lay hold upon the unspeakably blessed privilege of "dwelling in Christ and Christ in them," and of "sitting in Him and with Him in those heavenly "1 to which He has ascended to "prepare a places place for us, that where He is, there we may be also."

us

common nature,

--

This, then, is the sum of the whole matterthat the object of our Blessed Lord's Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, and of the Holy Mystery ordained by Him as the living bond between Him and of a - not of the human nature only, which He took from us, but of the Divine nature which He imparts unto us -is not that He should descend to be with us where we are, but that we should, in heart and mind, ascend to be with Him where He is, and there "with Him continually to dwell."

One word, in conclusion, as to the bearing of this digression upon our main argument. Does not all that has been adduced on the testimony of God's Word, clearly prove that of the nature of Christ's Spiritual Body, and consequently of the mode of Its communication to us,-as of a great mystery, we are profoundly ignorant; that to dogmatise upon it is utter presumption, fraught with imminent danger of running into profaneness; and that, therefore, our wisdom is, with Archbishop Laud, "while the world disputes to believe," and, believing, to obey?

NOTE L.-PAGE 212.

The Four Accounts of the Institution.

To this account of the institution our Church, in the Prayer of Consecration, has given the preference over the accounts of the three Evangelists. In the substance all accounts agree: the various differences of statement arising from the fact that St. Matthew relates what he himself had witnessed and remembered; St. Mark and St. Luke what they had ascertained by inquiry; all these human recollections being controlled and modified by the Holy Spirit; whereas St. Paul sets forth what he had by revelation received from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself after His Ascension. Hence the reason of the preference given to St. Paul's account is obvious. Detached from the narrative of incidents connected with the Institution, and having Christ's own direct authority, it is evidently the one best suited for its liturgical record.

of Its being a Life, and that a Divine Life, It carries with It a revelation of the nature of that Life. To the devout communicant that Mysterious Life reveals Itself in greater and greater clearness of spiritual perception. "With open face beholding as in a glass,”the mirror of our own consciousness which displays the image of the Lord in greater and greater clearness and brightness, the rearer our inner man, through the very operation of the Life of the indwelling Christ, approaches to His likeness,-"the Glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from Glory to Glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Thus the progress of the spiritual understanding of the Mystery keeps pace with the progress of the spiritual Life Itself, which through the Mystery is imparted unto, and increased in, the soul advancing towards Godlikeness, through the fellowship and the consequent likeness of Christ the God-man. Such is the blessed fruit of constant, not desultory,-of spiritual, not materialising,--communion with Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It is almost needless to add that this blessed fruit is not vouchsafed to the curious questioner, the speculative intruder into the Mysteries of God; it is not to be reached by scholastic arguments and " profitless wranglings about words to the subverting of the hearers." It is the reward reserved to obedient faith, according to our Lord's promise, "If any man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine."

NOTE N.-PAGE 213 and 223.

Mr. Keble on Non-Communicant Attendance. We are enabled to quote, and we do so with great satisfaction, both in justice to Mr. Keble, and as a testimony doubly valuable as coming from him, the following extract from his "Letters of Spiritual Counsel and Guidance" :

:

"I cannot deny that I have a strong feeling against the foreign custom of encouraging all sorts of persons to "assist" at the Holy Eucharist, without communicating. It seems to me open to two grave objections; it cannot be without danger of profaneness and irreverence to very many, and of consequent dishonour to the Holy Sacrament; and it has brought in and encouraged, or both, (at least so I greatly suspect), a notion of quasi-sacramental virtue in such attendance, which I take to be great part of the error stigmatized in our XXXIst Article. Even in such a good book as the Imitatio Christi, and still more in the Paradisus Anime, one finds participating in Missâ vel Communione, spoken of as if one brought a spiritual benefit of the same order as the other. This I believe to be utterly unauthorized by Scripture and Antiquity, and I can imagine it of very dangerous consequence. But whatever one thought of this, the

-8

former objection would still stand, and it would not do to answer that the early Church allowed, or even encouraged, the practice; because even if that were granted (I very much doubt it, to say the least), the existence of discipline at that time entirely alters the case. I used to argue in this way with poor R. W., but I could never get him to mind me.8 And in the letter addressed by Mr. Keble to the Literary Churchman, before referred to,' he says:"I cannot but doubt the wisdom of urging all men indiscriminately to be present at the Holy Mysteries matter left open, as far as I can see, by the Prayer Book; and in ordering of which it may seem most natural to abide by the spirit of the Ancient Constitutions; which did not willingly permit even the presence of any but communicants, or others of whom the clergy had reason to believe that they were in a way to become such; the rather, in that there appears to be some danger of the idea gaining ground, which meets one so often in Roman Catholic books of devotion, of some special quasi-sacramental grace connected with simply assisting devoutly at Mass, over and above that promised to all faithful prayer." That the apprehensions expressed by Mr. Keble of the danger of non-communicant attendance were well founded is already proved by experience. We have the testimony of an eye witness, himself an habitual worshipper at a Ritualistic church, that being present at a high celebration in one of the principal Ritualistic churches in London, which was densely crowded, out of the whole number of worshippers there were only three or four aged persons that " went up to receive; the rest being satisfied with the "benefit" of noncommunicant attendance. It is, in fact, the same process over again by which, in Romish times, through solitary sacerdotal celebrations, the Holy Communion fell into general disuse and neglect.

NOTE O-PAGE 215.

Mr. Keble and Rome.

How deeply rooted this antagonism was, and how keenly it affected Mr. Keble's sensitive mind, may be collected from some passages of letters addressed by him to his friend Sir John Coleridge, as early as the year 1841. "I cannot go to Rome," he writes, "till Rome be much changed indeed; but I may be driven out of the English Church, should that adopt the present set of Charges and Programmes; and many will, I fear, not be content to be nowhere, as I should feel it my duty to try to be."

And again, in a later letter of the same year :"The contingency that I contemplate, a very dreary one, but such an one as 1 ought not to think it strange

8 Keble's Letters of Spiritual Counsel and Guidance, Letter CXVI.

if I incur it, is not going to Rome, but being driven, out of all communion whatever."1

NOTE P.-PAGE 216.

Frequency of Holy Communion and its abiding Effect. This notion of introducing into the Eucharistic communion with Christ limitations of time is properly correlative with the notion of subjecting the Presence of Christ to the limitations of space. The Materialistic Communicant who looks upon Christ as contained locally within the circumference of the Host, or the four corners of the Bread, consistently looks for the continuance of that same Presence according to the ordinary measures of time to be told off by the tickings of his watch. Mr. Carter does not shrink from the inferences which carnal reason draws from this view of the Eucharistic Presence. He actually raises the question "as to the length of time the special sacramental Gift, the Presence which possesses the soul, lasts in its fulness." And he follows it up to a degree of most repulsive grossness, by asking, 'Is it so that our Lord abides in us only so long as the outer forms of the sacrament abide in us, the special inner secret Presence received through the outward elements being lost with them?" True, he suggests, as if in some measure shocked by the tenor of his own thoughts upon the subject, that "this would be too much to identify the inward and the outward," and he endeavours to escape from the difficulty which he has raised-to say nothing of the irreverence of the ideas which he has suggested-by an observation subversive of his whole theory of incorporation with the elements, viz., that "our Lord in His secret Gift is merely taking the outward form, as a vehicle, a means of entering into us, to be with us afterwards according to His own Power, irrespectively of the accidents or circumstances of the perishing creature." One cannot help asking, however, how such questions come to be raised at all in connection with "spiritual instructions?" Are they suggested by the mind of the Instructor himself, or are they questions that have been raised among his disciples, to which he feels it incumbent on him to furnish an answer. In either case they are questions which, while to a mind wont to "discern the Lord's Body," and spiritually to feed upon Christ in the Holy Eucharist, they are exceedingly painful,-cannot but be inconceivably hurtful to minds which have as yet to be initiated into a knowledge of the spiritual life, and to whom such carnal disquisitions are offered by way of introduction to it. The very fact of their presenting themselves, whether to his own mind or to the minds of his disciples, might surely operate as a warning of the peril he is incurring of their " "falling into the ditch together."

1 Memoir of the Rev. John Keble, by the Right Hon. Sir J. T. Coleridge, 3rd edition, p. 209.

2 Compare also Note S.

9 Sea Note C.

See Note U.

3 Carter, Spirit. Instr. vii. p. 63.

4 St. Matt. xv. 14.

The same notion of the duration of the spiritual effect corresponding with, and being more or less dependent on, the "moment" of reception, and the "abiding in us" of the outward elements, leads Mr. Carter on to another topic, that of the number of times at which the Holy Communion should be received, and that again to the question of the minimum number which may be deemed sufficient. "Being once received," he asks," is it enough? Is one communion sufficient for the whole after life? Does our Lord ever afterwards abide because of the one reception, so that after-communions add nothing to the one gift?" This conclusion Mr. Carter very properly repudiates, as being "inconsistent with the Lord's own word which identifies that reception with the image of the Bread of Life, which needs to be received day by day.' What is meant by "identifying the reception with an image," we do not pretend to understand; and we greatly doubt if Mr. Carter himself understands it. However that may be, the drift of his remarks seems to lead up to the idea of a daily reception being, if not absolutely necessary, at least strongly to be recommended. But if daily, why not three times a day? If the "image of the Bread of Life" puts the Holy Eucharist, as the Materialistic view clearly does, on a footing with ordinary bodily sustenance, why should not the "abiding" be secured by similar repetition; why should the body get three meals a day and the soul only one?

114

When the true nature of the "Bread of Life" is properly understood, all such questions fall to the ground. It then becomes clear why from the earliest times the Lord's Day was made the day of Eucharistic feeding, the feast-day of the spiritual life. It followed naturally upon the Divine appointment of one day in seven as a day set apart for God, for His Worship, for the furtherance of spiritual life in the soul; the remainder of the week being a season of toil and struggle, of trial and conflict with the necessities of the daily life; and further, upon the fact of that one day in the seven being the day on which by Christ's Resurrection "life and immortality " was " brought to light." The Holy Eucharist became the daily bread" of the Lord's Day, the spiritual food appropriate to that one day which was set apart as God's own day, as the day of spiritual converse of man with God and sustentation by God. It is from this cause, no doubt, that weekly, not daily, communion became the universal practice, the more frequent reception not being excluded where the desire for it existed, or as special occasions-such as the festivals of the Church, o marriages, funerals, or the sick-bed and the dying-bed, might suggest. And that, in so ordering, the Church rightly apprehended the mind of Christ, is evident from

Carter, Spirit. Instr. vii. p. 64

2 Tim. i. 10.

or

His own words" as often as " which leave the question of times and seasons, and of greater or less frequency an open question.

NOTE Q.-PAGE 221.

The Order of the Prayer Book in Successive Revisions.

Our attention has been called by a friend deeply interested in the vindication of sound Anglo-Catholic principles, to the remarkable confirmation which the view taken by us of the Church's design in the order of her Services, derives from the whole structure of the Book of Common Prayer, as well as from some special Rubrics. For the convenience of our readers we sum up under distinct heads the evidence afforded by the successive Prayer Books of 1549, 1552, 1559, 1604, and 1662.

1. Morning Prayer as a distinct service at the beginning of the day. "Matins 66 or Morning Prayer " ended with the third collect, in 1549, 1552, 1559, and 1604. In 1662 it was enlarged by the addition of the Prayers for the King and Royal Family, for the Clergy and People, the Prayer of St. Chrysostom, and the concluding grace from 2 Cor. xiii.; these additions to be omitted when the Litany is read.

The Litany, in 1549, stood by itself at the end of the Book, after the Order for the Holy Communion, as an occasional service, without any special direction as to its use, except that in a Rubric of the Communion Office it is ordered to "be said or sung " upon Wednesdays and Fridays, before the Communion Service, whether followed by a celebration or not. When so used it would practically form a Service of supplication introductory to the Communion Office. In 1552 it was placed after the Evening Prayer, with a direction for its use upon Sundays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and when commanded by the Ordinary; but without specifying any particular time of the day. Occasional prayers for rain, for fair weather, in time of dearth or famine, of war, and of common plague or sickness, were introduced into it before the Prayer of St. Chrysostom. To these were added, in 1559, a prayer for the Sovereign, and for the Clergy and people. In 1604 a prayer for the Royal Family was appended to the Prayer for the Sovereign; and the occasional prayers were printed separately, and placed after the Litany, with the

6 Οσάκις ἂν, 1 Cor. xi. 25. It is noteworthy that these words clearly implying a discretion as to the times of observing the command TOUTO ROLETTE, are found in the account of the Institution of the Holy Eucharist, and in that only, which St. Paul gives on the direct authority (Ibid v. 23) of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and not less so, that St. Paul's own corollary appended to it commences with the repetition of the same words doákig yàp âv (Ibid v. 28.) This disposes at once also of the notion that a daily celebration holds the place of the daily sacrifice in the temple, as well as of the inference suggested by Mr. Carter's parallel of "the image of the Bread of Life which needs to be received day by day."

addition of thanksgivings for special occasions. In 1662 the Prayers for the Sovereign, the Royal Family, and the Clergy and people were removed from the Litany and embodied in the Morning Prayer; and the Litany was now ordered to be used on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, after the third Collect of Morning Prayer.* To the occasional Prayers were now added the Ember week Prayers, the Prayer for Parliament, as well as the prayer for all conditions of men; and the General Thanksgiving was prefixed to the occasional thanksgivings.

It was simultaneously with this change that the Rubric, which stood in all the previous books, requiring those who intended to be partakers of the Holy Communion to signify their names to the Curate "over night, or else in the morning afore the beginning of Morning Prayer, or immediately after," was altered to "at least some time the day before." This seems clearly to mark the period at which Morning Prayer ceased to be a separate Service from the Mid-day Service at which the Holy Communion was celebrated. There was no longer an opportunity now for "signifying the names of intending communicants" after Morning Prayer.

2. The Communion Service.

To this was prefixed, in 1549, "Introits, Collects, Epistles and Gospels, to be used at the celebration of the Lord's Supper and Holy Communion, through the year, with proper psalms and lessons for divers feasts and days; "followed by the Communion Service under the title, "The Supper of the Lord, and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Masse." In 1552 the Introits and proper psalms and lessons were omitted, reducing that part of the Book to Collects, Epistles and Gospels, and the title of the Office was changed to "The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion." In 1662 the Rubric was prefixed to the Collects which directs "the Collect appointed for every Sunday, or for any Holiday that hath a Vigil or Eve, to be said at the Evening Service next before."

3. Rules in regard to the celebration of the Holy Com

munion.

a. In Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, 1549, "there shall always some communicate with the priest that ministereth," 1552, "where there be many Priests and Deacons, they shall all receive the Communion with the Minister every Sunday at the least, except they have a reasonable cause to the contrary," which Rubric still

remains.

b. In other Churches likewise the Holy Communion was to be ministered every Sunday, as appears from the following Rubric in 1549. "And that the same may also be observed everywhere abroad in the country, some one at least of that house in every parish to whom by course, after the ordinance herein made, it apper

See Note V.

taineth to offer for the charges of the Communion, or some other whom they shall provide to offer for them, shall receive the Holy Communion with the Priest; the which may be the better done for that they know before when their course cometh, and may therefore dispose themselves to the worthy receiving of the Sacrament. And with him or them who doth so offer the charges of the Communion, all other who be then Godly disposed thereunto, shall likewise receive the Communion. And by this means the minister, having always some to communicate with him, may accordAnd ingly solemnize so high and holy mysteries.

...

the Priest on the week-day shall forbear to celebrate the communion, except he have some that will communicate with him."

In 1552 this was altered by doing away with the obligation of the householders to provide in their "courses" for the elements, and the concurrent obligation to communicate with the priest. The elements were now ordered to be provided" by the Curate and the Churchwardens at the charges of the Parish." The celebration of the Holy Communion on Sundays now became (as in 1549, it had been on weekdays) dependent on the number of Communicants, and this was determined in the way in which it has continued ever since. "There shall be no celebration of the Lord's Supper, except there be a good"-1632, a convenient"-" number to communicate with the priest, according to his discretion." Which "discretion " is further limited by the next Rubric: "And if there be not above twenty persons in the parish, of discretion to receive the Communion, yet there shall be no Communion, except four, or three at the least, communicate with the Priest."

64

For the individual the rule was, in 1549, "to communicate once in the year, at the least;" which, in 1552, was altered to the rule as it now stands: At the least three times in the year, of which Easter to be one."

The above data furnish an explanation of the gradual decay of Eucharistic worship. The original rule, and, as appears from the tenor of the "exhortations" contained in the several revisions, and the directions for their use,-the practice also, was the celebration of the Holy Communion every Sunday at the mid-day service, preceded by Matins as a separate forborne" service; subject, however, to its being through want of the minimum number to receive with the Priest; and so it continued till the revision of 1662, when the Morning Service and the Communion Service were blended together. The cause of this, doubtless, was the widespread neglect of the Holy Communion during the Great Rebellion under the influence of Puritanical notions, when the idea of worship, to which the celebration of the Holy Eucharist was essential, was thrust into the back-ground, and the propagation of religious notions by means of Sermons became the

66

The same notion of the duration of the spiritual effect corresponding with, and being more or less dependent on, the "moment" of reception, and the abiding in us" of the outward elements, leads Mr. Carter on to another topic, that of the number of times at which the Holy Communion should be received, and that again to the question of the minimum number which may be deemed sufficient. "Being once received," he asks," is it enough? Is one communion sufficient for the whole after life? Does our Lord ever afterwards abide because of the one reception, so that after-communions add nothing to the one gift?" This conclusion Mr. Carter very properly repudiates, as being "inconsistent with the Lord's own word which identifies that reception with the image of the Bread of Life, which needs to be received day by day." 914 What is meant by "identifying the reception with an image," we do not pretend to understand; and we greatly doubt if Mr. Carter himself understands it. However that may be, the drift of his remarks seems to lead up to the idea of a daily reception being, if not absolutely nece sary, at least strongly to be recommended. But if da why not three times a day? If the "image of Bread of Life" puts the Holy Eucharist, Materialistic view clearly does, on a footi ordinary bodily sustenance, why should: "abiding" be secured by similar repe should the body get three meals a day only one?

When the true nature of the "T properly understood, all such qr, ground. It then becomes clear▾ times the Lord's Day was made feeding, the feast-day of the naturally upon the Divine seven as a day set apart for the furtherance of f remainder of the we struggle, of trial ar the daily life; and day in the seven Resurrection ""

གv,

His own words " as often as 996 of times and seasons, and quency an open question. NOTE Q.

The Order of the Prayer Our attention has interested in the vind principles, to the r view taken by us of her Services, Book of Cor special Rub

we sum u'

by the 1604

which of p

the Sovereign, the Royal Family, ksgivings for special occasions. In eople were removed from the to be used on Sundays, the Morning Prayer; and

Materialistic Theory of the Holy Euchar

prefixed to them, shall receive the com tainoth to offer for the or some other whom they si they know before when their course concià, avi a then Godly disposed thereunto, shall likewise receire offer the charges of the Communion, all a' mhob Priest; the which may be the better dose for t conunum, except he have some thit will communicate the ingly solemnize so high and holy mysteries. . . . And the Priest on the week-day shall forbe ir to celebrate the ing always some to communicate with hia, may accordthe Communion. And by this means the minister, her of the Sacrament. And with him or them who dich so therefore dispose themselves to the worthy rose vog

ter the third Collect of sional Prayers were A conditions of , the Prayer for

with him."

ted " in

Idolatry, to be s;" and the explanaar as it admits of explanaed for in these pages, viz., that Body and Blood have passed into the "state, and that consequently their comtion to the communicant from Christ Himself oned in Heaven, is not subject to the limitations, based upon the laws, of material existence. mor to be reasoned upon, or judged of, by arguments

God a

dou

ur

Holy Communion,

NOTE R.-PAGE 222.

an essential Part of the Mid-day Service on the Lord's Day.

In further support and confirmation of the views

which

of celebration

we have expressed on the subject of the time as intended by our Church, and the und sirableness, to say the least of it, of recent

n'

-; and, not merely

a deep mystery of sacrificial

...on. The Church of the first ages never ureamed of a Sunday Eucharist which had not, bound up in closest union with it, and as a rule preceding it,large reading of Holy Scripture, abundant psalmody, full and detailed intercession and supplication. The existing Eastern Liturgies, with their preceding offices;-the Western Rite, ere it was miserably shorn of its Lessons, Psalmody, Canticles, and Litany, by the disuse of the Breviary in public;-and finally, the existing law of both East and West, that the Offices, as far as Lauds inclusive, must precede the Eucharistic, were it only overnight;-these are my witnesses.

66

But what is offered to us now, as the acme of spiritual perfection, and the proper instrument of it? Even on the high weekly Festival an early and isolated act of oblation and reception, from which these grand features of large Scriptural teaching, praise, and intercession, are excluded by the utterly illegal deferring (I refer to universal Church law, and to our own, fairly interpreted) of the Ordinary Office and Litany to a later period of the day. The grand rite ordained by Christ, and settled for ever in all its great features by His Apostles, is thus reduced to one which, however lofty its work, as far as it goes, does not provide for the whole maa, but leaves three-fourths of his