Part 7

“We have an altar,” says the Apostle. Of course it is in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist that this altar is used, and the sacrifice made; the great commemorative sacrifice of the Christian Church, wherein we do not repeat, or attempt to repeat, (God forbid,) the one sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction once for all made upon the Cross, but yet are allowed to present before God the Father, the memorial of that ever-blessed offering, by the Body and Blood of Christ really present, (though not after the manner of any “corporal presence of Christ’s natural flesh and blood,” but) after a true though mystical and heavenly manner; to present this, I say, according to His will and ordinance, by which it is granted us to apply to ourselves the merits of His death and passion, and to obtain His own prevailing intercession for us before the throne of God; whereby, too, our souls and bodies, as we “eat of the sacrifice are partakers of the altar,” and gain heavenly nourishment and sustenance unto everlasting life.

We have seen already that such is the judgment and doctrine of the primitive Church in its understanding of Holy Scripture, as shewn by the early Christian writers, and by the ancient liturgies. Also, that the doctrine was maintained continuously for fifteen hundred years. Our question now is, What has our own Church said and done in this matter at or since the Reformation? Does she maintain, or does she reject, the previous teaching of the Church Universal, and put something else in the place of its doctrine, and its understanding of Holy Scripture upon the subject?

We cannot here go into a minute history of all which was done at the Reformation in this regard. But I think we may, within reasonable compass, arrive at a satisfactory general conclusion. If we compare our Church’s Eucharistic Office with the ancient liturgies which have been preserved to us, we may see, I might almost say, at a glance, whether in prayer, in praise, in oblation, in general design and structure, we follow in their steps, or make “some new thing.” It cannot be disputed that in design and structure those liturgies all proclaim the doctrine of priest, sacrifice, and altar. This is interwoven with their whole system. It was the one understanding of Christians in those days as to what their liturgies contained. If, then, we find that the Church of England follows carefully in their steps, and maintains in her Eucharistic Office the whole substance of those liturgies,—at any rate, all the main points in which they agree together, even though it be with some differences of arrangement, such as might naturally be expected,—surely we prove our point, and cannot doubt that our Reformers had no design to break away from the ancient faith, though they would cast off Roman error and Roman usurpation, and therefore that our Church not only does not condemn, but adopts and continues, (as in truth she never dreamed of any other thing,) the doctrine of the Church Universal in this matter.

Take, then, the following short account of the structure, form, and usage of the ancient liturgies. I extract it from Mr. Carter’s book, as I know of no better way to place it before you:—“The following brief digest,” he says, “may give some idea of this system of devotion into which the mind of Christendom was habitually casting itself in its communion with God. It will be readily seen how the outline corresponds with our own Eucharistic Office. One or more collects; lessons from Holy Scripture; a sermon, sometimes preceded by a hymn or anthem; prayers for the catechumens, penitents, and others, who, with a benediction, were then dismissed; the creed, the offertory, with the oblations of bread and wine” (observe, first offered by being placed upon the altar); then, “thanksgivings and intercessions, with a commemoration of the dead in Christ. Then, the more mystical portion of the Liturgy commenced, and in all cases with the very same words, _Sursum corda_, (‘Lift up your hearts’); a thanksgiving, closing with the _Ter sanctus_, (‘holy, holy, holy’); intercessory prayers; consecration of the elements, with the repetition of our Lord’s words of institution; a second oblation of the now consecrated elements, (this was not always expressed in words,—sometimes silently, and in act only); an invocation of the Holy Ghost. This is not found in the Roman nor in the Gallican Liturgies;”—(so, observe, we do not forsake the doctrine of the sacrifice if we have it not, for no one will suspect the Roman Church, which was equally without it, of denying or disparaging that doctrine;)—then, “intercessory prayers for the whole Church, the dead as well as the living;”—(this, however, would be praying only for the dead in Christ, for none other would be considered as part of the Church after the time of probation is over: though in this world, and in the Church on earth, the good and evil, the wheat and tares grow together, it is not so in the Church beyond the grave:)—“the Lord’s Prayer; a benediction; administration or communion; thanksgiving; _Gloria in excelsis_; final benediction.” {101}

Now will any one take this account of the liturgies and usage of the ancient Church, which on all hands confessedly is admitted to have held the doctrine for which we contend, and then, comparing these with the Eucharistic Service of our own Church, doubt for a moment that the Church of England at the Reformation intended to preserve, and did preserve, the ancient form and practice, and therefore the ancient faith, in this matter? {102}

The Articles and Catechism of our Church are perfectly in accordance with this conclusion. Although the former, as we well know, were drawn up rather to guard against current errors of that day than to state doctrine upon points not brought into controversy, {103} they indirectly confirm what has been said. For instance, the Twenty-fifth Article, guarding against the notion of a gross carnal presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, expressed by the term ‘transubstantiation,’ might not be called upon, within its proper scope, to say anything in the way of dogma asserting the doctrine of sacrifice; but yet we find in it the statement that sacraments “be not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace,”—that is, signs effecting what they signify, and therefore, in the case of the Holy Communion, effecting or procuring for sinners pardon through Christ’s body broken and blood shed, even as there, “as often as we eat that bread and drink that cup we do shew the Lord’s death till He come,” {104} all which is in perfect accordance and harmony with the doctrine of a true propitiatory commemorative sacrifice therein offered up to God.

One point further in relation to the Articles I will notice, lest I seem to overlook an objection. It is sometimes said, If the doctrine of a true and propitiatory sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist be admitted, there is a contradiction to the Thirty-first Article, which tells us that “the sacrifices of masses, in which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.” It is assumed that any doctrine of a real and true sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist must come under this condemnation, and so it is sometimes thought that the whole question is thus decided. But, not to notice other points not without importance, but which we can hardly spare time to go into now, one thing surely is evident,—that the whole Article must be read together if we would rightly understand it. It is: “The offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.” Now it is plain that the contrast here is between the one satisfaction for sin made by agony and blood upon the cross, and any supposed repetition of that painful and bloody sacrifice. “There is none other but that alone;” wherefore, for which reason, such attempts at sacrifice as would repeat it, or such teaching as would imply that Christ repeats it and suffers again, “are blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.” If, then, in anything we say there were a doctrine of its repetition, if we did not absolutely and entirely disclaim (as we all along have done) any such attempt and any such view of the sacrifice of the Christian altar, there would be a condemnation by the Article of our teaching. But certainly neither its terms nor its scope deal with any view of a merely unbloody commemorative sacrifice, appointed to be continually made in the Church of God so long as the world lasteth, by which the sacrifice upon the cross is never supposed to be repeated, but its sole merits applied to the believing and obedient heart, and the prevailing pleading and intercession of the Son of God presenting our prayers and praises, our penitence and offerings, before the throne of the heavenly grace are secured, and He Himself, our Advocate with the Father, is our propitiation. This no more interferes with the one “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, once offered” upon the cross, than His own continued intercession at the right hand of God (and certainly “He ever liveth to make intercession for us,”) {106} interferes with, or is inconsistent with, the same.

So much I have thought it well to say on the Thirty-first Article, because it is sometimes misunderstood and misapplied.

Next, I would say just a word as to the teaching of the Church Catechism, which it would not be right to pass over. I think it throws a further light upon the doctrine of the sacrifice and the altar, for it not only tells us that “the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper,” (that is, the baptized, Christian people, for so the word is always used in strict theological language,) and therefore certainly that there is a real presence of His Body and Blood; but it also says that that Holy Sacrament was ordained “for the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby,”—where, as in the Communion Office itself, the term ‘remembrance’ is also to be understood in its complete theological sense as the memorial, the continual memorial before God, which by the offering up of the sacrifice is made in the Holy Eucharist; all which is strictly accordant with the doctrine of the primitive Church and the ancient liturgies; for, to sum up with the words of the learned Mede, “They (the ancient Fathers) believed that our blessed Lord ordained the Sacrament of His Body and Blood as a rite to bless and invocate His Father by, instead of the manifold and bloody sacrifices of the Law, . . . the mystery of which rite they took to be this, that as Christ, by presenting His death and satisfaction to His Father, continually intercedes for us in heaven, so the Church semblably (i.e. in a like manner) approaches the throne of grace by representing Christ unto His Father in those holy mysteries of His death and passion.” {107}

If further proof still be required of our Church’s mind from the Reformation downward, let it be noted how often this doctrine has been assailed, and yet how, on every occasion, the Church has refused to depart from the ancient rule and faith. As one instance, take the fact, that at the last revision in 1662, when the real meaning of the Puritan objections was well and fully understood, and when the demand was absolutely made by their leaders, both that the absolution by the priest should plainly be made only declaratory, and that the word ‘priest’ should be wholly omitted and ‘minister’ substituted, the Church refused both these demands: the bishops replying to the first, that the words as standing in the Visitation Service were far nearer to those of Christ Himself in the commission given, as these were, not, whose soever sins ye declare to be remitted, but, “whose soever sins ye remit,” and to the second, “It is not reasonable that the word ‘minister’ should be only used in the liturgy; for since some parts of the liturgy may be performed by a deacon, others by none under the order of a priest, viz. absolution and consecration, it is fit that some such word as ‘priest’ should be used for these offices, and not ‘minister,’ which signifies at large every one that ministers in that holy office, of what order soever he be;” {108} whilst yet again, it has been well noted, that the care of the Church was increased in this last revision to preserve the distinction and the doctrine dependent upon the word ‘priest,’ now that the objections to it were the better understood. For it has been pointed out that the word ‘priest’ occurs ninety times in the first book of King Edward the Sixth; fifty-five times in the second book, when the Puritan influence of the foreign reformers obtained its height; whilst in our present Prayer-book it occurs eighty-eight times: and an examination in detail would shew that this restoration was made on principle, and that wherever the term ‘priest’ is employed, more or less of the sacerdotal, or strictly priestly character and authority is implied; whilst where the term ‘minister’ is used, it is either as to simply a ministerial, as distinguished from a sacerdotal act, or the meaning of the term is determined by the previous use of the word ‘priest.’ {109} So that as to this whole ministration, we may well adopt the weighty and persuasive language of Dr. Hickes, where, summing up a detailed argument against Cudworth, who had invented the theory that the Holy Eucharist was only a feast upon a sacrifice, and not a sacrifice itself, he says: “I have said all this in defence of the old, against the Doctor’s new notion of the Holy Eucharist, much more out of love to that old truth than to prove Christian ministers to be proper priests. For, it will follow even from this,” (that is, from Cudworth’s own view,) “that they must be proper priests, because, as none but a priest can offer a sacrifice, so none but a priest can preside and minister in such a sacrificial feast as he allows the Holy Sacrament to be. Who but a priest can receive the elements from the people, set them upon the holy table, and offer up to God such solemn prayers, praises, and thanksgivings for the congregation, and make such solemn intercessions for them as are now, and ever were, offered and made in this Holy Sacrament? Who but a priest can consecrate the elements and make them the mystical Body and Blood of Christ? Who but a priest can stand in God’s stead at His table, and in His Name receive His guests? Who but a priest hath power to break the Bread, and bless the Cup, and make a solemn memorial before God of His Son’s sufferings, and then deliver His sacramental Body and Blood to the faithful communicants, as tokens of His meritorious sufferings, and pledges of their salvation? A man authorized thus to act ‘for men in things pertaining to God,’ and for God in things pertaining to men, must needs be a priest; and such holy ministrations must needs be sacerdotal, whether the holy table be an altar, or the Sacrament a sacrifice or not.” {110}

To what conclusion, then, can we come but to that of the learned Archbishop Bramhall? “He who saith, Take thou authority to exercise the office of a priest in the Church of God (as the Protestant consecrators do), doth intend all things requisite to the priestly function, and, among the rest, to offer a representative sacrifice, to commemorate and apply the sacrifice which Christ made upon the Cross:”{111a}—or to the brief but weighty saying of St. Jerome? “Ecclesia non est, quæ non habet Sacerdotes.” {111b}

Once more, brethren, we must pause, and as we do so, let us pray to Him from whom “cometh down every good and every perfect gift,” {111c} that He may give us His grace more and more to realize, and more and more to thank Him for the great privileges which He has vouchsafed to us in His “holy Catholic Church.” “We have an altar” to which we may come, the same blessed feast, of which we may partake, the same blessed sacrifice, in which we may join, which has ever been in His Church from the beginning. As the Israelites were taught to remember, as to their land flowing with milk and honey, that they “gat it not in possession through their own sword, neither was it their own arm that helped them;” {111d} Oh, so let us ever say with heart and voice, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give the praise, for Thy loving mercy, and for Thy truth’s sake.” {111e}

SERMON VII. The Christian Altar.

HEBREWS xiii. 10. “We have an Altar.”

IT may be well, before we proceed with our general subject, to call your attention to one particular as to the course of our argument. You may have observed that I have not, except here and there incidentally, entered into any examination of the nature of the Christian sacrifice itself, any more than I have into any details or particulars of the doctrine of absolution, such as its power and effect, or the necessary limitations to be understood in its application. And this has been done advisedly, because I was not so much concerned, for instance, with the doctrine of absolution in itself, as with it in relation to, and as a proof of, the necessary existence of a sacerdotal power in those to whom it is entrusted; and therefore if I shewed that such authority is, in and by the Church of England, considered to be vested in those who minister at her altars, I inferred thence, I think justly, the existence of a priesthood in the mind of our Church. This has been the object with which I have referred to that doctrine in illustration, and not to discuss the nature or define the powers of absolution itself. As, however, I have here touched upon it again, I may add, lest any mistake or misconception arise, that no one pretends the efficient power to absolve, (any more than to offer sacrifice,) lies in the priest himself. He is but the instrument administering the grace of God. The history of the cure of the lame man at the beautiful gate of the Temple (which we lately read) may well illustrate this. Surely no one will deny that the power to heal him was vested in St. Peter and St. John, whilst it is clear also, beyond all dispute, that not by their “own power or holiness had they made that man to walk.” {114} What, then, is there incredible in the affirmation that the power of the keys is vested in a priest as the instrument, though all the authority and absolving power is from God only; so that it is God and not man who pardons, and makes any man whole from sin. “Who, indeed, can forgive sins but God only?” But he who is invested with such authority, even instrumentally, is exactly what we term a ‘priest;’ and our argument has been (to recur to it thus for a moment) that the Church, which regards men as so endowed, regards them as priests of God.

I return more generally to the declaration of the text, “We have an altar;” and I will adduce one further illustration of the mind of the Church of England hereon, by a reference to the foreign Reformation. Take the two systems of Luther and Calvin, and what do we find? Luther was already a priest before he began the Reformation, and he had no design to cast off the priestly element and character in his Reformation. He and other priests who joined him did not cease to administer Sacraments, or to teach their efficacy. The Confession of Augsburgh, which embodies the principles of the German Reformation, asserts regeneration in baptism, private confession to a priest, the grace of absolution, and the real presence in the Holy Eucharist. It also fully recognises (as with this teaching we should expect it would) the priesthood in its true meaning. Luther did not design or promulgate a change of system in any of these doctrines. What he did declare, under the exigencies of his position, because no bishop joined him, was, that for the purposes of continuing the priesthood and its powers, no episcopacy was necessary, but that priests could make priests; as Mr. Carter observes, a perfectly new doctrine in the Church of God. But the whole proceeding shewed that a sacramental system was maintained after the pattern of the Church, nay, with true priests to administer it for a time, but without the only ordained means of transmitting the same powers to the succeeding generation. Now how great a testimony is this to the true doctrine, and how much light does it throw upon the acts of our own reformers at home, who, with a true episcopate and the power of succession unimpaired, were not likely to design a less perfect system than the German Reformer admitted and maintained in his theory, though he failed in the appointed means validly to carry it out.

And Luther’s testimony is all the more weighty when we remember that he was one who had so little reverence for antiquity or authority, that at one time he rejected and denied the inspiration of the Epistle of St. James, because he could not make its teaching as to good works square with his own theory of justification; and, at another time, absolutely exhorted the elect to sin boldly and shamelessly that they might be fit objects for the mercy of God, and because no sin which they could commit could frustrate the grace of God toward them! and yet even such a man wholly received and enforced the ancient doctrine of the priesthood, and its accompaniments, the altar and the sacrifice.

Glance for a moment at the teaching of Calvin, and you will find another theological aspect. Calvin was not a priest; he had, therefore, no authority to administer Sacraments; so he took the bold line of rejecting the doctrine of a priesthood altogether. He taught that Christ was the only Priest of the New Testament, and that Christian ministers were only, what such names as elders and pastors might denote, rulers and teachers that is, in the Church of Christ. This is the first of those three functions which we spoke of in a former discourse, as connected with the priesthood, but is just that one which we then said lacked the distinctive character of the priesthood,—the power of absolution and of offering sacrifice. So much Calvin allowed to his ministry, but all else he denied!