Ex Libris 
 [ C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 WORSHIP IN THE CHRISTIAN 
 CHURCH.
 
 Worship in the Christian 
 Church 
 
 SERMONS PREACHED AT ALL SAINTS 
 MARGARET STREET 
 
 IN 1898 AND 1899 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM ALLEN WHITWORTH 
 
 LONDON 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, LIMITED 
 
 St. Dunstan's fjouse 
 
 FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.G. 
 
 1899
 
 CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
 
 BV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ONLY six of these sermons (III. to VIII.) 
 were delivered as a consecutive course. 
 The others were preached at various times, and 
 are only connected by their general subject. 
 
 Consequently there may be found in the 
 volume certain repetitions of statement and 
 even some repetitions of language. I have 
 made no attempt to eliminate such repetitions ; 
 first, because those who heard the sermons will 
 desire to read them, as far as may be, in their 
 original form ; and secondly, because I wish to 
 avoid the pretension of putting forth anything 
 like a digested treatise on Christian worship. 
 
 The sermons must be taken simply as an ex- 
 ample of the way in which a busy parish priest 
 calls his congregation to join him in studying a 
 fundamental subject of religion, using materials 
 ready to hand, and accessible to all. 
 
 I have tried to furnish my hearers with such 
 references as should guard them against pre- 
 valent misconceptions about the teaching and
 
 vi preface. 
 
 practice of the Primitive Church, and should 
 enable them to distinguish between that which 
 is Mediaeval, and that which is Catholic. 
 
 I have spoken throughout from the stand- 
 point of an English Churchman who believes in 
 the living entity and spiritual competence of 
 his Church, and acknowledges without arriere 
 pensee the authority of the incomparable Book 
 of Common Prayer. 
 
 W. A. W. 
 ALL SAINTS' VICARAGE, 
 
 MARGARET STREET, W. 
 September 2oth, 1 899.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE FUNDAMENTAL RULE OF WORSHIP i 
 Note on the Distinction between the First 
 
 and Second Commandments . . 18 
 
 II. WORSHIP IN THE NAME OF CHRIST . 22 
 The Hymn to Christ " Te Deum 
 
 Laudamus" 40 
 
 III. THE BREAKING OF BREAD AT JERUSALEM 43 
 
 IV. THE BREAKING OF BREAD AT TROAS . 59 
 
 Hymn of Approach to the Altar . . 76 
 
 V. THE EUCHARIST IN THE FIRST CENTURY 78 
 
 VI. THE EUCHARIST IN THE SECOND CENTURY 94 
 
 VII. THE EUCHARIST IN THE THIRD CENTURY m 
 
 VIII. THE EUCHARIST IN THE FOURTH CENTURY 125 
 
 IX. THE DIVINE OFFICE 145 
 
 X. THE LITURGY 162 
 
 Note : Appreciation of the Book of 
 
 Common Prayer 181 
 
 XI. THE LORD'S DAY 192 
 
 XII. THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 212 
 Note on the Mind of the Church of 
 England as to " Hearing Mass " . .231
 
 WORSHIP IN THE CHRISTIAN 
 CHURCH. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL RULE OF 
 WORSHIP. 
 
 " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, 
 or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, 
 or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water 
 under the earth : thou shalt not bow down thyself to 
 them, nor serve them." Exodus^ xx. 4, 5. 
 
 IF we are to worship aright, we must worship 
 the right person, and we must worship Him 
 in the right way. 
 
 If we do not worship the right person, we 
 break the first commandment. 
 
 If we worship the right person but do not 
 worship Him in the right way, we break the 
 second commandment. 
 
 Both of these commandments, interpreted in 
 the spirit rather than in the letter, are for all 
 B
 
 2 morsbfp in tbe Gbrfstfan Cburcb. 
 
 time ; nay more, we may venture to say that 
 they are for eternity. For neither on earth now, 
 nor in heaven hereafter, may we give to another 
 the honour which belongs to God ; neither on 
 earth nor in heaven is the true God to be wor- 
 shipped, save in the order of His own appoint- 
 ment. The first commandment bids us have 
 none other gods ; the second warns us that even 
 though we worship the true God, we may not 
 worship Him according to our own ideas, nor 
 after the inventions of man. 
 
 The first commandment is the foundation of 
 all religion : the second is the fundamental and 
 eternal law of worship. 
 
 Worship is divided into two parts, (i) interior 
 worship and (2) exterior worship. 
 
 Interior worship denotes the devotion of the 
 heart ; it is the submission of the will to the 
 person or the object, right or wrong, which is 
 allowed to direct and rule the life. Exterior 
 worship is the use of prayer and sacraments and 
 religious rites ; it is made up of actions whereby 
 we express faith and devotion and adoration, 
 and profess that all that we are and all that we 
 have are at the disposal of Him whom we name 
 God.
 
 TTbe ^fundamental 1Rule of TRIlorsbip, 3 
 
 Amongst those who have received a revelation 
 of the true God, certainly amongst those who 
 profess and call themselves Christians, it is 
 hardly conceivable that the first commandment 
 can be broken except by interior worship. When 
 we say that a man worships money we speak of 
 interior worship. We do not suppose that a god 
 of gold is set up in his oratory or that he invokes 
 in sacred rites the god of Good Fortune. But 
 we mean that he allows the desire for wealth to 
 have that power and influence in the direction of 
 his life which ought to be allowed only to the 
 law of God. His life is ruled not by the con- 
 sideration of that which is right in the sight of 
 God, but by a worldly prudence and foresight of 
 which the motive is only the acquisition of 
 material wealth. In similar language St Paul 
 writes to the Philippians of some " whose god is 
 their belly." The gratification of the bodily 
 appetites had become the ruling passion of their 
 life, justifying so startling a definition of their 
 worship. But the very best amongst us have 
 to be constantly on the watch against any over- 
 weening love of the world or the things of the 
 world, lest these things should in fact become 
 other gods, owning the allegiance of our hearts. 
 The world and the flesh, pleasure, ease and self-
 
 4 Worsbip in tbc Cbrtstfan Cburcb. 
 
 indulgence, praise and power all these compete 
 for the throne within us : they are of the number 
 of the " other gods " whom we are bound to re- 
 nounce. 
 
 It is by interior worship that we make a false 
 god : it needs no outward bowing of the knee, 
 no sacramental observance, to place these rival 
 powers on the throne that belongs to God. It 
 only needs the consent of our heart and the 
 surrender of our will to the unworthy object 
 and forthwith we have another god. Therefore 
 the first commandment does not even name 
 worship : the very foundation of idolatry is 
 reached in the words, "Thou shalt have none 
 other gods but me." 
 
 The second commandment, on the other hand, 
 makes no reference to divers and strange gods. 
 It treats of the mode in which the true God is to 
 be approached in the solemnities of exterior 
 worship. In that version of the second com- 
 mandment with which we are most familiar, the 
 word " worship " is used ; and it is used in that 
 popular sense in which it denotes not the attitude 
 of the heart towards God, but the offering of the 
 sacrifice of prayer and praise, of holy rite and
 
 fundamental 1Rule of Worsbip. 5 
 
 sacrament. The commandment treats of exterior 
 worship, whether in the privacy of the closet, or in 
 the concurrence of united or family prayer, or in 
 the public services of the Church. It lays down 
 a fundamental rule of worship which in principle 
 must be applicable to all times. 
 
 But if we are to apply the commandment 
 rightly to our own circumstances we ought to 
 study it first in reference to those to whom it 
 was first delivered. 
 
 From the time of Abraham the chosen people 
 had been separated by God, called out of the 
 world, and enlightened by such revelations of 
 his truth as had not been vouchsafed to others. 
 They were in advance of their age in their know- 
 ledge of the one God ; and though for a long 
 time during their sojourn in Egypt He had made 
 no sign on their behalf, they lived on the tradi- 
 tion of the promises and pledges of his presence 
 which had been given to their fathers. But as 
 time went on, the remembrance of past mercies 
 grew weak, the brightness of tradition faded, 
 and the verities enshrined in the name of the 
 Lord were forgotten, until God revealed Him- 
 self anew to Moses in the bush, and made
 
 6 TRUorsbip in tbe Cbristian Gburcb. 
 
 Moses the mediator of a new deliverance for the 
 people. Thus faith was revived amongst them. 
 It is written that " the people believed : and 
 when they heard that the Lord had visited the 
 children of Israel, and that He had looked upon 
 their affliction, then they bowed their heads and 
 worshipped." But, I repeat, the revelation which 
 they had received placed them altogether in 
 advance of their age ; and to live up to such a 
 revelation was a matter of spiritual difficulty. 
 Other nations had material or visible objects to 
 which they could point and say, " There is God" 
 I am not referring now to those whose religion 
 was a terror and their worship a service of devils, 
 but to those who believed in beneficent gods, 
 whom they could regard, if not with love, at 
 least with respect. Invariably there was some- 
 thing within reach of their natural faculties to 
 constitute a local presence, to spare them some 
 spiritual strain in worship. They could look to 
 the sun, the source of light, and say, " There is 
 God" or they could look to the river which 
 fertilized the land, and say, " There is God" 
 They could see something more than human in 
 the instinct or strength of the beast, or in the 
 quaint habits of the bird, and they could say of 
 either, " There is God" There was always some-
 
 fundamental 1Rute of nmorsblp. 7 
 
 thing at hand to make it possible to bring down 
 the action of worship from the region of spiritual 
 devotion, to the sphere of mechanical perform- 
 ance. The mind did not need to soar to 
 Heaven, for the local god was at hand to be 
 seen and touched. Even if the worshipper knew 
 that the material thing was but the type or the 
 exemplar of an unseen power behind, if at his 
 best he could aspire to some sort of communion 
 with the unseen, still the sluggish imagination 
 could always find a refuge in the visible object, 
 and so escape the necessity of spiritual effort. 
 
 But the God of the Hebrews belonged alto- 
 gether to the spiritual world. He could not be 
 localized : He could not be presented under any 
 material form. Until a time subsequent to that 
 which we are now considering He had no taber- 
 nacle, no holy place. There was nothing con- 
 cerning which it could be said, " This is God," 
 and unless the beacon of fire and cloud that led 
 the way in the wilderness is to be regarded as a 
 shekinah of his presence, there was no place con- 
 cerning which it could be said that here rather 
 than elsewhere, here is God. 1 Thus severely 
 
 1 Even afterwards, when the Tabernacle was set up, 
 though it was the symbol of God's dwelling among his
 
 8 Worsbtp in tbe Gbristlan Cburcb. 
 
 were the children of Israel being taught the 
 lesson that " God is a spirit, and they that wor- 
 ship Him must worship Him in spirit and in 
 truth." 
 
 But it was a hard lesson, because (as I have 
 said) it was so much in advance of the times. 
 They believed that Jehovah was in a special 
 sense their own God. They acknowledged the 
 deliverance from Egypt as his work. But where 
 was He? Might they not give some material 
 form to their worship ? might they have some- 
 thing to point to, of which it might be said, 
 " This be thy God, O Israel, which brought thee 
 out of the land of Egypt." They had no desire 
 to worship another god, but in the worship of 
 Jehovah Himself might they not have some 
 material help ? something near them ; something 
 to gaze upon ; something by which and through 
 which they might worship the true God ? 
 
 But no. The second commandment was 
 proclaimed with all the thunderings of Sinai. 
 " Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven 
 
 people, there was a significant avoidance of anything that 
 should seem to localize God. The ark was essentially the 
 ark of the covenant, and its contents were not symbols 
 of a presence, but pledges of God's covenant with his 
 people and memorials of special mercies.
 
 ZTbe f unbamental iRule of Morsbip* 9 
 
 image, nor the likeness of anything : thou shalt 
 not bow down to them nor worship them." 
 
 That the commandment had the significance 
 which I have ascribed to it that it refers not to 
 the worship of false gods but to the superstitious 
 worship of the true God, is very clear when we 
 study the events recorded in the thirty-second 
 chapter. Moses was still in the Mount. He 
 was gone a long time, and the people became 
 impatient. Moses was the medium through 
 whom they had received the revelation of God 
 and if Moses was lost it seemed almost as if 
 God Himself were lost to them. 
 
 " So they gathered themselves together unto 
 Aaron, and said unto him, ' Up ! make us God 
 which shall go before us. For as for this Moses 
 which brought us up out of the land of Egypt, 
 we know not what is become of him. Make us 
 God!'" 
 
 I must pause for a moment to guard you 
 against the false impression given by the render- 
 ing, "Make us gods." The fact is that the 
 Hebrew word for God is always used in these 
 books in the plural. The word is plural in the 
 first chapter of Genesis, and it is used in pre- 
 cisely the same form here. If you render it
 
 io Morsbip in tbe Cbrfstian Gburcb. 
 
 here by an English plural, you may as well 
 translate the first verse of the Bible, "Gods 
 created the heaven and the earth." 
 
 The people cried to Aaron, " Up ! make us 
 God." And Aaron took their golden ornaments 
 and melted them down into the form of a calf, 
 and fashioned it with a graving tool, and they 
 received it with acclamation, saying, " This is thy 
 God, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the 
 land of Egypt." The calf represented to them 
 none other than the God who had delivered them 
 in the past. This was strongly emphasized by 
 Aaron, who proclaimed, " To-morrow shall be a 
 feast to Jehovah." 
 
 It was still Jehovah whom they would worship 
 the very God of their fathers. Their sin was 
 not in choosing another and a new god : they 
 would worship the God of their fathers, but they 
 would worship Him as other nations worshipped 
 their gods according to their own device and 
 after their own inventions, not according to God's 
 covenant and his promise, not in the way which 
 He had appointed. Therein they violated the 
 fundamental rule of worship the eternal prin- 
 ciple of the second commandment. 
 
 In one word, that which the second command-
 
 if unfcamental TCule of Morsbip. 
 
 ment condemns is superstition in worship. Super- 
 stition means that which is over and above 
 what is authorized or appointed. In true re- 
 ligion we worship God as He has taught us to 
 worship Him. In superstition we worship Him 
 according to our own will in disregard of his 
 appointment. 
 
 Sometimes, in great distress, under the sense 
 of sin, or the fear of judgment, men will seek 
 strange ways of reconciling themselves to God. 
 The prophet Micah represents such an one as 
 asking, " Wherewithal shall I come before the 
 Lord, or bow myself before the high God ? Shall 
 I come with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year 
 old ? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands 
 of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall 
 I give my firstborn for my transgression, the 
 fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ? " And 
 the answer comes, " He hath shown thee, O man, 
 what is good." Obedience is the rule of worship, 
 even as it is the rule of holy living. 
 
 Therefore the devout Christian makes much 
 of Christ's word in all his approaches to God. 
 In his private prayer he is not merely fulfilling 
 the promptings of his spiritual nature ; he rejoices 
 to think that he has Christ's word for what he 
 does ; that he should enter into his closet, and
 
 12 Morsbfp in tbe Cbrtetian Gburcb* 
 
 shut to the door, and pray to his Father which is 
 in secret. 
 
 And when he joins in prayer with his brethren, 
 he is not merely satisfying the desire for spiritual 
 association, he is rejoicing in the charter of united 
 worship in Christ's own promise, " where two or 
 three are gathered together in my Name, there 
 am I in the midst." 
 
 Above all, when he draws near to join in the 
 Eucharistic oblation, and to receive the Blessed 
 Sacrament, he knows that he is engaging in no 
 action of man's device : it is the Lord's own ser- 
 vice, who said : " Do this ; Take ; Eat ; Drink" 
 
 If our worship is to be offered for the glory of 
 God, it must be offered according to God's will. 
 Self-will can never glorify Him. And his will 
 revealed to us becomes his law, his ordinance. 
 The rule of worship is therefore the same for all 
 time. We have always to ask, What hath God 
 spoken ? What hath Christ in his Church 
 ordained ? 
 
 Nevertheless, men are continually propounding 
 their own ideas as to worship, in place of the 
 rules which God's Holy Word enjoins. 
 
 One man says, " I will say my prayers at home,
 
 TTbe fundamental 1Rule of Worsbip. 13 
 
 or I will praise God in my heart as I study the 
 wonders of science, or as I meditate upon the 
 beauties of nature." But it is written that we 
 forsake not the assembling of ourselves together, 
 but that we speak to one another in psalms and 
 hymns and spiritual songs. It is well that men 
 should recognize God's hand in the wonders 
 of science, and ascribe to Him the beauty of 
 creation. This may constitute indeed a worthy 
 act of interior worship, but it cannot dispense us 
 from the obligation of exterior worship or from 
 "the virtue of religion." In every dispensa- 
 tion of God's grace, religious duties have been 
 imposed upon men, and in the services of religion 
 they have found access to God, and have done 
 homage to his divine sovereignty. Interior 
 worship is, doubtless, the basis of that which is 
 exterior ; but to content ourselves with the in- 
 terior disposition when the opportunities of ex- 
 terior are appointed by divine ordinance in the 
 Church, is to set up an imagination of our own 
 against the word of God. This is, indeed, to 
 break the second commandment. 
 
 It is sad to hear men speak of what they like 
 and what they do not like, as though their 
 own taste were to be the rule of worship. We 
 have known persons leave one denomination of
 
 14 Morsbip in tbe Cbrfstian Gburcb. 
 
 Christians and join another, not from any con- 
 sideration of the question which denomination 
 fulfilled the more strictly the ordinance of Christ, 
 but simply because the services of the latter were 
 more to their taste than those of the former. 
 They did not consider the responsibility of leav- 
 ing that room in the Father's house in which 
 his Providence had placed them : they did not 
 inquire which body could show the clearest 
 credentials of mission : they did not ask in 
 which denomination was the pure word of God 
 preached, and the sacraments duly administered 
 according to Christ's appointment : they did not 
 stay to ask what was right and what was wrong, 
 but seeing a form of worship which pleased 
 them better than their own, they incontinently 
 changed their religion ! 
 
 Perhaps no more signal violation of the second 
 commandment could be cited than that which 
 occurs when even good and religious people 
 persuade themselves that they may worship God 
 acceptably in other services, but that it is not 
 necessary for them to receive the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment. Of course if people are neglecting religion 
 altogether, with all the rest they neglect their 
 communion ; and if they are not using the lower 
 means of grace they are not fit to join in the
 
 ^fundamental 1Rule of TOlorsbip. 15 
 
 highest act of worship. But amongst the less 
 educated classes it used to be common to meet 
 with those who apparently said their prayers and 
 read their Bible, who were regular in their attend- 
 ance at church, who were actuated by the true 
 spirit of religion, who yet refrained from com- 
 munion. They had perhaps received the Sacra- 
 ment of the Body and Blood of Christ once 
 after their confirmation, they hoped to receive it 
 again upon their deathbed. But in the meantime 
 they did not think it needful. If their conduct 
 were prompted by a sense of unworthiness and 
 by an exceeding reverence for the sacrament, 
 one respected their sincerity, while bound to 
 combat their scruple. If their neglect of com- 
 munion were based on simple ignorance of 
 Christ's institution, such ignorance gave ground 
 for a lenient judgment, and had to be met by 
 careful instruction. But, looking simply at the 
 bare facts apart from their motives, here were 
 people devoutly declaring that the other services 
 were sufficient for them without that " which the 
 Lord hath commanded to be received." It was 
 substituting man's idea of worship for that which 
 Christ commanded, and was, so far, the direct 
 violation of the spirit of the second command- 
 ment.
 
 1 6 Morsbip tit tbe Gbrtettan Gburcb* 
 
 And even amongst better-educated people, the 
 tendency to substitute something else for that 
 which Christ has ordained is not unknown. No 
 Christian will say, in so many words, that if he 
 be present at the Eucharist and join devoutly in 
 the service, he is performing an action which 
 may in some sense serve instead of the receiving 
 of the Sacrament ; and yet we meet with some 
 who appear to think that if only they "hear 
 Mass" every Sunday there is less need for 
 frequent Communion. But Communion is that 
 which Christ enjoined, and weekly communion is 
 what the apostles taught and practised. Your 
 non-communicating attendance may be a fitting 
 act of devotion to Christ in that great mediatorial 
 work which the Blessed Sacrament especially 
 represents ; but such attendance fails to fulfil the 
 law of Christ, and if you let it serve as a plea for 
 eating less often the Flesh of the Son of Man 
 and drinking his Blood, you are displacing the 
 ordinance of Christ by man's device : you are 
 breaking the second commandment. 
 
 The virtue of religion is found in following 
 God's commandment. Sacraments are effica- 
 cious, because Christ has instituted them ; the 
 bread and wine is that " which the Lord hath
 
 jf un&amental IRule of Morsbip. 1 7 
 
 commanded to be received." But we are not to 
 limit the sanction of Christ to those ordinances 
 for which his own ipsissima verba of institution 
 may be quoted from the gospels. He has other 
 ways of revealing to us his will, and therefore of 
 promulgating to us his commandment. "The 
 Spirit of truth (he said) will guide you into all 
 truth, for He shall receive of mine and shall 
 show it unto you." Thus there may be rites 
 and ceremonies for which the explicit warrant 
 of God's word cannot be cited, which are never- 
 theless in harmony with Christ's intention and 
 teaching, and are seen to be in accordance with 
 the mind of Christ as that mind is revealed 
 to the Church by the Holy Spirit. Where 
 Christ has spoken and his word is recorded, that 
 word is supreme. But there are many things in 
 which He instructed his apostles concerning his 
 kingdom which are not recorded. The great 
 forty days between the Resurrection and the 
 Ascension were especially devoted to such in- 
 struction, but we can only gather its substance 
 and tenour from the subsequent action of the 
 apostles. The laying on of hands in Confirma- 
 tion is an example of a rite which we find the 
 apostles practising, though no express command 
 of Christ can be cited for it. It must have been 
 C
 
 1 8 Morsbip In tbe Gbrtetian Gburcb. 
 
 one of the things in which they were instructed 
 in the great forty days, or else they were led by 
 the Holy Ghost to institute such a rite in fulfil- 
 ment of the mind of Christ. 
 
 And when the apostles passed from earth, the 
 Church remained " the pillar and ground of the 
 Truth." Over and above the personal indwelling 
 of the Holy Ghost in the individual member of 
 Christ we believe that He is present with the 
 whole body corporate, to teach us and to lead us 
 into all truth. Therefore the voice of the Church 
 is something more than the opinion of an aggre- 
 gate number of individuals, and our immediate 
 obedience to the Church is ultimate obedience to 
 Christ. 
 
 We worship not in self-will, not according to 
 the fancies and devices of men, but "after the 
 due order," according to that which God hath 
 spoken, which Christ hath ordained, which the 
 Church hath delivered. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE FIRST AND 
 SECOND COMMANDMENTS. 
 
 THERE is much diversity in popular manuals in the 
 application of these two Commandments.
 
 jfuttoamental IRule ot Morsbip. 19 
 
 The " Treasury of Devotion " proposes as questions 
 on the First Commandment the following, which on 
 the principles of this sermon would come under the 
 second, as referring to unauthorized modes of ap- 
 proaching God : " Have I joined in any schismatical 
 worship ; separated myself from the Church ; con- 
 sulted fortune-tellers; used charms; given way to 
 superstition ? " 
 
 On the other hand, the "Priests' Prayer Book" 
 declares that the Second Commandment "forbids us 
 to put anything in the place of God." This is more 
 commonly taken to be the very fundamental trans- 
 gression of the First Commandment. 
 
 The Rev H. Newland in his Confirmation Lectures 
 (1853) drew the distinction very clearly between having 
 a God in our heart and rendering to God the tokens 
 of reverence and worship. He practically applied the 
 First Commandment to interior, and the Second to 
 exterior, worship. 
 
 He is followed in the "Catechists' Manual " (1865) 
 with the imprimatur of Bishop Wilberforce, where the 
 subject of the First Commandment is explained as 
 touching whom we have as a God ; and it is laid down 
 that as the First Commandment enjoins the worship 
 of the heart, so the second enjoins the worship of the 
 body. The application of the Second Commandment 
 seems, however, to be unreasonably restricted to the 
 attitude of kneeling, and other outward signs of bodily 
 devotion, instead of being extended to include all that 
 is embraced in the term "exterior worship." 
 
 The distinction is put very clearly by the Rev
 
 20 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Gburcb. 
 
 Peter Young, who drank in much of the spirit of 
 Mr Keble, whose assistant curate he had been. In 
 his " Lessons on Confirmation " he says : " The First 
 Commandment enjoins the entire devotion of the 
 heart ; the second insists on pure worship as the due 
 expression of that devotion. If there is a tendency 
 in men to forget God and give the heart to earthly 
 things, so is there also a tendency either to neglect 
 the worship of God or to worship Him in a wrong 
 way." 
 
 The Rev A. W. Robinson in " The Church Cate- 
 chism Explained" (1894) gives Polytheism and Idol- 
 atry as the key-words of the First and Second Com- 
 mandments respectively. He, however, applies the 
 First Commandment exclusively to the case in which 
 " Imagination has darkened the heaven with gods and 
 demigods," not including the case in which the powers 
 of the world or the flesh possess the heart and rule 
 the life. He rather makes room for this case under 
 the Fourth Commandment, to which he assigns as a 
 key-word mammonism. 
 
 The Roman Church, following St Augustine, counts 
 the first and second as one Commandment. Yet 
 Roman writers draw a strong distinction between the 
 first part and the second part of the Commandment, 
 practically making the same distinction as is made in 
 this sermon. But in dealing with the first part they 
 give prominence to the words, " I am the Lord thy 
 God," which were altogether omitted from our Cate- 
 chism in 1549, and though introduced in 1552, are 
 printed not as part of the First Commandment, but
 
 jfunfcamental TRule of Morsbtp. 
 
 (as also in Roman manuals) as a prelude to the whole 
 decalogue. 
 
 The First Commandment ought to be regarded as 
 co-extensive with the First Baptismal vow. The 
 powers whom we are pledged to renounce are, in fact, 
 aspirants to the throne of God within us, and are 
 equivalent to the " other gods " of the Commandment. 
 
 The First Commandment thus reaches to the motive 
 of our actions. If we steal we break the Eighth Com- 
 mandment ; but why do we steal ? It is because we 
 let some other power have the influence over us which 
 God only ought to have, and in this we break the 
 First Commandment. 
 
 The whole subject of worship in its exterior sense 
 is thus left to the Second Commandment, and on the 
 principle on which all the Commandments are ap- 
 plied, it must be taken not only to forbid unauthorized 
 modes of worship, but to enjoin the positive duty of 
 worship in accordance with the divine institution and 
 ordinance.
 
 II. 
 
 WORSHIP IN THE NAME OF CHRIST. 
 
 "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name 
 He will give it you." Stjohn, xvi. 23. 
 
 r I ""HE distinguishing feature of worship in the 
 A Christian Church is, that it is offered to God 
 in the Name of Jesus Christ. Before the Incarna- 
 tion other forms of worship had been accept- 
 able. The worship of the patriarchs was accept- 
 able, though they knew not the Name of Jesus 
 Christ. The faithful Jew performed rites of 
 divine sanction, in which there was hidden a 
 symbolic reference to the great Atonement. In 
 sheer obedience, perhaps without intelligence, he 
 may be said to have pleaded the sacrifice of 
 Christ, and his worship was acceptable, though 
 he knew not the Name or the Person of Christ. 
 
 But the position of the Christian is much 
 more blessed. He knows, as the patriarch knew, 
 and as the faithful Israelite knew, that God is 
 One. But he knows also that there is one 
 Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ
 
 Morsbip in tbe IRame of Cbrist. 23 
 
 Jesus ; and in the Person of that Mediator he 
 enters into the presence of the Eternal. He 
 offers acceptable worship in the Name of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 In the passage before us Our Lord establishes 
 the new and living way by which the faithful are 
 to draw near to God in worship. " Hitherto " 
 (He says) "ye have asked nothing in my name." 
 Under the new charter the sacrifice is to be pre- 
 sented in the person of Christ, for the Church 
 which offers it is the Body of Christ, and the 
 sweet-smelling savour rises from his presence. 
 
 It is a canon of Divine Service written on 
 almost the first page of our Bible, that worship 
 can only be acceptable when the worshipper is 
 acceptable. " The Lord had respect unto Abel 
 and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his 
 offering He had not respect." The offering and 
 the offerer stand or fall together. God has no 
 pleasure in the sacrifice in itself, whether it be 
 prayer or praise, or costly gift. God's honour is 
 found in the heart that presents it. To accept 
 the gift is to accept the giver. 
 
 Thus it is written that " the sacrifice of a just 
 man is acceptable, and the memorial thereof 
 shall never be forgotten." Again, " the sacrifice
 
 24 Morsbip in tbe Cbristtan Gburcb, 
 
 of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but 
 the prayer of the upright is his delight ; " and, 
 again, concerning the lawless man, "Even his 
 prayer shall be abomination." 
 
 In accordance with this principle, our Lord 
 gives his solemn warning to one who, without 
 being in charity with his brother, would think 
 to make an acceptable oblation to God : 
 
 If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there re- 
 memberest that thy brother hath ought against thee ; 
 leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; 
 first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and 
 offer thy gift. 
 
 Any consideration of the conditions of accept- 
 able worship will therefore immediately suggest 
 a question as to the state of the acceptable wor- 
 shipper. The man who is still in his sins cannot 
 praise God. He cannot join with Holy Church 
 in her high oblation. He can only say, "Wretched 
 man that I am, who shall deliver me from the 
 body of this death ? " His only prayer is, " God 
 be merciful to me a sinner." When he knows 
 that he has passed from death unto life, then he 
 will offer the sacrifice of acceptable worship to 
 the honour and glory of God. 
 
 Thus we may put a spiritual interpretation 
 upon Hezekiah's words :
 
 Morsbip in tbe 1Rame of Cbrtst, 25 
 
 The grave cannot praise thee : death cannot cele- 
 brate thee. 
 
 The living, the living, he shall praise thee as I do 
 this day. 
 
 The Lord was ready to save me : therefore we will 
 sing my songs all the days of our life in the house of 
 the Lord. 
 
 Worship in the Christian Church has, there- 
 fore, a character of its own, because it is offered 
 by Christ in the Church and by the Church in 
 Christ ; it has a particular worthiness of its own, 
 because of the worthiness of Christ. 
 
 And if anyone thinks that I am making too 
 much of an incidental phrase, interpreting as a 
 new charter of Christian worship that which our 
 Lord seems only to apply to the restricted case 
 of petition, I appeal to the mind of the Church. 
 For there is no point on which her teaching has 
 been clearer, or her practice more consistent, 
 from the first age to the present. The Church 
 has never restricted our Lord's words to the 
 mere granting of a petition. From the earliest 
 times she has not only asked in the Name of 
 Christ, but she has also offered in the Name of 
 Christ. 
 
 Perhaps, in the present day, men of degenerate
 
 26 Morsbfp in tbe Gbristian Gburcb. 
 
 faith think more of prayer than of praise ; they 
 think of what they shall obtain from God rather 
 than of what they shall offer Him. But it was 
 not always so. In the worship of the early 
 Church, petition had only a subsidiary place, 
 more prominence was given to the sacrifice of 
 praise and thanksgiving, and to the glory of 
 God. 
 
 And it is a singular fact that when we look 
 into the literature of the first centuries and 
 inquire how Christians then worshipped in the 
 Name of Christ, we find the Name appealed to 
 much more frequently in praise than in petition. 
 The petition, " Grant this for the sake of Jesus 
 Christ," is comparatively rare, but the ascription 
 of praise, "through Jesus Christ," or "in the 
 Name of Jesus Christ," is frequent enough. 
 
 Thus, in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 
 we have : 
 
 Thine is the glory and the power, through Jesus 
 Christ, for ever. 
 
 In the Epistle of Clement : 
 
 Thou only strong to do these things ... we glorify 
 Thee through the high priest and surety of our souls 
 Jesus Christ, through Whom be the glory and the 
 majesty unto Thee for ever.
 
 Morsbip in tbe name ot Gbrist. 27 
 
 In the Canons of Hippolytus a prayer for the 
 newly baptized concludes as follows : 
 
 Grant to those to whom Thou hast already given 
 remission of sins the pledge also of Thy kingdom, 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom to Thee 
 with Himself and with the Holy Ghost be glory for 
 ever and ever. 
 
 Again, in the Clementine Liturgy the most 
 frequent conclusion of a prayer is the appeal to 
 the Name of Christ : 
 
 by Whom in the Holy Ghost be honour and glory to 
 Thee for ever. Amen. 
 
 But it is needless to multiply instances. 
 Whether in prayer or praise the Church always 
 came to God in the Name of Jesus Christ, 
 though the necessity of the sacred sanction of 
 his Name was most strongly felt when the sacri- 
 ficial aspect of worship was most prominent. 
 And the sacrificial idea was always more pro- 
 minent in the oblation of praise than in the 
 preferring of petition. Yet we have our Lord's 
 own word that we are to " ask " in his Name. 
 Every approach to God is in fact to be made 
 by the Christian in the Name of Christ. This 
 has always been the characteristic of Christian
 
 28 nxaorsbip in tbe Cbrtsttan Gburcb, 
 
 worship, and every page of our own Prayer Book 
 witnesses to the accepted usage. 
 
 We may, however, consider a little more fully 
 what the statement means : We worship God " in 
 the Name of Jesus Christ." 
 
 It means something more than the phrase " for 
 the sake of Jesus Christ." It is something more 
 than claiming the advocacy of Christ or plead- 
 ing his favour on our behalf. It implies the 
 truth of a great syllogism. 
 
 1. The value of any act of worship in God's 
 sight depends upon several factors, one of which 
 is the worthiness of the offerer. 
 
 2. In the worship of the Christian Church, 
 Christ, who is possessed of all worthiness, is, in 
 a certain sense, the offerer. 
 
 3. Therefore there is a great and exceeding 
 value in Christian worship on account of the 
 infinite merits of Christ. 
 
 The worshipper is represented as approaching 
 the throne of God, speaking not in his own 
 personality but in the person of Jesus Christ. It 
 is as though he said, " I do not ask Thee to grant 
 the petition for me, but to grant it for Jesus 
 Christ. I do not ask Thee to accept the sacrifice
 
 Morsbip in tbe flame of Cbrtst 29 
 
 of praise as if I were myself worthy to offer it. 
 I ask Thee to receive it as coming from Him 
 who is indeed worthy to offer. I speak in his 
 name because I am incorporate in Him. I offer 
 my sacrifice with his sacrifice, even with that 
 which He offered on Calvary." 
 
 To speak or act in the name of another some- 
 times implies no more than a dramatic im- 
 personation, as when our sponsors answer in our 
 name at our baptism. Sometimes a person is 
 legally authorized by a power of attorney to 
 speak in the name of another. Under certain 
 circumstances one may have a natural right to 
 speak in the name of another, as perhaps a 
 parent in the name of a child. Sometimes a 
 person is entitled by delegation to speak in the 
 name of a body which he represents. On other 
 occasions we may be allowed to use another 
 person's name in support of some request which 
 we have to make ; we are allowed to say that 
 such a person of influence and judgment favours 
 our cause. 
 
 But none of these instances seem to afford 
 any adequate illustration of our title to come to 
 the throne of God in the Name of Jesus Christ.
 
 30 Worsbip in tbe Cbristian Gburcb, 
 
 Our worship of God is offered in the Name of 
 Christ, because we are ourselves in Christ, 
 members of his mystical Body. " We dwell in 
 Christ and Christ in us, we are one with Christ 
 and Christ with us," not by a figure of speech, 
 not by a forcible dramatic representation, but 
 by a union which is mystical, sacramental, real. 
 
 There was nothing equivalent to this in the 
 Old Testament. There could not be : for that 
 membership in Christ, in virtue of which we draw 
 near to God, is a fruit of the Incarnation. 
 
 In the Old Testament we read of prophets 
 speaking in the name of the Lord, and of Levites 
 ministering in the name of the Lord ; we read 
 of blessing in the name of the Lord, and some- 
 times of cursing in the name of the Lord. But 
 in all these cases, that for which the sanction of 
 the name of God is claimed is an action 
 directed towards men. The prophet is the 
 agent of God's operation towards man in bless- 
 ing or in cursing : the motion is downwards, 
 from heaven to earth. But in the worship of 
 the Christian Church the motion is upwards, 
 from earth to heaven ; the action is directed 
 towards God, in the Name of Christ. The 
 nearest approach to such an action in the Old
 
 TKHorsbip in tbe mame of Cbrist 31 
 
 Testament is found when the priest is minister- 
 ing at the altar, offering sacrifice for himself and 
 for the people. But in this case the priest is 
 not usually said to be ministering in the Name 
 of the Lord ; the most that can be alleged is 
 that the phrase, in Deuteronomy, sometimes in- 
 cludes this ministration as well as ministrations 
 towards the people. But more strictly, when the 
 service at the altar towards God is referred to, 
 the priest is said to be ministering " before the 
 Lord." From God to the people he ministers in 
 the Name of the Lord : from the people to God 
 he stands before the Lord to minister. 
 
 We may say, therefore, that there is no an- 
 ticipation in the Old Testament of that which 
 becomes the canon of worship in the New 
 Testament, namely, that we worship God in the 
 Name of Christ. The action of Christian wor- 
 ship is altogether unique. 
 
 Let me try to illustrate further the significance 
 of our position. 
 
 See the man yonder who is worshipping God 
 in the name of Jesus Christ. Who is he ? 
 The civil register of births will give his parent-
 
 32 Morsbfp in tbe Gbrtettan Cburcb. 
 
 age. He may be the son of John and Mary 
 Smith, born at such a date. But there is no 
 birthright here that entitles him to stand before 
 God in the name of Jesus Christ. We have to 
 turn to another register the register of a second 
 birth. Holy Church took him in her arms and 
 presented him to God in the laver of regenera- 
 tion, that he might share the Sonship of the 
 Only Begotten One. He was born again of 
 water and of the Spirit, and that New Birth 
 gave him the right and title to stand -before 
 God to worship in the Person of Christ. So we 
 may paraphrase his prayer. He says : 
 
 " Lord, I appear before Thee to worship Thee 
 not as I am by nature, but as I am by grace. 
 I stand in Thy presence not as the son of John 
 and Mary, but as new-born in my baptism. I 
 come before Thee in my Christian name, whereby 
 I was incorporated into the Church, which is 
 the mystical Body of Thine Eternal Son. O my 
 God, through Thy grace I am no longer the 
 mere child of Adam. Look upon me as Thine 
 own child in Jesus Christ. Accept the sacrifice 
 of praise which I offer not in my natural un- 
 worthiness, but in the worthiness of a member 
 of Christ. For I dwell in Christ and Christ in 
 me. I am one with Christ and Christ with me.
 
 Morsbip in tbe Iftame of Cbrist. 33 
 
 And in this union I make my oblation, I prefer 
 my petition, I praise and glorify Thee." 
 
 To worship God in the Name of Jesus Christ 
 is not, therefore, our natural right. The Name 
 of Jesus Christ is not a phrase with which any- 
 one and everyone has a right to endorse his 
 prayers. It means too much for this. The title 
 to approach God in this sacred Name implies a 
 relationship to Christ which cannot be casually 
 assumed and laid down at will. It implies that 
 position into which we were introduced by the 
 mystery of Holy Baptism, when, as the Cate- 
 chism teaches us, we were made members of 
 Christ and children of God in Him. 
 
 Although baptism puts us into the position 
 in which we are entitled to offer our worship in 
 the name of Christ, no one can suppose that the 
 title thus conferred supersedes the necessity of 
 personal and interior fitness on the part of the 
 worshipper. But baptism is itself the pledge 
 to us of grace sufficient for our sanctification. 
 The Holy Ghost is given to us to convince us of 
 sin, to move us to penitence, to guide us to the 
 Cross, to assure us of pardon, to fortify us under 
 temptation, to illuminate our path, to fill us with 
 D
 
 34 Morsbip in tbe Cbristfan Cburcb. 
 
 joy and peace in believing. In the power of the 
 Holy Ghost we go from strength to strength, 
 we experience the successive stages of the divine 
 work within us, even as they are described in 
 those thrilling words of St Paul : " Whom He did 
 foreknow He also did predestinate to be con- 
 formed to the image of His Son. Moreover, 
 whom He did predestinate them He also called, 
 and whom He called them He also justified, and 
 whom He justified them He also glorified." 
 Therefore we are able to " draw near with a true 
 heart in full assurance of faith, having our 
 hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and 
 our bodies washed with pure water." 
 
 But if our baptism constituted the union with 
 Christ which entitles us and enables us to worship 
 in his Name, we may well remember that the 
 union which is first sacramentally established in 
 holy baptism, is confirmed and strengthened and 
 intensified, in Holy Communion : for (in the 
 words of the Prayer Book), " then we eat the 
 flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood ; 
 then we dwell in Christ and Christ in us ; we are 
 one with Christ and Christ with us." This 
 brings us to a very important fact in regard to 
 Christian worship. For if our worship is accept-
 
 Morsbip in tbe IRaine of Cbrist 35 
 
 able to God in virtue of our union with Christ, 
 and if that union becomes most intense in our 
 reception of the Sacrament, the conclusion 
 logically follows that we worship God with the 
 greatest acceptance when we receive our Com- 
 munion. 
 
 I do not think that the logical connection is 
 always perceived. It is a common occurrence 
 to hear people speak of the highest act of wor- 
 ship and the sacramental feeding upon Christ, as 
 though they were almost independent of one 
 another. Some seem to think that we may at 
 one time resort to the sacrament for the feeding 
 of our souls, and at another time for the purpose 
 of joining in the Eucharistic Service, and may 
 make the latter to be the highest act of Christian 
 worship. They do not perceive that it is the 
 feeding of our souls that intensifies and raises 
 the act of worship. Worship in the Holy 
 Eucharist is our highest act of worship, simply 
 because we are in the closest communion with 
 Christ ; and that closest communion is the fruit 
 of our reception of the sacrament. 
 
 But another very important conclusion as to 
 Christian worship follows here. We have seen 
 that our title to approach God in the Name of
 
 36 Morsbip in tbe Cbrtettan Cburcb. 
 
 Christ is based upon our sacramental and per- 
 sonal union with Christ. But the mystical 
 marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his 
 Church constitutes a more perfect union, and a 
 union less alloyed by sin, than the union of 
 Christ with the individual member. The Church 
 is directly the body of Christ. We are members 
 of Christ indirectly through our membership in 
 the body. His indwelling in the Church is 
 something more than his indwelling in the 
 several members of the Church. In whichever 
 way we regard it we reach the same conclusion, 
 that the Church is more worthy than the indi- 
 vidual to offer to God acceptable worship in the 
 Name of Christ. The Church, as the Israel of 
 God, has more prevailing power with God than 
 the individual. 
 
 Hence we perceive the value of the Church's 
 prayers. They are more than the prayers of the 
 individual : they are more than the prayers of 
 the priest. When a righteous man prays for us 
 his supplication may avail much in its working. 
 But when the priest officially makes prayers 
 and intercessions, these are not the prayers of a 
 righteous man, but they are the prayers of the 
 Church : their value is to be measured, not by the 
 standard of the priest's personal worthiness, but
 
 Worsbip in tbe flame of Cbrist 37 
 
 by the title of the Church herself as the Body of 
 Christ, to offer in the Name of Christ. 
 
 The priest, as the minister of the Church, may 
 baptize, but it is the Church, not the priest, who 
 presents us to be new-born unto God. The bishop 
 lays his hands upon our heads in Confirmation, 
 but it is the Church that invokes upon us the 
 manifold gifts of the Holy Ghost. If the priest 
 pronounces the benediction, it is the Church that 
 pleads with God for the blessing. The Church 
 prays in our espousals for grace of life. The 
 Church calls down the Creator Spirit in our 
 ordination. The Church visits us in sickness 
 and commends us to God in death. The prayers 
 of the Church avail more than the prayers of 
 the righteous man, as the whole is greater than 
 its part ; nay, rather as the unbroken whole is 
 often of more value than the aggregate of the 
 parts into which it is divided. 
 
 People do not know what grace they are 
 missing when they needlessly reject the prayers 
 of the Church in favour of unauthorized devotions. 
 Sometimes, while the Church is reciting her daily 
 mattins, a worshipper will be occupied in private 
 prayers, utterly heedless of the Divine Office. 
 Of course, there may be special occasions in life 
 in which one has deeply personal matters of en-
 
 3 s Morsbtp in tbe Gbristtan Cburcb, 
 
 grossing interest to bring before God, and one 
 seeks Him in his house, regardless of the circum- 
 stance whether the Church may be at the time 
 calling the faithful to public worship or not. 
 There are spiritual necessities which know 
 no law. Those who are thus driven by the 
 urgency of their personal needs to some private 
 devotion which hinders them from joining in the 
 public service will naturally choose the least 
 prominent position in God's house in which to 
 worship apart from the congregation. But these 
 cases of urgency being excepted, we cannot but 
 think that it is an action of the greater grace to 
 join in the unity of the Body of Christ, to offer 
 in the Name of Christ the appointed devotions 
 of the day. 
 
 We have said that the offering of worship in 
 the Name of Christ is an action performed in 
 virtue of our own union with Christ. We asso- 
 ciate ourselves with Him, He joins Himself with 
 us in the offering that is made of prayer and 
 praise to the Eternal Father. But while He is 
 thus in a sense the offerer of the worship, He is 
 at the same time One with the Father in the 
 Blessed Trinity to whom the offering is made. 
 The object of all worship is Father, Son, and
 
 THUorsbip in tbe flame ot Cbrist 39 
 
 Holy Ghost, One God, and from this Godhead 
 Christ in his Divinity cannot be excluded, even 
 in a moment's thought. Just as, when speaking 
 of the sacrifice of Calvary, we say that Christ was 
 the priest who offered it and Christ was at the 
 same time the victim offered in sacrifice, so we 
 say concerning the worship which is offered in 
 his Church that Christ is the offerer, and it is to 
 Christ that it is offered. This double position of 
 our Lord in regard to the ascription of praise is 
 very remarkably indicated in the prayer which I 
 have already quoted from the Canons of Hippo- 
 lytus in the words : 
 
 Through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom to 
 Thee with Himself 'and with the Holy Ghost be glory 
 for ever and ever. 
 
 The Church has never let slip the truth that it 
 is through Christ the one mediator between God 
 and man, being Himself both God and man, that 
 she has access to the Father, but at the same 
 time she has never hesitated to make Christ 
 Himself in his divine nature, the object of 
 worship. Her normal form of prayer is to 
 address God in the Name of Jesus Christ, but in 
 worshipping God she is worshipping Christ. And 
 if, instead of addressing God in the Name of
 
 4 o Morsbfp in tbe Gbrtstian Cburcb, 
 
 Christ, she now and again addresses herself 
 directly to Christ, the latter form is pregnant 
 with all that is expressed in the former. It is 
 always God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, who 
 is the object of worship, and it is always through 
 Christ the mediator, God and man, and in his 
 Name, that the offering of worship is made. 
 
 Through Christ we worship God : but the One 
 God whom thus we worship is the Eternal Son 
 with the Father and the Holy Ghost. This is 
 the truth to which the Church witnesses every 
 day in the great hymn to Christ, Te Deum lauda- 
 mus : Te Dominum confitemur. 
 
 THE HYMN TO CHRIST. 
 
 1. Thee (Saviour Christ) we praise, when praise we 
 
 God: 
 Thee we confess, when we confess the Lord. 
 
 2. Thee the material Universe proclaims 
 The father of Eternity to come. 
 
 3. To Thee all angels sing : to Thee the heavens 
 And powers therein of every ghostly grade ; 
 
 4. To Thee the cherubim and seraphim 
 
 With ceaseless voice attune their song of praise :
 
 Worsbip in tbe Warne ot Cbrist, 41 
 
 5. " Lord ; Holy, Holy, Holy ; God of hosts ! 
 
 6. Thy Majesty divine with glory fills 
 
 The heavens above and all the earth beneath" 
 
 7. Thee the apostles' glorious choir extol ; 
 
 8. And Thee the tale of prophets laudable ; 
 
 9. And Thee the martyr-army, clothed in white. 
 
 10. Thee Holy Church confesses in her creed, 
 
 As thus throughout the world she testifies : 
 
 n. " The Father in his majesty immense ; 
 
 12. The Very Son, the Only Son revered ; 
 
 13. Also the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete" 
 
 14. Thou King of Glory, Christ; Thou only art 
 
 15. Eternally-begotten Son of God. 
 
 1 6. Thou tookest man upon Thee, man to save ; 
 Nor didst abhor the lowly Virgin's womb. 
 
 17. The sting of death o'ercome, for faithful souls 
 Thou madest entrance to the realms of heaven. 
 
 1 8. Thou in the glory of the Father hast 
 
 Thy seat on God's right hand. From thence 
 
 1 9. We look for Thee to come to be our judge. 
 
 20. We therefore pray Thee help Thy servitors 
 Whom with Thy precious blood Thou didst redeem ; 
 
 21. Make them to be rewarded with Thy saints 
 In endless glory. 
 
 22. Lord, Thy people save : 
 
 23. And bless Thine heritage, and tend Thy flock 
 And raise them even to eternity.
 
 42 Morsbtp in tbe Cbrtstfan Cburcb. 
 
 24. Thee day by day we bless, and praise Thy name 
 
 25. For ever and for ever. O good Lord, 
 
 26. Vouchsafe to-day to keep us without sin. 
 
 27. Have mercy, Lord, have mercy upon us. 
 
 28. Yea, over us be Thy compassion poured, 
 For we have set our hope on Thee, O Lord. 
 
 29. On Thee, O Lord ; my hope is set on Thee : 
 Confound me not unto Eternity.
 
 III. 
 
 THE BREAKING OF BREAD AT 
 JERUSALEM. 
 
 " They continued steadfastly in the apostles' teach- 
 ing and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the 
 prayers." Acts, ii. 42 (Revised Version). 
 
 IT may be profitable for us for a few Sunday 
 mornings to trace the development of public 
 worship in the Church from the beginning through 
 the early centuries ; first, to consider it as it is 
 presented to us in the New Testament, and 
 thence to pass to the witness of history, to the 
 writings of the fathers, to the ancient liturgies ; to 
 study the mode in which successive generations 
 have drawn near to God in united service in the 
 Body of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Our subject is the corporate worship of the 
 Church. And although we shall not overlook 
 the offices in which the faithful speak to one 
 another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs 
 (for thus they are gathered together in the name 
 of Christ, and have the promise of his presence
 
 44 Morsbip in tbe Gbristian Gburcb, 
 
 in the midst), yet our attention must be mainly 
 directed to that solemn service instituted by our 
 Lord Himself which constitutes the distinctive 
 and characteristic action of worship in the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 We intend to speak of the worship of the 
 Church offered in the unity of the Body and in 
 the unity of the Spirit : offered in virtue of the 
 fact that the Holy Ghost is dwelling in the 
 Church, and that the Church by his indwelling 
 answers to her title as the Body of Christ. 
 
 We cannot, therefore, go back further than to 
 the day of Pentecost. The disciples had been 
 instructed as to Christian worship by our Lord 
 in the days of his ministry, and notably on the 
 night before He suffered. But they were warned 
 that they must wait for the promise of the 
 Father, tarrying in Jerusalem till they were 
 endued with power from on high. 
 
 Not until the day of Pentecost were they con- 
 secrated as a Church and made to be the Body 
 of Christ. Not until the day of Pentecost was it 
 possible that the worship of which we speak could 
 be offered. 
 
 Thus the passage before us carries us back to 
 the true beginning of that action by which the 
 Church approaches God in the covenant of Jesus
 
 JSreafeing of 3Brea& at Jerusalem* 45 
 
 Christ It describes conditions dating from the 
 day on which the Holy Ghost descended in the 
 likeness of fiery tongues upon the Apostles, in- 
 corporating them as a Spiritual Body, into the 
 membership of which they were to admit others 
 by baptism. That day about three thousand 
 souls gladly received the word and were baptized. 
 And then it is written that they continued in the 
 apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in the 
 breaking of the bread and in the prayers. 
 
 This is, therefore, the very earliest record of 
 the religious practice of the Church of Christ 
 the earliest possible record for it describes 
 what immediately followed the inauguration of 
 the Church. 
 
 We are told first of all that they continued in 
 the apostles' teaching. Doctrine and worship 
 meet together : teaching and prayer embrace 
 one another. There is no doctrine of the Church 
 which is not to be traced in her prayers. 
 
 The apostles had much to teach. They had 
 also much to learn that they might teach. We 
 may assume that the Holy Ghost was daily 
 calling to their remembrance the things that 
 Christ had said unto them, and was showing 
 them the full meaning and truth of his word.
 
 4 6 Morsbfp in tbe Gbristian Gburcb* 
 
 We may assume also that they were daily 
 searching the Scriptures of the Old Testament, 
 and learning under the inspiration of the Holy 
 Ghost how those Scriptures testified of Christ. 
 In this chapter we find St Peter quoting David 
 and Isaiah and Joel, and showing how their pro- 
 phecies were fulfilled in Christ. In the next 
 chapter he quotes Genesis and Deuteronomy, 
 and in the fourth chapter two more psalms. 
 
 My Brethren, let us not depreciate the place 
 of teaching in connection with worship. Let us 
 recognize the wisdom of the Church in reading 
 four lessons to us every day, in addition to the 
 Epistle and Gospel. Let us try to learn even 
 from the dullest of sermons. The Christian 
 preacher possesses in these days no monopoly of 
 doctrine : there will often be in his audience 
 those who know more than himself, who can 
 gather nothing new from his teaching. Yet if 
 he bring forth out of the treasure house of God's 
 word only the old things, there will be profit in 
 hearing the old truths re-stated, the old promises 
 recited, the old gospel again proclaimed. The 
 chief obstacle to the ministry of preaching is 
 found in hearers who are so confident of their 
 own dogmatic position, that they cannot bear a 
 truth expressed in any other terms than those
 
 Ubc JBreafeins of Breafc at Jerusalem, 47 
 
 in which it has become crystallized in their own 
 minds. The preacher cannot please these, but 
 he must try to help those who feel the need to 
 be helped, and to teach those who desire to be 
 taught, always setting forth the doctrine of the 
 apostles, not only as the rule of Christian con- 
 duct, but also as the directory of Christian 
 worship. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that the three thousand 
 converts could be gathered into one building 
 either for instruction or for prayer. The upper 
 room may have accommodated the one hundred 
 and twenty who were present at the election of 
 Matthias, and it may be assumed that they were 
 assembled in the same upper room, when the 
 tongues of fire were seen to rest upon the apostles, 
 and the rushing mighty sound filled the house. 
 Multitudes were then attracted by the super- 
 natural noise, and Peter probably addressed 
 those who were gathered together in the open 
 air around the house. Then we must think of 
 many going and coming, inquiring of the several 
 apostles concerning the gospel that was being 
 preached, and professing themselves convinced ; 
 until by the end of the day three thousand had 
 been enrolled. Doubtless the upper room would
 
 4 s worsbip in tbe Gbristfan Gburcb. 
 
 become a centre of the instruction which now 
 they sought. But, besides this, the apostles seem 
 to have made use of the opportunities afforded 
 in the Temple, where some court or porch was 
 at the disposal of any teacher who could gather 
 an audience round him to hear the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures expounded. Our Lord Him- 
 self had used this liberty, as he explained to 
 the high priest, " I ever taught in the Temple 
 whither all the Jews resort : and in secret have 
 I said nothing." 
 
 But they continued also in the apostles' 
 " fellowship." It has been well observed that 
 worship, whether true or false, implies a fellow- 
 ship. St Paul assumes the same truth when he 
 contrasts the table of the Lord with the idola- 
 trous table of demons, and writes : " I would not 
 have you to have fellowship with demons." 
 
 We ought to note that fellowship with the 
 apostles meant fellowship, not with them alone 
 but with God, with whom the apostles were in 
 fellowship. St John puts this explicitly. He 
 writes, "that ye may have fellowship with us, 
 and truly our fellowship is with God and with 
 his Son Jesus Christ." So the term fellowship 
 has a very wide range of application. It de-
 
 JSreafetng of Breao at Jerusalem, 49 
 
 notes the Communion of the Holy Ghost, and 
 it includes the common care for the weakest 
 members of a body. The same word, wvuvta, is 
 used by St Paul when he speaks of the Com- 
 munion of the Body of Christ, and the Com- 
 munion of the Blood of Christ, and he uses it 
 again several times when he speaks of a collec- 
 tion for the poor. It is glorified to denote that 
 which we call XT' l|o%nv, the Holy Communion, 
 whilst at the same time the special circumstance 
 of the Church at Jerusalem gave it a particular 
 application at the period now under considera- 
 tion ; for in the passage before us, the state- 
 ment of verse 44, " they had all things com- 
 mon " (xoiva), undoubtedly indicates one of the 
 manifestations of the wivuvia or fellowship of 
 verse 42. 
 
 We have reference in St Paul's epistles to the 
 poverty which prevailed among the Christians 
 at Jerusalem. From the beginning there were 
 many among them who had to depend for their 
 daily bread upon the contributions which some 
 of the richer members of the Church had the 
 means of making. The apostles themselves had 
 apparently no means of livelihood, and while 
 they devoted themselves to spiritual offices, they 
 had to depend, like the poorest of their flock, on 
 E
 
 so Morsbfp in tbe Cbristian Gburcb. 
 
 that daily ministration of a common table to 
 which reference is made in the sixth chapter. 
 
 But the idea of Christian fellowship included 
 all this, so that in the very early days of which 
 we are speaking, the common meal, subsequently 
 spoken of as the love feast, was as real a part of 
 the religion of the Church as the sacramental 
 breaking of the bread of which we shall speak 
 immediately. 
 
 It has been said that the way in which " they 
 sold their possessions and goods and parted 
 them to all according as any man had need," 
 would have been reckless, had they not looked 
 for a speedy return of Christ. Even as it was, 
 the system speedily gave rise to difficulties. 
 The Grecian Jews thought that their widows 
 were overlooked in the daily ministration. The 
 apostles found that embarrassments arose from 
 the confusion of spiritual and temporal interests. 
 They determined to leave the serving of the 
 tables to others, whilst they devoted themselves 
 to the prayers and to the preaching of the word. 
 We do not find that the system was tried in 
 other churches, though the common table 
 the Church feast commonly called the Agap6 
 or love feast was continued for a considerable 
 time, and was held in close connection with the
 
 Zlbe JSreafeing of ilBreao at Jerusalem. 5 r 
 
 Eucharist. It was established as a token of 
 brotherly love and fellowship, and was, there- 
 fore, the more readily associated with the sacra- 
 mental act of fellowship. The early Chris- 
 tians naturally followed the order of the Last 
 Supper, when our Lord first joined in the social 
 meal with his disciples, and after supper insti- 
 tuted the Blessed Sacrament. So it seems that 
 the love feast was first held, and at its conclu- 
 sion there came the Sacramental Breaking of 
 the Bread. But so close was the association of 
 the Agape with the Eucharist, that it is some- 
 times difficult to determine which is being re- 
 ferred to. St Paul apparently refers to both 
 together in that passage in which he condemns 
 the abuses which prevailed at Corinth : 
 
 When ye come together therefore into one place, 
 this is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating 
 every one taketh before other his own supper : and 
 one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? 
 have ye not houses to eat and drink in ? or despise ye 
 the church of God, and shame them that have not ? 
 What shall I say to you ? Shall I praise you in this ? 
 I praise you not. 
 
 Then he goes on to recite the institution of the 
 Sacrament, and gives the warning about eating 
 and drinking unworthily, and concludes thus :
 
 52 iiaorsbtp in tbe Cbristfan Cburcb, 
 
 Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to 
 eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, 
 let him eat at home ; that ye come not together unto 
 condemnation. 
 
 Further, they continued in the breaking of 
 the bread and in the prayers. I cannot doubt 
 that the breaking of the bread in this verse 
 denotes the celebration of the Eucharist, though 
 there is ground to question whether the phrase, 
 breaking bread, in the 46th verse, may not refer 
 rather to the Agape", especially as it is joined to 
 the statement that they took their food with 
 gladness and singleness of heart, the last words 
 seeming to apply to the satisfaction of bodily 
 needs rather than to the Sacramental act of 
 Communion. But in fact at this time the two 
 were (as I have said) closely bound together. 
 
 If we would picture to ourselves the Christian 
 worship of these primitive days, we must bear 
 in mind that there were no church buildings. 
 We have not yet reached the time when Chris- 
 tianity became a proscribed religion, and the 
 faithful were compelled to worship in dens and 
 caves of the earth, but at the period with which 
 we are concerned there had been no time or 
 opportunity to provide any place of worship,
 
 Breaking of Breao at Serusalem. 53 
 
 except (it may be) that upper room to which 
 reference has been made. Its accommodation 
 must, however, have been quite inadequate for 
 a church of three thousand members. Obviously 
 the greater part of the Church's functions must 
 have been performed at home, and we may think 
 of the twelve apostles, each perhaps with the care 
 of some two hundred and fifty converts, some- 
 times teaching a group in the temple, sometimes 
 passing from house to house, presiding over the 
 common meal and breaking the Sacramental 
 Bread. We have, for instance, an example, in 
 the twelfth chapter, of the Church in a private 
 house. Peter was cast into prison, but it is 
 written, " Prayer was made without ceasing of 
 the Church to God for him." It was the prayer 
 of the Church, but where was it offered? In 
 the house of a good woman Mary, the mother 
 of John Mark. Thus we may read the details 
 of the 44th and 46th verses of this second chapter 
 as the natural explanation of the fundamental 
 statement in the text. First we have the un- 
 doubtedly fundamental principles of church life 
 defined " they continued steadfastly in the 
 apostles' doctrines and fellowship, and in the 
 breaking of the bread and of the prayers," and 
 then we have what seems, at first sight, to be
 
 54 Morsbfp in tbe Cbrfstian Cburcb. 
 
 rather a repetition, but is found to be full of 
 explanatory details : 
 
 And all that believed were together, and had all 
 things common ; and sold their possessions and goods, 
 and parted them to all men, as every man had need. 
 And they, continuing daily with one accord in the 
 temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did 
 eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, 
 praising God, and having favour with all the people. 
 
 The statement that they continued in the 
 Breaking of Bread and in the Prayers, may be 
 taken to indicate that there were other prayers 
 than those which accompanied the breaking of 
 the bread. The reference may possibly be to 
 the prayers in the Temple, to which Peter and 
 John are immediately found going up. But the 
 close connexion with the Breaking of the Bread 
 rather indicates some distinctive action of the 
 Church. It would be an anachronism to say 
 that they recited the Divine Office, and yet re- 
 membering that they were still devout Jews, 
 we can scarcely doubt that the saying or sing- 
 ing of psalms would form a prominent part of 
 their devotion, especially as we find the apostles 
 continually quoting the psalms and insisting on 
 their prophetic reference to Christ. And the 
 Divine Office, as the Church has said it for cen-
 
 JSreafeina of Break at Jerusalem. 55 
 
 turies, as we say it still in mattins and evensong, 
 is in its central feature the recital of the Psalter, 
 the Psalms constituting the string on which are 
 strung the pearls of collects, creed, and lessons. 
 Perhaps, therefore, it is not too much to say 
 that the present services of the Church, the 
 Divine Office as well as the Divine Liturgy are 
 both to be found in germ in the earliest worship 
 of the Church. 
 
 The picture which we have been studying of 
 the earliest worship of the Church shows the 
 futility of the assumption sometimes made, that 
 there should be no such thing as development 
 in the services of the Church that worship 
 ought to be governed in this nineteenth century 
 by the rules to which it was subject in the 
 first. 
 
 The conditions and environment of the Church 
 are always changing, and the Church, as a living 
 body, must be in correspondence with its environ- 
 ment. The principles of Christian worship do not 
 change the notes of a true Church are to-day 
 what they were one thousand eight hundred years 
 ago. We still continue steadfast, as I trust, in 
 the apostles' doctrine and in fellowship, in the 
 breaking of the bread, and in the prayers ; but
 
 56 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Gburcb. 
 
 it would be absurd to say that, because the 
 Church in scriptural times possessed no build- 
 ings, and had no permanent altar, the noble 
 sanctuaries of the present day are to be con- 
 demned as departures from primitive simplicity. 
 There is no force in the argument that because 
 the apostles did not use incense when they broke 
 the bread from house to house, the Church was 
 wrong in introducing its use in the fourth cen- 
 tury. We might as-well argue that because the 
 apostles did not use electric light, our churches 
 ought not to be lighted by electricity to-day. It 
 is true in the Church as in any other living in- 
 stitution that 
 
 The old order changeth giving place to new, 
 And God fulfils Himself in many ways. 
 
 Yet there are the eternal verities which change 
 not. Your worship to-day must be identical 
 with that of apostolic days, not only in its general 
 principles, but in all those conditions which 
 divine authority imposes. It is true now as 
 when the apostle first wrote it that the bread 
 which we break is the communion of the body of 
 Christ, and the cup which we bless is the com- 
 munion of his blood ; that as often as men eat 
 this bread and drink this cup they do show the
 
 JSreahina of JSreafc at Jerusalem. 57 
 
 Lord's death till He come. It is true now as 
 when it was first proclaimed that there is none 
 other name under Heaven given among men 
 whereby we must be saved, but only the name 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God who 
 loved us and gave Himself for us. 
 
 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, 
 and for ever. 
 
 There may be new developments of the 
 Church's worship. The ritual of an age when 
 many worshippers can read, may differ much 
 from the order of service when there were no 
 books. As the centuries roll on the Church 
 may adopt new modes of giving expression to 
 the reverence and devotion of those who draw 
 near, but there can be no new way of access to 
 God. The accessories of worship may be mul- 
 tiplied, beautified, glorified : but there is no 
 acceptable worship differing in its essential 
 character from that which was known to St Peter 
 and St John. 
 
 The new and living way which Christ conse- 
 crated for us through the veil, that is to say, his 
 flesh, can never become obsolete. The great 
 priest over the house of God exercises an un- 
 changing priesthood : therefore we draw near, 
 as the apostles did, as the saints of every age
 
 S 8 Morsbip in tbe Gbristtan Cburcb* 
 
 have done, in the old way which is still new, 
 ever presenting and pleading the one full, perfect, 
 and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, 
 which Christ made upon the Cross of Calvary 
 for the sins of the whole world.
 
 IV. 
 
 THE BREAKING OF BREAD AT 
 TROAS. 
 
 " And upon the first day of the week, when the dis- 
 ciples came together to break bread, Paul preached 
 unto them, ready to depart on the morrow ; and con- 
 tinued his speech until midnight." Acts, xx. 7. 
 
 LAST Sunday our subject was the breaking 
 of bread at Jerusalem. We tried to picture 
 to ourselves the worship of the Church in the 
 very early days immediately after the giving of 
 the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. We saw that the 
 apostles had three thousand souls at once to 
 minister to, and though some may have left 
 Jerusalem soon after the feast, we have to set 
 against this the fact that the Lord was daily 
 adding to the Church those who were being 
 saved. We saw the apostles busy preaching 
 and teaching, breaking the bread and leading 
 the prayers. The upper room in which the 
 apostles were gathered together on the day of 
 Pentecost doubtless continued to be a centre
 
 60 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Gburcb. 
 
 of teaching and worship : they also availed 
 themselves of the facilities which the Temple 
 afforded, and in some court or portico they might 
 be found teaching all who were willing to hear. 
 " Daily in the Temple and in every house they 
 ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ." 
 They used the Temple also for prayers : and 
 when we read of Peter and John going up " at the 
 hour of prayer, being the ninth hour," we under- 
 stand that the purpose of these two apostles was 
 to join as devout Jews in the prayers which were 
 then being offered, though they would also use 
 the opportunity, which the concourse at that 
 hour afforded, of making known the glad tidings 
 of the Resurrection. But they had no place 
 where three thousand converts could come to- 
 gether for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. 
 The apostles could only celebrate for small groups 
 of them gathered in different houses in rotation. 
 So we read of their breaking bread daily from 
 house to house, or house by house. 
 
 Before I pass on, it may be well to point out 
 that this daily breaking of the bread, house by 
 house, scarcely warrants the statement that the 
 Christians in Jerusalem had a daily celebration in 
 the ordinary acceptation of the term. If the three 
 thousand were to receive the Holy Sacrament
 
 Ube JSreaftino of SSreafc at ZIroas. 61 
 
 every week, no doubt the apostles would be cele- 
 brating somewhere every day in certain houses 
 to-day and in other houses to-morrow but we 
 cannot assert that there was anything correspond- 
 ing to what is commonly understood by a daily 
 celebration, that is, a celebration of the Holy 
 Eucharist day by day for the same congregation 
 in the same place. No argument, however, 
 against a daily celebration can be drawn from 
 the inchoate practice of a time when the Chris- 
 tians did not yet possess a church building or a 
 fixed altar. 
 
 Our subject to-day is the Breaking of Bread at 
 Troas. Twenty-five years have elapsed since 
 the first breaking of bread at Jerusalem, and the 
 customs of the Church have become much more 
 fixed. The first day of the week is now recog- 
 nized as the special day of Christian worship, 
 and on that day, as a matter of course, Christian 
 people come together to celebrate the Eucharist. 
 But the scene is no longer laid in the Holy City. 
 We are carried to the shores of the ^Egean Sea, 
 to a city of Asia Minor, in which the Christians 
 are apparently not too many to worship in one 
 place. They have a meeting room on the third 
 floor of a large house, reached, as is usual in the
 
 62 Morsbip in tbe Gbristtan Cburcb. 
 
 East, by an outside staircase. We no longer 
 read of the breaking of the bread from house to 
 house ; it was their settled custom to assemble 
 in their upper room on the first day of the week. 
 It appears from the narrative before us that they 
 met late in the day. This was, perhaps, necessi- 
 tated by the fact that they had their daily work 
 to do. Sunday was not yet a general day of 
 rest, and if they kept Sabbath (as those of Jewish 
 origin probably did) they kept it on Saturday. 
 They had a precedent for the evening hour, not 
 only in our Lord's institution of the Blessed 
 Sacrament after supper, but also in his first 
 appearance to his assembled Church on the 
 evening of the Resurrection Day. We shall find, 
 however, if we continue our historical investiga- 
 tion, that in the next century an early hour in 
 the morning was substituted for the evening 
 hour, perhaps with the intention of checking 
 such disorders as those which St Paul condemns 
 in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, when he 
 complains that either in the Agap6 or in the 
 Eucharist which was joined with it, "one is 
 hungry and another is drunken." 
 
 That First Epistle to the Corinthians was 
 probably written a very short time previous to
 
 Breaking of SSreao at Uroas, 6 3 
 
 the event which we are now considering. It is 
 remarkable for its repeated reference to Holy 
 Communion, and the more remarkable because it 
 it is the only one of the epistles in which the 
 Sacrament is directly mentioned. In the fifth 
 chapter we have a probable allusion to the 
 Sacrament in the passage : 
 
 Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore 
 let us keep the feast not with the old leaven, neither 
 with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with 
 the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 
 
 In the tenth chapter we have direct reference 
 to the Sacrament : 
 
 The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the 
 communion of the blood of Christ ? The bread which 
 we break is it not the communion of the body of 
 Christ ? 
 
 For we being many are one bread, and one body : 
 for we all are partakers of that one bread. 
 
 In the eleventh chapter we have St Paul's 
 account of the Institution of the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment, concluding with the important verse : 
 
 As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye 
 do show the Lord's death till he come.
 
 64 TKHorsbfp in tbe Gbristian Cburcb. 
 
 Let me say a word in passing about this verse. 
 It is not quite clear whether the apostle is still 
 citing Christ's own words, or whether he is merely 
 adding his own comment on the subject. There 
 is much to be said for the former hypothesis : 
 and the fact that in this view He speaks of Him- 
 self in the third person as " the Lord " does not 
 necessarily condemn it. For He certainly speaks 
 of Himself in the third person in the conversation 
 with Nicodemus and on some other occasions. 
 And though most modern commentators take 
 the words as St Paul's, nearly all the ancient 
 liturgies l quote them as Christ's own words, often 
 transposing them into the first person, " As often 
 as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye shall 
 show my death till I come." 
 
 I may remind you that in the Hymn of 
 Approach to the altar which we sing here every 
 Saturday night, the saying is implicitly ascribed 
 to Our Lord in the lines : 
 
 1 Dr. Neale and Dr. Littledale published, many years 
 ago, a collection of the "Formulae of Institution" from 
 eighty-two liturgies. In about fifty of them the words 
 recorded by St Paul are quoted (with more or less adap- 
 tation) as uttered by Our Lord. In many instances the 
 quotation is literal with the simple change of person in 
 the last clause : " My death, till I come." In a few cases 
 only the words " till I come " are added at the end of the
 
 ZTbe 3Breafttn0 of JSreao at areas* 65 
 
 Till He come fulfil his word, 
 Show the death of Christ the Lord. 
 
 But we have not yet exhausted the references 
 to the Holy Eucharist in the First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians. A little lower, in the eleventh 
 chapter, we have the warning : 
 
 Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of 
 that bread and drink of that cup ; 
 
 with the condemnation of those who eat and 
 drink unworthily, " not discerning the Lord's 
 Body." 
 
 It is the same St Paul who had so lately 
 
 form given in the gospels. In other instances the saying 
 is amplified, but the reference remains unobscured. For 
 example : 
 
 (Ethiopic Liturgy of St Basil.} "Whenever ye 
 eat this bread and drink this cup, set forth my death 
 and confess my resurrection, and make commemora- 
 tion of me until I come." 
 
 (Ethiopic of St Athanasius.} "As often as ye eat 
 this Bread and drink this Cup, set forth my death 
 and resurrection, and confess my ascension and my 
 coming again with glory whilst ye wait." 
 
 It is remarkable that nearly every Liturgy that quotes or 
 adapts the passage introduces the reference to the Resur- 
 rection, but the references to the Ascension and the 
 Second Advent are more rare.
 
 66 Morsbtp in tbe Gbrtettan Gburcb, 
 
 written all these earnest words about the Sacra- 
 ment, whom we now see at Troas conducting 
 the worship of the Church and breaking the 
 bread. 
 
 But before we finally close the first Epistle to 
 the Corinthians, we may note that it contains a 
 reference to the first day of the week which 
 illustrates the passage before us. This reference 
 is found in Chapter xvi., verse 2, the verse which 
 is constantly quoted in support of the weekly 
 offertory : 
 
 Upon the first day of the week let every one of you 
 lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that 
 there may be no gatherings when I come. 
 
 The observance of Sunday as the day of 
 worship has always been based upon the circum- 
 stance that our Lord first appeared to his Church 
 on the evening of the Resurrection day, and 
 again eight days after, that is, on the following 
 Sunday. But apart from the inferences drawn 
 from these two occasions, the earliest recogni- 
 tion of the keeping of Sunday is afforded by 
 St Paul's injunction for the weekly offering, and 
 by the account before us of the Breaking of the 
 Bread at Troas. Indeed, beyond this, there is
 
 of Breafc at Ureas, 67 
 
 no further reference to the practice, except it be 
 in St John's mention in the Apocalypse of " the 
 Lord's Day." 
 
 We gather from the narrative before us some- 
 thing of the procedure customary at the meeting 
 of the early Church on the first day of the week. 
 The meeting began with instruction and dis- 
 course, teaching and preaching : it concluded 
 with the solemn Breaking of the Bread, the 
 Eucharist. The Agape" may have been held at an 
 earlier part of the meeting. But it is more prob- 
 able that the Agape and the Eucharist were one 
 feast. In either case the Breaking of the Bread, 
 while it came at the end, was the great action in 
 which all else culminated : it was so distinctly the 
 prominent object of the meeting that it alone 
 defined the purpose for which they came to- 
 gether. It is not said that they came together 
 to be taught or to hear Paul preach. But they 
 came together to break bread. 
 
 Some have curiously suggested that the Break- 
 ing of the Bread was put off until after mid- 
 night, in order that the faithful might receive 
 fasting. The suggestion involves a most gro- 
 tesque anachronism. The practice of preparing 
 for baptism or communion by fasting is very
 
 68 Worsbip in tbe Cbrtstian Cburcb. 
 
 old indeed, perhaps as old as the apostolic age, 1 
 but the rule of dating a fast from midnight was 
 not heard of for twelve hundred years after- 
 wards. Moreover, the narrative seems to imply 
 that the Breaking of the Bread was thrown so 
 late in consequence of the length of the apostle's 
 sermon. If we were to suppose it to have been 
 the custom for the faithful to assemble on Sunday 
 evening to break bread, but to defer the actual 
 Eucharist till after midnight, we should be 
 establishing the practice of a weekly celebration 
 not on the Lord's Day, but on Monday. 
 
 We must now face a fact which has startled 
 many devout students of the New Testament ; 
 namely, the paucity and scantiness of the refer- 
 ences in the sacred books to the central act of 
 Christian worship. In the Gospel according to 
 St John, we have a discourse of our Lord con- 
 cerning the eating of his flesh and the drinking 
 of his blood, but no mention of the Blessed 
 Sacrament itself. The other three evangelists 
 
 1 The fast before baptism is of much greater antiquity 
 than the fast before communion. This is probably the 
 reason why the Church of England in the Book of 
 Common Prayer enjoins the fast before (adult) baptism, 
 but does not enjoin it before the reception of the Holy 
 Eucharist.
 
 Breaking of Brea^ at Ureas. 6 9 
 
 record the institution of the Sacrament. But 
 after that the sacramental Breaking of the Bread 
 is only mentioned twice in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, once as having taken place at Jeru- 
 salem, and once at Troas ; and only in one of 
 the Epistles is there any direct mention of the 
 subject, unless, indeed, we include the implicit 
 reference in the Epistle to the Hebrews in the 
 passage : 
 
 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat 
 which serve the tabernacle. 
 
 How are we to explain the fact that the New 
 Testament says so little on so great a subject ? 
 
 I. As the Blessed Sacrament was only insti- 
 tuted on the night before the Crucifixion, and as 
 the apostles were apparently not competent to 
 celebrate it until the day of Pentecost, we 
 should not expect to find in the gospel histories 
 any fuller reference than that which actually 
 exists. 
 
 II. In the Acts of the Apostles the occasions 
 are not many on which we might expect some 
 mention of the Sacrament. The book is much 
 more occupied with public discourses in the 
 temple and in the synagogues, than with the in-
 
 70 Morsbtp in tbe Cbristtan Cburcb* 
 
 ternal worship of the Church. But it should be 
 noted that when the worship of the Church 
 comes to be mentioned, as at Troas, the Break- 
 ing of the Bread is referred to as a practice well 
 understood and needing no explanation. It is 
 assumed as the ordinary rule that on the first 
 day of the week the disciples should come to- 
 gether to break bread. 
 
 III. The reticence of the Epistles is much 
 more striking. It must be admitted that no 
 theologian, or pastor, or director of souls in the 
 present day could write at such length and on 
 such subjects as are presented in the Epistles to 
 the Romans and to the Ephesians, and in other 
 Pauline Epistles, without making frequent refer- 
 ence to the central act of Christian worship. In 
 St Peter's Epistles also, there are several passages 
 in which a modern writer would almost certainly 
 have made some allusion to the Sacrament. We 
 can only say that the Holy Eucharist had not 
 at that time become a subject of controversy, 
 nor had men's minds been mystified by vain 
 attempts to define the mode of God's operation. 
 The faith on the subject was very simple and 
 very clear, and stood in no particular need of 
 apostolic exposition. The general practice was 
 regular and consistent, and called for no special
 
 tlbe JBreafcing of JBreafc at tlroas. n 
 
 apostolic admonition. The idea of participating 
 in a sacrifice by eating it was familiar enough. 
 Christians did not doubt that the death of Christ 
 was a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, obla- 
 tion and satisfaction for the sins of the whole 
 world, and from well recognized analogies it fol- 
 lowed that they should eat of the sacrifice in 
 order to claim their part in these benefits. 
 When a lamb or other clean beast had been 
 sacrificed the worshippers could partake of the 
 flesh. In regard to Christ's sacrifice He had 
 given them the way to do the like, when He 
 had consecrated the unbloody elements and said, 
 This is My Body, This is My Blood. This ap- 
 peared to be very clear and simple, and it was 
 accepted without cavil by every Christian. Christ 
 was present in the elements in the mode that 
 made them his flesh to eat and his blood to 
 drink, in a sense at least sufficient to constitute 
 the feeding on the sacrifice. The idea of so 
 defining his Presence as to make the Sacrament 
 an object of worship, had not yet arisen. There 
 was no controversy, and no need of explana- 
 tion. Hence we can understand the very slight 
 reference to the subject in letters which were 
 not written as formal treatises on theology, but 
 as counsels in current difficulties.
 
 72 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Cburcb. 
 
 But simple as was the primitive view of the 
 Holy Eucharist, it included the two great and 
 essential ideas. If the recognized way to par- 
 ticipate in a sacrifice and to claim its virtue for 
 one's self was to eat of the victim, then the 
 receiving of the Sacrament was to the worshipper 
 the pleading before the throne of God of the 
 merits of the great atonement on Calvary. And 
 as the act of participation was not a mere 
 ritual sign, but an actual eating and drinking, 
 the truth was at once expressed that the faithful 
 therein were feeding upon Christ for the strength- 
 ening and refreshing of their souls. Christ was 
 to these primitive Christians the sacrificial Lamb 
 of God that beareth and taketh away the sins of 
 the world. He was also to them the Bread of 
 Life, the Living Bread. " The Bread of God is 
 that which cometh down from heaven and giveth 
 Life unto the world." 
 
 Concerning the Holy Eucharist in these two 
 aspects there is no dispute amongst us. As often 
 as we receive it, we know that we are making 
 before God the continual remembrance of the 
 sacrifice of the death of Christ, and are claiming 
 to participate in the benefits which flow there- 
 from. As often as we receive it, we know that 
 our souls are being strengthened and refreshed
 
 JBreafeina of JSreat) at Ureas. 73 
 
 by the body and blood of Christ, as our bodies 
 are strengthened and refreshed by bread and 
 wine ; we eat the bread of God, we drink of the 
 living fountain that springeth up unto life eternal. 
 Controversy about the Eucharist belongs alto- 
 gether to a later period than that which we are 
 now studying, and is almost entirely connected 
 with the question, how is the sacrament to be 
 treated when we are not receiving it? For 
 the action of the devout communicant in receiv- 
 ing the sacrament is precisely the same whether 
 he believe in an actual or a virtual presence. 
 Reception means for him the feeding of his soul 
 and participation in the merits of Christ's sacri- 
 fice, whether he hold any doctrine of transub- 
 stantiation or consubstantiation, or whether he 
 rest upon the word and ordinance of Christ 
 without staying to define the mode in which the 
 divine promise is fulfilled. Hooker puts this very 
 clearly when he writes : 
 
 " This is my Body " and " This is my Blood " being 
 words of promise, since we all agree that by the sacra- 
 ment Christ doth really and truly in us perform his 
 promise, why do we vainly trouble ourselves with so 
 fierce contentions, whether by consubstantiation or 
 else by transubstantiation the sacrament itself be first 
 possessed with Christ or no? a thing which no way
 
 74 Morsbip in tbe Cbrtstlan Gburcb. 
 
 can either further or hinder us howsoever it stand, 
 because our participation in Christ in this sacrament 
 dependeth on the co-operation of his omnipotent 
 power which maketh it his body and blood to us, 
 whether with change or without alteration of the 
 element such as they imagine, we need not greatly to 
 care or inquire. 
 
 The flood-gates of strife and contention were 
 opened, when the Sacrament was put to another 
 use, concerning which there was no word of 
 Christ to afford guidance. For Christ gave no 
 indication that it should be used in any other 
 way than for reception. Where the Sacrament 
 is reserved as an object of devotion in church, 
 serious questions have to be faced. The modern 
 Roman Church distinguishes three degrees J of 
 worship : with which of these is the Blessed 
 Sacrament to be approached ? Or is the Eastern 
 Church right in according only reverence and 
 honour a to the elements, disallowing any worship 
 of the sacramental presence, except in the cele- 
 bration itself? Novel applications of the Sacra- 
 
 1 (l) 8ov\tia ; (2) viric>Sov\iia ; (3) \arpfia. A Roman 
 Catholic handbook explains that (i) dulia is to be offered 
 to the saints ; (2) hyperdulia, to the Blessed Virgin ; and 
 (3) latreia, to God only. 
 
 ii irpoffKvvqatQ, but not \arpiia.
 
 TCbe JSreaftina ot JSreafc at Uroas. 75 
 
 ment have prompted the desire for excessive 
 definition, and that desire has resulted in dissen- 
 sion and division in the Church. 
 
 In apostolic days a purer air was breathed. 
 The holiest rite of our religion had not yet 
 become the battle-ground of contending parties. 
 On the contrary it was the pledge and token of 
 Unity. All observed it in the terms of our 
 Lord's institution. He had established its sacri- 
 ficial character when he said, Do this. It was, 
 therefore, the rite in which the Church, for all 
 and every one of her children, presented and 
 pleaded before God the great atonement : the 
 rite in which each faithful worshipper craved 
 and claimed for himself participation in the 
 efficacy of the sacrifice of the Cross. But He 
 had also said : Take, eat ; Drink ye all ; This 
 is my body; This is my blood. It was the 
 taking into their own fallen but redeemed 
 humanity something of Christ. It was for their 
 souls an eating and a drinking, as essential to 
 their spiritual life as food and drink to the 
 bodily life. Christ had said it. None doubted. 
 None disputed. All received it. Without con- 
 troversy great is the mystery of Godliness even 
 Christ Himself.
 
 76 Tfldorsbip in tbe Cbrtetian Cburcb. 
 
 HYMN OF APPROACH TO THE ALTAR. 
 
 Sinner, sin and shame confessing, 
 
 Humble, contrite, penitent ; 
 Toward the seat of mercy pressing : 
 
 On the Saviour's love intent ; 
 
 Plead the one availing plea 
 
 Plead the death of Christ for thee. 
 
 Weak disciple, not relying 
 
 On thyself a broken reed 
 But on God alone supplying 
 
 Grace sufficient for thy need ; 
 
 Take the soul-sustaining food, 
 
 Jesus' Body, Jesus' Blood. 
 
 Faithful Christian, making mention 
 
 Of the ransom paid for thee, 
 Wondrous cost of man's redemption, 
 
 Jesus' death upon the tree ; 
 
 Till He come, fulfil his word, 
 
 Show the death of Christ the Lord. 
 
 Body one, by mystic union 
 
 Of each member with the Head, 
 Share we all the sweet communion, 
 
 All partaking of one Bread ; 
 
 Crowd the banquet as of old, 
 
 Token of the faith we hold.
 
 ZTbe JSreafeina of JSreafc at ttroas. 77 
 
 Kneel we low in contemplation 
 
 Of the wonders of the cross, 
 Jesus held in estimation, 
 
 All beside accounted loss ; 
 
 Pledge we all our hearts to Christ 
 
 Celebrate the Eucharist. 
 
 Jesus, hail ! we bow before Thee, 
 
 In Thy holy Sacrament ; 
 We approach Thee, we adore Thee, 
 
 Knees low bending, hearts intent : 
 
 Thee we worship, and in Thee 
 
 God the Eternal Trinity. Amen.
 
 V. 
 
 THE EUCHARIST IN THE FIRST 
 CENTURY. 
 
 " We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat 
 which serve the tabernacle." Hebrews, xiii. 10. 
 
 WITHOUT entering into a discussion of 
 the authorship of this epistle, we may 
 note that it was certainly written by a Jew to 
 Jews. The writer and those whom he addressed 
 had, of course, been converted to Christ, but the 
 questions treated of in the epistle are not those 
 at issue between Christ and the world, but those 
 between Christianity and Judaism. For aught 
 of reference in the epistle, the heathen world 
 might have been non-existent. The writer as- 
 sumes that those who receive his letter are 
 familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures, and 
 with every detail of the Jewish ritual. The 
 Jewish temple was still standing and the Mosaic 
 sacrifices were still being offered. If the Hebrews 
 were in danger of being carried about with divers 
 and strange doctrines, these were not the specula-
 
 ZTbe Eucbartet In tbe fftrst Century. 79 
 
 tions of gnostic or heathen philosophy, but rather 
 pedantic applications of the law of Moses 
 minute rules about clean and unclean meats 
 such as the writer sweeps aside with the asser- 
 tion : " It is a good thing that the heart be 
 established with grace, not with meats which 
 have not profited them that have been occupied 
 therein." The writer desires to call back the 
 attention of the Hebrew Christians from the 
 Jewish sacrifices, which were so soon to cease, to 
 the one great sacrifice of which they were but 
 types, namely, that which was offered upon the 
 altar of the Cross of Calvary. To this sacrifice 
 he asserts that the obsolete ceremonies of the 
 tabernacle afford no access. " We have an altar, 
 whereof they have no right to eat which serve 
 the tabernacle." 
 
 In the Jewish ritual there were different ways 
 in which the worshipper was commanded to 
 claim his part in the efficacious virtue of a sacri- 
 fice. Sometimes he was to express his identity 
 with the victim by laying his hand upon its 
 head. On other occasions, a much more signifi- 
 cant form was used : the worshipper was actually 
 to eat of the flesh of the victim, whilst another 
 part was offered and burned upon the altar of
 
 8o Morsbip in tbc Gbristian Gburcb. 
 
 God. This is of extreme interest to us, for it 
 shows us how significant our Lord's words about 
 the eating of his flesh must have seemed to the 
 disciples, when once they had come to regard 
 his death upon the Cross as the sacrifice, obla- 
 tion, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole 
 world. To eat the flesh of the sacrifice was 
 equivalent to participation in the virtue and 
 merits of the sacrifice. 
 
 This accepted principle is assumed in the 
 passage before us. " We have an altar, whereof 
 they have no right to eat which serve the 
 tabernacle." 
 
 When he says, " We have an altar," I do not 
 see any reference to the material structure on 
 which we are accustomed to consecrate the 
 Blessed Sacrament. The words, " we have an 
 altar," are equivalent, by a common use of lan- 
 guage to the words "we have a sacrifice," and 
 the reference is undoubtedly to the oblation of 
 Christ upon the cross as a sacrifice for the sins 
 of the world. "We have an altar" is the proper 
 and appropriate text, not so much for Maundy 
 Thursday as for Good Friday. 
 
 But I think that the words which follow have 
 an undoubted reference to the Blessed Sacra-
 
 ftbe Bucbarist in tbe ffirst Centura 81 
 
 ment. For I do not see how the writer could 
 have spoken of the right to " eat " of the altar 
 unless Christians as well as Jews were accus- 
 tomed, by eating, to participate in the sacrifice. 
 Given, that the altar refers not to the Holy 
 Table, but to the cross and to the atonement 
 wrought thereon, he could not speak of our 
 eating of that sacrifice unless a sacrament of 
 eating had been instituted as the mode by 
 which we were to claim our part in the great 
 sacrifice once made. 
 
 We considered on two former Sunday morn- 
 ings the Breaking of the Bread at Jerusalem 
 immediately after the day of Pentecost, and the 
 Breaking of the Bread at Troas some twenty- 
 five years later. I have now, in fact, called your 
 attention incidentally to all the passages in the 
 New Testament in which direct reference is 
 made to that highest act of Christian worship, 
 the showing of the Lord's death till he come. 
 
 But the references to Christian worship in 
 early times are not restricted to the canonical 
 scriptures. If we wish to trace the development 
 of our service from the beginning, we must 
 study the accounts given by successive Christian 
 G
 
 82 Morsbip in tbe Gbristian Cburcb. 
 
 writers, and we must note also the references 
 which even profane historians incidentally make 
 to the practices of the Christians. 
 
 But the materials for such study are very 
 meagre until we reach a later century. The 
 secular writers of the day knew nothing what- 
 ever of the interior practices of the Church ; and 
 when we refer to such Christian writings outside 
 the New Testament, as have been thought to 
 belong to the first century, our search for a 
 word or expression which may throw light on 
 the mode of Christian worship, is disappointing 
 in the extreme. 
 
 Turn, for example, to the epistle of Barnabas. 
 Though we cannot accept it as a genuine epistle 
 of the companion of St Paul, many critics 
 attribute it to the first century. At the latest it 
 belongs to the first half of the second century. 
 Its main object is to show how the Jewish 
 sacrifices have been fulfilled in Christ, and the 
 Jewish worship superseded by that of the 
 Gospel. The writer interprets minute details 
 of the old law as prefiguring Christian rites. 
 Yet he says practically nothing about the rites 
 of Christian worship thus prefigured. In one 
 place he speaks of the duty of coming more 
 holily and nearer " to his altar." In another
 
 Ube Eucbarist tn tbe jfirst Century 83 
 
 place he indicates the observance of the Lord's 
 day, saying, "We observe the eighth day with 
 gladness in which Jesus rose from the dead." 
 But his silence as to the central act of Christian 
 worship is as marked as that which we noted in all 
 but one of the canonical epistles. It is, perhaps, 
 due to excessive caution lest any account of the 
 Christian mysteries might fall into pagan hands. 
 
 Equally disappointing is the search when 
 we turn to other writers of the century to look 
 for details of Christian worship. 
 
 The Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians 
 was probably written in the year 95, still within 
 the lifetime of St John. This document does 
 not contain any account of the celebration of 
 the Eucharist, but the writer strongly insists 
 that men are to make their offerings and ser- 
 vice to God at the appointed times, and he says 
 God has ordained both where and by what 
 persons the services are to be performed ; and 
 in this connection he insists strongly on the 
 prerogative of the clergy, after the analogy of 
 those of the Jewish worship ; for, he adds, " the 
 chief priest has his proper services, and to the 
 priests their proper place is assigned ; and to 
 the Levites appertain their proper ministries ;
 
 84 Morsbfp in tbe Cbristfan Cburcb. 
 
 the layman is confined to what is appointed for 
 laymen. Let each one of you make his Eucharist 
 to God in his own station with a good conscience, 
 with reverent demeanour, not transgressing the 
 appointed rule of his service." And in the next 
 chapter of his epistle he continues : " Christ was 
 from God, and the apostles from Christ . . . and 
 the apostles appointed the first fruits of their 
 conversions to be bishops and deacons." 
 
 /I have ventured to interpret the Greek word 
 euxafio-TEiTo as meaning " let him take his part in 
 the service of the Eucharist." Some would 
 simply render it " let him give thanks " ; but it 
 is plain from the context that the reference is to 
 the public worship of the Church, and to a 
 service ordered with strict regularity and with 
 regard to spiritual office. Such a reference can 
 only be to the Breaking of the Bread. 1 It is 
 
 1 Bishop Lightfoot says : " The allusion here is plainly 
 to the public services of the Church, where order had been 
 violated. Thus Eucharistia will refer chiefly, though not 
 solely, to the principal act of Christian thanksgiving, the 
 celebration of the Lord's Supper, which at a later date 
 was almost exclusively termed Eiicharistia. The usage 
 of Clement is probably midway between that of St Paul, 
 where no such appropriation of the term appears, and 
 that of the Ignatian Epistles and of Justin, where it is 
 specially so applied.
 
 ZTbe JEucbartet in tbe ffirst Century. 85 
 
 certainly remarkable that no clearer allusion to 
 sacramental worship can be found in an epistle 
 twice as long as the Epistle to the Hebrews, in 
 which references to our approach to God in the 
 appointed mode and in the right spirit are by 
 no means wanting. 
 
 The only extant document attributed to the 
 first century which contains any account of the 
 celebration of the Eucharist is the short treatise 
 known as the Aj3axn or Teaching of the Twelve 
 Apostles. Even if we allow the later date to 
 which Dr Biggs assigns the composition, there 
 is every indication that the account of Christian 
 worship imbedded in it belongs to the earliest 
 age. But such trustworthy scholars as Bishop 
 Lightfoot and Dr Taylor have no hesitation in 
 assigning the whole composition to the first 
 century. If they are right, it was written in the 
 lifetime of St John, and no earlier account of 
 Christian worship is extant outside the canon of 
 the New Testament. Before I read the passage 
 to you, I would point out that though it is 
 sometimes difficult to decide whether the Greek 
 word EuxapKnia. refers to the Sacrament, or to 
 an ordinary act of thanksgiving apart from the 
 Sacrament, there is no such difficulty here. For 
 the injunction that the unbaptized may not
 
 86 Tixaorsbip in tbe Gbtristian Cburcb. 
 
 partake, clearly indicates that what is being dis- 
 cussed is not a thanksgiving over ordinary food, 
 but is the very Sacramental Eucharist itself. 
 The passage is as follows : 
 
 And as touching the feast of Thanksgiving, thus 
 give ye thanks : 
 
 First, concerning the cup, We thank thee, O our 
 Father, for the holy vine of thy child David, which 
 thou hast made known to us by thy child Jesus. 
 Thine be the glory for ever. And concerning the 
 broken bread, We thank thee, O our Father, for the 
 life and knowledge which thou hast made known to 
 us by thy child Jesus. Thine be the glory for ever. 
 As this broken bread was once scattered in grains 
 upon the mountains, and being gathered together 
 became one; so let thy church be gathered together 
 from the- ends of the earth unto thy kingdom. For 
 thine is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ 
 for ever. 
 
 And let none eat or drink of your feast of Thanks- 
 giving, but such as have been baptized in the name of 
 the Lord; for concerning this the Lord hath said, 
 Give not that which is holy to the dogs. 
 
 And after being filled, thus give ye thanks : 
 
 We thank thee, holy Father, for thy holy name 
 which thou hast made to dwell in our hearts, and for 
 the knowledge and faith and immortality which thou 
 hast made known to us by thy child Jesus. Thine 
 be the glory for ever. Thou, O almighty Sovereign,
 
 TTbe Eucbartet in tbe jfirst Century. 8 7 
 
 didst create all things for thy name's sake, and gavest 
 men food and drink to enjoy, that they might give 
 thanks unto thee; but to us thou didst graciously 
 give spiritual food and drink and life eternal, through 
 thy child. Before all things we give thanks to thee 
 for that thou art mighty. Thine is the glory for ever. 
 Remember, O Lord, thy church to deliver her from 
 all evil and to perfect her in thy love ; and gather her 
 together from the four winds, her that is sanctified 
 unto thy kingdom which thou didst prepare for her. 
 For thine is the power and the glory for ever. Let 
 grace come, and this world pass away. Hosanna to 
 the God of David. If any is holy let him come ; if 
 any is not, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen. 
 
 But suffer ye the prophets to give thanks as pleaseth 
 them. 1 
 
 In these directions for the celebration of the 
 Holy Eucharist in the first century, you will 
 observe that nothing is said about the consecra- 
 tion of the elements. I think that this is to be 
 accounted for as an instance of the reluctance 
 which the early Church felt to commit her most 
 sacred formulae to writing. We find exactly the 
 same thing two hundred years later, when St 
 Cyril, in explaining the service to those who 
 had just been admitted to communion, dwells at 
 
 1 Taylor's translation. I should have ventured to use 
 the term Eucharist, in place of Feast of Thanksgiving.
 
 88 Morsbtp in tbe Cbristtan Gburcb, 
 
 length on what precedes and follows, but passes 
 over the Consecration itself with the words : 
 " Then, after the spiritual sacrifice is perfected." 
 This reluctance to divulge matters pertaining to 
 the faith was very real, and must always be taken 
 into account in interpreting the records of the 
 early Church. 
 
 You will observe also, that although the 
 dominant note is Thanksgiving, yet the celebra- 
 tion is made an occasion of Intercession : " Re- 
 member, O Lord, thy Church, to deliver her 
 and to perfect her." You will note also that 
 the sacramental feeding of the soul is carefully 
 emphasized : " Thou gavest men food and drink 
 to enjoy, but to us thou didst graciously give 
 spiritual food and drink through Thy Child." 
 At the same time there is not the slightest hint 
 of any adoration towards the consecrated ele- 
 ments. In fact, the first trace of such adora- 
 tion does not occur till a much later age. 
 
 It does not appear that at the period under 
 our consideration, the Eucharistic prayers had 
 taken any prescribed form. The form given in 
 the passage that I have read to you, appears to 
 be little more than an example of such a thanks- 
 giving as might fitly be offered, and in the 
 concluding words the right is reserved to the
 
 Ube Eucbarist in tbe jffrst Century. 8 9 
 
 prophets, if any be present, of offering an ex- 
 tempore thanksgiving to any extent they choose : 
 the prophets being those who were still exer- 
 cising some of the extraordinary gifts of 
 Pentecost. 
 
 It is rather remarkable that while the pre- 
 sence of a prophet is provided for, apparently as 
 something exceptional, nothing is said about 
 the necessity of there being a priest to conse- 
 crate the sacrament. But if anyone imagines 
 that at this time this function could be dis- 
 charged by laymen, I would remind him of the 
 passage already referred to, in which Clement 
 insists on the prerogative of the clergy in the 
 public services pf the Church. 
 
 I will not weary you with any longer quota- 
 tion. In the passages which we have cited, we 
 have contemporary evidence as to the main 
 characteristics of the Divine Service towards the 
 close of the first century. Though there was 
 probably not yet a written and authorized 
 liturgy, the Eucharistic prayers were already of 
 a very definite character, and they were offered 
 with much decency and order, the several ranks 
 of the ministry having their proper functions 
 clearly defined. The typical character of the
 
 90 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Gburcb. 
 
 outward and visible sign was duly recognized ; 
 the thanksgiving over the wine was for "the 
 Holy Vine of David," and that over the bread 
 was for " the life and knowledge " suggested by 
 our Lord's title as the Bread of Life. God's 
 goodness in creation was acknowledged in the 
 simplest and most natural terms, but the gift to 
 the faithful was described as " spiritual food and 
 drink, and life eternal." A prayer for the ex- 
 tension and unity of the church preceded com- 
 munion, and this great intercession was renewed 
 at the close of the service. 
 
 Substantially the celebration in the first cen- 
 tury was identical with the celebration to-day. 
 But the more we study these ancient records 
 the deeper becomes the impression that a great 
 change of proportion has taken place. More 
 prominence is now given to the fact that our 
 souls are strengthened and refreshed by the 
 body and blood of Christ as our bodies are by 
 bread and wine, and less prominence in propor- 
 tion is given to the fact that in receiving the 
 Sacrament we are claiming our part in the sacri- 
 fice of the Cross. The idea that we participate 
 in the efficacy of a sacrifice by eating the flesh 
 of the victim, was a familiar commonplace to
 
 Ube Bucbarist in tbe jffrst Gentur?. 91 
 
 the early Christians : it is much less familiar to 
 us. To our minds the act of eating and drink- 
 ing suggests sustenance and refreshment much 
 more naturally than it suggests participation in 
 the sacrifice. Indeed the latter idea has become 
 so far obscured that many people think that 
 they can, in some sacramental sense, plead the 
 sacrifice, though they do not receive the Sacra- 
 ment. Perhaps the change of proportion is best 
 illustrated by considering the different thoughts 
 which a Christian of the first century and a 
 Christian of the nineteenth century would attach 
 to such phrases as " the altar whereof we eat," or 
 " our being partakers of the altar." The early 
 Christian would at once have thought of the 
 altar of the Cross : partaking of the altar would 
 have meant to him participation in the Sacrifice 
 of Calvary ; whereas the modern worshipper is 
 more ready to apply the phrase to the material 
 altar, almost as if the sacrifice were complete 
 within the four walls of the Church. In medi- 
 aeval and modern times language has been used 
 which seems to imply that the worshipper need 
 look no further than the earthly sanctuary : or if 
 he is to look beyond it his gaze is to be carried 
 upward, that he may join in worship with angels 
 and archangels, and with all the company of
 
 92 Morsbtp in tbe Gbrtstfan Cburcb. 
 
 Heaven. But to the primitive Christian there 
 was another background to the sanctuary, even 
 Calvary itself with the great tragedy enacted 
 thereupon. Christ is present in the Church to 
 feed our souls, but the sacrifice of which we eat 
 is not wrought within these walls, but, once for 
 all, on the green hill far away where the immacu- 
 late Lamb was slain. 
 
 I am not alleging any change of doctrine, but 
 I do allege a change in the proportions in which 
 the different aspects of the truth are brought 
 into prominence. And if anyone doubts this 
 change he is confronted by the manifest change 
 of practice, contrasting the regular communions 
 of the first century with the irregular and occa- 
 sional communions of the present day. If com- 
 munion be thought of mainly as spiritual food 
 for our souls, it may be open to argument how 
 often, considering the smallness of our spiritual 
 capacity, we ought to receive these gifts : but if 
 communion be thought of as the appointed 
 means of participation in that one Sacrifice, by 
 which alone we can acceptably approach the 
 throne of God, then we can understand the mind 
 of the primitive Christian, who would not think 
 of keeping the Lord's Day without the reception 
 of the Sacrament.
 
 ZTbe Bucbartet in tbe jfirst Century. 93 
 
 My brethren, these historical investigations 
 will be of spiritual service to us all if they lead 
 us to be more intelligent communicants, our 
 faith and our devotion being guided, not by the 
 catch-words of party, which are so lightly ac- 
 quired, but by the reverent contemplation of our 
 Lord's intention, and by the careful study of the 
 place which the Blessed Sacrament occupied in 
 the worship of the faithful, from the time when 
 the apostles themselves were living to direct the 
 Church. 
 
 The honest study of the subject must have 
 one immediate result to make you utterly dis- 
 satisfied with a life which does not unceasingly 
 claim participation in the great oblation of the 
 Cross ; it must lead you to regular and habitual 
 Communion, and therein to a fuller appreciation 
 of that great action of atonement in which the 
 Lamb of God hath borne the burden of the sins 
 of the world.
 
 VI. 
 
 THE EUCHARIST IN THE SECOND 
 CENTURY. 
 
 " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
 the world." S/ Mattheiv, xxviii. 20. 
 
 MY mind is fixed upon a day in the his- 
 tory of the Church, when the promise of 
 the text must have come home to men's hearts 
 with peculiar power. I am not thinking of the 
 day of the Ascension, though the great joy of 
 that day must have been compounded of the 
 strong faith in the abiding presence of the 
 Master. My thoughts range onward to another 
 day when, but for this promise, the minds of the 
 faithful must have been fraught with dismay. I 
 am thinking of the death-day of the last of the 
 apostles, when St John, the beloved disciple, 
 passed to his rest. 
 
 The other apostles had long before proved 
 faithful unto death. But the faithful in the 
 Church were watching every day for the return
 
 Eucbarist in tbe Seconfc Century 95 
 
 of Christ, and were fondly trusting to the infer- 
 ence which they drew from a literal interpreta- 
 tion of the Lord's words concerning St John : " If 
 I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to 
 thee?" They hoped that until the return of 
 Christ to gather in his own, they should enjoy 
 always the presence and the counsel of one, at 
 least, of the favoured band, who had known 
 Him, face to face, in the days of his ministry ; 
 who had heard his gracious words, and could 
 tell of the irresistible sweetness of his presence ; 
 who, moreover, had seen Him after his resurrec- 
 tion, and had received the instruction of the 
 great forty days in the things concerning his 
 kingdom ; who had been witnesses of his final 
 withdrawal into the heavens, and had experi- 
 enced the power of the rushing, mighty wind of 
 Pentecost and the tongues of fire. 
 
 And now the last of them was gone and 
 Jesus had not come : and the outlook must 
 have been dark indeed, if they had not had the 
 promise, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto 
 the end of the world." But herein they found 
 assurance. The apostolic commission was not 
 to die out with the apostles for though all flesh 
 is as grass, and the glory of man as the flower 
 of grass, yet the word of the Lord endureth for
 
 9 6 Morsbip In tbe Gbristian Gburcb. 
 
 ever. " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the 
 end of the world." 
 
 The passing away of the apostles must have 
 had a great effect upon the Church. Hitherto, 
 they had looked up to chief pastors whose com- 
 mission had been anterior to the Church. For 
 the future, the Church herself must beget her 
 rulers, and this fact alone emphasized the con- 
 ception of the Church as a living body in union 
 with Christ. Never before had so great signifi- 
 cance attached to the promise never before had 
 it been so strongly recognized as, in fact, essen- 
 tial to the very being of the Church : " Lo, I 
 am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
 world." 
 
 The death of St John was thus an epoch in 
 the history of the Church. It synchronized very 
 closely with the end of the first century, so 
 that we may think of the second century as in- 
 augurating new conditions in the Church's life. 
 
 In the present course of sermons we are con- 
 centrating our attention on historical evidence 
 as to the public services of the Church, and we 
 do not proceed far in the second century before 
 we come to some very striking allusions to our 
 subject in a profane author.
 
 ZTbe Eucbartet in tbe Secerns Century 97 
 
 In the year 112 Trajan was emperor of Rome 
 and Pliny was governor of the Roman province 
 of Bithynia. Pliny found his province overrun 
 by Christians to such an extent that the temples 
 of the national religion were almost deserted. 
 Being determined to remedy this state of things, 
 he began by calling upon all suspected persons 
 to offer incense to the national gods and to the 
 image of Caesar. When they refused and avowed 
 themselves Christians he ordered some to be put 
 to death : others, who had the rights of Roman 
 citizens, he proposed to send to the capital. But 
 the accounts which he heard of the Christians 
 from some apostates, and from two deaconesses 
 whom he put to torture, caused him some mis- 
 giving, and he wrote to the emperor for instruc- 
 tions. He reports to the emperor that those 
 whom he has examined have given the follow- 
 ing account of Christianity : 
 
 " They affirmed that the whole sum of their 
 fault or error was this : that they were in the 
 habit of meeting on a fixed day before dawn, 
 and of reciting alternately a hymn to Christ as 
 to a God, and of binding themselves by an oath 
 or sacrament, not to some wickedness, but 
 that they would abstain from theft, and robbery, 
 and adultery, and would not break their word, 
 II
 
 98 Morsbip In tbe Gbristtan Cburcb. 
 
 nor withhold a deposit when reclaimed. After 
 this (they said) it was their custom to separate, 
 and to come together later for a common meal, 
 which, however, was quite harmless. And from 
 this meal they had desisted after my edict, in 
 which, in accordance with your command, I had 
 forbidden club-meetings." 
 
 There is no doubt that the " stated day " 
 mentioned in this very interesting account was 
 Sunday. But as there was at that time no 
 general cessation of business on Sunday, the 
 only possible time for the worship of the Church 
 must have been early in the morning before 
 work began, or in the evening when work was 
 done. In the first century we found that they 
 came together in the evening to break bread. 
 Now in the second century it appears that they 
 meet twice in the day. In the early morning 
 they recite a hymn to Christ as a God, and they 
 take a pledge against all wickedness. Some 
 have thought that this statement about the oath 
 was founded on some report of the baptismal 
 vows, and that the Eucharist was still celebrated 
 at the evening meeting. But we can hardly 
 think that these Christians would have given up 
 the Eucharist in consequence of Pliny's edict
 
 ZTbe JEucbadst in tbe Secont) Century 99 
 
 against club-meetings (hetcerias, ertxipsia^. We 
 must rather conclude that the oath or pledge, 
 for which Pliny uses the word sacramentum, was 
 none other than that obligation to holiness 
 which was sealed and renewed in every Com- 
 munion : that the early morning meeting, at 
 which they recited the hymn to Christ, was, in 
 fact, the celebration of the Eucharist, and that 
 the evening meeting was for the common meal 
 which they properly gave up when Pliny issued 
 his edict against social clubs. 
 
 In view of the change of hour for the Holy 
 Eucharist, some writers have assumed very 
 strangely that the evening hour gradually be- 
 came later and later (just as the meeting at 
 Troas was prolonged when St Paul continued 
 his sermon to midnight), until the time of as- 
 sembly passed from the late evening to the early 
 morning. But it is obvious that this hypothesis 
 would account for a change from Sunday night 
 to Monday morning : but what actually occurred 
 was a change from Sunday night to Sunday 
 morning, and this must have been deliberately 
 made. Up to this point the Agape and the 
 Eucharist were held almost as one feast ; the 
 Eucharist was apparently an episode in the
 
 ioo Morsbip in tbe Cbrfsttan Cburcb. 
 
 Agape. But now, perhaps in consequence of 
 such irregularities as St Paul had to denounce 
 at Corinth, the Eucharist is celebrated in the 
 early morning, and the love-feast, if it is held at 
 all, is in the evening. 
 
 Bishop Lightfoot has established beyond gain- 
 saying the authenticity of the letters written by 
 St Ignatius about the year no, on his way from 
 Antioch to Rome to suffer martyrdom. He had 
 been sentenced to be thrown to the wild beasts. 
 The letters are addressed to different Churches, 
 and in six out of the seven, in view of some 
 tendency to independence and secession, the 
 writer passionately insists on the authority of 
 the bishop. If the Christian community be 
 divided, those who remain with the bishop are 
 to be deemed the true Church. Do nothing (he 
 says) without the bishop. Apart from the bishop 
 it is not lawful either to baptize or to celebrate 
 the Agape\ From his citing Baptism and the 
 Agap6 as the two principal ministrations of the 
 Church, we conclude that Ignatius regarded the 
 Agape! as including the Eucharist. If in Bithynia 
 the Agape was first separated from the Eucharist 
 and then abandoned altogether, it would seem 
 that elsewhere the Agape" first included the
 
 TTbe Bucbarist in tbe Second Genturg. IQI 
 
 Eucharist and then became entirely merged in 
 it. Ignatius goes on to caution the Church at 
 Smyrna against those who taught that our 
 Lord's human body was only flesh in appear- 
 ance and not in reality, and in argument with 
 them he uses language which almost implies 
 a material presence in the Eucharist. These 
 heretics, he says, " abstain from the Eucharist 
 and from the public prayers, because they con- 
 fess not that the Eucharist is the flesh of our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ, which flesh suffered for 
 our sins, and which the Father of his goodness 
 raised from the dead." At a later point we 
 shall have to consider the sense in which even 
 stronger language than this was used. 
 
 I will now turn to the testimony of a Christian 
 writer about the middle of the century. It was 
 probably in the year 148 that Justin Martyr 
 addressed to the Emperor his apology for 
 Christianity. He shows that the faith and wor- 
 ship of Christians are reasonable, and tend to 
 good order : and are in no way opposed to the 
 cause of civil government. As Justin is writing 
 to a heathen emperor, he naturally will not 
 reveal the more sacred mysteries of Christianity, 
 but he speaks very plainly of the religious prac-
 
 102 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Cburcb. 
 
 tice of his time. He thus defines the general 
 character of Christian worship. 
 
 We worship the creator of the universe, whom we 
 assert to have no need of sacrifices of blood, and liba- 
 tions, and incense, but whom we praise to the best of 
 our power with the reasonable service of prayer and 
 thanksgiving, in all our oblations, having been in- 
 structed that the only service that is worthy of Him 
 is not to consume by fire what He has given us for our 
 sustenance, but to apply it to our own benefit and to 
 those who are in need .... offering Him solemnities 
 and hymns .... and putting up prayers that we may 
 have a resurrection to incorruptibility through our 
 faith in Him. 
 
 Further on, Justin describes how new members 
 are initiated into the Christian Church : 
 
 They are taught to pray and beg God with fasting 
 to grant them forgiveness of their former sins : and 
 we pray and fast with them. Then we bring them 
 where there is water, and after the same manner of 
 regeneration as we also were regenerated ourselves 
 they are regenerated. . . . 
 
 After thus washing him who has professed and 
 given his assent, we bring him to those who are 
 called brethren, where they are assembled together, to 
 offer prayers in common. . . . We salute one another 
 with a kiss when we have concluded the prayers ; then 
 is brought to the president of the brethren bread and
 
 TTbe JEucbarist in tbe Second Century 103 
 
 a cup of water and mixed wine, which he receives, 
 and offers up praise and glory. . . . When he has 
 concluded the prayers and thanksgiving all the people 
 express their assent by saying " Amen ; " and when the 
 president has celebrated, and all the people have 
 assented, they whom we call deacons give to each of 
 those who are present a portion of the Eucharistic 
 bread and wine and water, and carry them to those 
 who are absent. And this food is called by us the 
 Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake but 
 he who believes the truth of our doctrines, and has 
 been washed in the laver for the forgiveness of sins 
 and for regeneration, and who so lives as Christ has 
 directed. For we do not receive them as ordinary 
 food or ordinary drink. But as by the Word of God 
 Jesus Christ our Saviour was made flesh, and had 
 both flesh and blood for our salvation, so also the food 
 which was blessed by the prayer of the word which 
 proceeded from him, and from which our flesh and 
 blood are nourished by assimilation, is the flesh and 
 blood of that Jesus which was made flesh. For the 
 apostles in their memoirs, which are called gospels, 
 have thus delivered to us what was enjoined on them, 
 that Jesus took bread and gave thanks and said, " Do 
 this in remembrance of me : this is my body," and 
 that after the same manner He took the cup and gave 
 thanks and said, " This is my blood." . . . And over 
 all things of which we partake we bless the Creator of 
 all things through his Son Jesus Christ and through 
 the Holy Spirit. And on the day called Sunday all 
 who live in cities or in the country gather together in
 
 io 4 Morsbip in tbe Gbristfan Cburcb. 
 
 one place, and the records of the apostles or the 
 writings of the prophets are read as long as time 
 permits. Then the reader concludes, and the pre- 
 sident verbally instructs and exhorts us to the imitation 
 of these good things. Then we all rise together and 
 offer prayers. And as we have before said, when we 
 have finished the prayer, bread and wine and water 
 are brought, and the president in like manner offers 
 prayers and thanksgiving with all his might, and the 
 people assent, saying "Amen," and there is a dis- 
 tribution to each, and a participation in the Eucharistic 
 elements, and portions are sent to those who are not 
 present by the deacons. And those who have means 
 and are willing give as each thinks fit, and the col- 
 lection is placed in the hands of the president, who 
 assists the orphans and widows and those who are in 
 want through sickness or any other cause, and those 
 who are in prison, and the strangers sojourning among 
 us, and, in a word, he takes care of all who are in 
 any need. 
 
 These passages set before us with considerable 
 detail the central act of Christian worship a little 
 more than one hundred years after the Cruci- 
 fixion. 
 
 I. First, we note that a celebration of Holy 
 Communion followed an adult baptism, so that 
 the sacred food might be the first to pass the lips 
 of the newly illuminated. The fast before baptism 
 is much more ancient and of much greater
 
 ZTbe Bucbarist in tbe Second Centui'2. 105 
 
 authority than the fast before Communion, and 
 the latter seems to have originated in the former. 
 Justin tells us that not only the candidate for 
 baptism fasted, but the whole Church fasted with 
 him, making the latter dependent on the former. 
 And the earliest canon which enjoins a fast 
 before Communion enjoins it particularly on the 
 newly baptized and with less emphasis on others. 
 But this custom belongs to a later century, and 
 must not detain us now. 
 
 II. We observe that in the second century, as 
 in the first, Holy Communion was celebrated 
 every Sunday. It was the Lord's service on the 
 Lord's day. 
 
 III. In the first passage quoted from Justin 
 he says that we are to offer God Tro/xTraj KM ufwovs, 
 which we have rendered "solemnities and hymns." 
 But there is much doubt about the meaning of 
 the first word, mfjara^ " pomps." It was used by 
 the Greeks and Romans to denote solemn pro- 
 cessions, but it is extremely unlikely that Justin 
 uses it in this sense. Some think that it denotes 
 the rites and ritual that accompany a sacrament, 
 but at the very least the expression implies that 
 services were rendered with dignity and decency 
 and order, according to some stated ritual.
 
 106 Morsbip in tbe Cbrtetian Cburcb. 
 
 IV. Incense was not used. Justin classes it 
 with the sacrifices of blood and the libations 
 which God does not require : and half a century 
 later, Tertullian speaks of it in even stronger 
 terms of disparagement. But the kiss of peace 
 was one of the ceremonies of the celebration. 
 
 V. You will observe that the weekly offertory 
 accompanies the celebration. This was first 
 ordained by St Paul in his Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians : " On the first day of the week let every 
 one of you lay by him in store as God hath 
 prospered him." Reference to the practice as 
 forming part of the Communion Service is very 
 rare, and we read with the greater interest Justin's 
 clear and distinct mention of it. And in this 
 connection we may note Justin's enlightened 
 words on the consecration of objects to the 
 service of God. I sometimes meet with those 
 who think that when a carpet or a hanging or 
 some other object has served its purpose in 
 church and is no longer required for sacred use 
 it is better to burn it or to put it by and con- 
 secrate it to uselessness rather than apply it to 
 any common or secular use. Justin takes a higher 
 view when he says that " the only service worthy 
 of God is not to consume by fire what is given
 
 ttbe Eucbartet in tbe Second Genturg. 107 
 
 to us for our sustenance, but to apply it to our 
 own benefit or to that of those who are in need." 
 
 VI. There was no such practice as what is 
 now called non-communicating attendance. All 
 present received the Sacrament, and it was taken 
 by the deacons to those who were absent. Every 
 Christian as a matter of course communicated 
 every Sunday, even if he could not be present at 
 the celebration. 
 
 VII. The Sacrament was reserved for the 
 immediate communion of the sick or of others 
 who were unavoidably absent. In process of 
 time this led to certain abuses. Sometimes, 
 instead of reverently receiving the Sacrament 
 when the deacon brought it, a person would put 
 it by in an ark or casket to be subsequently 
 received, or, as was sometimes the case, to be 
 treated superstitiously as a charm. But this was 
 not the intention of the Church. The intention 
 seems to have been p r ecisely that which was 
 revived in our own Prayer Book in 1 549 and is 
 probably lawful still. That book provided that 
 if the celebrating priest had notice of a sick 
 person who desired to receive the Sacrament, he 
 might set aside sufficient of the consecrated
 
 IDS TKRorsbip in tbe Gbristfan Gburcb. 
 
 elements for the purpose, and as soon as he con- 
 veniently could, after the conclusion of the ser- 
 vice, he was to go and administer the same to 
 the sick person. 1 I suppose that no one in our 
 own branch of the Church would ever have ob- 
 jected to such a practice, if the Sacrament re- 
 served for the sick had not been made the means 
 of reviving a mediaeval superstition. 
 
 VIII. Note again, that there was a sermon or 
 exhortation at the celebration of the Eucharist, 
 and that whatever form of consecration was used 
 the president was accustomed to enlarge upon it 
 in his own words, i.e., in extempore prayer. 
 
 IX. Note also the allusion to the natural effect 
 of bread and wine in nourishing our body as 
 
 1 The rubric at the end of the Communion Service 
 which treats of the Bread and Wine that remains un- 
 consecrated, and any that may remain of that which was 
 consecrated, assigning the former to the curate's own 
 use, but requiring the latter to be reverently eaten and 
 drunk in the Church, is plainly directed, not against 
 superstition, but against irreverence. The rubric is con- 
 cerned with that which remains over when all legitimate 
 purposes are fulfilled. The priest first communicates 
 those who are present : then, if need be, he sets aside a 
 sufficiency for the sick person who is awaiting communion 
 at home ; and then, if any remain, it must be dealt with 
 as the rubric directs.
 
 Eucbartet in tbe Seconfc Century 109 
 
 affording some analogy to the effect of Com- 
 munion upon our souls. References to this 
 analogy are very rare in early writings, though 
 the thought is familiar enough to ourselves from 
 the prominence given to it in the Church Cate- 
 chism, where we are taught that our souls are 
 strengthened and refreshed by the body and 
 blood of Christ, as our bodies are (naturally) by 
 bread and wine. 
 
 Surely such a study as we are now engaged in 
 tends to illuminate for us the promise of the 
 text. For it leads us to realize the substantial 
 identity of our own worship in the Church of 
 England to-day with that which was offered in 
 the Early Church in the earliest centuries of the 
 Christian era. Such a continuity of worship 
 bears witness to Jesus Christ the same yester- 
 day, to-day, and for ever and to his gracious 
 promise, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto 
 the end of the world." 
 
 He is with his Church to-day as surely as in 
 the days of the Apostles to guide her unto all 
 truth. Yet his presence with the Church like 
 his presence with the individual is effective only 
 in proportion to the disposition to receive Him
 
 no iKHorsbip tn tbe Cbrtstian Cburcb. 
 
 and to hear his voice. If the Church or any 
 branch of the Church ceases to ask, " What hath 
 God spoken ? " there will be little experience of 
 his presence. But when the Church turns to the 
 divine testimony, to the word of God, and desires 
 the guiding light of the Spirit thereupon, she 
 shall not be disappointed, she shall find the 
 truth of the promise of her Lord, " Lo ! I am 
 with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
 
 And to each separate soul the promise is made 
 good in the hour of devout Communion. The 
 Sacrament is the Sacrament of his presence. 
 As the beloved St John lay on his breast at 
 supper, so the devout communicant is resting on 
 an ever present Saviour, and hears his word of 
 assurance whispered in the depth of the heart, 
 Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
 the world."
 
 VII. 
 
 THE EUCHARIST IN THE THIRD 
 CENTURY. 
 
 " Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of 
 the table of devils." i Cor. x. 21. 
 
 ST PAUL appeals to the Jewish law, that 
 those who ate of the sacrifices became 
 thereby participators in the action wrought upon 
 the altar. "Behold Israel after the flesh," he 
 says, " Are not they which eat of the sacrifices 
 partakers of the altar ? " 
 
 So he regards Holy Communion as a pledge 
 of allegiance to Christ, an allegiance which must 
 be whole and undivided, for the Lord our God 
 is a jealous God, and brooks no rival on his 
 Throne within us. We are to serve Him with 
 all our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength. 
 Therefore saith St James, "The friendship of 
 the world is enmity with God, for the spirit 
 which He hath given us jealously desireth us." 
 It is the reiteration of our Lord's own words, 
 " Ye cannot serve God and Mammon."
 
 n2 Morsbfp in tbe Cbrtstian Cburcb. 
 
 This aspect of Holy Communion was very 
 prominent in the early centuries, when Chris- 
 tians were set in the midst of heathen, and were 
 called upon sometimes in the ordinary courtesies 
 of social life, and sometimes as a specific test of 
 their loyalty to the national gods, to eat of the 
 things which had been offered to idols. In the 
 chapter before us St Paul deals with questions 
 of conscience thus arising, and he settles such 
 questions with what we should call much liberal 
 common sense. He reminds Christians that an 
 idol is nothing in the world, and that no essential 
 character either of good or evil is attached to 
 meat by the mere fact of its having been offered 
 in the idol's temple. The Christian, therefore, 
 need not be scrupulous when meat is set before 
 him, to inquire whether it have been so offered 
 or not. He need not ask any such question for 
 conscience sake ; for to his own conscience the 
 meat is simply the gift of God for his susten- 
 ance, under the rule that the earth is the Lord's 
 and the fulness thereof. But if he be told 
 that it has been offered to an idol he must 
 not eat it. For his eating it with that know- 
 ledge would inevitably be understood as an act 
 of fellowship in the idolatrous worship, and the 
 weak brother might be led by such an ex-
 
 JSucbartet in tbe Ubirfc Centurg. 113 
 
 ample to justify himself in a practical denial of 
 Christ 
 
 In our own times no such literal application 
 of the text arises. Yet there are idolatries 
 enough against which we must be on our guard 
 in the world around us, and there are devilries 
 enough to which we must give no countenance, 
 no tacit connivance, if we would be true to our 
 Lord and Master. " Ye cannot be partakers of 
 the Lord's Table and of the table of devils " 
 is a warning full of significance for us and for 
 all. It might well be written in letters of fire 
 across the entrance to the sanctuary, as a 
 flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of 
 life. It suggests the proclamation in which in 
 ancient liturgies the unworthy were bidden 
 depart before the celebration of the holy mys- 
 teries : it suggests to us the warning in our own 
 Communion Service, "If any of you be a blas- 
 phemer of God, an hinderer or slanderer of his 
 Word, an adulterer, or be in malice, or envy, or 
 in any other grievous crime, repent you of your 
 sins, or else come not to that holy Table." " Ye 
 cannot be partakers of the Lord's Table and of 
 the table of devils." 
 
 In the Christian literature of the third century 
 
 I
 
 H4 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Cburcb. 
 
 we find many allusions to the Blessed Sacrament 
 in the aspect in which St Paul presents it here. 
 
 St Cyprian, writing in the year 251, relates a 
 number of portents which attended unworthy 
 attempts to partake of the Lord's table. Apart 
 from their direct application these legends are 
 very interesting, as incidentally throwing much 
 light upon the prevailing thought, and upon the 
 practices of that time. 
 
 He first tells of an infant left by Christian 
 parents with a heathen nurse. The babe was 
 not able to eat meat, but they gave it some 
 bread steeped in wine which had been used in 
 the heathen sacrifice. Afterwards the mother 
 brought the child to the celebration of the 
 Eucharist, but it was convulsed with weeping, as 
 not able now to endure the Christian sacrifice : 
 and when the deacon brought the Sacrament for 
 those who were present to receive, the infant 
 compressed its lips ; and when it was forced to 
 receive there followed, says St Cyprian, a sob- 
 bing and a vomiting : the Eucharist was not 
 able to remain in a body and mouth which had 
 been polluted. Another of maturer years, who 
 had saved her life by participating in a heathen 
 sacrifice, came to the Eucharist, and the holy 
 bread became to her, as it were, a sword. She
 
 Bucbarist in tbe Ubirfc Genturg. us 
 
 was seized with an agony and phrenzy as if she 
 had taken some deadly poison. Another woman 
 attempting with desecrated hands to open the 
 casket in which she kept the Sacrament, a fire 
 immediately rose from the box, so that she dare 
 not touch it. A man who had defiled himself, 
 adventuring secretly to receive the Sacrament, 
 was disabled from eating the Holy Thing, and 
 on opening his hands discovered that he held a 
 cinder. 
 
 The spiritual application of these stories is 
 quite clear. St Cyprian himself draws the in- 
 ference that "the Lord withdraws when He is 
 denied," and that " what unfit persons receive 
 cannot profit them unto salvation, since the saving 
 grace turns into ashes when holiness departs." 
 " Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's Table 
 and of the table of devils." 
 
 Incidentally the narrative shows that in the 
 third century infants were communicated, though 
 there is reason to believe that they only received 
 the Sacrament once after their baptism, and not 
 subsequently until they came to years of discre- 
 tion. There is reference also to the casket or 
 ark in which private persons kept the Holy 
 Sacrament for reception at home. This custom
 
 ii 6 Morsbip in tbe Gbristtan Gburcb* 
 
 seems to have been almost universal, and alto- 
 gether uncondemned in the third century. It is 
 repeatedly alluded to by Tertullian, who wrote 
 about fifty years earlier. In one place Tertullian 
 suggests that scrupulous people who will not 
 communicate at the celebration on Good Friday 
 because it would break their fast, should attend 
 the service and take the Sacrament home with 
 them, to receive it in the evening when the fast 
 is over. This is the first trace in history of the 
 corrupt practice which became so prevalent in a 
 later age, of putting asunder the two things 
 which Christ had joined together the Eucharistic 
 worship and the reception of the Sacrament. 
 In another place Tertullian, enlarging on the 
 inconvenience of a Christian woman marrying a 
 heathen man, urges that the husband would 
 want to know what it was that the wife partakes 
 of ante omnem cibum, " before all food," or as 
 Bishop Kingdon renders it, " before every meal." 
 Whether it were taken only in the morning, or 
 in connection with every meal, the reference is 
 to the consecrated portion kept in the ark for 
 what we may call domestic Communion. 
 
 We gather from the chapter before us that 
 meats that had been offered to idols were sold
 
 Ube Eucbarfst in tbe TTbtrfc Century n? 
 
 in the market and used in social feasts. There 
 is a certain beauty in the connection thus estab- 
 lished between religion and common life : and 
 we should be sorry if such a suggestive associa- 
 tion were confined exclusively to idolatrous 
 worship. But if we look beneath the surface of 
 some of the customs and courtesies of life, we 
 may find sacred memorials of our holy religion 
 where they are, perhaps, little suspected. 
 
 Last Friday at evensong, we heard Boaz salute 
 his work-people with the benediction : " The 
 Lord be with you," and they responded : " The 
 Lord bless thee." The forms with which we 
 now commonly greet our friends have a less sacred 
 sound, but the scholar is aware that they are 
 abbreviations of ancient formularies, in which 
 friend invoked upon friend the divine benedic- 
 tion. Our familiar good-day is but the corrup- 
 tion of the sacred salutation, God give you a 
 good day. Thus, in the most familiar greetings, 
 we are echoing the priestly benediction of the 
 Church ; not merely expressing our own good 
 will towards our friend, but invoking upon him, 
 in solemn prayer, the effectual blessing of God. 
 
 And in like manner our grace before meat is 
 an echo of the Eucharist. He took bread and 
 blessed and brake it, and gave it to them when
 
 us Worsbip in tbe Gbristian Cburcb. 
 
 He instituted the Holy Sacrament : but again 
 at Emmaus, He took bread and blessed it, and 
 brake and gave to them when (as we must infer) 
 He was not celebrating the Sacrament. But 
 the two actions were closely associated. And 
 so it would seem that the early Christians 
 in saying grace were, at least, joining in spirit 
 in the Blessed Sacrament ; and it is quite pos- 
 sible that Bishop Kingdon's interpretation of Ter- 
 tullian's words is correct, and that, in the third 
 century, a devout woman, having the Sacrament 
 reserved in her ark, would taste it before every 
 meal in remembrance of Christ. 
 
 The association of the Eucharist with the 
 domestic meal is further illustrated by another 
 passage in St Cyprian. It occurs in a letter in 
 which St Cyprian is insisting upon the use of 
 the mixed chalice in settlement of what will 
 probably appear to you a very curious question. 
 The very fact that such a question could have 
 arisen shows very clearly how far was the ritual 
 of the Church from being rigidly defined even 
 in the matter of the most Holy Sacrament. 
 
 You may have remarked in the careful read- 
 ing of your Bible that the apostles, writing of 
 the Blessed Sacrament, never mention what was 
 in the cup. In fact, if it were not for our Lord's
 
 Eucfoarist in tbe ZTbirfc Century "9 
 
 declaration that He would drink no more of the 
 fruit of the vine, we should be bound to admit 
 that the Holy Scriptures nowhere indicate that 
 wine was used in the Sacrament. St Paul 
 speaks of the bread which we break, and of the 
 cup which we bless. He does not mention the 
 contents of the cup. So again he says, " let a 
 man eat of that bread and drink of that cup." 
 The Sacrament is described in the Acts of the 
 Apostles as the Breaking of the Bread, but there 
 is no corresponding reference to the wine : and 
 St Paul's imagery of our being all partakers of 
 the One Bread, is followed in the earliest Chris- 
 tian writings, but no similar teaching is drawn 
 from the wine. It is, therefore, not a great sur- 
 prise to find that in the early Christian centuries, 
 while bread was universally allowed to be a 
 necessary element in the Sacrament, there was 
 considerable doubt about the necessity of wine. 
 The bread must be broken and the cup must be 
 blessed, whatever the cup might contain. There 
 were many Christians who celebrated with water, 
 remembering that as Christ had called Himself 
 the Bread of Life, so He had described Himself 
 as the giver of Living Water. 
 
 It fell to the lot of St Cyprian to settle these 
 differences. He decided, chiefly on mystical
 
 120 Worsbtp In tbc Cbtistian Cbuvcb. 
 
 grounds, that in consecrating the cup, water 
 alone cannot be offered, neither wine alone. He 
 insisted on the mixture, in which he thought the 
 wine represented the blood of Christ, and the 
 water the people : " so that when in the cup 
 water is mingled with the wine, his people are 
 united to Christ, and the multitude of believers 
 are united and conjoined with Him in whom 
 they believe." He probably was on safer ground 
 when he argued elsewhere that the sacrifice 
 must be offered as Christ Himself instituted and 
 offered it. 1 
 
 He goes on to answer the excuses which some 
 had made for the use of water instead of wine. 
 He asks : " Does anyone soothe himself with 
 this consideration, that although in the morning 
 water alone is seen to be offered, yet when we 
 come to supper we offer the cup mixed ? " This 
 
 1 Those who have used what is called " non-intoxicating 
 wine" or "the unfermented juice of the grape" in the 
 celebration of the Sacrament may be judged guilty 
 of great irregularity in disregarding the settled rule of 
 the Church. But we shall hesitate to say that the Sacra- 
 ment so celebrated is invalid when we reflect that in the 
 third century it remained a grave question what the 
 contents of the chalice should be, and that a man of 
 St Cyprian's great authority could deem the use of wine 
 alone to be equally reprehensible with the use of water 
 alone.
 
 Ube JEucbartet in tbe ZTbirfc Genturg* 121 
 
 was the proposal made by some who objected 
 that it was disreputable that the smell of wine 
 should be perceived about them in the morning. 
 How does St Cyprian meet it? Certainly not 
 as you would expect a modern casuist to meet 
 it. He sets aside the objection as to the smell 
 of wine in the morning, by saying that to be 
 ashamed of this is to be ashamed of the blood 
 of Christ ; and if they fail to confess Christ in 
 this, they will scarcely be ready to confess Him 
 in martyrdom. He objects to the public cele- 
 bration with water in the morning, and the 
 private celebration with wine in the evening, 
 simply on the ground that it would be impos- 
 sible to call the people together to the domestic 
 feast. He makes no objection to the double 
 communion, or to the evening communion after 
 the fast is broken for the rule as to fasting now 
 so rigorously insisted upon belongs altogether to 
 a later date but he justifies the morning as the 
 proper time for a celebration, though Christ in- 
 stituted the Sacrament in the evening, on this 
 ground, namely : that it behoved Christ to offer 
 at the evening of the day, for He was fulfilling 
 the law of Exodus, which said : " The whole as- 
 sembly of the congregation shall kill it in the 
 evening." But (he added) we celebrate in the
 
 122 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Cbuvcb. 
 
 Eucharist the Resurrection of the Lord, and as 
 He rose in the morning we celebrate it in the 
 morning. 
 
 The usage of private persons taking the Sacra- 
 ment home with them to keep it in a casket or 
 ark, continued more or less until the eighth cen- 
 tury. Bingham says that it was the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation which put an end to it. Cer- 
 tainly the practice had nothing in common with 
 what is now meant by Reservation. Persons 
 were allowed to take the Sacrament home and 
 to treat it as they would, because it was not 
 thought to be itself an object of worship. As 
 soon as men believed in it as a locating of the 
 Presence which they worshipped, it was treated 
 with greater fear, and was no longer available 
 for domestic rites. But still the family table is 
 to be blessed, and God's good gifts are to be re- 
 ceived with thanksgiving. Grace at every meal 
 is the remembrance of the Eucharist, and of that 
 which the Eucharist itself remembers. 
 
 If we take any large and comprehensive view 
 of the Christian literature of the third century, 
 we perceive that opinion was in a state of flux, 
 or quite unformed upon many questions con-
 
 Ube JEucbanst in tbe Ubirfc Genturg. 123 
 
 cerning the Holy Eucharist, upon which it has 
 since become crystallized and sharply defined. 
 Nevertheless, the Sacrament remains what it 
 always was. Developments of doctrine which 
 are really the unfolding of that which was from 
 the beginning, are to be thankfully received, for 
 they help us to a clear perception of what other- 
 wise is but dimly seen. And we acknowledge it 
 to be the special function of the Church, under 
 the guidance of the Holy Spirit, thus to un- 
 fold the things of God to the growing intel- 
 ligence of the ages. But accretions of doctrine 
 which find no correspondence in the Scriptural 
 revelation of the Master's purpose, and have 
 no warrant in apostolic practice, must be dis- 
 carded as superstitious over and above and 
 beyond that which God has been pleased to 
 reveal. 
 
 To you and to me the Eucharist is the same 
 thing that it was to St Paul or to Justin Martyr, 
 or to St Cyprian. It was to them the pledge of 
 a Christian profession ; it implied participation 
 in the altar of the Cross : it was the bond of 
 unity in Christ. So it is to us, and so it ever 
 must be to the faithful. 
 
 And the warning of the text is as pertinent
 
 124 Worsbtp in tbe Gbristian Gburcb. 
 
 to-day as when St Paul wrote it, or as when 
 Tertullian applied it and St Cyprian enforced it. 
 Worldliness and sensuality are incompatible 
 with allegiance to Christ. There is little need 
 to urge people to Communion, for if they are fit 
 for Communion they will desire Communion. 
 But there is much need to warn them against 
 coming unfitly, against making compromise with 
 conscience, serving Mammon or Moloch or Baal 
 in the week, and taking the oath of loyalty to 
 Christ on Sunday. Whether St Cyprian's stories 
 be true in fact or not, they are certainly true in 
 moral. The child that is fed from the idol feast 
 is unable to receive the chalice of Christ. The 
 man who has defiled himself finds the Holy 
 Bread turned to a cinder in his hand. The 
 woman who would unworthily communicate is 
 deterred by fire from her ark. " Ye cannot be 
 partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of 
 devils."
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE EUCHARIST IN THE FOURTH 
 CENTURY. 
 
 "Ask now of the days that are past." Deut. iv. 32. 
 
 IN the last three sermons I have tried to set 
 before you not indeed exhaustively, but 
 fairly and typically, the testimony of the Chris- 
 tian literature of the first three centuries to the 
 Eucharistic worship of the Church. 
 
 I have not selected passages favourable to 
 any particular view of my own or of yours. I 
 have wished to put you into possession of every 
 significant note of primitive practice and doc- 
 trine with reference to the Blessed Sacrament in 
 the writings of the period under review, so that 
 you should be able to form your own estimate 
 and conception of the mode in which the early 
 Church presented to the faithful of those times 
 the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, and of the 
 way in which the Holy Mysteries were regarded, 
 and of the manner in which the very consecrated 
 elements themselves were treated. Once in pos-
 
 126 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Cburcb* 
 
 session of the facts of history, you will draw 
 your own inferences therefrom. 
 
 I have quoted from letters and treatises and 
 lectures of the second and third centuries. I 
 have not quoted from ancient liturgies ; for 
 though it is probable that such a liturgy as the 
 Clementine contains much matter as old as the 
 second century, yet liturgies were continually 
 being re-edited, enriched, and enlarged, and this 
 liturgy is only extant in the form which it had 
 assumed in the latter half of the fourth century. 
 It is only by comparing ancient liturgies to- 
 gether, and noting the features which are com- 
 mon to them all, that we arrive at any estimate 
 of the original forms from which they were 
 developed. For in the nature of the case a 
 liturgy was not dealt with by editors as an 
 epistle or a treatise would be dealt with. The 
 latter were literary compositions, valuable in 
 proportion to the authority and competency of 
 their respective authors, and they would be 
 copied and re-copied by successive generations 
 without any substantial variation of their matter. 
 But a liturgy was not valued as a literary com- 
 position, but as a handbook of worship, and as 
 there was no desire in the early Church for a 
 mechanical uniformity in worship, a liturgy
 
 ZT be Eucbarist in tbe f ourtb Century 1 2 7 
 
 would be continually subject to revision and 
 improvement, each bishop seeking to enrich the 
 use of his own diocese. Thus, for example, the 
 prayer of St Chrysostom, which we use at the 
 conclusion of morning and evening prayer, is the 
 literal translation of a prayer found in the Greek 
 Liturgy of St Chrysostom. But critics do not 
 think it as old as that liturgy ; it was probably 
 an interpolation by which the liturgy was en- 
 riched at some unknown date. 
 
 Thus it is clear that historical arguments, 
 based on isolated expressions in late editions of 
 early liturgies, are very precarious, demanding 
 much more caution and discrimination than in- 
 ferences from any other form of literary com- 
 position. 
 
 But there has come down to us from the year 
 347 or 348, not a liturgy, but a course of cate- 
 chetical lectures or instructions on the liturgy, 
 which throw the clearest possible light on the 
 public worship of the Church in the first half of 
 the fourth century. 
 
 Just in the middle of the century, Cyril suc- 
 ceeded Maximus as bishop of Jerusalem. A 
 few years previously he delivered the twenty- 
 three lectures which we still possess. Eighteen
 
 128 Worsbip in tbe Gbristian Cburcb* 
 
 of them were delivered in Lent in the basilica 
 of the Holy Cross which Constantine had erected 
 on the sacred site. These were addressed to 
 candidates for baptism ; the earlier ones are on 
 a right disposition for baptism, and the rest con- 
 stitute an exposition of the creed. The other 
 five were delivered in Easter week, in the 
 circular church of the Holy Sepulchre, built 
 upon the traditional site of our Lord's burial, 
 beyond the east end of the basilica. These five 
 lectures were addressed to those who had been 
 baptized on Easter Eve, and had received the 
 unction and their first communion. The object 
 of the instruction was to enlighten them upon 
 the spiritual significance of the privileges to 
 which they had been recently admitted. In the 
 first of these Eastertide addresses Cyril recalls 
 their renunciation of the devil and his works, 
 and his pomp, and his service. In the second 
 he describes the baptism itself, and in the third 
 the anointing which had followed. He closes 
 his course with two lectures, the one on the Real 
 Presence and the other on the Communion 
 Service. 
 
 His teaching on the Real Presence is very 
 plain. He says : " Contemplate, therefore, the 
 bread and wine, not as bare elements, for they
 
 ZTbe JEucbarist in tbe ffourtb Century. 129 
 
 are, according to the Lord's declaration, the Body 
 and Blood of Christ. Judge not the matter 
 from taste, but from faith be fully assured with- 
 out misgiving that thou hast been vouchsafed 
 the Body and Blood of Christ" And again : 
 " Being fully persuaded that what seems bread 
 is not bread, though bread by taste, but the 
 Body of Christ. And that which seems wine is 
 not wine, though the taste will have it so, but 
 the Blood of Christ." 
 
 No words could be stronger than these to as- 
 sert the presence of Christ in the mode in which 
 He is pleased to communicate Himself to us. 
 
 Cyril uses the accustomed phraseology of the 
 early Church. His words : " Contemplate the 
 bread and wine not as bare elements," is almost 
 an echo of Justin Martyr's language two hundred 
 years earlier. " We do not receive them as 
 ordinary food or ordinary drink, but . . . the 
 food which was blessed by the prayer of the 
 word which proceeded from Jesus, and from 
 which our flesh and blood receive nourishment 
 is (we are taught) both the flesh and blood of 
 that Jesus who was made flesh." 
 
 It is, however, fair to notice that Cyril uses 
 equally strong language concerning the presence 
 in the water of baptism, and in the oil with 
 K
 
 i3 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Gburcb. 
 
 which the baptized were anointed. Of the 
 former he says : " Regard the sacred laver not 
 as simple water ... for plain water after the 
 invocation of the Holy Ghost and of Christ and 
 of the Father, gains a sanctifying power," and of 
 the chrism he says : " Beware of supposing this 
 to be plain ointment ; for as the Bread of the 
 Eucharist, after the invocation of the Holy 
 Ghost, is mere bread no longer but the Body of 
 Christ, so also this holy ointment is no more 
 simple ointment, nor (so to say) common, after 
 the invocation, but the gift of Christ, and by the 
 presence of his Godhead it causes in us the Holy 
 Ghost." 
 
 No one in these days would speak of a pre- 
 sence in the water of Baptism in terms equi- 
 valent to those by which churchmen of the 
 Catholic school are accustomed to define the 
 presence in Holy Communion. The real differ- 
 ence is sufficiently indicated when we point out 
 that Baptism is held by the Church to be valid 
 whether the water have been blessed or not, 
 but that no Eucharist is valid without the con- 
 secration of the elements. But if we quote the 
 early Church in regard to the Eucharistic pre- 
 sence, we are bound to remember that though
 
 Eucbarfst in tbe ffourtb Century. 131 
 
 they used language which would suggest even 
 a natural and material presence in the conse- 
 crated elements, all that they meant was such 
 a presence of Christ as could equally be pre- 
 dicated of the Holy Ghost in the water of 
 Baptism or in the oil of chrism. And we may 
 well reflect that the efficacy of the Blessed Sac- 
 rament to the communicant is dependent not 
 on consubstantiation or transubstantiation, but 
 on the word of Christ who spake it. If the 
 presence were no more than that which we 
 attribute to the water of Baptism, the Sacra- 
 ment would still be to the communicant all that 
 it is and all that it can be. Hooker puts this 
 very strongly. After asserting that "the real 
 presence of Christ's most blessed Body and 
 Blood is not to be sought for in the Sacrament, 
 but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament," 
 (and therefore, I suppose, in the worthy receiv- 
 ing of the Sacrament) he asks : 
 
 If on all sides it be confessed that the grace of 
 baptism is poured into the soul of man, that by water 
 we receive it, although it be neither seated in the 
 water nor the water changed into it, what should 
 induce men to think that the grace of the Eucharist 
 must needs be in the Eucharist before it can be in us 
 that receive it ?
 
 132 Morsbip in tbe Cbrfstfan Cburcb. 
 
 This is perhaps the most convenient point at 
 which to discuss a question to which I am asked 
 to give a clear and definite answer : namely, 
 whether the literature of the first three hundred 
 years of Christianity does or does not indicate a 
 belief in the real objective presence of Christ in 
 the Holy Sacrament. 
 
 I answer that no one can study this literature 
 without being convinced that the Christians of 
 these early days believed that in receiving the 
 Sacrament they received a real objective grace ; 
 and that, in consequence of some actual potency 
 present in the Sacrament itself. But the ques- 
 tion how the Presence was to be regarded apart 
 from the act of reception did not arise. For 
 what is called non-communicating attendance 
 had not yet been introduced, and Christians 
 knew no other use to make of the Sacrament 
 than to receive it according to the Lord's com- 
 mand. Sometimes, indeed, those who had 
 privately reserved the Sacrament in their ark 
 were tempted to ascribe some other virtue to it, 
 as though it might be a charm against shipwreck 
 or other temporal disaster. But such a use of 
 the Sacrament, having no warrant in our Lord's 
 institution, was regarded as superstitious (in the 
 proper meaning of this word) and seems to have
 
 ZTbe JEucbarist in tbe ffourtb Genturg. 133 
 
 led to the subsequent rule forbidding the Sacra- 
 ment to be carried away into private houses. 
 
 The use of the terms " subjective " and " ob- 
 jective " seem very puzzling to some ; but we 
 may say very simply that the benefit which we 
 receive in Communion is subjective, if it be 
 derived only from the exercise of our faith ; it 
 is objective if it be something conveyed to our 
 souls from without us. It is subjective if it be our 
 own effort ; it is objective if it be God's gift. If 
 it is subjective, we are doing something ; if it is 
 objective, God is doing something to us. There 
 can be no doubt whatever about the mind of the 
 early Church that in Communion the faithful 
 receive an objective gift from God, conveyed to 
 them in the consecrated bread and wine. But 
 there was no need to speculate as to the con- 
 ditions of the Presence apart from Communion, 
 for, to the faithful, the Eucharist meant Com- 
 munion, and the act of Eucharistic worship was 
 the act of reception. 
 
 In his final lecture, Cyril sets vividly before 
 us the celebration of the Eucharist as it was 
 ordered in his day. He gives no account of 
 what is sometimes called the ante-Communion 
 service, for those whom he is instructing were
 
 134 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Gburcb, 
 
 sufficiently familiar with that. They had long 
 been accustomed as catechumens and as com- 
 petentes to join in the earlier part of the service. 
 They were accustomed to hear the lesson from 
 the prophets and the epistle and the gospel and 
 the sermon ; they were perhaps accustomed to 
 join in the Creed, though some of the most 
 ancient liturgies did not contain a creed. But 
 then, all who were not going to receive were dis- 
 missed, first the catechumens and mere hearers, 
 then the energumens, in whom the power of the 
 Evil One was not yet subdued, then the com- 
 petentes, or candidates for baptism, then those 
 in penitence, who, though baptized, were for the 
 time unworthy to receive. For long time those 
 whom Cyril addresses had been dismissed with 
 one or other of these classes, and had not wit- 
 nessed the actual celebration of the mysteries. 
 But since their baptism on Easter Eve they had 
 been admitted to Communion, and Cyril* ex- 
 plains to them the significance of the service in 
 which they had taken part. I may abridge this 
 part of his lecture as follows : 
 
 Ye saw the deacon give to the priest water to wash 
 and to the presbyters, who stood round God's altar. 
 He gave it not because of bodily defilement : no : for 
 we did not set out for church with unclean bodies.
 
 lEucbarfst in tbe jf ourtb Genturg. 1 35 
 
 But this washing is a symbol that ye ought to be pure 
 from all sinful and unlawful deeds : for since the 
 hands are the symbol of action, by washing them we 
 signify the purity of our conduct. Hast thou not 
 heard the blessed David open this mystery, saying, 
 " I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord, and so 
 will I go to thine altar ? " 
 
 Then the deacon cries aloud, " Receive ye one 
 another, and let us kiss one another." Think not 
 that this kiss ranks with those given in public by 
 common friends. This kiss blends souls one with 
 another, and solicits entire forgiveness. The kiss is 
 reconciliation, and therefore holy. As St Paul saith, 
 " Greet ye one another with a holy kiss," and St Peter, 
 "with a kiss of charity." 
 
 After this the priest cries aloud, "Lift up your 
 hearts," bidding all in that hour abandon all worldly 
 thoughts or household cares, to have their heart in 
 heaven with the merciful God. Then ye answer, 
 " We lift them up unto the Lord." But let no one 
 come here who says with his lips, "We lift up our 
 hearts unto the Lord," but in mind employs his 
 thoughts on worldly business. 
 
 Then the priest says, " Let us give thanks unto the 
 Lord," for in good sooth are we bound to give thanks 
 that He has called us, unworthy as we are, to so great 
 grace." Then ye say, "It is meet and right." 
 
 After this we make mention of all creation, rational 
 and irrational, visible and invisible, of angels and 
 archangels, and the seraphim who cried, " Holy, holy, 
 holy, Lord God of hosts." We rehearse this con-
 
 136 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Cburcb. 
 
 fession of God delivered to us by the seraphim, that 
 we may join in hymns with the companies of the 
 world above. 
 
 Having sanctified ourselves by these spiritual hymns, 
 we call upon the merciful God to send forth his Holy 
 Spirit upon the gifts lying before Him, that He may 
 make the bread the Body of Christ and the wine the 
 Blood of Christ. 
 
 But at this point Cyril pauses. He gives no 
 account of the consecration itself. Or, if he gave 
 it orally, he abstains from writing it down. For 
 the Christians of those times took the utmost 
 care that the most sacred formulae of their religion 
 should not be made known to the unbelievers, 
 lest they should treat holy things with any 
 irreverence. But he continues : 
 
 After the spiritual sacrifice is perfected, the blood- 
 less service upon that sacrifice of propitiation, we 
 entreat God for the common peace of the Church, 
 for the tranquillity of the world, for kings, for soldiers 
 and allies, for the sick, for the afflicted in a word, 
 for all who stand in need of succour, we supplicate 
 and offer this sacrifice. 
 
 Then we commemorate those also who have fallen 
 asleep before us patriarchs, prophets, apostles, 
 martyrs that at their intervention God would receive 
 our petition. Afterwards for all who in past years 
 have fallen asleep among us, believing that it will be
 
 Tlbe Eucbarist in tbe jfourtb Century 137 
 
 an advantage to souls for whom supplication is put 
 up while the holy and most awful sacrifice is pre- 
 sented. 
 
 After this we say the Lord's Prayer. Then the 
 priest proclaims " Holy things to holy men." Then 
 ye say, "One is holy, One is the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 For truly One is holy, by nature holy. We too are 
 holy, but not by nature, only by participation and 
 discipline and prayer. 
 
 After this ye hear the chanter with a sacred melody 
 inviting you to Communion, saying, " O taste and see 
 that the Lord is good." Trust not the decision to thy 
 bodily palate no, but to faith unfaltering ; for when 
 we taste we are bidden to taste not bread and wine 
 but the sign of the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 Approaching, therefore, make thy left hand a throne 
 for thy right, which is on the eve of receiving the king : 
 and having hallowed thy palm, receive the Body of 
 Christ, saying after it Amen, giving heed lest thou 
 lose any of it. For if any one gave thee gold dust, 
 wouldest thou not with all precaution keep it fast? 
 How much more cautiously then wilt thou observe 
 that not a crumb falls from thee of that which is more 
 precious than gold and precious stones. 
 
 Then, having partaken of the Body of Christ, 
 approach to the Cup of his Blood, bending and say- 
 ing in the way of worship and reverence, "Amen." 
 Be thou hallowed by partaking also of the Blood of 
 Christ. Then wait for the prayer, and give thanks 
 unto God who hath accounted thee worthy of so great 
 mysteries
 
 138 Worsbip in tbe Cbrtettan Cburcb, 
 
 Hold fast these traditions unspotted, and keep 
 yourselves free from offence. Sever not yourselves 
 from the Communion, deprive not yourselves by the 
 pollutions of sins of these holy and spiritual mysteries. 
 And the God of peace sanctify you wholly. 1 
 
 From this brief summary of Cyril's last lecture 
 you will perceive that the Liturgy of his time 
 was substantially equivalent to the Communion 
 Service of to-day. As time went on Liturgies 
 were adapted to the conditions of different 
 dioceses : they were enriched from time to time, 
 or they were defaced by superstitious additions ; 
 but the substantial constitution of the service is 
 still what it was more than fifteen centuries ago. 
 For three hundred years after the resurrection 
 the liturgical customs of the Church were in 
 many respects unformed. We may take the 
 great Nicene Council of 325 as sufficiently 
 marking an epoch at which the Liturgy became 
 crystallized in all its great and important 
 features. It closes the period of the " Primitive 
 Church." This is the appropriate point at which 
 to pause in our historical studies. 
 
 If we try to sum up the results of our in- 
 1 Abridged from the Oxford translation.
 
 lEucbartst in tbe jfourtb Century. 139 
 
 vestigations, we arrive at such conclusions as 
 these. 
 
 The Holy Sacrament has always had its two- 
 fold virtue ; (i) as the means by which we claim 
 participation in the great Atonement by eating 
 of the sacrifice ; (2) as the means whereby our 
 souls are strengthened and refreshed, as our 
 bodies are naturally strengthened and refreshed 
 by bread and wine. But in the earliest times 
 the latter aspect appears to have been very little 
 dwelt upon in comparison with the former. 
 
 Then we saw that in the first days every 
 Christian received the Blessed Sacrament every 
 Sunday, and those, at least, who were present at 
 the service, received in both kinds. As time 
 went on there appear to have been always some 
 in penitence. It matters not whether they were 
 under the penitential sentence of the Church, or 
 accounted unworthy of Communion by the judg- 
 ment of their own conscience. Cyril speaks of 
 their depriving themselves of communion by 
 their sins. They correspond to those who still 
 have to excommunicate themselves at the tribunal 
 of conscience, deeming themselves unfit for Com- 
 munion. All these were sent out after the 
 sermon, for it was a prevailing principle that 
 those who were disqualified for Communion,
 
 MO Morsbip in tbe Cbrfstfan Cburcb. 
 
 were equally disqualified from joining in the 
 great oblation. 
 
 Next, the passages which we have cited show 
 this, that the service was at first essentially a 
 thanksgiving, but that in process of time much 
 more prominence was given to the idea of inter- 
 cession. We find in Cyril this thought, that our 
 intercessions will have a special efficacy if they 
 be offered during the presentation of the Holy 
 Sacrifice in which we are communicating. We 
 have not yet come to the offering of masses for 
 the living and the dead ; but the germ of that 
 later development is to be found in the gradual 
 substitution of intercession in place of thanks- 
 giving, as the great purpose of the celebration. 
 
 In Cyril also we have the first note of the 
 later doctrine that the saints departed may in- 
 tercede for us : that even our Communion will 
 be more acceptable if the saints present our 
 petition. This seems to have arisen from the 
 exaggeration of the third century in attributing 
 to martyrs a virtue which was allowed to super- 
 sede the discipline of the Church. Not only was 
 baptism regarded as unnecessary in the case of 
 martyrs, because their martyrdom was itself a 
 baptism that was a charitable view to take 
 but if one who was awaiting martyrdom wrote
 
 tTbe Bucbarist in tbe jfourtb Century. HI 
 
 on a scrap of paper a request that some under 
 spiritual censure might be at once restored to 
 Communion, the request was regarded as super- 
 seding the authority of bishop and priest. What- 
 ever a martyr asked must be done. Cyprian 
 complains that Church discipline was in this 
 way completely subverted. From this position 
 the transition was easy to the belief that the 
 commemoration of martyrs in the Eucharist im- 
 plied " that at their prayers and intervention 
 God would receive our service." 
 
 Then we find that the early Church never 
 hesitated to call the consecrated bread the Body 
 of Christ, and the consecrated wine the Blood of 
 Christ, though we may hesitate a little as to the 
 meaning of this when we find almost parallel 
 language used of the elements in baptism and 
 unction. But Cyprian's stories of the portents 
 attending attempts to communicate unfitly, and 
 Cyril's comparison of the crumbs of the Sacra- 
 ment with gold dust, show that they regarded 
 the Sacrament as the most sacred thing in the 
 world, in virtue of its supernatural qualities. 
 
 But throughout these early centuries no allu- 
 sion can be found to the worship of Christ 
 present in the Sacrament, in distinction from his 
 presence universally with his Church. If any-
 
 142 Worsbip in tbe Gbristian Cburcb. 
 
 where, we should expect to find instruction on 
 Eucharistic worship in Cyril's lectures. But 
 though he fully explains the service, and uses 
 unmistakable language as to the Real Presence, 
 there is not the slightest hint of an object of 
 worship present only when the Sacrament is 
 present. But as the faithful, who were not dis- 
 qualified by any sentence of penitential discipline, 
 always communicated when the Sacrament was 
 celebrated, and no others were allowed to assist, 
 the question of modern times had not yet arisen, 
 whether persons could worship Christ sacra- 
 mentally, except by receiving. The Sacrament 
 was carried away to private houses for the Com- 
 munion of the absent, but there is no trace of 
 its reservation in Church. 
 
 We found references in the third century to a 
 domestic use of the Blessed Sacrament, and 
 there seemed to be no rule then against persons 
 communicating several times in the day. We 
 infer from Cyril's lectures that no such abuse 
 prevailed in his Church. 
 
 As to accessory ritual, we note that the 
 Washing of the hands and the Kiss of Peace 
 were in use in the fourth century. There is no 
 trace of the ceremonial use of lights. As to 
 incense, the early Christians associated it with
 
 Eucbartst in tbe jfourtb Genturg. 143 
 
 heathen worship. Justin Martyr says expressly, 
 " God has no need of sacrifices of blood, and 
 libations, and incense," and Tertullian includes 
 incense among the " foul things " which he 
 describes the heathen as offering. He speaks 
 of himself as the servant of God 
 
 " Who alone give Him reverence, who offer to Him 
 a sacrifice rich and dignified which He Himself hath 
 commanded, the prayer that proceedeth from a chaste 
 body, from a soul that sinneth not, from the Holy 
 Spirit ; not a penny-worth of incense ; not the exuda- 
 tion of an Arabian tree ; not two drops of wine ; not 
 the blood of a discarded beast; and after all these 
 foul things a filthy conscience also." 
 
 As to vestments, the celebrant is spoken of in 
 some early canons as endued with a shining 
 garment. Naturally a man put on his best 
 things for so sacred a function and in time 
 certain best things were reserved for the pur- 
 pose. Ultimately certain appropriate forms 
 would be evolved, in which ancient precedent 
 would have much influence. There seems no 
 ground for the assumption that vestments of the 
 clergy are a survival either of heathen or of 
 Jewish use. 
 
 The controversies of the day on these subjects 
 are not very profitable ; but if controversy be
 
 144 Worsbip in tfoe Cbristian Cburcb. 
 
 inevitable, it is well to enter it fully armed with 
 knowledge. You ought at least to know what 
 is primitive, what is mediaeval, what is modern. 
 You ought not to confuse that which was 
 enjoined as to the use of the Sacrament with 
 that which was tolerated when love grew cold. 
 You ought to be able to distinguish local and 
 temporary variations of use from that which 
 satisfies the rule, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod 
 ab omnibus. 
 
 The great thing is, that we use the Sacrament 
 according to Christ's purpose and intention, (i) 
 as the appointed way by which we claim partici- 
 pation in his great atonement, (2) as the means 
 whereby we seek spiritual sustenance for our 
 souls. Thus eating the Flesh of the Son of 
 Man and drinking his Blood, we do show the 
 Lord's Death till He come.
 
 IX. 
 
 THE DIVINE OFFICE. 
 
 "Speaking to yourselves in psalms." Eph. v. 19. 
 " Admonishing one another in psalms." Col. iii. 16. 
 "Let him sing psalms." fames, v. 13. 
 
 IF we are asked what were the services of the 
 Church in which the earliest Christians 
 joined, we answer that there are traces of two 
 such services, namely, the breaking of the bread 
 and the singing of the psalms. And if we follow 
 the practice of public worship through the ages, 
 we find these two always prominent the cele- 
 bration of the Holy Eucharist, and the offices in 
 which the psalms were sung. 
 
 The technical terms by which these two divi- 
 sions of public worship were anciently distin- 
 guished were the Liturgy and the Divine Office. 
 The Liturgy (or Divine Service) is the order of 
 celebration and administration of the Holy 
 Communion. The Divine Office is the arrange- 
 ment by which the psalms are sung in the 
 L
 
 146 Worsbip in tbe Cbristfan Cburcb. 
 
 Church, with the addition of such other devotions 
 as have from time to time been associated with 
 the Psalms. 
 
 Of the Liturgy we may speak on another 
 occasion. My subject this morning is the Divine 
 Office to which the Church calls her children, 
 the office in which the Psalms anciently occupied 
 so prominent a place, that we may consider 
 the psalmody as the original thread on which 
 the pearls of lesson, versicle, and collect were 
 subsequently strung. 
 
 It may be said that, in the passages which I 
 have quoted from St Paul and St James, the 
 reference is to the use of the Psalms in private 
 or in domestic worship, rather than in the great 
 congregation. But it is certain from the frequent 
 allusions of the earliest Christian writers, that 
 there were public offices in which the Psalms 
 were sung. 
 
 If the Last Supper, at which our Lord in- 
 stituted the Holy Eucharist, partook of the 
 nature of a family gathering, it was at the same 
 time the assembly of the Church of Christ, and 
 presented the prototype of all Christian worship. 
 You will remember that on this occasion they 
 sang a hymn : and if they followed, as they 
 doubtless would, the prevailing custom of the
 
 TIbe Divine ffice, 147 
 
 Passover, that hymn was the Hallel, consisting 
 of six psalms, from the 1 1 3th to the 1 1 8th. 
 
 Ignatius, the disciple of St John the Evangelist, 
 in his Epistle to the Ephesians, refers to the 
 Christians singing in their worship. In Justin 
 Martyr and Tertullian there are similar refer- 
 ences. In some of these passages it is not 
 expressly shown that what they sang were the 
 Psalms of David, yet from what we know of the 
 Jewish practice, and of our Lord's practice 
 already cited, and of the custom which we pre- 
 sently find so fully developed in the Church, 
 there is no doubt that the Psalms of David 
 formed the staple of their singing. 
 
 Dr Neale has quoted from St Chrysostom a 
 glowing passage on the use of the Psalms : 
 
 " If we keep vigil in the Church, David comes 
 first, last, and midst. If early in the morning we 
 seek for the melody of hymns, first, last, and 
 midst is David again. If we are occupied with 
 the funeral solemnities of the departed, or if 
 virgins sit at home and spin, David is first, last, 
 and midst. O marvellous wonder ! Many who 
 have made but little progress in literature, nay, 
 have scarcely mastered its first principles, know 
 the Psalter by heart. ... In monasteries, among 
 those holy choirs of angelic services, David is
 
 148 Worsbip in tbe Gbristfan Cburcb, 
 
 first, midst, and last. In the convents of virgins, 
 where are the bands of them that imitate Mary ; 
 in the deserts, where are men crucified to this 
 world, and having their conversation with God, 
 first, midst, and last is David ! Others sleep at 
 night, but David is active : congregating the 
 servants of God into seraphic bands he turns 
 earth into heaven, and converts men into 
 angels." 
 
 But the Psalms were said in old times with a 
 zeal and perseverance unparalleled in the present 
 day. Not only in monasteries, but in churches, 
 the whole Psalter used to be recited every week, 
 and there are many records of famous men who 
 used to recite all the 150 psalms every day. 
 St Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, was one of 
 these. 
 
 And if any one asks, how could the Psalms, 
 which were written under the Old Testament, 
 be regarded as suitable and almost in themselves 
 sufficient for the devotion of Christians, the 
 answer is plain. It is, that the Psalms are 
 largely prophetic of Christ. In their temporal 
 sense they may apply to David or to some 
 other, but as David was a type of Christ and 
 God's dealings with his chosen people were typi-
 
 Ube Divine ffice. 149 
 
 cal of his dealing with his Church, the temporal 
 meaning of the psalm enshrines a spiritual and 
 prophetic meaning, until almost every psalm is 
 redolent of Christ. There was, indeed, some- 
 times a disposition to deny any temporal signi- 
 fication in the Psalms. Twice in his catechetical 
 lectures Cyril insists that the psalms prophetic 
 of Christ must not be interpreted of David or 
 Solomon. We can hardly take this as a general 
 rule, though it seems quite clear that some pass- 
 ages in the Psalms have a prophetic sense and 
 no other : no other, at least, that is now intel- 
 ligible to us. So St Peter insisted that David 
 could not be speaking of himself, but only of 
 Christ, when he said : " Thou wilt not leave my 
 soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy 
 one to see corruption." 
 
 As I have said, the Psalms constituted the 
 basis of the Divine Office, which was developed 
 and completed by the addition of collects, ver- 
 sicles, and lessons; though the addition of lessons 
 to the Divine Office does not seem to be so 
 ancient as their introduction into the Liturgy, 
 where they are known as the epistle and gospel. 
 In course of time in the Western Church the 
 saying of these psalms was distributed into seven 
 portions, assigned to seven hours of the day.
 
 i5 Morsbip in tbe Cbrfstian Cburcb, 
 
 Mattins and Lauds together made the chief 
 morning office : Prime, Terce, Sext, and None 
 were shorter and of less importance than the 
 others. Vespers was distinguished by the recital 
 of Magnificat, and Compline closed the day. In 
 each office the Psalms occupied the principal 
 place. 
 
 We can hardly avoid speaking of the Hours 
 as separate offices, though, strictly speaking, they 
 were said to constitute together the one Divine 
 Office. 
 
 In our own Church of England the clergy 
 were accustomed to say these offices daily until 
 the new Prayer Book was introduced in 1549. 
 In that book the Hours were rearranged in two 
 offices, which were termed Mattins and Evensong; 
 but Mattins and Evensong did not comprehend 
 all that is now included in the order of Morning 
 and Evening Prayer, but only the portion begin- 
 ning with the Lord's Prayer and ending with the 
 Third Collect. If you think of this by itself 
 you will perceive what a prominent position the 
 Psalms occupy in it. 
 
 And here let me say at once that the terms, 
 " Order of Morning Prayer," and " Mattins," must 
 not be treated as two names of the same thing. 
 The term Mattins has never been applied by
 
 TTbe Divine tfice, 
 
 authority to anything except the central portion. 
 The order of Morning Prayer as it stands in the 
 Prayer Book consists of three things : 
 
 I. A Preparation for Mattins (prefixed in 1552). 
 
 II. Mattins (arranged in 1549). 
 
 III. Supplementary Memorials and Interces- 
 
 sions (added in 1661) ; 
 
 and a precisely similar statement may be made 
 with regard to Evensong and the order of Even- 
 ing Prayer. The " preparation " prefixed in 1 5 5 2 is 
 entirely occupied with penitence. It begins with 
 a sentence about repentance : then comes the 
 Exhortation to Confession ; then the Confession 
 itself, and the General Absolution. This prepara- 
 tion was, doubtless, introduced because the use 
 of private confession and absolution was becom- 
 ing less common ; and from 1552 to 1661 it was 
 printed as part of the office. But in 1661, when 
 Convocation drew up the book which is now in use 
 among us, they seem to have been particularly 
 anxious that the Penitential Preparation should 
 not be regarded as an integral part of Mattins or 
 Evensong. This, at least, is the only explanation 
 of the fact that they drew a double line across 
 the whole page in the order of both Morning 
 and Evening Prayer, at the end of the Prepara- 
 tion ; that is immediately after the Absolution
 
 152 Morsbfp in tbe Cbristian Cburcb. 
 
 and before the Lord's Prayer with which the 
 office begins. 1 
 
 In substituting Mattins and Evensong for the 
 Seven Hours, the Reformers desired to put an 
 end to certain abuses, and to remedy certain in- 
 conveniences. 
 
 And perhaps the chief abuse was this, that 
 the Divine Office had come to be regarded as if 
 it were intended for the clergy alone. This had 
 not always been the case. St Paul was not 
 addressing the clergy alone when he bid his 
 converts speak to themselves in psalms, or ad- 
 monish one another in psalms. St James had 
 not a priest in mind when he wrote : " Let him 
 sing psalms." There had been times when good 
 laymen were even more eager for these offices 
 than the clergy themselves. In a Constitution 
 of the Emperor Justinian, the duty is pressed 
 upon the clergy by the example of the laity. 
 The edict runs thus : " If many laymen, resort- 
 ing to church, are shewn to be assiduous in the 
 
 1 This separation of the Penitential Preparation from 
 Mattins and Evensong, though so marked in the manu- 
 script Prayer Book of 1661, does not appear in the 
 Prayer Book as usually printed. But the Convocation 
 of Canterbury in 1879 recommmended its restoration
 
 Ube Divine Office. 153 
 
 psalm-singing for their own soul's sake, how 
 disgraceful would it be if clergy appointed 
 for that very purpose, should not fulfil their 
 office." 
 
 And Bede tells us of King Egbert, who made 
 a vow that besides the psalmody in the canonical 
 offices, in which, as a matter of course, he joined 
 he would daily recite the whole Psalter. 
 
 The first care of the Reformers was to put the 
 Divine Office into such a form as should suit the 
 convenience of laymen as well as clergy, though 
 its recital was still to be obligatory on the clergy 
 only, and voluntary on the part of the laity. 
 This was expressly set out in 1552, when it was 
 ordered that though other priests and deacons 
 might say the office, either privately or openly, 
 the priest who had cure of souls must say it in 
 the parish church, " and shall tolle a belle thereto 
 a convenient tyme before he begyn that such as 
 be disposed maye come to heare Goddes worde, 
 and to praie with hym." And that all classes of 
 people might the more readily take their part, 
 the old Latin was abandoned, and the newly- 
 arranged offices were put out entirely in English. 
 
 As the recital of the Psalms was the original 
 basis of the Divine Office, we ought to notice first 
 the change that was made in their recital. In
 
 i54 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Gbutxb. 
 
 the Hours certain psalms were said every week 
 and certain others every day, whilst many were 
 not recited at all. The Reformers retained only 
 the Venite (in addition to the Canticles) to be 
 said every day, but they arranged that the whole 
 Psalter should be recited every month. It was 
 by thus avoiding the daily repetition of a large 
 number of psalms that the total length of the 
 office was curtailed, and the Seven Hours reduced 
 to two offices. 
 
 Another alteration which they made was in 
 the introduction of whole chapters of the Bible, 
 so that in the course of the year all the more im- 
 portant books of the Old Testament were read 
 through, whilst the New Testament, with the 
 exception of the Book of Revelation, was read 
 through three times. 
 
 But the characteristic features of the old office 
 were carefully preserved. We are, therefore, to 
 regard our present Mattins and Evensong as the 
 lineal representative to us of the ancient offices 
 in which Christians throughout the ages have 
 loved to sing the Psalms of David. Those who 
 in apostolic days came together on the first day 
 of the week to break bread, came together at 
 other times to speak to one another in psalms 
 and hymns and spiritual songs. And ever since,
 
 tlbe Divine ffice, 155 
 
 the Church has broken the bread according to 
 the Liturgy and sung the psalms according to 
 the Divine Office. Ever since, as now in our 
 own Church, not only is the daily Eucharist cele- 
 brated, but the daily psalms are said. Mattins 
 and Evensong are provided by Catholic rule as 
 well as the Christian Sacrifice. 
 
 Thirty years ago a demand was loudly made 
 for shortened services. Clergy who did not 
 hesitate to leave the daily offices entirely un- 
 said, had a scruple against omitting only a part 
 of the order. They thought, for instance, that 
 if they said Mattins and Evensong they were 
 bound to say the Preparations before each office 
 and the whole of the Supplementary Me- 
 morials at the end. To relieve the con- 
 sciences of these brethren Convocation enacted 
 a canon, which was accepted by the State in the 
 Act of Uniformity Amendment Act of 1872, 
 declaring that on a weekday the Preparation 
 might be shortened by the omission of the Ex- 
 hortation to Confession, and the Supplementary 
 Memorials might be omitted altogether. To 
 our great regret they also authorized some 
 mutilation of Mattins and Evensong themselves ; 
 but as the enactment is only permissive, no
 
 156 THHorsbip in tbe Cbristfan Gburcb. 
 
 well-instructed churchman avails himself of the 
 liberty thus given him. No one, for instance, 
 who knows that the Divine Office is but the 
 developed method of reciting the Psalter, would 
 wish to omit some of the psalms for the day 
 and leave them unsaid for the month. And no 
 one who values the Holy Scriptures would wish 
 to omit either of the lessons. If the exhortation 
 to Confession is omitted, and the Memorials 
 after the office, none can say that the office is too 
 long even for the hurry and impatience of the 
 present day. 
 
 But I am told of some who prefer to recite 
 the Divine Office in the form of the Hours 
 according to the Pre-Reformation use. Well, if 
 they be lay-people, they are under no obligation 
 to use the present form, and if they think it 
 better to say certain psalms every day of the 
 year, and certain others every week, while more 
 than half are left unsaid (and amongst these 
 that most beautiful Psalm, the iO3rd) if they 
 think this better than to follow the Church's use 
 and recite the whole Psalter every month, no 
 one may condemn them. But if they think that 
 it is more Catholic (as they say) to recite the 
 Hours, then they are grievously mistaken, unless 
 indeed they wish to renounce altogether the
 
 Ube S>iv>ine ffice. 157 
 
 English Church, or to decry its claim to be 
 Catholic. For that revision of the Divine Office 
 which was effected in 1549 was canonically 
 made, and it has been delivered to us with all 
 spiritual authority by the Convocation of our 
 Church in 1661. By every Catholic principle, 
 unless indeed our Church be no Church, Mattins 
 and Evensong form for us the Divine Office 
 to which the clergy are bound and to which 
 the laity are called by the voice of Holy 
 Church. 
 
 The old offices were specially designed to 
 meet the necessities of people of whom very few 
 could read. It was thought that by repeating 
 the same psalms day after day the congregation 
 would soon know them by rote. In fact, in 
 ancient times, books were little used even by 
 the clergy, and it was ruled by the second 
 Council of Nicaea that no one might be made 
 a bishop unless he knew the Psalter by heart. 
 Pope Gregory the Great refused to advance one 
 Rusticus a deacon, saying, " He is a vigilant 
 man indeed, but, according to report, he does 
 not know the psalms." 
 
 In the English Reformation there was a de- 
 liberate purpose to encourage reading. This
 
 158 TKHorsMp in tbe Cbristfan Gburcb, 
 
 was explained in the preface to the Prayer-Book 
 of 1 549, when it was said : 
 
 If any would judge this way more painful because 
 that all things must be read upon the book, whereas 
 before by the reason of so often repetition they could 
 say many things by heart : if those men will weigh 
 their labour with the profit in knowledge which daily 
 they shall obtain by reading upon the book, they will 
 not refuse the pain in consideration of the great profit 
 that shall ensue thereof. 
 
 This quaint apology for the use of a Prayer- 
 Book remained in the preface until the revision 
 of 1 66 1. 
 
 But among the restorations effected in the 
 Divine Office at the time of the Reformation, 
 we ought to be especially thankful for the place 
 given to the reading of Holy Scripture. I am 
 afraid that while the blessings of education are 
 now being widely extended the people are not 
 advancing at the same rate in their knowledge 
 of the word of God. I am afraid for you, sirs, 
 that while you are much better read than your 
 grandfathers were in science and philosophy, 
 you do not know your Bibles as well as they 
 did. The lessons in church must be treated 
 with the greatest dignity, read with the utmost 
 care, and listened to with strained attention.
 
 ZTbe Divine Office. 159 
 
 The effect of the Reformation upon the Divine 
 Office may therefore be stated in five points. 
 
 I. The language was changed from Latin to 
 English. 
 
 II. The Seven Hours were rearranged as two 
 offices. 
 
 III. The people were called to assist in what 
 had come to be regarded as the concern of the 
 clergy only. 
 
 IV. The recitation of the Psalms was re- 
 arranged in harmony with ancient precedent. 
 
 V. An important place was given to the 
 reading of Holy Scripture. 
 
 Independently of this revision of the office 
 itself, certain other steps have been subsequently 
 taken. The Penitential Preparation was prefixed 
 in 1552, and the Supplementary Memorials were 
 added in 1661. In 1871 the table of lessons 
 was revised, and in 1872 the permissive canon 
 for shortened services was enacted. 
 
 People sometimes speak of our incomparable 
 Liturgy. If they use the word Liturgy in its 
 proper sense as denoting the order of Holy 
 Communion, some will dispute the justice of 
 the epithet " incomparable." Some, for instance, 
 think that the Scottish Liturgy is to be pre-
 
 160 Morsbip in tbe Cbristtan Gburcb. 
 
 ferred above the English. But if they are 
 speaking of the Divine Office of Mattins and 
 Evensong, I think they are justified in calling 
 it incomparable. There is no office of any 
 church, ancient or modern, worthy to be com- 
 pared with it, whether we apply the test of 
 conformity to ancient precedent or the test of 
 the fulness of scriptural teaching, whether we 
 judge it by the intelligent part that is given to 
 the congregation, or by its fervent expression 
 of faith and praise, or by its general tendency 
 to edification. 
 
 Therefore, my people, you will take every 
 opportunity of assisting at the Divine Office on 
 a weekday as well as on a Sunday. Your 
 highest act of worship is indeed to be found not 
 in this office but in your communion. But in 
 the Divine Office you fulfil the apostolic precept 
 to speak to yourselves in psalms : and you do 
 this not according to any private judgment, but 
 at the bidding of your Holy Mother Church. 
 
 But there are many who cannot be present at 
 the daily offices of the Church. Let me urge 
 upon them that in their private prayers they 
 should not forget the ancient custom of reciting 
 psalms. Private prayers are apt to be much re-
 
 Ube H)ivtne ffice. 161 
 
 laxed if their necessity be measured only by the 
 urgency of petition. There are times when we 
 feel that we hardly want to ask any special thing 
 of God we want simply to rest upon his will. 
 But praise is always in season. So it is always 
 fitting that David be " first and last and midst." 
 
 Or to put it otherwise, praise is easier than 
 petition. We often know not for what we should 
 ask, but God in his person and attributes is ever 
 worthy of our praise. 
 
 And perhaps the nearer we approach the 
 heavenly throne the more do our prayers merge 
 themselves in praise. The hour of petition may 
 be past : it may remain to the resigned soul only 
 to pray, " Thy will be done." But it is never too 
 late to take up David's words, and say, " Praise 
 the Lord, O my soul : and all that is within me 
 praise his holy name." 
 
 M
 
 X. 
 
 THE LITURGY. 
 
 " This do in remembrance of me." St Luke, xxii. 
 19. 
 
 WE inquired, last Sunday, what was the 
 worship in which from the beginning 
 Christians joined in their public assemblies. We 
 found that they came together for the Breaking 
 of the Bread, and for the singing of the Psalms 
 for the two sacred actions which were subse- 
 quently known as the Divine Service or Liturgy, 
 and the Divine Office. 
 
 We traced the Divine Office through the cen- 
 turies. We saw that the prominent feature in it 
 was always the reciting of the Psalms : that the 
 Psalms were (as some one said) the thread on 
 which were strung the pearls of collect, canticle, 
 and lesson. We noted that the Divine Office was 
 arranged in mediaeval times as seven hours, and 
 that at the Reformation these seven hours were 
 reduced to two offices, Mattins and Evensong, and 
 that at the same time the Church guarded against 
 the error of its being supposed that these offices
 
 Xitur0. 163 
 
 were for the clergy only. She called all her 
 children to them. We thus found that Mattins 
 and Evensong, as we say them now, are the de- 
 velopment in direct succession of the office in 
 which the Christian Church of every age has 
 loved to say the Psalms. 
 
 As we studied the Divine Office last Sunday, 
 let us this morning study the Liturgy or Com- 
 munion service. 
 
 I have already called your attention to some 
 of the most interesting writings which have 
 come down to us from the fourth century, 
 the Catechetical lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem, 
 which he delivered as a priest in the year A.D. 
 347 or 348, to those of his flock who had recently 
 been admitted to the holy mysteries. You will 
 remember that in the last of these lectures he 
 gives an outline of the celebration of Holy Com- 
 munion as it took place fifteen and a half cen- 
 turies ago. But he only begins at the point at 
 which the uninitiated were dismissed. He says 
 nothing therefore about the epistle, or gospel, 
 the creed, or the sermon. Those whom he ad- 
 dressed had been accustomed to be present at 
 what is now called the ante-communion service, 
 and they knew all about it. He begins with the
 
 1 64 Morsbfp in tbe Cbristfan Cburcb. 
 
 priest's ablution and the kiss of peace. Then he 
 tells his children how the priest cries aloud, 
 " Lift up your hearts," and ye answered, " We lift 
 them up unto the Lord : " that then the priest 
 says, " Let us give thanks unto the Lord," and 
 ye say, " It is meet and right." After this (he 
 continues) we make mention of heaven and earth, 
 of angels and archangels of the seraphim whom 
 Esaias by the Holy Ghost beheld, who cried, 
 " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts." Then 
 he mentions the prayer which is still found in all 
 Eastern liturgies, that God will send the Holy 
 Ghost upon the elements to make the bread the 
 Body of Christ, and the wine the Blood of Christ. 
 This invocation of the Holy Ghost is neither in 
 the Roman nor the Sarum Missal, but our 
 learned Reformers introduced it into the first 
 Prayer Book of Edward VI., though it was 
 dropped in the next book. It is, however, re- 
 tained in the Scottish and American liturgies. 
 Where it is absent it is not through any defect 
 of doctrine. For the operation of the Holy 
 Ghost is of course equally implied in the Prayer 
 of Consecration which immediately follows. 
 
 Cyril then speaks of the great Prayer of 
 Intercession for the living, and commemoration 
 of the departed, completed with the Lord's
 
 ttbe Xiturgs. 165 
 
 Prayer, which he expounds. After this (he tells 
 us) the priest says " Holy things to holy men," 
 and ye respond, " One is holy, one is the Lord 
 Jesus Christ," and the chanter says, " O taste and 
 see that the Lord is good." Then follows the 
 communion of the people, and the service is 
 closed by prayer and thanksgiving. 
 
 We pass on for twelve hundred years, and come 
 to our own country, and we find the Communion 
 Service still corresponding in most of its pro- 
 minent features to the description given by Cyril. 
 
 If we turn to the Sarum Missal in use in our 
 English Church immediately before the Re- 
 formation, we find after the Creed the priest's 
 ablution ; the Sursum Corda : " Let us give 
 thanks," with its answer, " It is meet and right " : 
 the association of the worshippers with all the 
 company of heaven : the seraphic Sanctus : the 
 great Prayer of Intercession for the living, and 
 Memorial of the departed, in which the Prayer 
 of Consecration is set : then the kiss of peace 
 and the priest's Communion. All these are 
 notes of identity between the liturgies of the 
 fourth and of the sixteenth centuries. But there 
 is one sad deficiency in the Sarum Missal. Cyril 
 in the fourth century had taught his children to 
 receive the Sacrament, " the Body of Christ,"
 
 1 66 TKaorsbfp in tbe Cbrtetian Cburcb. 
 
 and " the Cup of his Blood," but in the Missal of 
 the sixteenth century no provision whatever is 
 made for the Communion of the people. It is 
 thought that some of them did occasionally 
 receive after the priest, though there is no 
 rubric to indicate this. More often, perhaps, 
 they made their communion as we have some- 
 times witnessed it in papal countries, quite 
 apart from the Divine Service. But at least we 
 gather this, that Communion had become so 
 rare that it was quite exceptional to have any 
 lay people to communicate at a celebration : the 
 normal condition was that the priest alone re- 
 ceived. As far as the people were concerned 
 Christ's command to " Take, eat," was altogether 
 separated from " Do this." It was this departure 
 from Christ's institution that the Reformers set 
 themselves first to remedy. 
 
 I speak of the action of the Reformers without 
 staying at this point to distinguish between the 
 influence of Church and State in the work of re- 
 formation, or to investigate the canonical authority 
 of the earlier prayer books. For the spiritual 
 authority of our present Prayer Book does not 
 in the least depend upon the spiritual authority 
 of the books issued in 1548, 1549, 1552, or 1558. 
 It must never be forgotten that the present
 
 ZTbe Xftur$. 167 
 
 Prayer Book was drawn up and adopted by the 
 Convocations of the Church in 1661, and that on 
 every Catholic principle its authority was com- 
 plete complete in itself without any reference to 
 previous editions of the book. 1 
 
 1 The English Liturgy was recently disparaged by a 
 popular preacher as "a parliamentary Communion ser- 
 vice" ; but in fact, though the Prayer Book has the sanction 
 of both Church and State, it was drawn up entirely by the 
 Convocation of the Church, and so far from being a Parlia- 
 mentary book, it was actually adopted to the exclusion of 
 a rival book composed under the auspices of the House 
 of Commons. We have only to go back to the Restoration 
 of the Monarchy in 1660. The use of the old prayers had 
 been made penal by Act of the Republican Parliament, 
 and it seemed to some that the authority of Parliament 
 would now be sufficient to put forth a new Prayer Book. 
 On May II, 1661, the House of Commons appointed all 
 their members learned in the law to be " a Committee for 
 Religion," and on July 9 a Bill for Uniformity was read a 
 third time, and sent up to the Lords, with a book attached 
 to it which may, undoubtedly, be properly described as a 
 Parliamentary Prayer Book. But it was quickly perceived 
 that no true churchman would submit to such a violation 
 of the Reformation settlement as to accept a Prayer Book 
 drawn up by the lawyers of the House of Commons, and 
 propounded with the sole authority of the State without 
 the Church. Letters of business were granted to the 
 Convocations of Canterbury and York, and they set to 
 work to produce a revision of the old Prayer Book in 
 competition with the proposed Parliamentary book. Their 
 labours were concluded on December 20, 1661, when the
 
 1 68 Morsbip in tbe Cbrtetfan Gburcb. 
 
 Nevertheless, the evolution of the present 
 Liturgy from that which existed before the 
 Reformation is a matter of interest to all loyal 
 churchmen, and to this I call your attention. 
 
 The first care of the Reformers was to make 
 the communion of the people an integral part 
 of the service, and to establish it as communion 
 in both species. With this view, in 1548 they 
 added at the end of the Latin mass an English 
 supplement consisting of an office of Preparation 
 of the communicants followed by the formula of 
 
 new book was subscribed by the Bishops and Clergy of 
 both Convocations. This book was brought into the 
 House of Lords, attached to a Bill of Uniformity, on 
 February 25, 1662. Thus the Lords had before them two 
 proposed Prayer Books, viz., the Parliamentary book, and 
 the Convocation book. Of course, there were many who 
 wished that the Parliamentary Prayer Book should be 
 adopted ; and early in the session pressure seems to have 
 been put upon the Lords not to wait for the Bishops' 
 book. It was a critical hour for the Church of England ; 
 but under the providence of God the wiser counsels pre- 
 vailed. The Upper House rejected the Parliamentary 
 Prayer Book, and accepted that which the Convocations 
 had adopted. The Bill of Uniformity with the Prayer 
 Book annexed was afterwards passed by the Commons, 
 and received the Royal Assent on May 19, 1662. The new 
 Prayer Book came into use on St Bartholomew's Day, 
 the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, 1662, and it has 
 remained in use ever since, " the most popular Service- 
 book in Christendom."
 
 Ube Xiturgs, 169 
 
 communion in both kinds. This English sup- 
 plement to the Latin Liturgy is of great in- 
 terest : firstly, for its own inherent value ; 
 secondly, because there was nothing quite like 
 it in ancient liturgies, where the Preparatory 
 office was restricted to the priest and his assist- 
 ants ; thirdly, because all its parts have remained 
 ever since, slightly revised and transposed, to the 
 great enrichment of the English office ; and 
 fourthly, because with the exception of an 
 alternative warning to those who neglect Com- 
 munion, and perhaps four or five lines besides, 
 no other new matter has been at any subsequent 
 epoch introduced into the English Liturgy. 
 
 The supplement began with the " Warning " to 
 the parishioners that they prepare themselves 
 for the Communion very much as it now stands 
 in the Book of Common Prayer. Then there 
 came that instructive and beautiful address to 
 those that mind to come to the Holy Communion, 
 which under present arrangements is not heard 
 as often as we should desire. This concluded 
 with a passage (now incorporated in the Warn- 
 ing) calling upon the blasphemer, adulterer, or 
 other grievous sinner not to come to the Holy 
 Table till he have yet awhile bewailed his sins. 
 And the priest was ordered to " pause awhile to
 
 i7 Morsbip in tbe Cbrtstfan Gburcb, 
 
 see if any man will withdraw himself: and if he 
 perceive any so to do, then let him commune 
 with him privily at convenient leisure and see 
 whether he can with good exhortation bring 
 him to grace." After a little pause the priest 
 was to say the short exhortation, " Ye that do 
 truly and earnestly repent " ; then followed the 
 Confession, the Absolution, the Comfortable 
 Words, and the Prayer of Humble Access, as we 
 have them at present in the Prayer Book ; and 
 then the people were communicated, first from 
 the paten and then from the chalice. 
 
 Meanwhile Convocation was engaged in the 
 revision of the Latin mass. That it should be 
 henceforth said in the vernacular instead of an 
 unknown tongue was itself a return to primitive 
 usage. But some other points needed attention. 
 It was not very appropriate to claim communion 
 with such obscure saints as are found in the list 
 of " Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, 
 Cyprian, Laurence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, 
 Cosmos and Damian," or to ask fellowship with 
 " Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Felicitas, 
 Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, and 
 Anastasia," with many of whom the people 
 must have been practically unacquainted. These
 
 lists of names were omitted. Further, the 
 prayers to be said secretly by the priest were 
 found to contain expressions which seemed to 
 imply (though they were not intended to imply) 
 a material rather than a real and sacramental 
 presence in the elements. These were revised ; 
 and in general all prayers which had been said 
 secretly by the priest were so rearranged that 
 the people might have part in them. The new 
 preparation of the communicants was retained ; 
 but as the preparation proper for the people 
 must be proper also for the priest, the cele- 
 brant's own communion was deferred until after 
 the preparation had been said. Some of the cere- 
 monies of the mass were reduced ; as, for in- 
 stance, when it was ordered that the consecration 
 should be made without any elevation or show- 
 ing of the Sacrament to the people. The kiss 
 of peace was omitted, but the invocation of the 
 Holy Ghost on the elements was introduced 
 from ancient liturgies. Thus was the first 
 Liturgy of Edward VI. constructed in a spirit 
 conservative of Catholic practice, but decisive 
 for the reform of all .that was unedifying or 
 corrupt. Yet the book was very far from per- 
 fect. From one point of view it might be said 
 to be less true to Catholic precedent than any
 
 172 Worsbfp in tbe Cbrtstfan Gburcb. 
 
 other liturgy of the Church of England ; and 
 yet it is the liturgy which some churchmen 
 desire to see restored or at least allowed as an 
 alternative to our present order. 
 
 It had been a step in the right direction when, 
 in 1548, the English Communion of the people 
 was added on at the end of the Latin mass. The 
 offering of the sacrifice and the reception of the 
 sacrament were thus brought into one service ; 
 but they were still apart : one was finished before 
 the other began. This unsatisfactory feature re- 
 mains in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., 
 and it is even aggravated by the celebrant's own 
 communion being deferred until after the pre- 
 paration of the communicants. The Consecra- 
 tion was made, the Canon was concluded ; then 
 began the preparation of the communicants ; 
 after that, the priest received, and last of all the 
 people. Christ said, " take eat " in one breath 
 with " do this," and the communion of the priest 
 has always been associated very closely with the 
 act of consecration. The much-vaunted Liturgy 
 of 1549 affords the one notable exception to 
 this rule. 
 
 I am sure we are to be thankful for the re- 
 arrangement of the service which was made in 
 1552, and confirmed in 1558 and 1661. Two of
 
 Zlbe XiturQE. 173 
 
 the changes then made have been much criticised, 
 and I allow that they are fairly open to criticism. 
 Fairly and honestly we may be divided in our 
 opinion as to whether these two changes were 
 improvements or not. One was that the Gloria 
 in Excelsis was moved from the beginning to the 
 end of the service, giving to our English service 
 (as many have maintained) a more glorious con- 
 clusion than any other Liturgy in Christendom 
 can show. The other was that the great prayer 
 of intercession and oblation in which the Con- 
 secration was formerly set, was broken up into 
 three parts, known now as the Prayer for the 
 Church Militant, the Prayer of Consecration, and 
 the Prayer of Self Oblation. Whatever may 
 be thought of these changes no one who regards 
 either Catholic use or present edification can fail 
 to thank God for the re-arrangement by which 
 the preparation of the communicants no longer 
 intervenes between the Consecration and the 
 Communion, but is made the fitting approach to 
 the solemnity of the Consecration itself. 
 
 And here I think a great spiritual principle is 
 enforced. It seems to be sometimes thought 
 that persons may be fit to join in offering the 
 Eucharistic sacrifice though they are not fit to 
 communicate. Waiving for the moment the
 
 174 Morsbip in tbe Cbrfstian Gburcb* 
 
 question whether there is any way of joining in 
 the offering except by eating of the sacrifice, it 
 is quite clear, as the teaching of Holy Scripture 
 and of the early Church, that spiritual fitness is 
 required before we can make an acceptable obla- 
 tion. The offering of the wicked is an abomina- 
 tion in the sight of the Lord, and the prayer of 
 the impious man is turned into sin. So the same 
 ecclesiastical censure which excluded a man from 
 communion forbad him also to take part in the 
 oblation. Wisely, therefore, did our Church trans- 
 fer the preparation of the communicant to the 
 earlier part of the service, that his heart might 
 be ready for the sacrifice itself. 
 
 We frequently hear it asserted that the Re- 
 formers robbed the Liturgy of an important 
 feature by the omission of the priest's prepara- 
 tion. Thus an author, generally most trust- 
 worthy, whose " History of the Church of 
 England " is in the hands of many of you, and 
 is highly esteemed by all who know it, says of 
 the compilers of the book of 1549: "They 
 omitted almost entirely the preparation of the 
 priest both before he began mass and before be 
 began the canon." l And again : " The omission 
 
 1 Wakeman's "Introduction to the History of the 
 Church of England," 5th edit., p. 276.
 
 ZTbe Xituras. 175 
 
 of the priest's preparation and some of the cere- 
 monies at mass, seems to be founded on no 
 reason at all, and be simply due to haste or 
 carelessness." l But, in fact, the Reformers here 
 acted upon the great principle which guided 
 them throughout their work, that much which 
 had hitherto been restricted to the clergy, should 
 now be made available for the whole congrega- 
 tion. They did not omit the priest's prepara- 
 tion, but they so recast it, that it should hence- 
 forth be the preparation of priest and people 
 together. In the Sarum missal the preparation, 
 which we are said to have lost, was confined to 
 the priest and his ministers, as if they alone 
 were the performers of the service ; in our 
 present Liturgy the preparation occupies much 
 more space, and all the worshippers join in it. 
 So far from the element of preparation being 
 absent from our service, it is much more pro- 
 minent than in any previous Liturgy. The 
 preparation begins with the collect for purity, 
 once said secretly by the priest in his private 
 devotions, now said aloud that the whole con- 
 gregation may add their Amen. Then comes 
 the recitation of God's Law, that all may recall 
 
 1 Wakeman's " Introduction to the History of the 
 Church of England," 5th edit., p. 279.
 
 176 Worsbfp in tbe Cbrfstian Cburcb, 
 
 their offences, and ask of God mercy and grace. 
 Further on we have the confession and absolu- 
 tion, and the comfortable words, and the prayer 
 of humble access, all of which are intended to 
 dispose priest and people alike for the great 
 action in which they are to engage, a preparation 
 not for communion only (as it might have 
 seemed in 1548 and 1549), but for the great act 
 of Eucharistic worship, as the present arrange- 
 ment of the service testifies. 
 
 I have now indicated the changes through 
 which our Liturgy has passed from the earliest 
 times to the present day. From what I have 
 suggested you will draw the sound inference that 
 never, either at the Reformation period or any 
 other, was any such radical change effected as 
 would justify the common and ignorant judgment 
 that at some epoch the mass was abolished and 
 the communion service substituted for it. It is 
 one and the same sacrament," whether it be called 
 the Mass or the Lord's Supper or the Holy Com- 
 munion or the Holy Eucharist. The change of 
 the Name is not a change in the thing, though 
 it may imply a change in the point of view from 
 which the thing is regarded. There was no 
 point at which it could be said that one thing
 
 ZTbe Xituras. 177 
 
 was abolished and another adopted in its place, 
 unless indeed the change of language from Latin 
 to English could be thus described ; yet in 
 English Prayer Books of 1 549, the Holy Com- 
 munion was still said to be "commonly called 
 the Mass." In later times this name has been 
 discarded, and wisely. For though it has no in- 
 herent significance to which objection could be 
 made, yet it has become irrevocably associated 
 with an aspect of the Sacrament in which the 
 action of the priest is everything, and the com- 
 munion of the people is of little account. As 
 long as the term " hearing mass " is used in con- 
 tradistinction to "receiving communion," no well- 
 instructed catholic will willingly accept " mass " 
 as a suitable designation of the Sacrament ; for 
 the usage excludes the fundamental truth that 
 by eating the Flesh of the Son of Man and 
 drinking His Blood, we do show the Lord's 
 death till He come. 
 
 It will have been observed that our Liturgy of 
 the present day contains every feature described 
 by Cyril fifteen and a half centuries ago, with 
 the exception of the ceremonial washing of the 
 hands, the kiss of peace, the invocation of the 
 Holy Ghost, and the proclamation, " Holy things 
 
 N
 
 178 Morsbip in tbe Cbristian Cburcb. 
 
 for holy men." But not one of these is of such a 
 character that its omission can be said to in- 
 dicate a radical change of rite. The invocation 
 of the Holy Ghost is certainly the most im- 
 portant of these ; and it is wanting in the Roman 
 rite as well as in our own. 
 
 The true statement of the case is this, that the 
 Church of England as a living church has in her 
 own inherent right from time to time revised her 
 Liturgy to the greater edifying of her children : 
 she has translated and transposed : she has 
 eliminated mediaeval expressions of doubtful doc- 
 trine : she has omitted allusions which in course 
 of time had lost their significance : she has re- 
 stored catholic features which had been overlaid 
 by the corruptions of time : but she has never 
 tampered with the essential and characteristic 
 elements of the service, handed down from 
 primitive times, and generally accepted in the 
 Church. 
 
 It is a glorious action and one of spiritual ex- 
 hilaration when we join in one unchanged and 
 unchangeable service with the Church of every 
 Christian century: when we break the bread as the 
 apostles broke it, and bless the cup as the apostles 
 blessed it : when we say the Sursum Corda, and 
 sing the Seraphic Song as Cyril taught them to his
 
 Ube Xtturgs. 179 
 
 spiritual children : when we show the Lord's death 
 as St Augustine and St Chrysostom showed it ; 
 as Augustine of Canterbury showed it, and 
 Anselm and Thomas a Becket, and Fisher of 
 Rochester, and Archbishop Laud, yea, and as all 
 the faithful laity in the Church through all these 
 ages showed it as many as obeyed the Divine 
 command and followed the apostolic precept, 
 sealing the covenant in the Eucharistic feast 
 
 But we do this not in the capacity of private 
 individuals but as members of the Church of 
 England. The claim which some make to be 
 Christians at large, or priests at large, subject to 
 no immediate ecclesiastical authority, is unwar- 
 ranted in the Catholic Church. As churchmen 
 we must obey those that have the rule over us, 
 and submit ourselves. In the Church of England, 
 we can only minister by the authority of the 
 Church, and under the terms in which she has 
 commissioned us. If we substitute for her order 
 some other rule or rite, however ancient, however 
 catholic, we are acting outside our commission, 
 our action is lawless and therefore uncatholic, 
 and we can look for no grace in what we do. 
 
 If the Church of England be not a living 
 branch of the Catholic Church, we have no
 
 i8o TKHorsbip in tbe Cbrfstfan Cburcb. 
 
 business here. Our very baptism is irregular 
 and the ordination of our priests is invalid. 
 
 If the Church of England be not Catholic, we 
 have certainly received no Catholic rite except 
 our baptism. We may share with baptized 
 nonconformists a certain membership in the 
 Catholic Church, because baptism, though ir- 
 regular or even heretical, may yet be valid. But 
 if we claim to be Catholics in any other sense 
 than this, it must be through some inherent 
 virtue of Catholicity which belongs to the Church 
 of England. Only by the agency of the Church 
 of England have our clergy received Holy 
 Orders ; only by the ministry of bishops and 
 priests of the Church of England have we re- 
 ceived Confirmation and Communion. If our 
 Mother Church be base-born, it is vain for her 
 sons to boast of their legitimacy. We are 
 Catholics because the Church of England is 
 Catholic. 
 
 But if the Church of England be a living 
 branch of the Catholic Church, then she is that 
 to which we owe allegiance. She is the present- 
 ment to us of the Catholic Church ; and the 
 Prayer Book, being the voice of the Church 
 of England, is therefore to us the voice of 
 the Catholic Church ; and disobedience to the
 
 Xitura. 
 
 Prayer Book is the rejection of Catholic autho- 
 rity. 
 
 If the Church of England be not a living branch 
 of the Church we must leave her ; but if she be, 
 then as Catholics we must obey her. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 APPRECIATION OF THE BOOK OF COMMON 
 PRAYER. 
 
 The following address, delivered at the Diocesan Con- 
 ference at Bangor in 1898, will suitably follow here, 
 though it involves some slight repetition of statements 
 already made in the sermons. 
 
 SUBJECT. "The importance of making the Prayer 
 Book of the Church of England the rule of conduct, 
 devotional and practical, in the lives of its members." 
 
 A Book of Common Prayer was practically im- 
 possible when few could read, and no mechanical 
 means were known to supply even these few with 
 books. 
 
 In the early days of Christianity the possession of 
 a copy of the Gospels was a luxury which only the 
 wealthiest individuals could enjoy. The church might 
 possess a treasured manuscript of the Holy Scriptures 
 for use in the congregation, but for a private person 
 able to read, a small collection of " Sayings of Jesus " 
 would suffice ; while the majority of the people could
 
 1 82 Morsbfp in tbe Gbrfstian Cburcb. 
 
 make no use of a book. But from apostolic times 
 Christians were accustomed to come together to break 
 the Bread and to sing the Psalms. No doubt at first 
 the sacred story of our Lord's institution of the Holy 
 Eucharist was recited at the celebration from memory ; 
 but very soon manuscripts of the Liturgy were edited 
 for the use of the clergy, the principal features of our 
 present communion service having been clearly estab- 
 lished and become practically stereotyped before the 
 fourth century. As to the other act of worship, the 
 psalms remained the golden cord on which were 
 strung the pearls of collect and versicle and lesson. 
 In the Middle Ages the saying of the Psalms was 
 arranged in seven offices known as the Hours, and at 
 the Reformation these were rearranged as two offices 
 of Mattins and Evensong. Our present Prayer Book, 
 as you know full well, includes in its provision for 
 daily devotion each of the two primitive forms of 
 worship, (i) There is the Breaking of the Bread 
 the Liturgy or Communion Service, and (2) there is 
 the Psalter, with its rich setting in the order of 
 Morning and Evening Prayer. 
 
 The great reform which made the old Service 
 Books of the Church of England into a veritable 
 Book of Common Prayer, was effected in the six- 
 teenth century, when the offices and prayers which 
 had been provided for the clergy were adapted to the 
 use of the faithful in general. It had come to be 
 thought that the Divine Office of the Hours con- 
 cerned the clergy alone, but when these Hours were 
 rearranged as Mattins and Evensong, the parish priest
 
 was directed to say them daily, not by himself; but 
 to cause a bell to be tolled a convenient time before- 
 hand, that the people also might come and hear 
 God's word and pray with him. Thus you have the 
 mind of the Church clearly expressed as to your 
 attendance at Mattins and Evensong. 
 
 And as regards the Liturgy the priest was no longer 
 to make a solitary communion ; but the communion 
 of the people was to become a prominent element in 
 the service. In the old liturgies forms had been 
 given for the personal preparation of the priest. 
 These forms of preparation were not now relegated, 
 as some seem to think, to the vestry, to be used 
 privately by the priest, but on the contrary they were 
 re-cast and made an integral part of the Liturgy, so 
 that priest and people might prepare together for 
 participation in the Holy Mystery. We ought to be 
 thankful indeed for the possession of a Prayer Book 
 which treats priest and people alike in their personal 
 right of access to the throne of grace, recognizing the 
 equal need of each to be fed with the bread of life, 
 recognizing the qualification of all to worship in the 
 Body of Christ. 
 
 We have no misgivings we make no reservation 
 in committing ourselves to the acceptance of the 
 Book of Common Prayer as our ample and sufficient 
 guide in Public Worship. 
 
 Nor ought its merits to be overlooked as a manual 
 of private prayer. Doubtless there are petitions and 
 intercessions and thanksgivings which we must offer 
 to God in our own words, and no manual whatever
 
 1 84 Morsbip in tbe Cbristtan Cburcb. 
 
 can supersede the necessity of this freedom in our 
 private devotion. But when we desire to make an 
 act of worship before God solemn and dignified, and 
 expressive of our due attitude before Him an act of 
 worship that shall lift us up and build us up in our 
 most holy faith that shall be at once for God's glory 
 and for our own comfort and edification, I do not 
 think that we can more worthily occupy fifteen or 
 twenty minutes than by using, even in private, the 
 Office of Mattins or Evensong. Of course, the 
 clergy are bound to say these offices in private if not 
 in public ; but though the recitation of them be not 
 enjoined on the laity as an obligatory duty, yet priest 
 and people are of one human nature, alike in their 
 spiritual needs : what is good for priest is good for 
 people. 1 The daily use of Mattins and Even- 
 song would at least correct some of the common 
 faults of private prayer, in which petition and inter- 
 cession are apt to occupy too much space to the 
 neglect of thanksgiving and to the exclusion of 
 praise. 
 
 But the Prayer Book is to us much more than a 
 directory of worship, public or private. It gives us 
 in the Catechism a manual of faith and duty ; it 
 asserts by the occasional offices the claims of God 
 and Holy Church at every epoch of our lives ; whilst 
 
 1 In speaking of the daily office I do not necessarily 
 include the preparatory office of penitence, and the sup- 
 plemental commemorations which have been more lately 
 joined to Mattins and Evensong to make up the order of 
 Morning and Evening Prayer.
 
 185 
 
 the book from cover to cover is full of incidental 
 teaching, as to doctrine and practice. 
 
 The child is taught from the beginning that it is 
 not a child of wrath, the fair denizen of hell, lost for 
 ever, unless by some miracle of conversion hereafter 
 its destiny be changed. The child has been brought 
 to God in Holy Baptism ; he is taught to think of 
 himself as a member of Christ, a child of God, one 
 who has received an inheritance in God's kingdom of 
 grace. He is taught to thank God that he has been 
 called to this state of salvation ; he is taught to pray 
 that he may continue in the same. He is not in a 
 city of wrath from which he must flee, but in the 
 Jerusalem of grace from which he must take care not 
 to fall. 
 
 Parents, it surely makes all the difference in the 
 world to the happiness of the child on whom the con- 
 sciousness of God is just dawning that he is not to 
 think of himself as in daily danger of hell but as 
 being already in the grace and love of God, in a 
 position in which he must pray to God to keep him 
 from which he must take heed not by any wilful sin 
 to fall away. 
 
 But the Church refuses to deal with the child as if 
 he were a full-grown man. She calls for sponsors to 
 put him in mind of his sacred responsibilities. She 
 calls upon "all fathers, mothers, masters, and dames " 
 to cause their "children, servants, and apprentices" 
 to come to church to be instructed in the faith. She 
 enjoins upon the children that they submit themselves 
 to their governors, teachers, spiritual pastors, and
 
 1 86 Worsbip in tbe Gbrfstian Gburcb. 
 
 masters, and that they order themselves lowly and 
 reverently to all their betters. 
 
 And when the child comes to years of discretion, 
 when temptations are multiplied, and the powers of 
 the devil, and the world, and the flesh seem to be 
 terribly intensified, then he is taught to look to God 
 for more grace, greater grace in greater danger, greater 
 grace to sustain greater responsibility, new measures 
 if not new kinds of grace to meet the new conditions 
 of maturer life, the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Ghost 
 bestowed in Confirmation. 
 
 And he is taught to look upon the life before him 
 as the vocation to which God calls him. He cannot 
 choose for himself the path that he shall tread; he 
 must run the race that is set before him ; or if there 
 be some scope for choice, that choice is to be exer- 
 cised with a solemn sense of God's over-ruling provid- 
 ence, while he listens for the voice of divine guidance. 
 From very infancy he is taught that he must do his 
 duty in that state of life to which it shall please God 
 to call him. 
 
 It has already been implied that the faithful 
 Christian will live his life in the strength of habitual 
 communion. As often as the Sacrifice of Calvary is 
 pleaded upon the altar, the spiritual banquet is spread, 
 and the faithful are called to participate in it. This 
 is at once the sacramental strengthening and refresh- 
 ing of their souls, and the mode whereby they join in 
 the great action by which they show the Lord's death 
 till He come. 
 
 But the churchman is not to take his part in the
 
 187 
 
 great oblation in any perfunctory manner, nor without 
 regard to his spiritual fitness. For the sacrifice of the 
 wicked is an abomination in the sight of the Lord, 
 now as it was in Old Testament times. 
 
 The Prayer Book is most emphatic in its teaching 
 that we must approach the altar with the full assur- 
 ance that all our sins are forgiven, and that we are for 
 the time being in the grace of God. This doctrine of 
 assurance of present salvation must not be confounded 
 with the doctrine of the " insurance " of our eternal 
 life which is nowhere found in the Prayer Book the 
 doctrine, I mean, that if we have once accepted the 
 gospel call we cannot possibly fall away to eternal 
 perdition. He that thinketh he standeth must ever 
 take heed lest he fall. But the Church is quite clear 
 in expecting and requiring that the faithful member 
 of Christ should approach the holy mysteries with a 
 quiet conscience, not saying that he has not sinned, 
 but knowing that his sins are forgiven. 
 
 And on the subject of sin the Church speaks with 
 no uncertain sound. Witness the teaching of the 
 Commination Service. The vulgar and thoughtless 
 disparage that service as though we were cursing our 
 neighbours therein. We do not invoke a curse on 
 any one, but we acknowledge the fact of the curse of 
 sin. We do not say " cursed be he," but " cursed is 
 he." And the person whom we have in mind when 
 we thus confess the deathliness of sin is not our 
 neighbour but ourself. The commination is the re- 
 cognition of the doom of God's righteous wrath upon 
 ourselves unless we repent. We say Amen, not pray-
 
 1 88 Morsbtp in tbe Gbristian Cburcb. 
 
 ing that it may be so, but assenting to the fact that it 
 is so. Here is the Church's declaration that convic- 
 tion of sin is the first stage in the work of conversion. 
 Then follows the cry for mercy, and only after that, the 
 blessed assurance of peace. 
 
 Marriage is fundamentally a civil contract ; but 
 while the Church fulfils in her office of holy matrimony 
 all that the civil authority requires, she makes it quite 
 plain that marriage in the Christian sense cannot be 
 dissolved until death depart the contracting parties. 
 She demands, moreover, that when her children enter 
 into the marriage contract, they shall devoutly offer 
 their union before the altar in presence of the faithful, 
 as a most excellent sacrament or mystery of the 
 spiritual marriage and unity between Christ and His 
 Church. Thus Christ is invoked as a guest at the 
 marriage ceremony, to beautify and adorn the honour- 
 able estate of matrimony, as he did by his first 
 miracle in Cana of Galilee. Surely if the Prayer 
 Book were taken as our guide, there would not be 
 the unhappy restlessness in married life, which alas 
 is now so common to the scandal of our English 
 name. 
 
 Oh how wise is Holy Church in her counsels upon 
 holy marriage in the reasons that she gives why 
 matrimony was ordained. She propounds three 
 reasons in ascending order of dignity. In the lowest 
 place she names the procreation of children ; but if 
 that were all, then the children would count for more 
 than the wife, and the sacred dignity of Christian 
 marriage would be lost. Next she names the remedy
 
 189 
 
 against sin ; but if this were all, then marriage would 
 be the refuge of the weak man rather than the voca- 
 tion of the strong man. She rises to higher ground 
 when she declares that Holy Matrimony was ordained 
 " for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the 
 one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity 
 and adversity." 
 
 Sooner or later all must expect sickness. And in 
 this experience Holy Church is again at hand. 
 "Whatsoever thy sickness is, be assured that it is 
 God's visitation." The sick man's room is treated as 
 a consecrated place, where Christ is suffering in the 
 person of one of His members. The sick man's 
 room is the only place outside the church, in which 
 the priest has authority to celebrate the Holy Sacra- 
 ment. And the Church of England shows the 
 tenderest compassion for her suffering ones in being 
 not content that the material sacrament should be 
 carried from the church and baldly given to the sick 
 man : rather she would dispense with rules which 
 otherwise limit the action of the priest, that the 
 Eucharistic offering itself may be made in the sick 
 man's presence, that there be no sundering of the 
 two things which Christ hath joined together, the 
 pleading of the one sacrifice and the feeding there- 
 upon. 
 
 And when the extreme hour of death arrives, the 
 Church hath still her ministry of commendation, " We 
 humbly commend the soul of this thy servant, our 
 dear brother, into thy hands, as into the hands of a 
 faithful Creator and most merciful Saviour, most
 
 1 90 Worsbip in tbe Cbrtetian Cburcb. 
 
 humbly beseeching thee that it may be precious in 
 thy sight." 
 
 But the Prayer Book gives no encouragement to 
 the thought that opportunities of grace and probation 
 here may be disregarded, and all the issues of this 
 life be tried afresh hereafter. No special warrant is 
 needed to authorize us to pray concerning those who 
 have fallen asleep in Jesus, that they should advance 
 from grace to grace in the nearer presence of their 
 Lord. But no prayer of ours can avail to reverse the 
 sentence of the particular judgment, or to bring Dives 
 from across the gulf to the sweet peace of Abraham's 
 bosom. Therefore, the Funeral Service in the Prayer 
 Book is not an office of intercession for the departed, 
 but an office of comfort and hope for the bereaved, 
 an office of monition for all who remain. " Suffer us 
 not at our last hour for any pains of death to fall from 
 Thee." 
 
 Thus is the Book of Common Prayer our rule from 
 birth to death, our guide in worship, and in our walk 
 with God. 
 
 We can hardly exaggerate the good effect it has 
 had in cherishing a sound and manly religion in 
 England ; neither on the one hand a religion of mere 
 sentiment, finding its assurance in some debatable 
 emotions, nor on the other hand a religion of mere 
 ordinances, basing its hope, ex opere operato, on the 
 performance of some mystic rites. We cannot be 
 too thankful for the tone which the Prayer Book has 
 given to worship in the English Church, wherein the 
 spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, so
 
 TTbe 
 
 that we are neither distracted in our worship by the 
 ravings of an undisciplined faith, nor pained by ex- 
 pressions of familiarity unbecoming the approach of 
 the creature to the Creator, of the sinner to the 
 Saviour ; but wherein we are given an intelligent par- 
 ticipation altogether distinct from that of spectators 
 in a drama, or mere assistants in the performance of 
 a mystery. 
 
 Thank God that we have a book so helpful, so in- 
 structive, so edifying, so apostolical, so evangelical, so 
 catholic ; a book incomparable in the literature of 
 Christendom, a book worthy of its title as the book of 
 COMMON PRAYER. God only give us grace to use it 
 aright, and to live according to its standard.
 
 I 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE LORD'S DAY. 
 
 " I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day." Rev. i. 10. 
 
 SUBMIT to you this morning some practi- 
 cal considerations upon the observance of 
 Sunday. 
 
 Some critics have doubted whether St John is 
 here speaking of the weekly festival of the 
 Christian Church. Some have argued that by 
 " the Lord's Day" the apostle means Easter 
 Day : others have strangely thought that he is 
 referring to the Jewish, sabbath which God 
 speaks of in the Old Testament as his holy 
 day. 
 
 But we gather from contemporary writers that 
 the term which the apostle uses, the Dominical 
 Day, was in common use among Christians 
 certainly in the second, and probably in the first 
 century, as the appellation of the day which was 
 otherwise known as Dies Solis or Sunday. 
 
 If anything was wanted, finally to close the
 
 Xorfc's IDas. 193 
 
 controversy, it was supplied by the discovery a 
 few years ago of the treatise called " The Teach- 
 ing of the Twelve Apostles." In this treatise we 
 have directions for the Breaking of the Bread on 
 every Lord's Day, and there is reason to con- 
 clude that the document is nearly as old as the 
 book of the Revelation of St John. Some critics 
 assign to it even an earlier date. But this is plain, 
 that at the time of its composition the phrase 
 " Dominical Day " had become such a technical 
 term, such a mere name for the first day of 
 the week, that its proper meaning was scarcely 
 felt. People could speak of the Dominical 
 Day without thinking of the Lord, just as we 
 can speak of Sunday without thinking of the 
 sun. This is clearly shown when the writer 
 actually adds the explanatory words " of the 
 Lord." He speaks of " the Dominical Day of 
 the Lord," that is, " the Lord's day of the Lord." 
 It is obvious that such a tautology would 
 have been quite impossible unless " Domi- 
 nical Day " or " Lord's Day " had become only 
 a proper name. And there is no reasonable 
 doubt that, in the text before us, St John is 
 using the term in what seems to have already 
 become its ordinary meaning when he says, " I 
 was in the spirit on the Dominical Day." 
 O
 
 194 TKHorsbip in tbe Cbristfan Cburcb. 
 
 Our Lord rose from the dead on the first day 
 of the week, and he appeared to the assembled 
 Church, and gave commission to his apostles on 
 the evening of the same day. His next recorded 
 appearance to them was on the following Sun- 
 day, and it was again on a Sunday, six weeks 
 later, that He endowed his Church with the gifts 
 of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 But the references to the observance of Sun- 
 day are few and far between in the New Testa- 
 ment. They are, however, of that incidental 
 character which implies the reference to a well 
 known and established custom. The historian 
 of the Acts, describing St Paul's sojourn at 
 Troas, speaks of " the first day of the week, 
 when we came together to break bread." He 
 gives no reason why they should have come to- 
 gether on this particular day, clearly assuming 
 that the observance of the day is familiar to his 
 readers. In like manner St Paul, writing to the 
 Corinthians about the weekly offertory, mentions 
 the first day of the week as the day on which 
 their offerings should be made, and gives no 
 reason for the arrangement, which he assumes 
 to be in complete harmony with the custom of 
 those to whom he writes. 
 
 It is quite clear, then, that Sunday was kept as
 
 195 
 
 the Dominical Day in apostolic times. If we 
 could determine how it was kept it would be 
 easy to deduce some conclusions as to how it 
 should be kept now. 
 
 Many have imagined that the Sunday was 
 kept as the Jewish Sabbath. Some have even 
 assumed that the apostles by some formal act 
 transferred to the first day of the week the 
 obligation which under the Mosaic law attached 
 to the seventh day. There is no trace of any 
 such transfer. On the contrary, there are clear 
 indications that the Jewish Christians continued 
 to keep the Jewish Sabbath long after they had 
 begun to observe the Christian Lord's Day. 
 
 Some seventeen or eighteen years after the 
 Resurrection a great question was discussed at 
 the meeting of the Apostles at Jerusalem : it was 
 admitted that Jewish Christians must observe 
 the Mosaic law (including such ordinances as 
 the Sabbath) : but the question was whether 
 Gentiles were forced to conform to Judaism on 
 becoming Christians. Certain men came down 
 from Judea and taught, saying, " Except ye 
 be circumcised and keep the law [of Moses] ye 
 cannot be saved." And some fifteen years later, 
 St Paul, in writing to the Colossians, found it
 
 196 Worsbtp in tbe Cbriatian Gburcb. 
 
 necessary to insist with some vehemence upon 
 the truth that under the conditions of Christian 
 liberty the obligation of the seventh day was 
 not binding. This liberty was thus gradually 
 established ; but for the greater part of the first 
 three decades after the Resurrection the 
 Christians of Judea, and other Christians of Jew- 
 ish origin, kept their Sabbath on Saturday, and 
 celebrated the Resurrection every Sunday. 
 
 Did they, therefore, keep two sabbaths every 
 week ? Certainly not. Their observance of Sun- 
 day was something totally different from their 
 observance of Saturday. Cessation from labour 
 was the rule of Saturday : it was far from being 
 the rule of Sunday. 
 
 When, however, the Church became more 
 Gentile in its character, and when the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem witnessed to the End of the 
 Jewish Dispensation, the distinction between 
 Jew and Gentile in the Church was speedily 
 obliterated, and the observance of the Sabbath 
 passed away. But the underlying principle 
 and spirit of the fourth commandment re- 
 mained ; the great principle that time is to 
 be set apart for God in the devout perform- 
 ance of religious duties. And in carrying out 
 this great principle it is likely enough that
 
 Xorfc's H>a. 197 
 
 Jewish Christians continued on Sunday some of 
 the practices which they had been accustomed 
 to associate with the Sabbath : in particular we 
 may well believe that the Christian assemblies 
 for reading and prayer on the Lord's Day were 
 organized on the model of those Sabbath meet- 
 ings in the Synagogue, in which our Lord him- 
 self had taken part. The Jewish habit of keep- 
 ing Sabbath had thus a marked influence and 
 effect in determining the character of the observ- 
 ance of the Lord's Day ; and as the obligation 
 of the Saturday-rest declined, the obligation of 
 the Sunday observance seems to have been the 
 more strongly enforced in the Church. But this 
 is the utmost that can be said in support of the 
 idea that in some sense the observance of the 
 Sabbath was " transferred " by the Church to 
 the first day of the week. 
 
 Nevertheless, from primitive days to the pre- 
 sent, the keeping of Sunday has always been 
 regarded as a duty of divine obligation, and 
 the fourth commandment has always been ap- 
 pealed to in support of the practice. So the 
 Church still reads the decalogue ; and though 
 there be no warrant for the assumption that the 
 law of the Jewish Sabbath is of force to regulate
 
 198 Morsbfp in tbe Cbrfstian Cburcb. 
 
 the Christian Lord's Day, we must not rush to 
 the opposite extreme and declare the Fourth 
 Commandment to be obsolete. The fourth com- 
 mandment in principle and spirit (as I have 
 already defined it) is for all time. 
 
 The Jew was bound to separate and consecrate 
 from all common use a tenth of his income and 
 a seventh of his time. Perhaps in neither case 
 is the precise rule of proportion binding on us. 
 But we are bound to honour the Lord with our 
 substance and to make oblation to his service of 
 the fleeting hours. And it would be difficult to 
 give a reason why the measure of Christian 
 devotion (either as regards money or time) 
 should come short of the measure of Jewish 
 obligation. Certainly we cannot be said to be 
 making a reasonable oblation of time to God if 
 we devote half an hour in the morning to the 
 Divine Service, and claim the rest of the day for 
 our own pleasure. The continental Sunday may 
 have a charm for some who find a special fascina- 
 tion in all that is continental in Ecclesiastical 
 practices, but I know that devout clergy of the 
 Roman Communion in France bitterly deplore 
 the secularization of the Lord's Day by the 
 State, and envy us our English Sunday. More- 
 over, we who are strong must bear the infirmities
 
 199 
 
 of the weak, and not please ourselves. We must 
 see to it that our liberty become not a stumbling- 
 block to others. We must consider the effect 
 upon the community at large, of practices which 
 we may deem innocent in the limited measure 
 in which we adopt them, but which in excess are 
 certainly sinful. " All things are lawful for me," 
 says St Paul, " but all things are not expedient. 
 All things are lawful for me, but all things 
 edify not." 
 
 For example, men may say that they are only 
 using their lawful liberty in Christ if they play 
 cricket or football on Sunday afternoon. But 
 it is very certain that if those whose example is 
 respected in the community allow themselves 
 this liberty, Sunday will soon become the day, 
 the day of days, for sport ; and we shall have 
 not only our Sunday cricket matches, but our 
 Sunday horse races ! Will this edify ? Will it 
 further the cause of true religion? Will it 
 build up the Church of Christ ? 
 
 And here the question arises, " Are we bound 
 to respect custom and convention in framing 
 rules for our own observance of Sunday ? " 
 
 I answer that unless we adopt in one extreme 
 such a rule as that of the Jewish Sabbath, or in 
 the other, such a rule as that of the continental
 
 200 'cmorsbfp In tbe Cbristian Gburcb. 
 
 Sunday, our rule must necessarily involve much 
 that is arbitrary and conventional. It is impos- 
 sible by strict logic to draw a line and say thus 
 far must I go and no farther in my reverence for 
 the Lord's Day ; the wise casuist must have 
 regard to the conventions of the Church, and 
 must even take account of the arbitrary con- 
 ventions of the world. The strict logician may 
 argue, " If I may talk of the news of the day, 
 I may read the newspaper ; if I may read the 
 newspaper I may read in it the report of the 
 stock market ; if I may read the report of the 
 stock market, I may determine what purchases 
 to make to-morrow ; if I may settle what pur- 
 chases to make, I may write to my stock-broker 
 and instruct him accordingly." But the devout 
 Christian binds himself by conventional limita- 
 tions on St Paul's principle that all things lawful 
 are not convenient. One man therefore will 
 not look at a newspaper on Sunday. Another 
 will not write a letter. Another only restrains 
 himself from letters of business. In other mat- 
 ters rules equally conventional may be made : 
 not to read novels on Sunday, not to play 
 games, not to take cabs, not to travel by public 
 conveyances, not to travel except compelled 
 by duty or charity, not to dine out, not to
 
 TTbe Xorfc's 2>as. 201 
 
 make calls, not to receive guests, not to do 
 needlework, not to do gardening, and so on. 
 Different rules will suit different persons, and 
 each must be fully persuaded in his own mind. 1 
 But such distinctions as I have indicated, are 
 so conventional, that we can conceive persons 
 under different circumstances adopting even 
 opposite rules. It may be very fitting for one 
 person to devote a large part of Sunday to 
 self-improvement and study, whilst for another 
 person, differently situated, it may be a proper 
 rule not to study on Sunday. But I would 
 
 1 Some clergy do not scruple to travel by omnibus or 
 rail in order to take duty on Sunday, though they would 
 not travel for mere pleasure. Others refuse to go out to 
 preach, unless the church can be reached on foot or on 
 cycle. Cycling appears to be less open to objection than 
 any other artificial means of locomotion, because it im- 
 poses no labour upon any but the traveller himself, and 
 in many country parishes the clergy are thus enabled to 
 reach outlying mission chapels which otherwise they 
 would not be able to serve. Yet the world in London 
 is slow to surrender the prejudice that cycling is a mere 
 pastime or amusement. On a recent Sunday evening I 
 was engaged to preach in a suburban church at a distance 
 of five miles. If I had employed the labour of others, 
 travelling by cab or omnibus, none probably would have 
 raised any objection ; but as I rode my cycle, I was 
 saluted by street loiterers with the question, " Is that 
 what they teach in Church ? "
 
 2o 2 Morsbip in tbe Cbristfan Cburcb* 
 
 have you note two points: (i) That however 
 conventional a rule may be, it may be valuable 
 if it only serve to mark a difference between 
 Sundays and other days; and (2) that if our 
 observance of Sunday is to be a witness to the 
 world, we must give due consideration to the 
 prejudices and conventions of the world. 
 
 My brethren, there is no religion of Christ 
 without the bearing of the Cross of self-denial. 
 Now if you look at the masses of Christian 
 people in this country, you will perceive that 
 there is only one form of religious self-denial 
 known to the great majority of them. There 
 may be much moral self-denial amongst them 
 a thing of beauty and of glory in their lives, the 
 self-denial of kindness and of an enthusiasm of 
 humanity : a self-denial in the faithful and large- 
 hearted discharge of duty. But in religion Do 
 they fast ? No. Do they perform some penance 
 when they have sinned ? No. These traditions 
 have been lost amongst them. But they do one 
 thing they keep Sunday. And this Sunday- 
 keeping has been the salt of self-denial which 
 has preserved the religion of England from 
 rottenness, whilst so much of the Protestantism 
 of Europe has become the empty and effete
 
 Xorfc's H)a. 203 
 
 thing which we know it to be. Sunday-keeping 
 is the one exercise of religious self-denial for the 
 majority of our countrymen. I beseech you, do 
 nothing to rob them of it. 
 
 And let it never be forgotten that the keeping 
 of Sunday is of far higher obligation than the 
 observance of any other festival or Solemn Day. 
 The Lord's Day stands on higher ground than 
 even Christmas Day, or Good Friday, or Ascen- 
 sion Day. These belong to a later age of the 
 Church, but the appropriation of Sunday as the 
 special day on which Christians should meet 
 together for worship received the sanction of 
 our Lord Himself by his appearance to the 
 assembled Church on the Resurrection Day, and 
 on its octave ; it was consecrated by the giving 
 of the Holy Ghost on Whit-sunday : and we 
 have the witness of the apostles and the primitive 
 Church to the continuity of the observance. 
 
 Surely it betrays a want of the sense of pro- 
 portion when a Saint's Day, which is not a 
 Sunday, seems sometimes to be preferred in 
 honour above a Sunday which is not a Saint's 
 Day. 
 
 There is no weekday in the year which appeals 
 so strongly to our religious feeling as Good 
 Friday. But the obligation to observe Good
 
 204 TPdorsbip in tbe Christian Cburcb. 
 
 Friday is certainly less than the obligation to 
 keep Sunday. I doubt the wisdom of press- 
 ing the strict observance of Good Friday as 
 a positive duty upon any except the more 
 devout ; and the really devout will keep the 
 day, not so much of obligation as of devotion. 
 The Three Hours' Meditations were originally 
 introduced for the benefit of those who had 
 reached some depth of spiritual life. But now 
 it has become established, almost as a canon 
 of propriety, that the most careless churchman 
 must be present at least for some portion of the 
 meditations. And in many quarters it is deemed 
 a greater sin to make Good Friday a holiday 
 than to desecrate Sunday. 
 
 It was not always so. The Church has ever 
 felt that the observance of Sunday was binding 
 upon all ; but she has been disposed to establish 
 other holy days as spiritual opportunities for 
 those of habitual leisure, but as times of relaxa- 
 tion for those who were engaged in continuous 
 labour. In my boyhood, in the village where 
 my father was parish priest, the afternoon of 
 Good Friday was always devoted by the labour- 
 ers to the cultivation of their own gardens ; and 
 I venture to say that this was entirely in ac- 
 cordance with the mind of the Church of olden
 
 2 5 
 
 days. It was the ancient custom that the rich 
 should lend their beasts to the poor for the 
 tillage of their land on Good Friday, though 
 on Sunday man and beast alike were to rest. 
 And the Church, in her habitual care for the 
 poor, sanctioned this custom. Thus we find 
 Simon Mepham, who was Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury from 1328 to 1333, issuing a constitution 
 for the observance of Good Friday, but carefully 
 guarding the privileges of the poor. Thus he 
 writes : 
 
 We strictly prohibit that in future anyone should 
 occupy himself with servile work on that day, or 
 should do anything else which is inconsistent with 
 devout celebration. Nevertheless, we do not by this 
 law mean to lay a burden upon the poor, nor put any 
 obstacle in the way of the rich to prevent their 
 affording the customary assistance for charity's sake 
 to help on the tillage of their poorer neighbours. 1 
 
 But if I may give you a rule for the intelligent 
 observance of the Lord's Day, let it be this : that 
 you think of what you must do, rather than of 
 what you must not do. Is it not the char- 
 acteristic contrast of the law and the gospel 
 
 1 Quoted by Father Thurston, S.J., in the "Nineteenth 
 Century," July, 1899.
 
 206 Worsbfp in tbe Gbrfsttan Cburcb. 
 
 that Moses said Thou shalt not, and Christ said 
 Thou shalt ? 
 
 Moses said, " Thou shalt not have other gods, 
 thou shalt not make a graven image, thou shalt 
 not take God's name in vain, thou shalt not do 
 any work on the Sabbath." But Christ fulfils it 
 all in the positive command, " Thou shalt love 
 the Lord thy God with all thy heart." So 
 Moses forbad murder, adultery, theft, slander, 
 and covetousness. But Christ included all these 
 in the precept, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
 as thyself." The Jew was guarded on the right 
 hand and on the left by prohibitions, but the 
 child of God in Jesus Christ is taught that love 
 is the fulfilling of the law. 
 
 And it is interesting to notice that the rules 
 which the Church of England gives her faithful 
 sons for the observance of Sunday are positive 
 in their character. She does not furnish us with 
 a list of things which we must not do, but she 
 sets before us clearly the objects of the Lord's 
 Day, expounding the good purposes for which 
 the day is to be used. We read the mind of 
 the Church in the I3th Canon of 1603, which 
 runs as follows : 
 
 All manner of persons within the Church of Eng- 
 land shall from henceforth celebrate and keep the
 
 Xorfc's H>a#. 207 
 
 Lord's Day, commonly called Sunday, according to 
 God's holy will and pleasure, and the orders of the 
 Church of England prescribed in that behalf; that is, 
 in hearing the Word of God read and taught ; in 
 private and public prayers; in acknowledging their 
 offences to God and amendment of the same; in 
 reconciling themselves charitably to their neighbours 
 where displeasure hath been ; in oftentimes receiving 
 the communion of the body and blood of Christ ; in 
 visiting of the poor and sick; using all godly and 
 sober conversation. 
 
 What a beautiful and blessed day is here 
 described ! a day given up to prayer and praise, 
 to the seeking of spiritual instruction, to the 
 deepening of the spiritual life, to works of 
 charity in the largest sense of the term. How 
 different is such a day from a mere Sabbath of 
 cessation from labour and abstinence from the 
 pleasures of the world. The day of mere rest 
 may be a day of uselessness, a day wasted, a 
 day lost ; but the holy day which the Church 
 calls her children to keep is fraught with high 
 purposes and holy business, a day of blessing to 
 the man who keeps it aright, a day of blessing 
 also to those who are objects of his holy charity. 
 
 Though the canon says nothing of cessation 
 from work, the Church doubtless takes it for 
 granted that this will be. But the work is not
 
 208 Worsbip in tbe Gbrtetian Gburcb. 
 
 to be put aside as if the mere cessation from it 
 were an end in itself. It is to be put aside in 
 order that there may be room for those spiritual 
 occupations which the canon enumerates. 
 
 And amongst these, note first that the Church 
 expects the Sunday to afford time for private 
 devotion as well as for public worship. Her 
 faithful children are to celebrate and keep the 
 Lord's Day " in private and public prayers," and 
 the intention evidently is that opportunity shall 
 be found for something more than the private 
 prayers of every day. The careful Bible study, 
 the reading of books of spiritual instruction, the 
 acts of praise, the meditations which have per- 
 haps been crowded out of the busy life of the 
 week, may well occupy us in the spiritual re- 
 tirement of Sunday. 
 
 Note, secondly, that anything which belongs 
 to our conflict with sin, anything in fact which is 
 to make us better, is a proper occupation for 
 Sunday. The day is to be kept "in acknowledging 
 our offences to God, and in amendment of the 
 same." If we kept this purpose in view, surely 
 the Sunday would not be the vain and empty 
 day that it too often appears to be.
 
 TTbe Xorfc's H>a. 209 
 
 Note, also, that the charitable work of Sunday 
 is to begin with that Divine charity that seeks 
 peace on earth in the reconciliation of those who 
 are estranged. The faithful are to keep the day 
 " in reconciling themselves charitably to their 
 neighbours where displeasure hath been." Go 
 and be an angel of peace among your brethren. 
 Such angel's work is Sunday work indeed. 
 
 But works of charity in regard to the bodily life 
 are not to be overlooked. You observe that the 
 day is to be kept " in visiting of the poor and 
 sick." This, perhaps, is not commonly counted 
 among Sunday duties. How many of us, for 
 example, examining ourselves as to the way in 
 which we have spent a Sunday, would think 
 of asking of our conscience the question, Have 
 I visited the poor and sick? I do not say 
 that the rule is to be literally and narrowly 
 pressed. It may be largely interpreted to include 
 many analogous duties. To gather some poor 
 children together, to teach them, may be much 
 the same thing as to visit them in their homes, 
 and may fulfil the intention of the Church. But 
 at least it should be remembered that the Church 
 enumerates the visiting of the poor and sick 
 amongst the ordinary occupations of a good 
 man's Sunday. 
 
 p
 
 210 Worsbip in tbe Gbrfstian Cburcb. 
 
 It is, perhaps, because such occupations are 
 neglected that it sometimes seems so hard to fill 
 up the hours of the Lord's Day appropriately. 
 We cannot be always in church : we cannot read 
 the Bible all the day. How often is this made 
 the ground of an excuse for some frivolous occu- 
 pation ? But has the Church's bidding been done, 
 in some spiritual and equivalent sense, in visit- 
 ing of the poor and sick ? 
 
 But the climax of the Church's rule is found in 
 the injunction that Sundays and Holy-days are 
 to be kept " in oftentimes receiving the com- 
 munion of the body and blood of Christ." There 
 is not the slightest indication that any obligation 
 is discharged by mere presence at the service. 
 The state of Christian privilege is marked by the 
 " oftentimes receiving." And it was thus that the 
 first day of the week was kept from the beginning. 
 The same adjective was applied to the day itself 
 and to the feast (either to the Eucharist itself or 
 to the feast of charity which accompanied the 
 Eucharist). The one was the Dominical Day, the 
 other the Dominical Supper. And the adjective 
 is used in no other connection in the New Testa- 
 ment. The Lord's Feast is the only recognized 
 keeping of the Lord's Day.
 
 Ube Xorfc's 2>as. 
 
 My brethren, I commend to you the rule of 
 our Mother Church in this matter : the rule 
 which is in harmony with apostolic and primitive 
 practice : the rule which is wiser and better than 
 any rule of private judgment, and comes to us 
 with an authority which no rule of our own de- 
 vising can possess ; the rule that is Christian 
 rather than Mosaic ; a rule positive rather than 
 negative ; a rule of counsels rather than of pro- 
 hibitions. Take it, as in duty bound, to be the 
 guide to your Sunday observance. So shall you 
 be enabled at the last to look back with thank- 
 fulness on the Sundays of your Christian life, 
 and to say concerning them, " I was in the Spirit 
 on the Lord's Day."
 
 XII. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN 
 WORSHIP. 
 
 "Your reasonable service." Rom. xii. i. 
 
 OUR subject is the doctrine of Christian 
 worship. 
 
 Neither you nor I should be willing to devote 
 this sacred hour to the consideration of mere 
 ceremonial. But in recent controversies the im- 
 portance of ceremonial has been accentuated in 
 two respects : 
 
 I. Our ceremonial usage is a witness to the 
 regard which we have for the authority of the 
 Church. 
 
 II. It is an expression of our faith as to the 
 conditions of our approach to God under the 
 covenant of Christian worship. 
 
 I. The first point need scarcely detain us. 
 We show our belief in the English Church as a 
 living branch of the Church Universal by obedi- 
 ence to her rule. If the Church of England in
 
 Ube Doctrine of Cbrtettan Worsbfp. 213 
 
 1 66 1 was no true church, then the Prayer Book 
 has no spiritual authority. Conversely, if the 
 Prayer Book, which was delivered to us with 
 every sanction which the Church as a spiritual 
 body could give, be without authority, it can 
 only be so because the Church was impotent and 
 her living voice was void. The validity of the 
 Prayer Book stands or falls with the validity of 
 our Church's claim to be a living and true 
 branch of the Catholic Church. We may refer 
 to Catholic antiquity to interpret the Prayer 
 Book, but as soon as we set up Catholic pre- 
 cedent (or our private judgment of it) to super- 
 sede or correct the Prayer Book, we are making 
 ourselves to be wiser than our Church, and are 
 implicitly denying her spiritual authority. That 
 be far from us ! Here the Prayer Book is the 
 acknowledged standard. We can neither sym- 
 bolize with those, on the one hand, who have 
 studied the liturgy to so little purpose that they 
 can habitually, but " unintentionally," omit from 
 the Communion Service the scriptural lessons, 
 the epistle and gospel, which from the earliest 
 ages have formed part of the rite, nor with 
 those, on the other hand, who desire (as they 
 say) to enrich our Communion Service, either 
 by the restoration of phrases which the Church
 
 2i4 Morsbip in tbe Gbristian Cburcb. 
 
 in her spiritual wisdom rejected, or by the intro- 
 duction of modern features from foreign rites. 
 
 I have said enough on this point. Let us 
 rather give our attention to the doctrine of wor- 
 ship, as it is expressed by the ceremonial of the 
 Church. 
 
 II. The present controversies as to ceremonial 
 are substantially controversies as to the doctrine 
 of Christian worship, especially in regard to that 
 intensest form of Christian worship which is 
 offered in Holy Communion. 
 
 On this subject there appears to exist much 
 confusion of thought, even amongst churchmen 
 who suppose that they hold the Catholic doc- 
 trine of the Real Presence. 
 
 I do not think it would be profitable for us to 
 discuss the views of those who deny the sacri- 
 ficial aspect of the Holy Eucharist ; who deny 
 that we are pleading the one sacrifice of the 
 Cross in retrospect, as truly as the Jews of old 
 in their sacrifices pleaded it in prospect ; who 
 assert that the showing of the Lord's death till 
 He come, means that we show it one to another ; 
 who deny that we present it to God, putting 
 Him in remembrance thereof, and thus making
 
 TTbe SJoctrine of Gbrfstian Morsbip. 215 
 
 the Lord's death our plea ; who declare that 
 the whole benefit of Communion is subjective, 
 that if it cause us to think of Christ as the 
 Saviour, and encourage us to meditate upon the 
 supreme efficacy of his death, it has done all 
 that it can do for us, and everything that it was 
 ordained to do. 
 
 I leave these views aside. I am speaking to 
 those who believe that our Lord is present in 
 the Holy Eucharist, in some sense in which He 
 cannot be said to be present at our other services. 
 But amongst those who hold this position there 
 is a serious divergence of opinion as to what this 
 real presence implies, a divergence of opinion 
 which necessarily leads to a very great diversity 
 of practice in Christian worship. 
 
 Many arguments which are commonly pro- 
 pounded on the subject of Eucharistic worship, 
 fall to the ground at once when it is remembered 
 that the question is not what is there present in 
 the Holy Eucharist ? but what is there present 
 in the Holy Eucharist which is absent at other 
 times ? It is not : In what sense is Christ pre- 
 sent in Holy Communion ? but, In what sense 
 is He present in Holy Communion exclusively ? 
 that is, In what sense is He absent at mattins
 
 2i6 Woi'sbip In tbe Gbrtstian Cburcb. 
 
 and evensong, but present when the Holy Sacra- 
 ment is on the altar ? It is, therefore, perfectly 
 futile to suppose that all difficulties are disposed 
 of at once by the syllogism : 
 
 Where Christ is present there He is to be wor- 
 shipped. 
 
 Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament. 
 
 Therefore He is to be worshipped in the Blessed 
 Sacrament. 
 
 For we are immediately confronted by another 
 syllogism : 
 
 Where Christ is present there He is to be wor- 
 shipped. 
 
 Christ is present everywhere. 
 
 Therefore He is to be worshipped everywhere. 
 
 A distinction may indeed be drawn in the 
 terms of a catechism, issued by a society of 
 English clergy, wherein we find the question and 
 answer : 
 
 Q. Where is our Lord Jesus Christ ? 
 
 A. Our Lord Jesus Christ as God is everywhere ; 
 as God and Man He is in heaven and in the Blessed 
 Sacrament of the altar. 
 
 But this distinction will not help those who 
 maintain that the Sacramental Presence con-
 
 Doctrine of Cbristian Morsbip. 217 
 
 stitutes a special object of worship, for it is an 
 axiom of the Christian Faith that worship is to 
 be addressed to Christ as God. We may claim 
 his intercession as God and man, but the Sacred 
 Humanity can add nothing to the Divinity as an 
 object of that worship which is due to God only. 
 
 All are agreed that Christ is to be worshipped 
 in the Blessed Sacrament, as He is to be wor- 
 shipped wherever He is present. All are agreed 
 also that the receiving of Holy Communion is 
 an act of worship which is impossible where the 
 Sacrament is not. But we ask, what authority 
 is there for the allegation that (apart from Com- 
 munion) our Lord is to be worshipped in the 
 Blessed Sacrament, more or more acceptably 
 than wherever else two or three are gathered 
 together in his Name, and He is there in the 
 midst of them ? This question can only be 
 answered by reference to our Lord's institution ; 
 for the second commandment is in its spirit for 
 all time the rule of worship ; and its spiritual 
 import is this, that we must worship God, not 
 according to man's device, but in the way of 
 God's appointment. 
 
 For myself, when I am asked for a definition
 
 218 Morsbip in tbe Cbrfstian Gburcb. 
 
 of the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, distin- 
 guishing that presence from his presence at other 
 times where two or three are gathered together 
 in his Name, I am content to say that Christ is 
 present in the Holy Eucharist in the mode in 
 which He is pleased to impart Himself to us for 
 the strengthening and refreshing of our souls, 
 and under the conditions which admit of our per- 
 formance of the most intense action of Christian 
 worship. Or (which is the same thing) we may 
 say that Christ is present in the Sacrament in 
 the mode in which He is pleased to give us to 
 eat his flesh and to drink his blood, that we may 
 show his Death till He come. 
 
 At other times He may be present in the mode 
 in which He is to be worshipped, as at mattins, at 
 evensong, in the prayer meeting, in family prayer, 
 in the innermost chamber of private devotion ; 
 but on these occasions He is not present in the 
 mode in which He is pleased to give us his flesh 
 to eat, his blood to drink, nor have we oppor- 
 tunity of offering the most sacred pledge of our 
 allegiance to Him. 
 
 On these definitions, as far as they go, we 
 shall all be agreed. But you will observe that 
 they concern the communicant alone. If the 
 Sacrament is of any concern to the person who is
 
 Doctrine of Cbristfan Worsbip. 219 
 
 not receiving it, some further explanation is 
 necessary. Is it then true to say that for those 
 who are not receiving the Sacrament there is in 
 the Sacrament an object of worship which is 
 absent at other times? Is it true to say that 
 Christ is present then, and not at other times, in 
 the mode in which our worship is most accept- 
 able? 
 
 Now it must be admitted that if the Real 
 Presence constitutes an object of worship which 
 is absent when the Sacrament is not before us, 
 we ought to have the Sacrament reserved at all 
 times in our churches. Or if our worship is more 
 acceptable to our Lord when offered before the 
 Sacrament, why should we ever be without the 
 Sacrament ? On such an hypothesis, the Church 
 that gave up Reservation would be placing her 
 devout children at an intolerable disadvantage, 
 and would be defrauding our Lord of his due 
 honour. On such an hypothesis, to make Re- 
 servation dependent upon the accident of the 
 Sacrament being required for the sick would be 
 an outrage upon the glory of the Lord making 
 his honour in his Church to be contingent upon 
 the need or convenience of his servants. On 
 such an hypothesis, the Church of England is
 
 220 Morsbtp in tbe Cbristian Gburcb. 
 
 altogether out of court, and her position indefens- 
 ible. Her doom is in that case sealed ; for who 
 could remain in allegiance to a Church that 
 robbed Christ of his glory and man of his ap- 
 pointed means of access to God ? 
 
 But what ground is there for the supposition 
 that the Sacrament on the altar constitutes an 
 object of worship which is absent at other times, 
 or that the presence of Christ in the mode in 
 which He gives us his flesh to eat and his blood 
 to drink, accords a special efficacy to the prayers 
 of those who are not eating his flesh and drinking 
 his blood ? There is certainly no ground what- 
 ever in Holy Scripture ; and it is very dangerous 
 to say that one mode of worship is more accept- 
 able to God than another, unless we have divine 
 warrant for the distinction. Moreover, the pre- 
 cedents which have been cited from the practice 
 of the early Church in favour of Reservation are 
 altogether adverse to the idea that the Sacrament 
 should be reserved for worship. It is quite 
 certain that early in the second century all the 
 faithful who could be present communicated 
 every Lord's Day, and the Sacrament was taken 
 away to those who by sickness or any other 
 cause were hindered from attending : but there
 
 Ube Doctrine of Cbristian Worsbip. 221 
 
 is not a hint of the reservation for the purpose of 
 worship. Later in the same century portions of 
 the Sacrament were carried away and kept in 
 caskets or worn about the person as a charm, 
 until the Church found it necessary to enact 
 canons to restrain this superstitious misuse of 
 that which had been ordained for a different 
 purpose. But the very fact that for many years 
 such an abuse was allowed is incompatible with 
 the hypothesis that the consecrated elements 
 were thought of as constituting a new object of 
 worship. The very fact that a devout woman 
 could keep the Sacrament in her house and par- 
 take of it in family life before all food points not 
 to an exaggerated idea of the Real Presence, 
 but the reverse. 
 
 But, sirs, neither you nor I accept the hypo- 
 thesis of which we speak. We do not believe 
 that the Christ whom we worship has been 
 absent from the service in which we have been 
 joining. 1 He has been absent, indeed, in the 
 mode in which He gives us his flesh to eat and 
 his blood to drink. We shall in the next hour 
 call Him to be present in that most sacred mode. 
 
 1 This sermon was preached at the conclusion of 
 Mattins, when a celebration of the Holy Eucharist was to 
 follow.
 
 222 Morsbip in tbe Cbrfstian Gburcb. 
 
 But during mattins He has not been absent in the 
 mode in which He is pleased that we should 
 draw near to the Father through Him, nor 
 absent in the mode in which his own Very Deity 
 is the object of our worship. We do not believe 
 that the promise, " Where two or three are 
 gathered together in my Name there am I in 
 the midst," is fulfilled only when the Sacrament 
 is on the altar. We do not believe that the 
 worship in which we have been engaged would 
 have been more acceptable to Him, or that the 
 prayers which we have offered would have been 
 more efficacious, if in the sanctuary yonder there 
 had been a tabernacle in which the Blessed 
 Sacrament were reserved. We do not believe 
 that the celebration of Holy Communion which 
 presently follows unless we are going therein 
 to eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his 
 blood will constitute for us a higher act of 
 worship or a more acceptable approach to God, 
 or an action of greater honour to our Lord, or 
 an occasion of more efficacious prayer, than that 
 in which we have already joined. 
 
 Ought we, then, to discourage the presence at 
 the holy mysteries of those who are not receiving 
 the Holy Sacrament? Certainly not, provided
 
 Ube Doctrine of Gbristfan Morsbip. 223 
 
 that they are coming in a right spirit, and with 
 no superstitious intention. It is true that the 
 Church in the early ages forbad the presence of 
 those who were not receiving, but at a later epoch 
 this rule was relaxed. We may accept the 
 liberty which the Church of later ages accorded 
 to her children, the more so as there is a special 
 significance, a testimony of faith and devotion in 
 attendance at the celebration, even without 
 communion. 
 
 But if we found people attending the celebra- 
 tion with the idea that they would find therein 
 an object of worship absent from the other 
 services, then we should act in the spirit of 
 Hezekiah who destroyed the Brazen Serpent 
 which Moses had made, and called it Nehustan 
 because the children of Israel had begun to burn 
 incense to it. For to find in the consecrated 
 elements an object of worship which is absent 
 elsewhere is the grossest violation of the second 
 commandment. It is the worshipping of God 
 not in the way that he has ordained, but in a 
 way of man's devising. If we thought that our 
 people could be guilty of such idolatry it would 
 be our duty to discourage by all legal means 
 their presence as non-communicants at the 
 celebration of the mysteries.
 
 224 Morsbtp in tbe Cbrtettan Cburcb. 
 
 There is, however (as we have said), the right 
 spirit and the right intention with which the 
 faithful may participate in the worship which we 
 offer in the Eucharist, though they be not at the 
 time partakers of the sacrificial feast. And they 
 must be encouraged to come with a special de- 
 votion which is not drawn out in the same way 
 in any other service. It is not devotion to an 
 object otherwise absent, but it is devotion to 
 that aspect of our Lord's work which the Blessed 
 Sacrament expresses, it is devotion to our Lord 
 as giving Himself for the life of the world, im- 
 parting Himself to us, making his body to be 
 the bread of life, and his blood the saving of our 
 souls. 
 
 And here we may note the reason of that dis- 
 tinction of personal ritual which is customary in 
 presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Again I 
 say it does not imply that there is something 
 now to be adored which at other times is absent, 
 but the faithful bow the knee in deeper rever- 
 ence in devotion to that great love of Christ of 
 which the Sacrament is witness just as at other 
 times they bow at the name of the Lord Jesus 
 in devout remembrance of the Incarnation. 
 
 The normal purpose of Christ's institution of 
 the Blessed Sacrament is that men should re-
 
 TTbe Doctrine of Gbristian Worsbip. 225 
 
 ceive it ; and a system under which communion 
 becomes the exception, and non-communicating 
 attendance the rule, is a manifest violation of 
 our Lord's intention, and of the practice of the 
 primitive Church. But if you habitually receive 
 the Blessed Sacrament, and yet desire to be 
 present on some occasion on which you do not 
 receive it, the Church of the later centuries 
 allows it, and you may make it an act of the 
 sweetest devotion. Only remember what it 
 means : it must be a witness to the deep devo- 
 tion of your heart to all that the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment expresses. 
 
 But it is difficult to understand how one who 
 habitually neglects Communion, can profess any 
 particular devotion to the Sacrament or to that 
 aspect of our Lord's work for us which the 
 Blessed Sacrament presents. If a man is unfit 
 for Communion because he will not take the 
 trouble to prepare for it because he shrinks 
 from self-examination and penitence because 
 he counts the surrender of sin a greater sacrifice 
 than he is willing to make, and yet ventures to 
 kneel among the faithful at the celebration of 
 the Eucharist, professing amongst God's people 
 a reverence and devotion for the Sacrament 
 which he uses not, surely such an one feedeth 
 
 Q
 
 226 Morsbip in tbe Gbrfstian Cburcb* 
 
 on ashes : a deceived heart hath turned him 
 aside that he cannot deliver his soul nor say, 
 " Is there not a lie in my right hand ? " 
 
 There is one mistake upon this subject which 
 I find to be widely prevalent. It is supposed 
 that the Church enjoins her children to be pre- 
 sent at the Holy Eucharist on every Sunday 
 and holy day, whether they communicate or not. 
 The Church of England knows no such rule. 
 Non-communicating attendance may be per- 
 mitted, but it is nowhere enjoined. The Church 
 of England in the Prayer Book calls her lay 
 people as well as her clergy to the Divine Office 
 of mattins and evensong, and she exhorts them 
 to frequent and regular Communion. 
 
 The Roman Church instructs her faithful to 
 hear mass on Sundays and holy days of obliga- 
 tion ; and this rule probably prevailed in the 
 unreformed Church of England. There was, in 
 fact, no other public service in which the laity 
 could discharge the obligation of public worship 
 in the church. But it was, I think, one of the 
 happiest changes made at the Reformation that 
 the Divine Office of the Hours was translated 
 into a form convenient for laity as well as clergy, 
 and the priest was directed to ring a bell before
 
 ZTbe Boctrine of Cbristian Worsbip. 227 
 
 his daily mattins and evensong, that the people 
 might come and hear God's word and pray with 
 him. There is the mind of the Church of 
 England plainly set forth as to the services in 
 which she calls you to join. 
 
 And I need not remind you how urgent is her 
 call to Communion. " Consider," she says, " how 
 great injury ye do unto God, and how sore 
 punishment hangeth over your heads for neglect, 
 when ye wilfully abstain from the Lord's table 
 and separate from your brethren who come to 
 feed on the banquet of that most heavenly food." 
 You remember how she bids the minister plead 
 with the people : " According to mine office I 
 bid you in the name of God, I call you on 
 Christ's behalf, I exhort you as ye love your 
 own salvation, that ye will be partakers of this 
 Holy Communion." 
 
 The doctrine of Christian worship is therefore 
 briefly this : we worship God whether we ad- 
 dress our prayers to the Person of the Father in 
 the name of the Son, or whether we address 
 them to the Person of the Son in that divinity 
 in which He is with the Father and the Holy 
 Ghost one God omniscient and omnipresent. 
 The object of our worship cannot be localized
 
 228 Worsbip in tbe Gbrfsttan Cburcb. 
 
 in the Eucharistic elements nor limited by any 
 conditions of space. In the mode in which He 
 gives Himself to feed our souls, our Lord is 
 present in the Holy Eucharist and absent else- 
 where. But in the mode in which He presents 
 Himself as the object of our worship, He is 
 never absent from the assembly of the faithful. 
 But though He is always present, and cannot 
 be more or less present as the object of our 
 worship, our worship may be more or less 
 acceptable before his throne according to the 
 degree in which it corresponds to his intention 
 and to the terms of his covenant of prayer. 
 Our highest act of worship is, therefore, that 
 which He Himself instituted, that pledge of 
 devout allegiance to his service which we take 
 when we receive the Blessed Sacrament of his 
 Body and Blood. In the Holy Eucharist the 
 Church offers the most solemn act of worship, 
 and as devout worshippers we join individually 
 in the offering ; but as Christ has ordained the 
 way by which we are to participate in the Holy 
 Eucharist (viz., by receiving the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment), we cannot be said to join in the Eucharistic 
 worship in any other way. The man who thinks 
 to join in the Eucharistic sacrifice without receiv- 
 ing the Sacrament, is precisely in the same posi-
 
 Boctrine of Cbristian Morsbip. 229 
 
 tion as the man who claims to be a member of 
 the Church because he believes in Christ, without 
 being baptized. Baptism is the appointed way 
 by which we become members of the mystical 
 body of Christ, and the receiving of Holy Com- 
 munion is the appointed way by which we 
 participate in the Eucharistic oblation. But our 
 presence at a baptism may be an act of devout 
 remembrance of our membership in Christ, and 
 our presence at the Holy Eucharist may be an 
 act of intense devotion to the atoning work of 
 Christ which is therein signified. But as it is, 
 after all, an act only of private judgment and 
 personal devotion, let us be careful first to fulfil 
 the behests of the Church, who calls us to the 
 daily offices of prayer and praise, and to frequent 
 Communion. 
 
 Worship is the spontaneous expression of 
 faith, and without faith worship is impossible. 
 Worship is an act of confession and submission : 
 it is an act of obedience and self-surrender : it is 
 an act of love and devotion : it is an act of 
 reverence and godly fear : it is an act of thanks- 
 giving and of praise. 
 
 Sometimes the worshipper is occupied with 
 his own needs he cries to God for help and
 
 230 Morsbfp in tbe Cbristian Cburcb. 
 
 deliverance, for gifts of life temporal or spiritual. 
 But even his cry is the evidence of faith in the 
 power of God to grant him the blessing that he 
 craves ; and his petition is always offered with 
 the reservation of the divine will. He lays the 
 wants before his God, but he adds, " Nevertheless, 
 not as I will, but as Thou wilt." 
 
 Happier is he in his worship when he prays, 
 not for himself, but for others, and pleads the 
 Name of Christ for his fellow members in the 
 Body of Christ, or for his brethren in the 
 common humanity for which Christ died. 
 
 Happier, when he passes from petition to 
 thanksgiving, recognizing the hand of God in 
 the dispensations of providence and grace, and 
 acknowledging the wisdom and the love of the 
 heavenly Father therein. 
 
 Happiest of all, when, his worship culminates 
 in praise. Self and self-interest are forgotten. 
 He is no longer thanking God for what He does, 
 but he is praising God for what He is. He 
 bows his head in awful reverence,' and cries : 
 " Holy : Holy : Holy : Lord God of Hosts : the 
 fulness of the earth is thy glory." 
 
 But he worships not alone : he worships in the 
 company of the saints, in the Body of Christ. 
 His confession, his petition, his intercession, his
 
 Doctrine of Gbrtstian Worsbip* 231 
 
 thanksgiving, his praise, all are offered in the 
 fellowship of the Church and in the Name of 
 Jesus Christ ; all are included in the Church's 
 great action of worship, in the celebration of 
 the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 But one last word. Our worship, however it 
 be offered, is altogether vain unless it express 
 the offering of ourselves. It must register the fact 
 of our devotion in living sacrifice to God. " I 
 beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies 
 of God, that ye present your bodies a living 
 sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is 
 your reasonable service." 
 
 NOTE 
 
 ON THE MlND OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AS TO 
 "HEARING MASS." 
 
 The following passages from an address delivered at 
 Sion College are added here as further elucidating 
 the position maintained in the sermon. 
 
 THESIS. "That in the mind of the Church of Eng- 
 land those who are not receiving Holy Communion 
 on the Lord's Day, should rather ' assist at Mattins ' 
 than ' hear Mass.' " 
 
 There is no question as to the ideal of worship set 
 before the devout Christian by Holy Church. The
 
 232 Worsbip in tbe Cbrtetian Gburcb. 
 
 Liturgy and the Divine Office are for him. He is 
 called to both. He will receive his communion and, 
 if it may be, he will join in Mattins and Evensong. 
 
 But the Church has to care for many who fall far 
 short of the ideal. In primitive times all who were 
 present at the celebration of Holy Communion in- 
 variably communicated, and the Sacrament was car- 
 ried to those who were unavoidably absent. No one 
 was thought to keep the Lord's Day except he par- 
 took of the Lord's Table. 
 
 But as the centuries advanced and love grew cold, 
 many were found to claim a place in the fold of 
 Christ, though they had not the devotion to fit them 
 to receive the Sacrament Sunday by Sunday. The 
 best thing that can be said for them is that they had 
 faith to prevent them coming unworthily. As early 
 as the fourth century we find Communion neglected, 
 but those who did not receive went out with the 
 Catechumens or else came not to the Celebration at 
 all. They were condemned for such neglect of duty. 
 Thus in the apostolic constitutions we find the enact- 
 ment "all such of the faithful as come to Church 
 and hear the Scriptures read, but stay not for the 
 Prayers and to partake of the Holy Communion, 
 ought to be suspended as authors of disorder in the 
 Church." And St Chrysostom complains: "I often 
 observe a great multitude flock together to hear the 
 sermon, but when the time of the Holy Mysteries 
 comes I can see few or none of them." 
 
 But a few centuries later we find another practice 
 prevailing. Persons would come to the Celebration
 
 TIbe Doctrine of Cbristian Morsbip, 233 
 
 of the Holy Mysteries but draw not nigh to receive 
 the Sacrament. 
 
 In the ninth century the Church strenuously en- 
 deavoured to put a stop to this, and published, among 
 the forged decretals, what purported to be a decree of 
 Anacletus, ordering all present to communicate on 
 pain of excommunication. It was, however, found 
 impossible to check a custom which accorded well 
 with the laxity of the times, and at length the Church 
 yielded to the exigency of the situation, and reluct- 
 antly sanctioned a practice which it was powerless to 
 resist. 
 
 From this time Communion appears to have be- 
 come rapidly rarer and more rare, until at length the 
 receiving of the Body and Blood of Christ by the 
 laity was altogether divorced from the Eucharistic 
 service. St Paul had said : " As often as ye eat this 
 Bread and drink this Cup ye do show the Lord's 
 death till He come." But men thought that they 
 could show the Lord's death without eating the Bread 
 and drinking the Cup, by simple assistance at the 
 service. It was enough, they thought, if once a year 
 they made their confession and were privately Com- 
 municated with the reserved Sacrament. So the 
 Sarum Missal, in use in England until the Reforma- 
 tion, makes no provision whatever for the Communion 
 of the people. 
 
 The first care of the Reformers was to make the 
 Communion of the people an integral part of the 
 service, and so to re-unite the two actions of Worship 
 and Communion which Christ had joined together
 
 234 Morsbfp in tbe Gbrfstian Gburcb, 
 
 but man had put asunder. To emphasize the more 
 clearly the close connection between " Do this " and 
 "Take, eat," the Church of England still ordains that 
 there shall be no celebration unless there be three at 
 the least to communicate with the priest. 
 
 And the Reformers seem to have fondly hoped at 
 the first that all would be at least occasional com- 
 municants. For example, it was ordered in 1549 that 
 at a wedding the bride and bridegroom the same day 
 of their marriage must receive the Holy Communion, 
 and not until 1661 was this softened by the phrase, 
 "it is convenient." 
 
 But the Reformers were never so infatuated as to 
 hope that all would become regular communicants. 
 It was recognized in 1549 that many would communi- 
 cate only once a year, a minimum qualification which 
 was increased in 1552 to three times in a year. 
 
 What, then, was the intention of the Church what 
 is still the mind of the Church with regard to those 
 who, on any given Sunday, are not communicating ? 
 
 If the Church intends that they should go out after 
 the sermon with the unbaptized and excommunicate, 
 she is certainly following Catholic precedent. For 
 those who declare themselves unfit for Communion, 
 are, in fact, at the tribunal of their own conscience, 
 excommunicate. This is, in very truth, the form of 
 excommunication on which our English Church re- 
 lies. She does not hastily hale her children before 
 an ecclesiastical judge, but she teaches them, in those 
 valuable exhortations, which have no parallel in any
 
 Doctrine of Cbristian Morsbfp. 235 
 
 other Liturgy, what is fitness for Communion, and 
 what constitutes unfitness : and she calls them to 
 judgment before the Holy Ghost in the tribunal of 
 the heart. 
 
 It must, however, be admitted that the Church of 
 England has never revoked the liberty accorded to 
 the devout non-communicant in the ninth century of 
 being present while the Holy Mysteries are celebrated. 
 And it is quite clear that there is much in the Liturgy 
 in which a devout churchman can join, though he be 
 not on that particular occasion receiving the Sacra- 
 ment or showing the Lord's death till He come. It 
 may be admitted further that the associations con- 
 nected with the most solemn rite of our Holy Reli- 
 gion may constitute a special help to devotion, to 
 those who are joining in the service though not com- 
 municating. If this is what is meant by non-com- 
 municating attendance, not a word is to be said 
 against it. 
 
 But something else is meant by those who assert 
 that it is the duty of every churchman every Sunday 
 to "hear Mass." (This is the technical phrase which 
 connotes what I think is a totally erroneous view of 
 the Eucharistic Sacrifice.) 
 
 I. I maintain that there is not the slightest warrant 
 for the assertion that in default of Communion the 
 Church expects, or calls, or advises her children to 
 hear Mass. I have already quoted the rubric of the 
 bell which secures for every churchman the privilege 
 of joining in the Divine Office : but there is no similar 
 rubric in regard to the Liturgy. A far-fetched argu-
 
 236 Morsbfp in tbe Cbristfan Gburcb. 
 
 ment is sometimes deduced from the direction that 
 the baptized child is to hear sermons, and it is said 
 that the only sermon ordered by the Church occurs 
 in the Communion Service. But this argument falls 
 to the ground in view of the Catholic custom con- 
 tinuously followed in the Church of England from the 
 Reformation if not before, that the uninitiated should 
 withdraw after the sermon. 
 
 II. I deny that in hearing Mass the faithful are, as 
 is alleged, showing the Lord's death. In the early 
 centuries those penitents who were admitted on suffer- 
 ance as consistentes were told that they could neither 
 communicate nor join in offering the Oblation, the 
 two must go together. We cannot get behind St 
 Paul's rule that we show the Lord's death by eating 
 the Bread and drinking the Cup. 
 
 III. I deny that there is in the Holy Eucharist for 
 non-communicants an object of worship which is not 
 to be found in the other services of the Church. The 
 object of worship is Christ as God. Not the Body 
 and Blood of Christ, but the Eternal Son of God who 
 is present with us always, under the conditions in 
 which he is to be worshipped : but present in the 
 Sacrament, in the mode in which he communicates 
 Himself to the faithful, for the strengthening and re- 
 freshing, yea, for the very life of their souls. 
 
 Certainly the Reformers did not contemplate that a 
 mixed congregation, some communicating and others 
 not communicating, should be kneeling together. In 
 1548, when the priest had given the warning, "lest
 
 ZTbe Doctrine of Cbrfsttan Morsbip. 237 
 
 the devil enter into him as he did into Judas," he 
 was to " pause awhile to see if any man will withdraw 
 himself." In 1549 the communicants were to tarry 
 in the choir, the others, if they did not leave the 
 Church, retiring at least to the nave which, in those 
 days, was treated in many respects as a public place 
 of common resort. 
 
 On these grounds I submit to you the thesis that it 
 is the mind of the Church of England that those who 
 are not communicating on the Lord's Day should 
 rather "assist at Mattins " than "hear Mass." 
 
 There never has been a time in the history of the 
 Church when churchmen have joined in public worship 
 so little as they do at present. Throughout the eigh- 
 teenth century we were a worshipping people. When 
 St Anne's, Soho, was first built, daily prayers were said 
 at six a.m. and six p.m. But in a few years it was 
 found necessary to double these services, and during 
 the whole of the eighteenth century Mattins at six and 
 ten, Evensong at four and six, appear to have been 
 well attended. But a precedent for these four services 
 had been afforded in the previous century by Bishop 
 Patrick, who, as rector of St Paul's, Covent Garden, 
 established double Mattins and Evensong daily in that 
 church. In a letter of Bishop Beveridge it is casually 
 remarked that many Londoners were as constant at 
 their public devotions daily as in their private busi- 
 ness. Sir Walter Besant tells us that in 1750 there
 
 238 Morsbip in tbe Gbristian Gburcb. 
 
 were daily services in forty-four of the churches 
 within the city limits. The volume entitled " Pietas 
 Londinensis " ran through many editions. It was a 
 guide to devout Londoners, showing them that at 
 every hour of the day from early morning till evening 
 the Divine Office was being said somewhere in London. 
 The first literary effort of the late Upton Richards as 
 a young man was to re-edit this volume ; but by this 
 time the practice of daily worship was falling away. 
 Yet as late as the year 1815 a guide to Tunbridge 
 Wells, describing the mode in which the fashionable 
 company spent the day, says : " After breakfast it is 
 customary to attend Morning Service in the chapel. 
 . . . Prayers over, the music re-commences." How 
 differently would a present-day description read ! By 
 the middle of the present century daily services had 
 become quite exceptional. In 1848 a writer mentions 
 the Temple Church, Westminster Abbey, St Mark's, 
 Chelsea, Margaret Chapel, and Christ Church, Albany 
 Street, as the churches known to him where this privi- 
 lege could be found. 
 
 There is no doubt that this lamentable declension 
 was largely due to the fact that under the evangelical 
 revival public worship was judged not as an act of 
 homage to God, but as a means of personal edifica- 
 tion. And personal edification might be as well pur- 
 sued in private. 
 
 But the Catholic Revival restored a truer concep- 
 tion, and we read of the peer of the realm and the 
 literary man and the employee in the millinery estab-
 
 Ube HJoctrine ot Cbristtan IKHorsbip, 239 
 
 lishment, travelling in an early morning in 1848 to 
 begin their day with Mattins at Christ Church, Albany 
 Street. The noble laymen who gave their strength to 
 the Oxford Movement, showed in their daily practice 
 their high conception of duty in regard to the Divine 
 Office. 
 
 But now, alas, all is changed. The old Tractarians 
 have been succeeded by a new generation in whose 
 eyes Mattins and Evensong are of little account. 
 
 Happy, indeed, now as ever, are those who live in 
 communion with God and fulfil the ideal of Christian 
 Worship : who keep the Lord's Day by participation 
 in the Lord's service ; habitually pleading the virtue 
 of the One Sacrifice, Oblation and Satisfaction for 
 their sins; eating the flesh of the Son of Man and 
 drinking his blood ; showing the Lord's death till He 
 come. 
 
 But alas for the multitudes who reach not this 
 ideal. The Lord's Day comes round, and they are 
 unready for communion. In their conscience they 
 judge themselves unfit to take part in the offering of 
 the great Oblation. Is there no lesser act of worship 
 in which they may join, by which they may be led on 
 and prepared for the greater ? Are there no con- 
 fessions and prayers in which they may unite with the 
 Church ? Is there nothing for them in the manifold 
 experiences of the psalms ? May they not be helped 
 by lessons and by sermons ? Alas for them ! Grace 
 only is to be found in hearing Mass ! And if
 
 240 Morsbip In tbe Christian Gburcb, 
 
 in their inward consciousness men feel that this 
 strange and barren assistance at the Holy Mysteries 
 is not for them, then there is nothing for them ! Let 
 them stay at home ! The recital of the Psalter is ob- 
 solete ! The Divine Office is of no account ! 
 
 Thus are the most precious fruits of the Reforma- 
 tion ruthlessly cast away. 
 
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