i 1 THE LIBRARIES COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY [^ nnJffiflnu3lp fl fiuflfiufllTuflnin]| 1 | I i i i I A LETTKIi ,ATSA RIGHT HON. AND EIGHT EEV. THE LOKD BISHOP OF LONDON COI,.C0LL. EXPLJ f Iff>|>^|^ OF SOME STATEMENTS CONTAINED IX A LETTER BY THE >*»-— ~~ m REV. W. DODSWORTH. BY THE REV. E: B. PUSEY, D.D. i >RO.FB8SOR OF BBBBJBWJ CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL 08LLEGB. SEVENTH EDITION. ©ifortr: JOHN HENRY PARKER, AND 377, STRAND, LONDON; AND SOLD BY RJVINGTONS, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD. & WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON. 1851. LONDON : GILBERT & RIVIKGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHNS SQUARE. Pi NOTICE. In the following pages, I have often used the tone of defence, of meeting M objections," &c. I would here say that in this, I referred solely to popular objections and criticisms, and in no way to the friend who wrote that statement as to my teaching, and who, I believe, understood it in a different sense from that in which (I am persuaded) it has been popularly misunderstood. I wished to take the statement simply as it has been brought against me in tracts, (circulated in order to inflame people's minds against me,) or in newspapers, or on platforms, — I wished, entirely forgetting every thing besides, except the desire in no way to pain the writer, to treat it as a statement about myself which I was called upon to explain by the use which had been so extensively made of it, the popular misunderstandings (as I was convinced) about it, and the fact that the Bishop, to whom I have addressed my answer, had thought it necessary to allude to part of it in blame. I add this, lest I should be the occasion that any should 2112H misunderstand Mr. Dodsworth. For all these misunder- standings are in themselves to be avoided if possible, and are a heavy aggravation of all our common ills. I under- stand that he wrote that statement about my teaching, as objecting not to it, but to the line which I felt it right to take, when the decision of the Privy Council burst upon us, and which he thought inconsistent with my former teaching. 2nd Week in Epiphany, 1851. Mr. Dodsworth has now thought it necessary to publish a statement in vindication of that which he originally made as to my teaching. Until I shall have time to put to- gether what I have to say upon it, I must request the reader to take my own summary of what I have taught or done on these subjects. (See below, p. 175 — 180, and the additional note, p. 100, and on confession, p. 13— 16).— Ed. 2. 5th Sunday after Epiphany, 1851. CONTENTS. PAGE Receiving confessions, summary 2 I. " Sacrament of penance" 4 Summary of former teaching; two Great Sacraments... ib. Other " signs of inward grace" taught in the homilies and later writers ib. — 11 " Auricular confession" not used, as being a technical expression, used currently of compulsory confession 12 Summary, latitude allowed on 13 Authorities ; voluntary confession no encroachment on liberty .' 17— IP II. " Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist, asappli- catory of the One Sacrifice of the Cross" 20 Propitiatory used in two senses : one, accepted ; the other, rejected io. Commemorative Sacrifice in Holy Scripture 22 and the Primitive Church ib. Applicatory of the One Sacrifice 28 Authorities in the English Church 27 — 38 The u Real Presence" 39 III. "Spiritual" opposed to ** carnal" ib. u Faith " the mean of k ' rcn wring" ib. "Spiritually" opposed to what is only sacramental 41 The Sacrament, and the substance of the Sacrament ... ib. The wicked cat not the Bod) of Christ, explained ...... ib. L CONTENTS. PAGE "Eat" in St. John, to "eat beneficially" 43 Summary 44 " Under the form of bread and wine," words of the homilies 49 Transubstantiation denied, in the sense of a physical change ib. Adoration of our Lord truly present 51 Rubric at the end of Communion Service explained . . . ib. Our Lord's Body locally in Heaven, sacramental! y on the Altar 52 Authorities in the later English Church 54 IV. Adaptation of Roman Catholic books 57 Earlier adaptations 59 — 69 Objects in my adaptations 70 — 77 V. " Rosaries," how commonly understood 78 Repetition of the same prayer often useful ib. Repetition of the Lord's Prayer 79 Our Lord's example 81 Repetition founded in nature ib. Repetition in the Psalms ib. — 86 Repetition in sacred music 86 — 88 Rules not in a bad sense artificial 88 Rules occur in the deepest parts of Holy Scripture... 89—91 Use of numbers in Holy Scripture 92 Secret preparations in the Old Testament for the fuller revelation of the Trinity 93 Three-fold repetitions in the Prayer Book 95 Repetition of the Lord's Prayer not necessarily mecha- nical 97 " Rosaries" in the " Paradise" Devotions to the Holy Trinity, or to our Lord ib. Instance and object of this structure of devotions ... 98, 99 Actual "rosary" a thing "indifferent" 99 Devotions, except to God, discouraged 100 — 103 Probable misapprehension as to " crucifixes" 104 No difference in principle between pictures of the Cru- cifixion and the Crucifix rightly used 105 Worship of images alone forbidden 106 Use of pictures of the Crucifixion in suffering 107 All historical pictures of our Lord the same in principle 108 CONTENTS. Vll PAGE VI. "Special devotions t<> out Lord, e g. to His Five Wounds" 110 The Wounds of our Lord foretold in Ps. x.xii. ; its cha- racter Ill Mental contemplation of our Lord on the Cross ib. Humanity of our Lord with His Divinity adored toge- ther.". 113 — llG Dean Jackson on the words "the Blood of God". ..116 — 120 The shedding of our Lord's Blood specially prefigured as atoning 120, 121 Dwelt upon in the New Testament 121,122 It flowed from those Wounds 123 The M three witnesses" on earth ib. The seven slicddings of our Lord's Blood 12.5 Reverence and love of the Wounds of our Lord na- tural to.— 127 Language of St. Bernard 127—129 Various devotions suited to various minds 130 Devotions bearing on our Lord's Wounds in popular hymns 131 Common principle of these devotions 13f> These devotions a hond of union of different schools ... 137 Use of the number 7 141 Our Litany pleads sheddings of His blood ib. Nature of these devotions 142 Use of the right and left in Holy Scripture 143 These devotions not wrongly mystical ; free to be used or refused ; not to be judged of without being used ib. VII. Our " incorporation into Christ" 145 The word " inebriated" adopted from the Fathers ib. Correspondence between the symbol and the thing sig- nified in Holy Scripture 14<> Type of seed-corn, bread, in the Old Testament ... ib. — 149 Bread and wine in the Old Testament as sources of strength and gladness 149 — 1.5.5 •• Inebriation" expressive of Christian joy 155 Scriptural use of the word "inebriate" ib. or " drink largely" 1.56 Joy through wine, figure of holy joy 1.58 •• Inebriation," " forgetfulness of things earthly in hea- venly j oy " 60 Vlll CONTENTS. PAGE The word points to some special gift in the Cup 161 Special grace of the cup acknowledged by some later Roman writers lb. — 164 VIII. " Counsels of perfection" not technically recommended 165 In "counsels" there is choice; in "commands 1 ' none... ib. Cautions by St. Augustine and others 167 Bishop Taylor on counsels and precepts 168 — 170 Statements of the writer in " Letter to the Bishop of Oxford 170 Need of " Colleges of Clergy" and " sisters of mercy" to remedy the Heathenism of great towns ... 174, 175 Explanation on this 175 Summary 1 76 — 181 Aims of the writer 182 Leading causes of secessions to Rome 188 The remedy 191 A LETTER, Mv dear Lord, I have already mention- ed publicly why I delayed to explain a statement of Mr. Dodsworth with regard to my teaching and practice, which has been commented upon very extensively, and in a spirit of much bitterness. I had wished, also, if I entered upon it at all, to dwell with some fulness upon the doctrine of the Eucha- ristic Sacrifice, in order the rather to explain the state- ment which bears upon it. But the use which has been made of your Lordship's ob- servations by the Prime Mi- nister of the Crown — in or- der, I must think, to turn I upon a body of Clergy, op- posed to his avowed wish to liberalize the Church, the unpopularity of a measure which his own acts had cer- tainly favoured, and the fever which his letter at once pro- j duced and is still producing in the country against Cler- gymen who are quietly dis- charging their duty in their parishes, seem to make it in- cumbent upon me at once to render to your Lordship a brief explanation of those statements. Without further detaining your Lordship, I will set down the statements of Mr. | Dodsworth, and offer a brief explanation of each. A few additions to tins Letter are enclosed in brackets. 2 Confession, not restrained by the English Church. I. "By your [my] constant and common practice of administering the sacrament of penance ; by encouraging every where, if not enjoining, auricular confession ; and giving special priestly absolution." What my practice has foundation), nor had I ever been, I have already explain- the slightest doubt. I did ed in outline 1 . I cannot, as not apply to your Lordship, I said, pretend to recollect simply because I had no all which I had done or said i doubt which could occasion in twelve years. But I do ! me to do so. Our Prayer mean that I have desired Book places no limitation, honestly to carry out the ! It says that it is requisite principles and mind of the Church of England. My desire has been sim- for people to come to Holy Communion with a quiet conscience, and, if they need ply to exercise, in obedience ! it, suggests this mode of to the Church, " the office quieting it. I am not aware and work of a Priest, com- 1 that any Divine or Bishop mitted unto" me " by the i in our Church, since the Imposition of" the Bishop's Reformation, has excepted "hands," for the relief of; against any thing, except those souls who come to me | making confession compul- for that end. I, in common | sory. The Divines whose with all the Presbyters whom writings on this subject I I know, fully believed that have observed, seem tome the Church gave power to ; to lay especial stress on her children, to go to any " comfort " as one object of priest they had confidence j it. They followed herein, in, in order to " open their i doubtless, the language of griefs" for " the benefit of I the Prayer Book, which absolution." No doubt was | speaks especially of " com- ever raised upon it, until very lately (and then, I am satisfied, wholly without fort," and of "quieting the conscience," and of "avoid- ing scruple." They had J Letter to Mr. Richards, p. 134—136. Postscript, p. 265— 293. Such restriction contrary to her spirit. special regard for tender consciences. When the pub- lic discipline of tbe Church could not be restored, as the reformers wished, and it was taught that all sin might be forgiven (as, doubtless, God does forgive it) on true, loving contrition of heart, and confession to God Alone, it was almost natural that "comfort" should be se- lected, as being a prominent ground for the use of con- fession. But this being so, then it would seem most contrary to the spirit both of the English Church and her leading Divines, to deny the privilege of confession, or w opening the griefs for the benefit of absolution" to any one who for his own peace and well-being ear- nestly desires it. This, I am sure, your Lordship would not, since you quote Archbishop Sharpe, who says that Protestant Church- es " exhort men to it as a thing highly convenient in many cases," and that " in all cases no Protestant who understands his religion, is against private confession." The "comfort" of Confes- sion, however, depends en- tirely on the reality of the Absolution. Whence Arch- bishop Sharpe concludes, " and lastly upon the full examination of his state and his judgment thereupon, to give him the absolution of the Church." I have already explained that, for the most part, I have been simply passive in this matter. 1 have not preached upon the subject, except before the University, eight years after persons had first come to me to open their griefs. I have been thankful to minister to dis- tress or anxiety whenever it has come to me. To my- self, also, it has been a com- fort to be thus employed (as I trust) by our Lord, to bind up the broken-hearted. I have been thankful to have been thus occasioned to exercise a pastoral office, instead of being confined to studies or teaching mainly intellectual. But I have not (as I said) " enjoined con- fession;" I have "encou- raged" it mainly, by readily receiving those who applied to me by virtue of the direc- tion of the Church. I have very rarely recommended it to individuals; and then, as a single act, on the ground of special circumstances of the case. But your Lord- ship's published statement far more than covers any thing which I have done, when you say, " It seems 2 4 Homilies speak of Sacraments as means of grace, to me — that men are not to I visible sign of them, or had be exhorted, or even invited not appointed them at all, or to perform it, except in the which were not necessary for specific instances for which all, or not of necessity for provision is made in the offices of the Church." But having already spoken of this more fully in my recent Postscript, I will now salvation, in the right use of which, however, grace was received. I said, " Since 4 the Homi- lies call marriage a ' Sacra- only explain two expressions j ment,' it follows that the upon which your Lordship Articles do not reject the has observed, " the Sacra ment of penance," and "auri- cular confession." I stated fully, twelve years ago in my letter to the then Bishop of Oxford 2 , and sub- sequently in that to Dr. Jelf 3 , that the language of the Church of England on the Sacraments, seemed to me to imply these two things: 1. That she, with ancient fathers, distinguish- ed from every thing else, two great Sacraments of the Gospel, those Sacraments " whereby," in the language of St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom, " the Church consists," the two Sacra- ments which flowed from our Blessed Lord's pierced Side, whereby we are united with Him. 2. That there were some other Ordinances, dis- tinguished from these, in that our Lord had appointed no five rites as being in any sense ' Sacraments/ There is a remarkable correspondence between the Articles and the Homilies, in that both use qualifying and guard- ed expressions in speaking of the title of these rites to be called ' Sacraments/ Our Articles do not introduce words at random. It has then some meaning when our Articles say, they ' are not to be counted for Sacra- ments of the Gospel,' that they ' have not like nature of Sacraments ;' or the Homi- lies, ' that 5 in the exact sig- nification of a Sacrament there be but two,' or that ' Absolution is no such Sa- crament as Baptism and the Lord's Supper are,' or that ' neither it [Absolution] nor any other Sacrament else be such Sacraments as Baptism and the Communion are,' or 3 p. 33—42. 5 Homily ix., Of Common Prayer and Sacraments. 2 p. 97—106. 4 Letter to Dr. Jelf, p. 34, 35 besides the two great Sacraments of the Gospel. that ■ the ancient writers in giving the name not only to these five, but also to clivers other ceremonies, did not mean to repute them as Sa- craments in the same signifi- cation as the two/ or that St. Augustine, in the exact meaning of the word, makes mention expressly of two.' And with this coincides the definition of our Catechism, that there are ' two only generally [i. e. in genere, generically, and so uni- versally to the whole class spoken of] necessary to sal- vation,' the others so enti- tled, not being of universal obligation, but relating to certain conditions and cir- cumstances of life only. Certainly, persons, who de- nied these rites to be in any way Sacraments, (according to those larger definitions of St. Augustine, ' a sacred sign,' or 'a sign applied to things of God,' or of the Schoolmen, ' a sign of a sacred thing,') would have said so at once, and not have so uniformly and guardedly said on each occasion, that they were not such, in the 1 exact' or ' the same signi- fication,' the ' exact mean- ing,' ' such,' * of the like nature ;' nor, of one which they regarded as in no sense a Sacrament, would they have said ' neither it nor any other Sacrament else.' " Again, the homily lays down what it considers " the 'exact signification of a Sa- crament," namely, " visible signs, expressly commanded in the New Testament, whereunto is annexed the promise of free forgiveness of sins, and of our holiness and joining in Christ, there be but two, namely, Bap- tism and the Supper of the ; Lord." And it then proceeds to say that it is on this very 'ground, not that it has not true inward grace, but that "this promise is not an- nexed and tied to the visible I sign," that it does not con- j sider Absolution a Sacra- ' ment, " in the exact signi- fication of a Sacrament." j " For although Absolution ; hath the promise of forgive- ness of sins, yet, by the express word of the New Testament, it hath not this [ promise annexed and tied to the visible sign, which is im- position of hands. Fortius visible sign (I mean laying on of hands) is not expressly commanded in the New Tes- tament to be used in Abso- lution, as the visible si^ns in Baptism and the Lord's Supper are ; and therefore | Absolution is no such Sacra- The Homily explains Art. XXV. ment as Baptism and the Lord's Supper are." I may add the sequel of this passage of the homily, both in order to give, in the context, words which I have already quoted from it, as also because it illustrates the statement of the 25th Article. " But, in a general accep- tation, the name of a Sacra- ment may be attributed to anything whereby an holy thing is signified. In which understanding of the word, the ancient writers have given this name not only to the other five, commonly, of late years, taken and used for supplying the num- ber of the Seven Sacra- ments, but also to divers and sundry other ceremo- nies, as to oil, washing of feet, and such like; not meaning thereby to repute them as Sacraments, in the same signification that the two forenamed Sacraments are. And therefore St. Au- gustine, weighing the true signification and exact mean- ing of the word, writing to Januarius, and also in the third book of Christian doc- trine, afnrmeth that the ' Sa- craments of Christians, as they are most excellent in signification, so are they most few in number ;' and in both places maketh men- tion expressly of two, the Sacrament of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. And although there are re- ! tamed by the order of the ; Church of England, besides ! these two, certain other rites | and ceremonies about the in- jstitution of Ministers in the : Church, Matrimony, Confir- mation of Children, by ex- amining them of their know- ' ledge in the Articles of the Faith, and joining thereto ! the prayers of the Church for them, and likewise for j the Visitation of the Sick ; !yet no man ought to take these for Sacraments in such signification and meaning as the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are ; | but either for godly states of 'life, necessary in Christ's ! Church, and therefore wor- i thy to be set forth by public action and solemnity, by the ! Ministry of the Church, or else judged to be such ordi- I nances as may make for the instruction, comfort, and edi- fication of Christ's Church." These last words supply what is wanting in the 25th Article. The division of the " five commonly called Sa- craments" is manifestly not complete ; since Confirma- tion, which both in teaching and practice the Church of Other authorities, Cranmer, Seeker, 8fC* 7 England highly esteems, cam- Bishop of Oxford, and which not be included under the received, after the first edi- " corrupt following of the tion, the sanction of the Apostles," as, of course, it Most Reverend the Arch- cannot be " a state of life." bishops of Canterbury and The homily classes together of Armagh, to whom it was, "the institution of Minis- by permission, inscribed, ters" and " Matrimony" as It has also, I have under- " godly states of life ; " stood, been recommended "Confirmation and the Vi-'to Candidates for Holy Or- sitation of the Sick" as " or- | ders. Mr. Palmer also cites, dinances which may make for the more extended use for the instruction, comfort, of the word Sacrament, not and edification of Christ's ( Fathers only but, in our Church." I mention this own Church, Archbishops because the Article cannot Cranmer and Seeker, Bishop be construed (as some have 1 Taylor, and Mason: — "Bap- recently argued) as casting { tism 7 and the Eucharist any slur upon Absolution, , alone are in the Articles ac- unless it condemn Con fir- counted ' Sacraments of the mation also. It cannot be i Gospel ; ' but matrimony, supposed to condemn either, ordination, and other rites, since the Church of England are termed Sacraments in provides the words 6 in which our homilies, approved by both are to be given. the Articles ; so that there And, lest any should think is no very marked difference that I am herein making out as to the number of Sacra- a case, or offering to your ments between the two for- Lordship a strained apology, ! mularies ; for the Necessary I may quote exactly the Doctrine does not pronounce same line of argument, in a the lesser Sacraments or work published in the same rites of the Church to be year as my letter to the'* Sacraments of the Gospel.' " 6 The Church of England omits that portion of the older form which relates to tlie removal of the censures of the Church, " et sacramenti- ecclesia te restituo," and retains that port which directly relates to the remission of sins. See Saruui Manual in Mr. Palmer's Antiq. of Eng. Rit. ii. 226. 7 Treatise on the Church, P. 2. c. 7. T. i. p. .V23. The Italics in the following passages occur in the original. The same argument occurs p. 510. Secondary Sacraments, as visible signs of Again; "The rite 8 of ordi- nation is not 9 a Sacrament of the Gospel, nor is it one of those 'generally 1 neces- sary to salvation ;' but, since 'the 2 common description of a Sacrament' is, 'that it is a visible sign of an in- visible grace ; ' and since, * in a general acceptation, the name of a Sacrament j may be attributed to any thing whereby an holy thing is signified ; ' since God, ' of I His 3 divine providence,hath appointed divers orders in His Church ; ' since those who are ordained Bishops and Presbyters, are, ' by 4 the Holy Ghost, made over- seers to feed the Church of God;' since God Himself gives to us such 'pastors 5 and teachers ; ' since it is evident that the Divine Grace promotes those who are duly ordained to the office of the ministry ; and since this Di- vine Grace or commission is believed to be only given perfectly to those lawfully ordained, when they are ac- tually ordained ; the rite of ordination is ' a visible sign of an invisible grace,' and thus may reasonably be con- sidered as a Sacrament of the Church. In fact, the homilies of the Church of England style it a Sacra- ment, even while establish- ing a distinction between it and the two great Sacraments of the Gospel. 'Though 6 the ordering of ministers hath this visible sign or pro- mise, yet it lacks the pro- mise of remission of sin, as all other Sacraments besides the two above named do. Therefore neither it, nor any Sacrament else, be such Sa- craments as baptism and the communion are.' Jerome, Augustine, Leo, Gregory, &c, style it a Sacrament 7 . Calvin also regards it as a Sacrament s . The apology s lb. T. ii. p. 441. 9 Article xxv. 1 Catechism. 2 Homily on Common Prayer and Sacraments. 3 Collect for Ember Days. 4 Acts xx. 28. 5 Epbes. iv. 11. 6 Homily on Common Prayer and Sacraments, part i. 7 Hieroii. lib. cont. Vigilant, p. 281 ; Augustin. lib. ii. cont. Parmen. c. xiii. t. ix. p. 45 ; Leo Epist. xi. al. Ixxxi. ad Dioscorum, c. i. t. i. p. 436 ; Gregor. Mag. lib. iv. in Libr. Regum. c. v. t. iii. p. 228. 8 ' Superest impositio manuum, quam ut in veris legitimisque ordinationibus sacramentum esse concedo, ita nego locum habere in hac fabula.' Inst. lib. iv. c. xix. art. 31. invisible grace, owned' in the English Church. of the confession of Augs- ! burgh says that if ' order s-e una cum Sancto Augustino et aliis ag- noscimus.' Mason, de Min. Angl. p. 48. ed. 1638. 3 Taylor's Dissuasive, p. 240, ed. Canlwell. 3 Becker's Lectures, xx.w. Of Baptism. 4 Sermon on Swearing, part i. 5 On Common Prayer and Sacraments, part i. Sec above, Vol. i. ]>. .MO. 6 Burnet, Hist. Ref. Vol. ii. p. 131. 7 Confess. August. Art. 11. 1'2. 22. Apol. Confess, cap. de nu. et usu Sacr. ad art. 13. 8 Ibid. 10 Bp. Overall — Sacramental Absolution it is plain that the Refor- mation, in avoiding the error of arbitrarily denning the doctrine of seven sacra- ments, did not fall into the mistake of limiting the use of this term to two rites only, which would have ill accorded with the ancient custom of the Church gene- rally." The same use of the word " Sacramental," as to Abso- lution, occurs in Bishop Overall: — " The 9 Church of England, howsoever it holdeth not Confession and Absolution Sacramental, (that is, made unto and re- ceived from a priest), to be absolutely necessary, as that without it there can be no remission of sins ; yet by this place it is manifest what she teacheth concerning the virtue and force of this sa- cred action. The confession is commanded to be 'special;' the Absolution is the same j as that of the Ancient! Church, and the presents Church of Rome useth : what would they have more ? | Maldonate, their greatest I Divine that I meet with, (de Pcenit. p. 19,) saith thus: ' Ego autem sic responden- dum puto non esse necesse, ut semper peccata remittan- tur per sacramentum pceni- tentiae, sed ut ipsum sacra- mentum natura sua possit peccata remittere, si inveniat peccata et non inveniat con- trarium impedimentum,'and so much we acknowledge. Our 'if he feels his con- science troubled,' is no more than 'si inveniat peccata;' for if he be not troubled with sin, what needs either confession or absolution ? Venial sins, that separate not from the grace of God, need not so much to trouble a man's conscience. If he have committed any mortal sin, then we require con- fession of it to a priest, who may give him, upon his true contrition and repentance, the benefit of absolution, which takes effect according to his disposition that is ab- solved ; and therefore the Church of Rome adds to the form of absolution, ' Quan- tum 1 in me est, et de jure possum, Ego te absolvo ; ' | not absolutely, lest the doc- 9 A MS. note on the Absolution in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, by Bishop Overall, written in an interleaved Common Prayer Book in Bishop Cosin's Library, printed in the year 1619, and taken from " Tracts of the Anglican Fathers." 1 This is a mistake ; the limitation does not relate to contrition (which is presupposed), but to " reserved cases." explained with reference to the Homily. 11 trine should get head, that some of their ignorant peo- ple believe, that, be the party confessed never so void of contrition, the very act of absolution forgives him his sins. The truth is, that in the priest's absolution there is the true power and virtue of forgiveness, which will most certainly take ef- fect, nisi ponitur obex, as in Baptism." I do not see howl could, even consistently with the teaching of our Church, have denied Absolution to be in some degree a Sacrament, as assuredly it is a means or sign of grace given, although our Lord has been pleased to distinguish those two greater Sacraments, by appointing Himself the visible matter which should be used in them. But I took pains to express myself as the Church of England does, and with express reference to her teaching. When, in a work which I was editing, the Holy Eucharist and Abso- lution were classed as " Sa- craments" together, I omitted the mention of Absolution, in part for the express reason that, " to - rank Absolution (although a Divine ordinance and means of grace, and so, in the larger sense of the word, a Sacrament) at once with the Holy Eucharist, would have seemed contrary to our Church's teaching, and the exceeding greatness j of the Holy Eucharist." But it was, in accordance, I thought, with the teaching of the Church of England, that in editing the " Spirit- ual Combat," I retained the words, " the most holy sacrament of Absolution" '(p. 13) ; " the sacrament of Penitence" (p. 135) with the following note (p. 13): — "As j Marriage is so called in the Homilies, which also say that ' Absolution hath the promise of forgiveness of sins ; yet by the express , word of the New Testament, ; it hath not this promise an- nexed and tied to the visible sign, which is imposition of hands. They speak of 'other sacraments,' although not so great as Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which di- rectly unite us with Christ." I did not, then, exclude the title of Sacrament, when it occurred in the book which I was editing, lest I should seem to deny what our Church must believe, that it is an appointed means of grace, and what it in some 3 Surin, Foundation of the Spiritual Life, p. 228. note 12 " Auricular"" is private " Confession;" the term avoided. sense calls it. I retained it, ' and explained its use in accordance with the teach- ing of the Church. When preaching myself before the University, I did not use it, regarding it as best not to draw off the attention from the substance, by the use of a word which is not essen- tial, and which required ex- planation. On the same ground, I did not, as I have already said 3 , use the term " auricular confession. " " Auricular confession " cannot, in itself, mean any j thing but private confession, or, what the " Service for : the Visitation of the Sick " calls " a special confession of his sins." Still it is tech- nical language not familiar in our Church. It has also been used especially of, and almost appropriated to, the j compulsory confession of, the Church of Rome. One' of the homilies 4 speaks of their (the Roman Catholic) "auricular confession ;" and it appears, from the context, that it means that "com- pulsory confession" which, it says, "is against the true Christian liberty, that any man should be bound to the numbering of his sins. " And, after it, Hooker— who himself (it is known), used to the great comfort of his soul, private confession with Saravia — speaks against " auricular confession" as not being contained in St. Cyprian ; assuredly mean- ing, not what the Church of England allowed, and he himself used, but the neces- sity of confession as a con- dition of pardon and salva- tion. " The 5 Minister's power to absolve is publicly taught and professed ; the Church not denied to have authority either of abridg- ing or enlarging the use and exercise of that power ; upon the people no such. necessity imposed of opening their transgressions unto men, as if remission of sins otherwise were impossible ; neither any such opinion had of the thing itself, as though it were either un- lawful or unprofitable, save only for these inconveniences which the world hath by experience observed in it heretofore." On the subject of confes- sion, Mr. Palmer speaks dis- tinctly 6 : — " The practice of private confession to priests, and absolution she never 3 See also Postscript to the Letter to Mr. Richards, p. 294—297. 4 Horn. xx. Of repentance, 2nd Part. 5 E. P. Yi. 4. 15. 6 Church of Christ, P. II. c. 7- t. i. p. 518. Confession left open in the English Church. 13 abolished. It is said, that the form of administering the Eucharist, drawn up by eighteen Bishops and other clergy in 1547, left private confession entirely to the option of individuals 7 ; but strictly speaking, this license related not so much to the practice of confession in general, as to the particular custom of confessing before receiving the Eucharist 8 . That the Church did not mean to abolish confession and absolution (which she even regards as a sort of sacrament 9 ) in general, ap- pears from the Office of the : Eucharist, and for the Visi- tation of the Sick, then drawn up, and from the powers conferred on priests j in the Ordination Services. The Homilies, drawn up in 15G2, only declared this con- fession and absolution not essential generally to the pardon of sin ' ; but this does not militate against its desirableness and benefit, which the Church never denied -. We only disused the canon, 'omnis utriusque sexus,' made by the Synod of Lateran in 1215, and for good reasons restored the practice of confession to the state it was in previously, when it was not enjoined at a particular time every year. The alteration was merely in a matter of changeable discipline." To sum up, then, what I believe and have taught on this head : — 1. I fully believe that any sin will be forgiven by God upon a deep and entire re- pentance, for the Merits of 7 Burnet, Vol. ii. p. 120, 123. 8 Ibid. p. 119. 9 "Absolution is no such sacrament as Baptism and the Com- munion are, . . . but in a general acceptation, the name of a sacrament may be attributed to anything, whereby an holy thing is signified," etc. — Sermon on Common Braver and Sacraments, Bart I. 1 Sermon of Repentance, Bart II. 3 Ibid. See Exhortation in the Communion Office, and the Visitation of the Sick. The national Synod of Ireland, a.d. 1634, in their 64th Canon, charged all Ministers nut to reveal offences entrusted to them in private confession, under pain of irregularity. Private confession was also approved by tin- Lutherans. — See the Confession of Augsburgh, B. 1. Art. xi. De Confessione, 1'. II. Art. iv. Apol. Confess, vi. Articuli Smalcald. P. 111. An. viii. ; and Luther" s Catechiamus Minor, where the form of confession and absolution is prescribed. 14 Confession voluntary ; Absolution ministerial ; our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Alone, and that those Merits are the only source of all forgiveness. Surely, one cannot see the blessed lives and deathbeds of persons, who, without their ordination, in the so- lemn words, " Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God, now com- mitted unto thee by the Im- position of our hands: whose confession to man, live in the sins thou dost forgive, they true faith and fear and love ' are forgiven ; and whose of God and of our Lord ! sins thou dost retain, they Jesus Christ, without believ- 1 are retained : and that which ing that they are in the full ; is done in Hi? Name, and grace and favour of God. I have never taught that con- fession to man was necessary according to His Will, He confirms in Heaven, as He says, ' Whatsoever 5 ye shall to forgiveness, and have said ; bind on earth shall be bound that in 1548 the Church of J in heaven: and whatsoever England had gone back to j ye shall loose on earth shall her earlier condition, as ex- j be loosed in heaven.' " pressed in the " Poenitenti- I lately, in order to express ale 3 of Theodore, when some my meaning, quoted some confessed their sins to God words which 1 had cited alone, some to the Priests; from St. Cyprian ; and may and both with great fruit again repeat them to your within the Holy Church." j Lordship, as I embodied 2. I also believe that " Our them in preaching before the Lord 4 Jesus Christ hath left J University 6 . power with His Church to "God, indeed, when He absolve all sinners who truly J entrusteth man with his Di- repent and believe in Him." vine Authority, doth not This power 1 believe to be \ part with it so as to confirm Ministerial, as in Baptism, that which through the sin, since it pleases God to em- ! either of him who useth it, ploy visible instruments in or him for whom it is used conveying His Mercies to the soul. 3. This power, I believe, to be conferred on Priests in is done contrary to His Will. ' Pardon,' says St. Parian, ' is in such wise not refused to true penitence, as that no 3 Letter to Mr. Richards, p. 104. 4 Visitation for the Sick. 5 St. Matt, xviii. 18. 6 Sermon I. on Absolution, p. 46, 47. prejudges not Christ's judgment ; means of grace. 15 one thereby prejudgeth the preserved by Bishop Taylor: future judgment of Christ.' The " Priest 3 is the minister 'We do not,' says St. Cy- of holy things. He does prian, 'anticipate thejudg- that by his ministry which ment of the Lord, Who will God effects by real dispensa- come to judge, but that, if tion ; and as he gives the He shall find a sinner's pe- Spirit not by authority and nitence full and entire, He proper efflux, but by assist- will then ratify what has been ing and dispensing those determined by us. But if rites, and promoting those any have deluded us by a graces, which are certain dis- feigned penitence, God, positions to the receiving of 'Who is not mocked,' and him, just so he gives par- Who 'looketh on the heart' don: not as a king does it, of man, will judge of those nor yet as a messenger, that whom we have not seen is, not by way of authority through, and the Lord will and real donation ; nor yet correct the sentence of His only by declaration, but as a servants.' Yet God doth physician gives health ; that not less, through His ser- is, he gives the remedy vants, what is done aright which God appoints ; and if in His Name, because others he does so, and God blesses speak in that Name per- the medicine, the person re- versely." covers, and God gives the Again, I quoted St. Am- health." brose's words, "Sins 7 are' 4. T believe that Absolu- forgiven by the Holy Ghost, tion is not only a comfort, but men supply their minis- but is a means of grace to try, yet do not exercise the the soul; or rather is a corn- right of any power ; for they fort, because it is a means do not forgive sins in their of grace to the soul ; and own name, but in the Name that God, through man, of the Father, and of the pronounces forgiveness of Son, and of the Holy Ghost, sins upon all who truly re- They pray, God giveth ; the pent and turn to Him. service is through man, the | 5. I believe that, being a richness of the gift is from means of grace with an out- the Power on High." ward visible sign, it does, The same distinction is | according to the teaching of 7 Sermon II. on Absolution, p. 36, note. 8 " Doctrine and Practice of Repentance," ch. x. sect. 4, § 51. 16 Plain words of the Church taken in plain sense our Church, in a secondary | the liberty of the Reforma- sense, come under the title \ tion, this the breaking of of " sacrament," and that chains ? or is it the forging our homilies in that secon- of new chains, and the ri- dary sense do so call it, as veting of the chains of Sa- having " the promise of for- tan ? Is it contrary to the giveness of sins " (although liberty of the Reformation not exclusively), and an out- I to bind up the broken- ward sign, imposition of hearted in the way in which hands, although the grace of they desire to be bound up ? forgiveness is not tied or re- Do those who confess lay a stricted to that act. burthen upon the consci- This cannot be said to be ences of others, when they at variance with the doctrine seek to relieve their own ? of the Church of England. If " they who are sick," or For I have used only the , feel themselves sick, "need words of the Church herself, a physician," and apply to in their plain grammatical i those whom the Great, the meaning. If othsrs satisfy only Physician has appoint- themselves with putting j ed, does this harm " the strained meanings on the whole ? " Is it with moral words, and say, that when \ sickness, as with the cholera, the Bishop says, " Whose that people fear to allow sins ye remit, they are re- 1 that any are sick, that any mitted unto them," this need to be healed, lest they means, " to whomsoever ye should be thought sick preach the Gospel, and they themselves ? How is it, that believe it, they are remit- when we have heard so ted 9 ;" if they are satisfied much of the "latitude 1 of forthemselves that the words interpretation intended by used mean no more than ! the framers of the Articles this, at least they need not! themselves," now all at once exhibit those who receive \ the Articles are to be strin- them in their plain natural ' gent, when they cannot be sense, as traitors to the I distorted to slight " absolu- English Church, or oppres- j tion," unless they condemn sors of the consciences of Confirmation also ? Whence the English people. Is this this panic, because an in- 9 Zwingli and the Calvinist and Socinian School. See Sermon I. on Ahsolution, p. 4'2, and note B. 1 Judgment of the Privy Council. English OJuirch suggests Confession if needed. \7 creasing number of persons ! have longed to " open the | griefs" which oppressed them ? Is " liberty of con- , science" a liberty only to do what the multitude wills ? Is none at liberty to use what others refuse? May, none dare to minister a me-| dicine to those who seek it, because others mislike it ? The Church of England very solemnly appeals to all " to consider the dignity of that holy Mystery, and the great peril of the unworthy receiving thereof ; and so to search and examine their own consciences, (and that not lightly, and after the manner of dissemblers with God; but so) that they may come holy and clean to such a heavenly Feast, in the mar- riage-garment required by God in Holy Scripture, and be received as worthy par- takers of that holy Table." It warns persons. " Repent ye of your sins, or else come not to that holy Table; lest, after the taking of that holy Sacrament, the devil enter into you as he entered into Judas, and lill you full of all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul." And then it says, " And because it is requisite that no man should come to the Holy Commu- nion, but with a full trust in God's mercy, and with a quiet conscience ; there- fore, if there be any of you who by this means cannot quiet his own conscience herein, but requireth further comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or some other discreet and learned minis- ter of God's Word, and open his grief; that by the minis- try of God's Holy Word he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his con- science and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness." And now there has scarcely been a platform in the coun- try, in which the very special offence alleged against those who have been denounced as traitors to the Church, has not been the obedience to this very direction of the Church, that ministers of the Church have received those who came to open their griefs to them. In a lecture given to nearly 6000 persons at Birmingham, it was set forth by a Clergy- man as a deed which would justify him in inflicting per- sonal violence. The coarse- ! ness of the language forbids further allusion either to the speech or the speaker. You, my Lord, will feel 18 Confession suggested by Reformers, Latimer, Ridley, Sfc. that that tender language of the first compilers of the Prayer Book 2 , the same who are now made the very watchword of party to ex- terminate all confession to a Priest from the English Church, does speak the words of " truth and sober- ness" and Christian love : •*' requiring such as shall be satisfied with a general con- fession not to be offended with them that do use, to their further satisfying, the auricular and secret confes- sion to the priest ; nor those also which think needful or convenient, for the quietness of their own consciences, particularly to open their sins to the priest, to be offended with them that are satisfied with their humble confession to God, and the general confession to the Church ; but in all things to follow and keep the rule of charity ; and every man to be satisfied with his own conscience, not judging other men's minds or con- sciences; whereas he hath no warrant of God's Word to the same." When Latimer says, " would to God right and true confession were kept in England, for it is a good thing;" and Ridley, that " confession unto the mi- nister, which is able to in- struct &c, might do much good in Christ's congrega- tion ;" and Ussher, "no kind of confession, either public or private, is disal- lowed by us ;" and Wake, "The Church of England refuses no sort of confes- sion," where is the authority for stirring up the people against those who, for the sake of others, give them- selves up to minister to the sorrows of others ? I may repeat again what I before said, because it ex- plains to your Lordship the principle upon which I have acted, and maybe an answer to those who are goading the people. " It 3 is an entire perver- sion of the whole question that some have ventured to speak of 'priestly power,' 'spiritual independence," sa- cerdotal rights,' &c. If a physician goes about to minister to the sick, bind up the broken, apply to the cure of diseases the medi- cines which God has given 2 In the first Prayer Book, in the reign of Edward VI., recognised even when, under foreign influence, it was withdrawn, towards the end of Edward VI. 'a reign. 3 Preface to Sermon I. on Ahsolution. A relief to Iroken hearts, not priestly power. 19 him the knowledge and the skill to use, no one speaks of 'assumption of power;' no one thinks it a part of independence,' to die neg- lected. Why then speak of ' priestly power,' when people ask the Ministers of God to impart that with which God has entrusted them ? Why is it undue • power' to bind up the bro- ken-hearted, to pour into their wounds the wine and oil of penitence, to lift them up when desponding, to loose them, in Christ's Name, from the chains of their sins, and encourage them anew to the conflict ? Why, but that to those who know not what the conflict is, what sin is, who have no idea of mental sickness, or anxiety, or distress, all, both sickness and remedy, must seem a dream ? To minis- ter to bodily wants is ac- counted a benefit ; to minis- ter to spiritual, which men know not of, is a reproach. In the world, ' they that ex- ercise lordship over them are called benefactors ;' but even an Apostle had occa- sion to say, ' Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth ? ' " I will close this subject with some additional words of Bishop Andrewes, in which he cites Bishop White, as declaring it to be " a slander" against the Church of England to say that she had abolished confession. "Dr. White 4 , in his 'Way to the Church,' (§ xl. 231,) quotes all this latter part of the Exhortation (in the Communion Service) show- ing against the slander of the Jesuits, that we abolish not, but willingly retain, the doctrine of confession." 4 From MS. Notes of Bishop And reives, in an interleaved hook of Common Prayer in Bishop Cosius Library (quoted in Tracts of the Anglican Fathers). c 2 20 Propitiatory, taken in two senses : II. Mr. Dodsworth's statement continues ; " By teach- ing the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist, as applicatory of the One Sacrifice of the Cross." To this statement your Lordship perhaps adverts, when you say, " a propi- tiatory virtue is attributed to the Eucharist." I say, "perhaps," for your Lord- ship's words do not seem to myself to represent my meaning, and I trust that my meaning may approve itself to your Lordship. I stated many years ago (I trust that this is not an un- due speaking about myself, since it is myself whom I am explaining), that "the word ' propitiatory ' was taken in a good or bad sense, or the question look- ed upon as a mere question of words ; so necessary is it to regard, not what words a person uses, but in what sense he uses them." I noticed that Ridley dis- tinguished two senses of the word " propitiable," one only of which he seems to reject. "There 5 is also a doubt in the word ' propi- tiable,' whether it signify here that which taketh away sin, or that which may be made available for the taking away of sin ; that is to say, whether it is to be taken in the active or in the passive signification." 5 Tract 81, p. 50. I said again, in the Letter to Dr. Jelf, p. 68, "Propitiatory" is, as Thorndike explains it, that which " doth ren- der God propitious;" it is thus used by a modern Roman writer also, " we say, the Mass" [the Holy Eucharist] " is a propitiatory sacrifice, that is to say, a sacrifice that renders God propitiatory to man." (Dr. Butler's Lect. 8, p. 226.) Bishop Overall adopts the word as occurring in the Fathers, Tract. 81, p. 73, and others also. In the same sense Nelson prays " that I may so importunately plead the merit of it" [the full perfect Oblation on the Cross] "in this commemoration of that Sacrifice, as to render Thee gracious and propitious to me, a miserable sinner." (lb. p. 303.) ~ Those who with Bishop Jewell (ib. p. 61) and Bishop Hall (ib. p. 107) take "propitiatory" in the sense of " being" or " making a propitiation " must reject it. (Letter to Dr. Jelf, p. 68, note.) Bishop Moreton acknowledges : — " In the which large acceptation Protestants may account it 'propitiatory' also." (Tract 81, p. 93.) the one, accepted ; the other, rejected. 21 I cited also Dr. Water- ' pitiation was so perfectly land, who speaks approv- 1 obtained for man, that no- ingly of Pfaff, who had ac- thing can be added to the knowledged that " the 6 Eu- price of our Redemption, as charist is propitiatory also in being infinite 7 . If then the a qualified sober sense," and propitiation has been ac- expresses his persuasion that quired by the Sacrifice of " there is a great deal of the Cross, it is not acquired truth in what that learned or obtained afresh by the gentleman has said, and that Eucharistic sacrifice, unless a great part of the debate, you take obtained in the so warmly carried on a few sense of applied. Whence years ago, was more about it appears, how ambiguous names than things." that word 'propitiatory' is, I cited also the statement in that it may be taken as of Pfafhus himself: "The well for the 'acquiring and Council of Trent maintains ' obtaining,' as for the ' ap- that the Sacrifice of the Eu- plying, of the one and the charist is propitiatory, and same thing, and so opens that this is to be believed the door to numberless under pain of anathema, strifes of words. For if which yet is not said in the you say that the Eucharist service, which does not call 'applies' to the faithful the the Holy Supper a ' sacri- propitiation made by the fice/ much less a 'propiti- Sacrifice of the Cross, no atory' one. Still the Tri- Protestant will dispute this, dentine Fathers, while they! But if you believe that the call the sacrifice of the Mass ; devotion of the Eucharist ' propitiatory,' distinguish it | acquires and obtains propi- from the Sacrifice of the tiation, you may be saying Body of Christ upon the 'what is perhaps at variance Cross. For through the 'from the opinion of the Sacrifice of the Cross, pro- 1 Church of Rome 3 ." 6 Doctrine of the Eucharist, c. xii. p. 34.5, ed. Van. Mildcrt. 7 Heb. ix. 11. Beq. x. 1. seq. 1 Jolin i. 2. 8 Pfaff. 1 )i-s. de Oblatione Vet. Eucharistica Irenaei Fragm. Aneedot. subject, p. 211. In illustration of the last words, it may he -aid. that Bellarmine says, that "a sacrifice being, so to speak, a sort of prayer in act. not in words, is properly ' impetratory.' lie adds, •■ the- Sacrifice of the Cross was truly and properly merito- rious, satisfactory, and impetratory, because Christ was then subject to death, and could merit and satisfy. The sacrifice of the Eucha- 22 Commemorative Sacrifice in Holy Fucharist, This doctrine of a com- memorative sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist has been maintained by a current of our Divines ever since the Reformation. I believe it to be con- tained in Holy Scripture, in the prophecy by Malachi, of the pure offering which he foretold should be offered by the ( then ) heathen throughout the world, when the Jews had been rejected. It is part of our Blessed Saviour's priesthood after the order of Melchisedech, as this has ever been under- stood by the Church. It is witnessed to by the very mention of "altars" by our Lord and by St. Paul. It is contained in our Lord's own words, " Do this as a memorial of me 9 ," pleading, He would say, My Merits, and representing My Death to the Father, until I come. In this way the Apostolic Fathers spoke, and the whole Church until now. „ St. Cle- ment of Rome says l , " We must do all things in order, which the Lord commanded us to perform. At stated times must both oblations and sacred offices [liturgies] be performed," and he then contrasts with them the Jewish sacrifices. St. Ig- natius speaks of " the Eu- charist and oblations 2 ," and "of the altar 3 ." St. Justin M. 4 and St. Irenaeus, in re- ference also to the Holy Eucharist, speak of the " one 5 oblation of the New Testament, which oblation the Church, receiving from the Apostles, throughout the whole world, offers to God," as a fulfilment of the pro- phecy of Malachi. This sacrifice is presented by the Son to the Father. " Offering," Origen says 6 , " to the God of the universe prayers through His Only Begotten Son, beseeching Him, being the propitiation rist (as offered by Christ the great High Priest) is properly only impetratory, because Christ, no longer being subject to death, can neither merit nor satisfy." (De Missa, ii. 4.) 9 EJs ti)v kfjLi]v avdixvi)(Tiv "for the [specially appointed] me- morial of Me:" ava/j.vi](Ti. ad Tit. i. 8, "What is to be thought of the Bishop who hath daily to offer spotless sacrifices to God for his own and his people's sins?"] Add ibid. •" We offer unto Thee, our King and our God, this Bread and this Cup. We give Thee thanks for these and for all Thy mercies; beat echlUg Thee to send down Thy Holy Spirit upon this Sacrifice, that He may make this Bread the Body of Thy Christ, and this Cup the Blood of Thy Christ; and that all we. who are partakers thereof, may thereby obtain a remission of our sins and all other benefits of His Passion. M May i atone Thee [Ed. 2. fol. 1782. Other Ed. have 'atone unto Tliec. 1 The former is probably correct, 'atone' being so used for to 'appease*] by offering to Thee. God, by offering to Thee the pure and unbloody Sacrifice, which Thou hast ordained by Jesus Christ. .\incn." And ibid. Wed. .Medit. Lent. Meditations proper for a Clergy- man. "Gnre me such holy dispositions of soul whenever I ap- proach Thine Altar, as may in BOme manner be proportionable to the holiness of the work 1 am about, of presenting the prayers of the faithful, of offering a spiritual sacrifice to God, in order to con- vey the Body and Blood ot Jesus Christ — the true Bread of Life — to all His members. Give me, when I commemorate the same sacrifice that Jesus Christ once offered, give me the same intentions 24 Euckaristlc Sacrifice — Bp. Wilson. sins of Thy people." I will j Ministers here on earth, for add now, in lieu of many 'the same ends, viz., the op- others, the words of Oxford ' plication of all the benefits Divines, edted and revised j of His sole meritorious by Bishop Fell l : " As also Death and Sacrifice on the He hath instituted the same Cross, till His second return oblation of His Holy Body, out of this heavenly sanc- and Blood, and commemo- j tuary." ration of His Passion, to be I believe most entirely, made in the holy Eucharist that " the Offering of Christ to God the Father by His once made is that perfect that He had, to satisfy the justice of God, to acknowledge His mercies, and to pay all that debt which a creature owes his Creator. None can do this effectually but Jesus Christ : Him, therefore, we present to God in this Holy Sacrament." The following are extracts from Bishop "Wilson's MS. notes, in his own hand, in the " Sacra Private," now about to be published. Works, vol. iii. p. 219. " By setting the memorials of Christ's Body and Blood before God, we show that we ourselves do remember His death, and beg God to remember His death in favour of us, now and whenever we pray to Him for His Son's sake." Mr. Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice. " The true and full notion of the Lord's Supper is, that it is a religious feast upon Bread and "Wine, that have been offered in sacri- fice to Almighty God, and are become the mvsterious Body and Blood of Christ. " Our sins were laid upon Christ, as they were upon the sacrifices under the Law, in order to be expiated by the shedding their blood." Ends of Sacrifice. " To render our prayers more acceptable to God for what we pray for. " As a grateful sense of favours received. " For procuring pardon for sins committed. " To acknowledge the power of God to whom we offer. " To render Him gracious to the worshippers. " To keep communion with Him. "But above all, — That it might be a perpetual memorial of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world. By which He reconciled us to God, obtained our pardon upon our repentance, grace to amend our lives, an happy death, and a blessed resurrec- tion. The commemoration of this Sacrifice the most prevailing argument we can make use with God for these things." 1 " Paraphrase and Annotations, done by several eminent men at Oxford, corrected and improved by the late Right Rev. and Learned Bishop Fell."— On Heb. v. 10. In it we plead to God the One meritorious Sacrifice. 25 redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual ; and there is none other satisfac- tion for sin, but that alone." I cannot but believe (since I continually repeat to Al- mighty God) that " our Lord Jesus Christ made upon the Cross a full, per- fect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." I do not believe that any other sacrifice is meritorious, or in itself pro- pitiatory, i. e. that it has a value of its own, apart from the One Sacrifice, to propi- tiate God. But I believe that He who " did institute, and in His holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of His Precious Death, until His Coming again," does look graciously upon, and pre- sent in Heaven, the Memo- rial which we make on earth. The Eucharistic Oblation expresses, in action, the same as, in words, the Con- fession wherewith we close each prayer, " through Jesus Christ our Lord." It is something out of ourselves, above and besides our pray- ers. It is a pleading of our Lord's Passion in act, a Memorial of it, not to our- selves, but to God. It has its efficacy, because Christ has appointed it; because, in His abiding Priesthood after the order of Melchise- ! dech, He pleads, in Heaven, what He has commanded us to plead on earth ; and the prayers which we offer are then most heard, when the " pledges of His love" lie before God. We plead to the Eternal Father the In- finite Merits of His Son, that Infinite Price, which, by His precious Death, He made for our Redemption. We present before Him, not mere bread and wine, but that which, without physi- cal change of substance, consecrated by the words of our Lord and the power and grace of God, is verily and indeed, not carnally, but mystically, sacramentally, spiritually, and in an ineffa- ble and supernatural way, the Body and Blood of our Lord. In Field's 2 words, paraphrasing the Ancient Prayer, " We offer to Thy view, and set before Thine eyes, the Crucified Body of Christ Thy Son, which is here present in mystery and Sacrament, and the Blood Of the Church. Appendix to Book iii. 26 Christ's Sacrifice pleaded in it to the Father. which He once shed for our sakes, which we know to be that pure, holy, undefiled, and eternal Sacrifice, where- ceive our prayers," as, in the great Eucharistic prayer in the Ancient liturgies, the Church besought God for with only Thou art pleased ; all. "I join with Thy desiring Thee to be merci- Church," says again good ful unto us for the merit and Bishop Wilson 4 , "and plead worthiness thereof, and so the merits of Thy Sacrifice to look upon the same sa- for all estates and conditions crifice, which representa- of men : that none may de- tively we offer to Thy view, prive themselves of that hap- as to accept it for a full dis- ; piness which Thou hast pur- charge of us from our sins,; chased by Thy Death : — for and a perfect propitiation : | all Christian Kings and Go- that so Thou mayest behold, vernors ; — for all Bishops us with a pleased, cheerful, \ and Pastors; for all and gracious countenance." ; persons and places in dis- In St. Ambrose's words 3 , j tress by the sword, pesti- " Christ is offered upon lence, and famine, &c." earth, when the Body of i I have made this state- Christ is offered; yea, He, ment, wishing to make clear Himself is shown in us to my meaning, rather than the offer, Whose word sancti- use of a word. The word fies the sacrifice which is which your Lordship objects offered. And He Himself to is, " propitiatory." It is present for us as an Ad- has been used, as I said, in vocate with the Father." a good or bad sense, accord- This was the time when, ing as persons have taken it. both in the Ancient Church In two places only, as far and in our own, the most as I know, have I retained solemn prayers for the well- the words " propitiation" or being of the Church were "propitiatory ;" but in both, offered to God. Our own in order to prevent misun- prayer for the Church Mill- derstanding, I added (by tant follows herein the An- the advice of a revered cient Church. We pray Al- friend, whom, being in mighty God to " accept our doubt, I consulted) "or de- alms and oblations, and re- precation," or " depreca- a In Ps. 38. § 25. 4 Short Introduction to the Lord's Supper. Meaning of Prayers in "the Paradise" evident. 27 tory". The prayers them- selves sufficiently explained, that the word was limited to the sense which Mr.Dods- worth assigns to it, " as ap- plicatory to the One Sacri- fice of the Cross," "This 5 do I now present and offer unto Thee, O Holy Father ! now that in this Commu- nion I renew the remem- brance of It." " I beseech Thee for Thy Mercy's sake, and for the merit of that Propitiatory Sacrifice which was finished on the Cross, that thou wouldest put away from us all stumbling-blocks, temptations, perils, occasi- ons of sin, by which Thou foreseest that we may be led again to sin." "And all these [the sufferings and Death of our Lord] do I offer unto Thee as the sa- tisfaction for my sins ; and that, by means of this sacri- fice, that by virtue of it, Thou mayest impart to me the virtue and efficacy of those Sufferings, and merci- fully forgive my offences, and take not vengeance of my sins." This teaching I learnt in our own Divines and in the Fathers long before I | read a Roman Catholic wri- ter. On this doctrine, taught as it is by our Di- vines in succession, your Lordship makes no observa- tion. Not to your Lordship, who are familiar with our old Divines, but to explain to others my teaching, I would set down the words of Bishop Taylor. " It is 6 the greatest solem- : nity of prayer, the most powerful liturgy, and means of impetration, in this world. For when Christ was conse- crated on the Cross, and be- came our High Priest, hav- ing reconciled us to God by the Death of the Cross, He became infinitely gracious in the eyes of God, and was admitted to the celestial and eternal Priesthood in Hea- ven, where, in the virtue of the Cross, He intercedes for 'us, and represents an eternal Sacrifice in the Heavens on our behalf. That He is a Priest in Heaven, appears in the large discourses and di- rect affirmatives of St. Paul. That there is no other Sa- crifice to be offered, but that on the Cross, it is evident, because ' He hath once ap- peared, in the end of the 5 Paradise for the Christian Soul, Part V. p. 47, 48. 54. 6 Worthy Communicant, Chap. I. sect. iv. A similar passage of Bishop Tavlor is quoted by the Bishop of Oxford, Eucharistica, p. 216,217. ' 28 Eucharistic Sacrifice — Bp. Taylor, world, to put away sin by j the Sacrifice of Himself;' and, therefore, since it is necessary that He hath | something to offer, so long as He is a Priest, and there is no other Sacrifice but that of Himself offered upon the Cross, — it follows that Christ, in Heaven, perpe- tually offers and represents that Sacrifice to His Hea- venly Father; and, in vir-j tue of that, obtains all good j things for His Church." " Now, what Christ does in Heaven, He hath com- manded us to do on earth, that is, to represent His Death, to commemorate ! His Sacrifice, by humble prayer and thankful record ; | and, by faithful manifesta- ■ tion and joyful Eucharist, to lay It before the eye of our! Heavenly Father, so minis- tering in His Priesthood, j and doing according to His commandment and example: j the Church being the image of Heaven ; the priest, the minister of Christ; the Holy Table being a copy of the Celestial Altar ; and the Eternal Sacrifice of the Lamb slain from the begin- ning of the world being al- ways the same. It bleeds no more after the finishing of it on the Cross ; but It is wonderfully represented in Heaven, and gracious- ly represented here : by Christ's action there, by His commandment here. And the event of it is plainly this : that as Christ, in vir- tue of His Sacrifice on the Cross, intercedes for us with His Father, so does the mi- nister of Christ's priesthood here ; that the virtue of the eternal Sacrifice may be sa- lutary and effectual to all the needs of the Church, both for things temporal and eternal. And, therefore, it was not without great mys- tery and clear signification, that our Blessed Lord was pleased to command the re- presentation of His Death and Sacrifice on the Cross should be made, by break- ing of bread and effusion of wine ; to signify to us the nature and sacredness of the Liturgy we are about, and that we mini-ter in the | Priesthood of Christ, Who is a Priest for ever, after the ; order of Melchizedech : that | is, we are ministers in that unchangeable Priesthood, imitating, in the external mi- nistry, the prototype Melchi- zedech : of whom it was i said, ' He brought forth bread and wine, and was the Priest of the Most High | God ; ' and, in the internal, imitating the anti-type or Bp. JVm. Forbes, Brevint, Waterland. 29 the substance, Christ Him- self; Who offered up His Body and Blood for atone- ment for us ; and, by the Sacraments of bread and wine, and the prayers of ob- lation and intercession, com- mands us to officiate in His Priesthood, in the external ministering, like Melchize- dech ; in the internal, after the manner of Christ Him- self." Again, Bishop William Forbes : " The Holy 7 Fa- thers, also, very often say that the very Body of Christ is offered, and sacrificed in the Eucharist, as is clear from almost innumerable passages, but not properly and really, with all the pro- perties of a sacrifice pre- served, but by a comme- moration and representation of that which was once ac- complished in that one Sa- crifice of the Cross, whereby Christ, our High Priest, consummated all other sa- crifices ; and by pious sup- plication, whereby the Mi- nisters of the Church, for the sake of the eternal Vic- tim of that one Sacrifice, which sitteth in Heaven at the Right Hand of the Fa- ther, and is present in the Holy Table in an unspeaka- ble manner, humbly beseech God the Father that He would grant that the virtue and grace of this eternal Victim may be effectual and salutary to His Church, for all the necessities of body and soul." Again, Dr. Brevint, whose work on the Christian Sa- crament and Sacrifice, was " republished s on the high commendation of Waterland, says : " Whereas 9 the Holy Eucharist is by itself a Sa- crament, wherein God offers unto all men the blessings merited by the Oblation of His Son, it likewise becomes by our remembrance a kind of sacrifice also ; whereby, to obtain at His hand the same blessings, we present and expose before His eyes, that same holy and precious Oblation once offered. Nei- ther the Israelites had ever temple, or ark, or mercy- seat, nor the Christians have any ordinance, devotion, or mystery that may prove to be such a blessed and effec- tual instrument to reach to this everlasting Sacrifice, and to set it out so solemnly 7 Oonsiderationea Modesto, lib. iii. c. i. quoted Tract. 81, p. 109. 8 Bishop of Oxford's Bucbaristica, p. x.w. 9 lb. p. 180 Tract 81, p. 109. The Church admitted to plead on earth 30 before the eyes of God Al- mighty, as the Holy Eucha- rist is. To men it is a sacred Table, where God's Minister is ordered to represent from God his Master, the Passion of His Dear Son, as still fresh and still powerful for their eternal salvation ; and to God it is an altar, whereon men mystically present to Him the same sacrifice as still bleeding, and still sue- ing for expiation and mercy. And because it is the High Priest Himself, the true Anointed of the Lord, Who hath set up most expressly both this table and this altar for these two ends, namely, for the communication of His Body and Blood to men, and for the represen- tation and memorial of Both to God; it cannot be doubted but that the one must be most advantageous to the penitent sinner, and the other most acceptable to that good and gracious Fa- ther, Who is always pleased in His Son, and Who loves of Himself the repenting and the sincere return of His children. Hence one may see both the great use and advantage of more frequent Communion ; and how much it concerns us, whensoever we go to receive it, to lay out all our wants, and pour out all our grief, our prayers and our praises, before the Lord, in so happy a conjuncture. The primi- tive Christians did it so, who did as seldom meet to preach or pray, without a Commu- nion, as did the old Israelites to worship, without a Sacri- fice. On solemn days es- pecially, or upon great exi- gencies, they ever used this help of sacramental oblation, as the most powerful means the Church had to strength- en their supplications, to open the gates of Heaven, and to force, in a manner, God and His Christ, to have compassion on them." To this doctrine, that this One Sacrifice of the Cross is, through the Oblation of the Holy Eucharist, pleaded jto God the Father by the 'prayers of the Church, and that benefits hence accrue to the Church and to those for whom intercession is made, and who do not shut it out by perseverance in sin or ! unbelief, your Lordship, I \ am satisfied, would not ob- iject. The prayers of the ! Church are essential ; yet the Oblation gives them a ' value, which, alone, they would not have. Our Ever- i Blessed Lord, unceasingly [presents in Heaven that Sacrifice which He once what Christ pleads in Heaven unceasingly. 31 offered on the Cross; day and night, " He, our only access to the Father, as Me- diator, and High Priest, and Advocate, presenteth to the Father intercessions for us, Who as the Son and God, giveth, with the Father, all good things to man, Co- Giver of all blessing to us. ' " In Bishop Pearson's words 2 , " He Which was accepted in His Oblation, and there- fore sat down on God's Right Hand, to improve this acceptation, continues His intercession : and hav- ing obtained all power by virtue of His humiliation, representeth them both in a most sweet commixtion ; by an humble omnipotency, or omnipotent humility, ap- pearing in the presence, and presenting His postulations at the throne of God." He the One High Priest, having entered once for all into the Holy of Holies, the Heaven of Heavens, is there our Unchangeable, Unceas- ing Intercessor, "ever living to make Intercession for us." At the Holy Eucharist we are admitted, as it were, to see in image, (as St. Am- brose saith,) what in truth He ever doth in Heaven. He Himself invisibly sanct'- fieth what is offered, Him- self, the Only High Priest, offereth before the Father, what His Word sanctifieth. The Church pleadeth as a suppliant that same sacrifice, which He presenteth as High Priest, efficaciously. " Therefore," says Bishop Overall 3 , " there is no new sacrifice, but the same which was once offered, and which is every day offered to God by Christ in heaven, and continueth here still on earth, by a mystical repre- sentation of It in the Eu- charist. And the Church intends not to have any new propitiation, or new remis- sion of sins obtained, but to make that effectual, and in act applied unto us, which was once obtained by the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross .... and to appease His wrath towards us, to get blessings from Him, to make Christ's bloody Sacri- fice effectual unto us. . . ." And Bishop Andrewes 4 : — " The first, in remem- branceof Him, Christ. What of Him? Mortem Domini, His death, saith St. Paul, 1 S. Cyril. Alex, in S. Joarm. xvi. 19, 20. p. 934, 935. 2 On the Creed, Article vi. p. 479. 3 Printed from MS. Notes id Nichollfl on the Common Prayi 4 Sermons of the Resurrection, Serin. VII. p. 300, cd. Oxf. 32 Eucharistic Sacrifice — Bp. Andreuces. 'to shew forth the Lord's Death.' Remember Him ? That we will, and stay at home, think of Him there. Nay, show him forth ye must. That we will by a sermon of Him. Nay, it must be hocfacite. It is not mental thinking, or verbal speaking, there must be ac- tually somewhat done to celebrate this memory. That done to the holy symbols that was done to Him, to His body and His blood in the Passover; break the one, pour out the other, to repre- senticXwjuf vov,how His sacred Body was ' broken,' and s'k- xwdfisvov, how His precious Blood was i shed.' And in Corpus fractum and sanguis fusus, there is immolatus. This is it in the Eucharist that answereth to the sacri- fice in the Passover, the me- morial to the figure. To them it was, Hoc facite in Mei prcpfic/urationem, * Do this in prefiguration of Me.' To them prtenuntiare, to us annuntiare j there is the dif- ference. By the same rules that theirs was, by the same may ours be, termed a sa- crifice. In rigour of speech, neither of them ; for, to speak after the exact man- ner of Divinity, there is but one only Sacrifice, veri no- minis, ' properly so called,' that is, Christ's death. And that sacrifice but once actu- ally performed at His death, but ever before represented in figure from the begin- ning ; and ever since re- peated in memory, to the world's end. That only ab- solute, all else relative to it, representative of it, opera- ' tive by it. The Lamb, but once actually slain in the fulness of time, but virtually was from the beginning, is and shall be to the end of the world. That the centre, in which their lines and ours, their types and our | antitypes do meet. While yet this offering was not, the hope of it was kept alive by the prefiguration of it in theirs. And after it is past, the memory of it is still kept fresh in mind by the com- memoration of it in ours. So it was the will of God, that so there might be with them a continual foreshow- ing, and with us a continual showing forth, the ' Lord's death till he come again.' Hence it is that what names theirs carried, ours do the j like ; and the Fathers make 'no scruple at it — no more need we. The Apostle in the tenth chapter compareth this of ours to the immolata of the heathen ; and to the i Hebrews, kabemus aram, Bp. White, Bramhall, Scrivener, Hammond. 33 matcheth it with the sacri- fice of the Jews. And we know the rule of compari- ly, and I cannot understand what you can desire more. To make it a suppletory sons, they must be ejusdem Sacrifice, to supply the de- generis. ... i fects of the only true Sacri- " From the Sacrament, is i fice of the Cross, I hope both the applying the Sacrifice, you and I abhor." The Sacrifice, in general,! And Scrivener 7 : — "In pro omnibus. The Sacra- like manner, and much ment, in particular, to each more effectually, may we several receiver, pro singulis, say, that the action of the Wherein that is offered to Eucharist presents to God as, that was offered for us : the Sacrifice of Christ's that which is common to all, Death and Mediation made made proper to each one, by Him for mankind, es- while each taketh his part pecially those that are im- of it ; and made proper by mediately concerned in that a communion, and union, Sacrament ; from which me- like that of meat and drink, tonymical Sacrifice what which is most nearly and great and rich benefits may inwardly made ours, and is we not expect !" inseparable for ever." And Dr. Hammond 8 : — And Bishop White 5 : — "This commemoration hath "Because His bloody Sa- two branches, — onecf praise crifice upon the Cross is, by and thanksgiving to God this unbloody commemora- ' for this mercy, the other of tion represented, called to annunciation or showing remembrance, and applied." forth, — not only first to And Archbishop Bram- men, but secondly, and es- hall : — "We acknowledge pecially, to God, — this sa- a representation of that Sa- crifice of Christ's offering crifice to God the Father; we up His Body upon the acknowledge an imputation Cross for us. That which of the benefit of it; we main- respecteth or looks towards tarn an application of its vir- men, is a professing of our tue : so here is a commemo- faith in the Death of Christ ; rative, impetrative, applica- that which looks towards tive Sacrifice. Speak distinct- j God, is our pleading before 5 Reply to Fisher. > Works, p. 35, 36. 7 Course of Divinity, Book i. chap. 44. 8 Quoted iu Bishop of Oxford's EucharUtica, p. 1GG, D 3-1 Propitiatory" to obtain favour of God Him that Sacrifice of His I own Son, and through that, i humbly and with affiance, j requiring the benefits there- [ of, grace and pardon, to be bestowed upon us. And then God's part is the ac- cepting of this our bounden duty, bestowing that Body and Blood of Christ upon us, not by sending it down locally for our bodies to' feed on, but really for our; souls to be strengthened and refreshed by it." And Bishop Patrick 9 : — ** For remembrance [ava- fxvvvig) doth not barely sig- nify recording or registering of His favours in our mind, but commernoratio, a so- lemn declaration that we do well bear them in our hearts, and will continue the me- mory and spread the fame of Him as far and as long as ever we are able. . . . "I. We do show forth the Lord's death, and de- J clare it unto men. "2. We do show it forth | unto God, and commemo- rate before Him the great \ things He hath done for us. i We keep it, as it were, in His memory, and plead be- I fore Him the Sacrifice of His Son, which we show I unto Him, humbly requir- ing that grace and pardon, with all other benefits of it, may be bestowed upon us. And as the minister doth most powerfully pray in the virtue of Christ's Sacrifice when he represents it unto God, so do the people also when they show unto Him what His Son hath suffered." But, in truth, whosoever believeth that there is an Oblation to God in the Holy Eucharist, by which, plead- ing the Death of Christ be- fore the Father, we obtain favour from Him, believes a " propitiatory" action in the only sense in which it is be- lieved at all, which is to " render God propitious." The doctrine lies equally in the simple words of Bishop Andrewes 1 , from the Li- turgy of St. Chrysostom : — " Thou Who sittest on high with the Father, and art here invisibly present with us, come Thou to sanctify the gifts laid before Thee, and those for ivhom, and by whom, and for what reason soever they are offered." This, which is contained in Bishop Andrewes' sim- ple but comprehensive words, is the only doctrine 9 Quoted in Bishop of Oxford's Eucbaristica. p. 166. 1 Devotions. through the One Sacrifice of Christ. 35 which I ever meant, in any of my books, to teach, that God the more accepts our prayers for ourselves or for others, whether for forgive- ness of sins, for increase of grace, for the well being of the Church, or for what-' soever else is according to His Will, when united with the Memorial of His All Atoning and alone Merito- rious Sacrifice, which He instituted and commanded the Church to celebrate. But while I say that this is the only doctrine, I do not mean it, as lowering that doctrine, but this only, that the Sacrifice or Oblation in the Eucharist has its efficacy, ' only by pleading and apply- ing the One Sacrifice of the Cross." I may quote again the' words of Mr. Palmer : — "Secondly", the Church of England has always ac- : knowledged such a sacrifice. The 31st Article is directed against the vulgar and here- tical doctrine of the reitera- tion of Christ's Sacrifice in the Eucharist. It was only those ' missarum sacrificia quibus vulgo dicebatur, sacer- dotem otierre Christum in remissionem poena? aut culpa? pro vivis et defunctis,' which are pronounced 'blasphema- figmenta et perniciosse ira- postura?;'but not 'missarum sacrificia,' as understood by the Fathers, and in an ortho- dox sense. The article was directed against the errors maintained or countenanced by such men as Soto, Har- dinge 3 , &c, who by rejecting the doctrine of a sacrifice by ivay of commemoration and consecration, and not literally identical with that on the Cross, and by their crude and objectionable mode of expression, countenanced the vulgar error, that the sacrifice of the Eucharist or mass, was in every respect ecpual to that of Christ on the Cross ; and that it was in fact either a reiteration or a continuation of that sacri- fice. The Article was not directed against the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice as explained by Bossuet, Veron , and others, with which we have no material fault to find. Cranmer himself ac- knowledged that it might be called a sacrifice 4 ; and our theologians, such as Bram- hall, Beveridge, Patrick, 2 Treatise of the Church, Part VI. eh. x. 3 CouraviT. Defense de la Dissertation, t. ii. part i. p. 223. 4 See vol. i. p. .525. D 2 3G The " Learned Mede ;" "propitiates " Wilson, Bishops; and Ma- son 5 , Field, Mede, Johnson, &c, always have taught the Eucharistic altar, sacrifice, and oblation, according to Scripture and apostolical tradition ; and the Articles of the Church of England recognize the clergy in their various orders as sacerdotes, ifpac, ministers of sacrifice." I will add one more pas- sage from a writer, always held in reputation of our Church, in which he adopts the word " propitiation" as found in the Ancient Fa- thers. The familiar epithet mostly joined to his name, — as that of "judicious " is to that of Hooker, — " the learned Mede," shows how he has been appreciated by our Church. " Instead 6 , therefore, of the slaying of beasts and burning of in- cense, whereby they called upon the Name of God in the Old Testament ; the Fathers, I say, believed our Saviour ordained the Sacra- ment of Bread and Wine, as a rite whereby to give thanks and make supplication to His Father in His Name." "The mystery of which rite they took to be this : That as Christ, by presenting His Death and Satisfaction to His Father, continually intercedes for us in Heaven; so the Church on earth semblably approaches the Throne of Grace, by repre- senting Christ unto His Father in these Holy Mys- teries of His Death and Passion These things thus explained, let us now see by what testimonies and authorities it may be proved the Ancient Church had this meaning. I will begin with St. Ambrose, because his testimony is punctual to our explication. OfHc. lib. i. cap. 48. 'Heretofore (un- der the Law) was wont to be offered a lamb and a bul- lock. (Exod. xxix.) But now (under the Gospel) Christ is offered ; but He is offered as a Man, and as one that suffered; and He also as a Priest offers Himself, for the forgiveness of our sins. Here (on earth) this is done in a.resemblance and representation ; there (in Heaven) in truth, where He as our Advocate intercedes for us with His Father.' 5 " Quoties eucharistiani celebramus, toties Christum in mysterio offerimus, eundeinque per niodum commemorationis seu reprsesen- tationis immolamus."— "" 544. 6 Christian Sacrifice, Mason, cle Minister. Anglic, lib. v. c. 1. p. the doctrine of the Ancient Church. An author which Cassander ' in his Consultations, quotes, without name, expresses this mystery fully : ' Christ is not wickedly slain by us, but piously sacrificed, and thus we show the Lord's Death till He come ; for we by Him do that here on earth lowlily, which He (as a Son to be heard for His reverence or piety) doth for us in Heaven powerfully and pre- vailingly, where He as our Advocate mediates for us with the Father, Whose office it is to intercede for us, and to present that flesh which He took for us and of us, to God the Father in our behalf.'" Then, after quoting St. Cyril of Jerusalem, whom I have cited above, he says that it is the manner of the Greek liturgies, (to which I have also referred,) — imme- diately upon the consecration of the Dona (viz. the Bread and Wine) to be the symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ, and the Commemo- ration thereon of His Pas- sion, Resurrection and As- cension, — to offer to the Divine Majesty, as it were over the Lamb of God then lying upon the Table, their supplications and prayers, 37 for the whole state of Christ's Church, and all sorts and degrees therein, together with all other their suits and requests ; and that ever and anon interposing the word 7rpo(T^spof.uv, l we offer unto Thee,' for these and these, that is, we commemorate Christ in this mystical rite for them." And he cites Eusebius, who, after speaking of Bish- ops who at a council gave instructions by discourses of Theology or interpreta- tions of the deeper meaning of Holy Scripture, adds, " Those who were not equal to these things, propitiated God by unbloody sacrifices and sacramental immola- tions in behalf of the com- mon peace, of the Church of God, of the Emperor himself, offering to God suppliant prayers for him who was the author of these great benefits, and his godly children." The same he supposes to be the meaning of a passage of Tertullian 7 ; and there- upon adds : " The same with Tertullian means St. Austin, describing the Christian sacrifice to be, ' immolare Deo in Corpore Christi sacrificium Laudis,' Dc Orat. c. 11. He had a wrong reading. 38 God jjropitious to Church thro' Memorial of His Son. lib. i. cont. Advers. Legis et Prophet, cap. 20. * The Church, saith he, offereth unto God the Sacrifice of praise in the Body of Christ, ever since the fulfilling of that in Ps. 1. ' The God of gods hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.' " Lastly, that the repre- sentation of the Body and Blood of Christ in this Christian Service was in- tended and used as a rite whereby to find grace and favour with God, when the Church addressed herself unto Him (which is that I undertook to prove), is ap- parent by a saying of Ori- gen, Horn. 13 in Levit, where, treating of the shew- bread, which was continu- ally set before the Lord with incense, for a memorial of the children of Israel, that is, to put God in mind of them, he makes it in this respect to have been a lively figure of the Christian's Eucharist; for, saith he, ' That is the only comme- moration which renders God propitious to men.' " The Real Presence, the belief of the English Church. 39 III. The next statement is : " and by Adoration of Christ really present on the altar under the form of bread and wine." This statement involves two points, which in my own mind are distinct: 1. The real Presence of our Lord; 2. The Adoration of Christ Present in the Holy Eucharist. 1. Of the Real Presence of our Lord I have spoken so much at length, and what I wrote was so widely cir- culated 8 , that I need hardly repeat here what I have said. I believe simply the teach- ing of our Church, in the Catechism, the Articles, and the Eucharistic Service. I believe that " the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and re- ceived by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." I believe that " then we spiritually eat the Flesh of Christ and drink His Blood ; we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us ; we are one with Christ, and Christ with us." I believe that we " so eat the Flesh of God's dear Son Jesus Christ, and drink His Blood, that our sinful bodies are made clean by His Body, and our souls washed through His most precious Blood;" that we may " evermore dwell in Him, and He in us." I believe that " the Body and Blood of Christ which were given and shed for us" [not assuredly His absent Body and Blood, nor a figure only of His Body and Blood] " preserve our Bodies and Souls unto ever- lasting life." I believe that w the Body of Christ is ! given, taken, and eaten," [given by the Priest and taken by the people] " only after a spiritual and heaven- ly manner" [». e, not in any carnal, or physical, or earth- ly manner, but spiritually, sacramentally, truly and in- effably]. And I believe that M the means whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith." For assuredly Faith only perceives, faith only receives His Presence, or The Holy Eucharist a Comfort to the Penitent, and App. 40 To eat spiritually is to eat holihj, Himself; as St. Augustine says, " Believe, and thou hast eaten 9 ." The word " spiritually," against which some have excepted, as though it were opposed to " really," is the very word of St. Augustine : " Eat 1 Life, drink Life ; thou wilt have life ; yet is Life entire. But then will this be, i. e. the Body and Blood of Christ will be life to each, if what in the Sacrament is visibly taken, in very truth is spiritually eaten, is spi- ritually drunk." "We 2 too at this day do receive visible food : but the Sacrament is one thing, the virtue of the Sacrament another. How many receive from the altar and die, yea, by receiving, die ! Whence the Apostle saith, ' Eateth and drinketh judgment to himself/ It was not that the sop of the Lord was poison to Judas. And yet he received : and when he received, the enemy entered into him : not that he received an evil thing, but that he being evil did in evil wise receive what was good. Look to it, then, brethren, eat ye spiritually the heavenly bread, bring innocence to the altar." And this which is called either the substance (res) or the virtue (virtus) of the Sacrament, is explained to be the Body of Christ. " The sacrifice 3 of the Church con- 9 Horn. 25 in S. Joh. § 12. This statement lias been excepted against in recent controversy, but is found in later writers also. Thus Alex. Alensis : — " To complete feeding, there is required, a threefold union, by nature, knowledge, charity. Union by nature [i. e. having the same nature as our Incarnate Lord] renders man capable thereof; union by love completes that aptness as relates to spiritual feeding; union by knowledge, as to sacramental. Where- fore it must be said, that as he who hath not charity, in no wise feedeth spiritually; so he who in no wise hath knowledge, i. e. of faith, doth not sacramentally. Wherefore not every wickedness taketh away the feeding sacramentally, but that which is of defect of faith. Defect of faith, I mean, which is complete, whether with love or without it. Since then all the good have love, but all the bad are not wholly without faith, therefore it does not follow, al- though all the good eat spiritually, that all the bad [? do notj eat sacramentally.'" iv. qu. xi. memb. 2. art. 2. § 2. i Horn, in N. T. Serm. 131. 3 Tract. 26 in S. Joh. § 11. 3 Lan franc, c. Berengar. quoted Deer, de consecr. d. 2. c. 48, as St. Augustine's. The same distinction between the " Sacramenturn" and the " res et virtus Sacramenti," occurs in a prayer of Aquinas, received into the Praeparatio ad Missam in the Roman Missal and Breviary. to eat sacrament ally only, is to eat unworthily. 41 sists of two things, the visi-l ble form of the elements, ; and the invisible Body and. Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; the Sacrament and the substance of the Sacra- ment, that is, the Body of Christ. The sacrifice of the Church consists of the sacra- ment and the substance (re) of the Sacrament, i. e. the Body of Christ. There is, then, the Sacrament and the substance of the Sacrament, i. e. the Body of Christ." This very statement is the basis of the distinction be- tween " eating sacramen- tally" and " eating spiritu- ally," i. e. the wicked, who receive " the sacrament" only, are said to eat sacra- mentally only ; the good, who receive " the substance of the Sacrament" also, eat spiritually also. St. Jerome again uses the same language 4 : " The Blood and Flesh of Christ are understood in a twofold way : either that spiritual and Divine, of which He Himself said, ' My flesh is Meat indeed, and My Blood is Drink indeed ;' and ' Un- less ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you :' or that Flesh and Blood, which was crucified and shed by the soldier's lance." But again on this subject also, the statement of Mr. Palmer so fully expresses my own belief, and that, mostly in words supported by our formularies, that, with the exception of one' inference, I would willingly once more adopt it. The single inference is (as I un- derstand it), that, in the case " of the wicked, who are totally devoid of true and living faith," God withdraws the Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ. This seems to resemble the opinion men- tioned by Aquinas as held by some, that " the Body of Christ is not in real truth received by sinners, for that the Body of Christ ceased to be present under the ele- ments, so soon as touched by the sinner's lips." This is a great mystery, and, as a mystery, I should prefer to leave it, as I have never spoken of it. The heading of our Article is, "Of the wicked which eat not the Body of Christ;" in the body of the Article it is said that they "are in no wise partakers of Christ." Certainly, one who partakes 4 In Epli. 1. 7, quoted dc consecr. ii. 49. 42 The wicked cannot be partakers of Christ, unworthily, and to his con- demnation, cannot be "par- taker of Christ." Else they would "dwell in Christ and Christ in them, be one with Christ and Christ with them." And then, our Lord says, they would have ever- lasting life. But Christ dvvelleth not in the soul in which Satan dwelleth. Nor yet can the Body and Blood of Christ be present without Him; for where His Body is, there He is. It is the very test of the reprobate, that the Spirit of Christ dwelleth not in them ; and if the Spirit of Christ is not in them, they are none of His. In the words of Ori- gen, — " Many 5 things may be spoken also concerning the Word itself, which was made Flesh and true Food, Whom whosoever eateth shall certainly live to eter- nity, Whom no wicked man can eat. For if it could be that he that still remains a sinner should eat the Word and the Bread of Life, it would not have been writ- ten, " Whosoever eateth this bread shall live for ever!' " The language of St. Au- gustine is still stronger than ourArticle,if doubtful words are omitted. "This 6 , then, it is, to eat that meat and drink that drink; to dwell in Christ, and to have Christ dwelling in him. And there- fore who dwelleth. not in Christ, and in whom Christ dwelleth not, without doubt doth neither eat His Flesh nor drink His Blood; but rather doth unto judgment to himself eat and drink the sacrament of so great a thing." And yet it must in some sense be the Body and Blood of Christ, since the very ground why those who pro- faned the Lord's Supper, " ate and drank damnation to themselves" is, according to Holy Scripture, that they did "not discern the Lord's Body." " They did not dis- p. 500. I use Bishop Beveridge's 5 Origen. in Matt. xv. vol. translation, on Art. *29. 6 Horn. 26 in Joh. § 18, p. 412, Oxf. Tr. The words "spiri- taliter," and " licet carnaliter et visibiliter premat dentibus sacra- mentum corporis et sanguinis Christi," are bracketed by the Bened. Editors on the authority of the MSS., yet retained in the text on the authority of the editions. The same is quoted from him by his disciple S. Prosper, Sent. 139. " He who is at variance with Christ, neither eateth His Flesh nordrinketh His Blood, although he daily indifferently receive the sacrament of so great a thing to the judg- ment of his presumption.'" but receive the Sacrament to their hurt. 43 tinguish the Lord's Body," j i. e. says Cassian, "no 7 way severing that heavenly food from the cheapness of com- mon food, nor distinguishing it to be such that none may presume to receive it, save with pure mind and body." And St. Chrysostom, " ' Not 8 j discerning the Lord's Body,' i, e. not searching, not bear- ing in mind, as he ought, the greatness of the things set before him ; not estimat- ing the weight of the gift. For if thou shouldest come to know accurately Who it is that lies before thee, and Who He is that gives Him- self, and to whom, thou wilt need no other argument; but this is enough for thee to use all vigilance, unless thou shouldest be altogether fallen." And St. Augustine him- self calls it, as to them also, j the Lord's Body, "As 9 Judas, to whom the Lord' gave the sop, by ill-receiving, not by receiving an ill thing, gave in himself place to the devil; so each, receiving un- worthily the Sacrament of, the Lord, doth not cause that, because he is bad, it should be bad, or that, be- cause he doth not receive to salvation, he receiveth nothing. For it was still the Body of the Lord and the Blood of the Lord to those to whom the Apostle said, ' He who eateth un- worthily, eateth and drink- eth judgment to himself.' " And this he again ex- presses: " that 1 we eat not the Flesh and Blood of Christ only in the Sacra- ment, which thing do also many evil men ; but that even unto participation of the Spirit we do eat and drink, that in the Lord's Body We abide as members, that with His Spirit we be quickened, and be not of- fended ; yea, though many in this present time do to- gether with us eat and drink temporally the Sacraments, who shall have in the end eternal torments." This, then, I leave as a mystery, that while "they are in no wise partakers of Christ," they still receive to their condemnation " the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ." And for myself, I suppose that the Article, when it says in the heading, that " the wicked eat not the Body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Sup- 7 Collat 22. c. 4. 8 Horn. 2,*?. § 2. 9 De Bapt. c. Donat. v. 8. quoted de Consecr. ii. (38. i Tr. in Joh. § 4. 44 To eat, in Holy Scripture, is to eat beneficially . this sense, do not " eat the Body of Christ," whatever it be that they receive to their condemnation. Else they would " live by Christ.'' This being the meaning of the word in Holy Scripture, I it is obviously the meaning to be ascribed to it in the 'Articles. And thus the J words in the heading of the Article, mean the same as those in the Article of which they are the heading. For I " not to eat beneficially of the Body of Christ" is the same as "not to be par- [ takers of Christ." I would gladly make the rest of Mr. Palmer's statement again 3 ■ my own. " Her 4 doctrine concern- ing the true presence appears to be limited to the following points : — " Taking as her immove- ' able foundation the words of Jesus Christ: 'This 5 is My Body; . . This is My Blood of the new covenant ;' and j' Whoso 6 eateth My Flesh ' and drinketh My Blood hath per," uses the word "eat" in the same sense as our Lord Himself, when He re- peats so often : "This is the Bread which cometh down from Heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the Living Bread which came down from Heaven : if any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever : and the Bread which I will give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. .... Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My Flesh, and drink- eth My Blood, hath eternal life. ... He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father : so he that eateth Me, even He shall live by Me He that eateth of this Bread shall live for ever 2 ." It is plain that the wicked, in 2 St. John vi. 50, 51. 53, 54. 56, 57, 58. 3 I adopted it before, in the Appendix to my Sermon on the Holy Eucharist. 4 Treatise of the Church, vol. i. chap. vii. p. 526. B Matt. xxvi. 26. 28. 6 John vi. 54. The Church of England believes these expres- sions to relate to the Eucharist. " Then Ave spiritually eat the Flesh of Christ and drink His Blood, 1 ' &c. — Exhort, in* Communion Office. "Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of Thy dear Son," &c. — Prayer before Consecration. The term " flesh" is only used in this chapter of S. John. Doctrine of the English Church. 45 eternal life ;' she believes, the ' partaking or commu- that the Body or Flesh, and nion of the Body and Blood the Blood of Jesus Christ, of Christ/ She believes the Creator and Redeemer that the Eucharist is not the of the world, both God and sign l of an absent body, and Man, united indivisibly in that those who partake of One Person 7 , are verily and it receive not merely the indeed given to, taken, eat- figure -, or shadow, or sign en, and received by the faith- of Christ's Body, but the re- ful in the Lord's Supper 8 , ality itself. And, as Christ's under the outward sign or Divine and Human Natures * form 9 of bread and wine,' are inseparably united, so which is, on this account, she believes that we receive 7 "Who although lie be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ: . . . one altogether, not by contusion of Substance, but by unity of Person.* 1 — Atban. Creed, 8 " The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper . . . is received and eaten in the Supper." — Art. XXVIII. "The Body and Blood of Christ, whicb are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." — Catechism. " The Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ." — Kxhort. in Communion Office. " We spiritually eat the Flesh of Christ 'and drink His Blood. 1 ' — Ibid. "Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink His Blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His Body." — Prayer before Consecration. " Grant that we, re- ceiving these Thy creatures of bread and wine . . . may be par- takers of His Most Blessed Body and Blood." — Consecration. ''Most heartily thank Thee for that Thou dost vouchsafe to feed us . . . with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ." — Post < lommunion. 9 "The outward sign vtjbrm. n — Catechism. " Hereafter shall follow sermons . . . of the due receiving of His Blessed Body and Blood under the form of bread and wine. 11 — Advertisement at the end of the first book of Homilies. 1 1 Cor x. 16. Art. XXVIII. "Thus much we must be sure to hold, that in the Supper of the Lord there is no vain ceremony, no bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent." — Horn, xxvii. p. 1. 2 The faithful " receive not only the outward Sacrament, but the spiritual thing also; not the figure but the truth : not the shadow- only, but the body." — lb. Bishop Poynet says, M Corpus Christi et Veritas et figura est : Veritas dum Corpus Christi et Banguis virtutc Spiritus Sancti in virtute ipsius ex paniset vini substantia effieitur: figura vcro est id quod extcrius seutitur." — Diallaeticon, p. 0*. 46 Summary of the Doctrine in the Eucharist, not only the Flesh 3 and Blood of Christ, but Christ Himself, both God and Man. Resting on these words, 'The bread which we break is it not the communion of the Body of Christ ? ' and again, • I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine :' she holds that the nature 4 of the bread and wine continues after con- secration, and therefore re- jects transubstantiation, or * the 'change 5 of the sub- stance,' which supposes the nature of bread entirely to cease by consecration. As a necessary consequence of the preceding truths, and admonished by Christ Him- self, ' It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profit- eth nothing : the words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life;' she holds that the Presence (and therefore the eating) of ! Christ's Body and Blood, though true, is altogether ' heavenly 6 and spiritual,' of ] a kind which is inexplicable by any carnal or earthly ex- perience or imagination : even as the Sonship of the ' Eternal Word of God, and i His Incarnation, and the Procession of the Holy Spi- \ rit, are immeasurable by hu- man understandings. " Believing according to the Scriptures, that Christ ascended 7 in His natural Body into Heaven, and shall only come from thence at the end of the world ; she rejects, for this reason, as well as the last, any such real Presence of Christ's Body and Blood as is cor- 3 " He hath given His Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, not only to die for us, but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance in that Holy Sacrament." — Exhortation in Communion Office. " In no wise are they partakers of Christ." — Art. XXIX. 4 " The sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances." — Declaration at end of Communion Office. " If the consecrated bread or wine be all spent." — See Rubric in same. " The terrene and earthly creatines which remain." — Horn, xxvii. p. 1. " The bread which we break," &c. — Art. XXVIII. 5 " Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy writ ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture," &c. — Art. XXVIII. 6 "The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after an Heavenly and spiritual manner." — Art. XXVIII. 7 "He sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty; from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead." — Athan. Creed. of the English Church. 47 pond 8 or organical, that is, by which the Body of Christ according to the known and is received and eaten,' ' a earthly mode of existence of necessary instrument in all a body. Resting on the these holy ceremonies ; ' be- Divine promise, ' Whoso cause it is the essential qua- eateth My Flesh and drink- lification on our parts, with- eth My lilood hath eternal out which that Body is not life,' she regards it as the received; and because 'with- more pious 9 and probable out faith it is impossible to opinion, that the wicked, please God 2 .' those who are totally devoid " Following the example of true and living faith, do of our Lord Jesus Christ, not partake of the Holy and of the Apostles, and Flesh of Christ in the Eu- supported by their authority, charist, God withdrawing she believes that ■ the bless- from them so 'divine 1 ' a ing 3 ' or 'consecration 4 ' of gift, and not permitting His the bread and wine is not enemies to partake of it. without effect, but that it And hence she holds, that operates a real change ; for such a faith is 'the means when the Sacrament is thus 8 " No adoration is intended or ought to be done . . . unto any corporal Presence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood." — Declar. after Communion Office. 9 " The wicked, and such as he void of a lively faith, although they do carnally :pi>h points before he licensed it." s Prynne, 1. c. 9 p. 188. x p. 362. 60 Books "adapted" in the 17th century. by Francis Meres, Master of Artes of both Universities, and Student in Divinitie." In his preface to the for- mer he thus speaks : — " I present these divine and celestiall meditations which may doe as much good in England as they have done in Spayne, Portugall, Italy, Fraunce, and Germanic Lodovicus Granatensis, the author of these heavenlie and spyrituall meditations, hath so cunningly pour- trayed in this Treatise the myseris and calamities of this lyfe, and with such di- vine eloquence depainted the future blessedness of the other, that for stile hee seems to mee another Ci- cero, and for sound and emphaticall persuasion a second Paule. Whose di- vine spirit and heavenly writing as it hath moved the Italians ... to translate his works into theyr lan- guage, and Michael of Isselt to convert them into Latine, and Ph. Doberniner into the Germaine tongue, so also hath it moved me to digest them into English, that now at the length our country might enjoy that rare jewel which those famous coun- tries doe so highly prize." In Laud's own time, a.d. 1633, the fourth edition of another work of Granada's was published under the title, " A Paradise of Pray- ers containing the purity of devotion and meditation, gathered out of all the spi- rituall exercises of Lewes of Granado; and englished for the benefit of the Christian reader." (1633). 4th Ed. In the preface, the trans- lator says, " the godly medi- tations and prayers of that learned and religious divine Lewes de Granado, were long since devested from their Spanish habit, for their efficacy and excellency, su- ted in our English attire, and for the benefit of God's children and servants, re- ceived and layd up into the Sanctuary and treasury of our Church, not as a popish relique, but as a precious jewell of inestimable price and valew ; so that for any ignorant or overcurious or carping Christian any way to question eyther the worth of this reverend author, or the validity of these his pious and elegant labours, it is di- rectly to quarrell with the truth, and maliciously to de- ny the hrightness and cla- rity of the Sunne when he is in his hottest meridian and in the Verticall poynt of his most resplendent lustre and glory." He speaks also of G. Herbert, N. Farrer, Dean Jach 61 " the former impressions of this booke, having received favourable applause of all religious and zealous spirits." Another translation, about the same time, unites three names, at all times held in love or reverence or esteem among us: the one, as a glow- ing and devout Christian poet; the second, for his de- vout life; the third, as a Di- vine — Geor^eHerbert, Nico- las Farrer, and Dr. Thomas Jackson. It was printed at Oxford in 1638, at Cam- bridge in 1646. George Herbert thus writes of it to Mr. Farrer, who had trans- lated it : — " My dear and deserv- ing brother, — Your Val- desso I now return with many thanks, and some notes, in which perhaps you will discover some care, which I forbear not in the midst of my griefs : first, for your sake, because I would do nothing negligently that you commit unto me: se- condly, for the author's sake, whom I conceive to have been a true servant of God ; and to such, and all that is theirs, I owe dili- gence: thirdly, for the Church's sake, to whom by printing it, I would have you consecrate it. "You owe the Church a debt, and God hath put this into your hands (as He sent the fish with money to St. Peter) to discharge it : haply also with us (as H is thoughts are fruitful) intending the honour of His servant the author, who being obscured in his own country, He would have to flourish in this land of light and region of the Gospel, among His chosen. f * It is true there are some things which I like not in him, as my fragments will express, when you read them: nevertheless 1 wish you by all means to publish it, for these three eminent thingsobserv- able therein. 1. That God in the midst of popery should open the eyes of one to un- derstand and express so clearly and excellently the intent of the Gospel, in the acceptation of Christ's righ- teousness (as he sheweth through all his considera- tions) a thing strangely bu- ried and darkened by the adversaries, and their great stumbling-block. " 2. The great honour and reverence which he eve- ry where bears towards our dear Master and Lord, con- cluding every consideration almost with His holy Name, and setting His merit forth 62 Books adapted in the 1 7th century. so piously; for which I doj so love him, that were there . nothing else, I would print it, | that with it the honour of my Lord might be published. " 3. The many pious rules of ordering our life, about mortification, and observa- tion of God's kingdom with- in us, and the working thereof, of which he was a very diligent observer. "These three things are very eminent in the author, and overweigh the defects, as I conceive, towards the publishing thereof." " From Bemerton, near Salis- bury, September 29, 1632 2 ." Dr. Jackson "being de- sired by the Vice-Chancellor to peruse it, and give a cen- sure of it," writes " I cannot but much approve and com- mend the greatest part of it, as very worthy of this press and a Christian's reading. There be some passages ob- scure, dubious, and offen- sive, wherein notwithstand- ing the publisher has given me satisfaction, and I doubt not but his annotations in the Preface, together with Mr. Herberts apologie for the offensive places, will do the like to every unprejudicated and impartiall Christian rea- der." Thus recommended, it was published by the printer to the University. It is thus spoken of in a re- cent edition. " Dr. Thomas Jackson. Mr. Nicholas Farrer. Mr. George Herbert. All three holy in their lives, eminent in their gifts, signal protestants for their religion, painful in their se- veral stations, precious in their deaths, and sweet in their memories " From these there may be learned, that Christian charity will keep unity of souls, amidst great differ- ences of gifts and opinions .... Yet in this divi- nity had they such a harmo- ny of souls as was admi- rable." " As they were (too) all three admirable in separat- ing from the vile what was precious in every sect or person." " For instance, in one who differed in some points from them all, yet in him they so agreed all, as that Mr. Farrer out of a great liking of the man, trans- lated him into English; — Mr. Herbert commented on him, and commended him pp. 101, 102. Bools largely "adapted" at close of the 17 th century. 63 to use ; — and Dr. Jackson allowed him for the press. It was Valdesso's 110 Con- siderations." (Printed at Cambridge. 1G4 6.) pp. xcvi. xcix. cviii. ci.w" In the same century, nearly contemporaneously, a work of Nicole was trans- lated and " adapted" by two laymen, Locke, and (as it has been conjectured) the pious philosopher, Robert Boyle. The fourth edition of the translation, which has been thought to have been published by Boyle under the title, " Moral essays on many important duties, writ- ten in French by Messieurs du Port Royal, and done into English by a person of quality," was published in 1724 : that by Locke re- mained in MS. until 1828. A writer in the Christian Observer, in 1819, who first drew attention to Locke's translation, conjectured it to come from "that re- nowned school of sanctity and learning — Port Royal." While writing this, I am reminded that Archdeacon Churton 3 has shown, that the substance of the " Con- ! templations on the State of ! Man," ascribed to Jeremy Taylor, a.d. 1684, is taken from the work of Nierem- j berg 4 , a pious Spanish Je- | suit. We have been, for j nearly two centuries, reading this borrowed work as Bi- shop Taylor's. " Ten edi- tions were sold in the next ; half century," while the original translation of it was j forgotten. In 1654, had ibeen published "two ex- cellent discourses of, 1. Tem- perance and Patience ; 2. Life and Death," written in Latin by Johan. Euseb. Nie- rembergius, Englished by Henry Vaughan, a poet and layman in South Wales. "The Introduction to a devout life " was again pub- lished, in an "adapted" ' form, by Dr. Nicholl, a.d. | 1700, as "translated and re- [ formed." In his unsatisfac- i tory notice " on the rise and 3 Letter to Joshua Watson, Esq. 4 1 1 is work was translated into Latin, A.n. 16.J4, at Madrid (Sotwel Bibl. Soc. Jes. p. 444.) seventeen years before Taylor's death. Archd. C. however, thinks that the " Contemplations" are taken from Sir Vivian Mullineanx" translation from the Spanish, " since revised by J. W.," a.d. 1672, five years after Taylor's death. The title would rather lead one to think that the translation had appeared before. Any how, in twelve years, a mistake may have arisen, so that we need not think the compiler a forger. 64 S. Francois de Sales, and Spiritual Combat, adapted. progress of spiritual books Card. Bellarmine, &c, are in the Romish Church," wrote with discre ion as well lie remarks, as a good sign as warmth: and, settingaside amid the decay of piety, the points peculiar to their that so many spiritual books religion, may he i'ery bene- had been published, both by ficial to Christian souls. our own writers and writers " As to Sales' Introduc- " abroad." He speaks of tion, it must be said by the favourable reception of every one who reads it, these last among us; and there are to be found a great his tone will show that he many very excellent Chris- was not prejudiced in their tian rules for a good life, favour. " Not only greater with many curious and un- numbers of the Treatises common reflections upon upon those subjects wrote moral duties, and well- by our own Divines, have chosen arguments for the been published and bought practice of them ; and the up, but many others which style withal is so familiar, were wrote abroad have been easy, and inviting, that I translated into English; and, am of opinion few people notwithstanding the great can begin to read the book and deserved aversion which without going through with this nation has to Popery, it. For the natural and yet the Books of their pretty similes and apposite Divines upon Devotional examples, together with a and practical subjects, have peculiar tendernessand good met with as favourable re- humour in the expression, ception among us, as if the are very entertaining. I authors had been of a better think I have left nothing religion." standing in this edition He himself, in conclusion, which is directly contrary to gives not, indeed, the highest the Articles of our Church, sort of praise to the book and am of opinion it may which he " adapted;" but now be used with safety and still praises it, as far as he edification, and probably entered into it. most people will be the bet- "The devotional pieces ter for reading it." of our present authors [S. I About the same time 5 , Francois de Sales], Kempis, Dr. Lucas, the admired au- 5 The third part of his work, " Enquiry after human happiness." The edition of the " Spiritual Combat" must have been a work of Books adapted in the IS th Century. 63 thor of the work on " reli-i relation of this little treatise, gious perfection," " revised whereby I hope I have done and recommended," a trans- the author no wrong, in any lation of the " Spiritual material part, though I have Combat," from its Spanish taken the liberty of leaving form, as attributed to John out, or altering some few de Castaniza. He says of places, that might other- it, in a letter to the trans- wise have prejudiced awell- lator, "The book itself is writ minded reader." with a spirit of true piety, J In 170", Dr. Hickes edited and in a little compass, and two translations of works a very good order, contains on the education of young a great many excellent di- women, the one by Fenelon, rections for the conquest of' the other by a M. de la all inordinate appetites, and : Chetaney. the attaining a true con-| In 1701, he edited, " De- formity to the Divine Will : votions in the ancient way I heartily wish it may meet j of offices, with Psalms, with the success you aim at." The translator says ; — "There are many books Hymns, and Prayers for every day in the week, and every holiday in the year, reformed by a person of wherein this Divine Wis- 'quality, [Susannah Hop- dom is more largely taught; j ton]." This book, which but the way of attaining J had already been adapted by being so briefly and fami- ; the Rev. T. Dorrington, and liarly comprised in this little in that form, had passed book, it may be thought of through five editions, be- more service to such as want sides "divers others in stolen either leisure or capacity to I books of devotions," was look over bigger volumes, originally a popular Roman This, with the desire of some Catholic book, having been friends, put me upon trans- .published in four editions, lating and printing a second The Book is formed, in a his advanced life. The second edition, which he revised, was pub- lished in 1710. His earliest work was in 1077, his latest probably in 1717. 6 Instructions for the Education of a daughter, by the Author of Telemachus ; to which is added, a small tract of instructions for the Conduct of young ladies of the highest rank, [by M. de la Chetaney,] with Suitable devotions annexed. Done into English and revised by Dr. George Hickes. London, 1707. F 66 Confession taught in the \Sth Century. degree, after the model of I " Any pretence that there the Breviary, with Invita-lhave been other excellent tories, Antiphons, Respon- 1 discourses publish'd on the sories, &c. Dr. Hickes same subject, I believe, can lived to enlarge his preface' be no reasonable objection in the fifth edition, 1717. against this; because the An unpublished treatise ' contemplation of death may of Fenelon, on Christian be very well manag'd by Perfection, and other pieces, 1 different authors, as the were translated at the end : same prospect may be finely of the life of Bourbon, Prince of Conti (1711)- In 1720, John Ball, " late lecturer of St. Bartholo- mew's the Less," published to give him another turn. I the "Art of dying well, must further own that I written originally in Latin have taken some liberty. drawn by different hands. " Wherever my Author goes off into the Romish in- novations, I have attempted by Card. Bellarmine where it was proper* to en- In his preface he says ; large his thoughts " I shall not distrust the His book is, perhaps, like reader's judgment so far, as ; Dean Stanhope's, rather a to imagine that he will dis- 1 paraphrase than a transla- like the Book on the account | tion, in which he inserts as of the Authour, and not ; well as omits, according to rather consider what he has his own judgment. It is the wrote upon the subject, than I more remarkable that he who it was that wrote it, and j himself translates the rhythm then I persuade myself that of Aquinas, Adoro Te de- I shall have no occasion to ! vote, latens Deitas. I may make any apology for the cite also a passage on con- publication of it. For a wise fession, which is entirely his and a good man will be will- | own. But 7 besides this Con- it ' fession of sin to God, there I is another kind of Confes- 7 L. 2. c. 6. He adds, c. 7, " Having recited this Hymn in the most devout manner, and made Confession of his sins to God; and having also received Absolution, and the blessing from the Priest, let the sick person, with all humility and reverence, make use of this, or the like expression, ' Lord, I am not worthy that Thou iskouldcst come under my roof;' and then, having received the Holy Communion, let him add, 'Into Thy Hands, O God, I com- mend my spirit.' " ing to receive instruction from whatsoever hand Later "adapted" books. 67 sion also, which has been mission is, ■ Whose soever the constant practice of the sins ye remit, they are remit- Christian Church in all ted unto them ; and whose- ages, and which is of sin- soever sins ye retain, they gular benefit and advan-are retained.' John xx. 23. tage; and that is, to lay Whosoever, therefore, as- open the whole state and sents to the doctrines of the condition of the soul to the Christian Church, or be- priest. This practice is of lieves the authority of the great service in many re- Ancient Fathers, or the revealed cannot of the service spects; in the 1st place, as it highly promotes the peace and quiet of men in thus unburthening their con- Word of God, as in the Scriptures, deny this power Priest ; and if the power of sciences ; 2ndly, in that the Absolution be indisputable, Priest, by this means, is and it be further certain, better informed of the spi- that God has entrusted him ritual necessities of men ; with the dispensation of so and consequently that he is great a blessing ; the infer- quahfied to adapt his advice ence from the whole is, that to them with more success, men should use the means And, 3rdly, that the person! which God has appointed, so confessing, will be better to ascertain that blessing to qualified to receive the bene- them." fit of Absolution ; for God J In the bad times of the who has the first and only last century, Wesley, to- right of forgiving sins, hath gether with works of Fathers deputed this power to His and Divines of the English Ambassadors here, to pro- Church, and Lutherans and nounce this Absolution. St Ambrose, in his comment on the 38th Psalm, says, 'that he that denies this power to the priest is no better than a Novatian,' St. Cyprian is entirely of the d'Avila; "Molinc same opinion. This power ritual Guide; Non-Conformists, still pub- lished in his " Christian Library" treatises from the Roman Church. Such are fourteen " Spiritual Let- ters," by Don Juan " Spi- Life of is derived down from the Gregory Lopez," by Father Apostles, to whom it was Francis Losa; " Fenelon on first delegated, to their sue- j the Love of God," and that cessors. The Original Com- remarkable and beautiful f 2 68 Love for a Kempis in English Church. book, " Letters and conver- sations of Brother Law- rence," which has since been published separately 8 . Later still, in the pre- sent century, " Pascal's Thoughts" were published, with omissions (i, e. "adapt- ed"), in Edinburgh 9 ; and "Sermons" of Massillon, and selections from him 1 , and " Thoughts" by him. I have not mentioned a, ' Kempis, because he has long been so domiciliated amongst us. But his name again carries back this prin- ciple of adaptation to the 16th century. The devout translator, in 1677, in speaking of previous trans- lations, mentions one under Queen Elizabeth. " In Queen Elizabeth's reign it was translated into English, and more than once published by Mr. Rogers, who dedicated it to the then Lord Chancellor Bromley." He adds, "Of latter years the English editions have been more exact and per- fect : those in London seem to have been according to the prints at Paris, except some short differences in a few places in the Three bookes, and the leaving out of some passages in the fourth book (and one pas- sage in the first) which re- lated to some customs and orders, or to some external rites in the Roman adminis- tration of the Eucharist." In 1639, the translation was corrected and amended by William Page, Chaplain to Walter, Bishop of Win- chester, dedicated to the Bishop, and printed by the Printer to the University of Oxford 2 . In his dedication he says, " I must confesse to the glory of God and mine own comfort, that I have pro- fitted more in the course of Christianity by the perusal 8 Conversations and Letters of Brother Lawrence concerning the Presence of God, translated from the French. London : Hatchard and Sod, 1824. 9 By the Rev. Edw. Craig, 1835. He " does not hesitate to avow that he has withheld a few passages which occur occasionally on the subject of the peculiar tenets of the Romish Church." 1 Selections from his works. Hatchard, 1826. "Select Ser- mons, translated from Massillon by Rutton Morris." Nisbet, 1830. The translator entitles himself, translator of Pensees de Massillon. 9 The Imitation of Christ, written in Latin by Thomas a Kempis, and the translations of it corrected and amended. Printed at Oxford, 1639, by Leonard Lichfield, printer to the famous Univer- sitie, for Edw. Forrest. The above cited to justify the principle only. 60 of this one small book of entered truly into the spirit devotion, than by turning of a Kempis. I mav men- over many volumes of con- tion his Frontispiece also troversies. For I found in since some decry all such it great motives to self-de- emblems as if they appealed mall, humility, obedience, too much to the senses and devotion; to humility It is a burning heart, with in ourselves, to obedience wings, upon an Altar, with towards superiors, to devo- a Cross, (around which the tion towards God. [ serpent is entwined as dead), Because the Authour arising out of the heart; thereof was too much ad- and above, the Pelican feed- dieted to one side, I made ing its young ones with its bold to leave out that which own Blood, and rays of might offend any Christian light shining down from the palate, and have endeavour- Name miT- ed that it should look with In 17 J 4, it was para- an equall and impartial! eye phrased by Dean Stanhope, upon ad good Christians. Even among the Presby- And it were to be wished terians, Dr. Chalmers edited that we had more bookes in the three first books, omit- this kind, and that we did ting the fourth on the Holy especially apply ourselves to Eucharist. I need not men- such kinde of books ; for tion a later edition, by one mennowadaiesareimmode- rightly beloved. A few years rately wedded to their own ago, there was published a opinions, they labour to dis- ( v.™™™™ 3 ♦„ »i.„ m.:. pute well, not to live well and delight more in books Kempi Companion 3 to the Chris- tian's pattern, by Thos. a of controversy to strengthen them on that side they are, "This production," the translator says, ** is distinct -'—j «•-> ""'"'"i"! oayo, is i then in books of devotion from the well-known ' Imi- to teach them what each tation of Christ,' and may good Christian should be." be considered as a supple- Ine pious translator of ment to it, containing, in a 16/7, who entitled it "The small compass, the most ex- Christian's Pattern, or a cellent passages which are Divine treatise of the Imi- to be found in the other tation of Christ," appears, works of Thos. a Kempis." lrom his Preface, to have I do not mean by produc- Esl T lSl latCd b ° m thc Gtennan of Terateegen by Samuel Jackson, 70 The writer's previous statements of his objects, ing this list, to say that these tract some parts of what I Editors proceeded in the said in the first of the books same way as myself, or to which I have thus edited, justify the details of any and in the last, thing which I have done. I [ " The 4 object of the fol- only mean, that the princi- 1 lowing little work, and of pie of "adapting" books any others of the like sort from other portions of the 'which it may be permitted Christian Church, has been, to the Editor to publish, is ever since the Reformation, ' to meet, as far as may be, recognised and acted upon \ some of the wants which the in the English Church ; that mighty stirring of minds it has not been thought a pri- within our Church for some vilegeof the English Church time past, has created, to be " totus teres atque ro- , Such stirrings always leave tundus" in itself, and to have something to be supplied, no need of the other portions God mostly sets the heart of the body of Christ; or that in motion, makes her feel whereas, through other por- [ her want of somewhat out tionsof the Western Church, of herself and beyond all whatsoever God gives in one created beings, her need of portion, belongs to all the Himself, Who alone can fill rest, we alone were com- her ; but how to attain to plete in ourselves, and could Him, He leaves most often not profit by any practical to the guidance of others, experience, or knowledge of Having brought Her to the God's word, or fruits of me- Holy City, He withdraws ditation, or fervour of piety, His star for a time, and which God, Who " distri- leaves it to the Church to buteth to every one seve-' point her to Bethlehem; al- rally as He wills," may have though He will ever accom- taught to hearts, which, out pany her on the way, and of the compass of these isles, His light will in the end He drew to Himself, and stream on the place where had bound them to Him by she shall find Whom she the everlasting bonds of His seeks, the Living Bread, love. In explanation of what I intended, (however I may Who came down from hea- ven, and she shall know the Object of her search, as well have failed in executing by hidden and heavenly to- what I hoped,) I may ex- i kens made known to herself 4 Avrillon, Guide to Lent, Preface, p. v. vi. in his adapted books. alone, as by the teaching of the Church out of the Holy Scriptures. " In the present time there is a craving after a higher life ; stricter and more abid- ing penitence; deeper and fuller devotion ; mental prayer ; meditation upon God and His Holy Myste- ries ; more inward love to Him ; oneness of will with Him in all things ; more ha- bitual recollection in Him| amid the duties of daily life ; entire consecration to God ; deadness to self and to the world ; growth in the seve- ral Christian graces in de- tail ; self-knowledge in order to victory over self ; daily strife; stricter conformity with our Lord's blessed Commandments and all- holy Life, sympathy with His Passion, 'the fellowship of HisSufferin^s,' oneness with Him. Yet in all, people feel that they lack instruction ; they see dimly what God would have of them, — they see not how to set about it !« The 5 Editor, then, wished to minister through others what he was not qua- lified to provide himself. Directions as to holy sea- sons, contemplation of our Lord, guidance in the habits of meditation and mental prayer, to self-knowledge, to penitence, the spiritual life, the bearing of His Cross and conformity to Him, holy performance of the ordinary actions of daily life, Divine love, enlarged and deeper views of the Christian graces, were objects on which he wished to furnish such assistance as he might, for those who hunger after it. " For both the large heads, under which these and the like wants would fall, — con- templation and self-disci- pline, — the spiritual writers of foreign Churches have, as yet, some obvious advan- tages over our own; — for the discipline and knowledge of self, through that know- ledge of the human heart which results from habitual confession ; for contempla- tion, in the Monastic Orders, as joining, in all cases, contemplation and mental prayer with charity and mortification " It must 6 be owned also, that our writers have, for some time at least, or for the most part, drawn too much from their own re- sources. The richest and most thoughtful of our writers, such as Hooker, and Andrewes, and Bishop 5 Avrillon, Guide to Lent, Preface , p. x. XI. 6 lb. p. xiii. — xv. 72 What is good every where, is God's gift. Taylor, are precisely those who have most largely con- verted into the substance of their own minds the thoughts of the saints and doctors who have been be- fore. They have not only produced, out re-produced ; like the scribe instructed to the kingdom of heaven, bringing forth out of his treasure things new and old. Yet, in the main, and of late certainly, we seem to have been cut off from inter- course with those before, as well as around us. We have been severed from the ancient hills on which the Sun of Righteousness afore- time rested, and which He illumined, as well as from the plain country round about us. " Yet it was never meant that any portion of the Christian Church should be thus insulated. What is given by His good Spirit, at least what He has pre- served, is not for one set of men or one nation only. W T hatever He has preserved, He has preserved for our use ; whatever He has any where given to the Church, He has given to the whole Church. It belongs to us, J as a portion of that Church. It were an unthankful neg- | lect of His gift, thus to think ourselves self-suffic- ing, as though each national Church were to be limited to the produce of its own soil, — to exist for itself, as ! if ' the Word of God came out from it, or came to it only.' " It has not been wholly so, even in far less hopeful days. Thomas a Kempis was received among us, and made our own, and formed I us to follow his and our I Master ; Pascal's well of deep thoughts has flowed among us without suspi- jcion; S. Francis de Sales > has taught many of us, ' the Love of God ;' Nicole has preached to us through the lips of those least likely to adopt his words ; and even 1 in those sad times, when, as has been said, the angel of our Church seemed to hover at the very outskirts of our j land, as ready to depart, the Apostolic Bishop Wilson counted the devout author 1 of ' The Spiritual Combat ' ! as one of ourselves 7 . " Still it may be well, at 7 The learned and pious Bp. Taylor, the worthy and ingenious author of the ' Unbloody Sacrifice ;' the devout author of the ' Spiritual Combat,' &c, have recommended some such help as this for the use and comfort of those devout souls -who are deprived of this holy Sacrament in the Church. And to those we are in- Objections answered. r3 the very outset, in few words to meet what may be felt as a conscientious difficulty by some, who may dread lest the adaptation of books of another Communion create an undue sympathy with portions of doctrine foreign to our Church, or with that Communion itself. " With regard to doctrine, there was little in the pre- sent work which created any difficulty. A very few sen- tences only (as far as the Editor recollects) have been omitted or modified. And generally, in books of the Continental Churches there are two distinct classes ; some having so little of what is foreign or would be pain- ful to us, that one should hardly be aware that they were not written for our own people ; others, in which what is distressing or would be strange to us meets us every where. Yet to men- tion, once for all, the plan pursued as to these works, the Editor could not think it consistent with the com- mission he had received as a Pastor in this portion of the Lord's flock, to lay aside the office of guidance with which, however unworthy, he was, by the condescen- sion of God, invested. He could not, as far as in him lay, turn any of the littleones in the Church adrift into a large pasture to discriminate for themselves. He has thought it his duty to omit, not only what he could not himself receive, but even some things which he could, which yet, he thought, would have been most na- turally, from whatever cause, in us or in them, miscon- strued " The Editor 8 felt no scru- ple then, in considering the state of our Church alone, in any adaptations which Christian wisdom or tender- ness seemed to require. The works thus adapted, cannot, it must be thought, pro- mote sympathy with doc- trines which do not occur in them. " With regard to the other possible objection, an undue sympathy with the Churches from whom we are separated, any such sym- pathy as would lead persons to forget their duties to the Church wherein God in His mercy has placed them, and undervalue His exceeding mercies to them in her and debtcd for this intimation.'" — Short and Easy Introduction to the Lord's Supper, fin* 8 Avrillon, Guide to Lent, Preface, p. xvii. xviii. 74 The books not adapted on any principle of through her, would indeed be very miserable. Yet such an abuse is to be corrected by other means, not by mere ignorance of God's gifts to other branches of the Church, or by the re- fusal to profit by those gifts when fitted to ourselves. On the contrary, since an especial grace is promised to the lowly, and love is the first-fruit of the Spirit, it must even be a benefit, if, as time goes on, any such publications should contri- bute to a kindlier feeling towards those Churches through whose members we have been benefited, or a more instructed estimate both of ourselves and of them. An increasing tone of humility is one of the most hopeful signs in God's dealings with our Church. So may one hope, that as we humble ourselves, He will exalt her to the office which, in the course of His Providence, He seems to have marked out for her. In the mean time, whatever really tends to the holiness of her children, tends, in that same proportion, to the real benefit of the Church." I may add extracts from the Preface of the last of these works, which I edited three years and a half ago : — " Three 1 eventful years have now passed by, since the Editor began adapting this little series of devotional works. He had a twofold object in it : first, to supply with the sort of food their souls desired, a class of minds who could not but be the objects of the deeper sympathy, because, from the circumstances of our times, they often know not where to find it; and secondly, to supply it to them in such form as he conceived the Church of England, in which God had vouchsafed to call him to minister to souls, would give it to them. In a word, he wished both to supply wants which he knew to exist, and to save persons from the temptation j of seeking out of the Church j where God had placed them, j what might be supplied to them within her. And he hoped that the very fact of ' adapting' these books ' to the use of the English Church,' would carry with it its own evidence that he did not wish to recommend to her children any thing but what, according to the 1 Paradise of the Christian Soul, Advertisement, p. iii. — > the writer, bat on one owned by the English Church. 75 best of his judgment, was in accordance with her prin- ciples. His standard in so doing was not his own, but I that which the Homilies of the Church of England so often inculcate, and her great Divines have followed, what ' was believed and taught by the old holy fa- thers and most ancient learned doctors, and re- ceived by the old Primitive Church, which was most uncorrupt and pure 2 .' This the Church of England, who so often appeals to it in con- nexion with the Word of God, certainly did not be- lieve to be any vague or un- certain rule. Nor, spurious passages apart, is it. Here, after the Word of God, and as its soundest expositors, has been, for these many years, his chief delight and study. Directed to Chris- tian Antiquity by the Church in which he was admitted to minister, in her was his soul fed as in a large pasture, in her was at rest. To her, as having the pure tradition of Apostolic teaching, and, in her consentient witness, Apostolic authority, he yielded his full faith. In her he was as in his home. Her's was to him his native language. In her he sought all he wished to know, and in her found it. Her thoughts, her exposition of Holy Scripture, her faith, are his. Nothing jarred there. What she said, he wished in his measure to say ; what she rejected, he rejected ; where she was doubtful, he was content to be doubtful with her ; what she knew not as part of the faith, he could not receive as his ; where she was silent, he had no wish to pry. And when these troubled times came; in her, in another way, was his rest. Taught, him- self, by the Church of Eng- land, and by her directed to Christian Antiquity, and finding in her what he had been taught, (only, it is no disparagement to say, more deeply than has been com- mon among us,) he could not think that they whom the Church acknowledged as fathers, would disown as children, those who so re- vered them. However for our common sins, the Church may now be dis- tracted, he felt that there was a real oneness of faith and Christian principle be- tween us and those of old, as with those of other 2 Homilies, B. ii. Serin, ii. 1, init. 76 The plan not undutiful to the English Church. Churches now also, in all things which have been matters of faith from the first. 'The hearts of the children were turned to the fathers/ why not ' the hearts of the fathers to the chil- dren ?' Why should we think that they whom we own as 'fathers,' would not, if now in the flesh, and, if possible, more in their abode of love, own us as chil- dren ? " Neither then did it seem any presumptuous task, as a private minister, to * adapt,' to the use of the children of the English Church, private books of edification, on the same principles, and in the same way, as the Church of Eng- land had the public offices Towards the English Church it did not seem undutiful to think that she was not so in- dependent of all God's gifts in all other portions of the Church, that nothing might be thence transferred with advantage to her. Mem- bers of her evidently thought otherwise, since they bor- rowed for her, and are large- ly borrowing for her, from much more questionable sources, where the Sacra- ments are denied, and ra- tionalism more or less gleams through. " Again, some writers, as Pascal, Nicole, S. Francis de Sales, S. Charles Borro- meo, a Kempis, (not to speak of Fene'lon, AJassillon, and others,) have been as household names among us. The * Imitation ' has been studied by devout minds, unconscious that they were not studying the produce of our own Communion. " Yet neither did it seem wrong to the Editor, to ' adapt,' according to a defi- nite rule, books which had more of modern doctrine in them. For as to the authors themselves, surely we must think that in Paradise they must be glad that their writ- ings, under any condition, short of denial of the truth, i should do good to souls for whom, with them, Christ died. They know not, in I their rest and love there, the 1 distractions and hard judg- ments in the Church here below. Nor, if they here lived in a system, partly un- sanctioned by Holy Scrip- ture and by the Primitive Church, need we think that, holy as they were, the Sight of God has not purged away some errors which clave to jthem here. Nor need it, surely, seem either presump- tuous or arbitrary, to at- | tempt to separate, by a defi- One only object, the good of souls. nite standard, that which is ancient from that which is modern ; and since in all portions of the Church, (with the exception of some few great minds, as St. Ber- nard,) most has been learned from our common 'fathers,' to retain what S. Augustine, S. Chrysostom, or S. Am- brose say, or what has the sanction of the whole undi- vided Church, and to omit what belongs to a more re- cent teaching. " This ' definite standard' was, to the Editor, Catholic Antiquity, regard being also had to the tone of mind of the Church in which, by the mercy of God, he has been admitted to minister " Such instances 3 may, perhaps, suffice to assure any who may be anxious as to such an one as the Editor, that he has had no thought of supplying, by instalments, as it were, a teaching beyond that of the Church, in which he has, by the undeserved goodness of Almighty God, been admitted to minister. Nor did he even wish to in- troduce, by his private act, 77 whatever might, here and there, be found in Christian Antiquity, in the ages which the English Church had adopted as her pattern and | guide. What were matters of faith then, can alone be I matters of faith now ; what were ' pious opinions ' then, have surely not ceased to be such now. One object alone he had before him, to furnish to minds who were yearning after deeper devotions, prac- tical guidance, a more spi- ritual and inward life, aids in passing holy seasons aright, knowledge of them- selves, modes of meditating on the Mysteries of the Faith and on their Redeem- er's love, books which might help them, by the grace of God, whereby they might grow to His praise and glory, in the courts of the house of their God, where He had planted them. All the errors in this, as in all besides, may He forgive, Whom herein I wished to serve, expecting the dispraise of man, and seeking only the good of those for whom He shed His Blood!" 3 Paradise of the Christian Soul, Advertisement, p. xi. xii. 78 Meaning popularly attached to " Rosaries.' By encouraging the use of rosaries and cruci- V. fixes.' I very much regret that this statement was made without explanation, because the idea which persons ordi- narily attach to " rosaries " is, probably, mumbling over carelessly certain formal prayers, without much mind- ing how they are said, so that a certain number are said ; and " crucifixes " are thought of only as objects of worship. Tyndall complains of those who ie patter [i.e. say Pater Nosters] all day with lips only, that which the heart understandeth not." " How blinde are they which think prayers to be the pattering of many wordes." Beads and rosa- ries are also in their minds connected with devotions to the Blessed Virgin ; as Fox speaks of "the 4 rosarie of our Ladie's Psalter, " in which also the devotions to the Blessed Virgin predo- minated over those to God, as we hear of " 150 5 Ave- Marias and 1 5 Paters ;" and Shakespeare so speaks, " to ; number Ave-Maries on his beades 6 ." I need not say to your ! Lordship, that the devotions which I recommended were nothing of this sort, and ; that such devotions were excluded. My object in the devotions which I edited in the Paradise, was wholly of a different kind. Every one who has experienced great j weakness, (such as illness, ' or long fever, or sleepless- ' ness will produce,) or when suffering under distractions, or in walking, will know how much easier it is to say the same prayers over again | and again, than different 4 Fox, Acts, p. 667. 5 Brevint, Saul and Samuel, c. 8. 6 Mr. Dodsworth, of course, did not intend to convey any im- pression of this sort. He doubtless, simply meant the devotions in the Paradise, and forgot that his words, unexplained, might, even naturally, be understood of the devotions which usually, although not always, form part of the Rosary in the Roman Church. Those in the " Rosarium, SS. Trinitatis a prapclaris Tbeologis usitatum et commendatum," in the Paradisus P. 1, are exclusively addressed to the Holy Trinity. To repeat a prayer of (en helps devotion. prayers. The fewer words or thoughts, the better suited for those in weakness or suffering. Even a complex thought, or two thoughts occurring in the same sen- tence, or two images of God's nearness in trouble (as in Is. xliii. 2), are too much at once for a weakened brain. It is a rule as to those in sickness, that prayers should contain as much as possible in as few words as possible. The Name of Jesus itself, often repeated, is a volume of prayer. But it is a relief also to the mind to have some measure of its devo- tion. Most use thisin health. They pray, as it may be, in the morning for half an hour, or for some definite time, longer or shorter. They do not leave this to chance or to the devotion of the mo- ment. If they do, they mostly pray less. They have, more or less, a rule for their devotion. This was, I suppose, the origin of the repetition of the Lord's Prayer. It was the poor man's only prayer. And so he said it again and again, and those who have said it earnestly again and again, have found that they said it most deeply, and from their inmost souls, the last time that they said it. Would that all our peasantry said the Lord's Prayer many times in the day! There would be much less of sin, and much more of devotion to God and their Saviour. " We instruct," say our ecclesiastical laws under King Canute, " that 7 every Christian man learn so that he may at least be able to understand aright orthodox faith, and to learn the Pater- noster and Creed : because with the one, every Christian man shall pray to God, and with the other, manifest or- thodox faith. Christ Him- self first sang Pater-noster, and taught that prayer to His disciples. And in that Divine prayer there are seven prayers. Therewith, who inwardly sings it, he ever sends to God Himself a mes- sage regarding every need a man may have, either for this life, or for that to come. But how, then, can any man ever inwardly pray to God, unless he have inward true love for, and right belief in, God ? " The Lord's Prayer is the Prayer Book of those who cannot read or remem- ber prayers which man has written. It contains, as the 7 In Thorpe's Ancient Law6, i. p. 373, SO The Lord's Prayer conveys to God every need of man. Bishops under King Canute I so beautifully said, "a mes-j sage to God regarding every need a man may have, either for this life or for that toi come." It may be made to bear on the Mysteries of the Passion, by being said in J thought of them, and pray- ing by virtue of them. It may be a prayer for Holy Communion, or for our daily food ; for personal confor- mity to the will of God, in every accident of life, or for grace and strength to per- form it ; for deliverance from temptation, or for persever- ance to the end, and final deliverance from evil and the Evil one ; for the well- being of the Church, or for the conversion of the Hea- then. The different para- phrases of it, such as Bishop Wilson's or St. Augustine's, draw only single draughts of living water out of its deep well. Whatever long- ing be in the mind, all the words accord with it, and express it more deeply than any other. This main, earnest, long- ing of the heart becomes, as it were, the key note to the whole prayer. As is the key note, so will be the whole harmony. The me- lody made to God will be the same; but it may be joyous or plaintive, or flow forth stilly and equably. It may run through the whole compass of human feeling. The petitions for the hallow- ing of God's Name, the Coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will, supply of our needs, forgiveness for failures, strength propor- tioned to our trial, deliver- ance from evil in every cir- cumstance of man's long shifting being, express the one universal cry of the rational creature to the Creator, of the redeemed to the Redeemer. He Who prepares the heart, and His ear hearkeneth thereto, Who knoweth our needs before we ask Him, Whose Ear is to our secret heart more than to our voice, will well discern the meaning of our longings, as they ascend to Him in that His Divine prayer. He Who heareth the raven's one cry for all its wants, will not fail to understand the heart's voice, if it ask that what it longs for should be according to His Will. In all and each, the soul speaks to the Father in the Son's own words ; and how, says St. Cyprian, should it be sooner heard ? There is nothing more mechanical in saying the To repeal the same prayer part of human nature. 81 Lord's Prayer seven times consecutively, than in say-; ing it seven times in the rourse of the public Service. They who have said it most : devotionally would most, miss it, the seventh or the' eighth time. The mental! application of the Lord's ; Prayer may be as varied as \ our wants. Our Lord Him- self taught us, by His own Example, in that most bit- ter hour of His Agony for | us, that, in trouble which overwhelms the soul, we. need not look about for! many words in which to tell our Heavenly Father our sufferings and our needs. ' " He left them, and went away again, and prayed the' third time, saying the same | words." Or if, again, one may on such a subject refer to the simplicityof childhood, since j our Lord sets it forth to us as a pattern, they, when] they would plead most earnestly with their parents, \ repeat the same words. It is not then, at least, arti- ficial to do so. We have all felt how touching, or how hard to refuse, the sim- ple earnestness was, which used no argument, save that of love, and the anxious re- petition of its wish in the same simple words. Again, human poetry, it may well be supposed, ap- peals to fixed principles of human feelings, which it calls out. Yet in every sort of human poetry, which aims at encouraging, rous- ing, kindling man's energy, or which appeals to his ten- derer feelings, war-songs, boat-songs, ballads, political (such as the Jacobite) songs, (I need not mention more), no more forcible way, is found, than to repeat as the " burden" of the song some few simple, pathetic, or en- ergetic words. Yet this very poetry (it is the more to be observed) is intended to act mainly upon minds of the very same class, the simple and uninstructed. Some of us may still recol- lect the effect of some such tender cadence on our boy- ish or youthful hearts. Again, how, in the Psalms, which have always been so large a part of the prayers of the Church, is the same thought expressed, accord- ing to the very structure of the verse, in the two divi- sions of it, on the very ground that the petition becomes more earnest by being repeated. It is the very structure of devotion, as used by sacred poets, speaking " as they were 82 The same thoughts and words repeated in the Psalms moved by the Holy Ghost." It is used alike in joy and in sorrow, in penitence and j thanksgiving, in earnest ap- peals to God, or in over- flowing gladness. It is this very principle, which gives ' the deep pathos to the struc- ture of the Psalms. At j times, the words are the ! very same ; more commonly the thought is varied slightly in words, so as to give va- riety to the mind, yet the substance of the thought is the same. And this, we may ob- serve, is especially the cha- racter of the very deepest Psalms, if one may so speak, Psalms which touch or stir the very deepest depths of our hearts. Such are, e. g. the penitential Psalms ; the rhythm of which is often, in this very respect, much more striking in the He- brew : — " Do not in Thine anger rebuke me, And not in Thy wrath chasten me ; Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for weak am I ; Heal me, O Lord, for troubled are my bones. 1 ' Or in Psalm xxxviii. : — " For Thine arrows sink down in me, And thine Hand sinketh down upon me. No health in my flesh from the presence of Thy wrath ; No soundness in my bones from the presence of my sin. For my wickednesses are gone over my head Like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me." It would be to transcribe I if some word were slightly the Psalter to give in- \ altered. But perhaps, it stances 8 . So extensive is might be true to say, that this principle of what is this repetition of the thought called " Hebrew parallel- is most close when the deep- ism," that critics who allow est feelings are uttered, whe- themselves liberties as to ther of sorrow, suffering, or the sacred text, have not ' of peace. It occurs alike unfrequently proposed to; in Ps. vi. xxii. xxiii. xxv. alter it, when the two lxxxviii. lxxxxix. xcii. xcvi., members of the sentence in the deep penitence of do not seem to express the ' Ps. li., the trusting over- same thought, but would, | whelmed sorrow of Ps. cii., 8 Lowth gives instances under the head lelism." Prelim. Diss, to Isaiah, p. xv. sqq. Synonymous Paral- that they may sink the deeper in the soul. S3 or the exulting joyousness I of Ps. ciii., or Ps. cxlvii. — cl. But, besides this general law, verses or parts of verses are directly repeated in the ; Psalms and in Isaiah 9 , as the expression of a con- tinued abiding feeling, and a means of promoting it in those who use them. No one can have read Ps. xlii. 5. 11, and xliii. 5, without feeling how much is added by the three-fold repetition of the self-expostulation and firm resolve, " Why art thou cast down, O my soul ? and why art thou disquieted with- in me ? Hope thou in God : for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." And this because it is ex- pressive of a truth, that the soul after having been lifted up to God, still sinks down again through its natural heaviness. Twice the Psalm- ist lifts it up out of oppres- sive heaviness ; the third time amid rising hope. The tenderness of the Psalms, whereby God teaches us amid heavy disquiet to turn to Him, would have been much diminished had not the same tender words been thrice repeated. So, again, in that affecting prayer for the Church, the Vine which God had planted and nourished, and then al- lowed to be wasted, all will have felt the threefold appeal to God, " Turn us again, O Lord God of Hosts, show the light of Thy Counte- nance, and we shall be whole," which is varied only in the titles given to God, expressive of increasing hope, "O God," "O God of Hosts," " O Lord God of Hosts 1 ." Yet the like repetition of joyous words, equally give vent to exulting joy, as in Ps. lxvii. 3. 5, " Let the people praise Thee, O God ; let all the people praise Thee;" and in the twofold, " The Lord of Hosts is with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge 2 ." Who has not felt, at least on the morning of the As- cension, that triumphant burst ? — " Lift up your heads, ye . And be ye lift up, ye e\ ■ And the King of Glory shall come in. 9 c. ix. 12. 17.21. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His Hand is stretched out still." i'Ps. lxxx. 3. 7. 19. 2 Ps. xlvi.7. g 2 11, 84 Repetition in Festival Psalms also. "Who is the King of It is the Lord stron< Even the Lord migl And then, who has not fol- lowed upwards that repeti- tion, as though he heard the echo of that first marvelling question and response, sounding from Heaven to Heaven, as our Lord as- cended in our Human Nature amid the admiration I Glory? r and mighty, ity in hattle." and awe of the Heavenly Hosts, to the Right Hand of the Father, until the wondrous tale of the conde- scension of our God had encircled the whole compass of spiritual being, now made one in Him ? — Lift up your heads, ye gates, And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors And the King of Glory shall come in. Who is the King of Glory? Even the Lord of Hosts. He is the King of Glorv." Again, another Ascension Psalm is surely the more triumphant, because it be- gins and ends with the same words of praise, " O Lord 3 our Governor, how excel- lent is Thy name in all the world !" And an Easter Psalm (so much does this repetition occur in joyous Psalms) closes the two halves of prayer and of deliverance with the same verse : " Set 1 up Thyself, O God, above the heavens, j and thy glory above all the j earth." In other cases 5 the , two verses correspond with one another; but there is some slight variation in the J words, without impairing the effect of the whole. The most systematic Psalm, however, of this sort, is Psalm cxxxvi.; but still not as an insulated case. It contains the very words of Ps. cxxxv.4. 10— 12, but separates them by its own peculiar "burden," "for His 3 Ps. viii. 1. 9. 4 Ps. lvii. 6. 12. 5 Ps. xlix. 12. 20 (where the variation is but of a single letter, vV Pl'O and Ps. xcix. 5. 9, where the first and last clause is the same with a remarkable cadence, in the Hebrew. Again, in Ps. cxiv. 5, 6, the Apostrophe to the sea, the Jordan, the mountains, the hills, is much more emphatic, because exactly the same words are used as in ver. 3, 4. For His mercy endureth for ever" used at all times. 85 mercy endureth for ever." And none, probably, have heard that twenty-sevenfold hymn of praise, " for His mercy endureth for ever," i brought out by music (with which the Psalms were sung in the temple- service), with- out feeling the force of a few simple words, repeating j again and again, unvary- ingly, the unvarying love of God. And these very ! words, which form its bur- den, " for His mercy endur- eth for ever," must have entered very deeply into all Hebrew Psalmody. They are the characteristic of the temple music which David appointed. They form the close of the Psalm delivered by David when he brought back the ark ; he chose the singers to " give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good ; for His mercy endureth for ever 6 ." When Solomon brought up the ark, it was " when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying, For He is good ; for His mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord 7 ." It again was the praise when the fire came down to con- sume the burnt-offering ; " they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised the Lord, saying ; For He is good : for His mercy en- dureth for ever 8 ." Jeho- shaphat, going out to battle with the great multitude of ; the Ammonites, " appointed singers unto the Lord, and j that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord ; for His mercy endureth for ever 9 ." After the restoration from ! the captivity, " they sang together by course in prais- ing and giving thanks unto the Lord ; because He is good, for His mercy en- dureth for ever toward ' Israel V All must have observed, how the Psalter, which be- gan with the calm declara- tion of the blessedness of the man, who keepeth from evil and delighteth in the law of God, becomes more joyous at its close 2 , until the last Psalm but one, be- 6 1 Cliron. xvi. 34. " 1 Clnon. xvi. 41. 2 Clnon. vii. G ; v. 13. 8 2 Chron. vii. 3. 9 2 Cl.ron. XX. 21. 1 Ezra hi. 11. 2 p s . cx lv.— cl. 86 The same words repeated very often in Anthems : gins with the sevenfold 3 ,[ for in Thy sight shall no " Praise ye the Lord, Praise man living be justified," or, Him ;" and the last with its in a different style, the thrill- twelvefold, "Praise ye theiing anthem which closes Lord, Praise Him," sounds | with " The fear of the Lord, like the endless song of the! that is wisdom, and to de- blessed, and our earthly part from evil, that is un- Psalter dies away in the derstanding;" or, again, sound, " Let all spirit praise that swelling burst of praise, the Lord;" not flesh any " We thank Thee, we thank longer, but " spirit," when ; Thee, we thank Thee, and we shall be made like unto bless Thy Glorious Name ;" His Glorious Body, and all — none can, I think, have shall be spiritual and filled listened to them without with the fulness of God. J feeling how touching, or But again, that twelvefold soothing, or devotional, or " Praise ye the Lord " must ' penetrating an effect the have dwelt on many hearts, | varied repetition, again and who unknowingly speak j again, of the same words of against the repetition of the Holy Scripture may have, same words. The memory of the cadence, This has been carried yet as of a soul passing into further by sacred music, everlasting peace, "peace, It is the very basis of our ' peace," dwells in the mind anthems, and what are tech- nically called " services ;" yet these have their basis in a law of nature. Few, however little they may un whenever the words occur : and the words, " In Thee Alone," " We trust Alone in Thee," furnish one deep varied rest and repose in derstand of music (as my- God Himself, in God Alone, self), can have heard Han- Thus, from the simple utter- del's anthem, dwelling ten- ance of childhood to the derly on the few simple deepest knowledge of the words, " Lord, we trust I mystery of sound, whereby alone in Thee," or that' it moves the inmost soul, which closes with " God there is one principle of the shall give his people the ! power excited over the mind blessing of peace," or that, ! by the earnest repetition of " Enter not into judgment the same simple words, with Thy servant O Lord,] For the sake of illustra- 3 See Bible Version. its power over the mind. 87 tion, I will set down the words as they are actually sung. It is the character of the music of all the cathe- dral or mother churches in our Church. If it did not have an effect in raising the soul to God, elaborate music in God's house would be profane. Yet this has been the fruit of the study of de- vout minds ; and it has a powerful effect upon devout minds. No idea of the effect of varied voices, of the ris- ing and falling of the sounds, the fulness of a chorus, or the tenderness of a single voice, can of course be giv- en, except by the ear itself. I would here only set before the mind, the repetition of the same devotional words as an acknowledged princi- ple in our Church. Some might be able to conceive the deep pathos. " O Lord, we trust :ilone in Thee, alone in Thee, alone, alone in Thee we trust, in Thee <> Lord, in Thee O Lord, O Lord we trust in Thee alone/ 1 This is so sung by one voice, and then repeated with full chorus. " Enter not into judgment with Thy servant <) Lord, tor in Thy sight, for in Thy sight, for in Thy Bight shall no man living be justified, for in Thy Bight, for in Thy Bight shall no man living he justified." (Three time-.) Chorus : " Now 4 therefore, our God, we thank Thee, we thank Thee, we thank Thee, O God; we thank Thee and praise Thy glorious Name, we thank Thee and praise Thy Name, and praise Thy Name, and praise Thy Name, We thank Thee, we thank Thee and praise Thy glorious Name, we thank Thee, we thank Thee, we thank Thee and praise Thy glorious Name, Thy glorious Name, we thank Thee, we thank '1 nee () God, we thank Thee, we thank Thee () ^abiour of tfje toorltr. " JESU, Thou Thy triumph ended, To the Heaven of Heavens ascended, Tak'st the Crown Thy pains have won : Oh, that 1 Thyself may gain, Cheer my course, my steps sustain, Till my earthly race be run. © sratuour of tfje toot'Ur." To myself, this inter- { devotional than the uninter- change of the hymns, and rupted, rapid transition from the earnest prayer in prose, the subject of one stanza to would make the whole more j that of another ; in which 9 Advertisement to the Paradise, p. xii. 1 Paradise, § vi. p. 58. "Rosaries," to muse on God in deeper love and praise. 99 way each succeeding thought often effaces that which pre- ceded it. I may insert here what I said on this in my Preface to that Part :— " Almost the only alter- ation in this Part is the sub- stitution either of the Gloria Patri or of the solemn Invo- cation in the Service for the Visitation of the Sick ; the former as a Thanksgiving to the Holy Trinity for the mystery of man's redemp- tion ; the latter a deep cry for mercy, especially at that last hour, to Himself, our Redeemer, by that love whereby He redeemed us. The object of these pauses in the different devotions in which they occur, is to con- centrate the soul upon the previous mystery or act of our Blessed Lord's Life or Passion, in order that the meditation suggested may take deeper hold of the mind, and the heart, gather- ing itself up, pour itself out in more fervent love. For the rapid transition from one mystery to another, without any pause, would probably, for the most part, rather confuse the mind than penetrate deeply into it. It might even simply accustom it to the thoughts, and diminish the hope of awakening that deep yet tender reverence with which these mysteries should be dwelt upon. These sacred forms, then, whether prayer or praise, are no mere repe- tition, except so far as the object of the prayer is the same Saviour, the thanks- giving is the foretaste of the .endless Alleluia to the In- j finite Object of all love, and [adoration, and praise, the I Holy Trinity. The subject of prayer or praise is men- tally varied by each stanza I or collect; and the soul in each (as in our Litany) pleads to its Redeemer some fresh act of His own mercy; or (although in the same words) renders thanks- givings ever new as His mercies." For these devotions I re- tained the title "rosary," because I found it. I hesi- tated about it, because it is so often connected with the use of the Ave-Maria. 1 '. finally kept it, because it j was not necessarily connect- ed with those devotions : those devotions were alto- gether excluded from my edition, and others substi- tuted 2 for them. In the 3 I did not say for what these were substitutions, lest I should H 2 100 Actual Rosaries not encouraged, yet harmless. book itself, it was plain what was meant by a Ro- sary; and until this unex- plained allusion to it, in Mr. Dodsworth's letter, no one misunderstood it. As for the use of the string of beads, called a Rosary, these devotions could not be used with them. They need no such external help, and do not even admit it. Another form 3 of these devotions does allow of it, in that the same words are repeated ten times succes- sively, " Hail, most sweet Lord, Jesus Christ, full of grace, with Thee is mercy ! Blessed is Thy most holy Life, Thy Passion and Thy Blood which for us Thou sheddest — in Thy Circum- cision; in Thine Agony," &c. I might venture to say that none can tell whether such repetitions would or would not increase his de- votion, without using them ; nor does it follow, that, be- cause they would not aid him, they would not be helpful to others. But as to the actual " rosary," I may have been asked by some five or six persons, who had them, whe- ther there was any harm in using them ? I ascertained from these, what devotions they used with them, and that there was nothing in those devotions, foreign to the character of the English Church. I know not how I could discourage a form of devotion which they had found useful to them in fixing their attention. Pri- vate devotion is left free every where. Surely a priest would not be entitled to in- terfere with a form of devo- tion in itself indifferent, but through which the soul of the individual was more fixed upon God. But I myself never recommended the use of a rosary in this sense. On the other hand, I have on different occasions in pub- lic, and very often in private, spoken against, discourag- ed, and prevented the use of any devotions except to God Alone. I may repeat here suggest its use. It was chiefly the Ave-Maria, but also another Invocation of the Blessed Virgin. 3 It has been noticed to nie that, in the Rosary of the Holy Trinity, mentioned above, p. 97, the use of the actual Rosary is spoken of. This I had forgotten when writing the letter. But the principle there maintained remains the same. Persons cannot mean, under the word Rosary, to which they object, devotions taken from Holy Scripture and the Gloria Patri. [Ed. 2.] Devotions to the Blessed Virgin, discouraged. 101 what I said in the Preface to the Paradise, which I have already quoted, for which I have been already censured by some who have left the English Church. " I have, in every case, omitted all mention of the Invocation of Saints. For, however it may be ex- plained by Roman Catholic controversialists, to be no more than asking the prayers of members of Christ yet in the flesh, still, in use, it is plainly more ; for no one would ask those in the flesh to ' protect us from the ene- my,' 'receive us in the hour of death,' ' lead us to the joy of Heaven,' ' may thy [the Blessed Virgin] abun- dant love cover the multi- tude of sins,' ' heal my wounds, and to the mind which asketh thee, give the gifts of graces 4 ,' or use any of the direct prayers for graces which God Alone can bestow, which are com- mon in Roman Catholic de- votions to the Blessed Vir- say the 'gin. No one can look un- controversially at such oc- ■ casional addresses, as there i are to martyrs in the fourth century, (and those chiefly prayers at their tombs through their intercession for miraculous aid of God) and such books as ' the Glories of Mary,' ' the Month of Mary,' and that the character of modern reliance on, and in- vocation of Saints was that : of the Ancient Church. ( No one could (it should be thought) observe how i through volumes of S. Au- gustine or S. Chrysostom, there is no mention of any reliance except on Christ Alone ; and how in modern I books, S. Mary is held out as * the refuge of sinners,' j as having ' the goats com- mitted to her, as Christ, the sheep,' as ' the throne of grace' to whom a sinner may have easier access than :to Christ 5 , and seriously say that the ancient and modern teaching and prac- 4 Or say, ' If I walk through the midst of the shadow of death, I Will feat no evil, for she is with me. If war arise against me, in this will I be confident If my father and mother forsake me, the Mother of my Lord shall take me up.' 5 " Christ is not our Advocate only, hut a Judge : and since the just is scarcely secure, how shall a sinner go to Him, as an Advo- cate? Therefore God has provided us of an advocatress, who is gentle and sweet, in whom nothing that is sharp is to he found." — Antonin. quoted by Taylor, Dissuasive, 1. ii. 8. 102 Devotions to S. Mary would be a new revelation. tice are the same. We could preach whole volumes of the sermons of S. Augustine or ; S. Chrysostom to our peo- ; pie to their edification and : without offence: were a; Roman Catholic preacher to confine himself to their' preaching, he would (it! has been said among them- selves) be regarded as ' in- 1 devout towards S. Mary,' ! as * one whose religion was more of the head than of J the heart.' The Editor' then, has not ventured even! upon the outskirts of so vast a system, which, even according to Roman Catho- lic testimony which he has had, does practically oc- casion many uninstructed minds to stop short in the mediation of S. Mary, when Holy Scripture is not even alleged, (as no text for the invocation of saints either is or can be quoted by Ro- man Catholic controversial- ists,) and primitive antiquity is equally silent, (now that passages as to S. Mary once attributed to S. Athanasius, S. Augustine, S. Ephrem, S. Chrysostom, under the shadow of whose great names this system grew up, are ac- knowledged to be spurious,) and the language of great fathers (as S. Cyril of Alex- andria) has to be explained away ; there was no autho- rity to which the Editor dared to yield his faith. Taught by' the Church to receive that and that alone, as matter of faith, which was part of the ' good depo- sit,' ' once for all committed to the Saints,' and which had been held ' always, eve- ry where, and by all,' he did not venture to receive what was confessedly of a more recent origin, and whose j tendency seemed at variance I with Holy Scripture itself. \ While acknowledging the 1 authority of the Church in controversies of faith,' (Art. | XX.) he could not under- ! stand on what ground that vast system, as to S. Mary, could be rested, except that ; of a new revelation. * De- velopement ' must surely ap- 1 ply to the expression, not to the substance of belief. It must be the bringing out in words of what was always inwardly held ; the securing of the old, not the addition of any thing new. How- ever the language of the Church, on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, may have, in time, become more fixed and definite, any one would think it an impiety to ima- gine that S. John and S. Pe- ter had not received, and did J not deliver, all which has not part of the faith from the first, and so omitted. 103 ever since been believed. I He * who lay on Jesus' | Breast,' and he on whose confession of faith the Church was built, could not ; be ignorant of any thing be- I longing to that faith G . Nei- ther can it be believed that they withheld any thing be- longing to that faith 7 . To imagine either, was, of old, accounted to be ' subjecting 8 j Christ to reproach.' Yet, it seems inconceivable that S. Peter, S. John, and S. Paul should have believed what is now earnestly taught and believed upon authority within the Roman Church, as to the present office of the Blessed Virgin, or that, believing it, they could have written as (e. g.) S. Paul j wrote through the Holy Ghost, in the Epistle to the ' Hebrews ; or that, if Al- mighty God had willed it to be believed in the Church, it should have been so ex- cluded from Holy Scripture, and the doctrine itself not have appeared for centuries. The editor then, in a former work, while excluding invo- cations, admitted what was involved in the word 9eor6- koq, as sanctioned by an (Ecumenical Council, to whose authority the English Church yields unquestion- ing submission. In the pre- sent he has omitted the whole second section 'of the Worship and Veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary ! ' And, generally, for members of the English Church, who desire the prayers of the de- parted, it has to him ever seemed safest to pray for them 9 to Him, * of Whom and through Whom and to Whom are all things,' our God and our All, Who, ac- cording to the current Ro- man explanation also, re- veals to them the desire of those below to have their prayers." And now, my Lord, I might venture to ask any one who has read or repeated 6 ' For after tli.it our Lord arose from the dead, ami they were endued with the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon them from on high, they were fully filled as to all things, and had perfect knowledge. 1 ' It is unlawful to say that they preached before they had perfect knowledge. 1 8. Iren. 3. 3. 1. ( According to these [the heretics] Peter was imperfect; imperfect also the other Apos- tles. And were they to live again, they must needs become the disciples of these, that they too may become perfect. But this were absurd. 1 ll». 1_. 7. See also in the Bame hook ii. ult. 7 Id. iii. 3. 5. s Tert. de Pneser. Haer. c. 22. 9 I meant u express the desire for those prayers to God." 104 Different uses of Crucifixes. A Crucifix, or this statement about me, whether they imagined that this was all which was meant by the use of " rosaries" — forms of devotion, addressed to the Holy Trinity, or to our Lord, pleading to Him His own Life and Sufferings and Death, that He should have mercy upon us, and forgive our sins, or give us His Graces ? Of the same nature, I doubt not, is the misappre- hension as to "the use of crucifixes." A crucifix may either (1) be worn near the heart, to remind us of Jesus Christ and Him Crucified ; or (2) it might be used to fix the attention, by the sight of his sufferings for us, or to move the affections of love and contrition, by beholding Him as crucified for love of us ; or (3) it might be an object not of reverence only (as any re- presentation of our Lord must be), but of worship. I suppose that this last is what would be commonly suggested to the minds of | English people. We, or at least English women, wear the pictures of those they love. The miniature portrait of a child J lis worn, full often, in me- mory of one out of sight. ' Is it then a strange thing, | that Christians should wear, unseen by man, the Human resemblance of Him Who ! died for them, to remind them, by its very touch, Whose they are, Whom they should obey, recalling their forgetfulness, (even as ! does the grave look of an ! elder friend,) or, speaking I to them, without words, unheard by others, remind- ing them of His love for [them, that Christ died for jus sinners ? The objection cannot be j merely to representations of our Lord. Pictures of the Crucifixion abound every where. If any representa- tion of our Lord were wrong, all would be. None are wrong in themselves. This is what I thought it right to explain. While substituting in " the Spirit- ual Combat," the words "representation of Christ Crucified" for " Crucifix,'* in order to suggest rather the use of pictures, I said, "Neither 1 the use of the Crucifix, nor of the pictures of the Crucifixion, which are more common among ourselves, can be in any Spiritual Combat, p. 198, note. ed. 2. picture of Crucifixion, not against 2nd Commandment. 105 way regarded as contrary to 1 the second Commandment, when used to set before the eyes the Divine love and Sufferings of our Crucified Lord. For what is forbid- den in that Commandment is to make for ourselves any likeness of God : but to represent Christ Crucified is but to exhibit the Human Form which for us and our salvation He Himself took." It may remove the preju- dice of some, that in this I had the remarkable con- currence of Dr. Arnold -. who was naturally biassed in quite a contrary direc- tion, yet was so alive to the truthful impressions of hu- man nature. I do indeed think that it is unwise and uncharitable needlessly to go against even mistaken prejudices. And for this very purpose I sub- stituted, as I said, the words " a representation of Christ Crucified " for " the Cruci- fix." Strange it is, that while, not the Lutheran only, but the united Lu- theran and Reformed bodies in Prussia, have the Crucifix upon their Communion Ta- ble, the very name of a Crucifix amongst us awak- ens only thoughts of idola- trous worship. There can, in principle, be no difference between the Picture of the Crucifixion and the Figure of Christ Crucified ; both alike set before our eyes Christ Crucified ; the pic- ture ordinarily, by aid of colour, sets forth His Sa- cred Form and Countenance, and the Eyes which seem almost to look on those who look on Him, more vividly to the mind. Yet pictures of the Crucifixion are re- ceived and beheld by all with reverence and love ; the Crucifix, with dread of some wrong design in it. This feeling, although 2 Life of Dr. Arnold. (Quoted by Mr. Bennett, Letter to Lord J. Russell, p. 36, 37.) Dr. Arnold says, too broadly indeed, " the second commandment is in the letter utterly done away with by the fact of the Incarnation. " This it is not, for worship would be for- bidden now as then. But Dr. Arnold limits his words in the con- text (as I did myself) to the making to ourselves representations of Almighty God, although the language is somewhat crude. "God (he says) has sanctioned one conceivable similitude of Himself, when He declared Himself in the Person of Christ." He who had seen the Son in the Flesh had soon the Father; yet then, too, they saw only "the Form of a servant, " which God the Son took, not His Invisible Godhead, nor anv "similitude of the Father." 106 Worship of images alone forbidden by the Church. inconsistent, I thought it right to respect. I could not, when asked, but say (as I said in the note above quoted, and as Dr. Arnold said), that the Crucifix in itself was not forbidden by the second Commandment ; for the second Command- ment forbids us to make to ourselves any likeness of the invisible God ; the Crucifix represents not the Son, in His Invisible Deity, but in " the Form of a servant," which He took for us, and in which " He became obe- dient unto Death, and that, the Death of the Cross." Nor do I know any thing to forbid an English clergy- man, either to wear such a memorial of His Crucified Lord himself, or to give it to others to wear, not osten- tatiously, but unseen by man, to recall the thought of Himself to them. But further, neither can I think it wrong for any one to pray, either with a picture of our Lord Crucified, or a Crucifix before him, so that it be used only to fix and deepen our thoughts of His Dying Love, and make it present to us. This also I have said, when asked. But as to this also, I have always spoken of the charity due to the prejudices of others. I need not say to your Lordship, that, not images, but the worship of images was forbidden either by the Council of Frankfort to which we appeal, or by the English Church. The Arti- cle says expressly "wor- shipping and adoration as well of images as of re- liques." Natural actions, tokens of love (such as Dr. Arnold speaks of 3 , and " rather envied the child," who, in simple devotion to its Lord, used them) are not " worship or adoration." Who has not seen one kiss the picture of one loved but absent ? Who, well-nigh, has not done it ? If then, any one, following the outward gesture of St. Mary Mag- 3 " In the crypt is a Calvary and figures as large as life, repre- senting the burying of our Lord. The woman who showed us the crypt bad her little girl with her, and she lifted up the child, about three years old, to kiss the feet of our Lord. Is this idolatry 7 ? Nay, verily it may be so ; but it need not be, and assuredly is in itself riijht and natural. I confess I rather envied the child." — Dr. Arnold's Life, ii. 402, quoted by Mr. Bennett. In the context Dr. Arnold says, very unguardedly, " It is idolatry to talk about holy Church," but Dr. Arnold, of course, meant a supposed abuse, not to condemn the Apostles' Creed. Use of pictures of the Crucifixion in suffering. 107 dalene, and in outward act, figuring himself like her, were to kiss this likeness of his Lord's Feet, I own, I could not count the action superstitious, nor to imply a temper alien from the English Church. I do believe, my Lord, that in this great conflict, in which the hearts of the peo- ple are to be won back to the depth of "the truth as it is in Christ Jesus," it is the part of Christian love to avoid, as far as it is con- sistent with the full main- tenance of the truth, what may deter others from re- ceiving it. We have to win hearts by the grace of God, and the power of His Spirit, and the might of His truth, and may well forego all which is not necessary. I did not wish to promote the use of Crucifixes, in the popular sense of that use. But I have seen, my Lord, in most excruciating pain, which flesh and blood could not have endured, how deep a comfort the well-known picture of the Crucifixion, by Guido, has been to the sufferer ; how the eye, in- stead of rolling in agony, has rested in peace on that Sacred Form. " "What are my sufferings compared to His ?" has been the sim- ple answer of the sufferer after a night of agony. " And we indeed justly :" has echoed in many a heart, in sight of the likeness of the outstretched and racked Form of JESUS. I have known how the dying suf- ferer has felt like the for- given robber by our Lord's side. I have known how, when the mind could in feverish illness form no prayer, the sight of a picture of Christ Crucified has been the one means of gathering the thoughts to Him, and been instead of books of prayer which the brain could no longer receive, or j the ear hear. I have known lit the outward support of | months and years of" intense suffering, and of the pains of death ; how suffering has been sanctified by the ever- present sight of those sanc- tifying Sufferings ; or how, in life, its presence has quickened the conscience, not to act unworthily of Him, or crucify Him again, jour Crucified Lord. I have not, then, thought I it wrong, my Lord, to give a Crucifix to be worn with- :in, upon the chest. I may myself have given it, in I some years, to some twelve or twenty friends who wished so to wear it. Since 108 All pictures of our Lord, alike lawful or not. pictures of the Cruci- ! all, it is "the Word become fixion, with all the aid of Flesh and dwelling among colour, are recognized in us." our Churches, I know not! Yet these are subjects, upon what principle I could 'now chosen for religious take upon myself to think distribution, " among the or declare a Crucifix un- middling classes, the poor lawful, so that it became Charity Schools, and Church not an object of worship or Missionary Societies," and a cause, of scandal. It is to take a slight indication of not of my own choice that '. the same return to natural I now defend the lawful use feeling among the dissenters of them thus publicly. also, I have, while writing And yet it cannot but be this, seen a recent edition of natural to every Christian Bogatzky's Golden Trea- heart, to love to behold re- sury, with the Crucifixion presentations of his Cruci- represented as by old paint- fled Lord. It cannot, dare ers, with St. John, His not, need apology, or de- Mother, and St. Mary Mag- fence. The principle, I must dalene, at its foot, and on repeat, is the same, whether the opposite page, a female we represent the Nativity, figure, kneeling, and praying the Flight into Egypt, our towards the Cross which she Lord's parents^ obedience to His Baptism, His is holding in her hand. Un- Mi- der the picture of the Cru- racles, Teaching, Blessing cifixion, there occur these little children, or His Agony lines — or Crucifixion. In each andi " Here at Thy Cross, my dying God, I lay my soul beneath Thy love ; Beneath the droppings of Thy Blood, Jesus, nor shall it e'er remove. " Should worlds conspire to drive me thence, Moveless and firm this heart should lie, Resolved (for that's my last defence) If I must perish, there to die." Nature is truer and more devout than theory or con- troversy. [Another example comes recommended to us by the memory of a name which Isaac Walton's simple nar- rative has embalmed to many of us, a Divine of much weight in his day, and highly Dr. Donne— Christ. Crucified on Anchors. 109 esteemed yet for the fresh- ness of his piety, Dr. Donne. "Not long before his death," says Walton 4 , " he caused to be drawn a figure of the Body of Christ extended upon an anchor 5 , like those which painters draw when they would present us with the picture of Christ cru- cified on the Cross ; his, varying no otherwise than to affix him not to a cross, but to an anchor (the em- blem of hope) ; this he caused to be drawn in little, and then many of those figures thus drawn, to be en- graven very small in Helitro- pian stones, and set in gold ; and of these he sent to many of his dearest friends, to be used as seals, or rings, and kept as memorials of him, and of his affection to them." Another account adds, that "at Mr. George Her- bert's death, these verses were found wrapped up with that seal which was by the Doctor given to him : — " When winds and waves rise highest, I am sure : This anchor keeps my faith, that me, secure V] 4 Life of Dr. John Donne, p. 75, 76. 5 Of which Dr. Donne would often say, " Crux mihi anchora, The Cross is my anchor. Remains of George Herbert, p. xxvi. 6 lb. pp. xxvi. xxvii. 110 The Wounds of our Lordforetold in the Old Testament. VI. The statement proceeds, — " and " [by recom- mending] " special devotions to our Lord, as e. g. to His Five Wounds." I own I was surprised, my Lord, when I first heard these devotions objected to, as something Roman. They can have nothing in common with any thing peculiar to the Roman system. They are founded on the doctrine of the Incarnation, the union of our Blessed Lord's two Natures in His One Divine Person. They are borne out by the words of Holy Scripture, " the Blood of God." Those words, also, of the Prophet Zechariah, " What are these wounds in Thy Hands ? Then He shall answer, Those with which I have been wounded in the house of My friends," have been in a secondary sense interpreted of Him, the thought of Whom was ever in the minds of the Pro- phets, and, still more, " the testimony of" Whom "is the spirit of prophecy." The next words speak of the Death of our Lord and God, of that Man, Who is, as God, the Equal of the Lord of Hosts. " Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, and against the Man Who is My Fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts." The piercing of the Hands and the Feet is especially pointed out in that deep Psalm of the sufferings of our Lord, the 22nd : surely, not only to foretel a fact and the mode of His suffering; but that we may, in repeat- ing the Psalm, dwell in adoring love on the details of His Passion which He endured for us. " Christ's Passion," says St. Augustine, " is set forth as clearly as the Gospel." We behold Him, speak of Him, in His Very Person, just as if we were on Mount Calvary, and were, with the Beloved Disciple, standing by His Cross. The Holy Ghost, in the Psalms, puts into our own mouths the Suf- ferings of our Lord, that we may reverently suffer with Him. Whose heart, I may ask, has not, at some time at least, ached, when he Ps. xxii. pictures the Passio7i before our eyes. Ill repeated the words, "My' God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken ME ?" And ; then the Psalm tells of His Sufferings, not as heheld only, as the Gospels do, but as endured, as felt by Him Who for us endured them. It tells us not only in our Lord's own Person, of the Piercing the Hands and the Feet, and how He was naked there, "I may tell all My! Bones ; " the mocking of those who stood b) r , the very words which they so| strangely fulfilled by using! them; His thirst, "My tongue cleaveth to My, gums;" the parting His raiment and casting lots upon His Vesture; but it! even sets before our eyes one detail which must have been true, but is not men- tioned in the Gospels, the racking and dislocating of His Human Frame upon the Cross : "All My Bones are out of joint," literally, [ " are severed one from the other." But, besides this, ! the picture-like character of the Psalm is observable. ; The Gospels mention the^ " wagging the head ; " the Psalmist fills up the picture : "All they that see Me, laugh Me to scorn : they shoot out their lips, and shake their heads ; " and " They | gape upon Me with their mouths," " They stand star- ing and looking upon me." It pictures too His Blessed Form, (as the ancient paint- ers were wont, perhaps from this Psalm, to repre- sent it,) dried up and ema- ciated : " My strength is dried up like a potsherd." " I may tell all My Bones." It tells us, as from Himself, what cannot be pictured, the Anguish which he al- lowed to affect His Human Heart, " My Heart in the midst of My Body is even like melting wax," that our hearts may reverently feel with His, because He en- dured for love of us. Surely when our Lord's Sufferings are so set before us, both in the Psalm and in the Gospels, it must be meant that we should dwell upon each portion of them, upon every pang which en- tered into them. " Such," I said, " is the real contemplation of love. Think we not that such must it have been to those who were on Calvary, love riveting them, while each awful infliction pierced the soul with a sword, and up- holding them to endure the pain it gave ? But since His love comprehended us, as though we were there, 112 Love contemplates each deed or word in His Passion. and He beheld us, one by one, from the Cross, and loved us, and shed that precious Blood for us, and each pang was a part of the Price of our Redemption, how must not a living faith, ' the evidence of things un- seen,' be present with Him, and behold the Crucifixion, not 'afar off,' but as brought by the Holy Gospels to the very foot of the Cross, and, if not standing there with His Blessed Mother and the beloved Disciple, yet kneel- ing at least with the penitent who embraces It ? To Love, nothing is of small account. Human love finds a separate ground of love, a separate meaning and expression of that inward, holy loveliness which wins it, impressed on every part even of the pure visible frame of what it loves. Grief loves to recall each separate action, and token of love or holiness, and muses upon them, and re- volves them on all sides, to discover the varied bearings of what yet is finite. How much more when the Object of Contemplation is Infinite, and that of love ! When the Passion was 'the book of the Saints,' they contem- plated it letter by letter, and combined its meanings, and explored its unfathomable depths, the depths of the riches of the mercy and loving-kindness of God ; each Wound had its own treasure-house of the depths of Divine mercy, its own antidote to sin. They, in spirit, ' reached forth their finger, and beheld His Hands,' mightier to aid, because bound to the tree ; they felt themselves en- circled within the out- stretched, all-encompassing Arms of His Mercy ; they fell at His wearied and stiffened Knees, and their own 'feeble knees' were strengthened; they bathed with tears His transfixed Feet, that so He might for- give the mournful liberty and wandering wherewith their own had gone astray ; but chiefly were they ever drawn to the very Abyss of His unsearchable Love, His pierced Side and His opened Heart, there to ' draw of the fountains of salvation,' to ' drink that water, after which they should never thirst ' for aught beside ; there reverently to ' enter, and to penetrate to the in- most recesses of His bound- less Charity,' to ' enter into Its Chambers, and close its doors about them,' there to ' hide them in the secret of His Presence ' from the Angels worship our Lord in His Human Nature. 113 wrath to come. They wearied not of contem- plating His Wounds, His healing Stripes, His Words, because the unutterable love, of which they were the tokens, being Infinite, there issues from them an infinite attractiveness of love. And we may now behold those Wounds, not merely in their extreme humility and pain- fulness, but glorified ; and Tabor and Calvary are united, and 'the lifting up from the earth ' has been the Ascension to Glory, and His sacred Wounds have of the ' capacity of His Godhead: and His Heart, which is, ever open to receive us, can ! contain the sorrows, and ; hide and heal the sins of the whole human race." I need not say to your Lordship, (but some in these days may need to be re- minded,) that the Humanity of our Lord, being united in one Person with His Di- vinity, is One Object of adoration with His God- head. To others I may say, this doctrine lies in the words of Holy Scripture. " When He bringeth the Only Begotten into the world, He saith, And let all the Angels of God wor- ship Him." " This," says St. Chrysostom l , " is not said of God the Word, but of Christ according to the flesh. For since he was in the world, as St. John saith, and the world was 'made by Him,' how was he brought in, otherwise than in the Flesh?" And other Fathers 2 observe on the same word, " brought in," that " before the Incarnation, He had no- thing in common with the creature, as being God with- out flesh. But when he took flesh, then, having something in common with the creature, in that He united with Flimself some- thing created, He is said to be brought into the world." Again, when St. Paul says of our Lord, " that God very highly exalted Him, and gave Him a Name above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth," this must relate to His Hu- man Nature. As God, Co- equal and Co-eternal with the Father, He was ever in his Everlasting, Unchange- able Glory, which could as 1 Ad loc. quoted by Petav. dc Incarn. xv. 4. 2 S. Greg. Nyss. and 8. Cyril. Al. ap, Theophyl. ad loc. I 114 All things bow before our Lord's Humanity. little admit of increase as of diminution. For God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, IS unchangeably That HE IS. They are not three Gods, but One God. He did not, in His Incarna- tion, narrow Himself within the Body which, for our sakes, He took, so as not to be, as God, every where. He said of Himself when on earth, " the Son of Man, Who m in Heaven." " In that 3 He is the Word, He is in heaven ; in that He is Flesh, He is the Son of Man; in that He is the Word made Flesh, He is both of Heaven, and the Son of Man, and is in Heaven; because, first, the Power of the Word, abiding in no corporeal way, was not absent there, from whence It had come down ; and the Flesh had received its origin from no other source than from the Word ; and the Word made Flesh, whereas it was Flesh, did not, how- ever, cease to be the Word also." And again, " Where I am, ye cannot come." "For," says St. Augus- tine 4 , " Christ was accord- ing to His Visible Flesh, on earth; according to His invi- sible Majesty, both in Hea- ven and in earth." To God the Son, the Father gave no glory ; for He ever was in the Glory of the Father, " the Glory equal, the Ma- jesty Coeternal." It is then His Manhood, inseparable from His Godhead, before which all creation bows, Angels, Archangels, men and devils, in reverence or in terror. So also they who, when He in the flesh dwelt among j us, adored Him, adored Him not as man without the Godhead, nor yet the j Godhead apart from the Manhood, when they fell down at Jesus' Feet and worshipped Him. "We adore not," says St. Atha- nasius 5 , " a created thing, God forbid ! Such an error is for heathen and Arians. But we worship the Lord of the creation, the Word of God, incarnate. For al- though the flesh by itself is a part of creatures, yet it hath become the Body of God. And neither do we, severing such a Body from the Word, worship It by Itself; nor when we would worship the Word, do we set Him apart from the Flesh; 3 S. Hil. de Trin. x. 16. 4 Tract. 31, in Job. (vii. 34). 5 Ep. ad Adelpb. § 3, p. 912; ed. Bened. Our Lord's Humanity adored, when on earth. 11 but knowing, as we said be- 1 fore, that ' the Word was ! made Flesh,' we acknow- ledge Him, even when come' in the Flesh, to be God. Who then is so senseless,' as to say to the Lord, ' Re-j move from the Flesh, that) I may worship Thee?' or who so ungodly, as with the senseless Jews to say to Him on account of the Body, 'Why dost Thou, being Man, make Thyself God ? ' But not such was the leper. For he wor- shipped God being in the Flesh, and knew that He was God, saying, ' Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.' And neither on account of the Flesh did he think the Word of God a creature, nor because the | Word is the Maker of all! creation, did he set at nought ; the Flesh wherewith He was clad; but, as in a created temple, he worshipped the' Creator of all, and was| cleansed. So too the wo- man with an issue of blood, having believed, and only touched His hem, was heal- ed ; and the sea foaming up with its waves heard the Incarnate W'ord, and ceased ita tempest ; and the blind from his birth was healed through the spittle of the Flesh by the Word. And what is still greater and more wondrous, (for this too, perchance, offended those most ungodly) ; even when the Lord hung upon the Cross itself (for It was His Body and the Word was in It) 'the sun was dark- ened, and the earth trem- bled, and the rocks were rent, and the vail of the temple was rent, and many bodies of the saints who slept, arose.' " For 6 neither doth Crea- tion worship a creature ; nor again on account of the Flesh did it excuse itself from adoring its Lord, but it beheld its own Creator in the Body ; and ' at the Name of Jesus Christ did every knee bow, yea, and shall bow, of things in hea- ven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess (though the Arians think not good) that Jesus Christ is Lord in the glory of God the Father.' For the Flesh brought no disgrace to the Word; God forbid ! but rather Itself was glorified from Him." "Where 7 shall those un- godly find by Itself that Ep. ad Adclph. § 4. i 2 lb. § 5. 116 Our Lord's Wounds, the Wounds of God-Man. Flesh which the Saviour took, that they may venture to say, 'We do not worship the Lord with the Flesh ; but we separate the Flesh, and worship Him alone?' Assuredly, the blessed Ste- phen saw the Lord in Hea- ven standing at the Right Hand ; and the Angels said to His disciples, ' He shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven.' " We 8 know that ' in the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.' Him, having also become Man for our salva- tion, we worship, not as one equal, because become Man in a Body of equai nature, but as the Lord, having taken in addition the Form of a servant, and the Maker and Creator having come to be in the creature, that having in it delivered all, He might bring the world to the Father, and make all at peace, both the things in Heaven and the things on earth. For thus we both acknowledge His Godhead with the Father, and we worship His Incarnate Pre- sence." A Pious mind, then, can- not but, with great reve- rence, think of those Bless- ed Wounds, through which its own redemption was wrought by Him Who, being " God and Man, was One Christ," "not by con- version of the Godhead into | Flesh, but by taking of the j Manhood into God." [On this subject, too, I J am glad to add passages of Dean Jackson 9 , in which he expands those amazing words, " The Blood of God." "10. The Flesh and Blood which He [the Son of God] assumed and was partaker of, are as truly human, as man's flesh and blood are, and of the self-same nature that man's flesh and blood are of. And of such flesh He was to be as truly, as properly partaker, as we are. And yet it is neces- sary that the same flesh and blood which He assumed, be as truly and as properly the flesh and blood of the Son of God (who is by Nature God blessed for ever) as our flesh is the flesh, or our blood the blood of the sons of men. Other- wise, albeit the flesh and blood assumed by Him had been as truly, and as pro- perly human flesh and blood 8 Ep. ad Adelpb. § On the Creed, B. 7. s. 3. § 10, sqq. Our Lord's Blood human, yet His own as God. 117 as ours is ; yet could not I the Son of God have been as true and proper a par- taker of human flesh and ' blood as we sons of men are. For no party or person can as truly and really participate with ano- ther in that which is not his own by perfect right, as it is the other's who is par- taker of it with him. So then the Flesh and Blood of our Saviour Christ was truly and properly Caro huuunia, nondivina ; sanguis humanus, non divinus, not divine, but human flesh and blood ; and yet withal as truly and properly Caro Dei, and Sanguis Dei, the flesh and blood of God, as it was caro humana, sanguis kuma- nus, human flesh, and human blood : more properly the flesh and blood of God than the flesh and blood of man. For even the whole Hu- manity of Christ, as well the reasonable soul as the flesh, was and is the Hu-, manity of the Son of God. God saith the Apostle (Acts xx. 28.) hath purchased the Church, r<3 ici<:> cu/ian with His own proper Blood. Now if the Church be God's own, not by Creation only but by true purchase ; then the Blood by which He pur- chased it, was as truly His \ own, as our blood, or any thing within us, or without us, which we can own, is ours. But was it God's own Blood, after the self- same manner or measure that our blood is ours ? It was not in every respect, or after every manner His own so as our blood is ours ; yet His own by a more proper, more full and sove- reign title than our blood is any way ours. "11. Our flesh and blood may be said to be our own in two respects, either as it is a part of our nature, or an appurtenance of our person. In this last respect the Fruit of the Virgin's Womb was the Son of God's own sub- stance, the flesh and blood which He took from her were His, after a more ex- quisite manner, or in a fuller measure of the same man- ner, than our flesh and blood are our own. Our flesh, our blood, our limbs, are said to be our own, not so much or not so properly as they are parts of our nature, as in that they are either parts or appurtenances of our per- sons. That which is imme- diately annext or linkt unto our person, is by a more pe- culiar and soveraign right our own, than any thing whatsoever besides we do 118 The Blood of oar Lord His own by personal union. possess, or are Lords of; be! it Lands, Goods,or Servants. ! For whatsoever we possess, j being not thus annexed unto j our persons, are but exter- ; nals, their possession is com- municable, their property may be so alienated, as others may make as good use of them as we do. A man may be wronged in every thing that is his own, whereof he is by just title possessed, but the wrongs done to a man in externals, do not touch him so nearly as the wrongs done to his person, or to any part or ap- purtenance of it . . . Gene- nerally, whether we speak of men's actions or sufferings undertaken for our behoof, to the loss of blood or limbs ; we are not to value the one or other so much according to the physical property, or natural worth of the mem- ber lost or damnified, as ac- cording to the dignity of the person which voluntarily undertaketh such hard ser- vices for us. And thus we are to rate as well the indig- nities and pains which our Saviour suffered in body by the Jews or Roman soul- diers, as the anguish of his soul in that great conflict with the powers of darkness, neither according to the ex- cellency of His bodily con- stitution, or exquisite purity of His soul, but according to the inestimable dignity of His Divine Person, of which, as well His immaculate Soul, as his undefiled Body were no natural parts, but appur- tenances only. " Lastly, That proper Blood, wherewith God is said to have purchased the Church, was the Blood of the Son of God, the second Person in the Trinity, after a more peculiar manner than it was the Blood either of God the Father, or of God the Holy Ghost. It was the Blood of God the Father, or of God the Holy Ghost, as all other crea- tures are by the common right of creation and preser- vation. It was the Blood of God the Son Alone by perso- nal union. If this Son of God, and High Priest of our souls, had offered any other Sacri- fice for us than Himself, or the Manhood thus perso- I nally united unto Him, His : offering could not have been 'satisfactory; because in all other things created, the Father and the Holy Ghost had the same right or inte- rest which the Son had ; He could not have offered any thing to Them which were not as truly Theirs as His. Only the Seed of Abraham, or fruit of the Virgin's The Blood of Christ perished not, is united with him. 1 19 Womb, which He assumed into the Godhead, was by the assumption made so His own, as it was not Theirs, His own by incommunicable property of personal Union. | By reason of this incommu- 1 nicable property in the wo- 1 man's seed, the Son of God j might truly have said unto His Father, < Lord, Thou hast purchased the Church yet with My Blood :' but so | could not the man Christ' Jesus say unto the Son of! God. ' Lore], Thou hast paid the ransom for the sins of the world, yet with My Blood, not with Thine own.' " [This Blood was shed for us in each of His Precious Bloodsheddings. Dr. Jack- son says, in another place: 1 "Though Christ then was truly mortal when He died for us, yet the Blood that He shed forth for us, at His Death, did not become like water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered again. It did not vanish or consume as the blood of legal Sacrifices did. As His Body, so His Blood was, not to see or feel cor- ruption. Not a drop of Blood which was shed for us, whether in the garden or upon the Cross, but was the Blood of the Son of God ; but was shed by Him, as willing at this price to become the Everlasting High-Priest of our souls ; and not a drop of Blood which was so shed, did cease, or shall ever cease to be the Blood of the Son of God. His Soul and Body, we know, were disunited by death ; yet were neither of them disunited from His Godhead or Divine Person. His Body, whilst laid in the grave, was still the Body of the Son of God, as still re- taining personal union with His Godhead. So was His Soul, so was His Blood, the Soul and Blood of the Son of God, as being indissolu- bly united to His Divine Person. Though His Blood, whilst It was shed or poured out, did lose its physical or local union with His Body, though one portion of it were divided from another, yet no drop of it was divided from His Infinite Person." . . . . " Whether all and every portion of His Blood which was then shed, were, by the power of the God- head, re-collected and re- united to His Body, as His Body was to His Soul at the resurrection, we cannot tell ; God knows. But this i Book x. ch. 55. § 10, 11. p. 300, 1, 12. 120 Shedding of our Lord's Blood taught in all Sacrifices we know and believe, that the self- same Blood which was then shed, whether it were gathered together again, or remained dispers- ed, whether it were re-united to His glorified Body or di- vided from it, is still united to the Fountain of Life, to the Godhead in the Person of the Son. And being united to this Fountain of Life (who dwelleth in it, as light within the body of the sun), it is of efficacy ever- lasting; it hath an immor- tal power or force to dissolve the works of Satan in us, as well those which he worketh in us after Baptism as before. The virtue of it, to cleanse and purge us from our sins (of what kind so- ever) is, at this day, as sove- reign as if It had been sprinkled upon our souls whilst It issued out of His Body. It is impossible it should lose its vertue in or upon our souls, unless we first lose our interest in it, which we cannot lose but by abandoning the ways of light, and polluting our souls with the works of darkness. For so long as ' we walk in the light, the Blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God, doth cleanse us from all our sins.'" This present efficacy of Christ's Body and Blood upon our souls, or real com- munication of both, I find as a truth unquestionable amongst the Ancient Fa- thers, and as a Catholic Confession] My Lord, there is one very solemn subject to which I must refer, in connexion with this, belonging to the deepest mystery of our Re- demption, how Holy Scrip- ture lays especial weight not upon the Death of our Lord only, but upon the shedding of His Blood. To your Lordship I need not say, how through the Old Testament in type, and the Epistle to the Hebrews very specially, in reality, the shedding of Blood is in- sisted upon, as that which is atoning : " By the Death of One many became righteous." But the mode of that Atoning Death, as typified by God's appoint- ment, from the very gates of Paradise, was by the shed- ding of Blood. This was the special ground why the Blood was to be shed on the earth like water, not to be eaten. It is the life of the brute creation, which was offered to God, as an atone- ment for sin, and a type of the Blood of Christ. All sacrifices, types of the Aton- ing Sacrifice, (except the scape-goat, which was an as the one meaning of all. 121 image of the sin being car- ried quite away,) were with shedding of the blood. St. Paul sums up in few words the varied Hebrew ritual, which yet, because it was varied, set the more conti- nually before the eyes, that " without shedding of blood there was no remission." The animal varied : it was bullock, or heifer, or ram, or goat, or lamb, or turtle- dove, or pigeon. But in all alike the blood was shed. The mode of offering the blood was various. It was sprinkled on the four cor- ners of the Altar, or upon the side of the Altar, or poured forth at its base ; in the Holy Place, or in the Holy of holies ; on the altar of incense within the Holy Place, or upon, or before the Mercy seat ; or (in the case of the red heifer simply) "towards the tabernacle of the congregation seven times ;" or it was sprinkled or put upon the priest him- self, and his garments, and his sons, and his sons' gar- ments, or the people, or upon the lepers, or those with issues, or on the leprous house. St. Paul adds that " he sprinkled the book of the law," as well as the peo- ple, " saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover, he sprinkled like- wise with blood both the ta- bernacle and all the vessels of the ministry : And almost all things are by the law purged with blood : and without shedding of blood is no remission V That which was sprinkled every where, was Blood. The ends of the sacrifices were , various ; the Passover, and : the burnt-offering, and the j peace-offering, the sin-offer- ing of ignorance, for the j priest, the congregation, the ruler, or the private person, ; the trespass-offering or the sin-offering ; but in all the blood was sprinkled. And so we come to the New Tes- tament, the substance of these shadows, to Him Whom through these sha- dows, the devout under the I law looked on to, and was justified by bis faith in Him Who was to come. And there, j there meet us, not only that actual Sacrifice, and the his- tory of His Precious Blood- shedding in the Gospels, but all the statements of the efficacy, not of the Death only, but of the Blood of Christ. " Whom God hath set (forth to be a propitiation 3 Ilcb, ix. 20—22. 122 The Blood of Christ flowed from His Five Wounds, through faith in His Blood." " Much more then, being now justified by His Blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." " In whom we have redemption, through His Blood." " But now, in Christ Jesus, ye, who sometimes were far off, were made nigh by the Blood of Christ." " And, having made peace through the Blood of His Cross, by Him, to reconcile all things unto Himself." "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own Blood, He entered in once into the holy place." " How much more shall the Blood of Christ, Who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Him- self without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the liv- ing God ? " " Having, there- fore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the Blood of Jesus." " Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the Blood of the Covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing ? " " Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the Blood of the everlasting covenant." " Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctifica- tion of the Spirit, unto obe- dience and sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ." " And the Blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." •' Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His Own Blood." " Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for Thou wast slain, and hast redeem- ed us to God bv Thy Blood 4 ." This will be to all very plain. It is in every one's lips: may it be in their hearts ! But what I think that they who speak care- lessly about, or against those | devotions,do not dwell upon, is, "Whence did this atoning Blood flow?" It was the very characteristic of that Death, by which our Blessed Lord said that He should die, which the Psalmist fore- told long before, that His Hands and Feet should be pierced, and out of them flowed that Redeeming Blood. It was out of those 4 Rom. 14: x. 19. iii. 25; v. 9. Eph. ii. 13; i. 7. Col. i. 20. Heb. ix. 12. 29 ; xiii. 20. 1 Pet. i. 2. 1 John i. 7- Rev. i. 5 ; v. 9. redeeming, in His Life, mysterious, after Death. 123 very "Wounds, and those alone, which some would now forbid us to love, or to speak of, or to reverence, or to plead, one by one, to Him or to His Father. " The Precious Blood of Christ," of which Holy Scripture speaks, on which God Himself, from the very fall, fixed the eyes and the faith of our fallen race, is not a mere metaphor, (as the Socinians would have it). But since there was a special value in that precious Bloodshedding, must not those Wounds, opened for us, out of which it was shed, be precious in our sight ? It is to be said, too, that since that meritorious Blood- shedding must, in order to be meritorious, have been during His life, it was from His Sacred Hands and Feet and Head alone. When the Blood flowed mysteriously, and as a hidden mystery, from His Side, " it was finished." " Finished" was the atonement for sin. And yet then too, that flowing of His Blood with the water was a deep mystery, as Holy Scripture itself has so so- lemnly pointed out. It was a mystery not for that time only, but to abide. The Beloved Disciple, who says, " But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His Side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water : and he that saw it bare re- cord, and his record is true; ! and he knoweth that he | saith true, that ye might be- lieve," says also of the same, " There are three who bear record" — not who bore re- cord, but who bear record ' (ol /.utprvpovvrei;) " on earth, I the Spirit, and the Water, ' and the Blood ; and these three agree in one"; and by which He still " cometh," viz. by Water and Blood, the two sacraments through the Spirit 5 . It has been by an instinc- tive reverence and love, that moderns have been drawn most to the Wound in His Sacred Side, because, if it pierced not, it was nighest to, His Heart. That Sacred Side, as Holy Scripture has pointed out, had its own mystery. Its mystery was, (as the Ancient Church saw,) that those streams, which gushed forth thence, were the earnest of the mysteries through which our redemption is conveyed to us, in that we are, through those mysteries, the two great Sacraments, united to our Lord. From Himself 5 See further, Scriptural Doctrine of Holy Baptism, p. 293 sqq. 124 Depth of this Devotion. went forth " the Water whereby we are regenerated, the Blood whereby we are nourished 6 . " But the Blood, through which, Holy Scripture speaks, "we have redemption, even the remis- sion of our sins," had been poured out before, when He Himself willingly shed it for us in His Life. This is the principle of the devotions, which have been animadverted upon. This is their object, to dwell, one by one, on those wide- open Wounds, out of which, for our Redemption, He poured out His Blood ; to meditate on each shedding of His Blood, from " His Holy Circumcision," to the Blood and Water, which mysteriously flowed forth from His Side when He had given up the Ghost. To use again words which I said, in some explanation of them : — " It may be said, also, that the forms of de- votion, with reference to the several precious Wounds of our Lord, or the sheddings of His Atoning Blood, al- though hitherto unwonted among us, will, in this way of meditation, sink deeply into our hearts. Let any one bear in mind those words of Holy Scripture, ' the Blood of God,' know- ing also that in our Lord Christ the Godhead and Manhood were united in J One Person, so that in each act He was ' God Who made ! us, and ManWho sought us ; God with the Father ever, Man with us in time ; yet so Man as not to cease to be God,' — let any one, with this Article of our Faith deeply impressed, use meditatively I these devotions to our Lord, seeing Him with the eyes of \ his soul, enlightened by His 1 Spirit, on the very Cross, ! and he will find in them an intensity of melting yet hal- lowing devotion, bringing him to touch, handle, hide himself in those openings of His love, admitting him very reverently to touch His very Sacred Person, the prints of j His nails, and His pierced | Side, and in them to find unutterable peace and heal- ing." " Not a sparrow," our Lord saith, " falleth to the ground without your Fa- |ther." Since, then, as .matter of faith, nothing happens, even to us, without the Will and Eternal know- ledge of God, how must we ! not think of all which was J done in and towards that !Body, which God the Son 6 St. Chrvs. ad loc. Scripture records of special sheddings of His Blood. 1 25 inseparably united with Himself, at that awful hour of our Redemption, as un- speakably full of meaning ! It was, then, part of the Eternal Counsel of God, according to which " the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world," that He, in the form of a Servant, should there receive those five AVounds for us. Can it be wrong for Chris- tians, " bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh," to dwell reverently, one by one, on each act or suffering of that Redeeming love ? Again, it has been observed by thoughtful persons, that there were especially seven occasions upon which He shed that Precious Blood. "The Circumcision of our Lord " our Church keeps holy, that first early prelude of a life of woe for us. Then Holy Scripture spe- cially records how in His ! Agony there burst from His i Sacred Body great drops of Blood, falling to the ground, j Again, Holy Scripture, in! fact, speaks of the Blood- shedding in His scourging, ' when it says, "He was; wounded for our transgres- i sions, He was bruised fori our iniquities : the chastise- 1 ment of our peace was upon | Him, and with His stripes | we are healed." Again, the I Blood must have streamed from His Sacred Head when they plaited the Crown of thorns and put it on His Head, and struck Him with a reed. And when His garments, which had again been " put upon Him," that they might " lead Him away to crucify Him," and which were matted to His Sacred Body by the weight of the Cross, w r ere now rudely torn off from Him, there could not but follow the Blood from the re-opened Wounds. Then was the Crucifixion, for which he was thus anew bared : and the piercing of His Side. If any are more drawn to contemplate our Blessed Lord in His Infancy, as at this season, or where He sits in glory at the Right Hand of God, it does not hinder them that others behold Him in His Passion. But since these special shed- dings of His Blood are con- tained in Holy Scripture, and since the number seven is used, as a mystery, not only throughout the ritual appointed by God Himself in the Old Testament, but in the Revelations also, why may not those who find nourishment for their devo- tion in it, reverently dwell on those seven effusions of their Redeemer's Blood, 126 Look to our Lord's Passion, and speak, as seeing It. from the Body, which is and was the Body of God, and in which "He bare our sins upon the Tree ? " My Lord, let us quit for a little space all this tumult of these latter times, and turn aside to a scene, per- : haps of scarcely more tumult; and more sin, but where, there is One Form in Whom j to find rest. He, Who in that mangled Form, rent by | the Bloody Stripes through I which we are healed, is, stretched out upon the! Cross, " in Whom there is ' now no form or comeliness," ! so " marred is He more J than man, and His Form! more than the sons of men," is our God, " for us and for our salvation" become Man. [ "He was offered, because j he willed." That Hand, so ' often stretched forth in J Mercy to heal, or to bless, ! or to feed, He now willingly j stretches out to be riven by j the iron Nail. The stream of Blood shews that it is | done. He puts forth that other Hand, which could j have "destroyed those mur- derers," patiently and meek- j ly, to be nailed on that other Arm of the Cross, as One, J embracing in His tender ; Mercy the whole world. He willed that His Two Feet, ! wherewith " He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil," should, in like way, be bored through. And so He is fastened, in the sight of men, and devils, and angels, to die the sinner's death, and by dying to bruise him by whom His heel was bruised, to redeem sinful man to endless life, and set him, cleansed with His own Blood, with the Holy Angels in His own everlasting joy. These Holy actions of His Atoning Death surely, one by one, concern us. We would not be of those of whom it is said, " Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? " We would not speak of the Death of Christ, as an event only, by which our salva- tion was accomplished. We would behold it, as Psalmist, Prophet 7 , or Evangelists have set it forth to us ; we would gaze on, adore, and, by His Grace, love Him, in each particular Suffering which he underwent for us. Every pang of that Suffering must be of priceless value. Each has its own special mystery of love. We should kiss the hand of a human friend which had been torn in rescuing us. We should 7 Ps. xxii. ; Is. liii. Behold Jesus, suffering for thee. 127 cherish human wounds borne for us. How much more must we reverence His '■ Wounds, Who is God, and Who by them healed us everlastingly ! People could not speak, j as some do, of devotions, pleading to Him, or to His Father, the Saviour's five Blessed Wounds, if they would go to Calvary. De- vout minds, of every school, who meditate on the Pas- sion, meet at least in this. Let any one gaze for a few minutes on that wide- opened Hand, trickling (in Scripture-words) with " the Blood of God!" let him think of the agonizing pain which it sent back to his Saviour's heart, and this borne for him ! let him think how each several pain added to the pain of all besides, and was itself ag- gravated by all the pains, endured for him ! let his eyes but rest upon each Suffering of that Divine Form, yet now scarce hu- man, through suffering for us ; and will he not, must he not, feel a fresh tide of love poured out from every part of that Frame, which is well-nigh one wound, and bruise, and sore, as he was himself, from head to foot, through sin ? It is, I believe, my Lord, the cold abstract way of speaking and thinking of the Redemption, only as an act consummated, an Atonement made, instead of beholding Jesus Himself, then looking on, pitying, loving, praying for, us sin- ners ; Himself paying the price of our Redemption, Himself " bearing our sins in His own Body on the Tree," Himself healing us by His stripes — it is, I be- lieve, this tacit substitution of the Redemption for the Redeemer, which makes this language appear to some so strange. They cannot have contemplated His livid Hands, the thorns pressed into His Brow, and His calm Eye resting in love upon His own : they cannot have beheld closely, and looked upon that torn Frame, and watched the Blood whereby we are cleansed, distil, drop by drop, from each several Wound, until the last gushed forth from His pierced Heart ; and think it strange to beseech Him, in those Wounds to hide us, by that Blood to cleanse us. Let me turn for a time from " the Paradise" to one, ever loved in the Church for his tender, fervent devotion 128 The Wounds of our Lord our Peace. to our Lord. "In truth 8 , where, for the infirm, is firm and safe rest, save in the Wounds of the Saviour ? There I dwell the more securely, the more powerful He is to save. The world rageth ; the body oppress- eth ; the devil waylayeth. I fall not. For I am founded on the firm Rock. I have sinned a great sin. The conscience will be troubled, but not shaken ; for I will remember the Wounds of the Lord. For * He was wounded for our transgres- sions/ What so unto death, as not to be loosed by the Death of Christ ? If then this medicine, so powerful, so effectual, cometh to my mind, I can never more be terrified by the malignity of the disease." " So, then, he was clearly in error who said, ' Mine iniquity is greater than I can bear.' Save that he was not of the members of Christ, nor, through the Merits of Christ, did it be- long to him to claim as his own, to call his own, what is His, as the member doth what is the Head's. But as for me, what lacketh to me from myself I take fearlessly to me from the bowels of the Lord ; for His mercies flow richly to me, nor lack there clefts through which they may flow forth. ' They pierced His Hands and His Feet,' and with the lance bored his Side ; and through these clefts I may ' suck honey from the Rock, and oil from the flinty rock/ i. e. may 'taste and see that the Lord is gracious/ He coun- selled counsels of peace, and I knew it not. ' For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His Counsellor ?' But the piercing nail was to me an unlocking key, that I might see the will of the Lord. Why should I not look through the clefts ? The Nail proclaimeth, the Wound proclaimeth, that, of a truth, ' God is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself/ The iron passed through His Soul, and ap- proached His Heart, that it may not fail to know how to have a fellow-feeling with my infirmities. Wide open, through the cleft of the body, lies the secret of the Heart; wide open that great 8 S. Bernard, in Cant. Serm. 61, § 3, sqq. Other striking pas- sages from S. Bonaventura are given in the Preface to Surin, p. xxxiii.-vi. Blessed is it, to dwell there. 129 Sacrament of loving-kind- ness; wide open the bowels of mercy of our God, where- by the day-spring from on high hath visited us. Why this shall not the bowels be open through wounds? For where- in could it have been shown more clearly than in Thy "Wounds, that Thou, Lord, art good and gracious, and of great mercy ? For 'greater mercy hath no man, cover both. 'Thy Right- eousness is an everlasting Righteousness.' What is longer than eternity ? And lanre and eternal Righteousness will largely cover alike Thee and me. In me ' it covers a multitude of sins;' but in Thee, O Lord, what, but the treasures of love, the riches of goodness ? These are laid up for me in the than that one lay down his cleft of the rock. What life for' those sentenced and great abundance of Thy condemned to death. sweetness in them 'i "My merit, then, is the den,' but 'to those mercy of the Lord. I am perish!' Wherefore, not wholly bare of merit, so long as He is not of mercy. But if the mercies of the Lord are manifold, no less manifold am I in merit. For hid- who then, should ' what is holy be given to dogs,' or ' pearls to swine ?' But ' to us God hath revealed through His Spirit,' yea, and through ' where sin abounded, grace j open clefts, hath brought us did much more abound.'; into the Holy place. In And if 'the mercies of the these, what multitude of Lord are from everlasting to sweetness, fulness of grace, everlasting,' 'I,' too, ' will perfection of virtues ! sing of the mercies of the " I will betake me to those Lord for ever!' My own well-stored chambers, and, righteousness shall I?;at the Prophet's warning, Lord, ' I will make mention will ' leave the cities, and of Thy Righteousness only !' dwell in the rock.' I will For it is mine also; for Thou be like a dove making its wert 'made to me Right-! nest a * the very mouth of eousness from God.' Shall the Cleft, that being, like I fear that one [Righteous- j Moses, placed in the Cleft ness] shall not suffice both ? ' The covering' is not ' too narrow,' that, according to the Prophet, it should not of the Rock, I may find grace, when ' the Lord pass- eth by,' at least to ' behold His Hinder Parts.' K 130 Comfort to sufferers in thought of our Lord's. " Of [that soul] it is said, ' My Dove is in the Cleft of the Rock/ because, with its whole devotion, it is occupied with the Wounds of Christ, and by continual meditation, lingereth in them." Why should not any in any sufferings find their consolations (as they have found them), where St. Ber- nard says,— in the Wounds and Sufferings of our Lord ? Surely it is the most natu- ral and deepest of all conso- lations, to dwell on them. No suffering- can we know in any part of the whole frame, where He did not suffer, from His Sacred Thorn-crowned Head to His pierced Feet. This has given joy to suffering, by parching thirst or racking pain to have, as it were, a little shadow of His bodily Sufferings cast upon them, and to pray that our due sufferings might be sancti- fied by His, the Atoning and Meritorious Sufferings. " He willeth to be seen," says St. Bernard ; " the gracious Captain willeth the countenance and eyes of the devoted soldier to be lifted to His Wounds, that He might thereby raise his mind, and by His example, make him stronger to en- dure. For he will not feel his own, while he shall gaze upon His Wounds. The martyr stands exulting and triumphing, although with his whole body rent. Where then is the martyr's soul ? In safety, in the Rock, namely, in the Tnward Part of Jesus, in His Wounds which are open to enter in. If he were in his own, he would feel the iron search- ing them, he would not bear the pain, he would give way and deny [Christ]. But now, dwelling in the Rock, what marvel if he become hard as the Rock ? Nor is it marvellous if, absent from the body, he do not feel the pains of the body. So then from the Rock is the Mar- tyr's strength." And again, in plain words, " What 9 is so effectual to heal the wounds of con- science, and to cleanse the eye of the soul, as the diligent meditation on the Wounds of Christ ?" I cannot but think that they who object to Devo- tions in connexion with the Blessed Wounds of our Lord, as appealing too much to the feelings, take a very narrow view of hu- man nature. Some of us S. Bernard in Cant. Serm. 62, § 7- Devotions on the Passion a bond of union. 131 might think, perhaps, books of devotion which they use, couched in rather abstract and dry language. Why should we judge one ano- ther ? All are not cast in the same mould. In some, intellect predominates ; in others, feeling ; in some, imagination. Intellect re- quires to be warmed ; feel- ings, to be chastened ; ima- gination to be restrained from a wasting luxuriance. But Bishop Taylor did not pray in the same language as Bishop Andrewes, nor Bishop Wilson like either. And yet each has trained many a soul to pray deeply and fervently. If any like not the luxuriance of Bishop Taylor, he is not bound to him ; but why should he find fault ? All food has not the same taste, nor does all suit every palate. Let us take with thanksgiving what suits us, thankful that the Bounteous Giver of all, bestows and scatters His gifts with such wide profu- sion, not despising others whose souls may prefer other parts of His rich pas- ture. And yet these very devo- tions are strangely suited to win devout souls, who, with imperfect knowledge, yet love with a reverent kin- dled piety the Person of the Redeemer. While a school among us depreciates these, they will be prized by those who seem, on other points, most opposed to the teach- ing of the Church. Why should we not meet in our Saviour's wounded Side ? In love for Him and His sacred Wounds, we might learn the more to love one another, and understand one another. " I cannot blame those devotions," said one, " for they are just what I use myself." One of the most deserv- edly popular hymns, per- haps the very favourite, is one of this very sort : — " Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me liide myself in Thee; Let the water and the Blood, From Thy Side l , a healing flood, Be of sin the double cure, — Save from wrath, and make me pure." Very beautiful is it. Butltween this very hymn and where is the difference be- 1 such as the following ? — 1 An older reading, I believe, is " From Thv riven Side which flowed.'" K 2 132 Hymns on the Passion from " Open, Lord, Thy heart's deep cell, Thou, Who know'st where mine doth dwell ; — There, from Thee ere Hell can tear me, World, or flesh, or fiend ensnare me, Shrine my heart, an offering free. Panting for that Refuge hlest, Where this restless heart may rest, Nought save JESUS would I know. Nought desire of things below, Nothing love, dear Lord, but Thee 2 ." What, I may say again, ] and the hymn which fol- is the difference in principle, |]o\vs, and two others which between the following beau- j I will subjoin ? — tifuland touching " Litany," | Litany. " By Thy Birth, and early years, By Thy human griefs and fears; By Thy Fasting and distress In the lonely wilderness ; By Thy victory in the hour Of the subtle tempter's power ; — Jesus, look with pitying eye, Hear our solemn litany. " By the sympathy that wept O'er the grave where Laz'rus slept ; By Thy bitter tears that flowed Over Salem's lost abode ; By the troubled sigh that told Treason lurk'd within Thy fold ;— . Jesus, look with pitying eye, Hear our solemn litany. " By Thine hour of whelming fear; By Thine a0 (commonly Ruffinus), in Ps. xxiii. S. PaullinuB, Ep. !'. Eusebius, Dem. Ev. i. 10. Ongen, Horn. vii. in Levit p. 222, ed. de La Rue, Tr. 35 in Matt. § 85. St. Cyril, Jems. Cat. Myst. iv. Procopins in Is. lvii. p. G40 (quoting Jerem. xxv.). St. Greg. Nyss. in Cant. Horn. 10. St. Athanas. and Theodoret in P*. xxiii. S. Cyril, Al. in Is. 1. 1. Or. 5. p. 140. in Os. § 168, p. 195. 1 Theodoret, interpreting Ps. xxiii. of the Holy Eucharist, says 146 Deep analogy of things of nature and grace. might perhaps, more than any other, while brought out thus nakedly, cause offence, or even be a subject of ri- baldry, it may be best to ex- plain its meaning more fully. In this view, it may not be too long a digression to bring forward some part of what I wrote eight years ago on the figurative language of the Old Testament, to which I was led by the duties of my office. " Thus then not only have things earthly a real corres- pondence to things spiritual; | morning, night; sleeping,! awakening; life, death;' home, exile ; but they all | harmonize and bear upon each other, and so the more illustrate and establish the reality of their several mean- ings, and the mutual relation of each to each. "To take another set of analogies. How strange, as bearing on the depths of the mystery of man's Redemp- tion, that law of vegetable nature, inculcated by our Lord Himself, that life is through death ! * Verily 2 , | verily, I say unto you, Ex- cept a corn of wheat fall in- to the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit/ And what light this in itself throws on many passages of the Old Testament ! Thus Isaiah says, (iv. 2), ' In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glori- ous, and the fruit of the land excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.' The language, the general character of the pro- phecy, and the use of the word nft2£> ' Branch,' lead us to apply the passage to ' the Christ,' yet a difficulty has been raised how * the fruit of the land,' which evidently is equivalent to // " TO^, * the Branch of the Lord,' should apply to Him also or to a personal agent. Yet, if we consider that the 'branch' or 'off- shoot' is not a mere metaphor, pass- ing almost, as among us it does, into a proper noun, but is a living symbol, there is nothing at all strange, fearlessly, " This is plain to the initiated [Communicants,] and needs no interpretation. For they know that inebriation which strengthened and relaxeth not, and that mysterious Food 'which He setteth before us, Who is not only the Shepherd but the Bride- groom also;" and St. Athanasius briefly, " This is the joy of the Mysteries." 2 St. Job. xii. 24. Why our Lord called seed-corn. 147 that, as Son of God, our| Lord should be designated j as 'the offspring of Jeho-! vali,' but 'the Fruit of the earth,' as to His earthly de-j scent, that Nature which He was to take of us, in order to give life by death. So, in a Psalm ■ which speaks of His j Everlasting Kingdom of Peace, of the Judgment com- , mitted to the King's Son,! His saving of the poor, His! Heavenly descent like the dew upon the mown and! parched grass, His lowliness! is spoken of in the like terms. 1 Be there a handful of corn; in the earth on the top of the mountains, His fruit shall shake like Libanus, and out of the city shall they flou- rish, like the green herb of the earth,' i. e. on the most' barren spot, the least seed | shall become mighty as the cedars of Libanus, manifold ; as the green herb of the field, yet flourishing and ex-! paneling out of the City of ' God. It is our Lord's own | parable, the grain of mus- j tard-seed, which is again Himself. Again, in a Psalm which the Church selects for the Festival of our Lord's ! Nativity, 'Truth,' it is said, M ' shall spring,' [shoot forth ■ as a plant, TO^fl] ' out of the earth, and Righteous- ness shall look down from Heaven.' Here we have again the same combination of Heaven and Earth to pro- duce man's salvation, as in Isaiah (xlv. 8), ' Drop down ye heavens from above and let the clouds pour down Righteousness, let the earth open, and let them bring forth [as fruit, 113^] Sal- vation, and let Righteous- ness spring up together.' A Heavenly descent of Righ- teousness ; the earth opens to receive It, and through both there issues from the earth, Salvation; — who other than He Who is the Branch of the Lord, the Root of Da- vid (Rev. v. 5), the Offshoot from the stem of Jesse (Isa. xi.), the Sucker out of a dry ground (Isa. liii.)? A Heavenly original, an earthly birth, that He might die for us. ' What 5 is Truth ? The Son of God. What is earth? The flesh. Ask where Christ is born, and thou seest that Truth sprang out of the earth, This Truth which sprang of the earth, was be- fore the earth, and by It were made Heaven and earth. But in order that Fs. lxxii. 5 S. Aug. ad loc. L 2 4 Ps. lxxxv. 11. 148 Christ " com " as dying for us ; Bread as feeding us. Righteousness might look! down from heaven, i. e.,thatj men might be justified by the Divine grace, Truth was born of the Virgin Mary, j that to justify them, He might be able to offer a Sa- crifice, the Sacrifice of the Passion, the Sacrifice of the Cross, — and how could He offer a sacrifice for our sins unless He died ? How die, unless He took on Him flesh ? How take flesh, un- less Truth sprang out of the earth ? ' ' For the earth of human flesh,' says St. Leo 6 , ' which had been cursed in the first offender, in this only birth of a blessed Vir- gin, yielded a shoot of bless- edness, separate from the fault of its stock.' "This corn-seed, which He sowed, was His own Body, His Flesh, which He took to offer as a Sacrifice, dying for us in It. And so it becomes the more im- pressive, as connected with the Holy Mysteries, how He elsewhere says, that He Himself is * the Bread of Life, which cometh down from Heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die ;' that • the Bread which I will give is My Flesh which I will give for the life of the world.' Our Lord, by using these images, points out the connexion. The seed-corn, which is His Flesh, gives life by its death ; as bread, again, His Body, it nou- rishes to Life eternal ; and that Body unites together the various grains to which it gave birth ; ■ for we 7 , being many, are one bread, one body, for we are all partakers of that one Bread.' So again, this one image pourtrays to us the mys- terious connexion between the Body of Christ, which is His Flesh, and the Body of Christ, which is the Church, and how, by par- taking of that Body, we our- selves become what we par- take of. ' Having said/ says 6 Serai. 4, in Nat. Dom. c. 3, quoting both places, as do inter- preters quoted by S. Jerome, 1. 13 ad Is. init. ''that they rain on the world the Righteous or Righteousness, and the earth open and bear (germinet) a Saviour." S. Cyril ad loc. 1. iv. Or. ii. " One may say that Mercy and Righteousness springing or shooting forth from the earth is our Lord Himself Jesus Christ. For He was made to us of God the Father, Mercy and Righteousness.— But Christ brought not down to us from above or from heaven His flesh, but rather was born, according to the flesh, of a woman, which is one of the things upon the earth." 7 1 Cor. x. 17. Mention of Bread and IVine in OldTestament prophetical. 149 St. Chrysostom s , ■ the Com- \ munion of the Body, He sought again to express something nearer ; ' For we, being many, are one bread, i one body.' ' For why speak j I of communion ?' saith he ; J • we are that self-same! body.' For what is the bread ? the Body of Christ : and what do they become who partake of it ? the Bo- : dy of Christ: not many! bodies, but one body. Fori as the bread, consisting of many grains, is made one, ! so that the grains no where appear ; they exist indeed, but their difference is notj seen, by reason of their con- junction ; so are we conjoin- ed, both with each other and with Christ ; there not being ] one Body for thee and ano- ! ther for thy neighbour to be ] nourished by, but the very j same for all.' " But what light does this ! reality of correspondence be- , tween the process in nature and the Gift of Grace cast! on the sacramental charac- i ter of the Old Testament ! The very frequency of the mention of bread and wine as the chief gifts of God | for i gladdening 9 man's heart,' either by themselves, or together with that other symbolic gift, oil, prepares us to look for some mean- ing beyond our earthly nourishment. Why this food, and this alone, so se- lected, unless as a hidden prophecy of the Bread of Life everlasting? The lower sense is not, indeed, ex- cluded by the higher ; for the type containeth the ori- ginal in itself, although in outline only, in that bread and wine and oil are gifts of God, and from Him derive their powers to strengthen and refresh. Yet this con- nexion teaches us how we ought in the type to recog- nize the original; take our daily bodily bread as the image of that ' Bread which endureth to everlasting life;' and, in the thanksgiving of the Psalms, thank God for ' that Bread' also ' which came down from Heaven.' This mystical meaning of 'bread' isfurther pointed out in the Psalms themselves, in that the Manna, whose spiritual character was so pointed out, is called 'An- 8 Horn. 24. in 1 Cor. ad loc. p. 327, 328, Oxf. Tr. 9 Of tins joy, doubtless, that also is to be understood, " Eat thy Bread with joy, and drink thy Wine with a merry heart; for God now accepted] thy works. Let thy garments be always white, and let thy head laek no ointment." — Ecci. ix. 7. 8. Jer. ad loc. 150 Spiritual meaniny of Bread and Wine the most literal. gels' bread,' the 'corn of 1 heaven.' (Ps. lxxviii. 24, 25.) What a richness of meaning then do the Psalms shed around us, when we understand the ' Bread brought forth out of the ! earth' to be the 'grain of Corn' of which Himself spake l , and 'the wine that gladdeneth man's heart, the. oil which maketh his face ; to shine, and bread which ' strengthened man's heart,' to be that highest strength- ! erring and gladdening of 1 the heart of man, — strength which abideth, joy when He seeth us again and our heart shall rejoice, and our joy no ' man taketh from us, and the oil of the Comforter' which ' maketh the face' of, the soul 'to shine 2 .' And this meaning, when we see it, is the more literal too. For although to ' strengthen the heart' may, by a figure, ' mean to 'refresh and com- fort the frame,' and is so used, yet most exactly, as well as fully, it bespeaks spiritual refreshment. * He forceth us in a measure,' says St. Augustine 3 , ' to understand of what Bread He speaketh. For that visi- ble bread strengtheneth the stomach and belly; it is another Bread which strengtheneth the heart, because It is the Bread of the heart.' As, in another Psalm, amid the mention of ' the light of God's coun- tenance' and the sleep in Him, it says, 'Thou hast put gladness in my heart from the time their corn, and wine, and oil increased ;' in such a context, not surely mere earthly gifs, but, as has been said 4 , ' Now do we abound with blessed fruits, which the Sacrament of the Church and the unity of peace minister to us as the image of everlasting fruits. For this Sacrament of our common hope is pointed out under the names of bodily and common things, which they who know [It] will understand. 1 " What Bread ? Christ.'" S. Aug. in loc. 2 S. Cyril. Lect. 22. fin. p. 272. Oxf. Tr. 3 Ad loc. See S. Ambr. de fide iii. 15. § 127. de Cain. i. 5. § 19 et al. S. Cyr. Al. in Os. 14. 7 et al. S. Jerome ad Ezek. 1. 1. fin. " Nothing so strengtheneth the heart of him who eateth, as the Bread of Life, of which it is written, ' And bread strengtheneth man's heart." Add in Matt xxvi. 26. 4 S. Hilar, in Ps. cxxi. [cxxii.] 6. "Rogate quae ad pacem sunt Jerusalem et abundantia diligentibus Te." Prov. ix. Hos. ii. Joel ii. Zech. ix. Ps. xxii. 151 Of which abundance the same prophet speaketh in another Psalm. * Thou hast put gladness in &c.' By this abundance of peace and of the Sacrament, is that blessed peace pre- pared for, and that un- failing and eternal abund- ance of heavenly goods.' So when Wisdom inviteth to her feast, ' Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled,' it is an anticipation of the parable of the Marriage- Feast, to which He, Who is the Wisdom of God, invit- eth, not merely to the bless- ings of the Gospel gene- rally, but to His Bread, the Bread which He giveth. * What 5 more excellent than Christ, Who in the Feast of; the Church both ministers and is ministered ? ' No other is tli e ' corn and wine' wherewith Isaac 'sustained' Jacob (Gen. xxvii. 37), and gave him therewith the bless- ing of Abraham. No other is ' the corn, wine, and oil ' promised, when God should have mercy on her that had not obtained mercy (Hos. ii. 22, 23, and Joel ii. 19,24, 26), or ' the corn and new wine,' whereby, when the King of the daughter of Zion should come, her ' young men and her maidens' should ' grow' (Zech. ix. 17, DIW); no other the Bread of which the Psalm which delineates to us His Passion, and opens with His Cry on the Cross, and foretells that He should draw all men unto Him, tells us ' the fi poor shall eat and be satisfied,' with which God shall ' satisfy the poor' of the Church 7 , yea, 'rich and poor together ;' as the same Psalm says, ' all the mighty of the earth have eaten and worshipped ; be- fore him bend all the dwell- ers of the dust, and no man hath quickened his own soul ;' living and dead are alive in His sight and own His Kingdom ; the living worship, those in the dust are bowed 8 ; yet the living 5 S. Ambr. de Cain i. 5. § 19. Add in Luc. 1. vi. § 53. « The Heavenly Bread is the Word of Cod. Thence also that Wisdom which hath filled the all-holy altars with the food of the Divine Body and Blood, saith l Come,' &c, &C*' 6 Ps. xxii. 26. 7 Ps. exxxii. 15. S. Aug. adloc. "God Himself is the Bread. The Bread, that it might become infant nourishment, milk to us, came down to the earth and Baid, ' 1 am the living Bread.'" 8 In this clause rns is used (as Stier lias observed ad loc. i. 254), Which, (although not exclusively, as Ps. xcv. 6, where words ex- 152 PsAxxx. Isa. lv. Cant. v. 1. live not of themselves, but by that Bread of which men ' eat, and worship' the Lord; of which ' they 9 who have eaten and been filled, con- fess the mercy of that im- mortal food, and worship as God, Him Who supplies it,' ' that Bread which He giveth for the life of the world, whereof a man shall eat and not die.' No other is * the fat of the wheat ' wherewith He feeds His people 1 ; no other ' the wine 2 ' which 'every one who thirsteth' is bid to buy and eat 3 ; 'buy without money,' in- stead of ' that which is not bread,' or the wine whereof He drank in the garden of the Church, and biddeth, ' eat, oh friends, drink abundantly, oh beloved 4 ; ' pressive of worship are accumulated) occurs rather of " constrained obedience," Ps. lxxii. 9, Is. xlv. 23, which is so quoted Rom. xiv. 11; and referred to Phil. ii. 10, where unwilling submission of things under the earth is included, as it is here. IDS 'TV like VQ-mv (Is. xxxviii. 18. Ez. xxvi. 20. xxxi. 14. xxxii. 18. Ps. i. 12. Ps. xxviii. 1. xxx. 4. lxxxv. 5. cxliii. 7) is not merely " they that go down into the dust," but rather " they that are gone down," the actually dead, lit. "the descenders of the pit," i. e. those who have so descended. 9 Theod. ad loc. 1 Ps. lxxx. 16. S. Aug. ad. loc. " Ye know the 'fat of wheat,' wherewith many of His enemies who have lied unto Him, are fed." S. Jer. ad Is. lv. i. " which ' fat' signifieth no other than the mysti- cal flesh," whence S. Cyril interprets, the LXX. aTtap, ib. of the body of Christ. 2 Is. lv. i. S. Ambr. de El. et jej. i. 10. init. S. Jer. et S. Cyril Al. ad loc. " For they who drink the living water, i. e. have been enriched with the grace of the Spirit through partaking of it, and have bought it by faith, shall partake also of the wine and wheat, t. e. the Holy Body and Blood of Christ." On the wine and milk, united also in Cant. v. 1, St. Ambrose so comments : " Thou shalt drink wine and milk, i. e. with brightness and sincerity, either be- cause simplicity is pure, or because that grace is spotless, which is received for the remission of sins, or because He feeds little ones with the breasts of His consolations, that, weaned in joys, they may grow up to the fulness of perfect age." de Cain et Abel, i. 5. § 19. 3 " Wondrous is it that they buy waters without money, and drink them not, but eat. For He is'both the Water and the Bread which came down from Heaven." S. Jer. ad loc. 4 Cant. v. 1. S. Jer. in Am. fin. " This is that wine of Sorec, whose wine we drink daily in the mysteries," in Os. xiv. 5, 6. " Or because our Lord Himself is our corn and wine, whoever believeth in Him is said to be inebriated." Theod. ad loc. ; ' ' Thy wine, 1 for this is the true Vine, whence this wine is produced." Add S. Amb. de myst. fin. S. Cyril in Os. xiv. 7. Food in Holy Scripture, type of Heavenly Food. 153 that wine, which He would not drink until He should 'drink it new' in His Fa- ther's Kingdom ; wherein we ' gather the myrrh b ' of His Passion; wherein those who love Him with deepest devotion, who are His friends doing what He command- eth 8 , are ' inebriated,' borne out of and above them- selves ; and He, without doubt, eateth and drinketh in us, "Who saith that in us He is in prison 7 . And through this feeling of the reality of these emblems, the Ancient Church seems to have been guided by a sort of spiritual tact or dis- cernment to recognize the blessings of the Sacrament wherever mention is made of the elements therein con- secrated, and, where men are now wont to think of the mere element without the Gift, or of a spiritual gift without the element, to see both. And not only so, but receiving that Gift daily, their thoughts the more centred in what was their ' daily Bread.' Soul and body were daily nourished together ; and so every ex- pression which designates 'provision,' 'longing,' need, fulness, spoke to them of that Gift which they received daily in figure and in sub- stance. And herein we must feel that there is reality and the most literal truth ; for since the visible substances are indeed there, an inter- pretation which refers to the actual mystical table is more exact and full than one which sees only spiritual gifts ge- nerally, not to speak of that grovelling exposition which cannot rise above temporal gifts. Thus, when in the Communion Service, the Ancient Church s used the 5 "There shalt thou 'gather the myrrh' of His Passion, i.e. the burial of Christ, that having been buried with Him bj Baptism into death, as He arose from the dead, thou too max est arise." S. Amhr. tie Cain et Ab. i. 6. §19. "I have gathered My myrrh* i.e. which I planted in thee; for I first underwent (hath for thee; so didst thou desire to die and he buried with Me, for thou weft buried with Me by Baptism into death, and mortifiedst thy mem- bers upon the earth.* 1 6 John xv. 14, in connexion with the parable of the Vine. " They are His Friends who are perfected, who keep His Image undefaced." Theod. ad loc. 7 S. Ambr. tie myst. fin. 8 See also 8. Cypr. Test. i. 22. S. Amhr. de myst. fin. de Virtf. c. 16. § 99. S. Aug. in loc. and Ps. xcix. 8. Jul. Firm. Gaud. Brix. S. 2. Philastr. liter. 83. 154 Taste, hunger, thirst, fulness, the Cup, all heavenly. Psalm, ' O taste and see that the Lord is gracious,' she gave the fullest and most accurate meaning to the word QPJO, and the mind feels a joy and delight, as having a new sense opened in it, and acknowledges that the word is thus the most exhausted and fulfilled, and all its meaning completed. " In like way, the words ' My soul is athirst for God,' express not only a pining longing, whereby the soul is dried up for God's Pre- sence, but the way in which He gives Himself; to 'hun- ger and thirst after Right- eousness 9 ' is further to desire His Body and Blood Who is ' our Righteous- ness. ' The Lord ' hath prepared a table for me against them that trouble me ' is ' that Table 1 which repelleth the snares of the Enemy,' * that Table 2 where is the Living Bread, i.e., the I Word of God ; where is the j oil of sanctification, where | is also the inebriating cup. [ Blessed inebriation of the Saving Cup ! ' that Cup, 1 wherein k the Lord is our j portion 3 .' All satisfying fulness is of Him and so ■ speaks of Him. And so | when God says, ' Open thy [mouth wide, and I will fill it,' He tells us how we shall be filled with Him, accord- ing to the measure of our capacities, Whose commu- nication of Himself is bounded only by the nar- rowness of the vessels, which should receive Him. The ' oil stayeth ' only when the vessel is full. ' Jesus,' says St. Ambrose 4 , 'saith this | to man ; for Christ is ful - Iness. He who filleth all | things filleth thy mouth.' And since the Church and [the Gifts therein are an [image and the earnest and I foretaste of Heaven, in her 9 " This Bread of the inner man requireth hunger, whence He saith in another place, ' Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after Righteousness,' &c. But Righteousness to us, the Apostle Paul saith, is Christ, wherefore let him who hungereth for this Bread hunger after Righteousness, hut that Righteousness which cometh down from Heaven, which God giveth, not which man maketh for himself." S. Aug. in Joh. 6. Tr. "2f>. 1 S. Ambr. de interp. Dav. ii. 9. add de El. et jej. c. 10. § 35. Apol. Dav. c. 12. fin. 2 S. Ambr. in Ps. xxxv. § 19. 3 Ps. xvi. G. " What is the Cup hut His Passion ?" Philastr. Hfer. 44. 4 In Ps. cxviii. § 17. § 9. Inebriate," forget self, be out of self. gifts too is that in its mea- sure fulfilled, ' They shall be satisfied 5 out of the ful- ness of Thy house, and Thou shalt give them to drink of the river of Thy pleasures.' 'The house is the Church ; the fulness of the house, the exuberance of graces ; the torrent of pleasure, the Holy Spirit.' " And in this analogy of: bodily and spiritual nourish- ment, even the specific cha- racter of each is retained. Strength and joy are seve- 1 rally the annexed qualities of our natural food, bread and wine; 'strengthening! and refreshing' our Church selects as the chief gifts in our spiritual. And thus words, as ' inebriating,' or those of the like meaning, which sound strangely in J our ears, who have, it is to ! be feared, so little of the joy of the Ancient Church, do' declare the highest mystery of Christian joy. For man ' may be ■ out of himself,' either by being above or below himself : and, in their, highest degree, the outward semblance may, in either case, be the same. "To the world, the Pro- phets seemed out of them- selves from phrenzy 7 ; St. Peter and the rest, to the multitude 8 ; Hannah even to Eli, from strong drink. Of our Lord Himself it was said, ' He hath a devil, and is mad;' 'He is beside Himself.' St. Paul knew not even of himself, ' whe- ther he were in the body, or out of the body.' Holy Scripture contrasts (as hav- ing, therefore, some points of resemblance) being 'drunken with wine' and being ' filled with the Spirit.' We speak of being ' intoxicated with joy,' ' with success,' ' with pride.' This is being out of a person's self in a spiritual way, though, in the latter, through an evil spirit. All are, in their several degrees, insensible, for the time, to the outer world ; they can- not hear it, attend to it, see what others see. A trance is like sleep; those entranced are, so far, equally with one 6 S. Ambr. ad loc. maddened/ 1 i.e. "acted upon from 6 Ps. xxx vi. 8. 7 2 Kings ix. 1 1. tXfC within t<> madness." 8 M There is another ehriety through the infusion of the Holy Spirit. They lastly who in the Acts spake in divers tongues seemed to the hearers full of new wine." 8. Amb. in Ps. x\xv. 19. 1 56 Joy of Joseph's brethren, image of joy in Christ's Supper. overcome by wine, over- powered, insensible, as one dead ; only the one is with the Angels, the other with the beasts that perish. In like way, common words, ' ecstacy,' 'transport,' imply that persons are carried out ! of themselves, and are, soj far, ' not themselves,' which j is, again, a term of the like | kind. The Gift vouchsafed in the Holy Communion must be altogether of another kind, because it is not the stirring up of the human spirit, but the union of the Divine, the Presence of the Redeemer within the soul, when the soul is silent, not acting upon itself, but ' caught up,' present with its Lord, because ' one with Him,' penetrated with Him and His Divinity, when, in solemn words which have been used, the soul is 'transfigured ' by His Holy Presence in it. Now corre- sponding to this mystery, it is strangely coincident that Holy Scripture should, in typical history or devotion, have used words, of which, from their very strength, we have been afraid, but which the Fathers understood of it. Thus, when Joseph's eleven brethren, the very number of the true Apostles, were admitted to feast with him whom they knew not, and he who was so eminent a type of our Lord, and was 1 sent to preserve life,' dis- tributed to them their por- tion, their joyousness is related in a word, at first sight startling, as most naturally and elsewhere de- noting intoxication ; ' they 9 drank and were inebriated ["nj^] with him.' And on that very account, one must feel assured that it stands there with an object, and that the joy which they had in his presence to whose favour they had been re- stored, was, by God's pur- pose, conveyed by a word which should express a higher joy, when the Apostles 'were 1 filled with a kind of fearful admiration at the heaven which they 9 Gen. xliii. 34. E. V. " were merry" gives the spiritual mean- ing, taking the word not of largeness of drinking, hut of joyousness. It is not said (as neither in Cant. v. 1) " they ate and drank with him." hut " they drank and — ." The hodily'act of drinking had heen already expressed. Hence it is more natural to take it of some mental condition, than as a repeated statement of the out- ward act. 1 Hooker, v. 67. 4 ed. Keehle. Noah's inebriation a type. — The Canticles. 157 saw in themselves, and had , a sea of comfort and joy to j wade in.' And this, too, is, * doubtless, a spiritual mean- j ing of the vineyard which ' Noah planted, and whereof he drank 2 .' After a type of ; Holy Baptism, there fol-! lowed a type of the Holy, Eucharist ; as first ' the feet | of Joseph's brethren were washed 3 , and then were they satisfied with the bread j and wine.' When, then, in \ the song of spiritual love, ' this same word is used in the same way, as something over and above ordinary drinking, ' drink and be ' inebriated, loving and be- loved,' one cannot doubt' that it, too, has its proper | force, and that it designates some gift peculiar to those in Christ's Church, who share the myrrh of His Passion, and ' eat and drink at His Table in His King- dom ;' and that, in propor- tion to their love, so are they not refreshed only, but inebriated. And with this direct authority for the term in Holy Scripture, it is further remarkable how the Versions used by the Church have been, one must think, guided to express this quality, even when the He- brew in itself implies only fulness, largeness of drink- ing. This, too, must have a spiritual meaning, since largeness of drinking, except of spiritual things, were itself excess. The meaning is the same, only the cha- racter of the highest spiritual joy has thereby been the more impressed upon the Church, and the word ' in- ebriated ' became a received term. Thus when, in a Sacramental Psalm, there are mentioned together the table prepared by God, the hallowing oil, the overflow- ing Cup ; the word 4 still expresses how the soul is immersed, flooded, inun- dated, drowned, so to speak, in the Divine love. It is a " So doth the Cup of the Lord inebriate, as in Genesis, Noe drinking wine was inebriated." S. Cypr. Ep. 'i!>. ad Officii. See S. Ambr. de Joseph, c. ii. init. S- Jer. ad Amos. c. .'». fin. " S. Cyril Glaph. in Gen. 1. vi. ad loc. p. 204. rrf> Comp. Ps. xlv. 11; Is. lv. 10, where it is used of abundant rain. Is. xxxiv. 5; Jer. xlxi. 10. "It (the sword) shall be inebriated with blood." In its Syriac use jo> meant inebriated. It is used of intense love, Prov. v. 19; and in a bad sense, vii. 18 ; of drinking to the full in combination with eatiety of food \9}©)> Jer. xxxi. 'lb ; Lam. iii. 15. 158 Ps. xxiii. Zech. ix. not merely the Cup which overfloweth, it is man who is overflowed ; so that the ancient Version comes to the same result, * Poculum meum inebrians.' e For the j imperfect,' says St. Am- brose 5 , 'is the draught of! milk, for the perfect the table of refreshment, of | which he said, ' Thou hast prepared a table before me/ where is the Living Bread, i. e. The Word of God ; where is the oil of sanctification, whereby the head of the righteous is made fat, and his inner sense is strengthened, — where also is the inebriat- ing cup, whereby sins are washed away or effaced. Good is the ebriety of the saving Cup ! ' And so when it says, ' they shall drink largely of the fulness of Thy House, and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures,' to drink what is Divine must needs transport a person above what is human ; and the word expresses at once the abundant influx of the Divine graces into the soul 6 , whereby it is no longer it- self, and it pictures that state hereafter wherein the Saints shall be filled and overflowed with God. When again, in words immediately preceding a Sacramental Prophecy of Zechariah, al- ready referred to, it is said, 8 they shall drink, and make a joyful noise as through wine; they shall be filled like bowls, as the corner of the altar 7 ,' one cannot doubt, with what Altar that Wine is connected which is also Blood, whereby them- selves also become an Altar, ' offering ' the spiritual sa- crifice of ' themselves 8 , their souls, their bodies unto ' God ; and that transport of surpassing joy, wherewith the heart danceth and can- not contain itself, is again fitly expressed by the word ' inebriated V And so even, 5 In Ps. xxxv. § 19. 6 See St. Ambrose quoted above. " Thereby he intendeth, not only the streams of Divine teaching, but also the participation of the mystical Food." — Theod. ad loc. 7 Zech. ix. 15. 8 Communion Service. 9 "ion- Comp. Prov. xxi. 1. " strong drink (rron) is raging," E. V.; of other evil tumult of mind, Prov, vii. 11. ix. 13; of spiritual love, Cant. v. 4. " My heart (vbS inn) sprang towards Him," or " was moved for Him," E. V. Vulg. inebriabantur. " In the Hebrew we read, ' drinking shall be inebriated as with wine,' Ps. lxv. as explained by Fathers. 159 heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, so shall His Word be that goeth forth out of His Mouth;' in the words of St. Ambrose °, ' When He hath, by Divine preaching, inebriated the veins of our earth, or soul and mind, He awakeneth earnestness 'for different virtues, and maketh to grow the fruits of faith and pure devotion, whence truly it is said to Him, * Thou visitest the earth and inebriatest it;' for, by taking our flesh, He visited, that He might j heal the sick ; He inebriat- ed with spiritual joy, that | He might, by His pleasant- ness, soothe the harassed/ " It belongs to the ful- ness only of conformity of things earthly with hea- venly, that this Spiritual Wine, too, dispels man's anxiety, not to return more heavily, but removing it, and there succeedeth the joy of Heaven, which ■ en- so as to bear out that of the Song of Songs, ' Drink, my friends, and bo inebriated.' And so will their inebriation be acceptable as the sacrifice of the altar, and as the horns or cornen of the altar." S. Jer. ad loc l nppwrv " ad loc. § 13. He adds, § 14, " We too have a food prepared. —That Food in Whom we are prepared fortlie participation ofQod, being by the Communion of the Holy Body to be placed hereafter in the communion of the hoi v body (the Church which Bhall Bee God) " 3 ad lo c. 4 r& lxxii. 6'. s i sa- i v- jo i l e In Ps. cxviii. lit. 13. § 24. in remoter passages, where the Psalmist says, 'Thou visitest the earth and mak- est it to overflow l t Thou greatly refreshest it, Thou preparest their corn, when so Thou preparest her' (to receive it), ' Thou makest her furrows to drink large- ly ; ' we may well say with St. Hilary-, 'This earth which we employ is not enriched, but enricheth with the fulness of its fruits. The words then belong not to her which has no sense of being enriched and whose office is to enrich. God then visited the earth, i. e. the birth of the human race.' And St. Augustine 3 , 'Whence did He inebriate the earth ? Thy inebriating Cup, how excellent is it ! ' And this the more, since Holy Scripture speaks in like way, that the Eternal Word ' cometh down ' like rain upon the mown grass,' that ' as 5 the rain cometh ' down and the snow from 1G0 " Inebriated" in the Fathers, to forget sin, sorrow. vieth not the Blessed An- gels.' 'Because 7 the in- ebriation of the Cup and Blood of the Lord is not - Blessed inebriation,' says St. Ambrose 8 , 'which in- fuseth joy, bringeth not confusion ; blessed inebria- such as the inebriation ofjtion, which stablisheth the this world's wine, when the I walk of the sober mind ; Holy Spirit said, in the blessed inebriation, which Psalm, ' Thy inebriating | bedeweth with the gift of Cup,' he added, ' how good j life eternal. Drink, then, is it ; because, in truth, that Cup whereof the Pro- the Cup of the Lord so in-jphet speaks, 'Thy inebriat- ebriates them that drink it|ing Cup, how excellent is as to make them sober, as jit.' Drink Christ, because to bring back their minds He is the Vine; drink Christ, to spiritual wisdom, so that j because He is the Rock each should recover from which poured out water ; this world's savour to the ' drink Christ, because He perception of God. And: is the Fountain of Life; as, by that common wine, I drink Christ, because He is the mind is set free, and J the stream whose flowing the soul relaxed, and all gladdeneth the city of God ; sadness laid aside, so when I drink Christ, because He is the Blood of the Lord and j peace ; drink Christ, be- the saving Cup hath been cause out of His bowels drunk, the memory of the old man is laid aside, and forgotten is the former worldly conversation ; and the sad and sorrowful breast which before was oppressed by the choking sense of sin, is now set free by the joy of Divine forgiveness.' shall flow rivers of living water ; drink Christ, that thou mayest drink the Blood wherewith thou wert redeemed ; drink Christ, that thou mayest drink His words ; His word is the Old Testament, His word is the New Testament. 7 S. Cypr. Ep. 65. ad Ca?cil. § 9. 8 In Ps. i. § 33. The immediate context is of Holy Scripture, but so the Fathers ever pass from the w^rd to the Word. See fur- ther in Ps. cxviii. 1. c. " Blessed inebriation, which maketh the mind in a way to go forth out of itself to things more excellent and joyous, that our mind, forgetting anxieties, may be gladdened with the wine of pleasantness. Excellent inebriation of the spiritual Table." lb. in Ps. cxviii. lib. xxi. § 4. p. 1239. S. Hil. in Ps. lxiv. § 15. Theodoret in Ps. xxii. (xxiii.) 5. The world's ways and wickedness, in holy love and joy. 161 Drink, then, speedily, that *a great light' (Is. ix. 1, 2) may dawn upon thee, not an every-day light, not of the day, not the sun, not the moon, but that light which removeth the 'sha- dow of death ! ' ' The Psalm- ist,' says St. Augustine 9 , 1 sought a word whereby, through human things, he might express what he would say, and because he saw men immersing them- selves in excessive drink, receive wine without mea- sure, and lose their minds, he saw what he should say, because, when that ineffable joy shall be received, the human is in a manner lost, and becometh Divine, and is inebriated with the rich- ness of the House of God.' • Let l no one look to be inebriated, yea, let every one ; Thy inebriating Cup, how excellent is it. We would not say, ' let no one be inebriated.' Be inebri- ated ; but see well where- ! with. If the excellent Cup' of the Lord inebriateth you, j that inebriation will be seen i in your works, in the holy | love of righteousness, in | the alienation of your mind, | but from things earthly to! Heaven.' " And so also there may be some intrinsic correspon- dence between the earthly and typical elements and the heavenly Gifts ; earthly in- ebriation may have the same relation to heavenly, as earthly passion to heavenly love, man's anger to the Divine wrath; and the in- ebriating qualities of the earthly substance, to which ancient and modern heretics have objected, not only have their mystical meaning, but may have some mysterious propriety; and since this language is especially used of the gift of the Cup, it is to be feared that they, on the whole, suffer some very special loss, from whom is withheld ' Calix Tuus ine- brians quam peroptimus.'" Thus, this very expres- sion, which has been cited by so many, as though I were unfaithful to the Church of England, is an expression uniformly used by the Fa- thers in reference to the Cup, which is given to all in the Church of England. It points to some special gift bestowed in the Cup. That there is such a special gift, is acknowledged by some eminent Roman Ca- tholic writers, and is said to 9 In Ps. xxxv. § 14. 1 S. Aug. in Ps. ciii. Euarr. 3. § 13. 162 Language, popularly alleged as Roman, relates to the have been the opinion of all assembled at the Council of Trent, and to be tacitly im- plied by that very Council, however it may have been more frequently denied by more recent Roman Catho- lics. Vazquez 2 and Lugo 3 (both of great reputation as Ro- man Catholic writers) both admit that it is the more probable opinion that there is some special gift in the Cup. Lugo says, that " Franc. Blanco, Archbishop of Compostella 4 , who was present at the Council of Trent, said, that such was the unanimous opinion of the fathers [there], but that they were unwilling to de- fine it inopportunely, lest an occasion of outcry should be given to the heretics; wherewith agree the words of the Council itself (Sess. 21, c. 3), where it is cauti- ously said, 'as pertains to the fruit, they are deprived of no grace necessary to sal- vation who receive one kind only.' It did not say abso- lutely ' no grace/ bat ' no grace necessary to salva- tion/ where, not without reason, that expression ap- pears to have been added, ' no grace necessary/ " and this, Vazquez adds, " on the ground that the com- mand to communicate was fulfilled by the reception of one kind only." He notices also, that this Council, al- though it says " Christ, whole and entire, is received under one kind only," does not say that " the entire (in- tegrum) sacrament," but "a true (verum) sacrament is received :" and he sums up this part by saying, " We grant that, according to this our opinion, the laity, to whom one kind is denied, are deprived of some grace, yet not necessary to salva- tion, and that this the Coun- cil did not mean to deny." They cite, moreover, Cle- ment VI. (a..d. 1341), who granted the Cup to a king of France, "ad majoremgra- tise augmentum," " to the greater increase of grace;" " therefore/' adds Lugo, " because both kinds give more grace than one." Lugo dwells upon, our Lord's own words, in which He speaks not of His Flesh only, but of His Blood. "Christ said not, 'My Flesh a In 3 disp. 215. 3 De Sacr. Euch. Disp. 12. s. 3. 4 Lugo says that he is spoken of, though not named, hy Hen- riquez, de Euch. 1. 8. c. 44, § 5, in marg. Gift of the Cup, which we have, the R. Church have not. 163 is truly satisfying, or nou- rishment generally,' but 'is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed,' to indicate that to His Body, received under the form of bread, belonged those effects spi- ritually, which the natural bread worketh [naturally], as the Council of Florence said, in the Decree of Eu- genius ; and to the Blood, under the form of wine, belonged those effects spiri- tually, which natural wine worketh [naturally]; so then a certain effect correspond- eth to the Cup, i. e. to drink spiritually, which no wise belongs to the Bread ; and, contrariwise, spiritual feed- ing no wise comes from the Cup but from the Bread." Again, he urges, "It is not credible that the Apos- tles, when, after Supper, they were invited by Christ | to drink the Cup, did not receive some fruit from that reception, but only a more explicit sign of the fruit j which they had before al-l ready received ; yea, from the very mode of giving the | Cup, Christ seemeth to have j invited them by some hope of spiritual fruit, and by the ( ' same hope to invite us, too, to the Cup, after receiving the Body." He quotes also Arnoldus, Abbot of Bonneval (about :a.d. 11C2, a friend of St. Bernard), who, speaking of the Cup, says, "Christ Himself gave this Cup, and taught that we should not only be outwardly bedewed with His Blood, but that inwardly, too, the soul should be guarded by Its Almighty sprinkling; and that the power of so mighty a medicine, penetrating all things, should disperse what- ever there was hard within, and renew and heal whatso- ever disease clave to the flesh, or wherewith the corruption of the former life had stain- ed the spirit." He adds, " In this sense it is commonly said, that this Cup spiritually inebri- ateth him who receiveth it, which cannot be understood without some efficiency. In this sense, too, Christ is said to have given to the mourn- ful the Cup of His Blood 5 , i. e. to cause joy to them by that Drink, which also can- not take place without effi- ciency. Lastly, the Priest, 5 In the hymn of Corpus Christi, " Dedit fragililms Corporis fcrculum, Dcdit et tristihus Sanguinis poculum. M 2 164 Privation of the Cup is a loss. after receiving the Body, and before receiving the Cup, prays that the Blood which he wisheth to receive ? may preserve his soul unto everlasting life ;' which, too, cannot take place unless it produce something in his soul." And with the above dis- tinction of the hymn, he notices, that Psalm cxiv. corresponds: that "bread strengtheneth the heart of man," "for that the effect of food is to ' strengthen the weak,' but that the effect of drink is to nourish indeed, since wine also serves to nourish, but by gladdening the sorrowful soul : 'and wine to gladden man's heart.' " " Hence, also, sometimes in Holy Scripture, the effect of the heavenly Cup is called, ' the inebriation of the soul,' because it brings a sort of gladness, whereby man is rendered in a manner insen- sible to toil and tribulation, as one inebriated is rendered naturally insensible." I have quoted, on this point, Roman Catholic writers, because some mo- dern controversialists among them treat any statement as to a loss through the pri- vation of the Cup as though we thereby denied the Pre- sence of our Lord. And yet there seems to be no alter- native but, either to suppose that this gift of the Cup conveyed no additional grace to the Apostles (which Lugo thought so inconceivable), and to the whole Church during the thirteen or four- teen 6 centuries in which it [was every where received, ; when it could be had ; in ' other words, that its gift, ] when it was given, was un- meaning ; or that loss is in- curred by its being withheld 6 Beveridge on Art. XXX. quotes writers to the middle of the j 4th century, and Gabriel Biel later. All which is desirable is not commanded. 165 VIII. " By advocating counsels of perfection, and seeking to restore, with more or less fulness, the con- ventual or monastic life." I am not aware that 1 1 Lord Himself says, " All 8 have any where advocated j men cannot receive this say- what are technically called ing, save they to whom it is " the counsels of perfec- ' given ;" "He that is able to tion ;" and that, because I ^receive it, let him receive it;" have not myself been called j leaving a choice therein, to them. Having, while j whereas there is no choice God permitted it, been mar- j as to any command of God's. ried, I have not advocated 7 j And St. Paul distinguishes celibacy; nor the renuncia- ion the same subject: " Con- tion of all worldly substance, j cerning 9 virgins, I have no since my very duties involve ! commandment of the Lord, the possession of ample in come ; nor obedience, being under no ecclesiastical supe yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mer- cy of the Lord to be faith- rior. I have rather taught, ! ful." A " command" is set what God has in some de-| before all under pain of pu- gree taught me, to use self- \ nishment. "Neither forni- denial in the possession ofcators, nor idolaters, nor worldly substance, and to i thieves, nor drunkards, nor become poorer, if it may be, ' revilers, nor extortioners for Christ's sake. j shall inherit the kingdom of I do not say this as imply- God." A ** counsel" is that ingthat there are not" coun-', which is set forth freely, sels" in the Gospel as well with the hope of greater re- as "precepts." For our { ward. " It is matter of con- 7 I do not mean that I have not been very thankful, -when God lias drawn others to desire, in this way, to serve Him "without dis- traction," and to "care for the things of the Lord" only ; but such have learnt it from Holy Scripture, or teaching of the Church, not, as I know, from myself, except as far as it is notorious that I take in their plain sense the words of Holy Scripture, and accept the teaching of the Fathers. 8 St. Matt. i'ix. 11, 12. 9 1 Cor. vii. 25. 166 Our Lord counsels some what He does not enjoin all. demnation," says St. Au- gustine 1 , "not to obey the Lord when He commands : but that which, within the kingdom of God itself, might be more largely possessed, if there were larger thoughts how they were to please God, will assuredly be less, when as this very thing is less thought of by necessity of marriage. Therefore, he says, * Concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord.' For whosoever obeys not a command is guilty and liable for punishment. Wherefore, because it is not sin to marry a wife or to be married, (but, if it were a sin, it would be forbidden by a command,) on this account there is no command of the Lord con- cerning virgins. But since, after we have shunned or had forgiveness of sins, we must approach eternal life, wherein is a certain or more excellent glory to be assign- ed not unto all who shall live for ever, but unto cer- tain there ; in order to ob- tain which it is not enough to have been set free from sins, unless there be vowed unto him, Who setteth us free, something, which it is no matter of fault not to have vowed, but matter of I praise to have vowed and performed; he saith, ' I give counsel, as having obtained mercy from God, that I ; should be faithful.' For neither ought I to grudge faithful counsel, who, not by I my own merits, but by the 1 mercy of God, am faithul." The distinction, then, , between " counsels" and "precepts" of the Gospel is given by our Lord Him- self. I will not enter here ! into the question, whether, j (as Dr. Hickes says that Fenelon explains the dis- tinction) "counsels" become real "precepts" under the , circumstances with respect to which they were given. One who is really and dis- tinctly drawn by God to a more devoted life, as of holy j orders, or a missionary, would certainly sin, if, 'through love of worldly ease, he held back from jthat drawing. What the consequence would be to i him, God alone knows. The I frame of mind which so draws back might end in [the final love of the world | rather than of God, and so jin the loss of God. Having now thought it 'right to speak on the sub- ject, I would add, that St. i De Virgin. § 14 (Shorter Treatises, p. 316, Oxf. Tr.) The love of God and man the end of all " counsels." 167 Augustine and later spirit- ual writers, while they must say, that it is the higher course, where other duty permits, to give up " houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for His Name's sake," still give several cautions. 1. " Coun- sels" are not themselves an end, but means to help to- ward an end, removing what may be hindrances to the love of God. St. Au- gustine, certainly, without any hesitation, confesses, that the keeping of " coun- sels" is not the end of the spiritual life, but a mean or instrument to a spiritual end. He saith : " The 2 end of every commandment is charity, i. e. every com- mandment is referred to charity. Whatsoever things therefore God commands, whereof one is, ' Thou shalt not commit adultery,' and whatsoever things are not commanded, but by spirit- ual counsel advised, whereof is one, ' It is good for a man not to touch a woman,' are then done aright, when they are referred to the love of God, and of our neighbour for the sake of God, both in this world, and in that which is to come." " Why 3 do we cast away temporal things ? Lest they hold our steps in their way to God. Why things pleasing to the flesh? Lest they cloud the eye beholding God. Why tread under foot our wills ? Lest they hinder the fulfilling of the Divine Will in them. Why do we abstain from wine and delicate food ? That, subduing the flesh, we may feel spiritual sweetness. Why do we forgive injuries, not in heart only (as we are required), but also as to outward amends ? That we may imitate Christ praying for his enemies. — These are our steps, these our essays, this our course whereon we run to imitate God, whereby we hasten to union with God ; they are not that union itself, which perfects us in true virtue." 2. One who obeys dili- gently God's commands is to be preferred to one who is less diligent in these, while he follows those fur- ther counsels. " Not 4 only is the obedient to be pre- ferred to the disobedient, 3 Enchiridion de Fide, Spe, ct Carit. § 32. (p. 157, Oxf. Tr.) 3 Alvarez de Paz