successive teaching of her Ministers. So in other points, wherein they, who at the time had the deposit of her faith committed to them, were persuaded to withdraw from common use, or to leave but slight indications of, doctrine, which had recently and might again be abused. This might, by a sort of analogy, as far as relates to the object, be called the "disciplina arcani" of the Anglican Church; only, it was so far a hazardous experiment, in that no provision was made (as in the ancient Church) for authoritatively inculcating upon those fit to receive it, the doctrine thus withheld from the unworthy or uninstructed. It was left to tradition, but that tradition was not guarded. One must, also, herein not speak of the wisdom or foresight of individuals, but of the good Providence of God, controlling and guiding the genius of the Church. "Not through our merit but His mercy; not "through our foresight but His Providence; not through our own arm, but His right hand and His arm, were we rescued and deli"vered." Yet since He "saw some good thing in us," He so directed our Church's reverence for the "good old Fathers of the primitive Church" as not indeed to exempt us from "suffering loss," but still with safety of our "lives" as a Church. For "loss" He has ordained all to suffer, who in any way tamper, whether by adding to or taking away from, the Apostolic deposit of sound words; yet since we had in most things been faithful, He chastened us only, and gave us not over unto death.

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Of this latter kind-a doctrine, namely, which our Church retains, but one of the most withdrawn from sight, lest it should, at one time, perchance have been misapplied or profaned, is the doctrine of a Sacrifice in the Blessed Eucharist. It is not here intended to speak disparagingly of those of the revisers of our Liturgy, who furthered or consented to the suppression of doctrine visible in the 2nd book of Edward VI. They listened or yielded to foreign advisers, who had their minds fixed solely on the "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits," which the Church of Rome had connected with the true doctrine, and who had themselves abandoned it. Happy, if while guarding against the errors of Rome, they had escaped the opposite danger of fomenting profane indifference or unbelief, which have left their own

Controversy injures the reception of doctrine, though retained. 3

homes desolate! And the revisers of our own Liturgy, in the latter part of the reign of Edward VI, would have acted with greater wisdom and a firmer faith, had they continued to retain the explicit statements of the Catholic doctrine, and sought other means of averting its abuse, or left the correction to Almighty God, who gave that doctrine. No one can doubt that if they could have foreseen, whither this half-suppression of true doctrine would lead, they would have guarded in some other way against any temporary danger which might arise from the association of past errors therewith. There is evidence, as will appear hereafter, that those of the revisers, who were most yielding, held, (as they hoped, in the sense of the primitive Church,) the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice; one cannot indeed suppose that they felt altogether, even as men might, its great value and privilege they had been engaged in controverting errors connected with a high view of sacred doctrine; and such errors cannot be controverted without great peril to the delicacy of our own faith, and our refined and affectionate apprehension of it; the office of assault makes the mind rough and rude, and associates jarring thoughts with the doctrine thus approached, (so that the Spirit of love cannot dwell there,) and, again, it almost forces the mind to speak familiarly on high mysteries, thereby injuring the reverence by which they must be apprehended. Then also, the very notion of disguising the expression of any doctrine implies a diminished estimation of it; the debating about it, preparing for it, at last, the overt act of doing it, are so many acts of forfeiture. For "he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath." Whoso watches not jealously over the deposit committed to him shall lose it. Still the revisers in question had the doctrine, and wished, in their way, to keep it, and so would be grieved to find that their mode of acting had nearly forfeited it to the Church. But, further, no doctrine can be lost, or injured singly. We may not indeed maintain any doctrine, or rest its principal importance, upon its connection with or bearings upon some other doctrine, lest we arrogate too much to ourselves, and lose sight of the intrinsic value of the doctrine, which we presume to make thus dependent on another; still it is allowable to point out any additional evils,

We know not

which departure from that doctrine may have. then how great may be the loss of the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice in itself; undoubtedly much greater than they are aware of, who, while in the flesh, think it the greatest; the loss of this as a devotional act, may be an unspeakable evil to the whole Church, and intercept much of the favour of the FATHER from us, and of the fulness of His blessings in His SoN. And so, on the other hand, we may perhaps look upon the "chain of witnesses" here adduced, not only as having attested and perpetuated the truth, but also, each in their generation (with a multitude of others whom they represent, and who more or less consciously and distinctly performed the same act of devotion and held the same truth) obtaining a measure of favour of God for His Church here by pleading thus the merits of their LORD. But apart from this, the highest and most mysterious part of the subject, it may be noticed as a fact, that the way wherein the doctrine of the Communication of the Body and Blood of CHRIST in the Holy Eucharist has been received, has always been proportioned to this of the "commemorative sacrifice." Both were held in high and awful honour in the Primitive Church, both perverted in the later Church of Rome, both depreciated by Ultra-Protestants; and among ourselves, the reverence felt towards the one Mystery has been generally heightened or depressed, according to the several degrees in which the other was received; and not these only, but (since every portion of our faith is indissolubly although invisibly linked with every other portion,) other truths also which people do not readily suspect. It was easy for those, free from the errors of Rome, to see that her doctrine of the sacrifice interfered with that of the one Sacrifice on the Cross; but many overlooked that the belief in that Sacrifice might then only be altogether sound, when the Eucharistic Sacrifice was also reverenced.

It may be well, however, in these days, before going further, to state briefly what that doctrine is, and what the Romanist corruption of it. The doctrine then of the early Church was this; that "in the Eucharist, an oblation or sacrifice was made by the "Church to GOD, under the form of His creatures of bread and wine, "according to our Blessed LORD's holy institution, in memory of

"His Cross and Passion ;" and this they believed to be the "pure offering" or sacrifice which the Prophet Malachi foretold that the Gentiles should offer; and that it was enjoined by our LORD in the words "Do this for a memorial of Me;" that it was alluded to when our LORD or St. Paul spake of a Christian "altar" (St. Matt. v. 23. Heb. xiii. 10.), and was typified by the Passover which was both a sacrifice and a feast upon a sacrifice. For the first passover had been a vicarious sacrifice, the appointed means of saving life, when the first-born of the Egyptians were slain; and like all other vicarious sacrifices, it shadowed out that of our LORD on the Cross; the subsequent Passovers were Sacrifices, commemorative of that first sacrifice, and so typical of the Eucharist, as commemorating and showing forth our LORD's Sacrifice on the Cross. Not that they reasoned so, but they knew it to be thus, because they had been taught it, and incidentally mentioned these circumstances, which people would now call evidence or grounds and reasons. This commemorative oblation or sacrifice they doubted not to be acceptable to God who had appointed it; and so to be also a means of bringing down God's favour upon the whole Church. And, if we were to analyze their feelings in our way, how should it be otherwise, when they presented to the ALMIGHTY FATHER the symbols and memorials of the meritorious Death and Passion of His Only-Begotten and Well-Beloved Sox, and besought Him by that precious Sacrifice to look graciously upon the Church which He had purchased with His own Blood-offering the memorials of that same Sacrifice which He, our great High-Priest, made once for all, and now being entered within the veil, unceasingly presents before the FATHER, and the representation of which He has commanded us to make? It is, then, to use our technical phraseology, commemorative, impetratory sacrifice," which is all one with saying that it is well-pleasing to GOD; for what is well-pleasing to Him, how should it not bring down blessings upon us? They preferred to speak of it in language which, while it guarded against the errors of their days, the confusion with the sacrifices of Jew or Pagan, expressed their reverence for the memorials of their SAVIOUR'S Body and Blood, and named it "the aweful and un

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"bloody sacrifice," or the like, as men would, with a sense of the unfathomable mystery of God's goodness connected therewith. This pleading of our SAVIOUR's merits, by a sacrifice instituted by Himself, was (they doubted not) regarded graciously by GoD, for the remission of sins; as indeed our LORD had said, "This is "My Blood which is shed for you and for many for the remission "of sins." The Eucharist then, according to them, consisted of two parts, a commemorative sacrifice" and a "Communion" or Communication; the former obtaining remission of sins for the Church; the Communion "the strengthening and refreshing of "the soul," although, inasmuch as it united the believer with CHRIST, it indirectly conveyed remission of sins too. The Communion was (to use a modern phrase) the feast upon the sacrifice thus offered. They first offered to God His gifts, in commemoration of that His inestimable gift, and placed them upon His altar here, to be received and presented on the Heavenly Altar by Him, our High-Priest; and then, trusted to receive them back, conveying to them the life-giving Body and Blood. As being, moreover, appointed by their LORD, they believed that the continual oblation of this sacrifice (like the daily sacrifice appointed in the elder Church) was a benefit to the whole Church, independently and over and above the benefit to the individual communicants-that the sacrifices in each branch of the Christian Church were mutually of benefit to every other branch, each to all and all to each and so also this common interest in the sacrifice of the memorials of their SAVIOUR'S Passion was one visible, yea, and (since God for its sake diffused unseen and inestimable blessings through the whole mystical body of His Son) an invisible spiritual bond of the Communion of Saints throughout the whole Body. "There is one JESUS CHRIST," says St. Ignatius', "Who is above all: haste ye then all together, as to one "Temple of God, as to one Altar, as to one CHRIST JESUS, who "came forth from ONE FATHER, and is in One, and to One re"turned." Lastly, since they knew not of our chill separation between those who, being dead in CHRIST, live to CHRIST and with CHRIST, and those who are yet in the flesh, they felt assured 1 Ep. ad Magnes. §. 7.