ordination service excludes the deacon, as far as I know, from celebrating alone the Eucharistic feast. For, although no authority is given to the deacon to administer the sacraments, which is expressly given to the priest,-and the word Priest is used throughout the rubrics of the sacramental services,-yet we know that neither of these things excludes the former from the constant administration of baptism; and, therefore, no argument can be built upon them for exclusion from the latter. I am aware that deacons abstain, perhaps I might say they are excluded practically. I think, however, that the moderation and judgment of the Church is to be admired in this matter, which, while it does not recognise lay-baptism, does not condemn it, and secures the services of a presbyter in the Holy Supper, without declaring that no circumstances would authorise its celebration by an inferior officer in the Church. Our We can now find it an easy matter to answer the question which is proposed to us: "Now, since the necessity of consecration is thus (that is, by the distinction made between the two sacraments), attested by the very nature of our ritual, how comes it not to have been put more prominently forward by our divines?"* We reply, because they did not view this necessity in the same light as those of the Archdeacon's school. divines did not consider the consecration effective of such strange results as are spoken of in the "Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist:" they did not think that the pronunciation of a few words by a priest worked such a mighty charm as is imagined by the pupils of the Romish school. I do not believe that it was any unwillingness to break altogether with the foreign Protestants," which silenced our divines on the subject of consecration; for I find no trace of any holding back of what they believed 66 Doct. H. Euch. p. 15. + Archbishop Tillotson assures us that the magical power attributed to the pronunciation of the three words hoc est corpus gave rise to the vulgar hocus pocus. Such was the reverend idea entertained of this mighty miracle by the multitude to whom it was taught. to be truths, though the enunciation of them might have been unpalatable to others. Take the single question of episcopacy, and do English divines shrink from propounding and defending it, because it is not in repute with foreign Protestants? I trow not. But the Archdeacon's reasons, as well as assertions, are to be received with great caution. He does not scruple to affirm that in baptism the water "is never spoken of as gaining, in itself, any relation to the sacred object of which it is fitted to remind men." "The water is never spoken of as changed into blood, either in Scripture or ancient authors." Any one who has read the foregoing extracts from the Fathers (p. 21,) will see how far this assertion is from the fact. If we allow the Archdeacon's assumptions, and receive without questioning his assertions, he will prove his point, and draw deductions most logical and certain; but I think I have shewn that the grounds upon which all his arguments are built must be carefully examined, and his assurances tested by research; then we shall find that his proof is only a reductio ad absurdum, no evidence of the truth of the conclusion, but a manifestation of the viciousness of the premises. I consider myself now fully entitled to declare, that the distinction attempted to be made in the matter of the two sacraments is shewn to be unfounded, and that the proofs professed to be given of the same have altogether failed. The two sacraments run pari passu, from the outward sign to the full spiritual blessing; while the conditions under which, and the persons by whom, they are to be administered, are, as far as they can be, just the same. Exceptional cases prove nothing. With the basis, then, must go the superstructure. As far as the conditions, upon which the wondrous transformations wrought by priestly power are built, are found to be fallacious, so far must the surprising results themselves fall to the ground. In other words, there is no essential difference between the two sacraments; the minister of each is Doct. H. Euch. p. 89. H the same; and the prayer of consecration, used in setting apart the outward elements, has the same effect in each case. No magic power is, in either, imparted to the visible symbol, so as to enable it to work as a charm; but, in virtue of divine appointment, where there is no obstacle in the recipient, he not only receives the outward signs or sacraments of the great things indicated, but finds them "certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God's good will towards us, by the which He doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our faith in Him."—(Common Prayer, Art. xxv.) CHAPTER IV. CHRIST IS NOT PRESENT IN THE EUCHARIST, BY A CORPOREAL PRESENCE, IN ANY MANNER-i.e., NEITHER NATURALLY NOR SACRAMENTALLY. THE change effected by the words of consecration, according to the East Riding and Romish theory, is that the subject (this, the bread) becomes identical with the predicate (my body),—the wine identical with Christ's blood. It is no apt representation, no sacramental similitude which exists, but the actual identity of the two things; in fact there is but one thing, for the bread has entirely vanished; and when this is said, it is bread no longer than whilst the words "my body" are being spoken; for on the instant, they become the latter in all the fulness of reality, whatever of the seeming of bread may remain. But the Archdeacon shall speak for himself: "When Our Lord, then, spoke of His body and blood as bestowed upon His disciples in this sacrament, He must have been understood to imply that He Himself, Godhead, Soul, and Body, was the gift communicated. His manhood was the medium through which His whole person was dispensed." "For though it is the law of His nature, that His manhood is not everywhere present, as is His Godhead,-since the first does not partake in that attribute of omnipresence which belongs to the last-yet His Godhead is everywhere present with His manhood, and has part in all its actings. Whatsoever was meant, therefore, by the giving the body and the blood of Christ, as by the force of the terms it implied the gift of His manhood, so, by virtue of the Hypostatic Union, it involved that of His Godhead also."-Doct. H. Euch, pp. 77, 78. And that the early Fathers taught such a change in the sacra mental elements, and such a communication of Christ in them, is attempted to be shewn by the following quotations : "That such was the gift bestowed in the Holy Eucharist, and that Our Lord's words of Institution were to be taken in their simple and natural sense, was the belief of all ancient writers. The Doceta abstain from the Eucharist,' says St. Ignatius, because they do not confess it to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, which the Father raised up through His mercy.'* 'As Jesus Christ, Our Saviour, was made flesh through the word of God, and took flesh and blood for our salvation, so we have been instructed that the food which has been consecrated by His word of prayer is the flesh and blood of that Incarnate Jesus.'+ 'Our flesh,' says Tertullian, is fed with the body and blood of Christ, that our soul, too, may be enriched of God.' So that the statements of the second century tally exactly with the language of those Liturgic Offices, which exhibit to us the belief of the fourth. Deliver us from evil, O Lord Jesus Christ. We eat Thy body, which was crucified for us, and drink Thy sacred blood, which was shed for us: may Thy sacred body be made our salvation; and Thy sacred blood be for the remission of our sins, here and for evermore.'§ And these general declarations respecting the Holy Eucharist are associated by St. Cyprian with the original act of Christ, and with His words of Institution. For He it is who is still the agent in this work, through the intervention of His ministers. And if Jesus Christ, Our Lord and God, is Himself the High Priest of God the Father, and has offered Himself first as a sacrifice to the Father, and commanded this to be done in commemoration of Him, surely that priest truly discharges the office of Christ, who imitates what Christ did; and he then offers in the Church a true and full sacrifice to God the Father, if he begins to offer as he sees that Christ Himself has offered. "That which Our Lord affirmed to be present then, by the words of Institution, was His own body and blood. These were the Predicates which He connected with those elements of bread and wine, which He took into His hands and blessed. The nature of the connexion we shall consider presently that though real it was not carnal-(that is, it is not flesh and blood as they are found on the shambles): as yet we are concerned with the Predicates themselves, that is, with the body Ad Smyrnæos, 6. § Missale Gothicum. Missa Dominicalis, 80. Mabillon, p. 300. (Paris, 1729. |