinous to habits of watchfulness, pray erf ulness, and self-examination. We reject it, be- 276 , INFANT BAPTISM. cause we believe with Hooker, that " the manner of the necessity of Sacraments to life supernatural, is not, in all respects, as food unto natural life, because they con- tain, in themselves, no vital force or efficacy; they are not physical, but moral instruments, of salvation, duties of worship and service, which, unless we perform as the author of grace requireth, they are unprofitable."^^ And such a view of the Sacrament, how does it, at the same time, awaken our gratitude, encourage our hopes, and secure our diligent culture of the child, whom we have brought to Christ in Baptism ! That God has received him into his Church; that he has graciously added to his promise to give him his Holy Spirit, a visible sign and seal; that he has by attested covenant given over to the child the heavenly inheritance upon the possession of which he may enter as soon as he shall exercise the conditions, penitence and faith; that all these gifts come to the child of believing parents, is to those parents' hearts a thought for comfort and for hope. And yet, that the child may forfeit the inheritance made over to him by compact, but not yet, because of his tender years, in possession; that he may fail to fulfil the conditions — how does this consideration lead the anxious parent to watch over the development of the child's awakening and opening mind; earnestly to pray , and carefully to bring him up in the constant nurture and ad- monition of the Lord ! If he were sure that his child were already spirtually regenerate, he might be tempted to withhold instruction, prayer, and culture. But when he sees that upon his faithfulness and effort, in good " '2 Book V, §57. INFANT BAPTISM. 277 measure, it will depend whether his child shall enjoy the rich blessing of forgiveness and sonship which he enjoy, then every motive urges him to diligence and to prayer. Yes, ovec the sheltered soul of th* little immortal hovers the promised Spirit, ready to beam its sunlight upon the first unfolding of the roseate leaves of its young existence; and human faith and hope and love tend the tender nursling, and remove every obstruction, and provide every facility, that the lifegiving influences of the descending Spirit may bring out that bud of im- mortality into full bloom and perfect fragrant life. That such a blessing may attend all our cares and prayers and pains, God, in his great mercy, grant ! XII. 2ri)e 13apti0nial Seirlccs, awt tlji^ (Halab^sm. "The ministration of private Baptism of children in houses," is an office provided for cases of great neces- sity, when, from sickness, or other causes, children cannot be brought into the church. It provides that the Lord's Prayer, and some of the Collects in the Office of Public Baptism be used; that the child shall be bap- tized in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and that the thanksgiving, as in the public office, shall succeed. The rubric which follows, declares the child to be "sufficiently and lawfully baptized." Should the child recover, provision is made that he be brought into the church, and his true Baptism certifi.ed, when the same service in substance is used, as in the form for Public Baptism. As the service was adopted at the same time with that for the Public Baptism of children, it underwent, substantially, the same mutations. There are, however, some points of interest peculiar to this service which demand our notice. In our last chapter, we spoke of sponsors as being necessary, in the view of the Church, in infant Baptism. Here, however, sponsors are dispensed with, and still the AND THE CATECHISM. 279 Baptism is declared lawful and valid. Does not this fact overthrow our statement ? We think not. Observe that, by the Church's theory, such Baptism is allowed to be administered only under ^^ a great cause and ne- cessity,^'* when so many Collects from the form of public Baptism are to be used <' as the time and present exigence will suffer.'''* Now, as the omission of a Sa- crament altogether, where from sickness or inability it cannot be received, is declared by the Church to be no loss to him who sincerley and in faith desires it; as the full benefit and blessing of the Sacrament, under such circumstances, accrue to him ; so wherever, from the like necessity, any part of the Sacrament is dispensed with, we cannot suppose that its validity is destroyed, or its blessing diminished. This were a sutiicient expla- nation of a case which is clearly an exception to a gen- eral rule. But it may be added, also, that what is es- sential in sponsorship, namely, the faith and repen- tance of the pareats or god-parents, is supposed in the very act of their presenting the child, in such exigency, for Baptism. In the one case, such faith is expressed by words of solemn promise; in the other case, because of the exigency of the time, the promises are implied in the act, and provision is made, that if the child recover, it shall be brought to the church, and the solemn promises be spoken which were before silently implied. Lay Baptism. This service for private Baptism is one of peculiar interest, as the question of the validity of Lay Baptism is 280 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES, intimately connected with it. A brief history of the service will show what, as a fact, is the doctrine of our Church, and the Church of England, on the subject. It is well known that the Romish Church regards Baptism as so essential to salvation as to allow its ad- ministration by laymen and women in cases of near approach of death. Such was the practice at the time of the Reformation. The first Liturgy of Edward au- thorized Lay Baptism, and no change in this respect was made when it was revised in 1552; nor when it was again revised and confirmed under Elizabeth, in 1560. It is to be observed, however, that women were not authorized, as they are in the Romish Church, to ad- minister this Sacrament in cases of necessity. The language of the rubric is, " let them that be present call upon God for his grace, and say the Lord's Prayer, if the time will suffer. And then one of fhem shall name the child, and dip him in the water, and pour water upon him, saying these words. ^' ' Notwithstanding that wo- men were not authorized, it is probable that from long custom they sometimes administered the Sacrament; but that they did so, not only without authority, but also against the sentiments of the rulers of the Church. In a letter of Sampson and Humphrey — two clergy- men of the Church, who were dissatisfied because the ecclesiastical habits and some rites oftensive to them were enjoined by Queen Elizabeth — a letter written in 1566, to BuUinger, pastor of the church at Zurich, it is mentioned as one of the " remaining straws and chips ' Rubric in the last Liturgy of Edward. AND THE CATECHISM. 281 of the popish religion," that license is given to women to baptize in private houses. ^ But in a letter of Bishops Grindal and Horn, to the same BuUinger, in the follow- ing year, they declare, " We entirely agree that wo- men neither can nor ought to baptize infants upon any account whatever." Sampson and Humphrey probably spoke of what was sometimes practised without being, as they supposed, licensed by any sufficient authority. ' Such is the testimony of Archbishop Sandys — who was one of the revisers of the Liturgy in the second of Elizabeth — given in his will: '' For private baptism to be ministered by women, I take neither to be prescribed nor admitted."^ The reason of this he elsewhere stated to be, that " women are forbidden to perform any function in the Church."' That laymen however, were expressly authorized to baptize in cases of emer- gency, is evident, not only from the rubric already quoted, but also from " the resolutions and orders taken by common consent of the Bishops, until a synod should * Zurich Letters, p. 164. " •' Here (at the Hampton c.ouri conference) the Bishop of Win- chester spake very learne()ly and earnest on that point, (viz.. Bap- tism in private by laymen,) affirming that the denying of private persons in cases of necessity to baptize, were to cross all antiquity, seeing tiiat it had been the ancient and common practice of the Church, when ministers, at such times, could not be got; and that it was a good rule agreed upon among divines that the minisler is not of the essence of the Sacrament." Barlow's sum and substance of the conference, &c., in Cardwell's Conferences, &c., 167. ly resolved " that Lay Baptism should be discouraged as tnuch as possible; but if the essentials had been preserved in a Baptism by a lay hand, it was not to be repeated."" This is all the legislation of the English Church upon the subject. Her practice, and that of our own Church, has been to regard Baptism by laymen as valid, and not to be re- peated. From this brief account, we see what is the settled doctrine of our Church on this subject. It is, in the language of Bishop Hopkins, " that Baptism, adminis- tered by lay hands, though irregular, and unauthorized by any exi>ress rubric since the year 1603, is, neverthe- less, valid, and not to be repeated.'"^ That such con- tinues to be the doctrine of the Mother Church, is evi- dent from repeated decisions of the ecclesiastical courts of that country. One is mentioned by Bishop White in 'Strype's Grindal, Appendix, p. 61. ' Bishop White's Memoirs, second edition, p. 213. ^ Novelties which disturb our Peace, p. 10. The proposition ia maintained by an eirmy of logic and authority not to be overthrown, 284 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES, his Memoirs. ^° It was occasioned by a suit brought by a Dissenter against a parish Minister, for refusing to bury a child who had been baptized by a Minister dis- senting from the Establishment. The judge, Sir John Nichols, decided it against the clergyman. A much more recent case was decided in the same way. In the case of Martin vs. Escott, a clergyman of the English Church " was sentenced to suspension from the Min- istry for three months, for having refused to bury the body of a child who had been baptized by a Methodist preacher, under the plea that such Baptism was a mere nullity, being performed not by a lawful Minister, but by a mere layman. The ecclesiastical court went large- ly into the authorities, and condemned the clergyman on the ground that Lay Baptism, administered with water in the name of the Holy Trinity, was valid and sufficient, by the doctrine of the Church of England. "" That our own Church occupies the same ground with the Church of England on this subject, is evident from the fact, that no change has been made in her Baptismal Services. It is further evident from history. In the General Convention of 1811, two clergymen attempted to pro- cure from that body a declaration of the invalidity of Lay Baptism. Happily, they found no encouragement; happily we say, for in the language of Bishop White, if this sentiment had prevailed, " there would be no certainty of the existence of a Bishop in Christen- dom." ^^ '"Memoirs, p. 211, second edition. " Hopkin's Novelties, p. JO. "^ The following is the account given of this attempt : " It appears further on the Journal, that two reverend gentlemen, Benjamin AND THB CATECHISM. 285 The doctrine of our Church, then, upon this subject, is clear. She does not allow her own members to re- ceive Baptism from any but lawful ministers ; and, by that term, it is evident she means her own ministers. When, however, from any circumstances, any of her members are baptized by others than her own ministers, or when she receives into her fold persons baptized in other denominations, she regards the Baptism as irregu- lar and unauthorized, but, nevertheless, valid and not to be repeated. This, her judgment, is grounded, not Benham and Virgil H. Barber, made to the Conyention an appli- cation, the purport of which is not recorded, but became an object ofaiiention in conversation, during and after the session, besides its occasioning a debate at the time, in the house of clerical and lay deputies. The subject is contemplated as likely to be the cause of future litigation, and, therefore, now noticed with sorrow. The object of the two gentlemen alluded to, was to procure a declaration of the invalidity of Lay Baptism ; and they were said to be con- scientiously scrupulous of admitting as members of their congrega- tions, persons who had received no other. This, of course, pre- cluded accessions, except on condition of compliance with their pro- posal, from the most numerous denomination in the State; their Baptism by Congregational ministers being considered as performed by laymen. Although the clergymen alluded to were singular in car- rying the mutter so far, yet there has been an increasing tendency in some of the clergy, to administer Episcopal Baptism to such as desire it, on alleged doubts of the invalidity of former Baptism." The Bishop adds, in a note to the above, that " one of the two cler- gymen (Mr. Barber) distinguishing himself as above, in a few years after became a Roman Catholic. In the communion thus joined by him, it is not uncommon for midwives to baptize. It is a well- known property of extremes, that they are often seen to make the connecting points of a circle." Memoirs, p. 211. 286 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES, upon the supposition that they are lawful ministers by whom the Baptism has been administered — for what- ever may be her decision on this point, it is not here involved — but upon the principle that even if they are laymen, the Baptism still is valid. Her judgment is, as expressed in the last rubric but one in this service, that the essential parts of Baptism are, that the child be bap- tized with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. She has determined that the mode and matter of administering the Sacrament constitute its essence, while the want of an apostolic ministry belongs to its order, and does not destroy its validity. It would be impossible, upon the Umited plan which we have prescribed for this work, to enter upon the consideration of the consistency of these views of the Church with the truth of Scripture. Whoever would see the subject treated in a brief yet thorough manner, may consult the first of the masterly letters of Bishop Hopkins on the " Novelties which disturb our Peace." We can barely give a specimen of the course of argu- ment pursued, but cannot enter upon it. It is found that the functions which were subsequently committed to the Aaronir Priesthood, were before exercised with- out restriction, as is manifest in the instance of Abel and Noah and Abraham, who offered sacrifices ; and in the instance of Zipporah, who, in a case of extremity, performed circumcision. These sacramental and priestly acts were not, therefore, inseparably tied to the Priest- hood. Nay, after the Priesthood was established, even where it was schismatically and sacrilegiously usurped AiND THE CATECHISM. 287 and exercised by Dathan, Korah and Abiram; and when, for this rebellion and impiety the earth opened and swallowed them up, their offering was not treated as a nullity, " For the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Eleazer, the son of Aaron, the Priest, that he take up the censers out of the burning and scatter thou the fire yonder, for they are hallowed. The cen- sers of theae sinners against their own souls, let them mark broad plates for a covering of the Altar, for they offered them before the Lord; therefore they are hallowed.'''' Is it not clear, that tjie offering is accepted and regarded as consecrated, even when the Minister usurps his of- fice ? Again: in the New Testament our Lord bid the people "observe and do what was commanded by the Pharisees, because they sit in Moses' seat.'' They had no right to occupy that seat, but occupying it they were to be obeyed. Their acts were unauthorized, but being performed, valid. When the disciples saw one separate from Christ, casting out devils in his name, they were ofiended; but Jesus said, "Forbid him not." Here the same principle is involved. It is involved, also, in the language of St. Paul, when he " rejoiced that the gospel was preached, whether in pretence or in truth." These specimens of Scripture authority — which will repay a full examination — will convince the reader that the view of our Church on the subject of the validity of Lay Baptism, accords with the principles and the prac- tices recorded in God's Word. We know that there are those who regard this doc- trine as admitted by the Church, but yet w^th plain inconsistency with her views elsewhere expressed of 288 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES, the Ministry and Sacraments. And, indeed, if the doctrine of the Church be tliat an Apostolic Ministry is essential to the being of a Church, and to the adminis- tration of the Sacraments, then her practice and her doctrine on the subject of Lay Baptism are inconsistent with it, and her offices stand in direct and gross con- tradiction to each other. We are reluctant to charge such gross contradiction on offices so wisely and delib- erately constructed ; offices which passed under the searching cognizance of minds enriched and adorned with the highest gifts of reason and of learning. Rather than believe that the Church has so stultified herself, a reverent regard for her authority, we should suppose, would lead her children — who cannot but admit that she sanctions Lay Baptism — to question the soundness of their interpretation of her views upon the necessity of a threefold Ministry, not only for the regular order and the well-being, but for the being of a Church. The unequivocal language of the last rubric of this service, confirmed by the uniform practice of the Church of England and our own, is, that the essential parts of the Sacrament of Baptism are water and Baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Hence, the principle that the Ministry is of the order and not of the essence of a Sacrament ; and hence, also, the cor- relative principle, that it is necessary to the perfect organization and the well-being, but not to the existence of the Church. These principles admitted, the Church is consistent with herself. These admitted, we can blend that Gospel zeal for God's positive ordinances and institutions, which properly denounces all schism AND THE CATECHISM. 289 and separation from his holy Apostolic Church, with that Gospel charity for all who, having so separated, are yet serving God and promoting the interests of the Re- deemer's kingdom, which led St. Paul to say of those who preached Christ even from contention, that therein he did rejoice, yea and would — whatever the feelings of others, or the promptings of his own narrow zeal might be — he would rejoice. But if these principles be denied, the Church is made to stand out to the world an elaborate self-contradiction ; she is made to condemn her own practice, to nullify her own enactments, to depose her own Ministry, and unchurch her own mem- bers. Consummate is the wisdom of Hooker on this subject — a wisdom through which speaks the voice of all ages, and the oracles of all law. " Are not many things firm, being done, although in part done otherwise than positive rigor and strictness did require? Nature, as much as possible, inclineth to validities and preser- vation. Dissolutions and nullities of things done are not favored, but hated when either done without cause, or extended beyond their reach. If, therefore, at any time it come to pass, that in teaching publicly or pri- vately, in delivering this blessed Sacrament of regen- eration, some unsanctified hand, contrary to God*s sup- posed ordinance, do intrude itself to execute that, whereupon the laws of God and his Church have de- puted others, which of these two opinions seemeth more agreeable with equity — ours that disallow what is done amiss, yet make not the force of the Word and Sacra- ments, much less their nature and very substance, to depend on the Minister's authority and calling; or else 13 290 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES, theirs which defeat, disannul, and annihilate, in respect of that one only personal defect, there being not any law of God which saith that if the Minister be incom- petent, his word shall be no word, his baptism no bap- tism? Sith no defect in their vocation that teach the truth is able to take away the benefit from him who heareth, wherefore should the want of a lawful calling in them that baptize, make Baptism to be vain?" Baptism of those of riper years. The ministration of Baptism to such as are of riper years, was introduced into the English service at its last review. On account of the growth of many sects during the Protectorate of Cromwell, Infant Baptism had been much neglected. Hence, the necessity of a ser- vice for adults was felt immediately after the Restora- tion. , The service is like that for infants, with such changes only as were needful to adapt it to persons of riper years. The first rubric in the English Liturgy requires that a week's notice of such proposed Baptism be given, that the candidate may be examined of his fitness for the Sacrament. By our rubric, timely notice is directed to be given. Godfathers and mothers are provided as witnesses of the vows of the baptized, whose duty it is to admonish them when those vows are violated or neglected. Provision is made in the American, but not in the English service, that Adult Baptism may be performed in private, in cases of ex- treme sickness. The Gospel used in this service is a part of the third chapter of St. John. An exhortation AND THE CATECHISM. 291 suitable to the circumstances of the candidates follows. Direction is also given by rubric, as to the method in which the two services for Infant and Adult Baptism are to be combined, when both infants and adults are to be baptized at the same time. Catechism. " The Catechism, or the instruction to be learned by every person before he be brought to be confirmed by the Bishop," is the next portion of the Prayer-Book, to which we would call attention. It originally formed part of the office for Confirmation, and followed what is now called the preface to that service. In the first service, there was a preface and four rubrics. The present preface consists of that of Edward and the first rubric combined, and slightly altered in form, but not in sense. The three remaining rubrics were afterwards omitted. Of these thiee rubrics, the first declares that Confirmation is ministered to them that be baptized, that by imposition of hands and prayer they may re- ceive strength and defence against all temptations to sm and the assaults of the world and the devil. This was omitted, probably, because it seems too much to elevate the benefits of the rite, in comparison to what belongs to the Sacraments instituted by Christ, and to connect the reception of grace so directly with the laying on of hands, as to lead to misapprehension, if not to error. The second rubric declares that it is agreeable with the usage in time past, that the baptized should be con- firmed. Why this was omitted we cannot conjecture. 292 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES, The third rubric declares, " so that no man may think any detriment shall come to children by deferring their confirmation, that if they die in infancy, being baptized, they are undoubtedly saved." As I find this to have been one of the points objected to at the Savoy Confer- ence by the Presbyterian divines, it may have been omitted at the Convocation which soon followed, in. deference to their objections. The Catechism which followed this preface and the rubrics in Edward's book, are the same as those which we have at present, with the exception of the part which follows the answer to the question upon the Lord's Prayer, which pontains an explanation of the Sacraments. In the first Liturgy of Edward, the Commandments are not given in full ; all of the fourth commandment, for instance, which is - given, are these words: " Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." The explanation of the Sacraments was drawn up by Dr. John Overall, after the Hampton Court Conference, and inserted by com- mand of the king, and confirmed by the Convocation and parliament at the last review, in 1661.'^ It has been adopted by our own Church, with a few altera- tions. The words godfathers and godmothers have been changed, in the second answer and third question, to the word sponso: s ; and the word king or qtieen has been changed into civil authority, in answer to the question. What is thy duty towards thy neighbor? In the answer to the question which follows the Lord's Prayer, the terms "dangers ghostly and bodily," and "ghostly '^Shepherd on Common Prayer, vol. ii, p. 268. AND THE CATECHISM, 293 eiictny," are changed into ''dangers both of soul and body," and into " spiritual enemy." A very significant change was made by our Church, in the answer to the question, " What is the inward part or thing signified" in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper? The answer in the English Prayer-Book is, "The body and blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." In our Catechism the answer runs thus: "The body and blood of Christ which are spiritually taken," &c. An argument had been derived from the words verily and indeed, by those in the English Church who maintained semi-popish views of the Sacraments, that the body and blood of Christ were really, literally, locally, present in the ele- ments, and were, in this sense, taken and received by the faithful. There is no ground for such argument in the words. Nevertheless, our Church, to prevent cavil, introduced the change, and by introducing it showed that she holds no such sentiment. If it were literally and corporeally presented, it would be in the same manner, and not spiritually, received. A spiritual eating of a literal body and blood, is no greater absurdity, than a corporeal eating of a truth, a thought, an argument, or a figure. We would fain not introduce such remarks in connection with this holy Sacrament. We know that when men take low and sensuous views' of the Sacra- ments, and make it necessary for others to show their absurdity, they cry out at the want of a reverential handling of their notions — as if a want of reverence for them were want of reverence for the holy Sacraments of Christ, which they do but darken and disfigure. But 294 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES must we, therefore, let them pass uncensured and un- exposed, from fear of such clamor? It were to be un- faithful to our trust as guardians and teachers of God's Word. The practice of catechizing the young and the igno- rant in the truths of religion is very ancient, because it has ever been found very necessary. The word cnte- chism, is derived from a Greek term, which signifies instruction in the rudiments of knowledge, by questions and answers. It was a custom among the Jews, as we are informed by Josephus, to have their children in- structed in the law, by a teacher in each village, called ''the instructer of babes."'* Catechetical schools, as they were called, were established at Alexandria, Cesa- rea, Antioch, Rome, and Carthage, for teaching the truths of Christianity to the baptized children of be- lievers. Catechists were appointed for. heathen cate- chumens, of several classes, who, instructed and placed upon probation for two yi?ars, and sometimes more, were, if approved, baptized. One of the earliest cares of Cranmer, was to provide a catechism for children. Injunctions were issued as early as 1536, that all the officers of the Church should admonish fathers and mothers and governors of youth, to instruct them in the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and Ten Commandments.'* These were published in the King's Primer, 1545. In 1548, Cranmer himself published a catechism, which was a translation of a German one, by Justas Jonas, for ■"■Shepherd, vol. li, p. 257. '* Burnet, vol. i, p. 364. AND THE CATECHISM. 295 the use ol' the Church in Nurembergh."' The same year, the Church Catechism, in nearly its present form, as we have ah-eady described it, was drawn up, as it is supposed, by Ridley or Craiuner. " Our Church requires this Catechism to be learned of every person, before he be brought to be confirmed by the Bishop. At first, in the English Church, it was required that once in six weeks, at least, the children should be catechized in the church, an half hour before Evening Prayer. Bucer objected to it as far too infrequent, and referred to the custom of Germany, where the children were exercised in the Catechism three days in the week.'* Accord- ingly, the rubric was changed, and now directs the curate of every parish, on Sundays and Holy-Days, after the second lesson, at Evening Prayer, openly to instruct and examine the children, who are sent to him, in some part of the Catechism. A canon of the Church of England is more explicit than -the rubric, and en- joins that this instruction be upon every Sunday and Holy-Day. It is a regulation not strictly kept in the English Church. In our Church, as we have not the canon, we are not compelled to regard it as an injunc- tion to repeat this exercise every Sunday and Holy-Day. Other rubrics, enjoining the fathers, mothers, masters, and mistresses, to send their children and apprentices to learn the Catechism, and providing that the children, when they shall come to a competent age, shall be brought to the Bishop to be confirmed by him, and that the Minister of the parish shall furnish the Bishop with '" Le Bas's Life of Cranmer, vol. i, p. 251. '^ Shepherd, vol. ii, p. 267. '» Id., p. 273. 296 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES, the names oH the persons to be confirmed, are the same in the English and American service. The doctrine taught by this Catechism has been ah'eady, in part, unfolded. Its teachings upon the sub- ject of the Sacraments, is the only portion upon which there is any diversity of opinion. What we believe that teaching to be has been intimated in the last and present chapter. The answer to the question, " What meanest thou by the word 'sacrament?' " is, "I mean an out- ward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given us." It supposes the grace given, and of it the outward act is a visible sign. A sign of any thing pre- supposes that to be given or reckoned, of which it is a sign. " Ordained by Christ himself :" — this excludes from the character of Sacraments all those five ordi- nances, besides Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which are regarded as Sacraments by the Romanists. "As a means whereby we receive the same:" — a means, be it observed, not the means. Besides being a sign of grace given, whereby repentance and faith are exercised, it is, also, a means whereby we receive the grace yet more and more; whereby, in the language of the Article, "faith is confirmed." "And a pledge to assure us thereof:" — it is a pillar set up, to show us where God has been in his power, and where he will come again. Then, it is declared, that there are two parts of a Sac- rament, the outward sign and the inward grace. In this sense, therefore, as including both the outward sign and the inward grace reckoned, the word Baptism is used in the first part of the service, where the baptized child declares that he was made, in Baptism, " a mem- AND THE CATECHISM. 297 ber of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." What is the outward and visible sign, and what the inward and spiritual grace, we have already sufficiently explained. The answer to the ques- tion, "What is required of persons to be baptized?" which is, " repentance and faith," plainly proves, that in the Church's view the inner grace is to precede the external sign. VV^hy infants are to be baptized when they cannot personally exercise these virtues, has been also shown. And now the words which follow are worthy of an attentive and close regard. After the outward part or sign of the Lord's Supper is defined, the question is asked " What is the inward part or thing signified ?" and the answer is, " The body and blood of Christ, which are spiritually taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." Now, observe the definition of a Sacrament. It has two parts; the outward sign and the inward grace. There is nothing outward, then, but the sign. The thing signified is "inward," within the soul, ^'■spiritual.'''' The thing inward in baptism, is a soul washed by tlie influences of the Spirit. It is an invisible grace, whose residence is in the soul. The thing signified, also, in the Lord's Supper, must be an inward spiritual thing — something belonging to the soul. The only outward part is the sign, or the bread and wine. There being two parts, then, to this Sacrament, the outward and the inward, and the outward part being wine and bread, the question is asked, "What is the inward part or thing signified.'" Now, mark, that by the definition of a Sacrament, it must be something inward, 13* 298 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES, something belonging to the soul. What is it? The body and blood of Christ ! But how can the body and blood of Christ be regarded as an inward spiritual grace? Is not the definition of a Sacrament here violated by this answer? No; it appears so, only by neglecting to take the entire answer. The inward and spiritual grace is " the body and blood of the Lord, spiritually taken and received hy the faithful in the Lord's Supper." That is, the inward grace is the soul's apprehension and hearty acceptance of the sacrificed body and shed blood of Christ as its atonement, as its "righteousness, sanctifi- cation, and redemption." If this be not — as it mani- festly is — the true meaning of the answer, then it is made to contradict the definition of a Sacrament. Then the thing signified is not an inward and spiritual grace. Then both the sign and the thing signified are outward and visible. Then this Catechism, which passed under the review of enemies and friends, and after having been used for sixty years in the Church, was ratified in solemn Convocation, is made within the compass of a dozen lines to contradict itself. The attempt to find the doctrine of the presence of the real body and blood of Christ in this answer, is as successful as it would be to find the doctrine that a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness is not a grace belonging to the soul, but a living creature, present in or with nr under the element of water. O, when wnll men cease to grossly grope after a Christ whom they can see and handle, and take Christ in their hearts, in the power of his death and his resurrection, as their pardon, their life, their joy, their all? O Thou, who art a spirit, give us a heart to AND THE CATECHISM. 299 worship thee in spirit and in truth; and while in rever- ent faith and love we use the outward sign, give to us, in all its saving and sanctifyiiii!; power, the inward and spiritual grace ! The services which have passed under our review in this and the previous chapter, are of the deepest interest to many of us who, as parents or sponsors, are charged with one of the heaviest responsibilities which it is pos- sible for man to bear. He who looks upon his child with glad parental lovp, must feel his eye fill with tears, and his heart beat with anxious care, when on that child's soul he sees God's hand has written LmmortalitV ! Those little ones are not conscious — are we ? — that upon our faithfulness depends, in large measure, their eternal destiny. Christian parents ! I could pray that they might die and ascend to heaven, without your care and culture, if I thought you could be so cruelly faitliless to these helpless and dependent innocents! Think of the fountains of jo3^fuI love, ever flowing, they have opened in your bosom; of their dependence upon your care and nurture, in connexion with God's blessing on your prayers; of the fact that they owe to you existence; and that while it is capable of being glorious as a seraph's, it is perilously liable to be awful as a fiend's; think of the glory of sharing, as it were, Christ's high joy in being the instrument of leading a soul on and up to heaven's gate, whence it shall speed its rejoicing and brightening way over the ever-opening avenues of eter- nal time; think of these things, now, while God's beam- ing spirit can ripen such thoughts into purposes, and then determine whether you can be mainly anxious for 300 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES, their intellectual advancement or temporal happiness; whether you can devote most thought and care to fit them for success in this passing life; whether you can allow indolence, or earthliness, or occupation, to lead you to neglect their spi;itual nurture and admonition ! that one shriek of one lost child could be made to pene- trate the households of many careless Christian parents, and wake them from that neglect of the young immortals committed to their charge, which is but a protracted murdering of their souls ! Let that shriek sometimes ring in the ear of our fancy, or our stupidity and earthliness will drown the voice of gratitude, of affection, of con- science, and of God ! If we should, by neglect, con sign our child to wo, would not that memory, taken with us to heaven, make in our breast a hell ? " De- liver us from blood-guiltiness, O God I" With these solemn thoughts upon our hearts, let us look at the position and privileges of our children. Let us review the truths which have been unfolded, with a vievi' to a practical use of them in the education and training of those whom God's providence has'committed to our care. The children of Christian parents are by their birth entitled to the blessings which belong to the kingdom of heaven, or Church of Christ, as Jewish children were to the privileges of the Jewish Church. "They are mem- bers of a church, as a king is a sovereign before his coronation, or as a soldier is such before his military oath."'*' By circumcision in the one case, and by '^ Bishop Hopkins, of Derry. Doctrine of two Sacraments. AND THE C'ATECHISM. 301 Baptism in the other, those privileg^es are to be secured to them in solemn covenant, with visible si^ns and seals. We bring them, in their early infancy, to the baptismal font. There we go through no unmeaning and unfruitful ceremony, but we enter into solemn covenant, and se- cure a real, spiritual blessing for the child. The deed which conveys to the child the remission of his sins is signed and sealed. His sins are thereby remitted to him, and when he shall have become of age to understand his privileges, he shall enter upon their possession, if he do not forfeit them by wilful failure to fidfil the condi- tions upon which they are promised. To use the illus- tration of St. Bernard, as found in Hooker, " God, by sacraments, givelh grace, even as honor and dignities are given, — an abbot made by receiving a staff, a doctor by a book, a Bishop by a ring; because he thatgiveth these pre-eminences declareth by such signs his meaning; nor doth the receiver take the same but with effect; for which cause he is said to have the one by the other, albeit that which is bestowed proceedeth wholly from the will of the giver, and not from the efficacy of the sign. "The idea," says Bishop Mcllvaine, " is, that Baptism is said to convey the benefit of the (rospel, precisely as an abbot is made an abbot by receiving a staff. And no further than the delivery of the staff im- plies a change in the personal fitness of the receiver for his office, does the receiving of the visible sign and seal of Baptism innply a spiritual change in the personal fitness of the recipient for the privileges of the Gos- pel."*' The parents and sponsors, therefore, feel that «« Oxford Divinity, p. 395. 302 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES, the children whom they bring to Baptism have had conveyed over to them, by a covenant rite, the heaven- ly inheritance ; that they have became members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. All that belongs to God's children, which it is possible for them to receive in their present condi- tion, is conveyed to them; and all that remains is se- cured to them by promise, — by a promise signed and sealed. The thought and anxiety of the parent are concentrated, then, upon that which remains. His care is that his child may not fail to enter upon an in- heritance secured to him; that he may not forfeit the high privilege, first his by birthright, and then his by a covenant, to whose provisions God has atfixed his own gracious seal. Herein lies the parent's awful responsi- bility. For this ascend his earnest prayers. Over this his anxious fears sometimes gather darkling. Around this, again, his bright hopes hang clustering. But on this, also, his faith, grounded upon sure promises, may rest, if he be faithful to the conditions on which the promises are made. On the profession of faith and repentance for himself, he knows that, in the Sacrament of Baptism, all the blessings of the Gospel are conveyed over to his actual possession and enjoyment, — pardon, justification, i-edemption, sanctification, adoption. On the profession of repentance and faith for his child, he may know as well, that the same blessings, so far as the child is capable of receiving them, are conveyed to hiai, and that the remainder of them wait to meet his opening capabilities for their reception. The promise is to him and to his children. It is a promise to himself on h'la AND THE CATECHISM. 303 personal faith and penitence. It is a promise to his child, on his (the parent's) profession of faith and re- pentance, and on the condition that he bring up his child in the nurture of the Lord. What a rich encouragement has the parent here ! How may he be animated to brinS up the child in the way that he should go, with such sure guarantees that when he is old he shall not depart from it. He may look into God's Word and find the faith of one bringing a blessing to another, and from this principle of the divine government, receive most animat- ing assurances of blessing for his child. He hears the centurion say to the Master, " Speak the word only, and thy servant shall be healed;" and finds that because of this, the centurion's faith, his servant is healed in the self-same hour. He hears the heart-stricken ruler im- portunately and impatiently cry out, " Sir, come down, ere my child die !" and sees Jesus take the maid by the hand and bid her to arise. Although he knows it is a principle of the divine administration that each soul stands individually responsible to God, so that it is pos- sible for the child consecrated to Him, dedicated in faith, and nurtured in the Lord's admonition, to overcome all grace, and destroy himself; he knows, also, that it is another principle of the same government, that the father's faith shall win a blessing to his child, and that faithful nurture and admonition in the Lord has the promise of his blessing. Therefore, he takes the child, in strong faith, to the laver of regeneration. There- fore, he brings him up, with liveliest hope, in the Lord's nurture. And his labors and prayers shall not be in vain. Experience proves that faith and fidelity to bap- 304 THE BAPTISMAL SERVICES, ETC. tized children are made the instruments of their entrance upon the enjoyment of all the privileges of the house- hold of God. I add but one word more. If we realized these truths, and acted upon them, the sad spectacle of a whole con- gregation going up to the Table of the Lord without any of their children, in the r'ays of their youth, would not be so often witnessed. The Church evidently contem- plates, thatunderthe training of her catechetical instruc- tion, and under the influences of sponsorial faithfulness, the child will become, or, rather, will not cease to be, God's child, and thus be fitted at an early age for ratify- ing its baptismal vows in Confirmation, and thence coming to the Lord's Table. Let us labor that we and our children may not be condemned for our failure to fulfil this reasonable anticipation ! XIII. €onfuniation. The service for Confirmation, in connection with the Catechism, having been already sufficiently described, we shall proceed at once to speak of the authority and nature of the rite. There are sorhe practices of the Apostles which we learn were not to be perpetuated in the Christian Church, by the fact that no command remains to continue them, and no evidence appears that they were meant to be per- petual. When, however, any Apostolic practice is con- nected with an injunction that it be continued, as a permanent rite or rule of the Church; or when, without a command in so many words, it is spoken of by the Apostles as an essential part of the Christian system; and when clear evidence is adduced that, after the Apostles, the Ch«irch continuously practised it as a rite of divine institution, then it is to be reverently received and practised. Then, instead of presumptuously putting our minds upon the inquiry, " Is it a useful rite ?" it becomes us at once to recognise it as necessarily so, because by God established, and to betake ourselves, with a humble and grateful spirit, to the inquiry, "What 306 CONFIRMATION. are the uses and blessings which God has connected with this divine institution ?" The rite of Confirmation, as retained in our Church, is one, as we believe, not only practised by the Apostles, but transmitted by them to the Church as one of its perpetual institutions, obliga- tory upon all. I. Its Scriptural Authority; II. The Position which the Church assigns to it; and III. The Qualifications necessary for it. These are the points to which we shall direct our atten- tion. I. The fact that the Apostles laid hands upon those who were baptized, and that therewith the baptized re- ceived the Holy Ghost, is clear. When Saul made havoc of the Church, the disciples were all scattered abroad, except the Apostles. It turned out to the fur- therance of the Gospel. They went everywhere, preach- ing the Word. Among them Philip, the Deacon, went to Samaria, and so preached that the Samaritans believed and "were baptized, both men and women." When the Apostles at Jerusalem heard of this, they sent two of their number, Peter and John, to confirm the work, well begun; who, when they came to Samaria, prayed for the baptized believers, and " laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost." Here is the fa-ct that the Apostles laid their hands upon the bap- tized. It does not stand alone. In the nineteenth chapter of the Acts, St. Paul is mentioned as having baptized certain persons who had before received only CONFIRMATION. 307 John's Baptism, on whom also he laid hands, and who received the Holy Ghost. And now the question arises, was this custom regarded as, and designed to be, perpetual ? A passage in the sixth chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews,' answers the question. The Apostle enumerates what he calls the principles of the doctrine of Christ, and this is among them. " Leaving, therefore, the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God, and of the doctrine of bap- tisms, and laying on of hands, and of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." Now, these are all called principles or fundamentals of the Christian doctrine. We know that repentance and faith, and the resurrection and the judgment, are these first principles; and we find among them, as in the same class, "bap- tism, and laying on of hands.'''' If the former are to be retained as part of the Christian system, so, equally, are the latter. Baptism, we know, from other passages, is to be retained, and " laying on of hands" is here placed in the same position with Baptism. The only doubt that could possibly arise is, whether the " laying on of hands" here spoken of is the same mentioned in the Acts to which we have referred; or whether it may not refer to the laying on of hands in ordination, or in healing in the sick. It could not refer to these prac- tices, because these being confined to small portions of the Church, could not, with any propriety, be ranked • Hebrews i, 6. 308 CONFIRMATION. with repentance and faith, as a first principle of the doc- trine of Christ. The evidence appears perfectly con- clusive, that the ordinance was designed for all time and all people. II. Bui, in the second place, what is the precise po- sition which we assign to this ordinance ? 1. We do not rank it as a Sacrament. A Sacrament is instituted by Christ, and has an outward sign or sym- bol of an inward and spiritual grace. This was institu- ted by the Apostles and has no outward symbol. (1.) We do not regard it as conveying of itself, as it did when practised in the age of miracles by the Apostles, the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, which the disciples, on whom the Apostles' hands were laid, received. As such gifts were not intended for all times and all Christians, we retain the rite, as we do that of laying on of hands in ordination, although the miraculous gifts which accom- panied that gesture in Apostolic times and by Apostolic hands have ceased. (2.) Yet we do not regard the rite as a meaningless and profitless ceremony. Far from it. It has deep significance and rich blessing. When he who has been baptized thus stands, up according to Christ's appointment, through his Apostles, to renew his oath of fidelity and consecration, in the presence of men and angels, doubtless, in that moment, if his be a true and hearty consecration — with the prayers of God's people and his own invoking the presence of the pro- mised Spirit — doubtless the Spirit of glory and of God CONFIRMATION. 309 resteth upon him. It has to his soul a solemn signifi- cance. It brings to his soul a real blessing. 2. Let us, then, examine the advantages of this rite in the case of those who have been baptized in infancy. In the case of those who have received Baptism in infancy, it is manifest that some solemn rite or service should be established, that they may, in their own name and person, make a confession of Christ before men. They cannot do it by Baptism, because that has already been performed. They cannot with propriety do it by coming to the Lord's Supper, because that blessed ordinance is a badge or token of a discipleship already assumed, and a Christian profession already made — not a Sacrament b}' which it is to be done. This is a rite, then, intermediate between Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which precisely answers the end of confessing Christ before men. In other denomina- tions, where it is not adopted, other and human devices are practised to make this profession. This has the advantage, however, as we have seen, of being divinely established. It was practised in the ages after the Apostles, just as uniformly as Baptism and the Lord's Supper. TertuUian in the second century, Cy- prian in the third, Jerome and Augustine in the fourth, all speak of it as practised, and as obligatory. It is practised in the Lutheran Churches. Many who have separated from the Church have acknowledged the value and the primitive institution of the rite. Calvin owns it to be primitive and useful. Baxter has written a long treatise explaining and commending it. A strong testimony to its primitive use and its importance is 3 to <;ONFIRMATION. found in a report made some years since, to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, by a committee appointed for that purpose, on the best method of treating those who had been bap- tized. " It appears, (says the report,) that a rite called Confirmation, was administered by the hand of the Minister or Bishop or Elder, together with prayer, on baptized children of a certain age." "This right of Confirmation," continues the report in another place, " thus administered to baptized children, when arrived at competent years, and previously instructed and pre- pared for it, with the express view of their admission to the Lord's Supper, shows clearly that the primitive Church, in her purest days, exercised the authority of a mother over her baptized, " That this rite was elevated to the dignity of a sacrament, and connected with super- stitious usages, by the Church of Rome, furnishes no reason why we should relinquish it Acknowledged even by those, who do not retain it to have been of Apostolic institution and primitive use, our Church, here as elsewhere, with wise moderation, retained its use while it threw ofl^" its abuses. It understood the simple, useful distinction between removing an excres- cence and cutting off a limb. 3. The use and advantages of the rite, when perform- ed in the case of those who are baptized in infancy, is, however, acknowledged by some who do not seem to recognise its propriety in the case of those who are bap- tized in riper years. To this point we would direct a few observations. (1.) It should be sufficient to say, that we have the CONFIRMATION. 311 authority of Scripture for the practice. Both the re- corded instances of Confirmation in the eighth and nine- teenth chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, to which we have referred, are of this kind. Those whom St. Philip baptized in the one case, and St Paul in the other, ^ere adults. St. Paul administered the rite im- mediately after Baptism. And so, " in primitive times, when many persons were baptized together on the vigils of Eastel-, Pentecost, and Epiphany, in the pre- sence or by the* hands of the Bishop, the newly bap- tized, after ascending from the water, were immediately confirmed by him, with imposition of hands and prayer for the Holy Ghost." - Now, if this rite were but of ec- clesiastical institution, yet as it is an ordinance of the Church, not repugnant in spirit or in form from other Scriptural institutions, it would seem that those who have the mind of the Master would gladly comply with it without question and without cavil. The Saviour submitted to the rite of Baptism, although it was not provided for in the Jewish law, and was but a regula- tion of the Jewish Church, and although, as a sinless being, it was not personally applicable to himself. This he did, he declares, " that he might fulfil all righteous- ness." If it should seem t< any person to be in his case unnecessary, because he had just taken the vows of Baptism in his riper years, this example of the Sa- viour will still show him that, inasmuch as this is a resu- lation of the church to which he belongs, it becomes him to submit to it that he may, in like manner, " fulfil all righteousness." 'Palmer on the Liturgy, vol. ii. 312 CONFIRMATION. (2.) But we can see, I think, in several particulars, the great advantages and important uses of this rite when administered even to those who have passed the baptismal vow in their riper years. It is the renewal of the solemn oath or vow to a higher authority; to the highest officer of the Church on earth; to the one who, by divine appointment, in an eminent and peculiar sense, stands as his representative on earth. This, surely, fortifies the consecration of the soul to God by new and solemn sanctions. It is well known that the same responsibility assumed and the s-ame vow passed to one holding delegated authority, remotest from its source, is not so fully felt as when it is renewed to one who is nearest to the power by whom the obligation and the vow are imposed. It is a principle understood and acted upon in business transactions, in the higher insti- tutions of learning, in political and military affairs. The Roman soldier gave in his vow of fidelity to his stand- ard, when he was enrolled, to some subordinate officer of the legion; but we may well suppose it to have been then most deeply felt and most earnestly purposed, when the assembled army, under circumstances calcu- lated to give impressiveness to the event, simultaneously renewed their great sacramentum, or oath of fealty, di- rectly to the Imperator, who stood surrounded by the uplifted eagle standards, the immediate representative of the majesty and authority of world-conquering Rome. And so we may well believe that those who have sepa- rately spoken the Baptismal vow, to one of the lower orders of the Ministry of the Church, when they stand together before the chief Minister of Christ, and renew CONFIRMATION. 313 to him the solemn consecration, will brace their hearts with more earnest purpose, feel their obligation with more solemn realization, enjoy the privileges and glory of their position with a more quickly beating heart, and lift their prayers for aid with more simplicity and fervor. The strength of this conjirmation of their vows and pur- poses will abide with them. One advantage of this rite, then, is found in its adaptation to the nature and needs of the soul. We surely should welcome an institution, which surrounds the profession of the faith of Christ crucified with such constraining and impressive sanc- tions. (3.) But there is a higher use and significancy in this rite than any of which we yet have spoken. It corres- ponds with the processes of the spiritual life. Christ has instituted two great Sacraments as outward and visible signs of the two great and marked eras of the spiritual life — its commencement and its development. They are not only signs of these conditions of the soul, and seals set to them by God that he now owns and blesses them, but when embraced in faith and love, are means to insure the reality and develop the powers of the spiritual life. Baptism is the sign and seal of the new birth unto righteousness, and in the case of those, who, in penitence and faith come to it, the means whereby that birth becomes completed; the means without which, as the general rule, it would be abor- tive. The Lord's Supper is that on which the renewed soul has its confirmed life developed. Something, then, it would seem, sliould intervene, that the new life obtained may be guarded and secured before it be pre- 14 314 CONFIRMATION. maturely supplied with that which is to nourish and increase it. Baptism is that Sacrament in which for- giveness of sins is conveyed and signed and sealed. Confirmation is the rite in which the soul pardoned, comes once to be renewed, to be confirmed and strength- ened, and forever settled in its new character, as conse- crate to God, and belonging to the Saviour. The Lord's Supper is that holy Sacrament in which the soul, thus fixed in its new character, comes to Christ repeatedly that its new life may be developed, that it may feed on the heavenly banquet and grow thereby. Confirmation promotes the estabHshment of the soul fixedly in its new state obtained in Baptism, that it may surely be in that state, and in no other. The Lord's Supper pro- motes the progress of the soul in that new state thus firmly fixed in Confirmation. In the case of the new- born child, care is taken that its life be first guarded and insured, before heed be given for its nourishment. Here we see a succession of means and signs suited to the succeeding conditions of the soul. It need hardly be remarked, that the blessings which we here describe as resulting from a participation of these several or(ii- nances, are realized only in the case of those who bring to these ordinances that spiritual preparation without which they can neither convey nor seal a blessing. I think that the wants of every soul, new born to God, indi- cate the use and necessity of this rite. The true disciple of the Saviour feels a reluctance to pass at once from the baptismal font to the Lord's Table. His spiritual instincts seem to admonish him tl.at some intervening rite shoidd introduce him to the high ]jrivilege of commemorating CONFIRMATION. 315 his Saviour's dying love, with his tried and accepted dis- ciples. It does not seem right that he, just from the ungodly world, which crucify Christ afresh, should rush with the stain of its contaminations so fresh upon his soul, and the words of mocking, it may be, so lately upon his lip, to that blessed festival, where Christ's death is commemorated as the joy, the hope, the glory of the soul. Finding, then, this rite to rest on Scrip- tural authority, sanctioned by primitive custom, and to occupy a position which makes it correspond to the progress of the divine life, and the wants of the con- verted heart, we feel constrained to urge it upon all; and, like the Apostle, when we speak of the funda- mentals or first principles of the doctrine of Christ, to join to the doctrine of Baptism that of laying on of hands.' ^The following extracts, from the work of Baxter, to whicli reference has been made, contain a view of the position and bless- ing of this ordinance similar to what has been given above. " Proposition 12. This solemn investiture on personal profes- sion, being thus proved the ordinance of God, for the solemn re- newing of the covenaai of grace, between God and the adult cove- nanter, it must needs follow that it is a corroborating ordinance, and that corroborating i: race is to be expected in it from God by all that come to it in sincerity of heart ; and so it hath tlie name of Confirmation on that account, also. "The Papists quarrel with us, and curse us in the Council of Trent, for denying their creed of Confirmation and making it another thing. But they falsely describe our opinion. We do not take it to be a mere catechising, or receiving the catechised to the Lord's Supper, or to a higher form ; but we take it to be the appro- bation of the personal profession of them tlmt claim a title to the Church state, and privilege of the adult, and an investing them 316 CONFIRMATION. III. Having thus contemplated the Scriptural autho- rity for, and assigned to its true position, the rite of Confirmation, we now proceed briefly to speak of the qualifications required on the part of those who are its recipients. The knowledge required is placed at a low standard, that the uninstructed and the young, whose hearts are turned to Christ, may not be excluded from the privileges of his Church. The Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Catechism, are specified in the Confirmation Service. But surely none would contend that it is a sufficient qualification to be able to repeat these formularies. The Confirmation Service is an as- sumption and repetition of the vov/s of Baptism. Of course, then, the spiritual qualifications required in Adult Baptism are required in Confirmation. That which is required of persons to be baptized, is repentance, whereby they forsake sin, and faith, whereby they stead- fastly believe the promises of God made in that Sacra- ment. He who assumes the vows of Baptism, thereby fully and unreservedly consecrates himself to God's service. He who is confirmed does the same. He promises obediently to keep God's holy will and com- solemnly therein upon the solemn renewal (and personal adult entrance) into covenant with God. Now, in this renewed covenant, as they give up themselves to Christ afresh, and personally engage themselves to him, and renounce his enemies, owning their Infant Baptism when this was done by others in their names ; so God is ready, on his part, to bless his own ordinance with the collation of that corroborating grace which the nature of the new covenant doth import." — Baxter '.s Practical Works, vol. iv, p. 30G. CONFIRMATION. 317 mandments, and to walk in the same all the days of his life. In so doing, he, of course, promises to obey the injunction of the Savioyr, to commemorate the Saviour's dying love in the Lord's Supper. What is required of those who come to the Lord's Supper ? is, then, a ques- tion which applies to the candidate for Confirmation. For in preparing for the rite, he is preparing, also, for the Sacrament to which it introduces him. He who comes to the wedding of the great King, must wear, in his passage through the ante-room, the same wedding garment which will be required when he is introduced into the ban(jueting-hall. He is to examine himself, whether he truly repents of his former sins, steadfastly purposes to lead a new life, has a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of his death, and is in charity with all men. In short, is his heart converted from the love of sin to the love of holi- ness, from the service of Satan and the world to the service of God and his cause ? Is it fixed with the earnestness of gratitude for the mercies of Redemption, in its purpose of serving God, as not only its duty, but its joy, its proper end, its only sufficient portion ? Then let him come to this sacred ordinance, and the blessing of God will re»t upon him ! Let all those, then, who are to be admitted to this holy ordinance prepare to come in the spirit of a true, cheerful, and entire consecration. Come, as those who flee from near and pursuing wrath. Come, hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Come, with the love of God in your heart, and praises of redeeming mercy upon your lips. Come, as those who see life and its vanities fading and dying, and eternity with its glories 318 CONFIRMATION. opening and brightening before your eye. Come, as those who are hurrying over life's brief barrier to judgment, and its solemn awards for bliss or wo. Come, with your loins girded and your lamps burning, waiting with eager expectancy the coming of your Lord. Come, as the redeemed children of the Lord, with everlat^ting joy upon your heads. Come to this rite, as to the starting- point whence, earth forsaken, Satan trampled, death defied, hell vanquished through Christ your strength, you spring forward upon the path of life, heeding not that it be narrow, difficult, and sharp, because its termi- nation — seen by faith over death's dark stream, to rise with its golden spires in the light of the Lamb — is the city which hath foundations, whose maker and builder is God ! But there are others, besides those who have resolved to come to this ordinance, for whom this subject should possess urgent interest — those who have not resolved to come. It is a duty which calls loudly upon all those young persons who have arrived at an age now for Uie first time to assume the vows of Baptism, or to take upon themselves those which were spoken for them in their infancy. It is a great mistake to suppose, as many of you do, that it is perfectly innocent in you to neglect this duty; that you have a perfect right to hve without God if you choose. No creature is at any period free from the obligation to love and serve his God. It is an obligation born with the soul, and which will die only when eternity shall die. It is on you, and no power can move it off. And some of you have the obligation of distinct vows laid upon you in addition to the general obligation laid upon all to serve the Lord. The mark of CONFIRMATION. 319 the cross is upon your forehead, and the vows of your parents and sponsors are on your soul — on your soul, because they promised for you what it is your duty lo perform. Do you remember that you are dedicated to Gt)d ? Does it ever occur to you that you are under vows to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil ? Do you say that you have not assumed those vows } Will you, then, renounce them ? You must do some- thing with them. Will you renounce them ? Go to some of the Altars of Mammon, or of Moloch, or of Belial, erected at so many corners and in so many households, and before those gods of this world, but miserable fiends in their own world, breathe the horrid renunciation, and strike the horrid compact, — " 1 cast on your bla/ing altar the vows of my infancy, offered with the grateful and hopeful prayers of a father's and a mother's love; I efface the mark of the cross from my forehead, and stamp on it thy burning brand; and now give me gold, give me fame, give me pleasure, satisfy my lust, and I am yours — yours ibr time and for eterni- ty, for earth and hell !" But you are not ready for this horrible proceeding. Yoi^ cannot make up your mind to renounce your vows. But you must do something with them. By refusing to assume, do you not virtually, must you not eventually, renounce tliem ? Assume them, then; assume them now, before the opportunity shall have passed — now, when God calls. For what is the vow ? Not to a hard and miserable service, but to a free and happy one. It is a vow to escape the present curse and discomfort of sin, and its eternal punishment. It is a vow to become a pure, a holy, an exalted, a blissful being. It is a vow which ensures peace to the spirit 320 CONFIRMATION. ^hich is so often agitated; triumph over pain; joy in the midst of tribulation; songs in the night-time of affliction; in death, strength and victory; in departure into the world of spirits, blessed angels for your escort; in the day of judgment, Christ your Saviour for your Judge; in heaven, an innumerable company of angels, the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant, and God the source of all blessedness, for your eternal portion ! It is a vow, too, which you will find it far easier to make and keep in youth than in any other period. The virus of sin has not so long worked in your spiritual system but that the great Physi- cian can arrest its spread. Heaven, which lies about us in our infancy, is not yet so far removed from you as to have lost all its attraction for your heart. Conscience is yet tender. Habits of sin and neglect of God are even now chains indeed to the spirit, but chains yet hot from the forging and not riveted by time, and, by the grace of God, to be broken by him who wills it, as- Sampson broke his green withes. The Spirit, though grieved, is not quenched within your heart. Come, then, for all "things are now ready. Counting over God's blessings to you as a sinful creature, adopt the language of the pious Psalmist, " What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me ? I will pay my vows unto the Lord, now.) in the presence of all his people." But this subject concerns not only the young, but all those who have neglected to dedicate themi^elves to God, and those most who have neglected it longest. And some of my readers may have, if not in Baptism, yet otherwise, laid themselves under vows to serye the Lord. They are recorded in heaven. We call iipon you now CONFIRMATION. 321 to fulfil Iheni. Remember ! when you were ill and near to death, and you prayed to God to raise you up, did you not vow that your lite should be the Lord's ? Remem- ber ! when you were f^tricken down in sorrow, and the liujhl went out in your dwelling, and the world seemed dreary, and you could not be comforted by its poor consolations, and \'ou went to God for comfort, and he sent you strength, did you not then promise yourself to him ? What has become of those vows ? Did you mean to deceive the Almighty ? Did you mean to bribe him to give you comfoit, or extend your life, while you had no intention to perform those vows ? O, no ! You are not so vile a hypocrite as that. You are but a sinful creature, who knew not your own weakness, whose fears -and sorrows wrung from you a promise which a blinded conscience and a worldly heart have since allowed you to neglect. But did you vow any thing more thans^ou ought to do ? Is not the obligation, then, full on your soul } Has God forgotten it ? Remember that all events and thoughts and speech and actions are, in the sunlight of his all-knowing mind, distinctly daguerre- otyped, as they pass, on the tablets of eternity. When those vows were made, perhaps you earnestly declared to God that you had rather die than live to break them. Perhaps you invoked his righteous wrath upon you if you should. But he has not taken you at your word. He has prolonged your life. He has given you oppor- tunity and space to repent. O, does he not wait to be gracious ? Is he not slow to anger ? What can you do for his benefits ? Pay your vows unto the Lord now, in the presence of all his people ! 14* XIV. illatrlinonn, Dieltation of *l)c Sirk, ^f. As marriage is a divine institution, the Church has properly determined that it shall be solemnized with impressive religious services. Her children are sum- moned to the Church of God, and in his presence and to his Minister pronounce the vows of mutual and per- petual fidelity and love. None of her services has been so much modified and improved as the form for the solemnization of Matri- mony. As it stands in our Book of Common Prayer, it is one of the most perfect of our services. The English form, which remains nearly the same as at the first, is protracted to an undue length, and is defaced with many unnecessary expressions, which are offensive to the taste of the present age. A large portion of it, however, as we are informed by Shepherd, is usually omitted at the present day. By the first rubric it is declared, that the Ministers are left to the direction of the laws of the several States in which they reside, in every thing that regards the civil contract between the parties. The English rubric MATRIMONY. 323 enjoins that (lie banns' be proclaimed three several times in divine service before the marriage may be solemnized. The last rubric provides that the parties to be married shall come int j "the body of the Church," or shall be ready "in some proper house," with their friends and neighbors, and there standing together, the man on the right hand and the woman on the left, shall proceed with the service.- The English Church has provided by Canon, (the Ixii,) that the marriage be solemnized in one of the Churches in which the banns have been published. ' It not only forbids marriage elsewhere than in the Church, but it also enjoins certain hours — that is, between the hours of eight and twelve in the morning — in which alone marriages may be celebrated. (Canons Ixii lind cii.) These arrangements were intended to prevent clandestine marriages, and to secure the sobriety and decency which become so sacred a ceremony. It ' Dr. Nichols derives this word from a barharous latin word bannum, or bandiun, whi^^h signifies a proclamalion. 'The right hand is the most honorable place, and is therefore assi2;ned by all Christian Churches to the man, as head of the wife. The Jews place the woman on the right, in allusion to the forty- fifth Psalm. "At the right hand did the dueen stand," &c. — IVhdtely, p. 483. •^ The greater ^lart of ihe service was formerly performed at the church door. Chaucer, in his Wife of Bath, alludes to the custom : '* She was a worthy woman all her live — Husbands at the church door had she five." tVheatUy, -133. The rubric of the Manuel of Salsbury provides that the man and the woman stand ante ostium ecclesia coram Deo, et sacer(lole,etpopulo, before the door of the church, in the presence of God and his priest and the people. — Palmer^s Origines Lilurgicce, vol. ii, 212. 324 MATRIMONY. has not been considered necessary or practicable to have these regulations continued in our Church; and, there fore, the rubric allows marriages to be celebrated in "some proper house," and limits the celebration of the ceremony to no particular period of the day. There is a manifest propriety in the celebration of the service in the Church ; and it is to be hoped that the sentiment of the Church will make her children feel that it is un- becoming, unless unavoidable, to have the ceremony performed in private houses. In a day when the mar- riage tie is so readily sundered by legislatures and courts of justice ; and when disorganizing socialisms would de- grade the sacred union into a mere human compact, the Church should do every thing in her power to throw around it the solemn sanctions which guard a divine institution. After a declaration that marriage " is honoi able among all men," those who can show just cause why the par- ties may not lawfully be joined together, are bidden to speak, or else forever after to hold their peace. In a yet more solemn manner the parties themselves are adjured to confess, if they know, any iiiipediment why they may not lawfully be joined together. The impediments contemplated by the Church in this country are not identical with those which exist in Eng- land. The latter are specified in the xcix and cii Canons of the Church. They are: 1. A preceding contract or marriage. 2. Consanguinity or affinity; and 3, Want of consent of parents and guardians. The prohibited de- grees of consanguinity or affinity are set forth in a table published in 1563, and are affixed to most of the English MATRIMONT. 325 PiavPi Books/ The other two clashes ■• of impediments are neated by the civil and ecclesiastical laws of the kingdom. It mi.^ht be tlithcult lor a clergyman of the Episcopal Church in this country to determine what alleged im- pediinriits should arrc>t him in the pciformance of the marriage s;ervice. Whatever was alleged to be incon- sistent with the law of the land would of course arrest ■• It is thought advisable to adjoin the English table of prohibited degrees : ^ Man may not marry kis A Woman may not marry with her 1 p RA^nMOTHKK, 2 Ij Grail. Itaiher's VVit"«, 3 Wil'eS Grniuliiiotlier. 4 Father's aisrcr, 5 JVlolhf r's .Sister, 6 Father'si Brother's Wife. 7 Mother's Brother's Wife, 8 Wi It's Father's Sister, 9 Wife's Mother's Sister. 10 Mother, 11 .Stf.p-Mother, 12 VVifes .Mother. 13 Daughter, 14 Wife's Daughter, 15 Son's Wife. 16 .-^ister, 17 Wife'* Sister, 18 Brother's Wife. 19 Son's OallshtPr, ■ii.t naushler's Daughter, •21 .'iHx--> and'3 Brother, Ii5 Sister's Husband. 19 Son's Son, 20 Dau.'hter's Son. 21 Son's Daughter's Husband, •>J Daughter's Daughter'* Husband, 23 Husband's Son's Son, 24 Husbanil'> Daughter's Son. 25 Brother's Son, 26 Sister's Son, 27 Brother's Daughter's Husband. 28 .-^i^ter's Daughter's Husband, 2!) Husband's Brother's Son, 30 Husband's Sister's Son. * The whole subject is amply treated in Wheately, p. 436-'43. 326 MATRIMONY. him. Some things, however, which the State aiLows, may not be lawful to him as a Minister of the Piotestant Episcopal Church. The laws of the land do not make divorcement an impediment to marriage. But the General Convention of 1808 expressed, as the sense of the Church, that it was inconsistent with the law of God that any person divorced, unle.'^s on account of the adultery of the other party, should be married again ; and that therefore it was improper for the Minister of the Church to officiate at such a marriage. This, however, is the only case of which the writer is aware, in which the expressed sense of the Church is directly at variance with what is permitted by the law. The law, however, may allow what, as a Minister of Christ, acting on his private judgment and responsibility, he would not feel himself at liberty to do. The law, for instance, in Pennsylvania, allows a man to marry his brother's wife, his uncle's wife, his niece, his wife's niece or sister, or even her mother, and per- haps even his half sister. In New York it is lawful for a man to marry his aunt and his niece by blood, his father's wife, his wife's mother, his wife's daughter, and his wife's sister.'' It need hardly be remaiked, that some of these unions no clergyman of the Church would be willing to solemnize, even if he should be protected by the laws of the Church and State. As, however, our Church has not adopted the English table of prohibited degrees, and has not prepared another, and has had no legislation upon the subject, each clergy ^ Dwight's Hebrew Wife, pp. 55, 71. MATRIMONY. 327 man is left to act according to his private judgment and conscience. All marriages, not wjthin the express and clear Levitical interdict, which the private judgment of the Minister does not decide to be improper, may be celebrated by him without let or penalty. Indeed, it might be difficult to decide what law or doctrine of the Church would be violated if a clergyman should marry persons related within the degrees prohibited by the Levitical law. It is true, that the 7th Article declares " that no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral. " But our Church has never decided that these are among the moral commandments. In such case, no doubt, a clergyman would be reproved by the just moral senti- ment of the Church ; but we see not how he would sub- ject himself to any punishment or penalty." ' The best argument which we have seen to prove that the Levit- ical prohibitions are moral, and that the case of the wife's sister properly comes within those prohibitions, is Bishop H. U. Onder- donk's " Considerations on Marriages prohibited by the law of God." Burnet abstains from calling them moral, and yet considers that it is proper to make them perpetually binding by law. " There may be many things which are not unalterably moral in themselves, which yet may be fit subjects of perpetual laws aljout them. For instance, in the degrees of kmdred with relation to marriage, there are no degrees but direct descendants or ascendants ; that is, parents and children, that by an eternal reason can never marry ; yet since their marrying would be attended with vast inconveniences, and would tend to the defilement of all families, and hinder the coiijuno tion of mankind by the intermixture ordifTerent families, it becomes likewise a fit subject for a perpetual law to strike horror at the thought of such commixtures, and so to keep the world pure." Burnet on the Articles, p. 121. 328 MATRIMONy. The principal practical question which embarrasses clergymen of the Church, is that which arises when a man proposes to marry the sister of his deceased wife. It is believed that a great majority of the Bishops and, clergy of the Church have no scruple in solemnizing such marriages. They have been prohibited by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in this country; but though the same step has been urged upon the General Convention of our Church, with the utmost strength of argument of which the subject is susceptible, the Convention has refrained from any legislation, or any declaration of its sentiments. The questions proposed to the parties, the giving away of the bride by the father or guardian,* and tlie joining of hands, with the mutual "pledging of their troth" each to the other, are portions of the service which remain in the English Prayer Book, and are now precisely as they were first constructed. The giving of a ring is spoken of, in the close of the service, as " a token and pledge of the covenant" made between the parties. Viewed in this light, as a visible and perpetual witness and seal of a solemn vow, the act has great beauty and propriety. The sentiment of a re- fined age has often sought to find in the ring elaborate symbolical meanings — in its material the purity, and in ®" h is to be observed that the woman is to be given, not to the man, but to the minister; for the rubric orders that the nmiisltr shall receive her at her father's or friends' iiands, which signifies, to be sure, that the father resigns her up to God, and that it is God who now, by his priest, gives her in marriage, as he did at first for Adam. ' '— WheaUey, p. 448. MATRIMONY. 329 it,.s form the constancy, of affection. And learning has come to its aid, and described the ring in use among the early Christians'' and the Romans, and its meaning, as a hieroglyphic, among the Egyptians. The history of this part of the service seems to show that the custom of giving a ring was connected with a practice not very pleasing to sentiment and sensibility. The rubric of the first book directs that the man shall" give unto the woman a ring and oilier tokens of spousage, as gold o?- silver, lay- ing them on the book."' The old manuel for the use of ^ " To this (custom) Turlullian alludes when he says : 'No woman was permitted to wear gold (aurtim novat) saving only upon one finger, which her husbanfl had pledgei(or engaged to himself) with the ring of espousals.' — J]pol., c. 6. Clemens Alexandrinus ex- pressly mentions the use of rings in espousals among Christians." — Key to the Prayer Book, p 268. '"The rubric, which directs that the ring should be placed upon the fourth finger, has set ingenuity to work to find some special reasons why the /o«rt/j finger rather than another should be selected. The reason is said to be, because it was anciently believed that a particular nerve or vain reached from iliere to the heart. (Pliny and Macrobius are appealed to as authority.) The writei is per" suaded that the custom arose from so simple a fact as that it is the fourth finger. In the Manuel of Salisbury, from which our Liturgy has borrowed largely, immediately after the words " witli this ring I thee wed," &c., follows the rubric: "Then the man shall place the rin^ upon the thumb of the woman, .saying, 'In the name of the Father;'' then upon the second finger, saying, '/n the name of the Son;^ then upon the third finger, saying, '/n the name of the Holy Ghost;'' then upon the fourth finger, saying, '^imeii." " It can hardly be doubted that when this act of putting the ring on different finders, at the same time with the repetition of the name of the Trinity, was omitted, the ring would naturally be placed where, under the old custom, it had been left — on the fourth finger. 330 VISITATION OF THE SICK. Salisbury directs the minister to ask the woman's dowry, viz., the tokens of spousage." These directions indicate that, however refined, in its emblematic meaning, the custom may have originally been, yet, as it reached our forefathers, it had lost its original significance and had be- come part of a transaction in which the idea of sale and purchase predominated over more delicate considerations connected with the affections. The rings of gold and silver were pledges of the promised portion, and tokens of the solemn engagements which the parties had assumed. Ages have consecrated the marriage ring, growing re- finement has dropped all gross, and gathered up all beautiful associations connected with it in the past, and it now remains the expressive token and pledge of a solemn covenant of love even unto death. The concluding part of the service is pre eminently beautiful. Nothing could more fully express the affec" tionate benediction which springs out of a pastor's heart when he has united loved members of his flock in the holy bonds of wedlock ; nothing could be more appro- priate when he is about to dismiss them, that they may enter upon a sacred relation, whose responsibilities are equal to its joys. Visitation of the Sick. How blessed are the consolations of religion and the offices of the ministers of God in the chambers of sick- The expression,. "With my body I ihee worship,'" which follows the phrase "With this ring I thee wed," in the English service, was wont to be fiercely attacked by the Puritans. The usual f-xplana- tion of it is, that the promise is thereby made that every external mark of honor and respect sliali be rendered. VISITATION OF THK SICK. 331 ness and of death! The wearied and enfeebled sufferer is told that his pastor, from whom he has so often heard the blqssed truths of God in the sanctuary, is about to visit him. How is he cheered with the announcement! For now the truths of religion are realities. In his weakness and helplessness, he realizes his dependence; He meditates on his sins to hate them; he thinks of his Saviour to bless him; he perceives the wonderfulness, the sutliciency, th.e blessedness of redeeming love; he knows the power of the grace of God; he sees him who is invisible; the eternal world is all around him, and the eternal God is directly over him. Or, if less under the power of Grace, or bowed down with the conscious- ness of unforgiven sin, he hears of the approach of his pastor with a trembling and timid hope. The room is prepared for his sacred visiter and -friend; the pillow is smoothed; the invalid is ready for the interview; and the first words which falls upon his ear express the blessing which he craves, or the blessing which he possesses, in measure, and of which ht; would enjoy the richer fidl- ness ! — '■'■Pfinci' bp to this house, and to all thai dwell in itr Then follows a short responsive service, with a prayer and exhortation. The exhortation wisely indicates the true causes why sickness is sent. It may be either to try the sufferer's patience, or for an example to others, or to put faith to the test, and to strengthen it, or as a chastisement for sin. In either case, it has a mission of grace and mercy. Then follows another longer exhorta- tion, to be used in case the person visited be very sick. It is affectionate and faithful, and is followed by a rubric 32 VISITATION OF THE SICK. which directs the minister to examine whether the sick man truly repents of his sins, and is in charity with the world; to forgive those who have injured him, and ask forgiveness of those whom he has injured; and to make such a disposition of his property as the claims of equity and benevolence demand. Then follows a collect, an anthem de profundis^ a commendation of the sick to the merc)"^ of God, and a benediction. Several prayers are added, to be used at the discretion of the minister — a prayer " for a sick child;" "lor a sick person when there appeareth small hopes of his recovery;" "a com- mendatory prayer for a sick person at the point of departure;" "for a person troubled in mind or in con- science;" a prayer " in behalf of all those present at the visitation;" " a prayer in case of sudden surprise or immediate danger;" and a " thanksgiving for the begin- ning of a recovery." Every part of this service is marked by its pure scriptural character. A church that is void of all super- stition and false doctrine in reference to the hopes and reliai ces of the dying, and the condition of the dead, may well be supposed to be pure throughout. For in death, more than at any other time, the heart tempts us to superstitions and to false grounds of hope. Affection and fear unite to induce us to consider the departing in a state of safety. But here there is no administration of a charmed viaticum; no exhortations to a dying gene- rosity, which shall atone for a living selfishness; no mer- cantile estimate of the good deeds of a last hour, which shall more than pay for the evil deeds of years; no hasty recourse to a cleansing sacrament, which shall purify alike soul and body into meetness for immortality. VISITATION OF THE SICK. 333 While, on the one hand, the sick man is exhorted, with the most searching fidelity to exhibit "fruits meet for repentance," that its reality may be proved; on the other hand, he is- admonished that his repentance must be a sincere sorrow of the soul for sin against God, and that it must be connected with that faith which casts ilself on the merits of the Saviour, and looks for pardon- ing mercy only through the blood of his atonement. The sick person is represented as putting " his full trust in God's mercy," and as imploring him " not to impute to him his former sins." And when all these exhorta- tions to repentance and to restitution, and equity and charity, have been made,. and are supposed to have been complied with, and the dying sufferer is about to appear in the presence of God, with what importunate and im- pressive earnestness is that soul committed to atoning jpercy! — "Wash it, we pray thee, in the blood of that immaculate Lamb that was slain to take away the sins of all the world; that whatever defilements it may have contracted in the midst of this miserable and naughty world, through the lusts of the flesh or the wiles of Satan, being purged and done away, it may be presented pure and without spot before thee." In the Liturgy of Edward, the 143d Psalm is placed at the beginning of the service, and in the first prayer reference is made to the recovering of Peter's wife's mother, and "the captain's servant," as also to "Thobie and Sara." The form of the absolution, which is still retained in the EngUsh service, as we have had occa- sion previously to remark, is absolute and authoritative. The form of anointing the sick, and the prayer that 334 COMMUNION OF THE SICK. followed it in the first Liturgy of Edward, was omitted in the second. The omission, on the part of our Church, of the form of absolution, indicates the jealousy of our fathers to avoid unfounded assumptions of priestly power." The Communion of the Sick. Little need be said in vindication of the Communion of the Sick. Least of all should it be objected to by those who attribute slight sanctity to places, and think that the true idea of the Church is realized, when two or three are gathered together in the name of Christ. Not as a holy spell which purifies the half unconscious spirit, is its use encouraged by the Church; but it is recom- mended and provided as a divine moral institution, which brings vividly before the soul that great truth of Redemption by the blood of the Saviour, which is most needed in a dying hour. '^ "The question has been discussed whether this form is_obliga- tory on the minister in all cases of sickness. The English canon (Ixvii.,) leaves its use discretionary with the minister, " as /(« s/tn// think most needful and convenient ;'" and the exhortation leaves liim "to use other like," of his own selection, if lie prefer. Bishop Bar- rington observed that, in many cases, the funeral service might be used with almost as much propriety as the office for the sick." — {Charge 1797,;). 31.) Bi.^hop Horsely gives the same judgment on the exclusive use of the service." — Keij to Ike Dock of Com. Pnnjer, ■p. 273. '■■' In Dr. Miller's " Presbyterianism" after a very strong state- ment of objections to the administration of the communion in private, and an exaggerated account of the ordinary practice of the Episcopal Church, the folhjwing admission is made: " It was remarked that Pre.'jbyterians take this ground and act BURIAL OF THE DEAD, 335 A suitable Collect, Epistle, and Gospel are provided. The service is the same as that used in the public Com- munion of the Church. One of the rubrics is very valuable from the decisive testimony which it furnishes to the fact that, in the view of the Church, Christ is present, not in the elements, but by his spirit, in the heart of the believing recipient. '^ The burial of the Dead. It is no doubt the first dictate of bereaved love in its agony to utter a prayer for the departed. It is the first upon these principles in all ordinary cases. It has sometimes hap- pened, however, that a devout and exemplary communicant of our Church, after long enjoying the privileges of the sanctuary, has been confined for several, perhaps for many years, to a bed of sickness, and been, of course, wholly unable to enjoy a Communion season in the ordinary form. In such cases Presbyterian ministers have sometimes taken the elders of the Church with them, and also invited a half a dozen other friends of the sick person — thus making in reality, a church meeting by its representatives, and administered the Communion in the sick chamber. To this no solid objections is perceived." Now, if the thing be wrong in principle, — wrong in itself, — as Dr. Miller labors to show, p. ISa-M, then it cannot be made right by the number of years during which a communicant may have been sick, and the number of persons and eiders whom the minister may take to the sick man's room. If not wrong in jtself, and if lawful and proper, because a comfort and a means of grace to the recijiient, then it is difficult to know by what rule of justice or of mercy the sick man should suffer the deprivation " for many years" before lie can be permitted to enjoy the blessed privi- lege. If no " solid oiijection can be made to this," how nuich more solid is the objection to the sick sufferer's enjoyment of this privilege at the end of one year or six months of sickness? '^ The rubric is quoted on p. 174. 336 BURIAL or THE DEAD. cry crushed out of the heart, by the fall upon it of a heavy sorrow. The naturalness of this first passionate prayer of grief for the dead, has been urged as a proof of its probable lawfulness. Yet it is evidently not the dictate of the sanctified part of our nature, which acquiesces in the will of God, and acknowledges that he does all things well. It is the outburst of natural affection. It is checked as soon as right religious sentiment assumes ascendancy. The prayer is stopped mid-way if the agitated soul hear the voice from heaven, ''Be still, and know that I am God !" The first book of Edward contained a prayer for the dead, which has been omitted in every subsequent re- vision. '^ The rubric forbids the office to be used for unbap- '■' It has been made a question in England whether this office may be used over such as have been baptized by dissenters or sectaries, who have no regular commission for administering the Sacraments. Mr. Wheatley seems to think that the clergyman is not obliged to recognise any Baptisms but such as are proved by the parish regis- ters. But by this rule he would exclude the children of Roman Catholics, the validity of whose Baptisms he would not be disposed to dispute. One of the highest tribunals in England has, however, within a few years past, decided in favor of the legality of the Bap- tism of dissenters upon the principles of ecclesiastical law. And Mr. Shepherd well observes, that nothing more is necessary for the settlement of this point than the pains and penalties to which the Presbyterians were subjected, which are so many demonstrations that the Church holds them tn be Christians, and admits, of course, the validity of their Baptism. To excommunicate him who has no right to Church Communion would be an absurdity; and he has no right to Communion who is not legally baptized. \ Bishop Brownell, Commentary on P. Book, 481. BtJRIAL OF THE DEAD. 337 tized adults, excommunicated persons, and those who have committed suicide. From the earliest ages it has been held the crowning infamy and the last woe of man, that his body should be denied the usual rites of religious sepulture. The prohibition of the rubric is not intended as a punishment of the dead ''' — for as such it would be impotent — but as a warning and restraint to the living. It might operate as a powerful check upon the mind of one who meditated suicide, or was about to brave excommuni- cation, to know that his body would be deposited^ dis- honored, in unconsecrated ground. It would be a strong appeal to his sensibility to remember that his remains would not be deposited in the earth, with the usual tok- ens of respect and affection for the dead; that he would not be accompanied to his last resting place by a troop of mourning friends, and placed in his narrow house with words of prayer; but that in silence, and by stealth, he would be borne, as a guilty thing, to a dishonored grave. The propriety of the rubric, in the case of suicide, can hardly be brought in question. It can well be vin- dicated on the ground of propriety, if on no other. " Decorum and good sense will declare in favor of the present practice of a decent sepulture, without any but the most necessary attendance." The other two cases in which the clergyman is forbid- den to use the office for the Burial of the Dead, are not so obviously proper. One objection to their remaining 15 '< Far be the thought of wishing to extend to this country those severe laws which, in other countries, revenge on the poor tenement of clay the last misdeed of its poor deluded inhabitant." Bishop WMte, on the Offices, p. 237. 15 338 BURIAL OF THE DEAD. in the Prayer Book is that they are practically a dead letter. We sustain the obloquy of having, without the benefit, if any there might be, of V/sing them. To the writer they seem to be the relics of a darker day which we should do \yell to omit. The penalty of excommunica- tion, in this country, consisting, as it does, merely of ex- pulsion from the communion, has but small terrors for the offender. He who is excommunicated in our church, can be received, in most cases, with double honor, in any of the numerous sects which throng the land. From his position of increased importance, where he would wear the honors of persecuted saintship and quasi martyrdom, he would laugh at the faint thunders of a modern excom- munication. However important it may be to revive a salutary dread of excommunication, we conceive that such a result is nowise promoted by retaining, in our service, a provision which can never be applied. We can never refuse to perform the otfice over an excom- municated person, because we never can have the opportunity to refuse. He who has been excommuni- cated by our church, will leave directions — or his friends will provide — that he be buried by some minister of another denomination. The rubric is perfectly impotent, and should be removed. The prohibition to use the office in the case of an un- baptized adult is liable to similar and additional objec- tions. Even this is an advance on the Enghsh service, which extends the prohibition to the case of infants as well as adults. The writer has never known, person- ally, an instance in which the performance of the ser- vice has been declined on the ground that the deceased was unbaptized. He has known instances in which the BURIAL OF THE DEAD. 339 officiating clergyman has abstained from making inqui- ries, when he was in doubt ; and other instances, in which he has been informed, on good authority, that the person was not baptized, and has yet persisted in taking it for granted that he was baptized, unless notified in some formal and olhcial manner that such was not the case. Surely a rubric which puts clergymen to such doubtiul devices is more honored in the breach than in the observance. It is, and ought to be, obsolete, and therefore it were better to treat it as obsolete, than to evade, it by a trick played upon the conscience. The ground on which these two rubrics are vindicated is, that they are constructed on the supposition that the departed was a member of the Church ; and that as the unbaptized and excommunicated are not members of the Church, the service cannot, in their case, properly be employed. However that objection may apply to the English service, it is not applicable to our own. The improvement made by the American Church, in this department, has, it is trusted, left no plausible ground of objection against the service. " In particular it is so divested of oil reference to the state of the deceased per- son, that no scandal of his life need occasion scruple in the minister or disgust in the attendants of the fami- ly.'"" Our service, as thus improved, is designed for the benefit of the living, and has no reference to the past or present condition of the dead."'^ To omit it, '« Bishop White on the Offices, p. 237. " The English service has been much censured for those portions which seem to consider the departed as certainly in a state of feli- city. In the first of the two concluding Collects thia language oc- 340 BURIAL OF THE DEAD. therefore, in the case of the unbaptized, would be to deprive the living of the benefit of most salutary and impressive truth, at a moment when their hearts would be most fitted for its reception. No one of our otfices is more admired for its grandeur and beauty than the burial service. The well chosen sentences with which it opens; the words of the Psalmist, which so touchingly pourtray our mortality and weak- ness ; the wonderful chapter of St. Paul to the Corin- thians, in which the finest logic and the most rapturous eloquence are combined ; the sweet and pathetic lament over man's fading glory, and the impassioned prayer for mercy in our hour of death, which are uttered as the body pauses at the margin of the ojien grave ; the solemn committal of " earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust ;" the voice from heaven (Rev. xiv, 13) announcing blessedness to all who die in the Lord; the concluding prayers that all present may rest and rise with the righteous — all these, combined, constitute a service, it is believed, altogether unequalled for majesty, solemnity, and propriety. This service, then, interpreted by its history, teaches that the dead receive no benefit from, and are not to be made the subject of, human prayer ; and gives no curs — " We give thee hearty thanks that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world ; beseeching thee, that it may please thee of thy gracious goodness shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect and to hasten thy kingdom.'" In the second' the Father is invoked " to raise us from tlie death of sin to the Hfe o^ righteousness, that when we shall depart this life we may rest in him, as our hope is this our brother doth." These objectionable ex- pressions are both omitted in our book. FORMS OF PRAYER. 341 countenance to the doctrine charged upon the English office that all the baptized are certainly enrolled among the saved. The Churching of Women. In the place of this " Thanksgiving after Childbirth," the form of thanksgiving for recovery from sickness, among the occasional thanksgivings, is generally used in this country. It is one of the original services of the Book of Common Prayer, and was first called "the Order of Purification of Women. " Although the origin of the usage is undoubtedly Jewish, there is nothing superstitious or of doubtful propriety in the service. Yet it is believed to be with well-nigh universal appro- bation that the service has been suffered to fall into disuse. Forms of Prayer to be used at sea. " The forms of prayer to be used at sea were first in- serted in the English book at the last review. They have been adopted in ours, with only a few verbal altera- tions, occasioned chiefly by a difference of political insti- tutions. It will be observed that with the exception of the first two collects they are all occasional services — the common morning and evening s^ervice being ap- pointed to be used at sea.'"" The writer confesses great repugnance to see a "prayer to be said before a fight at sea against an ene- my," embodied in our formulary of prayer. He would much prefer to see a prayer incorporated into the daily service that God would restrain rulers and nations from •** Bishop Brownell on the Prayer Book. 342 VISITATION OF PRISONERS. the unspeakable madness, and the enormous guilt of war. Believing that war is a gigantic crime, and that the cases in which it is lawful to resort to it are so ex- tremely unlikely to occur, that it may be considered practically unlawful to resort to it at all, the writer feels that the church would do better to pray constantly that it may be averted, than to retain even one supplication for victory, standing in the midst of humble prayers and adoring praises to the God of peace. The writer is aware that such sentiments will be regarded by many of his readers as extreme; but he is persuaded that the day is rapidly approaching, when religious men will no more apologize for war than for the slave trade. '^■ Visitation of Priscners. The English Liturgy contains no forms for the vis^ita- tion of prisoners. Ours was taken from the Irish Book of Common Prayer; in which it is set forth as " treated upon by the Archbishops and Bishops, and the rest of the clergy of Ireland, and agreed upon by his Majesty's license in their synod, hoiden at Dublin, in the year 1771." It is a beautiful service,, in which the mercy of God, '^The following rubric is at the end of this service : Jit the burial of the dead at sea, the office in the Common Prayer Book may be used ; on lij instead of these words, " fFe therefore commit his body to the ground, earth to earth,'''' Sfc., say these words : "We therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of tlie l)ody, when the sea shall give up her dead, and the Hfe of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who at his coming shall change our vile body, that it may be like his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." FORMS OF PRAYER. 343 througli Christ, to the most sinful, if they believe and repent, is afFectionately and earnestly displayed. The w hole service is an illustration of the remark of Hannah More, that there is one instance of repentance in death in the Bible, (that of a condemned criminal,) that no one may despair; and but one, that no one may pre- sume. The same one ground of hope, Christ Jesus; the same exercises of heart, true repentance and appropri- ating faith; the same duties of confession, restitution, and charity for all men, are here enjoined, as in the service for the visitation of the sick. "A FORM OF Prayer and Thanksgiving." This form of prayer and thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth, and other blessings of His merciful provi- dence, has no example in the English Liturgy, It was prepared in 1785, and printed in the proposed book. Forms of Prayer to be used in Families. There are no such prayers in the Liturgy of the mother Church. Those in our Prayer-Book are taken from Bishop Gibson. It need hardly be remarked that their use is not obligatory. The Convocation, which Avas broken up in the reign of William and Mary, had under consideration a book of family prayer. " There was provided a family book, to be authorized by this Convocation. It contained direc- tions for family devotions, with several forms of prayer, for worship every morning and evening, suited to the different circumstances of the families, to be used." ^ »"Life of Dr. Prideaux, p. 61. XV. ^rticUe of Hcltgton. The use and position of the thirty-nine Articles of Religion, are topics which have been of late elaborately discussed. The candidate for Baptism is admitted to the Church upon a confession of belief in the Apostles' Creed. The candidate for Orders is properly required to subscribe to a more minute confession of faith. A solemn written engagement is entered into, previous to ordination, by every clergyman of the Chuich, in which he promises " to conform to the doctrines and worship of the Pro- testant Episcopal Church in the United States." To understand to what extent the Articles of the Church embody its doctrines, and in what sense the promise to conform to them is to be understood, we must trace their history. HiSTOBY OF THE ARTICLES. We have already given a sketch of the formularies of faith set forth in the reign of Henry VIII.' They bear but little resemblance to those established under Ed- • Page 25. HISTORY OF THE ARTICLES. 345 ward, and retained in the Church of England, with slight variations, at the present time. The Articles were not composed until about four years after the Liturgy was established. They were not passed by the Convo- cation, and were not signed by many of the clergy. The death of Edward occurred very soon after their composition by Cranmer. They were, however, pub- lished and enjoined by the king's authority. None were to be admitted to degrees in the universities, or admitted to benefices, who refused to subscribe to them.'' This deficiency of authority was not fully supplied until 1571. In 1562 they were adopted by the Convocation, with some slight changes, but not confirmed by Pailia- 'The first title of the Articles, says Burnet, (vol. ii, p. 276,) conveys the impression that they were published by the Synod. The title is as follow.^ ; "Articles which were agreed to in the Synod of London, in the year 155:2, by the Bishops and other godly and learned men, to root out the discord of opinions, and establish the agreement of true religion." Craniner, at his trial, declared his igno- rance that such a tiile was to have been prefixed to them, and his disapprobation of it when it appeared. At the same time he ac- knowledged his authorship of the Articles. Philpot, at his trial, endeavored to vindicate the expression, on the ground that the au- thority of the Synod could be pleaded for them, because they were constructed by those who were appointed by the Synod for that purpose. The plea was every way inadmissible. 1. If the Synod had appointed Commissioners for that work, it could not be con- sidered their work until sanctiotied by them. 2. The Commissioners were appointed not to form Articles of faith, but ecclesiastical laws, the fruit of whicii was the book " Reformatio legum tccledasticarum.'" 3. rhe Commission was limited to three years, and the Articles were composed after that period. See Lamb's History of the Ar- ticles, p. 3, 8 ; Short, p. 167 ; Strype's Cranmer, 388. 15* 846 HISTORY OF THE ARTICLES. ment. They were again revised and passed, under the direction of Archbishop Parker, in the Convocatiun of 1571, and confirmed by Parliament. From that period they have remained unchanged in the Church of Eng- land.* ^ It would exceed our limits, and be foreign to the object of this work, to enter minutely into a history of these Articles. The fol- lowing brief sketch of their external history is all that the author ran afford. The Articles, as drawn up in Edward's reign, were forty-lwo in number.' In 1562 a draft of thirty-nine Articles was presented to the Convocation by Archbishop Parker.^ He omitted four Articles of those of Edward VI, which formed the x, xvi, xix, and xli, of the forty-two. He introduced four new ones, v, xii,xxix, and xxx, and altered, more or less, 'seventeen of the others, ii, vi, vii, ix, x, xi, xvii, xxii, xxiv, xxv, xxvii, xxviii, xxxii, xxxiv, xxxv, xxxvi, xxxvii. The Convocation which met January 11, 1563, made several alterations in the copy presented by Parker. They omitted xl, xli, and xlii ; and when they were printed the xxix also was left out. They altered iii, ix, xxi, xxv, xxviii, xxxiv, and the title of xvi. The Articles so changed were subscribed by the upper house of Convocation,, on the 29th of January, and by the lower house on the 5th of February.^ In the act of Parliament of 1571, it seems that only those Articles " which concern the confession of the true Christian faith, and the doctrine of the Sacraments," '' were enjoined as necessary to be sul)- scribed, to the exclusion of the Articles on tlie Church, the Homilies and the consecration of Bishops and Ministers. The Articles which 1 See '-Articuli de quibus in Synodo Londoniuiisi, Anno Dow. 1552, &c., &c.," which are to be found in a volume of Liuirgi'^al Tracts, lately prinl(?d in London, and sold in the principal theological bookstores of this country 2 Stephens on the British Constitution. Strype's Parfter. Lainh on the Articles. 3 Stephens on the English Constitution, vol. i, pp. 296-'7. 4 Hallani's Constitutional History, p. 117 HISTORY OF THE ARTICLES. 347 These Articles of the Church of England, with such sHght alterations as the separation of this country from are excluded from subscription are i)ot enumerated in the statute, but are designated by Stephens' to be the xix, xx, xxxv, and xxxvi. The designatioi strikes us as arbitrary. The xxiii Article, which has reference to church disciplins, i.«! as much excluded by the lan- guage of the statute as the xix and xx. The language of the statute is as follows: It requires assent and subscription " to all the Articles of Religion which only concern the confession of the true Christian faith, and the doctrine of the Sacraments, comprised in a bonk imprinted, entitled Articles whereupon it was agreed by the Arclil)ishops and Bishops of both provinces, and the whole clergy in the Convocation, holden at London in the year 1562." The essential alterations which were thus effected in the forty-two Articles of Edward were as follow» : ® In the third Article the explanation of Christ's descent into hell was omitted. In the sixth Article the canonical and apocryphal books were enumerated, and lessons from the latter were declared to be read for the instruction of the people, and not for confirmation of the doc- trine. About the authority of the Church they now declared that the Church had power to decree rites and ceremonies, and had autiiority in controversies of faith, in subortiination to scripture. In the Article upon the Lord's Supper it is declared, in place of the refutation of a corporal presence, that "the body of Christ is given and received after a spiritual manner, and that the means by which it is received is faith. The clause in 'he '20ih Article, which declares the Church's au- thority, has been the subject of voluminous dispute. The latest and most elaborate investigator of the subject (Dr. Lamb) has reached the conclusion that Parker had urged the adoption of the Article on the Convocation without success, and that it was inserted by Elizabeth, without the sanction of the Convocation and the Parlia- 5 English Constitution, vol. i, p. 297. 6 Burnet's Appendix, No. Iv. 348 STANDARD OF DOCTRINE. the British empire made necessary, were adopted by the General Convention of 1801. The histo- ry of opinions in our Church on this subject, pre- vious to their adoption, is recorded by Bishop White. ^ Bishops Seabur}', Madison, and Prevoost, inclined to doubt the need of Articles. Others, among whom was Bishop White, considered the Articles of the Church of England, with the exception of those parts which the separation from the mother Church and country had rendered inapplicable, as still constituting the doctrinal standard of the Church, and were favorable to the ex- plicit recognition of them by the Convention. Others, among whom the Diocese of Connecticut was conspic- uous, regarded the Church as having no Articles. After much discussion, and under the persuasion of the im- possibility of agreement upon any new confession, the Articles, as they now stand in our Prayer-Book, were adopted. Standard of Doctrine. The question has been started, which is the more authoritative in the settlement of the doctrines of the mcnt. Hallam adopts the same view of tbe subject, and is very positive that it was never confirmed by tiie Legislature. Slinrl comes 1.0 the same conclusion. It is a question of historical interest, hut of no importance tons as American Episitopalians. Indeed, the Article is |)erfectly harmless, asserting merely an authority which all (churches exercise — the atithority to decide for itself, and its own members. Articles of Religion. Bishop Short has brought together all the facts that bear upon this question. Like Hallam and Dr. Lamb, he acquits Laud of the charge of introducuig it, and. attributes its introduction to the dueen. See History, p. 170, 171. * Memoirs, p. 179, 186. STANDARD OF DOCTRINE. 349 Cliuich, the Liturgy or the Articles ? The question is sometimes asked under the impression that the two are not accordant. If they are not, it is not because of any designed diversity on the part of those by whom they were constructed. They were framed by the same hands. It is true, that the first Liturgy was composed something like four years previous to the Articles. But the Articles were framed the year succeeding that in which the Liturgy Avas amended." As they stood at that period, they were certainly intended to be consen- tient. If, then, there be any diversity of doctrinal teaching in the Liturgy and Article.s, it must have arisen from one of two causes. It must have been either from in- advertence — in which case the diversity must be of the slightest and most unimportant kind; or it must have arisen from the fact that the one subsequently remained unchanged, while the other was modified in accordance with the changes of theological opinion. Is there any good ground for either of these repre- sentations? Certainly not for the former. The clear heads and practised pens of Cranmer and Ridley, with all the light cast upon the subject by anxious friends and subtle foes, could not, after three years' use of the Liturgy, have allowed any thing of importance to have reniiiiiied in it, inconsistent with the well-considered li finitions of the Articles. Nor is there good ground for the latter representation. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the Articles were brought into their present form by the same persons, ' 1J33. 350 STANDARD OF DOCTRINE. and under the same influences, by which the Litufgy was modified. If the mere point of greater fixedness determined the claim for superiority, then the Articles are to be preferred to the Liturgy ; for the former have received no modification since 1571, while the latter was subjected to several changes in the year 1662. But such a mode of reasoning is inadmissible. History testifies that neither of them has stood still, while the other has progressed. We cannot make of the one an immovable tower, and of the other a weather cock, which surmounts the spire. They are both solid and equal towers, standing before the temple. The object of one is to make a statement and furnish a standard of doctrine. The object of the other is to furnish a vehicle of devotion, based upon, and expressing in the language of prayer and praise, the great truths presented in the Confession of Faith. If, then, they are not variant in their testimony, the one cannot properly be appealed to against the other. The only question which remains, is " which is to be referred to as a standard of doctrine?" Manifestly the Articles. As such, they were composed after a formu- lary of prayer was furnished. As such, they have always been regarded in the Church. As such, they have ever been printed with the confessions of other churches. As such, they went forth by their title to the world.- As such, they have always been referred ^ "Articles, &c., to root the discord of opinions, and establish the agreement of true religion," or as they were at first published: "Articles agreed on by the Bishops and other learned men in the STANDARD OF DOCTRINE. 351 to in the controversies ol' the theologians of the Church w itl) Puritans and Romanists, But while they are,, and are to be, referred to as the precise and well-weighed definitions of doctrine, they are not to be brought forth in confutation of supposed erroneous teaching, embodied in the services. We cannot properly adduce the Liturgy to confute the Articles, nor should we distrust our forms of devotion, as if they were in conflict with our formula of faith." Synod of London, in the year of our Lord God, 1552, for the avoid- ing of controversies in opinions, and for the establishment of godly concord in certain matters of religion." ' A reference to a few facts will show that, to get at the doctrine of the Church, the ultimate appeal must be to the Articles. It should be remembered that the Liturgy had been in use some years when the Articles were framed. They were framed for avoid- ing diversity of doctrine. They were framed to settle opinion, which continued variant in the use, and notwithstanding the use, of the services. In part, therefore, they must have been composed to show what sense the Liturgy should bear — on what system of theo- loi^ical truth its language should be interpreted. As errors sprang up, on the right hand and on the left, among those who used these devotional forms, the Articles were set forth with reference to those errors, and with the intention of showing the real doctrine of the Church in her. services. Take, for instance, the services for the administration of the Sacraments. Those services set forth largely the nature, efTects, and blessings of the Sacraments. They were not composed with a view to proclaim in precise language what, as a Church, we hold to be true on these subjects. They were constructed with the purpose of pro- claiming to her children the duties and privileges and blessings con- nected with the reception and participation of these holy institu- tions. Shall we not learn, then, from these services what is the doctrine of the Church on the Sacraments ? Certainly. They do 352 subscription to Subscription to the Articles. A long contest has been waged in the Church of England, on the question of the sense in which sub- scii])tion to the Articles is required. On the one hand, it has been contended that they are Articles of peace and compromise, which do not require assent to their specific statements, on the part of all. On the other hand, it has been urged that the subscription to these Articles implies a cordial ex animo assent to the literal and grammatical sense of all its specific statements. The former statement has well been designated " a set forth the doctrine of the Church. But if, on the one hand or the other, the warm language of a devotional contemplation of truth is strained to an extreme dogmatic statement of doctrine, then we have a standard of faith, a confession, by which the Church pro- claims to the world and to all the churches, precisely how much she stands committed to ; precisely how far she is willing to define ; precisely how much she means, and intends to inculcate, in her devotional services. The very fact that her Articles, by some years, followed her tservices, and that they were composed because many errors develojied themselves, proves that this is tiie true use and position of the Articles. Bishop Burnet calls (hem " the sum of our doctrine, and the confession of our faith." Bishop Hall calls them "a complete body of divinity." Bishop Tomline, "thecruerion of the faith ol' the members of the Cliurch of England." Other writeis call tiiem " the doctrine," " the articles on doctrme," " the articles on public doctrine." And Bishop Whitgift says, " tlie articles, liturgy, and canons, are the doctrina cultus et disciplina of the Epis- copal Church." — Bp. Meade on the Pastoral Office, p. 225. As it was at the first formation, so it was at the first revision of the Liturgy under Elizabeth. The reconstruction of the Articles followed the revision of the services at a distance of nine years. They came in a second time to define the doctrine of the Church. THE ARTICLES. 353 figment and a shuffling subterfuge to conceal permitted discrepance in teaching."" The Church of England has been most pains-taking and explicit in exhibiting her view of this subject. The title to the Articles, from the first, has expressed their design of ^^ avoiding diversities and establishi/ig consent." The fifth canon declares those to be ipso facto excommunicated who shall affirm any of the Arti- cles to be erroneous. The 36th canon requires the clergy to subscribe willingly, and ex animo, and " to acknowledge all and every Article to be agreeable to the word of (iod." The statute of 13 Elizabeth requires that every clergyman, upon entering upon a benefice, shall declare his ^^ unfeigned assenV^ to them. And when in King James's reign, the Articles were appealed to by Calvini:;ts nnd Arminians, in support of their sys- tems, a royal declaration was put forth to the effect that the Articles were to be taken " in the literal and crram- O matical sense. '^ It is difficult to conceive that the plea that subscription to the Articles was a. mere assent to unmeaning generalities, which postponed or avoided all dogmatic decisions, and allowed Socinianism and Ro- manism to shelter themselves under its covering, could ever have been other than a" dishonest subterfuge.^ The Episcopal Church in this country does not re- quire a subscription to the Articles, in the same manner « Bp. WhiUingham's Charge for 1849, p. 34. " We need not remind the reader of the effrontery with which this dishonest pretence was put forth in Tract 90, and similar pub- lications. 354 CHARACTER OF as the Cliiiich ot' England. The t'orin of subsciiplion is as follows: " I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrines and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States." It is manifest from the account which we have given of the sense in which the subscription was made in the mother Church, and from the history of the adoption of these Articles by our own Church, that a cordial and ex animo assent to the grammatical meaning: of the Articles was intended and expected,'" Character of the Articlss. The idea of compromise, to which we have alluded, had reference to the state of the subscriber's mind, in putting his hand to the Articles. It was seen that a conviction of their truth, and an i x animo assent to them, in their literal and grammatical sense, was im- plied in a subscription. It was not intended, that while the subscriber set his hand to the distinct propositions of the Articles, he might mean, in his own mind, only to abstain from denying them, either in his preaching or conversation; or that he might regard the words to which he affixed his signature, as merely a prepared formula upon which he might put any sense which he thought agreeable to the Word of God, and into which he might subsequently introduce new opinions, as if they were an elastic garment which would adjust itself to a tight and perfect fit for all shapes and sizes of opinion. '" See Bp. White's Memoirs and Pastoral Office. Bp. Meade on the Pastoral Office, pp. 223-'33. THE ARTICLES. 355 A coinpromise of this kind, in the mind of the suh- sniber, and not in the Articles themselves, was clearly improper. It would have been destructive to the ho^ nesty, and ruinous to the faith, of the clergy. But might not the Articles themselves have been, and were they not in fact, a compromise between conflicting opin- ions? And might not a Church, with great propriety and wisdom, so construct her formulary of faith as that various sentiments on many points, might be entertained by those who signed and assented to her standard? We feel the embarrassment of answering, in the short space to which we are restricted, such large and com- prehensive questions We can give little more than the outline of a reply. It is wise in the Church, and in harmony with her action through previous ages, that she should demand of those admitted to her Communion, assent to those Ar- ticles of faith only, which are necessary to salvation, which are contained in the Apostle's Creed. But there are also doctrines of religion, so immediate- ly connected with the grt-at facts set forth in the Creed, so necessarily involved in the explanation of the Creed, so essential to the preservation of a right sense of the Creed, so inevitably to be treated of by those who are to preach the truths of the Creed, that it becomes ne- cessary that the ^Irticles of Faith proclaimed by that venerable symbol should be guarded against perversion by Articles of Religion, to which the ministry should declare their unfeigned assent. The best wisdom of the best men is required, to de- termine to what degree of minuteness definitions of doc- 356 CHARACTER OF trine should extend, and up to what point absolute as- sent to those definitions should be required. To define too minutely is to burden the conscience, and to tempt the minds of the subscribers to self- sophistication or de- ceit. To define too little, is to peril fundamental and saving truth. One of Kfer sons will be forgiven for be- lieving that our Church has hit, with singular accuracy, a just and wise medium. She defines the Trinity; an- nounces the word of God to be the sole rule of faith and practice; declares the fall and depravity of man, and his need of converting and renewing grace; the atonement of the Saviour, justification by faith, election in Christ to eternal life, good works, and the doctrine of the ministry and the Sacraments. One of three courses may be adopted by a Church in reference to controverted doctrine. She mayiake her stand, on one or the other side, and minutely define her views, and demand an unqualified assent of her minis- ters to all her declarations. Such has been, we con- ceive, the cours-e of our Church in reference to the doctrine of the Trinity. Or, if she deems the subject not to be one of sufficient practical moment to demand this course, she may make such general statements as may include both sides of the disputed question, with the view of allowing either to be held by the ministry of her Communion. " We ^' A very different idea from this is advanced by Burnet in the following singular sentence: "The other [thing to be inferred] is that an article being conceived in such general words that it can admit of difierent literal and grammatical senses, even when the senses given are plainly contrary to one another, yet both may subscribe the THE ARTICLES. 357 shall aim to show that in reference to some questions our Church has pursued this plan. One other course is conceivable. We do not say it is practicable. Indeed, history attests its impracticability. A Church may neither make the general statement of which we have spoken, under which either of two views of a controverted subject may be held; nor declare her- self for the one or the other side; while she may en- deavor to combine the two sets of statements into a new and third definition, w^hich shall be a tertium quid, den- article with a good conscience and without any equivocation.'* The words which admit, in tlieir hteral and grammatical sense, meanings plainly contrary to each other, might be very useful for the Priests of Oracular Shrines, and for diplomatists, and for such confessions aa were purposely designed to assert nothing. They are not, however, the materials suited to a confession of faith whose honest [ urpose is to a-sert positive propositions. The sense in which the framers of Mie Article intended it — the meaning of it in their mind — is the only one in which it can be honestly subscribed. This use of equivocal terms — an example of which Burnet has given in the word lull — is just what the Reformers strenuously endeavored to avoid. Melancthonhad a clear idea of the only kind of general propositions which it was proper to embody in a confession, and a salutary dread, founded on experience, of ambiguous expressions. " I could wish, as I wrote in my previous letter, that not only concerning this question, but various others also, a summary of necessary doctrine might be put forth, divested of all private prejudice, by thedeliberate and recorded suffrages of learned and fiious men, who should be ap- pointed for that object, and icho should leave no amhigtiities, as an ap- ple of discord, to posterity. The Council of Trent passed its sophis- tical decrees that it might retain its errors under the guise of am- biguities. Far from the Church be such sophistry !" Epistles of Melanclhon, quoted in Lairrence's Bamplon Lectures, p. 223. 358 CHARACTER OF tical with neither, but composed of both. '- We are happy to believe that this is a kind of compromise never attempted by our Church. But of the second mode of treating controverted sub- jects there is, we believe, one memorable instance. We have already shown that the doctrinal system of the Church is not Calvinism. '' While the Church has not committed herself to that system, she has not com- mitted herself against it. She has left it an open ques- tion. She has made such general statements as can be heartily assented to both by those who receive, and those who reject that system. No fact in the history of these Articles is capable of more perfect proof than this. No fact more exemplifies the wisdom and moderation of the Reformers. Whilst they, for the most part, per- sonally adopted the Calvinistic system, '^ they yet abstained, with singular moderation, from embodying it in a formulary of faith, which was intended for a na- tion. We call it " singular moderation," because it has been a characteristic of most of the advocates of that system to consider its distinctive principles as the most vitalizing, important, and sanctifying doctrines of the Gospel. Bishop White, '' than whom few persons have given " A metnorable instance of the failure to accomplish this object, is furnished by the unsuccessful efforts of the subtle Bucer, to make such a statement of the doctrine of the Eucharist, as should be ac- ceptable alike to the Lutherans and Zwinglians. '3Pages53, 58. '''See Good's book on Baptismal Regeneration, in which this point is amply proved. '■'' Ordination offices, p. 78, 79. THE ARTICLES. 359 more thorough thought to this subject, thus states the result of his mature consideration of the question: " There ir> another question meeting us, and occasion- ing considerable diversity of sentiment. It is, whether, according to a distinction of names originating since the framing of the Articles, they are Calvinistic or Armi- nian. The opinion here entertained is, that they are neither; but that there are discernible in them these three things: that on the first branch of the controversy, (predestination,) they are silent upon the point dis- criminating between the Calvinists and the Arminians ; that on other points they fall short of the Calvinistic tlieory; and that on others they are opposed to it. " When it is said that, on the first branch of the con- troversy, the Articles embrace both Calvinists and Arminians, the meaning is, that there is no decision on the question — Whether predestination be or be not found- ed on prescience ? And yet this is a question which must have been before the compilers, as it had been resolved in the affirmative, by the fathers both of the Greek Church and of the Latin, before the days of St. Augustin; and continued to be so in the former Church, even after the great ascendency of this father had efTect- ed the negative of the question in the latter Church. " The points on which the Articles are here thought to fall short of Calvinism are, the imputation of the righteousness of Christ; the imputation of the sin of Adam; such a corruption of human nature as to impel lo every species of crime, except so far as those are restraints indifTerent to moral good and evil: and, finally, irresistible grace. Not one of these things is declared in the Articles." 360 CHARACTER OP Substantially the same conclusion is reached in the following discriminating remarks of the Rev. Dr. Spar- row . "* " To this course we feel encouraged by the manner in which these subjects are treated in our standards; for though the English reformers had their private opinions on these deep subjects, and candor constrains us to ad- mit that they leaned most to that system which is least in favor amongst us, yet I think it equally certain that they were not disposed to be dogmatical on these points. Tliough brought up in the system referred to, they were manifestly pressed with its difficulties. They accord- ingly did not venture to make out a perfect system. They moreover admitted into the public documents of the Church, expressions, some of which tally best with one system, and others with another. They had, too, we know as a matter of history, various shades of opinion among themselves. Add to all this, that they did their work as Reformers of the Church through a long course of years, at different intervals and under diverse exter- nal influences, and that they had come out from a state of darkness and of chaos, by no means calculated to prepare their minds in all respects for the judicious set- tlement of hard questions. In such circumstances, the utmost we could expect is what we actually do find, great decision and clearness on things fundamental, and great caution, with perhaps some want of consistency, on matters lying further in the region of speculation and metaphysics. Over and above all this, when we reflect '^The right conduct of Theological Seminaries, pp. 19, 20." THE ARTICLES. 361 that from the Reformation down to the present day, there have lived and taught in the Church of England men who have held to Calvinism, Baxterianism, Ar- minianism. Nationalism, and Ecclesiasticalism, filling every station, from the throne in Canterbury to the humblest curacy; we are constrained to believe our- selves bound to the utmost toleration on the profounder points of theolog)-, and to a free allowance of the rights of these several schools to the privileges of our Com- munion, and the work of our Ministry; ^romt/esue with Rome at every point. The one declares we o?-e righteous; the other that we are nccouvfed righteous. The one holds to an acturii righteousness by works and dese?-vi/igs : and the other to an accounted righteous- ness hy faith. The one makes us to be jvfifified because we are Just ; the other makes us Justified because we, by faith, have accounted to us the merit of another, who alone is just.^^ The one confounds sanctification with justification; the other treats of justification as a separate work, which precedes sanctification.^'' Viewed, then, in reference to the doctrine of Rome, which it opposes, and to that of the Homily by which it is to be interpreted, the Article seems to assert the following propositions: By justification is meant a state of acceptance and favo with God, into which persons previously con- demned have passed.** •^'" Christ is n^w the righleoiKsnesa of all them thai truly do be- lieve in him. Hp pnid f'Tlhem tlipir ransom by his death. He for them fulfilled the law iii his life. So that now, in him, and by him, every true Christian mHu may be called a fnlfiiler of the law ; for- asmuch as that which their infirmity lacked Chri.st's ju.stice hath supplied." — Homilies, p. 20. 33 Hooker, vol. ii, 301. ^* Homilies, p. 17. Burnet on the Articles, p. 149. 372 ARTICLES RELATING TO Into that state we come not by our own works or descrvings.^" We do not become justified because we have become just, and thus entitled to acquittal from condemnation, and reinstalment into the favor of God.'"^ But we are justified because we are accounted righte- ous.^' We are accounted righteous only for ihe merits of our Lord Jesus Christ.^" The merits of our Lord Jesus Christ are accounted to us hy faith. It is hy faith only that those merits of the Saviour are accounted to us, by which we are saved.^^ ^^Jewel's Apology, p. 68. 36 ui it shutteth them out fi(>m office of justifying. Homily, pp. 19, 21 . *' The true understanding of this doctrine is not that this, our own act to believe in Christ, or this, our faith in Christ, which is within us doe^ justify us, and deserve our justification unto us, &c., p. 23. "So that, as St. John Baptist, although he were never so virtuous 374 ARTICLES RELATING TO Nor can it be made to conflict with the truth that Christ is the one only cause and means of our justifica- tion." Rather it is the complement of that truth.** Nor can it be perverted without gross injustice, to the and godly a man, yet in this matter of forgiving sin, he did put the people from him, and appoint them unto Clirist, saying unto them: "Behold, yonder is the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. Even so great and godly a virtue as the lively faith is, yet it putteth us from itself, and remittelh or appointeth us unto Christ, for to have only from him remission of our sins or justification. So that our faith in Christ saith unto us thus: It is not I that take away your sins, but it is Christ only, and to bim only I send you for that purpose, forsaking therein ail your good virtues, words, thoughts, and works, and only [tutting your trust in Christ." — Homily, p. 23. Burnet''s account of faith is very unsatisfactory. — Burnet on the Articles, p. 150. ■•^ But this saying, that we be justified by faith only freely and without works, is spoken for to wholly ascribe the merit and deserving of our justification to Christ only, and his most precious blood shedding. This faith the Holy Scripture teacheth us ; this is the strong rock and foundation of Christian reHgion ; this doctrine all old and ancient authors of Christ's Church do approve ; this doc- trine advanceth and setteth forth the true glory of Christ, and beateth doion the vain glory of man; this, v. Iio.soever desireth, is not to be accounted for a Christian mati, nor for a setter forth of Christ's glory ; but for an adversary to Christ and his gospel, and a setter forth of man's vainglory. — p. 22. ■•^ Nevertheless because faith doth directly send u.s to Christ for remission of our sins, and that by faith given us of God, we em- brace the promise of God's mercy, and of the remission of our sins — which thing none other of our virtues or works properly doeih^- therefore the Scripture useth to say that faith without works dolh justify. — Homilies, p. 25. CHRISTIANS AS INDIVIDUALS. 375 support of the idea that we are justified, because we beheve we are/'^ The single purpose of the Article is to assert the blessed, wholesome, and most comforting truth, that the condemned sinner, lying under the wrath and curse of God, and unable, by any works or deservings of his own, to get back into his favor, may, by the exercise of faith in Christ, have his merit accounted to him, and thus be |u-tified. Surely, (his is alike wholesome, or health- giving and comfortable truth. The soul needs it in the hour when it realizes its iniquity. It needs it in the moment of its purest love and most burning zeal. It needs it, and breaks out into singing because of it, at the hour of death. Only as "being justified by faith" can "we have peace with God." It has been contended by some that the seventeenth Article teaches Calvin's doctrine of predestination. By others, it has been explained away into a testimony against that doctrine. By yet others, it has been as- serted that, in an etfort to compromise conflicting state- ments, the conclusion of the Article is made to contra- dict its commencement; so that, in fact, it teaches nothing. Our conviction is, that neither of these state- ments can be supported; but that the Article does set forth the predestination, not of Calvin or Arminius, but of the Bible. It does not teach Calvin's doctrine; for that included a predestination to death, or a decree of reprobation; **This is the constant Romish representation of the Protestant view. — See Bossuet in his '' Variutions^^ and Mahler in his Symbolism. 376 ARTICLES RELATING TO and it grounded the decree on the absolute sovereignty of God. On both these points the Article is silent. It does not teach the doctrine of Arminius. That grounds God's foredetermination on the foreknowledge of the faith and obedience of the Elect.*** But is it not inconsistent? Is not the last paragraph contradictory to the first.? We answer, that the Article leaves the subject in the same kind of difficulty in which it is left by the word of God. The doctrine of man's corruption and spiritual help- lessness had been announced, and the need of prevent- ing grace proclaimed. If preventing grace is needed before man can turn towards God — before he can pre- pnre himself to turn to God — then the question is set- tled, that God clw ,.ses nan and not man God. If, in addition to this statement, that God chooses inan, the Scriptures also announce, as assuredly they do, that God thus chooses man in accordance with a predeter- mination to do so, shall not a Church, whose only rule of faith is the word of God, distinctly embody this de- claration? The difficulty of understanding the subject, or of reconciling it with the free agency of man. is not increased in the slightest degree by adding to the truth, that God's preventing grace gives man a good will, the ^®The Article IS interpi-eted by Lawrence, Bishop White, and ofher-s, to have reference to a Church election, or election of the Church nut of the world. The fact that good rnen can bring their minds to believe this in face of the clear statement of the Article itself, is proof of the amazing influence of prejudice and desire. The Article assuredly calls only those predestinated who attain everlasting felicity. This cannot be true of the visible Church. It must be a caUing of individuals out of tlie visible Church ; not of the visible Church out of the world. CHRISTIANS AS INDIVIDUALS. 377 other truth that this gift had been determined upon from the foundation of the world. In the concluding portion of the Article, the declara- tion that the promises of God are to be received in such wise as they are generally set forth in holy Scripture, seems to us an announcement that the task of reconcil- ing these two great truths — God's predestination, and our obligation to take the promises of God as they are generally set forth, or set forth to all — is declined. That the doctrine of our election in Christ is sweet to the believer, and perilous for the curious and carnal, is a remark which applies equally to the doctrine of pre- venting grace. In the one case, the carnal mind asks "if I can do nothing, how am I responsible; or, what can I do but wait till God's grace visit me?" In the other, he asks tf -• .'■inie question in another form: "If I am chosen, will not grace come without my effort; and if not chosen, is not all effort of no avail?" We thus briefly discuss this Article, from an unwil- lingness to plunge into an abyss from which each new diver brings up only additional mud, with no new pearls of illustration or of argument. We conclude this subject with the following judicious remarks by Blunt, in his History of the Reformation: " It would not fall within the plan of a work like the present to enter more minutely into these investigations, which are, after all, as a hedge of thorns. Suffice it to have pointed out the general principle, which should not be lost sight of in forming a judgment of our Arti- cles. Thus considered they will scarcely be thought to determine, or be intended to determine^ the peculiar points 378 ARTICLES RELATING of the Calvinistic controversy either way; they will be rather thought to be composed simply for the purpose assigned in the title affixed to the original Articles, for the avoiding of controversy in opinion, and the establish- ment of a good concord in matters of religion; an object not likely to be obtained by the decided adoption of any party views, be that party what it might; and, there- fore, King Ja;mes, according to his declaration prefixed to the Articles, ' took comfort that all clergymen within his realm had always most willingly subscribed to the Articles established;' which is an argument, (he adds,) that they all agree in the true usual literal meaning of the said Articles, and that even in those curious points in which the present ditficulties lie, men of all sorts take the Articles of the Church of England to be for them. Yet nothing can be more certain than that, in the time of James, the divisions of opinion upon spec- ulative points of theology were both wide and numerous; High and Low Church principles (as they were called) never having been more violently opposed to each other than then. Here, therefore, as in all other of their mea- sures, did the Reformers make their moderation known to all men, not hoping or desiring to confine religious opinion so closely as thereby to piejuiiice religious sin- cerity, nor expecting that the pyramid of a National Church would stand firm, when set upon an apex instead of a base." The Article upon Sin after Baptism appears to have contemplated the error of the Anabaptists, who helfl every sin committed after Baptism unpardonable. It asserts that even those sins which are in their nature TO THE CHURCH. 379 deadly and ruinoub to grace, may by the grace of God be pardoned, so that the transgressor may be received again into God's favor. Articles relating to the Church. The nineteenth Article is thus commented upon by Bishop Burnet: " This article, together with some that follow it, relates to the fundamental difference between us and the Church of Rome, they teaching that we are to judge of the doctrines by the authority and decisions of the Church; whereas we affirm that we are first to examine the doctrine, and according to that to judge of the purity of the Church. *' Acting on this principle the Church here gives her definition of the visible Church of Christ. It is very general. Where the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments are duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all things that are of necessity requisite to the same, there is a portion of the visible Church of Christ.^ The latter part of the Article denies the infallibility of the Church of Rome. ^' Burnet oii the Articles. '•''This is the definition of the Church which is given in King Ed- wanl's and Noel's Catt hi.sni, by all the Reformers and by the Con- tinental Confessions. The author is engaged in a preparation of a work nn the Church and ministry, in which the whole subject is discussed at length, and the testimonies of the Reformers, public and private, are gathered. The result of the inquiry is a perfect demon- stration that the dogma of later times, which makes Episcopacy necessary to the existence of the Church, and the administration of Sacraments, was not only not held by them, but had not even been broached among them. 380 ARTICLES ON The authority of the Church to decree rites and cere- monies, and her authority in controversies of faith, is asserted by the twentieth Article. . The declaration in the previous Article that the various Churches of Jeru- salem, Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome, have erred even in matters of faith, conclusively proves that this Article contains no claim for the Church universal or national, that she can decide what is absolutely true, and thus establish divine truth in controversies of faith; but that it is lawful for a Church to decide for herself and her children what shall be held, within her Com- munion, to be the doctrine of God's Word, and what rites or ceremonies shall be practised. Providentially the keeper of Holy Writ, and thus a witness to its au- thenticity, she must ordain nothing contrary to God's word written, on the ground of a word unwritten. ^^ In the next three Articles several errors are wit- nessed against. Purgatory, the worship of image and relics, and the invocation of Saints are denounced as hu- man inventions, repugnant to the Word of God. The unlawfulness of exercising the office of preaching and administering the Sacraments in the Church, without being called and sent by the constituted authorities of the Church, and the speaking in the Church in an un- known tongue, are next denounced. The first error had reference to the Anabaptists, and the second to the Church of Rome. ■•^See note on page VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 381 Articles which have reference to the Sacra- ments. ''° The doctrine of the Sacraments, as set forth in the Liturgy and Articles, has been so fully illustrated in these pages, that we need not here dwell upon the meaning of the Articles. That they are signs and seals of grace, and that they are the m^ans of grace only to the peni- tent and believing, is the sum of their positive teaching. The errors against which they witness are chiefly •those ot Rome Articles on various subjects. The remaining Articles, from the thirty-second to the thirty-ninth, are devoted to various subjects. The lawfulness of the marriage of Priests is asserted. Ex- communicated persons, as it is declared, should be held as heathen men and publicans. Traditions and cere- monies may lawfully differ in different countries, and each national Church may ordain them for itself. The book of Homilies is commended as containing '* godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for the times," with a note to the effect that the references in them to the constitution and laws of England are inapplicable to this country, and that the order for reading them in Church is suspended, until they shall have been re- vised. The consecration and ordination services are vindicated as including everything necessary to a true consecration and ordination, and as being free from all ='OFrom the XXV to the XXXI Articles. 382 ARTICLES ON superstition. The power of the civil magistrate over the clergy in things temporal, and the absence of all authority on his part in things spiritual, is asserted. The community of goods of Christians is denied; and the lawfulness of oaths to the magistrate is asserted. ' In concluding this slight sketch of the Articles, we cannot forbear to express the full conviction that time is proving them to be, on the whole, the best confession of faith ever announced by a Christian Church. It was formed in a time of excitement and excess, and yet its chief trait is a calm and discriminating moderation. ""' It was the purpose of the Author to have given a much more complete account of the Articles, and to have added a no less full explanation of the Ordination Services. The size to which this hook had swollen admonished him to forbear, [t is hoped, however, that the irfea of his work — that of interpreting the Prayer-Book by its History — is to some extent realized in this chapter. He has indicated the sources from which the Articles were derived, and the principles of the framers of them by which they are to be ex- plained. The Ordination Services, and especially the preface to them, and the xix Article, will be fully discussed in the work of which men- tion has been made. (Note 48.) " The form of consecration of a Church or Chapel was adopted by the General Convention of 1795. It was substantially the same as the service composed by Bishop Andrews, in the reign of James the First. It is commonly used by the English Bishops in such consecrations, but without the authority of any Convention or act of Parliament." — Bishop Brownell, p. 770. " The office of Institution was first adopted by the General Con- vention of 1804, and finally established by the Convention of 1808; the name being changed from " induction," to " institution," and its use being made to rest on recommendation, and not requisition, as at first." — Bishop Brownell, p. 773. VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 383 The position which the Church took in her controversy with Rome, which seemed to the more heated enemies of that great domination, during the war, to be as- sumed for the betrayal of the cause, was discovered, after the campaign, to have been a very Citadel of Gibraltar, impregnable in itself, and a commanding point from w^hich to dart the thunder of her power. For a long period Churches and individuals were vio- lently in favor of, or violently opposed to, the system of Calvin. That period has passed by. It is beginning to be felt that the whole subject lies beyond the range of revealed and practical theology, and that, therefore, it should be excluded from the confessions of the Churches. Some Churches, in which there are minute and dogmatic definitions on these abstruse theories, would, we are persuaded, if tliey were now to form their Articles of faith anew, altogether dismiss them from their confessions. They are permitted to remain enshrined in catechisms and confessions, but are not brought forth in preaching. They were once the living trees, under which the tabernacles of these communions were pitched. They are now a deserted fossilized forest, whose cold and skeleton forms look grim and fearful, even to those who virovnncnl. Sund. after Asccii. A little varied 154'J 2 Sunday af'tci Trill. Tlic order inverted 16G2. 8 Sunday after Trin. Beginning improved 1662. 11 Sunday after Trin. Improved 1662. 18 Sunday after Trin. improved 1662. 19 Sunday after Trin. Improved 1662. St. Paul's Day. Improved 1559 and 1662. How il stood before. Tiiis had been of old the Collect for Ascen- sion Day, on which our venerable Bede repeated it as he was dying. Lord make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy name, for thou never failest, &c. Whose providence is never deceived, &c. That we running to thy promises may be made partakers of thy heavenly trea- sure, &c. To avoid the infections of the devil, &c. That the working of thy mercy may in all things, &c. In the Breviaries* a new prayer was add- * Had Dr. Comber said Missal instead of Breviary, he would have been more correct . For llioiit'li I'le Collect of Uio day was used in the Breviary, yet it was taken from the Missal. Thus, in our Morning Prayer, the rubric directs that the first Collect, that is, the Collect of the day, " shall be the same thai is appointed at the Communion." By members of our Church, and dissenters, the Breviary, Missil, and Ritual, three very different books, arc at present generally confounded. The Breviary contains matins, lauds, &.C.; and if tl'e reader considers it as corresponding with our daily service, he will not form a very erroneous opinion. The Missal or Mass Book, answers to "the order of the adminUtntUon of the Lord's Supper," together with " Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, to be used thoiighout the year." The Ritual is composed of occasion- al Offices, namely, Baptism, Matrimony, Visitation of the Sick, &c. 390 APPENDIX. Collects for Time of Improvemenl. Tlie Annunciation. Improved 1549. St. Philip c^nd James. Improved 1662. St. Bartholmew. Trinity Sunday. Improved 1662. How it Hood before. ed mentioning St. Paul's intercession ; in the year 1549 the old prayer alone out of Greg. Sacr. was restored, which had our walking after his example only, which was a little varied in the year 1662. The Breviaries had put in a new prayer about the B. Virgin'.s intercession, which was cast out in 1549, and the form being in St. Greg. Sacr. re- stored. As thou has taught St. Philip and the other apostles, &c. To preach that which he taught, cSrc, was altered, because there is no writing of his extant. This Collect is no older than the Sacramenta- ry ascribed to Alcui- nus. The old Offices have another Collect for it, and call it the Octave of Pentecost. APPENDIX. 391 PART III. Consisliiig of such Collects as are composed aiuio, and substituted in the place of those tohich, cotitaining either false or superstitious doctrines, were on this account rejected. Collectsfor 1 Sunday in Advent. '2 Sunday in Advent. 3 Sunday in Advent. Christmas Day. Circumcision. 6 Sunday after Epipiiany. Q,uinquagesima. Ash Wednesday. 1 Sunday in Lent. Blaster Even . Easter Sunday. 1 Sunday after Easter. 2 Sunday after Easter. St. Andrew's Day. St. Thomas's Day. St. Matthias. St. Mark. St. Barnabas. St. John Baptist. St. Peter. St. James. St. Matthew. St. Luke. St. Simon and St. Jude. All Saints. Composed in First Book of Edward VL 1549. The same time. 1662. 1549. The same time. 1662. Before this time they repeated the Collect for the fifth Sunday. 1549. The same time. The same time. 1662. No Collect for it ever before then. The first sentence (1 Cor. v, 7,) wa.<< added 1662. 1549. Then it was used on Easter Tuesday, and in 16G2 was fixed for this Sunday. 1549. 1552. Second Book of Ed ward VI. All composed anew in 1549. 392 APPENDIX. Yet, in the composition of some of these Collects, the compilers appear to have had an eye to the Missals and the Breviaries. They have in some instances preserved the introduction, and amplified or given a different turn to the petitions. — Shepherd. No. II. The language of Hooker on the Eucharist has been contrasted by Mr. Keble with that of Jewel, as though the former entertained a higher and more reverent view of the subject than the latter.' It is somewhat difficult to decide upon the relative reverence of what is called the " tone of language;" and therefore wc do not know but Mr. Keble may be correct in representing that of Hooker to be far greater than that of Jewel. We venture to say, however, that the views of Hooker on this subject did not differ in any important point from those of his friend and patron, even though he expounded the sixth chapter of St. John as having a prospective reference to the Eucharist, and though it were granted that the one speaks upon the subject " in tones of unaffected reverence," and the other "with peremptory language, almost amounting to scorn(ulness." Let it be remembered that Hooker immediately succeeded that school of noble Reformers who, wJiile they gave up their lives for a testimony against the doctrine of a real and corporal presence in the elements, and of a sacrifice for sin in the celebration of the Eucha- rist, yet freely spoke of signs and symbols as if they were what they represented. Let it be remembered, also, that his familiarity with the fathers of the early church, with whom this practice was habitual, had made the use of language which startles one who views the Eucharistic controversy only in the light of modern times, a mental habit which he felt no necessity of correcting. If these facts be borne in mind, the reader will not be surprised to find jn Hooker, as he has in Cranmer and Ridley and Jewel, distinct and repeated assertions of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and of the participation, on the part of the communicant, of the real body and blood of Christ. But with these assertions he will 1 Keble's Hooker, Introduction, p 43. APPENDIX. 393 always find explanations which distinctly disavow any other pre- sence than a sacramental one, or a spiritual presence of Christ to the heart; any other feeding upon the body and blood of the cruci- fied Redeemer, than that of faith which lays hold of his death, as redemption and righteousness and life. The entire view of Hooker on this subject may be summed up in the three following propositions: 1. There is no presence of Christ's actual body and blood in the elements. 2. The presence of Christ is a presence of his spirit in the*heart of the believer. 3. The Sacrament of the Eucharist is an instrument whereby the faithful recipient has communion or fellowship with the person of Christ as God and man, and is made a partaker of the grace and efficacy of his body and blood, wliereby there is a true change, both of soul and body, an alteration from death to life.- These three propositions exhaust the meaning of Hooker's lein- guage on this subject. From the passages which follow, we shall be abled istinctly to gather the first two of these propositions, as well as to ascertain in what sense the Eucharist is spoken of as an in- strument, and what is meant by the communion and fellowship ©f the person of Christ. I. The first proposition is involved in his statement of the point at issue. " Whereby the question is driven to a narrower issue, nor doth any thing rest doubtful but this, whether, when the Sacrament is administered, Christ be whole within man only, or else his body and blood be also externally seated in the very consecrated elements themselves; which opinion they th^t defend are driven either to consubslantiate, and incorporate Christ with elements sacramental, or to transubslantiale, And change their substance into his ; and so the one to hold him really but invisibly moulded up with the sub- stance of those element.-^, the other to hide him under the only visible show of bread and wine, the substance whereof, as they imagine, is abolished, his succeeded in the same room."^ 2 Hooker's Works, vol. i, p. 453. 3 Hooker's Works, vol. i, p. 449. 17* 394 APPENDIX. In the following passages the first proposition is clearly and dis- tinctly expressed: " The real presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not, therefore, to be sought for in the Sacrametit, but in the worthy re- ceiver of the Sacrament.'"* " There is no sentence of Holy Scripture which eaith we cannot by this Sacrament be made partakers of his body and blood, except they be first contained in the Sacrmnent, or the Sacrament converted into them." ^ " Now, whereas all three opinions [the Roman, Lutheran, and Sacramentarian] do thus far accord in one, that strong conceit which two of the three have embraced, as teaching a literal, corporal, and oral manducation of the very substance of his flesh and blood, is surely an opinion no where delivered in Holy Scripture, whereby they should think themselves bound to believe it, and (to speak with the softest terms we can use) greatly prejudiced in that, when some others did so conceive of eating his flesh, our Saviour, to abate that error in them, gave them directly to understand how his flesh so eaten could profit them nothing, because the words which he spake were spirit; that is to say, they had reference to a mystical panici- palion, which mystical participation giveth life.'"' II. That the real presence of Christ is a presence by his Spirit to or in the heart of the believer, is distinctly affirmed in the second of the passages above quoted. It is also as unequivocally declared in the following words : " I see not which way it should be gathered by the words of Christ when" and where the bread is his body and the cup his blood, hut only in the very heart and soul of him ivhich receiveth them.'''' ' III. The third position, that the Sacrament of the Eucharist in an instrument whereby the faithful recipient has communion or fellnw- ship with the person of Christ, as God and man, and is made n partaker of the grace and eflicacy of his body and blood, is our: which requires a fuller development. The substance of this proposition is stated by Hooker in various 4 Hooker, vol. i, p. 45J . 5 Id., p. 451. 6 Id., p. 452. 7Id., p. 451. APPENDIX. 395 forms. Sometimes he speaks of the mysteries as " conduits of life and conveyances of his body and blood unto them." * Sometimes he speaks of " a real participation of Christ, and of life in his body and blood 6j/ means of this Sacrament.''''^ Again, he declares that "the bread and cup are his body and blood, because they are causes in- strumental upon the receipt whereof the participation of his body and blood ensueth." '" In all these different expressions the one idea reigns, that the Eucharist is an instrument whereby the body and Mood of Christ is conveyed to the believer. That body and blood are not in, with, or under the elements, (as he repeatedly declares,) but they are conveyed to the believer in the due celebration and re- ception of the Eucharist. Now, the point before us is, " What is the meaning of this proposition ? What thought does he mean to convey by these words?" Our attention is directed to the two questions : " In what sense does Hooker speak of the Euchai'ist as an instntment of conveying the body and blood of Christ to the faithful communicant.' and what is meant by this conveyance of the Saviour's body and blood.'" To arrive at a clear and full resolution of the first of these ques- tions, some preliminary observations £ue necessary. It will be seen that by the term " conveyance of Christ's body and blood" in the Eucharist, the meaning of Hooker is, that we are made partakers of the benefits of his death and passion — that we are justified and accepted, and are made to receive the sanctifying gifts of the Spirit. In short, in the language of our Communion Service, we receive the " forgiveness of our sins and all other bene- fits of his passion." This position we take for granted for the present. If not subsequently proved, all arguments which may be based upon it will, of course, be nullified. Now when Hooker speaks of the Eucharist as an instrument of conveying the benefits of Christ's crucified body to the soul, namely, justification and the gifts of the Spirit, he does not intend that these blessings ave first obtained through the instrumentality of this Sacra- ment. That oflice he assigns, with a constant and consistent uni- formity, to faith. The following passage is the more striking in its 8 Hooker, vol. i, p. 452. 9 Id., p. 451. 10 Id , p. 459. 396 APPENDIX. testimony on tliis point, because it is introductory to a discussion upon the grace of the Sacraments. " The general cause which hath procured our remission of sins is the blood of Christ; therefore in his blood we are justified, that is to say, cleared and acquitted of all sin. The condition required in us for our personal qualification hereunto isfailh. Sin, both origina and actual, committed before belief in the promise of salvation through Jesus Christ, is, through the mere mercy of God, taken aioay from themwhich believe; justified they are, and that not in reward of their good, but through the pardon of their evil works. For, albeit they have disobeyed God, yet our Saviour's death and obedience, per- formed in their belief, doth redound to them ; hy believing it they make the benefit thereof to become their own." " The Sacrament of the Eucharist, then, is not regarded by Hooker as the instrument or means by which we first obtain the benefits of Christ's passion. It is not, then, the one or the primary instrument of the blessing specified. It is an instrument. Let this point be borne in mind. Now let us sec in what sense he regards the Eucharist as an in- strument of conveying what he calls sometimes the body and blood of Chri.st, and sometimes the participation of Christ and of life. His views upon the nature and office of the Sacraments generally, will show his opinion upon this point. Freely as he speaks of tUe SacramenUs as the means or instruments of grace, he uses the word instrument in a very general sense, not as that through which the grace 's given, but that along with which, rightly administered and receiv- ed, it is imparted directly from God. The distinction may at first seem slight and unimportant; but it is one which Hooker is very careful to observe, and on which depend important developments of doctrine. If it be a straw, it is one which lies at the springhead of divine truth, and separates the fountain into two parts, whose on- flowings swell, the one into the turbid and noxious stream of Ro- mish error, and the other into the clear, salutary, and abounding river of pure doctrine. Two passages already quoted, have a direct testimony on this point. 11 Hooker's Works, vol, ii, p. 36. APPENDIX. 397 In one, (page 229,) " it is declared that Saoranicnts contain, in tliem- aelves, no vital force or efficacy; they are not physical but ynoral in- struments of salvation." In the other, (page 952,) after an illustra- tion which itself proves that the grace is not imparted through the Sacrament, as an instrument, but along with it, he concludes in lan- guage which expressly asserts that to be the meaning of the illus- tration : "He that giveth these preeminences, declareth by such signs his meaning, nor doth the receiver take the same but with effect ; for which cause he is said to have the one by the other ; albeit that ichick is bestowed proceedelh wholly from the ivill of the giver and not from the efficacy of tlie sign." In all his language on the subject of the Sacraments he is careful to maintain this point. What can be clearer than this passage? " For so God hath instituted and ordained that together loith due administration and receipt of Sacramental signs, thei-e shall proceed from himself grace effectual to sanctify, to cure, to comfort, and what- soever else is good for the souls of men." '■' Again ; Sacraments are described by Hooker as marks loherehy to know when God imparts grace, and means conditional required by God of those to whom he imparts it. " But their chiefest force and virtue consisteth not herein so much, as that they are heavenly- ceremonies, which God hath sanctified and ordained to be adminis- tered in his Church, first, as marks whereby to know when God doth imparl the vital or saving grace of Christ unto all that are capable thereof; and, secondly, as means conditional ichich God requireth in them to ichom he imparteth grace."" '^ Here they are described as marks to know when God imparts grace. This is one of their chai-acteristics. Another is, that they are means, not instrumental, but conditional, on the right use of which, God imparts grace, di- rectly from himself, to the heart of the receiver. The passage fur- nishes a key by which to understand other passages in which the Sacraments are called instruments of grace. Once more ; As for the Sacraments, ihey really exhibit, but for aught we can gather out of that which is written of them, they are not really nor do really contain in themselves that grace, which, wUh 13 Hooker, vol. ii, p. 108. 13 Id , vol. I, p. 406. 398 APPENDIX. them, or by timn, it pleaseth God to bestow." ''' Here it is plain he does not regard Sacraments as the proximate instrument through which, but as the means condUional along ivith, or by which, he bestows grace and life. A few more passages on the Sacraments generally will give us the complete views which he entertained on this branch of the subject. He calls them signs and pledges; signs and pledges, not of a former benefit, but of a present one ; not bare signs of instruction or admo- nition, but seals of a real and present blessing. Nor are they signs only. Tliey are means or instruments, in the sense (as we have seen) of being conditions, on the right use of which CTod bestows his grace upon the faithful recipient. "Let it, tlierefore, suffice us to receive Sacraments as sure pledges of God's favor, signs infallible, that the hand of his saving mercy doth thereby reach forth itself towards us, sending the influence of his Spirit into men's hearts, which makelh them like to a rich soil, fertile with all kind of heavenly virtues," &c.'^ " We take not Baptism nor the Eucharist for bare resemblances or memorials of thhigs absent, neither for naked signs and testimo- nies assuring us of grace received before, but (as they are in deed and in verity) for means effectual whereby God, when we take the Sacraments, delivereth into our hands that grace available unto eter- nal life, which grace the Sacraments represent or signify." '^ Here the Sacraments "are declared to represent or signify grace. When we take them, God delivereth into our hands the grace they signify. In such sense, and in such only, they are means or instruments of grace. The passage which immediately succeeds tlie above is still more expressly to the purpose. " If, on all sides, it be confessed that the grace of Baptism is poured into the soul of man, that by water we receive it, although it be neither sealed in the water nor the water changed into it, what should induce men to think that the grace of the Eucharist must needs be in the Eucharist before it can be in us that receive it?" Now, by gathering together all these testimonies, we have a clear, 14 Id., p. 401 . 15 Hook«r , vol ii, p. 37, 16 Id., vol. i, p. 407. APPENDIX. S99 consistent, intelligible system of doctrine on this subject, by which we may understand and harmonize all those statements of Hooker which seem to regard the Sacraments as sometimes only signs and Sometimes as instruments of grace. It may be stated in few words. The virtue and efficacy of the body and blood of Christ — that is, pardon and sanctification through his atoning sacrifice — are first ap- plied to the soul of the individual on the exercise of a living faith. Sacraments are signs of the grace and blessings of redemption through Christ's blood. They are not only signs, but they are seal.s of real and present blessings. They are not only signs and seals of present blessings, but they are means, conditional, by the use of which those blessings are renewed at the time in which the Sacra- ments are rightly received. Having thus ascertained the meaning of Hooker when he speaks of the Sacrament as an instrinnent of conveying the body and blood of Christ to the believer, let us now consider what he means by the conveyance of the body and blood of Christ. We have seen that Hooker uses, as perfectly synonymous with the expression, " the conveyance of the body and blood of Christ," other language whose meaning cannot be misunderstood. He speaks of the effect of the Eucharist as "a participation of his body and blood;" a real participation of Christ and of life." Wc have seen, also, that he rejects the notion of a bodily presence in the Eucharist, and allows only a .spiritual presence of Christ in the soul. These premi- .ses were sufficient to prove that, when he speaks of the conveyance of Christ's body and blood, he cannot, by this language, intend any meaning contrary to the first two positions, and these exclude all corporal presence in the elements or in the soul. Yet we adduce his direct testimony, that it may be seen that his own mind fell into no contradictions on this perplexing subject. The instrument of union with Christ is described by Hooker to be faith. By it we are justified, and by it we receive supplies of .•spiritual life. By it a living union with him is begun, and by it this ^nion is continued. The Sacrament of the Eucharist is a sign and instrument (in the sense before described^ of this union and life, through the death and sacrifice of Christ. The passages which fol- low express this doctrine, and no more. 400 APPENDIX. If lu) other proof of this position were to be found than that which is contained in his defence of the Sacramentaries, that would be quite sufficient. They surely were never accused of holding to a real and corpora! communication of Christ's body and blood to the communicant. Yet Hooker defends and identifies himself with their view of the subject. " It seemeth, therefore, much amiss that against them whom they '■erm Sacramentaries so many invective discourses are made, all running upon two points, that the Eucharist is not a bare sign or figure only, and that the efficacy of his body and blood is not all that we receive in this Sacrament. For no man having read their books and writings, which are thus traduced, can be ignorant that both these assertions they plainly confess to be most true. They do not so interpret the words of Christ as if the name of his body did import but the figure of his laody, and to be, were only to sig- nify his blood. They grant that these holy mysteries, received in due manner, do instrumentally both make us partakers of the grace of that body and blood which were given for the life of the world, and besides, also, impart unto us, even in true and real, though mystical manner, the very person of our Lord himself, whole, per- fect, and entire, as hath been shown.'"" The idea of the union with Christ, and the life resulting from it, here expressed, is very different from that of the Roman and Trac- tarian writers. The latter contemplates a literal reception of the real body of Christ, by which the body obtains the prin- ciple of immortality, and the soul receives a grace special to thi.s Sacrament. The former regards us as made partakers of the grace of the body and blood of the Redeemer, and as receiving in a real though mystical manner the very person of our Lord. But let the pa.ssage.s which follow give the full sense of Hooicer on this point. First, let us hear his description of the union of the believer with Christ. "Our souls and bodies, quickened to eternal life, are effects, the cause whereof is the person of Christ; his body and blood are the true well-spring out of which this life floweth. So that his body and 17 Hooker, vol. i, p. 452 APPENDIX. 401 blood are ni tliat very subject wherein they minister iiCc, not only by cft'ect or operation, even as the influence of the heavens is in plants, beasts, men, and in everything which they quicken, but also by a far more divine and mystical kind of union, which niakcth us one with him, even as he and the Father are one.'"*^ The life imparted from Christ is not the effect of the influence of an absent and distant cause, like that of the sun on plants, but it arises from a vital participation and union of his natux-e with ours. The meaning of Hooker may be illustrated by reference to the na- ture of our union and communion with the first man, Adam. As partakers of his nature, wc derive from him disease, sin, and death. l>y virtue of our union with Christ — who now stands at the hcail of redeemed human nature, imparting a new influence to ail wlio are in union with him by living faith — we derive from him life, grace, and immortality. As by the first Adam we die, by the second Adam we are made alive. *' His body and blood are the true well- spring, out of which this life floweth." This mystical union, and the life which it gives, which wc obtain through faith, is enjf)yed and confirmed in the Eucharist, as an instru- ment of the blessing which it at the same time signifies and gives in fullermeasure. The following [)assage is a summary of Hooker's view of all the benefits of the Sacrament. It will be noticed that, hi the conclusion of the passag6-,he is careful to show the peculiar sense in which he speaks of the Eucharist as an instrument for the convey- ance of these blessings : " It is on all sides plainly confessed, first, that this Sacrament is a true and i-eal participation of Christ, who (hereby impartcth him- self, his whole entire person, ,is a imjstical head unto every soid that re- ceiveth him, and that every such receiver doth thereby incorporate or unite himself unto Christ as o mystical member of him, yea, of them, also, whom he acknowledgcth to be his own ; secondly, that to whom the person of Christ is thus communicated to them he giveth, by the same Sacrament, his Holy Spirit to sanctify them as itsanctifieth him which is their headj thirdly, that what merit, force, or virtue soever, there is in his sacrificed body and blood, we freely, 18 Id., p. 450. 402 APPENDIX. fully, and wholly have it by this Sacrament; fourthly, that the effect thereof in us is u real transmutation of our souls and bodies, from sin to righteousness, from death to life ; fifthly, that because the Sacrament being of itself but a corruptible and earthly creature, must needs be thought an unlikely instrument to work so admirable effects in man, we are, therefore, to rest ourselves altogether on the strength of his glorious power, who is able and will bring to pass that the bread and cup which he giveth us shall be truly the thing he promiseth." "* After dissuading men from attaching too much importance to the question, Where is Christ? he plainly shows that he does not re- gard his bodily presence to be in the elements or in the recipient, or anywhere but in heaven. " In a word, it appeareth not that of all the ancient fathers of the Church, any one did ever conceive or imagine, other than only amys- tical participation of Chrisfs body and blood in the Sacrament, neither are their speeches, concerning the change of the elements themselves into the body and blood of Christ, such that a man can thereby in conscience assure himself it was their meaning to persuade the world, either of a corporal consubstantiation of Christ with those sanctified and blessed elements before we receive them, or the like transubstantiation of them into the body and blood of Christ." We think our position is established, that the entire view of Hooker on the subject of the Eucharist may be summed up in three propositions, announced at the beginning of this discussion. The only seeming diflerence which we have been able to discover, between the view of Hooker and that of Jewel, has reference to tlie benefits or fruits of the Eucharist. Jewel, in common with Cran- mer, spoke of the right reception of the Eucharist as conveying pre- cisely the same blessings as were conveyed in the right reception of Baptism and tlie faithful hearing of the Word. Hooker distin- guishes between the grace of Baptism and that of the Lord's Sup- per. The difference, however, is more seeming than real. The one contemplates salvation as a whole, and speaks of it as signed and sealed and given, alike by the Word, by Baptism, and by the Lord's Supper. The other, with more theological accuracy, contemplates 19 Hooker, vol. i, p. 452. APPENDIX. 403 the various blessings included in salvation, and speaks of some as more particularly connected with the one or the other Sacrament. When, however, Hooker speaks of a salvation as a whole, he uses Icinguage which is very similar to that of Jewel. All that Jewel meant by his expressions on this point, is that we receive Christ both in Bap- tism and in the Eucliarist. So much Hooker asserts in the following passage. But beyond this general assertion, Hooker proceeds, also, to show how we receive Christ in the one Sacrament and how in the other. " We receive Christ Jesus in Baptism once as the first beginner, in the Eucharist often, as being, by continual degrees, the finisher of our life. By Baptism, therefore, toe receive Christ Jesus, and from him that saving grace which is proper unto Baptism. By the other Sacrament rce i-eceire him, also, imparting therein himself and that grace wliicii the Eucharist properly bestoweth. So that each Sacra- ment, having both thai ivhich isgeneral or common, and that also which is jieculiar unto itself, we may hereby gather that the participation of Christ, which properly belongeth to anyone Sacrament, is not otherwise to be obtained, but by the Sacrament whereunto it is proper."^" We have dwelt so long upon the views of Hooker, on this subject, because we conceive that they have been misrepresented in that edition "-' of his works which will be most likely to fall into the hands of readers in this country ; because a Slight examination of language so different from our own, and so usual in the time of Hooker, might not enable the casual reader to detect the misrepresentation; and because, above all, of the justly high authority of Hooker on all subjects relating to the constitution of the Church of Christ. As we study his pages, we feel that the term 'judicious,' honorable and well merited as it is, falls far below the deserts of one, who con- ducted controversy in the spirit of calm and heavenly meditation; and whose mind, amid the strong and conflicting and foaming tides of opinion, which tossed and carried far off, amid shoals and rocks, many noble barks, freighted with the treasures of piety and learn- ing, rested on the waters like a buoy, with its chain fastened to the 20 Hooker, vol. i, p. 407. 21 Kcble's. 404 APPENDIX. rock, lo mark the narrow channel of truth and safety. The remark of Coleridge, so just and striking in its application to the saintly Leigliton, of whom it was spoken, seems to my mind yet more ap- propriately applicable to Hooker. " If we could conceive a region of intellect between reason and revelation to have been previously unoccupied, we might say that he had taken possession of that region." -- No. III. The Oblation ant! Invocation have been proved, in our chapter on the Lord's Supjicr, to be in themselves unobjectionable. Yet they have been adduced as evidence of a recognition by our Church of a sacrifice other than that of praise and th.unksgiving. The testimony of Bishop White on the subject is valuable, as proving the sense in which he consented to the admission of the service. " In tiie service for the administration of the Communion, it may perhaps be exjiected that the great change made in restoring to the Consecration Prayer the oblatory words and the invocation of the Holy Spu'it, left out in King Edward's reign, must at least have produced an opposition. But no such thing happened to any con- siderable extent ; or, at least, the author did not hear of any in the other house, further than a disposition to the effect in a few gentle- men, which was counteracted by some pertinent remarks of the president. In that of the Bishops, it lay very near to the heart of Bishop Seabury. As for the other Bishop, without conceiving with some that the service, as it stood, was essentially defective, he al- ways thought there was a beauty in those ancient forms, and can discover no superstition in them. If, indeed, they could have been reasonably thought to imply that a Christian Minister is a Priest, in the sense of an offerer of sacrifice, and that the table is an altar and the elements a sacrifice, in any other than figurative senses, he would have zealously opposed the admission of such unevangelical sentiments as he conceives them to be. The English Reformers carefully exploded every thing of this sort at the time of their issuing of the first Book of Common Prayer, which contained the Oblation 22 Christian Observer, for May, 1845, p. 260. APPENDIX. 405 and the Invocation. Although they were left out on a subsequent review, yet it is known to have been done at the instance of two learned foreigners, and in order to avoid what was thought the ap- pearance of encouragement of the superstition which had been done away. The restoring of those parts of the service by the American Church has been since objected to by some few among us. To show that a superstitious sense must have been intended, they have laid great stress on the printing of the words, ' which we now offer unto thee,' in a different character from the rest of the prayers. But this was mere accident. The Bisiiops, being possessed of the form used in the Scotch Episcopal Church, which they had altered in some respects, referred to it to save the trouble of copying. But the reference was not intended to establish any particular manner of printing; and, accordingly, in all the editions of the Prayer-Book since the first, the aforesaid words have been printed in the same character with the rest of the prayer, without any deviation from the original appointment. Bishop Seabury's attachment to these changes may be learned from tlie following incident. On the morn- ing of the Sunday which occurred during the session of the Conven- tion, the author wished him to consecrate the elements. This he declined. On the offer being again made at the time when the service was to begin, he still declined ; and smiling, added — ^To con- fess the truth, I hardly consider the form to be used as strictly amounting to a consecration. The form was of course that used heretofore, the changes not having taken effect. These sentiments he had adopted in his visit to the Bishops from whom he received his Episcopacy." *•* In this passage it appears that Bishop White would have opposed their introduction, had he conceived that they could have been thought to imply that a Christian Minister is a Priest, in the sense of an offerer of sacrifice, and that the table is an altar, and the ele- ments a sacrifice, in any other than figurative sen.scs. All that here appears of Bishop Seabury's view of the subject is, that he consid- ered the form necessary to a strict consecriUivn. That he entertained a view of the meaning of that part of the service diflerent from that 93 Bishop White's Memoirs, pp. 104, 155, 406 APPENDIX. of Bishop White, is evident from his writings. As it does not appear, however, that the view of Bishop Seabury was held by any other persons in the Convention, and as it does appear that Bishop White would have " zealously opposed the admission of such un- evangelical sentiments," if that portion of the service " could have been thought reasonably to imply them," (whicJi leads us to infer that his opposition would have been manifested had he ascertained that any members in the Convention believed tiiat it did imply such sentiments,) we can regard this opinion of Bishop Seabury only as an individual one, not sanctioned by the Church, and not in reality contained in the service whose introduction he advocated in the belief that it was there contained. It is but just, however, to the memory of Bishop Seabury, to say, that while he regarded the Eucharist as a sacrifice, he utterly re- jected the idea of the bodily presence of Christ in any sense in the Sacrament. The following passages, from a sermon on the suliject, will confirm both these statements: "It appears, therefore, that the Eucharist is not only a Sacrament in which, under the symbols of bread and wine, according to the institution of Christ, the faithful truly and spiritually receive the body and blood of Christ; but, also, a true and proper sacrifice, commemorative of the original sacrifice and death of Christ for our deliverance from sin and death, a memorial made before God, to put him in mind — that is, to plead with him the meritorious sacri- fice and death of his dear Son, for the forgiveness of our sins, for the santtification of his Church, for a happy resurrection from death, and a glorious immortality with Christ in heaven. " From this account the Priesthood of the Christian Church evi- dently appears. As a Priest, Christ offered himself a sacrifice to God in the mystery of the Eucharist — that is, under the .symbols of bread and wme ; and he commanded his apostles to do as he had done. If his offering were a sacrifice, theirs was also. His sacrifice was original, theirs commemorative. His was meritorious through his merit who oflTered it; theirs drew all its merit from the relation it had to his sacrifice and appointment. His, from the excellency of its own natui-e, was a true and sufficient propitiation for the sins of the whole world ; theirs procures remission of sins only througli the reference it has to his atonement. APPENDIX. 407 " When Christ commanded his apostles lo celebrate the Holy Eucharist in remembrance of him, he with the command gave them power to do so — that is, he communicated his own Priesthood to them in such measure and degree as he saw necessary for his Church, to qualify them to be his representatives to oifer the Chris- tian sacrifice of bread and wine, as a memorial before God the Father of his offering iiimself once for all; of his passion and of his death, to render the Mmighly propitious to us for his sake ; and as a means of obtaining, through faith in him, all the blessings and benefits of his redemption." -' The reader will notice, in the next passage, the decided disavowal of the beUef of any bodily presence, which is contained in the last two sentences. "There is, therefore, in this holy institution, no ground for the errors of Transubstantiation, Consubstantiation, or the bodily pres- ence of Christ, with which the Church of Rome, Luther, and Cal- vin, have deceived, beguiled, and perplexed the Church. The bread and wine are, in their nature, still bread and wine; they are not transubstantiated into the natural body and blood of Christ, as the Papists teach; the natural body and blood of Christ are not consub- stantiated with them, so as to make one substance, as the Lutherans teach; nor are the natural body and blood of Christ infused into them, nor hovering over them, so as to be confusedly received witli them, as Calvin and his followers seem to teach, for they are far from being intelligible on the subject. The natural body and blood of Christ are in heaven, in glory and exaltation; we receive them not in the Communion in any sense. The bread and wine are his body and blood, sacramentally and by representation.''''^^ The opinions of Bishop Seabury on the Eucharist as a sacrifice, will have more force with the reader's mind, if he simply read this statement of them, than if he examine the reasons for them which he has advanced in ,the commencement of the sermon from which these passages are taken. A conclusion based upon the position' 24 Seabury's Sermons, vol. i, pp. 177, 178 25 Seabury-'i Sermons, vol. i, p. 179. 408 APPENDIX. that Christ did not offer himself on the cross,^^ and did offer himself in the Eucharist, a propilialorij sacrifice for sin,'''' cannot stand. "'^ As the sentiments of Bishop Seabury on the subject of the Com- jTiunion are said by Bishop Wiiite to have been adopted by him in consequence of his visit to the Scotch Bishops, the following account of the Communion Office of that Clmrch will interest the reader. It will be seen by the reader to differ, not only from the service of Edward, but also in important particulars from our own. "During the periods when the government, by Archbishops and Bishops, was legally established in the Church of that country, no Liturgical service or Book of Common Prayer was enjoined by au- thority or generally in use; the well-known attempt to introduce such a book in the year 1637 having completely failed, and origina- ted the civil wars which ended in the destruction of the Church and the monarchy. At the revolution, by far the greater part of the Ministers of parishes retained their livings; and, in fact, there was no essential difference in the form or mode of worship between them and the Presbyterians, whatever differences there were in other re* spects. The Bishops and others, who did not conform to the legal establishment of Presbytery, began about twenty years after the revolution, to adopt the use of the Church of England Prayer-Book; and about the same time the act of Q.ueen Anne, 1712, allowed all Episcopalian clergymen, who used it, and took the oaths as loyal subjects, to be tolerated and protected in their places of worship. Thus there would have existed no visible mark of any r dig ioiis dif- 2G III., p. 169. 27Id., p. 173. 23 One woiililliave thouglitlliat the palpable contradiction of this statement to that of the Prayer of Consecration, would have prevented Bishop Seabury haz arding a statement so readily seen by all to be eontrary to the language of the Church: "Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy diilst give thine only Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer death uponthc cross for our redemp- tion, who made there (by his one oblation ofhimsulfoitce offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." Surely, in these words, the Church has provided an emphatic testi- mony against all such representations of tlie oblation and Invocation as would 'mply that, in any sense, Christ's sacrifice was again to ba offered, or that it needed — being already full, -perfect, and suffteient — any commemorative re-of fering, "to render the Mmighty propitious to us for his sake," APPENDIX 409 ferencc between the tolerated and the non-tolerated Episcopalians, {ihc poMcal difference being, that till the death of the Pretender in 1788, the latter did not pray for King George,) had it not become the custom of the Scottish Bishops and their flocks to use, along with the English Liturgy, a different Communion Service from that contained in it, being that which they found in the 'Old Scotch Prayer-Book' of 1637; of which service various editions were print- ed and used along with the copies of the English Common Prayer- Book, but containing important changes or variations, both from the Prayer-Book of 1637, and from each other, as will be shown. Of the English Prayer-Book with this Scotch Communion Office as an integral part of it, no edition has been printed, as far as is known. "It could only, therefore, be from the separate editions of the Scotch Office, that the exact statements which it contains, are avail* able, had not there appeared an authenticated copy of it, as acknow- ledged for many years by the Episcopal Church of Scotland. This occurs in 'a collation of the several communion Offices in the Prayer- Book of Edward VI, the Scotch Prayer-Book of the year 1637, the present English Prayer-Book, and that used in the present Scotch Episcopal Church. — London, printed in the year 1792.' To this tract the following preface is given. 'The following collation was made by a divine of the Established Church of England, high in situation, at first with a view to nothing more than his own private satisfac- tion. It is now, with his permission, printed and dispersed, in order to confute certain false and malicious insinuations which have been circulated concerning the present practices of the Episcopalians in Scotland, with an evident intention to injure them in the esteem of the British legislature. That the Liturgy now in use among the Scotch Episcopalians is precisely the same with the present Com- mon Prayer-Book of the Established Church of England, except in the Communion Office, and that the variations found there are those, and those only, which are exhibited in this collation, is attested by John Skinner, Bishop 'and Delegate of the Scotch Episcopal Church.— London, March 30lh, 1792.' "Bishop John Skinner, then and till his death holding the rank of Primus among his brethren, was in London at the above period so, liciting the passing of the Relief Bill for the Scottish Episcopaliansi 18 410 APPENDIX. which became an act of Parliament in August, 1792, and relieved that body from civil penalties, on condition of their clergymen taking the oaths to Government, subscribing the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England, and continuing to pray for the reigning family. In a letter to Bishop Gleig, many years afterwards. Bishop Skinner states that he put his name, 'at Bishop Horsley's desire, to what he (Bishop Horsley) had prepared as a preface to his collation of the Communion Offices,' &c.^'' "Such a document will surely be received as evidence of what the present Scotch Communion Office really is; and the differences be- tween it and the older Scotch Office, and that of the Church of Eng- land, eu-e now to be stated. "There is a 'Prayer of Oblation,' which follows the Prayer of Consecration of the sacramental elements. The Church of England Prayer-Book contains no prayer of oblation. "1. The words in tiiis Prayer of Oblation Hvhichwe now offer unto Thee,'' are not to be found in the Prayer-Book of Edward VI, nor in the Old Scotch Prayer-Book of 1637. They imply a direct offering of the bread and wine as a sacrifice ; and in order to show their importance, they are printed in capital letters in several editions of the office, as in those printed in 1755 and 1801. "2. In the Prayer of consecration contained in the Prayer-Book of Edward VI, the Old Scotch of 1G37, and the present Church of England, there are the words — ' By his one oblation of himself once offered;' but in the present Scotch Communion Office they are changed to 'By his oivn oblation of himself once offered.' " The intention of this alteration is plainly to allow of more ob- lations than one, and thus avoid the apparent inconsistency between the one great sacrifice of the Saviour, and the subsequent offerings of sacrifice in the sacramental elements. The whole meaning is changed from the single sacrifice of Christ on the cross, so as to admit the possibility of other sacrifices existing besides the full and perfect one made by himself "3. In the present English Prayer-Book there are, in the Prayer of Consecration, the following words : ' Hear us, merciful Father' S9 Annais of Scottish Episcopacy, from 1788 to 1816. By the Rev. John Skin- nier, A. M., Forfar(son of Biihop Skinner,) p. 486. APPENDIX. 411 we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we, receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus ChrisCs holy institution, in remembrance of his death and pas- sion, may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood.' " In the Prayer-Book of Edward VI, the corresponding passage, is: 'Hear us, merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and with thy Holy Spirit and Word vouchsafe to bl-fess and sanc-f-tify these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that they may be^" unto us the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ.'^' " In the old Scotch Prayer-Book, the corresponding passage is : ' Heare us, merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee, and of thy Almighty goodnesse vouchsafe so to blesse and sanctifie with thy Word and Holy Spirit these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that they may bee unto us the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved Son ; so that we, receiving them according to thy Sonne our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remem- brance of his death and passion,^' may be partakers of the same,^-* his most precious^* body and blood.' 30 In Dr. Thomas Brett's Collection of" The Principal Liturgies used by ihe Christian Church in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist," London, 1720, the words in this part are " may be made to us." Dr. Brett was one of the princi- pal English mn-jurors of his Urae. Both Bishop Horseley and Bishop Burnet [History ii, 76,) state the words as above. 31 It has long been customary for the defenders of the present Scotch Office to slate that it is the same or nearly so with Edward Vl's Prayer-Book, framed by Ridley and others. Hence the necessity of exhibiting the exact difference between iheni, which all these writers fail to notice. 32 The words " in remembrance of his death and passion," are omitted in Horsley's Collation, and no blank space is left to indicate that they are in the prayer. 33 The words "the same" are also omitted by Horsley. 34 In Horsley's Collation the word "blessed" is substituted for " precious.-' These errors in Bishop Horsley's CoUaiion, attested by Bishop Skmner, would be of very small importance, were not the whole subject complicated wit.'i similar mistakes. Even in transcribing the corresponding passage from the Church of England Prayer-Book, Horeley hat left out the important phrase " in remembrance of his death and passion ;" omitting, at the same lime, all or any kind of reference to tliese words existing in two of the four offices collated and wanting in the other two. Yet surely they are of importance; the Sa- viour's command is, '•' Do ihis in remembrance of me." 412 APPENDIX. " In the present Scotch Communion Office, there is no correspond- ing passage in the Consecration Prayer, it being removed to the Prayer of Oblation, which follows the former, altered in important particulars, and denominated in the margin 'The Invocation.'' " 'And we most humbly beseech Thee, merciful Father, to hear us, and, of thy Almighty goodness, vouchsafe to bless and sanctify, with thy Word and Holy Spirit, these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that they may become the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved Son.' "4. When the above transference was made of the Invocation from the Prayer of Consecration to that of Oblation, it will be observed that the following passage was left out: ' So that we, receiving them according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of the same, his most precious body and blood.' " These words contain an express reference to the receiving of the elements in such a way as shall be according to the terms of the Di- vine institution of the Communion, and of its being a commemora- tion of Christ. The omission of them, contained as they are in the old Scotch Prayer-Book, is significant enough of the intention of the framers of the alteration, to give all the support in their power to the doctrine of a real presence of the Saviour in the bread and wine, and to the offering of these elements in some kind of sacrifice. Com- pare this omission and its tendency with the Church of England service, with the whole tenor of that service, or with the XXXIst Article of the Church, which boldly designates every kind of offer- ing, but that of ' Christ once made,' 'blasphemous fables and danger- ous deceits.' " 5. This conclusion will not appear the less obvious when a still more important alteration in the transferred passage, or Invocation, is attended to. This is the change from the words ' that they (the bread and wine) may be to us the body and blood," into the words, 4 that they may become the body and blood.' " In this alteration much is involved. For it is to be taken in connection with the other alterations above specified, all of which point towards a distinct or separate offering up or sacnjice of the APPENDIX. 413 sacramental elements, in addition to the one sacrifice of Christ by himself. "The omission of the words 'to ws,' evidently leaves complete room to infer that there takes place a change of the bread and wine, (not as these elements are received by the communicants, but,) truly, absolutely, independently of their being used; in short, as existing in themselves, with something else, which, if not real flesh and blood, is left undefined, and therefore in such language as to allow of the whole essence of Transubstantiation being most easily engrafted on the words, may become the body and blood,^ both in the literal meaning and in the spirit of that Popish doctrine. "Then, the words 'to its,' are in King Edward VI's and the old Scotch Prayer-Book, and why all omission of them here ? King Edward's Pi'aycr-Book was the first established book of Common Prayer in England ; and, in order to make the transition from the Roman Catholic to the Protestant religion as moderate as possible, and thus reconcile a greater number to the change, its compilers allowed the word ' Mass' to stand as the title of the Communion Service. But they inserted the words '6e to its;' and it is well known, from their numerous writings, what idea they attached to them, and how opposed they were to every variety of Transubstantiation. In a few years afterwards, on modelling the present Prayer-Book, all invocation was discontinued."^^ 35 Comparison between the Communion Offices of the Church of England, and the Scottish Episcopal Church, pp. 12-21. DATE DUE ** 5* •r..^. ,.„„.. GAYLORD #3523PI Printed in USA ,.ef°**^^