Liturgy." "This sacred and most precious monument, then, of the apostles, our Reformers received whole and entire from their predecessors; and they mutilated the tradition of 1500 years. ""* 66 Though they broke it up and cut away portions, they did not touch life; and thus we have it at this day, a violently treated, but a holy and dear possession, more dear, perhaps, and precious than if it were in its full vigour and beauty; as sickness and infirmity endears to us our friends and relatives. Now the first feeling that comes upon an ardent mind, on mastering these facts, is one of INDIGNATION and impatient sorrow :-the second is the more becoming thought, that as he deserves nothing at God's hand, and is blessed with Christian privileges only at his mere bounty, it is nothing strange that he does not enjoy every privilege which was given through the apostles; and his third, that we are mysteriously bound up with our forefathers, and bear their SIN; or, in other words, that our present condition is a judgment on us for what they did."+

In the same tone, in No. 86 of the Tracts for the Times, it is seriously argued, that all the changes made in our liturgical services, at the time of the Reformation, were "a taking from us of part of our ancient inheritance; a withdrawal of our higher privileges; a thrusting us aside, and

*The total disregard of historical accuracy in this statement deserves a passing remark, if it deserves no more. Mr. Newman unhesitatingly assumes

66

St. Peter's Liturgy" to be, of course a relic of St. Peter! Bingham, however, who is somewhat better authority, can find no liturgies on which he can place any confidence, of earlier date than the third or fourth centuries. (b. xiii. c. 5.) And Mr. Faber unhesitatingly affirms, that none of the ancient liturgies were committed to writing until the fifth century.-Prim. Doct. Justif. 1839. App. p. 434.

+ Newman's Letter to Dr. Faussett, pp. 46, 47.

bidding us to take the lower place, the position of suppliants, and to

weep between the porch and the altar." And in this sense, "the

substitution of the terms," Table,” 66 Holy table," &c., for that of Altar," is a strong instance of this our judicial humiliation. For what is this but to say, that the higher mysteries, which this word "Altar" represents, are partially withdrawn from view ? "*

Thus, then, we see that the common language of this class of writers plainly confesses their belief, that a great change was effected by our Reformers, in substituting the Communion Service for "the Liturgy of St. Peter;" and that that change was a lamentable one; a matter giving just cause for "indignation and impatient sorrow; and only to be submitted to as a heavy "judgment" for our sins and the sins of our fathers.

Such is the tenor of these writers in their more frank and candid statements. There is, however, one remarkable instance of a totally different tone. In Dr. Pusey's Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, it is the learned writer's object to shew, that those holding his opinions are the only true and sincere churchmen; and that those who differ from them are ultra-protes

tants," and lukewarm or uncertain adherents of the church. And hence, we suppose, it comes to pass, that throughout that publication we meet with wholly different statements, as respects this Sacrament, from those which pervade the other writings of the school to which he belongs.

Instead of charging our Reformers with "mutilation," or with "heresy as proud and foolish as Socinianism," the whole of Dr.. Pusey's argument is directed to shew, that they preserved that which Mr. Newman declares they mutilated; and eschewed those

principles which Mr. Froude declares them to have adopted. We give two or three passages of this kind.

66

"The teaching of the church " contains, we are persuaded, the full Catholic truth; we wish neither to add to it nor to take from it." It is that the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper;" that they are conveyed by means of the elements, in that the article says, that "the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner;" for the word "given," as opposed to "taken and received," implies, as has been remarked, that it accompanies in some mysterious way, the distribution of the elements, in that it is "given" by the Priest, and "taken and received by the communicants.' "*

"On this combined teaching of our Articles, Catechism, and Liturgy, we believe the doctrine of our church to be, that in the Communion, there is a true, real, actual, though spiritual communication of the body and blood of Christ to the believer through the holy elements; that there is a true, real, spiritual presence of Christ at the Holy Supper; more real than if we could, with Thomas, feel him with our hands, or thrust our hands into his side; that this is bestowed upon faith, and received by faith, as is every other spiritual gift, but that our faith is but a receiver of God's real, mysterious, precious, gift; that faith opens our eyes to see what is really there, and our hearts to receive it; but that It is there independently of our faith.†

"We are content ourselves to receive the words "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee,' as they were used by the ancient church, from which our

* Dr. Pusey's Letter, pp. 126, 7. † Ibid, p. 131.

Rome, in this respect, has the truth, though mingled with error, and clouded and injured by it: the Zuingli-Calvinist school have forfeited it. In a word, our Church holds with Rome the reality of the communication of the body and blood of Christ through the Holy Eucharist, but denies her carnal way of explaining it.Ӡ

each

Here, then, are two statements diametrically opposed to other; and yet both proceeding from the same party. Mr. Froude, with his editors, Messrs. Newman and Keble; Mr. Newman himself, and the Oxford Tract, No. 86, all speak the language of grief, sorrow, and indignation; all deplore the course taken by our reformers. Dr. Pusey, on the other hand, and not speaking for himself only, but constantly using the plural "we," declares his entire satisfaction with the services of the Church as Reformed; and alleges that they have in them all that of which the former writers deplore the loss !

Now, in the face of this great discrepancy, we might fairly pause, and call upon these gentlemen to elect which statement they meant to abide by. But as our object is, not merely to notice their errors in passing, but to set forth, as far as we may be enabled, the truth; we shall without further preface, examine their opposing views, and endeavour to shew the church's real standing in this matter.

And, first, we shall observe, that the former class of statements is the more accurate of he two; and that Dr. Pusey, in his recent effort to compass and to manifest entire contentment with the ser

* Dr. Pusey's Letter, p. 131.
† Ibid. p. 144.

vices of the church, has most grievously misrepresented her. Feeling, as he himself says, that he "must belong to the church, must obey her," ," it is quite natural that his mind should strive either to approve the language of the church as it is, or to persuade itself that that language means what he would wish; although all other persons can see that it means exactly the opposite. This mental struggle to obey may be pardoned, and, if its object were not to bend truth to error, might even be commiserated; but certainly ought not to be imitated.

Mr. Froude and Mr. Newman can see with perfect distinctness, that our Reformers most sedulously excluded, cut out, and cast away, all vestige and trace of" the Real Presence," from our Communion Service, and from all the declarations of the church concerning it. They see this, and they avow their grief and indignation at it. But Dr. Pusey refuses to see it; nay, more, he persists in his notion, that the doctrine is still there!

"

The church teaches, he says, "that the body of Christ accompanies in some mysterious way, the distribution of the elements," that it is given" by the priest, as well as "taken and received" by the communicants; and that this word "given" is opposed to "taken and received," as a separate and independent thing; that there is a real presence and a real communication of the body and blood of Christ; and that this real presence is there independently "is of our faith."

A more remarkable instance of self-delusion than this it has never been our lot to witness. Not once or twice, but times without number, has the church declared that she holds nothing of the kind; and yet Dr. Pusey, resolved himself to hold it, and resolved also to adhere to her, resolutely persists in his

*Dr. Pusey's Letter, p. 53.

fancy, in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary, that the church holds the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper, and that “ independently of our faith."

But let us hear the church's own language:

To such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ; and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ." (Article xxviii.)

"Such as be void of a lively faith,-are IN NO WISE partakers of Christ, but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the sign or sacrament of so great a thing." (Article xxix.)

"No adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and wine, there bodily received, or unto any corporeal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood. For the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored; and the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and NOT HERE; it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one." (Note at the end of the Communion Service.)

"Let us prove and try ourselves unfeignedly, without flattering ourselves," whether God hath purified our hearts by faith,"-" so that at this his table we receive not only the outward sacrament, but the spiritual thing also; not the figure, but the truth; not the shadow only, but the body.' (Homily on the Sacrament)

"The supper is a certain thankful remembrance of the death of Christ; forasmuch as the bread represents his body, betrayed to be crucified for us; the wine instead and place of his blood, plenteously shed for us. And even as by bread and wine our natural bodies

are sustained and nourished, so by the body, that is, the flesh and blood of Christ, the soul is fed through faith, and quickened to the heavenly and godly life. And these things come to pass by a certain secret mean and lively working of the spirit, when we believe," &c. (Catech. of Edw. VI.)

In all these passages, the church herself speaks, by her Articles, Homilies, and Catechisms. We may now hear some of those eminent men, and profound theologians, who were raised up by God to settle the church upon her still enduring foundations.

In the "Forty-one Articles,” alluded to by bishop Burnet, as probably framed by Cranmer and Ridley,* we find this passage :

"Since the very being of human nature doth require, that the body of one and the same man cannot be at one and the same time in many places, but of necessity must be in some certain and determinate place; therefore the body of Christ cannot be present in many different places at the same time. And since as the Holy Scriptures testify, Christ has been taken up into heaven, and there is to abide till the end of the world; it becometh not any of the faithful to believe or profess, that there is a real or corporeal presence, as they phrase it, of the body and blood of Christ in the holy sacrament." +

And Archbishop Cranmer, in the preface to his answer to Gardiner, says,

"I mean not that Christ is spiritually either in the table, or in the bread and wine that we set on the table; but I mean that he is present in the ministration and receiving of that holy sacrament, according to his own institution and ordinance."

"When I speak of Christ's presence in the sacrament, I mean his spiritual presence, of which he *Burnet, Hist. Reform. Oxf. 1829. vol. ii. p. 343. + Ibid. vol. iv. p. 306.

saith, "Wherever two or three be gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." And no more truly is he corporally or really present in the due ministration of the Lord's Supper, than he is in the due ministration of Baptism."

In his Preface to his book on the Lord's Supper, the archbishop says,

"What availeth it to take away beads, pardons, pilgrimages, and such other like popery, so long as the chief roots remain unpulled up?" "The rest is but branches and leaves; the very body of the tree, or rather the root, is the popish doctrine of transubstantiation, -of the Real Presence of Christ's flesh and blood in the sacrament of the altar (as they call it) and of the sacrifice and oblation of Christ, made by the priest, for the salvation of the quick and dead."*

Bishop Ridley, in his Treatise on the Lord's Supper, written shortly before his martyrdom, for himself and his coadjutors, thus for them

answers,

They deny the presence of Christ's body in the natural substance of his human and assumed nature, and they grant the presence of the same by grace: that is, they affirm and say, that the substance of the natural body and blood of Christ is only remaining in heaven, and so shall be until the latter day, when he shall come again in glory, to judge both the quick and the dead. And the same natural substance of the very body and blood of Christ, because it is united to the divine nature in Christ, the second Person in the Trinity, therefore, hath not only life in itself, but is also able to give, and doth give, life unto as many as are, or shall be partakers thereof. That

is, to all who believe on his name." Even, as for examples, the same sun which, in substance, never removes from his place out of the

*Cranmer's Remains, Oxf. 1833. vol. ii. p. 289.

heavens, is yet present here by his beams, light, and natural influence, where it shines upon the earth. For God's word and his sacraments are, as it were, the beams of Christ, who is the Sun of Righteousness."

And, in his Disputation at Oxford, then in the immediate view of martyrdom, he thus argued against the Real Presence :—

"It destroyeth and taketh away the institution of the Lord's supper, which was commanded only to be used and continued until the Lord himself should come. If, therefore, he be now really present in the body of his flesh, then must the supper cease; for a remembrance is not a thing present, but a thing past and absent. And, as one of the fathers saith, "A figure is vain where the thing figured is present.*

And in the same faith went all that "noble army of martyrs" to the stake. Bishop Latimer's testimony was, "He gave not his body to be received with the mouth: but he gave the sacrament of his body to be received with the mouth: he gave the sacrament to the mouth, his body to the mind."

Archdeacon Philpot's was, "If any come worthily to receive, then do I confess the presence of Christ wholly to be, with all the fruits of his passion, unto the said worthy receiver, by the Spirit of God, and that Christ is thereby joined to him, and he to Christ."

And Bradford's, "I confess a presence, and a true presence, but to the faith of the receiver: even of whole Christ, God and man, to feed the faith of him that receiveth it." il And to this doctrine gave they all assent, sealing their testimony with their blood.

The seed-time" passed away, and the church of the Reformation

* Foxe, vol. vi. p. 473. † Ibid, p. 506. Ibid. vol. vii. p. 638. || Ibid, p. 173.

Her

arose again from the dust. standards of faith we have already cited: let us now refer to the writings of those who were concerned in framing those standards. And first of all to Bishop Jewell, the selected champion and defender of the church. Mr. Froude terms this great man 66 an irreverent dissenter," but one thing is perfectly elear, that he was an accredited organ, and spake the sentiments of all the leaders of the English church of that day. And his language on the subject now before us, is too distinct to be mistaken.

"We direct our faith only unto the very body and blood of Christ; not as being there Really and Fleshly Present, as ye have imagined; but as sitting in heaven, on the right hand of God the Father." *

"So great a difference is there between the sacrament and the body of Christ. The sacrament passeth into the belly: Christ's body passeth into the soul. The sacrament is upon earth: Christ's body is in heaven. The sacrament is corruptible: Christ's body is glory. The sacrament is the sign: Christ's body is the thing signified.Ӡ

Whitgift, as we have already seen, pronounces, that "the outward signs of the sacraments do not contain in them grace; neither is the grace of God of necessity tied to them, but they be seals of God's promises; notes of Christianity; testimonies and effectual signs of the grace of God." "And there

is such a similitude between the signs and the thing signified, that they are usually in scripture called by the names of those things whereof they be sacraments: as bread, "the body of Christ ;" and water, Regeneration."‡

66

Hooker, who follows Whitgift, says, "The real presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not therefore to be sought for in the * Defence of the Apology, p. 268. + Ibid. p. 222. Defence against Ĉartwright, p. 738.