Israelite saw with delight the officiating priest bring his beasts to the altar, not because he saw any essential usefulness in the rite, but simply because God had commanded such a performance. You cannot say that the Jewish worshipper believed he was typifying a Messiah about to die for him; and therefore he could not have comprehended precisely the method of reconciliation, an idea of which his sacrifice was intended to convey; and therefore his faith was restricted to the belief of God's revelation, shown by an implicit obedience to it. But that which they believed only we may be said now to see; for the wonderful crucifixion of a Saviour, and all things which he suffered for our redemption, are exhibited to our view, and, to use the language of St. Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, "Christ Jesus is evidently set forth crucified amongst us." We again as it were see and handle the Word of Life. We again see him suffering inexpressible agony in Gethsemane; we again (yet not all of us, but only the strong in faith) see him lifted up and dying, as he died once for all, upon that cursed tree. He who is great because he is humble in faith can alone behold this; "the disputer of this world" is as ignorant of what we are witnessing as the babe that is unborn. 1 But now surely we are approaching terribly near to the sacrifice of the mass; surely we are treading very close upon the heels of the purblind papists—not so, kind reader. We are merely stating the faith of antiquity, and of the holiest and best of the fathers of our reformed church. You know the schismatic priests of the church of Rome make their deluded followers swallow a most indigestible error, for they tell them that that very wafer, which is made perhaps of wheat grown on their own farms, and ground in their own mills they tell them that is no longer what it was, but is converted into a totally different substance. Consequently they pretend to offer up numerous atonements in the persons of many Christs, and deprive of its validity the one great sacrifice upon the cross. But we do not forget that a sacrament is a sign of something signified; we do not forget that God has given us reason as a guide to strengthen our belief in revelation; we do not forget that we are beings endowed with sense, and not intended to take a part in any senseless mummery. The bread and wine are symbols only, but yet in a manner in which bodily eye cannot see, nor human tongue declare, nor pen of ready writer explain, they are really and truly the body and blood of Christ; and therefore we are accustomed to say, after the manner of those of old time, that when the priest offers them at the altar, he makes a sacrifice, albeit, a bloodless one, of the body and blood of Christ. That we are not merely stating what we cannot prove, when we say that those of old time believed this, we shall just bring you a few select passages to show first that the earliest fathers of the church Catholic, and the fathers of the Church of England, considered that Christ's body and blood were connected with the elements; and, secondly, that they also called the eucharistical rite a sacrifice. St. Chrysostom said that that which we call bread is, after consecration, 1 ἡ ̓πόλλων οὐ παντὶ φαείνεται, ἀλλὅ τις ἐσθλός. 2 rightly esteemed the Lord's body, although the nature of bread remains. ' Tertullian says that the bread which the Saviour took and distributed to his disciples at his last supper became his body. But how might not passages from the fathers be multiplied? Bishop Ridley, in his trial at Oxford acknowledged the real presence; and the aged Latimer said thus: "And this same presence may be called most fitly a real presence, that is, a presence not fancied, but a true and a faithful presence. Which thing I here rehearse, lest some sycophant or scorner should suppose mee, with the anabaptistes, to make nothing else of the sacrainent but a naked and a bare signe." "B Bishop Bramhall also said, "No genuine son of the Church of England did ever deny a true real presence." Bishop Taylor said, "The symbols become changed into the body and blood of Christ, after a sacramental, that is, a real manner, so that all that worthily communicate do by faith receive Christ really, effectually, and to all the purposes of his passion."5 Archbishop Wake, also: "The bread and wine, after consecration, are the real, but the spiritual and mystical body of Christ." Here, also, we might go far beyond the limits of this article in quoting authorities, but we forbear. That the earliest ecclesiastical writers believed also in a sacrifice is evident. It is called by that name, and no other, in the canons of the holy apostles; and, although we do not pretend to say that these were actually written by the first apostles, yet they are undoubtedly expressions of their opinions, and, as they are cited by St. Cyprian, must have been compiled at a very early period. St. Cyprian himself, in his treatise on the Lord's supper, calls it "a holocaust for healing from infirmities, and purging from iniquities." St. Augustine declared it was, by all, called a sacrifice, and was a sign of the true sacrifice. In another place we find him asserting that it is called a sacrifice "because the passion, death, and crucifixion of Christ are, in a significant mystery, made by the hands of the priest." And to take the opinion of the great and good of our own church, Bishop Taylor's words are very explicit : "As Christ is a priest in heaven for ever, and yet does not sacrifice himself afresh, nor yet without a sacrifice could he be a priest, but, by a daily ministration and intercession, represents his sacrifice to God, and offers himself as sacrificed; so he does upon earth by the ministry of his servants; he 99 1 Sicut antequam sanctificetur panis, panem nominamus, divinâ autem illum sanctificante gratiâ, mediante sacerdota, liberatus quidem est ab appellatione panis, dignus autem habitus est omnia corporis appellatione, etiamsi natura panis in eo permansit.-Epist. ad Cæsarium. 2 Acceptum panem et distributum discipulis corpus suum illum fecit. Mar. Lib. iv. c. 40. 3 Word. Ecc. Biog. vol. iii, p. 177. 4 Works, vol. i. p. 15. Contra 5 Essay on the " Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the blessed Sacrament, proved against the doctrine of Transubstantiation." 6 Discourse on the Holy Eucharist, chap. ii. Iste calix, benedictione solemni sacratus ad totius hominis vitam salutemque proficit; simul medicamentum et holocaustum ad sanandas infirmitates et purgandas iniquitates existens. 8 Quod ab ominibus appellatur sacrificium, signum et veri sacrificii, in quo caro Christi post assumptionem per sacramentum memoria celebratur. Contra Faustum, lib. x. c. 2. 9 Vocaturque ipsa immolatio carnis quæ sacerdotis manibus fit Christi passio, mors, crucifixio non rei veritate sed significante mysterio. August. apud Gratian. is offered to God, that is, he is, by prayer and the sacrament, represented or offered up to God as sacrificed, which, in effect, is a celebration of his death, and the applying it to the present and future necessities of the church, as we are capable, by a ministry like to his in heaven. It follows, then, that the celebration of this sacrifice be, in its proportion, an instrument of applying the proper sacrifice to all the purposes which it first designed. It is ministerially, and by application, an instrument propitiatory; it is eucharistical, it is an homage, and an act of adoration; and it is impetratory, and obtains for us and for the whole church all the benefits of his sacrifice, which is now celebrated and applied: that is, as this rite is the remembrance and ministerial celebration of Christ's sacrifice, so it is destined to do honour to God, to express the homage and duty of his servants, to acknowledge his supreme dominion, to give him thanks and worship, to beg pardon, blessings, and supply of all our needs." "1 We have thus copied a rather long extract, because all of it applies so strongly to the point we are urging. Bishop Taylor was a man whose orthodoxy remained unshaken through good report and evil report; who thought of what he wrote, and wrote what he thought; and who thought not upon the impulse of the moment, but after the exercise of his sound judgment had been brought to bear. Dean Brevint's words are these: "All comes to this: first, that the sacrifice, as it is itself and in itself, can never be reiterated; yet, by way of devout_celebration and remembrance, it may, nevertheless, be reiterated every day. Secondly, that whereas the holy eucharist is by itself a sacrament, 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 hands the same blessings, we present and expose before his eyes that same holy and precious oblation once offered." 2 Now we think it is clear that fathers whose orthodoxy is unquestioned, and divines who have been the ornaments of our Church, have always held that there was a sacrifice in the eucharist. Moreover they did not mean to speak only of a sacrifice of prayer and praise, or any such spiritual offering, which Christians may make in the privacy of their closets if they please, nor did they mean to speak of a sacrifice of the fruits of the earth, presented as a thanksgiving to the God of harvest, nor even did they simply speak of a commemorative sacrifice, but of an actual sacrifice, of the representatives of the body and blood of Christ. In the words of the learned Dr. Donne; "it is the ordinary phrase and manner of speech in the fathers to call that a sacrifice, not only as it is a commemorative sacrifice, (for that is amongst ourselves, and so every person in the congregation may sacrifice, i. e., do that in remembrance of Christ), but as it is a real sacrifice in which the priest doeth that which none but he does, i. e., really to offer up Christ crucified to Almighty God, for the sins of the people, so as that that very body of Christ which offered himself for a propitiatory sacrifice upon the cross, once for all, that body, and all that that body suffered, is offered again and presented to the Father; and the Father is entreated, that for the merits of that 1 Life of Christ. 2 On the Christian Sacrifice. person so presented and offered unto him, and in contemplation thereof, he will be merciful to that congregation, and apply those merits of his to their particular souls."1 If, then, this is a sacrifice so actual that it is of a nature infinitely superior to the Jewish sacrifices, it follows that the particular erection upon which it is presented is literally and strictly speaking an altar, and that this is the same altar of which St. Paul writes, when he asserts, "we have an altar," and of which the Saviour speaks, when he directs us to lay our gift upon the altar. This is that which has succeeded to the Jewish tabernacle, this is that on which, instead of bleating sheep or reeking entrails of the paschal lamb, is offered, the unbloody sacrifice of the spotless Lamb once slain for the sins of the world. And, if there ever was a time when this all-important structure required the arguments of man, to enchance its value in his eyes, it is now that the unblushing dissenter degrades it into a table for his carnal symposium; that the sons of mother Church are traitors to her cause, and are siding with her worst opponents in proving the non-entity of a Christian saccrifice ;now that the reverential members of the Church of England, who feel and testify their respect for that altar, which St. Paul has invested with so much dignity, are branded with a charge of heresy, and are injured by the foul suspicion being whispered abroad that they are wishing to strengthen the schism which the church of Rome has originated in this realm, and which in reality they most bitterly bewail. THE CHURCH OF THE PEOPLE. No. I. THE PEOPLE DELuded. « Καίτοι δέδοικα πολλά· τούς τε γὰρ τρόπους Κ' άνταῦθα λανθάνουσ ̓ ἀπεμπολώμενοι.” Aristoph. Acharn., 340–344. How truly the master mind of Aristophanes could portray the utter inability of the Athenian democracy to legislate for itself, or to form an unbiassed judgment on subjects that concerned its temporal interest, need scarcely be pointed out to those who are not wilfully blind to the example which history has recorded for our instruction. Much less need there many words to insist upon the awful similarity which exists between his graphic descriptions and the character of the multitude in the present day; it were but to repeat an oft-used comparison to speak of the itching ears which drink in the flattering accents of a political spouter, or a self-appointed religious teacher, with the same avidity as that whereby they were led about according 1 Sermon on Rom. xii, 11. to the fancies of the factious demagogue; they will listen to an Owen or O'Connell now as erst they would follow the dictates of a Cleon. Strange anomaly indeed it is, that the mob should be at once a tyrant' and a slave; yet such are the inconsistencies which naturally result when men throw off the restraints of authorized authority, and constitute themselves the arbiters of what is good for them. It is not necessary here to dwell upon the reasons which (had we no experience) would form an à priori argument against the growing evil of the voluntary system, whether in politics, in morals, or religion; nor is it intended to frighten the independent spirit of our modern speculators by denying in toto the right and efficacy of private judgment—that favourite vision on which the vanity of man delights to ponder; suffice it here to repeat a suggestion which was more than hinted at in olden times by the greatest of all heathen philosophers, namely, that legislation is a matter of such infinite difficulty, and requiring such deep discernment, that the necessary qualifications for it cannot be generally possessed, but must be confined exclusively to a few (ὅτι ἕνα λαβεῖν καὶ ὀλίγους ῥᾷον, ἢ πολλοῦς εὖ φρονοῦντας, καὶ δυναμένους voμoleteïv kai dikačev.-Arist. Rhet. I. 1.) Add to this consideration of the untutored minds and general ignorance and injudiciousness which cannot but prevail amongst the multitude who have not time (even if they had abilities) so much as to think upon those difficulties which they would fearlessly-I do not say how modestly-undertake to decide for themselves; add to this the tendency of falsehood to be predominant in the minds of men rather than truth, because it is more adapted to the depravity of our nature; take a farther proof from the love of novelty, which leads men to disregard the most pure and ancient institutions of their country; and, then, though all the other arguments which might have been adduced, and which have been adduced on this vexata questio, be not now taken into consideration, yet that which is now cried down as the arbitrary assumption of power within the hands of a few would rather seem to be a happy provision for the country, wherein the cares of the business of the state are shifted from the shoulders which are too weak to bear them, to the keen heads and strong judgments of those whom rank has invested with the unenviable responsibility. 3 It is indeed an Utopian vision to suppose that men can be brought to think thus soberly upon the subject: so long as public agitators, whether against the state, in the character of leaders of a faction, or against the church, as the schismatical teachers of dissent, shall pour into the ears of the deluded populace the airy nothings of liberty and · Ενημεροῦντάς τε ἀναγκαῖον εὔνους εἶναι καὶ ταῖς τυράννισι καὶ ταῖς δημο κρατίαις· καὶ γὰρ ὁ δῆμος εἶναι βούλεται μόναρχος. Διὸ καὶ ὁ κόλαξ πάρ ̓ ἀμφοτέροις ἔντιμος, παρὰ μὲν τοῖς δήμοις ὁ δημαγωγὸς (ἐστὶ γὰρ ὁ δημαγωγὸς τοῦ δήμου κόλαξ), παρά δὲ τοῖς τυράννοις οἱ ταπεινῶς ὁμιλοῦντες, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἔργον Koλakıaç-Arist. Pol. v. 11. • Δοῦλοι ὄντες τῶν ἀτόπων.—Thuc. iii. 38. • Μετὰ καινότητος μὲν λόγου ἄριστοι ἀπατᾶσθαι, μετὰ δεδοκιμασμένου δὲ μὴ ξυνέπεσθαι ἐθέλειν· δοῦλοι ὄντες τῶν ἀεὶ ἀτοπῶν, ὑπερόπται δὲ τῶν εἰωθότων. Thục. iii. 38. |