"He allows that the ancients, by oblation and sacrifice meant

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more than prayer, and that it is even ludicrous to pretend the contrary. He acknowledges that they speak of an oblation of "Bread and Wine, and that the Eucharist is a sacrifice of praise, "and propitiatory also in a sober qualified sense." "In short, he "seems," adds Waterland," almost to yield up every thing which "Dr. Grabe had contended for, except only the point of a proper

or material sacrifice; and he looked upon that as resolving at "length into a kind of logomachy, a difference in words or names "arising chiefly from the difficulty of determining what a 'sa"crifice' properly means, and from the almost insuperable perplexities among learned men, about the ascertaining any pre"cise definition of it." "I am persuaded," he lastly sums up, "there is a good deal of truth in what that learned gentleman

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jecta, p. 211. He says, "The Council of Trent maintains that the sacrifice of the "Eucharist is propitiatory, and that this is to be believed under pain of anathema, "which yet is not said in the Service, which does not call the Holy Supper a "sacrifice,' much less a 'propitiatory' one. Still the Tridentine Fathers, while "they call the sacrifice of the Mass 'propitiatory,' distinguish it from the sacrifice "of the Body of CHRIST upon the Cross. For through the sacrifice of the Cross, "propitiation was so perfectly obtained for man, that nothing can be added to "the price of our redemption, as being infinite (Heb. ix. 11, seq. x. 1, seq. "1 John i. 2). If then the propitiation has been acquired by the sacrifice of the "Cross, it is not acquired or obtained afresh by the Eucharistic sacrifice, unless you take obtained in the sense of applied. Whence it appears, how ambiguous that word 'propitiatory' is, in that it may be taken as well for the 'ac"quiring and obtaining' as for the applying' of the one and the same thing, and 66 so opens the door to numberless strifes of words. For if you say that the Eu"charist applies to the faithful the propitiation made by the sacrifice of the Cross, "no Protestant will dispute this. But if you believe that the devotion of the Eu“charist acquires and obtains propitiation, you may be saying what is perhaps at "variance from the opinion of the Romish Church. For the Council of Trent (sess. 6. c. 1.) calls the Mass 'a peculiar sacrifice, whereby CHRIST in the Last Supper presented to God the Father His own Body and Blood under the form "of bread and wine, and whereby that bloody sacrifice finished upon the Cross "is represented, and its salutary efficacy is applied to the remission of our daily trespasses.' But if this be their meaning, they seem to have anathematized "the Protestants, on account of an ambiguous term, which these do not admit. "For these hold the substance while they reject the word."

"has said, and that a great part of the debate, so warmly carried

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on a few years ago, was more about names than things."

So now we have, in these few instances, the words "sacrifice," "proper," or "propitiatory sacrifice," taken in a good or bad sense, or the question looked 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, else even the same person might be looked upon as a Papist and an Ultra-Protestant, which were absurd. In our perplexity on this subject, we may be the more thankful that God guided the Church Catholic to fix the language on the most essential articles of faith.

There is yet another opinion, which must be mentioned, as being a modification or a portion of the old doctrine, and bearing witness to that, for which it has been substituted. This is what has, since Cudworth's time, been commonly received, viz. that the Eucharist is "a feast upon a sacrifice." This, like so many other modern theories, takes up one half of the ancient doctrine, and then appears as new. It has, however, been valuable, as keeping up a portion of the truth among such as would not, perhaps, have received the whole. But the "feast upon a sacrifice" implies, first, the offering of a sacrifice; and, so, as Archdeacon Daubeny has well said, "The Episcopal "Church in Scotland keeps close to the original pattern of the primitive Church; and with the Church of England,-consider

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1

ing the Sacrament of the LORD's Supper to be a feast upon a "sacrifice, to constitute it such, makes that which is feasted upon "first a sacrifice, by having it offered up by a priest."

In conclusion, one word of caution. It is not without some natural sense of shrinking, that one casts thus upon the troubled waters of our rude days, the testimonies to a doctrine which is not meant for "doubtful disputations," but for reverence and devotion. The choice, however, is not with us: the ardent longing, which God has in so many minds awakened, to know and practise the faith of the Church, such as it was in the days when she kept her first love, is a warning which may not be passed unheeded; and they who know that Church's way have a duty

1 Quoted in the Brit. Mag. Sept. 1834, p. 288.

laid upon them to declare it. Yet, since this doctrine especially has been cast into the shade, it seems to us a blessed circumstance that we were led by events, (which, since they are not of our own arranging, are commonly God's ordering and direction,) to set forth this doctrine in this way. For we trust that they who are apt to look upon these subjects with a sort of jealous impatience, because differing from the system in which they have been educated, and what they think the religion of the Bible, will, (at least some of them,) be restrained from giving vent to that impatience, by the presence of so many witnesses, some of whom, even they have been accustomed to respect; and so the injury which they might do to their own spirit or to the Church, by such profane opposition to the truth, may be avoided. On the other hand, we would warn those who may be tempted overhastily to take up, with all the interest of novelty, an old doctrine, which, in its extent, may to them appear to be new, that they too must restrain themselves. These are not subjects for discussion, for speculation, for display of recently acquired knowledge; they are high, mysterious, awful Christian privileges, to be felt, reverenced, embraced, realized, acted. Let them not speak of them until they have practised them, but rather pray GOD to deepen their own sense of them. They will then speak of them, if they speak at all, more chastenedly and in the ear,not in mixed society or in the market-place; and we may trust, not so as to injure themselves or others, or make the mysteries of God a common thing. What St. Augustine saith of God, is true also of all His mysteries:-"The soul' may more readily "attain to speak of Him than to see Him, and she will so much "the less speak of Him, the more purely she is enabled to see "Him." "What do we?" says he again 2; "shall we be silent? "Would we might! For it might be that through silence some"thing might be conceived worthy of that which is unutterable."

To further these ends, to obviate the embarrassment which may naturally result to individuals, from feeling themselves in possession of a doctrine greater than they have hitherto had, or

1 Serm. 117. sect. 7.

2 Cont. Ep. Manich. c. 19.

than, from the contrariety of their previous habits, they can readily associate with an action, outwardly so simple as that of placing upon the Altar the elements of bread and wine,-as also for the sake of the blessing of the prayers themselves, we subjoin two forms wherewith the oblation was of old accompanied. This the priest may say silently 1, (for the Church places no restraint upon silent prayer,) while he is reverently placing the bread and wine upon the Altar, as directed. The prayer is in substance that which St. Irenæus doubtless derived, through St. Polycarp, from the blessed St. John, and was probably in use in this Church, before, for the first time, it suffered from foreign influence, then that of Rome. Clergymen, whether they place (as they are bidden) or even remove from one part of the Altar to another, the Bread and Wine, which is to be made so mysteriously holy, cannot but offer some prayer, or at least think thoughts which are prayers. It is here only proposed as a form, which may be used by such as desire it; others may be found elsewhere, or have been already given.

In the old Gallican Liturgy, then, the prayers of oblation and invocation of the HOLY GHOST to sanctify the elements, which form part of every known Liturgy, are thus combined :

:

1 The Apostolic Bishop Wilson gives this direction after the prayer of consecration: "Say secretly, Most merciful GOD, the Father of our Lord JESUS "CHRIST, look graciously upon the gifts now lying before Thee, and send down "Thy Holy Spirit on this Sacrifice, that He may make this bread and this wine "the Body and Blood of Thy CHRIST, that all they who partake of them may be "confirmed in godliness, may receive remission of their sins,-may be delivered "from the devil and his wiles,-may be filled with the Holy Ghost,-may be "worthy of Thy CHRIST, and obtain everlasting life ;-Thou, O LORD AL"MIGHTY, being reconciled unto them, through the same JESUS CHRIST our "LORD. Amen."-Introd. to the Lord's Supper, Works, t. i. p. 51. 4to. 1781, quoted in part in Brit. Mag. 1. c. p. 408.

2 See Tract, No. 63-" The Antiquity of the existing Liturgies," whence (p. 15.) the following passages from the Gallican Liturgy are transcribed. They occur in Brett's Liturgies, p. 114. 120. Mabillon, p. 227, 228. 457. In an interesting paper in the British Mag. Sept. and Oct. 1834, p. 402, sqq. portions of thirteen ancient forms are given, and those of our own Liturgy, as used in England, Scotland, and America.

"We, O LORD, observing these Thy gifts and precepts, lay "upon Thine Altar the Sacrifices of Bread and Wine, beseeching "the deep goodness of Thy mercy, that the Holy and Undivided Trinity may sanctify these Sacrifices, by the same SPIRIT through "which uncorrupt virginity conceived Thee in the flesh; that "when it has been received by us with fear and veneration, "whatever dwells in us contrary to the good of the soul may die, "and whatever dies, may never rise again."

Or in the Christmas office of the same Liturgy.

"We therefore, observing these His commandments, offer "unto Thee the holy gift of our salvation, beseeching Thee "that Thou wouldst vouchsafe to send THY HOLY SPIRIT upon "these solemn mysteries, that they may become to us a true "Eucharist, in the Name of THEE, and Thy Son, and of the "HOLY SPIRIT, that they may confer eternal life and an ever"lasting kingdom on us who are going to eat and drink of them, "in the transformation of the Body and Blood of our LORD "JESUS CHRIST, Thine Only Begotten SoN. Amen."

OXFORD.

Feast of all Saints.

In order to exhibit more clearly the character of Edward VIth's first book, which has been above commented upon, as well as a sort of introduction to the following list of witnesses, to whom it was a link, as it were connecting them and their Church with the Fathers and the Primitive Catholic Church, it seemed advisable to give here, as a whole, the prayer of Consecration and Oblation as it stood in that book; and to explain the mind of its principal revisers, there have been appended the official answers, given by them a little previously, to the question on the doctrine here contained. Only it must be remembered that the language, being that of the ancient Church, is not dependent for its interpretation on the views of its revisers; whether they saw what they delivered, more or less clearly, is an object of interest solely as relates to them; they transmitted to us not their own interpretations, or their own thoughts, nor cast our devotions into the model of their