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SACERDOTALISM 
 
PUBLISHERS' NOTE 
 
 In consequence of this Volume having been originally issued 
 in four Parts and expanded by the Author during revision , 
 it will be found that in a feiu cases the numbering of the pages 
 has been repeated. 
 
SACERDOTALISM 
 
 IF RIGHTLY UNDERSTOOD, THE TEACHING 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 BEING 
 
 FOUR LETTERS 
 
 Originally Addressed, by Permission, to 
 
 THE LATE VERY REV. WILLIAM J. BUTLER, D.D. 
 
 DEAN OF LINCOLN 
 
 W. J. KNOX LITTLE, M.A. 
 
 CANON RESIDENTIARY OF WORCESTER AND VICAR OF HOAR CROSS 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST 16th STREET 
 1894 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
10AN STACK 
 
#" V%^ » "W * 
 
 MfilN 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The occasion of the following volume was, as will be 
 seen by the reader, a passing controversy. To the 
 utmost of my power, whatever might appear in any 
 degree personal has been now suppressed. At the best 
 of times, I cannot but feel that controversy is a doubtful 
 blessing ; and it is sorrowful and painful if — even when 
 it is pressed upon one as a duty — any expression un- 
 necessarily pungent or angry should find, anyhow, a more 
 or less permanent place in words written in defence of 
 the Truth. 
 
 The cause of the controversy, however, lies much 
 deeper than the circumstances of a passing discussion 
 seem at first sight to imply. And this it is which seems 
 to me to justify such a volume as this. 
 
 The Anglican Communion has ever professed, and 
 professes now, to be a true part of the Catholic Church. 
 She believes herself to oe that part of the Society 
 founded by Jesus Christ, and having its birthday at 
 Pentecost, which by the providence of God is appointed 
 to minister in this land. 
 
 According to her view, which is supported by history, 
 serious quarrels have occurred in the family of God, 
 and among them that special quarrel which is known 
 by the name of " the Reformation." At that time the 
 Anglican Church insisted with determination, as she 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 had often insisted before, that the great Patriarchs of 
 the West — the Popes, as we are in the habit of calling 
 them — had in several matters departed from Catholic 
 tradition, and arrogated to themselves excessive powers. 
 This departure from the Apostolic constitution of the 
 Church she refused any longer to endorse. A quarrel 
 was forced upon her in consequence. Doubtless there 
 were faults on both sides ; but the Anglican Church 
 faithfully maintained that, while asserting her right to 
 reform abuses, and to translate and rearrange her Office- 
 books, she did not desire to separate from the rest of 
 Western Christendom. 
 
 The separation, however, came ; chiefly from political 
 animosities, and the overweening assumptions of the 
 then reigning Pontiff. 
 
 Since then, unhappily, the chasm has widened. On 
 the one hand, the Latin remnant of the Catholic Church, 
 which still held France and Spain and Italy, made in- 
 creasing claims as to the powers of the Popedom, and 
 placed an increasing strain on faith by insisting upon 
 permissible opinions being treated as matters of faith, 
 until matters culminated in our own days in the un- 
 happy Vatican Decree. On the other hand, the sense of 
 independence, desire for liberty, a deep feeling of the 
 soul's relation to God, unbalanced by a sufficient sense 
 of its relation to the Body of the Church — which is 
 the Body of Christ — led many into positive schism, and 
 dangerous repudiation of the Divine organization of the 
 Church and of many revealed doctrines of the Faith. 
 And so the quarrel with Rome laid the Anglican part 
 of the Catholic Church open to the danger of succumb- 
 ing to extreme and dangerous influences from the party 
 of revolt. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 vn 
 
 By the mercy of God she stood firm. She remained 
 faithful to her Catholic heritage, and merely rejected 
 more modern accretions which clung to the Latin part 
 of Christendom. 
 
 Naturally she had a deeper sympathy than the 
 Roman Church could have with the party of revolt. 
 She gained much by withstanding usurpations on the 
 one hand; she was in danger of losing something by 
 sympathy with a true effort — running wild — on the 
 other. 
 
 The 'consequences have been what might be expected. 
 Those within her whose sympathies were deepest for 
 the revolt against Roman usurpation, have ever tended 
 to go too far, and — while resisting all that is merely 
 Roman — have been inclined to lose sight of what is, not 
 Roman at all, but truly Catholic. 
 
 Against these — while sympathizing with what is 
 true in their contention — she has steadily in all her 
 authorized utterances set her face ; whilst against Rome 
 she has faithfully protested whenever Rome departed 
 from Catholic tradition. The result has been that a 
 party within her have striven, with varying success, to 
 drive her from her Catholic moorings. They have never 
 succeeded in inducing her to abandon the Faith and 
 practice of Catholic Christendom by any overt act, but 
 they have succeeded from time to time in obscuring her 
 witness to the Truth, by introducing teachings and 
 traditions into the minds of many of her children, which 
 have lowered her practical efficiency, and which, if not 
 silencing, have at least rendered, to some extent, in- 
 operative, her proclamation of the Catholic Faith. 
 
 So far has this Puritan effort prevailed, that again 
 and again it has succeeded in making her children look 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 upon their Catholic heritage as something alien and 
 belonging to Rome. 
 
 The binding formularies of the Church, however, 
 have stood against all attacks. The sorrowful thing has 
 been that often, within her frontiers, there have been, not 
 only lay people, but actually some of her commissioned 
 servants, her priests, and even her bishops, who have 
 been more faithful to this invading Protestant tradition 
 than to her distinct statements of Catholic truth. The 
 consequences have been grave indeed. On the one hand, 
 Roman controversialists have made absurd charges 
 against her — charges which they find it impossible to 
 sustain by fact and history. On the other, her less 
 faithful sons have gone the length of accusing those who 
 are rigidly faithful to her teachings, of disloyalty to the 
 Church (to which they are, doubtless ail-unconsciously, 
 disloyal) and of leanings towards the Roman Communion. 
 
 Out of this has grown a serious struggle. Her less 
 loyal children have, more or less, joined hands with 
 those who dissent from her teachings in angry denuncia- 
 tion of those who are faithful to them. 
 
 Those who dissent — the Dissenters — are, in this 
 matter, logical and consistent. Those who, not being 
 professed Dissenters, deny her plain witness are at 
 once illogical, inconsistent, and unfair. Their untenable 
 position has rendered them at times bitter and angry 
 with all who cling to the teachings of the Church. Their 
 practice is a strange one, though they themselves are often, 
 one may charitably believe, acting in good faith. 
 
 " The High Church party," as those have been called 
 who have remained faithful to the Church's teachings, 
 have been denounced from time to time as " Romanizers," 
 or " Tractarians," or " Puseyites." or <c Ritualists " by 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 men who, binding themselves by her authoritative 
 formularies, deny almost every truth which those 
 formularies in the plainest language teach. 
 
 At the same time, it is fair to say that the old 
 " Evangelicals " witnessed to a truth. Men like Simeon 
 and Cecil were men of whom any Church may be justly 
 proud. Their effort was to put spiritual life into what 
 had become almost the dry bones of orthodoxy. The 
 true successors of these first holy and devoted " Evange- 
 licals " are, in a great measure, the " Ritualists " of to-day. 
 The professing followers of these great men have, many of 
 them, become the dry and hard opponents of the truths 
 — more definitely stated — which these men really loved 
 
 The result has been mis-statement. Angry pas- 
 sions, and strong prejudice, and odium theologicum have 
 embittered a misunderstanding which ought never to 
 have existed at all. 
 
 There have been, doubtless, faults on both sides, and 
 men who ought to have made their meaning clear, have 
 sometimes been content to state or act upon the truth 
 in a hard or too uncompromising spirit. This has led 
 the way to many mischiefs ; and truths which are part 
 of the heritage of the Church have been, in the dust of 
 controversy, misunderstood, and those who in their 
 hearts are sincere believers have allowed themselves, 
 while condemning Roman accretions, to condemn, 
 often through misunderstanding, real and blessed truths 
 of the gospel of Christ. 
 
 It is not necessary to approve of or support every- 
 thing that has been said or done by so-called "High 
 Churchmen ; " but none the less is it undesirable to con- 
 demn wholesale real truths accepted always by the | 
 Catholic Church, and therefore by the Church of 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 England, and which, when rightly understood, are in 
 accordance with the mind of her Divine Founder. 
 
 The Catholic Church is the home of the common 
 sense of eternity. There are objective truths which 
 must never be forgotten — the fact of the visible Church, 
 the truth of a spiritual succession of the ministry, the 
 necessary office of bishops, the real functions of the 
 priesthood, the effectual force of sacraments, the prac- 
 tical value of the penitential system, and so on, — these 
 must never be forgotten ; while, on the other hand, 
 men must be helped to understand personal responsibility, 
 and the need in each soul of a serious and perfect 
 response to the offered mercies of God, and to the 
 certain facts of the Faith. 
 
 In view of some unhistorical and absurd assertions 
 of Rome, the Catholics of the English Church ought to 
 be helped to understand the reality of her teaching and 
 practice. 
 
 It is, surely, a very terrible thing that, in view of 
 the witness of Catholic Christendom, in view of the 
 plain statements of the Prayer-book, men have been 
 encouraged, within the Anglican Communion, to glory 
 in Latitudinarianism, and to treat Christianity only as 
 a philosophy or ideal, rather than a system, of truth, and 
 a ministration of grace, as witnessed to by the Catholic 
 Church. It is terrible because it is untrue, and because 
 it is unpractical. That, and that only, is a practical 
 religion which teaches men what to be and what to do. 
 That, and that only, is a true religion which embodies 
 the teachings of Christ, handed on by His Church. It 
 is true to teach men the Incarnation and its results. 
 The Eternal Word became Man. To extend the results 
 of His wonderful condescension, He established the 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 Church, His Body, endued it with His power, and 
 officered it, according to His will, by the sacred ministry. 
 To submit to the truth, and to use grace, — this is, so far 
 forth, to be a Christian. The Catholic Church, the 
 Sacraments, the Apostolic Ministry, — these are the 
 witness to, the extension and the practical application 
 of, the Incarnation. "Pietism," with no sort of basis 
 but that supplied by individual opinion, is dangerous, 
 because it is passing, and because it may lead wrong. 
 
 Again, the Catholic Faith is practical. It is practical, 
 if a soul is " baptized into " Christ ; if that soul, not by its 
 own act, but by God's act, does not " accept " Christ, but 
 " is accepted by Him." It is practical to teach the young 
 who have been baptized, when their intelligence is suffi- 
 ciently developed to hold personal communion with God 
 in prayer, and to learn from those in authority the truths 
 of revelation. It is thoroughly unpractical — pursuing the 
 absurd customs of Puritanism — to put into their hands 
 the Bible, " without note or comment," to find out what 
 religion they can from it for themselves. This superstitious 
 use of the Scriptures prevails even now, apparently, in 
 the minds of controversial Protestants. It is practical to 
 bring children, when they have reached the years of dis- 
 cretion, to Confirmation, if, with the laying-on of hands 
 of the bishop and prayer, they receive a gift of the Holy 
 Ghost. It is more than unpractical to do so, if the whole 
 thing is merely a more or less edifying ceremony, and the 
 bishop has in fact no more, in succession from the Apostles, 
 to convey than anybody else. It is practical, that if 
 people fall into sin, and feel the need of making their 
 confessions, they should be taught to do so, and should 
 understand that when the Church tells them that the 
 appointed minister can minister to them absolution, she 
 
 b 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 is not playing with them, but means what she says. 
 It is worse than unpractical to tell them that, though she 
 talks about the priest and absolution, she really means 
 that there is no such thing as either the one or the other ! 
 It is practical to teach them that they are to prepare 
 with care for the Communion, and, when not communi- 
 cating, should be devoutly present, when they can, at the 
 Eucharistic Service to commemorate the Lord's death, 
 and to show forth before God the merits of the Passion 
 of Christ, if our Lord is really present there according 
 to the promise. It is worse than unpractical to teach 
 them, either that there is some sort of presence, but 
 not a real presence — whatever this may mean — and that 
 you ought to make your communions, but that, on the 
 other hand, it does not really very much matter whether 
 you do or not. Catholic Faith and Catholic Practice 
 are practical guides in human life. Mercifully, many 
 good Protestants, whether in the Church or outside of it, 
 are Catholics without knowing it ; but Protestantism as 
 a system is at once unpractical and untrue. 
 
 Of course, as I have admitted, "Evangelicals" have, 
 anyhow in the past, represented one aspect of the truth. 
 We have all known dear and devout persons, whether in 
 the English Church or among Dissenters, who have loved 
 our Lord with a sweet and tender devotion, and who, if 
 they have lost something by not knowing the Catholic 
 Faith in its fulness, have been examples to us all, by living 
 what they did know. But there has been a party in the 
 English Church, very unlike the devout " Evangelicals," 
 who seem bent on stirring up strife, and attacking those 
 who believe in what the English Church states. No one 
 can have any desire to drive out, or quarrel with, devout 
 members of what is called "the Low Church party." 
 
PREFACE. xiij 
 
 Persecution is not the way to advance the truth, as men 
 both within and without the Church have learnt to their 
 cost. In recent times certain associations of extreme Low 
 Churchmen have tried the weapon of persecution against 
 their brethren in so far as it has been possible in modern 
 days. They have failed. Catholics in the Church of 
 England have no desire to follow their example ; we can 
 have no desire to exclude Low Churchmen, so long as they 
 see their way to hold their place within the pale of the 
 Church. How they conscientiously can do so, in the 
 face of our formularies, is to me, I confess, unintelligible. 
 I can understand a Dissenter, where he is good, and 
 devout, and earnest, and not merely political, and using 
 any stick he can find, irrespective of truth and duty, 
 with which to beat Churchmen — and I can respect him. 
 He dissents from the teaching of the Church, and accord- 
 ingly he becomes a Dissenter. I am sorry, but I under- 
 stand. A " Low Churchman " I cannot understand. He 
 is an unintelligible enigma to me. He appears to hate 
 the very name of "Catholic," and he says he believes 
 " in the Holy Catholic Church." He is indignant with 
 you if you do not call yourself a " Protestant," while 
 no such title ever once occurs in the formularies which 
 he professes to recognize as binding upon him. He 
 detests the word " priest," and raves against " absolution," 
 and yet belongs to a Church which says in the most 
 solemn moments to him, if he is her ordained minister 
 — and if he is not, at least within his hearing — " Receive 
 the Holy Ghost, for the office and work of a priest in 
 the Church of God. Whose sins thou dost forgive they 
 are forgiven, and whose sins thou dost retain they 
 are retained." How " Low Churchmen " can square 
 their beliefs and their positions with the statements of 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 the Catholic Church in England, to which they adhere, 
 I cannot myself in the least understand. Brought up 
 among them in boyhood, I myself was struck long ago 
 with the discrepancy between their habitual utterances 
 and the plain teachings of the Prayer-book. I am con- 
 vinced that their extraordinary statements have driven 
 many of the young, who have been in the habit of 
 looking at plain facts, into unbelief, unless when, by 
 God's mercy, they have found that the teaching of the 
 English Church is truly Catholic, and that she does not 
 encourage this juggling with words, and playing fast 
 and loose with her statements, but means what she says. 
 
 But although I cannot pretend to understand the 
 position of these good people, I cannot doubt that they 
 are, for the most part, honest in their intentions. It is 
 difficult for me to imagine a man consecrated as a bishop, 
 denying all Divine authority and all necessity of the 
 Episcopate. It is difficult for me to understand a man 
 ordained to the priesthood with the solemn words quoted 
 above, repudiating the name and idea of " priest " — when 
 every one knows what that name means, and what that 
 idea is — and playing with the term " presbyter " by 
 way of getting out of his difficulty. It is difficult for 
 me to understand a man inviting people to come to 
 him " or to some other," to make their confession when 
 they need it, and then being angry with his brethren 
 as God-forsaken " papists " if they appear to have meant 
 what they actually said. It is difficult to understand 
 the standpoint of such persons. But it is not my busi- 
 ness to condemn them. The Church is large ; there are 
 many aspects of truth, and I have no doubt that their 
 hearts are better than their heads. 
 
 What we have a right to do, and what at times it 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 is necessary to do — with whatever pain — is to remind 
 them, that if we are not interfering with them, they 
 ought not to interfere with us. Low Churchmen may, 
 if they like, hold the most unintelligible position in 
 Christendom, and settle with their own intellects and 
 consciences how they can do it ; but they have no busi- 
 ness to come out — especially when unassailed — and 
 assault the Catholic laity and the Catholic priesthood in 
 the Church of England for holding truths and practising 
 devout practices to which they have bound themselves, 
 and in fact for teaching and believing the Catholic Faith. 
 
 That "party" in the Church which has been so 
 singularly unfaithful to her formularies, is never tired 
 of giving distressing hints that the Catholic laity and 
 the Catholic priesthood have something mysterious and 
 dark and terrible behind what they say. There is 
 nothing behind, and they shall have no justification in 
 saying so, certainly as far as I am concerned. We believe 
 that the English Church is a true part oft the Catholic 
 Church; that she has a true Episcopate in succession 
 from the Apostles, a real Priesthood, a real Sacrifice, 
 a real Altar, a real Presence of her Divine Master in the 
 Holy Mysteries, real gifts of grace, of absolution, and 
 blessing given through her appointed ministry ; a real 
 mission to this people — not to fall in with every current 
 of popular opinion, not to " play to the gallery " when 
 any part of Revelation is not quite satisfactory to human 
 weakness, but to witness with love and earnestness 
 and unflinching courage to the unchanging truth, the 
 " everlasting gospel," the Catholic Faith. 
 
 Our position I believe to be quite unassailable. 
 When it is assailed, the assault always consists of 
 rhetoric and denunciation. 
 
xvi PREFACE. 
 
 As an example of this, I might refer to one criticism 
 of my " Letter " which has reached me while writing this 
 preface. 
 
 The critic is angry with me for odium theologicum. 
 He talks of my " piteous protests " (I am unable to find 
 them). He considers me " clever and adroit " (the usual 
 resource of people who cannot argue and can only 
 insinuate !). He talks of me as a " so-called priest." 
 The writer professes to be a Churchman ; at least, he 
 writes in what, oddly enough, professes to be a Church 
 paper. If he turns to his Prayer-book, I am afraid — 
 especially if he turns to the Ordination Service — he 
 will find that my erroneous views have stronger support 
 than his opinions. He seems shocked at the notion 
 of " confession of secret things . . . meant for no one's 
 ear but the so-called priest who asks for them." (Does 
 he imagine that sinners go to confess public things, 
 that can be talked about generall} 7 or put in the news- 
 papers ?) He prudently "passes over " all that I have 
 said about a supposed " Act of Convocation," which (so 
 it was erroneously asserted) was passed to forbid Con- 
 fession and Absolution, but calls attention to the fact 
 that I acknowledge that " a caveat was entered against 
 the practice, threatening to deprive the clergy who 
 resorted to it." This is a striking instance of the kind 
 of " criticism " with which we are met by " Churchmen " 
 who deny the teachings of the Prayer-book. The 
 critic is wise to " pass over the Act of Convocation," as 
 such an Act — which was brought against me in evidence 
 by my assailant — never existed; but the said critic, 
 it will be noticed, points out that I acknowledge the 
 u caveat " ! Did I, or any other believer in the Praj'er- 
 book, ever deny that " caveats " have been entered from 
 
PREFACE. xvii 
 
 time to time by unbelievers, against the truth ? The said 
 " caveat " comes in a Puritanical document, which pro- 
 bably never came before Convocation at all, and which 
 certainly never was passed by Convocation ! This is the 
 kind of " criticism " by which direct statement and argu- 
 ment are answered ! To go on with the same critic — as a 
 suitable example among many — I find that " all minis- 
 trations in which God's forgiving love may be urged " are 
 meant when you speak of "Absolution." This he seems 
 to think " gospel truth ; " this I consider Jesuitry and 
 juggling with words. He thinks I "beg the question" 
 by believing that the First Prayer-book plainly taught 
 Confession and Absolution. If it did not, I should like 
 to know what it did teach ; if it did not, I should like 
 to be told what is the use of employing words when, 
 according to the " use " of Protestant criticism, they may 
 apparently mean anything under the sun. I find that 
 I also " beg the question " by assuming that St. Paul's 
 statement about the " washing of water " refers to Holy 
 Baptism ! Well, if it does not, I should like to know 
 what it does refer to ; I should like to know what other 
 " sacrament of the gospel " employs the " washing of 
 water and the word " except Holy Baptism. I learn 
 from the same critic that the Exhortation in the Com- 
 munion for the Sick is "awkward and embarrassed," 
 because I had said — quoting Bishop Forbes — that the 
 language of the Twenty-fifth Article about the five lesser 
 sacraments, might be so described. I submit that any 
 one reading that language intelligently must see — and 
 I have shown reason why — that it is rightly so described ; 
 but to apply it to the Exhortation, which is as definite 
 as it can be, is — I must be forgiven for saying — pure 
 nonsense. I am informed, also, that "penance is not an 
 
xviii PREFACE. 
 
 ordinance of Christ, but of the Church of Rome." 
 Although this is not true, I could understand its being 
 said by a Dissenter ; but that a " Churchman " professing 
 to believe in the Prayer-book which contains the Com- 
 mination Service, should venture on such a statement, 
 is to me quite unintelligible \ Then I gain this informa- 
 tion, that " the blasphemous assumption by sinful man 
 of the power to absolve a fellow-sinner from his sins, in 
 the form, ■ I absolve thee,' is nowhere found in the Word 
 of God ; " and " no language can adequately express the 
 danger of such a perversion of the truth." Very well : 
 my critic has a perfect right to his opinions, although 
 I regret tbem, as they are contrary to the revealed faith 
 given to us by our Lord ; but what he has no right to 
 do, is to attack me or others who believe and obey what 
 the Prayer-book says, when he— professing, apparently, 
 to be a Churchman — describes the teaching of the Prayer- 
 book as " blasphemous assumption." 
 
 I have alluded to this criticism not because it is 
 more irrational, or more beside the mark, than others 
 of the same kind. Those who in the Church of England 
 deny Catholic Faith and Practice are obliged to resort 
 to this sort of denunciation and Jesuitry ; argument they 
 have not. Not an approach to an answer has reached 
 me. Plenty of abuse, plenty of rhetoric, plenty of de- 
 nunciation, plenty of painful twisting of words, but no 
 answer. 
 
 As I have said, I have no desire to attack "Low 
 Churchmen." There are good and devout men among 
 them, who -are "of the truth;" but if men will stir up 
 strife, if men will attack those who believe that the 
 Prayer-book means what it says, it is necessary to point 
 out that, however they may justify their position — 
 
PREFACE. xix 
 
 which is difficult to understand — the Catholic laity and 
 the Catholic priesthood in the Church of England are 
 true to the Prayer-book and (indeed for the matter of 
 that) true to the Bible. 
 
 On criticisms from Dissenting sources I need not 
 touch, as the controversy is one within the frontiers of 
 the English Church. I need only say that while by 
 some critics of some Dissenting Bodies I have certainly 
 been treated with the unkindly scorn and the evident 
 ignorance of the subject that might naturally be ex- 
 pected ; by others — and notably by one who writes in 
 the organ of the Congregationalist Body — my arguments 
 have been treated with intelligence and fairmindedness, 
 if not, of course, with entire assent. This is what one 
 would have expected from that Body of Dissenters in 
 this country, who have most claim to real learning and 
 understanding of the questions at issue. 
 
 I have every hope that, more and more, devout and 
 thoughtful and instructed members of the Dissenting 
 Bodies will see their way to the Catholic Faith, and to 
 rejoining — with a strong grip of the truth — the Church, 
 their Mother. Difficulties are many, but we may hope 
 and pray. I am convinced that the more clear-minded 
 and less prejudiced of them, the more they examine the 
 question, will find that the Catholic Church in England 
 — -whilst wisely patient of many frailties and aberrations 
 — is, in all her authoritative teachings, consistently and 
 thoroughly Catholic, and is the home for those who 
 desire to be faithful in word and life to " the truth as 
 it is in Jesus." 
 
 Meanwhile, this controversy is, as I have said, one 
 within our own frontiers, though one cannot but be 
 thankful that those who dissent should be interested 
 
xx PREFACE. 
 
 in it. God's Word never returns to Him void. Any 
 steady contemplation of the truth, to " men of good- 
 will," must have good results. I cannot but hope, with 
 one of my more kindly critics, that my book may be 
 widely read among those who dissent from the Church's 
 teaching; although, as I trust, with results, by God's 
 mercy, very different from those which, not unnaturally, 
 he seems to contemplate. 
 
 Well, then, it comes to this. No mere statement, 
 no mere accurate statement of doctrine, will save a soul. 
 No ! But also no more will mere pietism, or sentiment, 
 or superstitious repetition of shibboleths, which has no 
 basis in fact. Every soul must by faith and love appro- 
 priate the gifts of grace, but the gifts of grace must be 
 really given before the soul can appropriate them. 
 
 We must be real. 
 
 If there is no succession from the Apostles in our 
 Episcopate, why does the Church call bishops " Fathers 
 in God"? Why keep them at all? Why teach us to 
 preach at ordinations as to the necessity of the Three 
 Orders ? 
 
 If there be no succession, and no Priesthood, why 
 our Ordinal ? Why is the bishop to say, " Receive the 
 Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest," when 
 he means, " I can't give, so you can't receive ; you are 
 not a priest, for there is no Priesthood " ? 
 
 If there is no Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament, 
 why are children taught that the Body and Blood are 
 " verily and indeed taken and received " ? And why 
 are we taught to pray to God that He will, by our 
 reception of the Holy Sacrament, by our eating " the 
 Flesh " and drinking " the Blood " of Christ, cleanse our 
 bodies by His Body, and our souls by His precious Blood ? 
 
PREFACE. xxi 
 
 If there is no Regeneration in Baptism, why does 
 the Church insist on the priest saying, " Seeing now, 
 dearly beloved, that this child is regenerate" etc. ? 
 
 If there be no power in the Priesthood to absolve, 
 why is a man in the agony of a dying hour to be 
 " moved to make a special confession of his sins ; " and 
 why is the priest to be told to absolve him, saying, " I 
 absolve thee " ? 
 
 If all these things are false, then men who enter the 
 ministry have been cajoled into a false position, and made 
 the victims of a lie. If they are false, sweep them away, 
 cart them out, throw them overboard ; but, whether that 
 is done or not, do not allow those in authority first to 
 require of men who, in the heyday of their youth, desire 
 to devote themselves to God, to swear that, ex animo, 
 they believe all this, and then, when they act upon what 
 they believe, denounce them in unmeasured language, 
 amid the plaudits of an unthinking crowd of worldlings, 
 as traitors to the Church to which they have sworn 
 allegiance. 
 
 Either Sacerdotalism is true, or the teaching of the 
 Church of England is a hollow and a disgraceful sham. 
 
 Sacerdotalism, of course, is true. The Church of 
 England is right. Those who deny the gospel truth 
 of Sacerdotalism, and who pose as loyal members of the 
 Church of England, they, I repeat, may settle the matter 
 with their intellects and their consciences; but they 
 have no right to describe as disloyal, men who in 
 simplicity and straightforwardness have believed that 
 the Church means what she says. 
 
 This is what I have been driven to insist upon in 
 the following book. It is a defence, as I have said, 
 against what I consider an unprovoked attack. How- 
 
xxii PREFACE. 
 
 ever large the boundaries of the Church may be, men 
 who make — as it seems to us — very free with the lan- 
 guage of the Prayer-book, and with their obligations in 
 the ministry, at any rate should leave us to do our work 
 in peace. Doubtless the Church has always had her 
 troubles ; doubtless many minds approach truth in many 
 different ways ; doubtless the largest allowance is to be 
 made that is possible for divergence of opinion ; but it 
 is necessary to show that Catholic Churchmen are the 
 very reverse of disloyal to their Prayer-book. This 
 surely is a point of honour, this surely is a duty. I 
 have tried in the following pages to do this ; but I 
 repeat, that however certain of our position I am, and 
 however clear it is as daylight that we are faithful to 
 the teachings of the Church, as a matter-of-fact I detest 
 controversy, and love "the things which make for 
 peace." 
 
 As I close, I am startled and saddened by the intelli- 
 gence that he to whom these letters were written has been 
 called to his rest. In his last letter to me, only the 
 other day, he had expressed his Warm approval of my 
 action in this matter, and his sense of the extreme need 
 of believing Churchmen speaking out in defence of the 
 Faith, and of the extreme danger to souls of the efforts 
 of men of some ability and possessed of attractive gifts 
 in the Church and entirely — even if unconsciously — 
 disloyal to her teachings. He had also assured me 
 of his conviction that, if opponents did not travel 
 " beyond the record," they could not answer my argu- 
 ments. In this he showed his usual acuteness and 
 good sense. My argument all along has been : " This 
 is the teaching of the Church of England ; she may 
 be right or she may be wrong, but this is what she 
 
PREFACE. xxiii 
 
 teaches." In every attempt to answer me which I 
 have yet seen, opponents travel " beyond the record." 
 They never face the question. They cannot, as I 
 believe. When not abusing me, they give their ipse 
 dixits as to the meaning of Scripture ! That, I need 
 hardly say, is no argument. That method of answer may 
 satisfy the constituents of some party paper ; it cannot 
 satisfy reasonable men. The question is not what any 
 section of controversialists think that Holy Scripture 
 means. We who " believe in the Holy Catholic Church," 
 believe that the Church, and she alone, can teach us the 
 meaning of Scripture on points of doctrine. To her 
 interpretations of Holy Scripture every English Church- 
 man is bound. That, however, is not the question. The 
 question is — What does the Church of England teach? 
 My dear friend who is gone saw clearly that Sacerdo- 
 talism, rightly understood, is the teaching of the Church 
 of England. He saw clearly, as he wrote to me, that 
 unless men travel " beyond the record " — unless, in fact, 
 they evade the question — they can find no answer. So 
 it has proved. They have not attempted to meet my 
 contentions ; they have gone off into other questions. 
 They have given their views of scriptural interpreta- 
 tions, and what not, but they have abandoned * the 
 record." ' It remains unanswered, because, I believe, 
 unanswerable — as the late Dean of Lincoln felt — that 
 to be true to the teaching of the Church of England 
 you must be true to Sacerdotalism. That, of course, is 
 a blessed fact, for it is only another way of saying that 
 the Church of England has been true to the Catholic 
 Faith, to the Gospel of Christ. 
 
 Meantime he is gone. We have to mourn another 
 of those faithful servants of God, who has never flinched 
 
xxiv PREFACE. 
 
 in his defence of the Faith, and in his consistent effort 
 to live what he taught A life of steady labour has 
 closed in a peaceful death, and he has been laid, amid 
 the tears of many, in an honoured grave. Sacerdotalist 
 as he was from head to heel, while he abhorred unneces- 
 sary or ill-tempered controversy, he equally abhorred 
 unfaithful " caution," — which has been so deadly a bane 
 to our Church, — for he had the warm-hearted love of 
 a Christian, and the genial manliness of a genuine 
 Englishman. We can ill atford to lose such in an age 
 when the combination of Christian love and real back- 
 bone is not too common. " Taken away from the evil to 
 come," he has left us an example of courage and constancy, 
 and yet — able as he was in helping here the cause of 
 the kingdom of God — perhaps he can do even more for 
 it there. May he rest in peace ! May his works follow 
 him ! Anyhow, for us it remains earnestly and lovingly 
 to contend for the Faith as he contended, while, amidst 
 our sorrows, we remember that he is gone where battle 
 is over, and controversies, thank God, can no more be 
 needed, where — it is sweet to remember — " beyond these 
 voices there is peace." 
 
 W. J. KNOX LITTLE. 
 
 Hoar Ckoss Vicarage, 
 AStptuagesima, 1894. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. 
 Confession and Absolution. 
 
 PART II. 
 Fasting Communion and Eucharistic Worship. 
 
 PART III. 
 The Real Presence and the Eucharistic Sacrifice. 
 
 PART IV. 
 The Apostolic Ministry. 
 
PART I. 
 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 
 
 My dear Dean, 
 
 I am glad to be allowed to address this letter 
 to you on many grounds. First of all, from personal 
 affection, and from admiration for the great and solid 
 work that you have done for so many years in the 
 Church of England, I am glad to protect my protest 
 under the shelter of your name. Then further, the 
 recollection that you are the vicar who trained some of 
 the very best priests in the Church of England — among 
 them our dear friends Dr. Liddon and Mr. Mackonochie 
 — now gone to their rest — and my very beloved friend 
 Mr. Noel, and others who are with us still, — this supplies 
 me with a reason for being thankful to have the oppor- 
 tunity of acknowledging obligations under which you 
 have placed us all. Then, again, I like also to remember, 
 now that you have gone from us, that I once had the 
 honour of working with you as a fellow-canon in Wor- 
 cester. Yet beyond all these, there are further and deeper 
 reasons why I am glad to be allowed to address this 
 letter to you ; and these reasons may be stated thus — 
 
 No one has more fairly, more courageously, and, in 
 the best sense of that much-abused word, with greater 
 moderation, than yourself asserted the truth, in its right 
 interpretation of that part of our Divine Lord's arrange- 
 
 B 
 
SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 ments for the government of His Church, which is called 
 " Sacerdotalism." 
 
 You have not only spoken faithfully on the subject ; 
 you have consistently lived as one who realizes the 
 blessed truth of real sacerdotalism should live. I am 
 sure that, with me, you have felt that it is a great 
 sorrow that some who ought to be faithful ministers of 
 the Church of England should misrepresent her clear 
 teaching on this solemn subject, and thereby (not inten- 
 tionally, of course) should do a great injury to souls. Just 
 as "clericalism" has been used with much effect by 
 atheists and unbelievers in republican France to arouse 
 violent passions against the Truth, so among ourselves 
 it has been saddening to find that, even among priests 
 of our part of the Catholic Church, the word "sacer- 
 dotalism " — used in an invidious sense — has been 
 employed in order to stir up passion and prejudice, and 
 to misrepresent the teachings of the Church of England. 
 
 I, my dear friend, as you know, am a sacerdotalist 
 from head to heel. It is difficult for me to understand 
 how a Christian can be anything else. But whatever 
 be the difficulties in this matter for really devout 
 persons who are not in communion with the Church of 
 England, it is still more difficult to understand — it is 
 really almost unintelligible — how any Priest of the 
 English Church, who has ex animo accepted her for- 
 mularies, fails to be — in the true sense of the word — a 
 " sacerdotalist." 
 
 When, then, I find a priest of some eminence and 
 learning writing with what I may almost call violence 
 against sacerdotalism, I naturally ask in what sense he 
 uses that word. It cannot, surely, be in the sense in 
 which you and I should use it. To my question, how- 
 ever, I find no quite satisfactory answer in certain 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 3 
 
 papers which have appeared lately in a leading magazine. 
 For the striking thing is this : that while we find plenty 
 of declamation, there is no precise definition of what 
 "sacerdotalism" means. Under these circumstances, I 
 am obliged to hunt about with diligence to discover what 
 is included under that term by such controversialists. 
 In doing so, I find so much as this : that any one who 
 teaches Confession and Absolution, " non-communicating 
 attendance" — as they call Eucharistic worship — the 
 practice of keeping the fast before receiving Com- 
 munion, the doctrine of the Real Presence, and the 
 doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Altar, and generally the 
 doctrine of the Christian Priesthood, — that anyone, I say, 
 who upholds these, is apparently a " sacerdotalist," and 
 — and this is the point — therefore disloyal to the Church 
 of England. For myself, my dear friend, I uphold all 
 these doctrines and practices, but I object to them being 
 misrepresented. I am sure that if they are freed from 
 the fogs and accretions w T ith which angry opponents 
 surround them, they are comprehended not only in the 
 teaching of the Church of England, but also in the 
 gospel of Christ. My business is, then — in default of a 
 clearer definition — so far as I can understand their 
 meaning, to disabuse the minds of our opponents of 
 misunderstandings on these points, and to show that if 
 I am a loyal son of the Church of England, and, indeed, 
 if I am a faithful gospel minister within her ranks, I 
 must be a " sacerdotalist." 
 
 You, I know, will do me the justice to believe that 
 I do not love controversy. You will also agree with 
 me, I am sure, that while controversy is, if possible, to 
 be avoided, there may be occasions when it is thrust 
 upon one ; occasions when to ignore it entirely is to be 
 unfaithful to matters of principle, and when one is 
 
SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 called upon — lest one should appear to be regardless of 
 the sanctity of Truth, or lest one should be guilty of 
 wilfully allowing others to misunderstand one's meaning 
 — to speak out in the plainest way. 
 
 You will notice, then, that, among the points I have 
 enumerated above, there are three devout practices and 
 three doctrines, the upholding of which seems at any 
 rate — so far as I can discover from the recent writings 
 of the controversialist referred to — to constitute " sacer- 
 dotalism." I shall take the practices first, and after- 
 wards deal with the doctrines and the general question. 
 
 Of these practices — not unconnected, of course, 
 with doctrine — the first and most serious is what our 
 opponents call Auricular Confession. It is asserted 
 with regard to it that it is dangerous ; that it is con- 
 trary to the teaching of the Church of England ; and 
 that it is opposed to Scripture. All these propositions 
 can, I think, be shown to be false. 
 
 The practically important one, however, as regards 
 the present controversy is the second, viz. that it is 
 contrary to the teaching of the Church of England, for 
 whether the Church of England be right or wrong, we 
 all of us who are her priests are bound to be loyal to 
 her teaching so long as we exercise our ministry within 
 her fold. To this point, then, chiefly I address myself ; 
 but before I do so I must call your attention, my dear 
 friend, to the present state of facts. 
 
 This letter has, as I have implied, its origin in a 
 recent controversy. 
 
 In the July number of a well-known magazine in 
 the year 1892, a person of eminence in the Church, 
 both from his position and from his ability, delivered 
 his mind, apparently a propos de rien, on the enormities 
 of " sacerdotalism." 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. $ 
 
 He represented himself as constrained by a sense 
 of duty to oppose "the current of popular opinion," 
 which seemed, apparently, to him to be running in the 
 direction of this terrible danger. This was startling. 
 Judging by the controversies of the last thirty years, 
 and by the difficulties which any of us who have taken 
 our stand upon the exact teaching of the Church of 
 England have had to encounter, it had never appeared 
 to most people, I imagine, that the severer views of the 
 discipline of the Church were what would be described 
 as "popular." It was all the more wonderful because 
 he also — in fact, side by side with this sense of over- 
 whelming duty to oppose the "popular" tendency to 
 " sacerdotalism " — seemed to feel that it was the temper 
 and conduct of the clergy in this matter which were the 
 real reasons why a wise and despairing laity were driven 
 into '* indifference to religious questions " ! The two 
 views were scarcely consistent with one another, but 
 that seemed of small consequence. " Sunday rest " was 
 failing, we were told. " Sunday worship " was " losing 
 hold." A " serious disruption " might come, or " the 
 intellect of England" might be "dissociated from the 
 faith," all in consequence of the very natural and proper 
 disgust felt by Englishmen towards " sacerdotalism " ! 
 And all the time this "sacerdotalism" was a "current 
 of popular opinion," which, with deep self-denial, and 
 sacrificing his dislike of controversy, he felt bound in 
 duty, lest he should appear guilty of " pusillanimity," 
 to oppose. Then, while throwing himself into the 
 breach, he determined to do it with " calmness and 
 courtesy," and warned those who might criticize or 
 answer his paper, that they must take him as a model 
 in this. The great question to be settled was the truth 
 about "sacerdotalism," which, on the one hand, as I 
 
SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 have said, he seemed to think was a dangerous " current 
 of popular opinion," which he stood almost alone in 
 endeavouring to stem ; while, on the other, it appeared 
 to be the aberration of a number of clergy only, giving 
 way to " autonomy and licence." 
 
 The main drift of the article seemed to be this : 
 Neither the Bible nor the Church of England allow 
 us to believe in a real " Priesthood ; " therefore there 
 is no truth in the doctrine of the Real Presence in the 
 Eucharist — to assert which as a truth is to teach 
 Transubstantiation ; in Christianity there is no " Altar ;" 
 the practice of Fasting Communion is new and dan- 
 gerous ; non-communicating attendance is wrong ; Con- 
 fession and Absolution are things alien to the teaching 
 of Scripture and of the English Church ; and, in fact, 
 all who hold and teach these doctrines and practices 
 are disloyal to Scripture and to their Church. All 
 these things — so the article in question seemed to 
 assert — are " false and alien accretions." 
 
 As far as I know, no one did attempt to " criticize 
 or answer" this article. It was read, and, I suppose, 
 like many other magazine articles, it was forgotten. 
 
 A year passed. In the same magazine, in the July 
 number of the current year, the same eminent person 
 returned to the charge. The more recent article was more 
 pungent. The charge of disloyalty was now fastened on 
 to some individuals by name, and to two considerable 
 societies, numbering in their ranks many hundreds of 
 clergymen and laymen — the English Church Union and 
 the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. To sustain 
 this charge, among other statements, he published, 
 in a footnote, an entirely inaccurate " quotation " from 
 the " Manual " of the latter society. To this his atten- 
 tion was called. The consequence was that he made a 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. y 
 
 tardy and half-hearted apology for partial inaccuracy, 
 when, as a matter of fact, not a ivord in the " quota- 
 tion" was accurate. At the same time, apologizing 
 with one hand, so to speak, he withdrew his apology 
 with the other, by saying in effect that it was practi- 
 cally accurate, and by quoting, to prove this assertion, 
 unauthoritative utterances of individuals who were said 
 to belong to these societies. 
 
 It seemed to me that he was unfair, that he was in 
 the highest degree inaccurate ; that his tone and manner 
 were scarcely consistent with the usual amenities of 
 serious controversy ; and that his teaching was contrary 
 to that of the English Church, as witnessed by the 
 Prayer-book and by the testimony of her greatest 
 divines. Being a member for many years of the in- 
 criminated societies, I thought I had the right of any 
 man who is attacked to defend himself. I did so, not 
 from personal motives — for I care as little for personal 
 attacks as my opponent can do — but I felt that a large 
 body of men, better far than myself — some of them 
 among the brightest ornaments of the English Church — 
 had been wantonly and unfairly assailed. Well, this 
 eminent person answered in a recent number of the 
 same magazine. His answer seemed to imply that / had 
 attacked him ! He warned me off, in fact, into my proper 
 place ! I was accused of a cheap method of contro- 
 versy by taking " snips " from his statements without 
 the context, though he perfectly knew that " the con- 
 text " was too extensive to quote in an article, and that 
 it only made — if quoted — the u snips " more pungent 
 and extravagant. When I used a handy phrase 
 to express his method of dealing with souls, I was 
 told, with scorn, that I thought myself " witty ; " 
 when I quoted a great Father of the Church and a 
 
SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 great modern Divine as disproving his assertions, I was 
 informed that they were mistaken or wrong. I was told 
 — as a crushing blow — that I never entered his mind, 
 that he had no thought of me, and had not assailed me ; 
 and, finally, that it was to be hoped that some one 
 " better equipped " than I, would answer him. In fact, 
 the article sought to turn the whole thing into a personal 
 squabble with one who had assailed him, but who was 
 beneath his notice, and unworthy of his powder and shot ! 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, as a matter of fact, 
 he was the aggressor. It is unworthy to pretend that 
 he is an injured innocent assaulted by me ! True, he 
 never named me, and would doubtless never con- 
 descend to think of me! No, he only assailed by 
 name two great societies, of both of which I am a 
 member, and in whose actions and teachings I therefore 
 share a responsibility. I consider that he has gone out 
 of his way to stir up strife, when no one was meddling 
 with him or any of his beliefs and disbelievings ; that 
 he has been inaccurate and unfair ; that he has misre- 
 presented the teachings of Scripture and of his Church ; 
 and that his recent lecture to me on charity is singularly 
 out of place in one who could allow himself to come as a 
 thunderbolt out of the clear heaven to assault his brethren, 
 and should do it in the way in which he has done it. 
 
 This is the personal aspect of the question. That 
 I now, as far as possible, dismiss from my mind. It 
 is of no consequence to any one what he may be good 
 enough to think of me. It is not, I think, to edifica- 
 tion to carry on a personal squabble, connected with 
 the most sacred subjects, in the pages of a monthly 
 magazine. What is of consequence is — Are these changes 
 and assertions true or false ? I think them false. I 
 think they are misleading. I think, whatever force 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 9 
 
 they may have on men's minds, is derived from the 
 constant appeal, in them, to popular prejudice and 
 popular passion, and not to reason. I think they rest 
 on statements untrue to Scripture and to the Church's 
 teachings, and that if — per impossibile — they were true, 
 the Church of England would not have a leg to stand 
 upon. 
 
 I dismiss now all mere personalities. Lest he should 
 suppose for a moment that his mass of crude and 
 ridiculous assertions could not be answered, I shall deal 
 with them seriatim by-and-by. I am no longer con- 
 cerned with any controversialist or with any personal 
 rudenesses and impertinences, but I am concerned with 
 certain astonishing statements, and certain attacks, not 
 only on good men, but also on the teachings of our own 
 Church. 
 
 Auricular Confession. 
 
 There are, then, several doctrines and practices in- 
 cluded in the general charge of " sacerdotalism." To teach 
 these, it appears, is to be a " sacerdotalist." These are 
 untrue to Scripture and the Church, and therefore 
 " sacerdotalism " is disloyalty. These may be taken 
 seriatim. I begin with one. 
 
 Now, first as to " Auricular Confession." It has 
 often been noticed, and I here notice it again, that when 
 a point is to be made against this devout practice, its 
 adversaries invariably describe it as " Auricular." That 
 word is supposed to add to the horror of the situation ! 
 I need scarcely observe that all confession, as all con- 
 versation, must be " auricular," as it is only with the 
 ear that we can hear. 1 The proofs against this practice 
 
 1 It is impossible not to be struck by the weakness of opposing argu- 
 ments when I find that a critic, who is greatly displeased with me, finds 
 
io SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 being consistent with the teaching of Scripture and of 
 the Church of England are hard to find. There are 
 pages of declamation and violences of assertion, but 
 proofs are few. All I can find, amidst the mass of decla- 
 mation, are these : (1) That the commission in St. John 
 xx. 21-23 and St. Matt, xviii. 20 is a gift to the Christian 
 society, not to the Christian ministry. (2) That the use 
 of Confession and Absolution may be abused ; and that 
 some stray sayings of Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, and of 
 Bishop Wilberforce and Archbishop Tait are condemna- 
 tory of it. (3) That the receiving of confessions is 
 forbidden by an " Act of the Convocation " of 1562. 
 
 As to the (1) and (2) of these proofs, I shall deal 
 with them presently. To (3) I draw attention at once. 
 I do so because it serves as a fit example of the accuracy 
 of one who assails this part of the teaching of the 
 Church. Now, I hope you will realize the assertion. 
 It ought to be fully understood. It amounts to this. 
 Priests who hear confessions or " practise " confession — 
 that is the remarkable phrase used — are disobeying an 
 "Act of Convocation" of 1562. I do not ask whether 
 there could be an Act of Convocation to override the 
 Prayer-book, which of course teaches Confession and 
 Absolution as doctrines of the gospel, in the clearest 
 terms; but, without going into that, it is worth while 
 here and now to examine this proof that the English 
 Church repudiates the " sacerdotalist " practice in ques- 
 tion. The "Acts of the Convocation" of 1562 are 
 referred to as containing a prohibition, under the gravest 
 
 nothing more cogent to urge than that " you might write your confession," 
 therefore my remarks about its " Auricular " character do not apply ! 
 It would be absurd to take serious notice of such a criticism. When the 
 opponents of the teaching of the Church betake themselves to such shifts 
 as this, their case is weak indeed. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION n 
 
 clerical penalties, of" practising " {i.e. receiving) auricular 
 confession. 
 
 Now, (1) supposing there had been such an " Act of 
 Convocation," it would have struck at a provision in the 
 Prayer-book which the Queen's Highness had put forth 
 three years before ! I think you will agree with me that 
 we know how luridly " the Occidental Star " would have 
 glared at such presumption, had Convocation been guilty 
 of it! 
 
 But it is worth while — as a specimen of the accuracy 
 of rhetorical declaimers against the teaching of the 
 Church — calmly to examine the facts. 
 
 My opponent has committed himself to this — that 
 this prohibition of receiving confessions is among the 
 " Acts of Convocation." His words are, " See Acts of the 
 Convocation of 1562, I think, which, after directing 
 the Ministry of God's Word, add, What Priest or Minister 
 soever, under colour hereof, shall practise Auricular 
 Confession, shall be deposed from the ministry" l Well, 
 here is a serious statement, and, in the dearth of evidence 
 which marks this part of the attack, one naturally 
 examines so strong a testimony with respect, as it is the 
 only really weighty argument brought forward at all. 
 
 The writer in question seems to have been too hurried 
 to be sure of the date. He thinks it is 1562. So far he 
 is right. 1562 is the year to which this matter is to be 
 referred. His quotation, however, does not seem to be 
 quite accurate. He might have made his case seem even 
 stronger by quoting it accurately. The matter stands 
 thus : " Every person of | age and discretion sufficient 
 to communicate " is to " offer himself once a year 
 ... to be examined by his Parson, Vicar, or Curate, . . . 
 upon pain to be excommunicate ipso facto. And before 
 1 Contemporary Revieic, September, 1893, p. 360, note. 
 
12 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 they be absolved, to pay" — either 6s. Sd. or 3s. 4cL 
 according to their means. To carry out this exami- 
 nation of the laity as to whether they had learnt the 
 Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments 
 properly by heart, " every Parson and Vicar, by himself, 
 or some sufficient Curate, shall give his attendance to 
 hear his parishioners every Wednesday, Friday, and 
 Holy Day, during the foresaid time, upon pain of depri- 
 vation, and loss of his benefice ; and every Curate, upon 
 pain, to forfeit 40s. At which time the said Parsons 
 and Vicars shall take occasion to give some private, 
 godly admonitions to their parishioners, if they know 
 any faults or offences in them." 
 
 Then comes the crucial sentence, as follows : " What 
 Priest or Minister soever, under colour hereof, shall 
 practise Auricular Confession, shall be deprived of all 
 his livings, and deposed from the ministry." 
 
 Now, you will notice that this " Act of Convocation," 
 as my opponent calls it, which is supposed to deal a deadly 
 blow to " Sacerdotalism " in the Church of England, by 
 forbidding priests to hear confessions, if it were an 
 " Act " at all, would establish the most intolerable 
 clerical tyranny over the laity that it is possible to 
 imagine. I think a writer, so filled with horror of 
 the danger to the laity, in making their confessions 
 if they choose, and so very sensitive as to the dangers 
 of "priestly domination," and infringement of the 
 liberties of the laity, is hardly right in quoting so 
 much of an " Act " as serves the purpose of an attack 
 upon the doctrine of Confession, while keeping in the 
 background the fact that such an " Act " would establish 
 a most inquisitorial and intolerable tyranny. This is 
 worth noting ; but this by the way ; for I say this on the 
 assumption that there ever was such an " Act of Con- 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 13 
 
 vocation." I do not believe that there ever was any- 
 thing of the kind. If so, where is the evidence of it ? 
 If anywhere, in Cardwell, " Synod.," ii. 495. Now, 
 there we learn that the passage concerned with this 
 question was one sentence in a long paper, not of " Acts 
 of Convocation " at all, but of matters prepared for 
 Convocation. Go back from Cardwell to Strype, whom 
 Cardwell quotes — you will correct me if I am wrong — 
 I say whom Cardwell quotes, but quotes imperfectly. 
 What do you find ? You find that from Strype (" Annals," 
 i. 473) we learn that Parker had set persons " on work 
 to prepare matter for the Synod." Hence there are 
 long draft memoranda of desirable proposals containing 
 things which were passed by — which were, that is, not 
 passed at all — e.g. that " the use of vestments, copes, 
 and surplices," and " of organs," be " taken away or 
 removed ; " that " sponsors do not as heretofore answer 
 in the infant's name ; " that " no person do serve two 
 cures at once;" that "the Articles of our Faith [i.e. 
 the Apostles' Creed], the Commandments, the Lord's 
 Prayer," be read every Sunday and Holy Day after the 
 Gospel, together with some of those stringent provisions 
 for the discipline of the laity referred to above ; and 
 among these is inserted this proposal about hearing of 
 confessions, which comes in as a caveat after a passage 
 enforcing the careful examination of the laity and 
 the rather inquisitorial " godly admonition in private." 
 Well, this " notable paper " l was prepared for the 
 Synod, and we hear through Strype of two sets of 
 proposals or resolutions which were presented to the 
 Lower House on the part of the puritanizing members, 
 one of which was only lost by a majority of one. 
 Neither of these, however, contains the proposal to 
 1 Strype, " Annals," i. 473, also quoted by Cardwell, « Synod.," i. 495. 
 
i 4 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 prohibit the " practice " of Confession. Now, it is to be 
 remembered that neither of these is an " Act " even of 
 the Lower House, still less an "Act of Convocation." 
 There was yet another set of resolutions actually 
 adopted by the Lower House, but not accepted by the 
 Upper House, but not a ivord in it, so far as we know, 
 of this extraordinary proposal. It also is no " Act of 
 Convocation." How much less can a proposal be called 
 an "Act of Convocation " which, so far as appears, was not 
 even moved in the Lower House ! So much for the (3) 
 proof of the wrong-doing of those who are in favour of 
 the use of Confession and Absolution ! So much also for 
 the accuracy of my opponent's confident statements ! It 
 seems to me to be well at once to clear this out of the 
 way. It would be hard indeed to imagine Convocation, 
 even in its worst moments, doing such a thing. Had 
 it done so, however, it might have been more or less a 
 difficulty to those who uphold the Catholic teaching of 
 the English Church. We have seen, however, that no 
 such " Act " was passed. 
 
 This is the only statement in these articles which 
 had the least appearance of being solid evidence on this 
 matter ; and you see how much it is worth ! l 
 
 The important duty in relation to the question before 
 us is to examine the positive teaching of the English 
 Church. The question whether a doctrine or practice 
 has the sanction of Scripture, is of course of the highest 
 
 1 An adverse critic observes that anyhow there icas a caveat as to 
 Confession and Absolution, therefore that the doctrine of the Church of 
 England is opposed to this practice ; i.e. there is a warning against the 
 practice in a document rejected by the Church of England, therefore the 
 Church of England denies the practice ! In other words, you utterly 
 refuse to deny something, which proves that you deny it! Such is 
 Protestant logic ! 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 15 
 
 importance, and every Churchman believes that the 
 teachings of the Church are in conformity with Scripture. 
 There are those who dissent from such teachings, and 
 consider that they are in greater or less degree at variance 
 with Scripture ; but when the question is one of honesty 
 and loyalty, the first thing to be determined is, " Does the 
 Church teach and sanction this or not ? " Whether or 
 not men may think the Church's teaching not warranted 
 by Scripture, at least they will agree that if any par- 
 ticular doctrine is according to the Church's teaching, 
 those who uphold that doctrine are the men who, 
 however mistaken they may be supposed to be, are the 
 loyal sons of the Church. 
 
 I. Now, I assert that (without going into the 
 scriptural question at present) Auricular Confession and 
 Priestly Absolution are in accordance with the teaching 
 of the Church of England. In order to substantiate 
 this assertion, it is necessary to examine her authori- 
 tative documents, and there are some passages in the 
 Prayer-book which have a special bearing on the point 
 before us. The first of these is the Exhortation in the 
 Communion Service. The passage in the Second Prayer- 
 book x runs as follows : " Because it is requisite that no 
 man should come to the Holy Communion but with a 
 full trust in God's mercy, and with a quiet conscience ; 
 therefore if there be any of you, which by the means 
 aforesaid cannot quiet his own conscience, but requireth 
 further comfort or counsel, then let him come to me, 
 or some other discreet and learned minister of God's 
 Word, and open his grief, that he may receive such 
 ghostly counsel, advice, and comfort as his conscience 
 
 1 1552. This is almost the same as in the present book, only that 
 ours is somewhat stronger, as emphasiziDg "the benefit of Absolution " 
 as being the chief thing to be sought. 
 
i6 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 may be relieved, and that by the ministry of God's 
 Word he may receive comfort and the benefit of Absolu- 
 tion, to the quieting of his conscience, and the avoiding 
 of all scruple and doubtfulness." 
 
 Now, it has been argued that certain expressions were 
 here substituted for stronger expressions in the First 
 Prayer-book for the express purpose of putting aside 
 the doctrine and practice in question. This can be 
 shown to be a complete mistake. It may be true, 
 indeed, and it is very probable, that the alterations, 
 like some others, were intended to conciliate the foreign 
 reformers. But our Reformation divines, whether they 
 were wise or unwise in going all the length they could 
 for this purpose, never went so far as to depart from 
 primitive practice and the teachings of the Fathers. 
 That the change in the wording of the Exhortation 
 implied no change of doctrine, and was not meant to 
 introduce some novel Protestant theory, may be easily 
 seen from the following considerations. 
 
 1. The Benefit of Absolution, about which various 
 arguments — which really can only be described as 
 shuffling arguments — have been used to empty it of any 
 real meaning, was nothing more nor less than a phrase 
 of earlier date than " Absolution ; " and instead of 
 weakening the teaching on the point, it strengthens it, 
 by bringing before the mind the fact that the gift of 
 Absolution is a real " Benefit." l 
 
 2. It has been asserted that the words, "by the 
 ministry of God's Word," are meant to teach that 
 Absolution is nothing at all except an exposition or 
 lecture on some of the promises of Holy Scripture meant 
 
 1 See Dr. Pusey's " Letter to Mr. Upton Richards : " " The Church of 
 England leaves her children free to whom," etc., pp. 41, 42. Also Card- 
 well, " Doc. Ann.," i. p. 130. Also Carter (who quotes both), M Doctrine 
 of Confession," p. 107. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 17 
 
 as a help to individuals. To any plain man it would 
 appear at once that if the Prayer-book uses language 
 in this mysterious manner, in direct contradiction to 
 its ordinary meaning, the less one has to do with the 
 Prayer-book the better, as it would only confuse and 
 perplex in the highest degree. When the Second Prayer- 
 book was framed, everybody knew perfectly well the 
 meaning of the term " Absolution." It was an ordinance, 
 it was a ministerial act, and it had had that definite 
 meaning for ages. You will remember the story that is 
 told of an ecclesiastic who, on being asked — as his 
 Puritan proclivities were well known — "What would 
 you do if a man came to you to hear his confession ? " 
 answered, " I would make him sit down, and I should 
 read to him the Comfortable Words." This illustrates 
 the painful efforts made to distort the meaning of the 
 Prayer-book. Had the framers of the Exhortation not 
 meant absolution to be given, or had they wished to 
 deny the doctrine, of course they would not have used 
 the expression. When they speak of the " ministry of 
 God's Word," they mean men to regard the " Word " as 
 a part or instrument of the ministerial act in conveying 
 the Grace of Absolution, certainly not as a substitute 
 for it. 1 "Hooker," says Canon Carter justly, " understood 
 the phrase in our Office in this sense." Hooker's words 
 are, "They" (i.e. they who seek relief of the priest 
 according to his invitation) " are to rest with minds 
 encouraged and persuaded concerning the forgiveness 
 of all their sins as out of Christ's own Word and power 
 by the ministry of the keys." 2 Besides that " the ex- 
 pression under consideration is also consistent with a 
 
 1 See on these points also Carter's " Doctrine of Confession," ch. 
 Vi., where they are more fully dealt with. 
 
 2 " Eccles. Polity," book vi. c. 4, s. 114. 
 
 
 
18 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 sacramental view of the ministry, and is used under this 
 idea both in Scripture and by the Fathers. St. Paul, 
 e.g., speaks of Christ in Holy Baptism 'cleansing' the 
 Church 'with the washing of water by the Word;' 1 St. 
 Peter, again, of our ' being born again, not of corruptible 
 seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God.' In 
 both cases the grace of the sacrament is referred, not 
 to the act of the minister, but to the word used in his 
 ministry. . . . Again, St. Augustine, commenting on our 
 Lord's saying, 'Now are ye clean by the Word I have 
 spoken unto you,' adds, ' Why saith He not, " Ye are 
 clean through the Baptism wherewith ye have been 
 baptized " ? saving that in water also the Word 
 cleanseth. Take away the Word, and what is the water 
 but water ? The Word is added to the element, and it 
 becomes a Sacrament, which itself also is a sort of 
 visible Word.' " 
 
 3. But further, all through the Prayer-book the 
 hearing of confessions and the ministering of absolution 
 is treated as an authoritative act entirely confined to 
 the priesthood. Deacons are allowed to expound the 
 Scriptures. What would be the sense in a man who 
 wanted absolution going to a priest, if all that it 
 amounted to was that he should have the opportunity 
 of hearing the Comfortable Words read to him ? It is 
 difficult to believe that anybody can seriously believe 
 in or defend such a grotesque perversion of language. 
 This exhortation, it has been truly said, comprehensively 
 
 1 It is interesting to notice—in spite of Hooker, whom they usually 
 quote — that an adverse critic says that I assume that St. Paul alludes to 
 baptism by " the washing of water " ! I should like to ask — If not, then 
 what does he allude to ? I know of nothing in the Christian Church in 
 which " the washing of water " comes in except Holy Baptism. Men are 
 driven hard to contravene the Faith if they fall back upon criticism of 
 this kind. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 19 
 
 expresses the several parts of the ministry, (a) The 
 appointed minister is the priest. " Let him come to me;" 
 for it is only a priest who can read this exhortation, as 
 it is only a priest who can celebrate, (b) The instru- 
 ment of the ministry is God's Word, (c) The blessing 
 received is counsel and comfort, and the benefit of 
 absolution, (d) The results are " the quieting of his 
 conscience, and avoiding all scruple and doubtfulness." x 
 
 4. But a most important consideration, again and 
 again urged, and again and again ignored by those who 
 oppose Catholic teaching, is this — that when the Second 
 Prayer-book was authorized, it was distinctly stated, in 
 the "Act for the Uniformity of Services" (1552), that 
 the First Prayer-book was " agreeable to the Word of 
 God and the Primitive Church," and that "doubts in 
 the use and exercise thereof " had arisen " rather from 
 the curiosity of the ministers and mistakers than of 
 any other worthy cause." Whatever change of language, 
 then, there may have been in later books, we have a 
 public and authoritative statement that no change of 
 doctrine tvas intended. The most dexterous juggler 
 with words cannot escape from the plain assertions 
 of the First Prayer-book. Even if he tries to twist 
 the expressions of the later book into meaning some- 
 thing else instead of Confession and Absolution, he 
 cannot, with any sort of respect for the meaning of 
 language, pretend that the First Book did not in the 
 plainest way teach this doctrine and practice ; and since 
 no change of doctrine, we are distinctly told, was 
 intended, if he has any doubt about the meaning of the 
 language of the later book, he has only to refer to the 
 First Book to clear away his doubt. 
 
 The teaching of the Exhortation in the Communion 
 
 1 Vide Carter, ut supra. 
 
20 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Service, then, goes so far as this — not that Auricular 
 Confession is necessary in all cases, but that it is 
 'permitted, in certain cases advised, and even urged, 
 that it is a benefit and a blessing. 
 
 II. (1) The second important passage is, of course, in 
 the Office for the Visitation of the Sick. The witness of 
 this to the mind of the Church of England as to the 
 truth and blessing of Auricular Confession is final, and 
 cannot be evaded. It comes to us with all the authority 
 of the settlement of 1661. The changes made then 
 rendered the whole question more definite and distinct, 
 by going back more closely to the pre-Reformation 
 directions. In the earlier Prayer-book confession was 
 left to the discretion of the sick person ; in our present 
 Prayer-book the priest is directed to take the initiative, 
 and to use his influence so as to move the side person to 
 make a confession, if he thought it desirable. Not only 
 so, the present Prayer-book also specifies that it is to be 
 a special confession of his sins. Former Prayer-books 
 offered, indeed, an opportunity to the sick person ; in our 
 present Prayer-book the priest is to urge it. How, then, 
 can anybody, I would ask, with the slightest respect for 
 the morality of language, pretend for a moment that the 
 Church of England does not teach Auricular Confession ? 
 
 (2) It is also to be remembered that the stronger 
 terms of our present rubric were probably introduced to 
 counteract that growing tendency to laxity, and the 
 dangerous evasion of confession, which was becoming 
 then, as unfortunately it has been since, a very grave 
 danger to souls. The clergy, so it has been wisely said, 
 had become rather slow and backward — a little bit lazy, 
 I suppose, and perhaps half-hearted and cowardly — 
 which is a serious danger to priests — as, unfortunately, 
 they have sometimes shown themselves in later times, 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 21 
 
 we cannot doubt to the serious detriment of souls — in 
 doing what was their duty, though a painful duty. 
 Probably some of them found refuge in the terms of the 
 rubric. Rubric- worship then, as rubric-worship now, in 
 those who do not really mean what they say in the 
 Creed — " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church " — was 
 doubtless dangerous. The Savoy Fathers were de- 
 termined that there should be no mistake. They met 
 such persons on their own ground. They were not to 
 escape from their duties by pleading a vague rubric. 
 It was the duty of the priest henceforth, at any rate, to 
 take the initiative, and to exhort and urge the sick 
 man to confession. 1 
 
 I repeat, again, whatever be the limits, whatever be 
 the arrangements to be made in detail, any man who 
 puts his hand to the statement that he accepts the 
 Prayer-book ex animo, and then, in face of this rubric, 
 declares that Auricular Confession is contrary to the 
 teaching of the Church of England, is a curiosity, and 
 might fairly advance a claim to be put in a museum ! 
 
 (3) There has been, I know, an attempt made — which, 
 were the subject not so serious, would be positively 
 comical — to evade the force of this command by declaring 
 that this is an absolution only from Church censures. 
 When men say such things, my dear friend, we feel 
 sorrow for them. They are suffering under the pressure 
 of a disagreeable truth, to which they have bound 
 
 1 The only attempt made to meet the force of this is that it was " a 
 Romish form," and " never permitted till 1215, and the great Cardinal 
 Hugo, William of Paris, and William of Auxerre, protested against 
 it" as "false in doctrine and modern in form." I differ. It is "an 
 Anglican form." It does not matter in the smallest degree in what year 
 it was first permitted, nor is it of consequence what " great Cardinal " liked 
 or disliked it. TJie point is — the Church of England has liked it and 
 adopted it, and to its use all of us clergy are bound as^Anglican priests. 
 
22 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 themselves, and the force of which it is not easy 
 to evade. I do not mean that they are consciously 
 dishonest, but they have drifted into the habit of 
 interpreting the teachings of the Church in accordance 
 with formulae invented by "this present evil world," 
 and they have emptied the teachings of her who is the 
 bride of the Lamb of their real meaning by traditional 
 heresies and superstitions of Puritanism. It can 
 scarcely be doubted, surely, by any serious person, that 
 language so solemn, and so exact, and used at such a 
 time as in the last moments of the probationary life of 
 a soul in this world, could not possibly, I submit, relate 
 to " Church censures." It is really difficult to repress a 
 smile when one finds Protestant teachers so very jealous 
 about respect to the directions of the Church, which 
 usually they decry, that they urge the theory that they 
 are to disturb the last moments of a dying man in 
 order to remove " Church censures." We do not find 
 them in the ordinary hours of life so sensitively alive to 
 the regulations of the Church. Verily " the whirligig 
 of time hath its revenges " ! 
 
 But beyond all this, we know that this is taken from 
 the old Latin Office, which did mention ecclesiastical 
 censures as a separate thing, but also had, " I absolve 
 thee from thy sins" In our Prayer-book the sentence 
 about ecclesiastical censures ivas deliberately omitted, 
 while that about the absolution from sins was as 
 deliberately retained. In the face of this, is it possible 
 for any one to say that the directions in the Visitation 
 of the Sick have to do with the censures of the Church 
 only? 
 
 But further, the priest has to ask the sick man about 
 his " sins ; " he* has to move him to confess his " sins." If 
 Church censures only are the subject of absolution, then 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION 23 
 
 this is what the Church is supposed to do : in the most 
 awful moment of human trial she is supposed to juggle 
 with language, and to put one meaning on the word 
 " sins " in her rubric of direction to the priest, and 
 another meaning upon it in the words of absolution ! 
 A strange mother, to deceive and perplex her child at 
 the moment of his severest trial ! 
 
 But besides that, there are two considerations which 
 really settle the question for any serious person. 
 (1) The sins which are spoken of can, from the nature 
 of the case, be only known to the priest by the confes- 
 sion of the sick person. Now, sins which come under 
 " Church censure " are notorious sins, and (2) the 
 removing of " Church censures " is no part of the office 
 of a priest. There is not a word about any special 
 commission from the bishop here — which would be 
 necessary in dealing with ecclesiastical censures — but 
 the ordinary exercise of the authority of a priest. It 
 is also well to remember Mr. Cooke's remark, quoted by 
 Canon Carter. 1 It is made a propos of the fact that 
 when the Prayer-book was reviewed the Nonconformists 
 objected to the form of Absolution. Then Mr. Cooke 
 says, and justly, " How easy it would have been for the 
 bishops to have answered, that nothing but a release 
 from Church censures was meant, if such had been 
 considered to be the object of the absolution!" But 
 the bishops answered in a very different way. They 
 affirmed the exact contrary. They said that " the form 2 
 of Absolution is more agreeable to the Scriptures than 
 that which they desire, it being said in St. John xx., 
 
 1 "Doctrine of Confession," ch. vii. 
 
 2 Card well's "History of Conferences on the Book of Common 
 Prayer," p. 361 ; quoted also by Carter, " Doctrine of Confession," ut 
 gupra. 
 
24 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 ' whose sins ye remit, they are remitted' — not, ' whose sins 
 ye pronounce remitted ' — and the condition needs not to 
 be expressed, being always necessarily understood." 
 
 (4) The last statement of the bishops here, I think you 
 will agree with me, is worth dwelling upon for a moment. 
 One of the foolish fallacies constantly in vogue with the 
 opponents of Catholic teaching is that absolution is not 
 operative unless penitence is sincere, and that as the 
 priest is not omniscient he cannot be sure of this. This 
 kind of argument would cut at the root of all faithful 
 action under the laws of Divine government. But just 
 as our common sense would correct any such absurdity 
 in the ordinary practices of life, so the common sense of 
 the bishops made short work of this transparent evasion. 
 There is always, of course, a personal responsibility ulti- 
 mately and in the long run, but in every affair of life — 
 not merely in these very serious matters — when we act 
 for and with others, there are also always conditions 
 understood of the fulfilment of which we can never be 
 absolutely certain. We live in a world of probation and 
 trial, and probability is necessarily the guide of life. 
 
 But this by the way. 
 
 (5) It is a further very remarkable thing that, through 
 all the revisions of the Prayer-book, the form of the 
 Absolution in the Visitation of the Sick has never been 
 changed. Foreign Protestants and sectaries of all kinds 
 pressed fiercely upon the Fathers of the English Church, 
 especially in Edward VI.'s reign. Notwithstanding 
 this, they did not succeed in persuading the Church of 
 England to change the strongest form of Absolution that 
 ever has been used in the Church. The truth evidently 
 is that the " principles of the Reformation " involved 
 the clear Catholic doctrine of Auricular Confession and 
 Priestly Absolution, and that any man who denies these 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION 25 
 
 is — perhaps unconsciously, but still really — unfaithful 
 to the " principles of the Kef ormation." 
 
 I think, my dear friend, we are bound to keep it 
 clearly before our minds, and the minds of others, that 
 we learn from the plainest evidence, if we do not allow 
 ourselves to be Jesuitical, or to juggle with language, 
 that a prominent " principle of the Kef ormation " is the 
 truth and duty and blessing of Auricular Confession 
 and Priestly Absolution. 
 
 III. But those who desire to deny the Catholic 
 character of the Church's teaching upon this important 
 point fall back upon the Articles and even the Homilies. 
 The first thing to be said on that point is that any- 
 thing which is doubtful in either must be interpreted 
 according to the teaching of the Prayer-book. Lex 
 orandi, lex credendi. It is usual to quote the Twenty - 
 fifth Article, however, as denying the Sacrament of 
 Penance. 
 
 This assertion we must now examine. It must 
 be acknowledged at once that "the language of the 
 Article is awkward and embarrassed." 1 It speaks of 
 the five lesser sacrainents as having "grown," partly 
 of " the corrupt following of the Apostles," partly are 
 " states of life allowed in the Scriptures." At first sight, 
 this looks as if it were intended to divide them into two 
 classes, and opponents of Catholic teaching affirm (1) 
 that the five lesser sacraments are not sacraments at 
 all, because the Article says they are not " sacraments 
 of the Gospel," and (2) that instead of being sacraments, 
 they were some of them merely permissible states of life, 
 and some of them corruptions of Apostolic teaching. 2 
 
 1 Bishop Forbes on the Articles, in loo. 
 
 2 I notice that an adverse critic thinks I acknowledge that the Article 
 is against my contention by adopting Bishop Forbes' phrase that the 
 
26 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 This is altogether a mistaken view; for (1) the word 
 " sacrament " has been used in a wide sense and a 
 narrow sense. In the wider sense these five are sacra- 
 ments, according to St. Augustine's description, " a 
 visible sign of an invisible grace ; " and this the Article 
 does not deny. What it does deny is that they are 
 sacraments in the stricter sense. What the Article 
 technically calls "sacraments of the Gospel," that is, 
 sacraments vnth an outward sign ordained expressly by 
 Christ Himself, are recorded as being so ordained in 
 the Gospel. In this latter sense, only Holy Baptism 
 and Holy Communion are "sacraments." The Article 
 means to place before us the special dignity and neces- 
 sity of the two great sacraments, but does not deny a 
 sacramental character to the five other rites. It could 
 not be so, for those who framed the Article cannot have 
 meant to contradict the Homilies of which they spoke 
 with approval. Indeed, the passage on Common Prayer 
 and Sacraments, in the Second Book of the Homilies, 
 illustrates the meaning of the Article. The Homily there 
 confines the term " sacrament," " in its fullest, strictest 
 sense," to the two great sacraments ; " recognizes," it has 
 been truly said, " at the same time an intermediate class 
 of sacraments, or sacramental ordinances, of which Abso- 
 lution and Orders are mentioned as instances." Marriage, 
 again, is directly called a "sacrament" in one of the 
 Homilies. And Absolution is declared to have "the 
 promise of forgiveness of sin." And Orders are said to 
 
 language of the Article is " awkward and embarrassed." How so ? Can 
 any one contend that it is anything else? It appears at first sight to 
 divide the five sacramental ordinances in question into two classes: (1) 
 "corrupt following of the Apostles;" (2) "states of life allowed in 
 Scripture." Can any member of the English Church, I repeat, pretend 
 that Confirmation falls under either of these heads ? He cannot. Well, 
 if so, the language is "awkward and embarrassed." 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 27 
 
 convey the grace of the priesthood. Taking the Article 
 and Homilies together in the light of the teaching of the 
 Prayer-book, it is quite clear that the Church of Eng- 
 land means to draw a distinction between the two great 
 sacraments and the others. Holy Baptism and the Holy 
 Eucharist are pre-eminent. "What Circumcision and 
 the Passover were to the Fathers, they are to the Israel 
 of God. They alone are generally necessary to salva- 
 tion," and they alone have outward signs instituted by 
 Christ Himself, as recorded in the Gospels. Other 
 sacramental rites, however, there are, and it has been 
 shown that the Article cannot be supposed to deny that 
 they are ordinances of God, and that they convey 
 spiritual grace. It has been truly said, "It cannot be 
 denied that seven ordinances have enclosed the whole 
 Christian life in blessed bonds, not all necessary for all 
 — nay, in the highest form of Christian life there is no 
 room for Matrimony ; and in the first fervour of Chris- 
 tian love, they were the exception who needed to be 
 restored by the Sacrament of Penance — but these 
 convey, according to men's needs, the grace of which 
 they are channels. They have ever been regarded to have 
 a mystical significance of their own, and severally from 
 the beginning, have existed as practices in the Church." * 
 (2) As to the notion that the Article really in- 
 tended to declare these to be either permissible states 
 of life or corruptions of Apostolic teaching, this again 
 is clearly a mistake ; for this reason, among others, that 
 Confirmation, for instance, is certainly not a " state of 
 life," and as certainly it did not arise from a " corrupt 
 following of the Apostles," seeing that it is accepted and 
 insisted upon by the English Church in the most em- 
 phatic manner. Obscure and awkward as the language 
 
 * Carter, " Doctrine of Confession," in loc. 
 
28 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 of the Article certainly is, it cannot mean this; and 
 with regard to the question immediately before us, it 
 cannot mean that the Sacrament of Penance arose from 
 a " corrupt following of the Apostles," for in the Com- 
 mination Service the component parts of the Sacrament 
 of Penance, according to their accustomed and ancient 
 definitions, are drawn out so that we learn that they are 
 contrition, confession, and worthy fruits of penance- 
 If the curious expression in the Article about the 
 " corrupt following of the Apostles " refers to this sacra- 
 ment at all, then it can only have meant to repudiate 
 "not penance, whether public or private, simply con- 
 sidered, but some incidental doctrines, which had become 
 intimately associated with the term, and formed part of 
 the practical system then prevailing." x Very probably, 
 too, that expression' may have been intended to con- 
 demn, not the Sacrament of Unction, for which there 
 is an appointed Service in the First Prayer-book, but 
 the abuse of making it extreme Unction only. But that 
 by the way. 
 
 IV. I need not now dwell at any great length upon 
 the bearing on this subject of the words in the Service 
 for the Ordination of Priests, because they must be con- 
 sidered more carefully by-and-by on the whole question 
 of sacerdotalism. But we may notice this now : The 
 Ordinal was prepared in 1549 by Cranmer and others 
 who were working with him. In 1548 he put forth 
 what is called Cranmer 's Catechism. That Catechism 
 may therefore be taken as explanatory of what the 
 Ordinal was intended to mean. In 1562 was published 
 the Homily for Whitsun Day, and it has been truly said 
 that "these documents together form an authoritative 
 
 1 Carter, " Doctrine of Confession," ch. vii. ut supra. See also 
 Forbes on the Articles in loc. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 29 
 
 catena of doctrine stretching throughout the most 
 critical period of the Reformation." x 
 
 The following is the language of the Homily: 
 "Christ ordained the authority of the Keys to ex- 
 communicate notorious sinners, and to absolve them 
 which are truly penitent." The language of the 
 Catechism is as follows : " Now, God doth not speak 
 to us with a voice sounding out of Heaven, but He hath 
 given the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the 
 authority to forgive sin by the Ministers of the Church. 
 Wherefore let him that is a sinner go to one of them ; 
 let him acknowledge and confess his sin, and pray him 
 that, according to God's commandment, he will give him 
 Absolution, and comfort him with the Word of Grace, 
 and Forgiveness of his sins. And when the Minister 
 doth so, then I ought steadfastly to believe that my sins 
 are truly forgiven me in Heaven, and such a faith is 
 able to stand strong in all skirmishes and assaults of 
 our mortal enemy, the Devil ; forasmuch as it is builded 
 on a sure rock, that is to say, the certain Word and Work 
 of God. For he that is absolved knoweth for a surety 
 that his sins be forgiven him by the Minister , and he 
 knoweth assuredly also that the Minister hath authority 
 from God Himself to do so. And, thirdly, he knoweth 
 that God hath made this promise to His Ministers, and 
 said to them, ' To whom ye forgive sins on earth, to 
 him also they shall be^forgiven in Heaven.' Wherefore 
 despise not Absolution, for it is the commandment and 
 Ordinance of God, and the Holy Spirit of God is present 
 and causeth these things to take effect in us and to work 
 om\salvation." 2 
 
 1 Carter, ibid., ch. viii. ; also Cooke's " Power of the Priesthood," 
 p. 62, also quoted by him. 
 
 2 Cf. " Catechism, Cranmer's Works," vol, iv. p. 283. The italics are 
 
30 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 I repeat that the question before us for the moment 
 is not as to the truth of the doctrine under discussion ; 
 but the question is whether the Church of England does 
 or does not teach and sanction Confession and Absolution, 
 or Auricular Confession or the Sacrament of Penance, 
 by whichever name it be called. And I would appeal 
 to any fair-minded man — whatever his opinions be as 
 to the truth of the doctrine — whether it is possible, in 
 the face of the teaching of the Prayer-book, of the 
 Articles, of the Homilies, of the Ordinal, to deny that 
 the Church of England does so teach ? And whether it 
 is not abundantly clear in regard to this matter, by a 
 comparison of the words of Cranmer's Catechism of 1548, 
 quoted above, with the words in the Ordinal — " Whose 
 sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven," etc. — drawn 
 up by Cranmer and others in 1549, that the intention of 
 the English Church is to assert the truth of Confession 
 and Absolution, of the Sacrament of Penance, and of 
 this special exercise of the power of the keys ? 
 
 There can be no doubt, then, unless men twist 
 language into non-natural senses, that if the teaching of 
 Auricular Confession and Priestly Absolution implies 
 " sacerdotalism," then " sacerdotalism " is the teaching of 
 the English Church. 
 
 Men who dissent entirely from that teaching, and — 
 acting in a consistent manner by reason of that dissent — 
 remain " Dissenters," see this clearly. It is just twenty 
 years ago since, in commenting upon a discussion which 
 had just then taken place in Convocation, the Noncon- 
 formist, a Dissenting newspaper, wrote as follows : — 
 
 " When men can shut their eyes to what is clearly 
 
 mine. Cranmer is not usually considered by Protestants a " Sacerdotal- 
 ist " in the evil sense of that word. Who can be stronger on Confession 
 and Absolution ? 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 31 
 
 implied by the reservation of the right to read the daily- 
 Absolution ; when they are obstinately blind to the plain 
 grammatical meaning of the Rubric and Absolution in 
 the Visitation of the Sick ; when they, in general, pervert 
 to non-natural meanings the essential significance of 
 the whole sacramental system they profess ; — it is im- 
 possible but that paralysis should seize their under- 
 standings. Violating of necessity, however unconsciously, 
 the unmistakable spirit of the Prayer-book, they have 
 no right to say to transgressors in the opposite direction, 
 ' Stand off; for I am holier than thou.' Say what they 
 may, the principle of Auricular Confession and of 
 Priestly Absolution stares us in the face, indelibly 
 branded on the legal constitution of the Anglican 
 Church." 1 
 
 I am afraid, had I written such words, that it is 
 not difficult to imagine the depth and extent of the scorn 
 of opponents ; but, in truth, it must be evident, to any 
 who look at the matter calmly, how clear and persistent 
 the English Church is as to that part of the gospel 
 which is called by these opponents " sacerdotalism." 
 
 There are two points in this connection which it is 
 well, perhaps, to dwell upon more fully, because of the 
 extreme shiftiness of the arguments of such opponents. 
 
 (1) As to Absolution — oddly enough, they endeavour, 
 in this connection, to make out a sort of general power 
 of doing people good, or helping them, or teaching them. 
 It is necessary to insist that such use or misuse of 
 language would have been in the highest degree immoral. 
 Our Reformers knew perfectly well, as everybody else 
 knew, what meaning was attached in the minds of all 
 men at the time to the word " absolution." Notwith- 
 standing this, it has been actually argued that by the 
 1 Nonconformist, July, 1873. 
 
32 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 power of absolution is meant a power to preach that 
 there is remission of sins offered to repentant sinners 
 through the blood of Christ ! Clearly, if this had been 
 meant, it would have been the duty of the Church to say, 
 " God hath given power and authority to His ministers 
 to preach." If you mean " preaching," you have no busi- 
 ness to say " absolution." This would seem obvious to 
 most people; but it is necessary to insist upon it, as 
 such an extraordinary statement is repeated again and 
 again. Anyhow, whether it be right or not to call one 
 thing by the name of another, the Church of England 
 does not do so. For you will notice, my dear friend, 
 that in the ordination of deacons the bishop delivers to 
 every one of them the New Testament, and in doing 
 so says, "Take thou authority to read the Gospel in 
 the Church of God, and to preach the same, if thou be 
 thereto licensed by the bishop himself." It is never 
 said to the deacon, " Whose sins thou dost forgive, they 
 are forgiven ; " and no suggestion is made that he should 
 be licensed to pronounce absolution. 
 
 It is well known that the Nonconformists desired the 
 word * priest " to be removed, and the word " minister " to 
 be used instead of it always in the Prayer-book. There 
 are some who regret that the word was left in the Prayer- 
 book. They think that it means nothing more than a 
 deacon or minister, or even layman, and that its retention 
 has led to this unfortunate " sacerdotalism" which they so 
 greatly deplore. This is a mistake. The retention of the 
 word " priest " did not lead to sacerdotalism, but " sacer- 
 dotalism" — being the doctrine of the Church of England 
 — led to the retention of the word " priest." This we 
 knoiv as a matter of fact. The bishops at the Savoy 
 Conference answered the Nonconformists as follows : " It 
 is not reasonable that the word ' minister ' should be 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 33 
 
 only used in the Liturgy. For since some parts of the 
 Liturgy may be performed by a deacon, others by none 
 under the order of a priest, viz. absolution and con- 
 secration, it is fit that some such word as ' priest ' should 
 be used for those offices, and not ' minister,' which sig- 
 nifies at large every one that ministers in that holy 
 office, of what order soever he be." * 
 
 But what is more, in the rubric before the Absolu- 
 tion in the Office for Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, 
 the word " minister " was erased and " priest " substituted. 
 The Church of England then, as it permits the deacon 
 to preach and the priest only to absolve, makes her 
 mind quite clear as to this point, that preaching is one 
 function and absolution quite another. And, in view 
 of this evidence, I submit, it may be legitimate for 
 some men — being Catholic priests — to lament that they 
 are not Protestant ministers, and that their Church 
 did not depart from " sacerdotalism " and the Catholic 
 teaching about absolution ; but it is not open to them 
 to say that she did depart from it when there is 
 clear evidence that she did not, or to find fault with 
 those who, being like themselves Catholic priests, are 
 not desirous of acting as Protestant ministers. That 
 by the way. But it is abundantly evident that absolu- 
 tion is an ordinance to be administered in the Church 
 by a priest, and only by a priest ; that its " benefits," 
 which come from God through the power of the Passion 
 of Christ, may be received by any penitent soul making 
 
 1 Cardwell, " Hist, of Conferences," ch. vii. prop. ii. p. 42. What 
 becomes of the retort to my argument that " the Keformers might have 
 called ministers by other names than priest," and they deliberately would 
 not ? The retort is, " On the contrary, they deliberately did " ! It has 
 been declared that in my statement I speak " in the teeth of all evidence." 
 Let any one read Cardwell's account as above of the bishops' answer, and 
 then say which of us speaks " in the teeth of all evidence." 
 
 D 
 
34 SACERDOTALISM 
 
 their confession to the priest, and that this Divine gift 
 and sacred ordinance has its own meaning and object, 
 and is not to be confused with any other whatever. 
 
 (2) As to Confession — there has further been an 
 effort made, of an evasive kind, to promote the notion that 
 if absolution means anything at all beyond preaching 
 of forgiveness, it only means some sort of general declara- 
 tion, and that special confession is not necessary before 
 particular absolution. How any one can imagine such 
 a thing in the face of those teachings of the Prayer- 
 book which we have already examined, viz. the Ex- 
 hortation in the Communion Service, and, above all, 
 the rubric in the Visitation of the Sick, it is difficult 
 to imagine, if one did not know the shifts to which men 
 sometimes betake themselves in order to cover an 
 impossible position. But there are some direct proofs, 
 besides those in the Prayer-book, that confession, as a 
 prerequisite to receiving the Grace of Absolution, has 
 been believed and insisted upon by the Anglican 
 hierarchy. Among such proofs I need only mention 
 one. You will remember the story of Sir John Friend 
 and Sir William Parkins, who were sentenced to death 
 for conspiring against King William III. Certain 
 clergy, it appears, " openly and scandalously gave them 
 absolution, though they made no special confession of 
 their sins." The archbishops, and as many bishops as it 
 was possible to get together in London, issued a declara- 
 tion accordingly. 1 In the declaration this occurs — 
 
 " Lastly. For those clergymen that took upon them 
 to absolve these criminals at the place of execution, 
 by laying, all three together, their hands upon their 
 heads, and publicly pronouncing a form of absolution ; 
 
 1 Wilkins' " Concilia," toI. iv. p, 627. This is ako quoted by Cooke, 
 " Power of the Priesthood," p. 57. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 35 
 
 as their manner of doing this was extremely insolent, 
 and without precedent either in our Church or any- 
 way that we know of, so the thing itself was altogether 
 irregular. 
 
 "The rubric in our Office of the Visitation of the 
 Sick, from which they took the words they then used, 
 and upon which, if upon anything in our Liturgy, 
 they must ground this their proceeding, gave them 
 no authority nor no pretence for the absolving 
 these persons; nay, as they managed the affair, they 
 acted in this absolution far otherwise than is there 
 directed. 
 
 "That rubric is concerning sick persons, and it is 
 there required, first, that the ' sick person shall be 
 moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he 
 feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter, 
 and then, after such confession, the priest shall absolve 
 him, if he humbly and heartily desire it/ But here 
 they absolved, and that publicly, persons condemned 
 by law for execrable crimes, ivithout so much as once 
 moving them at that time to make a special confession 
 of their sins — at least of those sins for which they 
 were condemned. And, on the other side, here were 
 persons absolved that did not humbly desire absolution, 
 as feeling any such weighty matter to trouble their 
 conscience. 
 
 " If these ministers knew not the state of these 
 men's souls before they gave them absolution, as it 
 is manifest two of them did not, . . . how could they, 
 ivithout manifest transgression of the Church's order, 
 as well as the profane abuse of the power Christ 
 has left with His ministers, absolve them from their 
 sins ? 
 
 " If they were acquainted with these men's sentiments 
 
36 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 declared in their papers, then they must look upon them 
 either as hardened impenitents, or martyrs. 
 
 " We are so charitable to believe that they would not 
 absolve them under the former notion [i.e. as being 
 impenitent] ; for that had been, in effect, sealing them to 
 damnation." 
 
 This document is dated April 10, 1696, and it is 
 signed by the two archbishops and twelve bishops. I 
 may remind you that Tenison at the time was Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. 
 
 But what I desire to call your attention to, my 
 dear Dean, is this — that these archbishops and 
 bishops teach : (1) That there must be a special 
 confession of sin before particular absolution. (2) 
 That Christ hath left power to His ministers to 
 absolve penitents from their sins (not merely from 
 Church censures). (3) That to receive absolution un- 
 worthily is as serious a matter as to receive the Eucharist 
 unworthily. Indeed, the archbishops' and bishops' lan- 
 guage here is unmistakably strong; for whilst the 
 Exhortation in the Communion Service speaks of 
 receiving Communion unworthily being a way to 
 ' increase damnation," the archbishops and bishops here 
 speak of receiving absolution unworthily immediately 
 before death, when there is presumably no time for 
 further repentance, as being a means to seal us to 
 damnation. Confession, then, of sins is clearly a pre- 
 requisite in the mind of the Church for the receiving 
 of absolution, and absolution is a means of conveying 
 pardon to the penitent according to the institution of 
 Christ. This is clear enough, of course, to any one 
 who does not wilfully shut his eyes to the Church of 
 England formularies already considered ; but here there 
 is the very strongest corroborative evidence from the 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 37 
 
 declaration of these archbishops and bishops, not by any 
 means inclined to be prejudiced in favour of extreme 
 " sacerdotalism." l 
 
 If I turn, my dear friend, to the great divines of 
 the English Church, I am so overwhelmed by a mass of 
 evidence on the subject that I would weary you, and all 
 my readers, if I attempted to quote half of it. Allow 
 me to remind you of some examples. 
 
 Here is what Bishop Montague 2 says : " Private 
 confession to a priest is of very ancient practice in the 
 Church ; of excellent use and practice, being discreetly 
 handled. We refuse it to none, if men require it, if 
 need be to have it. We urge and persuade it in 
 extremes. We require it in case of perplexity, for the 
 quieting of men disturbed, and their consciences." 
 
 There is no doubt that our great divines draw the 
 true line between confession as compulsory and con- 
 fession as voluntary. So Marshall writes — 
 
 "This [private confession] they find recommended 
 in very ancient records, and descending to them with 
 the advantage of truly primitive examples; therefore 
 they are loth entirely to lose sight of it ; especially 
 since they observe both our own and most of the 
 reformed Churches to have been well-wishers to it; 
 though they have left it, indeed, upon every man's 
 conscience to resort, as he shall see occasion, to his 
 spiritual guide either for comfort or counsel." 8 
 
 Hooker, as you know, was quite distinct against 
 compulsion in confession. He is a favourite authority, 
 by the way, with some who oppose us when they can 
 
 1 This is drawn out more strongly and clearly by Cooke, "Power 
 of the Priesthood," p. 89. 
 
 2 a.d. 1578-1641. " A Gag for the New Gospel." 
 
 3 "Penitential Discipline," p. 41, quoted by Bennett. 
 
38 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 find in him a stray sentence which seems to tell against 
 the Faith. I do not think they would be inclined to be 
 so enthusiastic as to some of his teachings, as I shall 
 have occasion to notice on another point. But even 
 Hooker writes as follows : — 
 
 "Were the Fathers, then, without use of private 
 confession as long as public was in use ? I affirm no 
 such thing. The first and ancientest that mentioneth 
 this confession is Origen, by whom it may be seen that 
 men, being loth to present rashly themselves and their 
 faults unto the view of the whole Church, thought it 
 best to unfold their minds to some one special man of 
 the clergy, which might either help them himself, or 
 refer them to a higher court if need were." 
 
 Hooker also quotes Origen as follows : " Be therefore 
 circumspect in making choice of the party to whom 
 thou meanest to confess thy sins ; know thy physician 
 before thou use him." x 
 
 He also quotes St. Augustine as follows : " Let every 
 man while there is time judge himself, and change his 
 life of his own accord ; and when this is resolved, let 
 him, from the disposers of the Holy Sacraments, learn 
 in what manner he is to pacify God's displeasure." 2 
 
 Then Hooker concludes as follows : " But because of 
 all men there is, or should be, none more fit for troubled 
 and distressed minds to repair unto than God's ministers, 
 he [i.e. St. Augustine] proceedeth further: 'Make the 
 priest, as a father, partaker of thy affliction and grief ; be 
 bold to impart unto him the things that are most secret, 
 he will have care both of thy safety and of thy credit.' " 
 
 You will agree with me also, my dear friend, and 
 perhaps even opponents will agree with me in this, that 
 
 1 " Eccles. Polity," bk. vi. (Keble's edit., vol. iii. p. 30). 
 
 2 Ibid., pp. 31, 32. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 39 
 
 a man's deeds are more eloquent than his words. You 
 remember what Walton tells us of Hooker in his " Life." 
 " About one day before his death, Dr. Saravia, who knew 
 the very secrets of his soul [for they were supposed to 
 be confessors to each other] came to him, and after a 
 conference of the benefit, the necessity, and safety of 
 the Church's Absolution, it was resolved the doctor 
 should give him both that and the Sacrament the day 
 following." 1 
 
 There is something very touching in the story of 
 Hooker and Saravia hearing each other's confessions, and 
 giving one another absolution. There is something very 
 saddening in thinking how many souls at the time must 
 have stood in the same sort of need of the Church's 
 ministrations who often, from laxity or carelessness in 
 the priesthood, failed to receive them. We cannot be 
 thankful enough to Almighty God for the revival of 
 life in these later times in our beloved Church, whereby 
 both clergy and laity are led to realize the blessing of 
 this loving ordinance of Christ. We are, alas ! all of us, 
 too ready to think lightly of sin, and too open to the 
 temptation to avoid the penitential discipline of particular 
 Confession, and to slight the " benefit of Absolution ; " 
 but how shocking and how sad it is when — in the 
 face of the plain teaching of our Church — sometimes a 
 priest (and, occasionally I fear, it has been so, a bishop) 
 positively dissuades men from the use of so blessed 
 an ordinance of grace, and thereby really hinders 
 souls ! 
 
 But I go on. We are told of Bishop Bull, that " a 
 
 few days before his death, in the presence of several 
 
 persons, he made a solemn confession and declaration 
 
 of the conduct of his whole life," and he received abso- 
 
 1 " The Life of Mr. Kichard Hooker," fol. edit. 1666, p. 25. 
 
4 o SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 lution. 1 The same is told of Bishop Sanderson, and of 
 other great English divines. You remember also that 
 Bishop Latimer said, "To speak of right and true 
 confession, I would to God it were kept in England, for 
 it is a good thing." 2 
 
 Bishop Andrewes, you remember, thanked God that 
 his sins had been remitted through the power of the 
 keys ; and it was his habit, especially in Lent, to walk 
 daily at certain hours in one of the aisles of the church, 
 that if any came unto him for spiritual advice and 
 comfort, he might impart it to them. 
 
 Dr. Crakanthorp 8 said, " We have abrogated neither 
 Private Confession nor Private Absolution." 
 
 Bishop Morton 4 said, " It is not questioned between 
 us whether it be convenient for a man burthened with 
 sin to lay open his conscience in private to the minister 
 of God, and to seek at his hands . . . the comfort of 
 God's "pardon!' 
 
 Bishop Cosin says that Sacramental Confession and 
 Absolution are for the better preparation for the Blessed 
 Sacrament. 5 
 
 I might also, of course, quote to you the well-known 
 words of Bishop Wilson on Absolution, Death-bed Ke- 
 pentance, and Auricular Confession, and, indeed, any 
 
 1 Nelson's " Life of Bull," Oxford, 1846, pp. 393, 394. Here we are 
 told that he preferred the form of Absolution in the Communion Office, 
 but that he did not thereby condemn the use of the other form, nor had 
 he " any doubt concerning the benefits of Sacerdotal Absolution." 
 
 2 Bishop Sanderson (a.d. 1587-1662), speaking of a case of mortal sin, 
 says, " She [must] also make an outward free confession of her said sins 
 to him to whom God hath delegated a ministerial power to remit sins, that 
 she may receive comfort and absolution from his mouth; I mean the Priest " 
 (vide "Nine Cases of Conscience," sec. 13, published under the authority 
 of Bishop Hall). 
 
 * a.d. 1567-1624. " Defensio Eccl. Anglicanse," p. 565. 
 
 4 a.d. 1564-1659. " Catholick Appeal," p. 270. 
 
 5 a.d. 1594-1672. "Works," vol. ii. p. 121. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION 41 
 
 number of sayings from his works all teaching this 
 truth fully; but I need not weary you with accumu- 
 lating evidences of the mind of the great English 
 divines on this subject, for the mass of evidence both 
 from the Prayer-book and from our divines is so 
 great that it would be impossible to exhaust it 
 within any reasonable space. However, there is one 
 piece of evidence to which I must call your atten- 
 tion. 
 
 If a practice is not authorized or permitted by a 
 Church, then that Church would certainly not make 
 laws to regulate that practice. If, on the other hand, 
 a Church does make such laws, then it would be im- 
 possible to say that she puts aside the practice which 
 she regulates. No reasonable being can deny this. Now, 
 if every other proof were wanting of the fact that the 
 Church of England teaches the doctrine of Confession 
 and Absolution, and further that she contemplates the 
 use of Private Auricular Confession by her members, 
 her own regulation on the subject would be sufficient 
 and unanswerable. In the 113th of the Constitutions 
 and Canons Ecclesiastical, which were passed in the 
 Synod of 1604, and which are still in force, " pro- 
 vision is made," as it has been truly said, " to secure 
 the secrecy of confession by threatening one of the 
 heaviest ecclesiastical penalties against any priest who 
 shall reveal a sin committed to his trust in confession." * 
 The Canon in question absolutely forbids the revealing 
 by the minister, "if any man confess his secret and 
 hidden sins to " him, of anything that has been told 
 him, and this " under pain of irregularity." And pain 
 of irregularity, as the Canonists tell us, " not only doth 
 deprive a man of all his spiritual promotions for the 
 1 Cooke, "Power of the Priesthood," pp. 106, 107. 
 
42 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 present time, but makes him utterly incapable of any 
 for the time to come ; and therefore it is the greatest 
 penalty, except degradation from the priesthood, which 
 possibly a clergyman can be subject to." It is certainly 
 true, then, " that a law to regulate the priest's conduct 
 concerning Confession is the very strongest possible 
 evidence that the practice of Confession is contemplated 
 by the English Church." 
 
 But further, I may adduce the following evidence, 
 which is entirely to the point in question, and I cannot 
 do better than adopt the words of an able writer on the 
 subject : — 
 
 "In the year 1634," he says, "the English Canons 
 were introduced into Ireland, with certain alterations. 
 It must be remembered that the Irish Church at that 
 period decidedly leaned to Puritanism, and that the 
 Irish Canons were drawn up by Bishop Bramhall and 
 approved of by the Primate Ussher — two of the greatest 
 opponents Rome ever had. And therefore it is not a 
 little remarkable, and, at the same time, a proof that 
 private confession is not necessarily peculiar to the 
 Roman Church* to find the practice of private confession 
 recommended in such decided terms : ' Canon XIX. 
 Warning to be given beforehand for the Communion : 
 " Whereas every lay person is bound to receive the Holy 
 Communion thrice every year, and many, notwithstand- 
 ing, do not receive the sacrament once a year, we do 
 require every minister to give warning to his parishioners 
 publicly in the church at Morning Prayer, the Sunday 
 before every time of his administering the Holy 
 Sacrament, for the better preparation of themselves; 
 which said warning be enjoined the said parishioners to 
 accept and obey, under the penalty and danger of the 
 
 1 The italics are mine. — W. J. K. L. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 43 
 
 law. And the minister of every parish, and in cathedral 
 and collegiate churches some principal minister of the 
 Church, shall, the afternoon before the said administra- 
 tion, give warning by the tolling of the bell, or other- 
 wise, that if any have any scruple of conscience, or 
 desire the special ministry of reconciliation, he may 
 afford it to those that need it. And to this end that 
 people are often to be exhorted to enter into a special 
 examination of the state of their own souls, and that 
 finding themselves extremely dull, or much troubled in 
 mind, they do resort unto God's ministers, to receive 
 from them as well advice and counsel for the quieting of 
 their dead hearts, and the subduing of those corruptions 
 whereunto they have been subject, as the benefit of 
 absolution likewise, for the quieting of their consciences 
 by the power of the keys which Christ hath committed 
 His ministers for that purpose." ' " x 
 
 Let me further quote — 
 
 "In the Articles of Inquiry made by Bishops at 
 their Visitations, we find constant reference to Confes- 
 sion. In 1619 Bishop Overall inquires, • Whether doth 
 your minister, before the several times of the adminis- 
 tration of the Lord's Supper, admonish and exhort 
 his parishioners if they have their consciences troubled 
 and disquieted, to resort unto him or some other 
 learned minister, and open his grief, that he may 
 receive such ghostly counsel and comfort as his con- 
 science may be relieved, and by the minister he may 
 receive the benefit of absolution, to the quiet of his 
 conscience and avoiding of scruple ? ' In 1636 the 
 Bishop of Peterborough inquires, 'Doth your minister 
 . . . commonly premonish his parishioners if they be 
 
 1 Cooke, "Power of the Priesthood." The italics are mine. — 
 W. J. K. L. 
 
44 SACERDOTALISM, 
 
 troubled in conscience to confess and open their griefs to 
 him, that they may receive the benefit of absolution ? ' 
 The same inquiry is made in 1636 by the Bishop of 
 Norwich. In 1638 Bishop Montague inquires, ' Doth 
 the minister comfort the sick person, as concerning his 
 soul's health, his state to Godward? Both he, upon 
 hearing of his confession, which he shall persuade him 
 to make, absolve him from his sins ? And hath he at 
 any time discovered any part of his confession ? ' And 
 in the Convocation of the year 1640, it was ordered 
 that at all Episcopal and Archidiaconal Visitations this 
 inquiry should be made of the churchwardens, ' Have 
 you ever heard that your said priest or minister hath 
 revealed and made known at any time, to any person 
 whatsoever, any crime or offence committed to his 
 trust and secrecy either in extremity of sickness or in 
 any other case whatsoever (excepting they be such crimes 
 as by the laws of this land), etc. ? Declare the name of 
 the offender, when and by whom you heard the same/ 
 In 1686, in the Visitation Articles of the diocese of Ely, 
 we find, ' Doth the minister visit the sick ? Doth he 
 upon their confession, repentance, and faith (being there- 
 unto desired) absolve them ? ' " 
 
 In the face of all this, my dear friend, we look in 
 vain in the pages of opponents, and especially in the 
 recent pages of the controversialist to whom I particu- 
 larly allude, for anything approaching evidence in the 
 contrary direction. There is plenty of declamation, and 
 the darkest suggestions of terrible evils which are not 
 to be named, and which — so it is implied — can only 
 come from the use of confession and absolution. Some- 
 times the ground is shifted, and it is said to be unscrip 
 tural ; but that, let me remind you, is not the point. 
 When a large body of clergy and laity are assaulted as 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 45 
 
 being unfaithful to the teaching of the English Church, the 
 question is not, " Is the teaching of that Church scrip- 
 tural?" but, " What is the teaching of that Church?" 
 Supposing, per impossibile, that the teaching of the 
 English Church is wrong, and contrary to Scripture in 
 this matter, then it may be the duty of those whose 
 eyes are opened to see this, to secede from her, as con- 
 sistent Dissenters have done; but those who, amidst 
 her supposed errors, consider her (however mistaken 
 they may be) to be in the right, and who teach and 
 uphold her doctrine and practice, are, at any rate, her 
 loyal sons. Scriptural or unscriptural — for we must 
 insist on keeping to the point when such wild accusa- 
 tions are made against us — the Church of England 
 teaches the doctrine and practice of confession and 
 absolution, and if this be " sacerdotalism," then every 
 fair-minded man must acknowledge (as I have shown 
 that thoughtful Dissenters do) that whoever may be 
 unfaithful to the teachings of our Church, it is not the 
 " sacerdotalists." 
 
 But the real strength of any violent opponent to 
 the Catholic teaching of our Church in this matter is 
 not in argument or evidence — for they have not a grain 
 of it to bring forward — but in exaggerating or mis- 
 stating some things which have some truth in them, 
 and then appealing to popular passion — what I have 
 called "playing to the gallery." I will notice one or 
 two of these. 
 
 (1) Men are scared away from this blessed means 
 of approaching our Lord Jesus Christ by being told that 
 " a man cannot forgive sins," or that we are " putting 
 a man between the soul and God." It would be just as 
 reasonable to say that in listening to a sermon " a man 
 cannot convert a soul," and by attending to the teachings 
 
46 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 of the pulpit we are " putting a man between the soul 
 and God." Nay, it would be just as reasonable to say 
 that in recognizing our parents as channels of natural 
 life to us we are asserting that " a man can give us life," 
 and we are " putting two people between ourselves and 
 God." As a matter of fact, our Lord Himself reminds 
 us that in the absolute sense of the word we are to 
 "call no man father upon earth." Life natural, like 
 life spiritual, can only come from God. This objection 
 really arises from that foolish and proud individualism 
 which is so natural to fallen man. We cannot bear to 
 think that we must depend upon one another for many 
 things, and that we cannot stand alone. God is the 
 Source of all good things, but He uses many agents and 
 channels. All callings in life may be said to be minis- 
 terial. If I go to the magistrate, he is in one sphere of 
 life a minister of God's justice to me. If I go to the 
 physician, he is in another sphere of life the minister of 
 God's power of dealing with my material frame. If I 
 look to my natural father, he is to me God's minister 
 for the mystery of natural life, and of protection and 
 guidance in my early years. If I go to my spiritual 
 father and make my confession, he, in another sphere — 
 in the supernatural sphere — is the minister of God's grace 
 for forgiveness and cleansing. I am afraid that very 
 often the objection really means that men have not 
 faith in the promises of Christ in this regard, and do 
 not believe in the power of supernatural grace. 
 
 (2) Then, again, it is sometimes contended that the 
 doctrine and practice are to be repudiated as implying 
 a sort of magical power in the individual priest. To 
 any one who thinks carefully, and believes in the 
 Incarnation and all its consequences, it is evident that 
 the Church — the Body of Christ — ever united with her 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 47 
 
 Divine Head, holds in herself the forces of His life. 
 The power of absolution coming from the Father is 
 given to the Son — " power on earth to forgive sins " — 
 because of His " everlasting Priesthood," and this He 
 communicates to His Body the Church. When the 
 ordained priest absolves the penitent, he acts as the 
 divinely appointed and equipped minister to apply to 
 the individual soul the grace won for His Church by 
 our Blessed Redeemer, and residing in that Body 
 because ever united to the Head. There is nothing 
 magical about the action of the priesthood, but there is 
 something indeed supernatural. To men who think of 
 the Church of Christ as a merely human society this 
 may appear unintelligible, but to those who believe in 
 her as a divine society, united to an Unseen and Divine 
 Head, it is equally unintelligible to imagine her 
 ministry anything but supernatural and divine. 
 
 (3) But, then, the stress of " argument " — if one can 
 dignify the wildest declamation by such a name — rests 
 upon the supposed misuse of confession. Good people 
 are scared by the awful hints and dark suggestions of 
 the most terrible consequences which may follow from 
 the use of this means of grace. Now, to any who can 
 put aside mere prejudice and passion, and look at 
 matters calmly and thoughtfully, it may be worth 
 while to draw attention to the following points : — 
 
 In fallen humanity there is, alas ! probably nothing 
 that has not sometimes been misused. The noblest 
 Arts, meant to raise us to the thoughts of the highest 
 things, have been placed at the disposal of corrupting 
 influences. Holy Marriage, meant to place under Divine 
 sanction the tenderest of human affections, has been 
 corrupted into a means, sometimes for mere financial 
 advantage, sometimes for kindling and keeping alive 
 
48 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 the most evil tempers, sometimes for the gratification 
 of degraded passion. Holy Orders have been misused 
 for money -getting and " promotion " and worldly advan- 
 tage. The Bible has been misused, and is even now 
 grossly misused, to bolster up, by an eclectic picking 
 and choosing of; , texts, every conceivable heresy in oppo- 
 sition to the Catholic Faith. Probably, indeed, no relic 
 of a saint in the dark ages, or no mere fetish among 
 heathens, has been turned to such superstitious uses as 
 the Bible has by the various forms of Puritanism. The 
 pulpit has been misused, and instead of being employed 
 as the chair of truth, has before now been made use 
 of to gratify the promptings of overweening personal 
 conceit and ambition. It is not wonderful, then, if the 
 ministry of reconciliation has been misused. Usum non 
 tollit abwsws. 1 It is a very shallow philosophy which 
 would invite us to avoid the use of a very blessed 
 Divine ordinance because sinners have sometimes mis- 
 used it. 
 
 A propos of this very controversy, an eminent and 
 thoughtful and highly cultured minister of a body of 
 Christians which dissents from the Church of England, 
 just as I am penning this letter writes to me these 
 words — 
 
 "The confessional must have its uses, or it would 
 never have survived all these years, and been revived 
 in our own day by good and earnest men. I can under- 
 stand how it might be helpful to others, even though 
 I do not suppose that I could ever practise it myself, 
 if only in providing, as it does, systematically and 
 
 1 There has been a curious answer given to this obvious truth ! " That 
 is quite true of sacred things which Scripture sanctions and enjoins ; but," 
 etc. ; i.e. those who answer thus beg the whole question ! I answer, *' Very 
 well, Scripture and your own Church do sanction and enjoin this." 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 49 
 
 without offence, for that direct heart-searching ques- 
 tioning which would seem almost an impertinence in 
 mere conversation, however private and confidential.' ' 
 He goes on then to speak of the charge of grave abuses 
 against it, and then adds, " It is, of course, just the 
 abuses that outsiders are most likely to hear of." 
 
 This is a noble utterance of a thoughtful and eminent 
 and deeply religious and fair-minded Dissenting minister, 
 and it "hits" precisely, as I think, my dear friend, "the 
 nail upon the head " in two particulars — viz. first, (a) 
 there may be plenty of evidences of abuses in the past, 
 but abuses are just the things which opponents bring 
 to the front and make much of. The devil delights 
 in the abuses of sacred things. On the other hand, 
 there is enormous evidence of the unspeakable blessing 
 to souls from the use of the confessional; but while 
 "Holywell Street" may drag together all the abomi- 
 nations it can find out, or invent, to discredit an ordi- 
 nance of our Divine Master, devout persons cannot, 
 from the nature of the case, publish to the world the 
 innumerable and touching and splendid stories of the 
 triumphs of grace in souls through the ministry of 
 reconciliation. You and I can afford to smile at the 
 unworthy declamation of those who " play to the 
 gallery," and talk about only " namby-pamby " people 
 going to confession, and "this dreadful confessional 
 separating husbands and wives," and so on ! We can 
 afford to smile at this melancholy nonsense, because 
 we know how many noble souls have been made more 
 noble, how many manly boys and men have been made 
 more manly, how many family catastrophes have been 
 averted, how many weary souls have been comforted 
 how many sinful souls have been brought to peace, by 
 this blessed mode of approach to our Divine Redeemer. 
 
 E 
 
w 
 
 50 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 But there are good and honest-minded people who 
 unfortunately are deceived by all this declamation and 
 " screaming," and it is necessary to remind them that 
 it has nothing to do with "Popery," but is the plain 
 teaching of their own English Church, and that because 
 it may, like other things, have been misused by some, 
 that is no reason why they, if they need it, should not 
 
 * use it properly. 
 
 T*. (6) Then, again, my Dissenting friend reminds us of 
 another important fact. It seems to me there are three 
 ways in which God's ministers may deal with souls. 
 " Deal with souls," of course they must, unless they are 
 hopelessly and scandalously to neglect their very raison 
 d'etre. They may either content themselves by preach- 
 ing to or teaching large bodies of their people collected 
 together. If that is all they do, it is evidently, so it 
 seems to me — though good so far as it goes — quite 
 insufficient. The Church is not a mere society for 
 lecturing on Divine Truth. If God's ministers only did 
 that, they would be of no more use than would be a 
 public lecturer on the science of medicine to a sick man 
 needing a physician for his specific disease. I am very 
 much afraid that this kind of unmeasured popular 
 assault upon the Church's teaching which we have 
 lately witnessed, may encourage careless or lazy priests 
 to content themselves with fulfilling only this part — 
 and far from the most important part — of their calling. 
 Then there is another method, viz. what I may call 
 the " conversational." 1 This also is good so far as it 
 goes. It is good that advice should be sought by 
 Christian people from their ministers, and it is right 
 
 1 This, some opponents think, is the only way the Church of England 
 does allow for helping troubled souls ! They are wrong in this, as I have 
 shown. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION 51 
 
 that advice should be given and sympathy shown, and 
 so on. But when you come to questions of personal 
 sin, you come to very sacred ground. The interior life 
 of souls is a very sacred thing. It can only be dealt 
 with, I think, properly under Divine sanctions, and in 
 the power of a Divine ordinance. That is just the 
 reason why the ordinance of Confession is so necessary. 
 I re-echo the words of my Dissenting friend quoted 
 above, by saying that confession is valuable, " providing, 
 as it does, systematically and without offence, for that 
 direct heart-searching questioning which would seem 
 almost an impertinence in mere conversation, however 
 private and confidential." 
 
 They, it seems to me, are rash and audacious who 
 attempt to deal with souls, as a minister of God is 
 bound to do, merely by the " conversational ; " not 
 they who deal with them by the sacred ordinance of 
 the " confessional." Of course, at all times the inter- 
 course of human souls with one another is a very 
 serious thing, and anything so serious may be mis- 
 used, and has been misused, and is constantly misused, 
 as we know in this sinful world, in every walk of 
 life. In religion, the dangers of the "conversational" 
 are also real, and if one cared, like the opponents of the 
 Catholic teaching of the Church, to dwell upon the dark 
 side of things, and to gloat over the troubles of the 
 Church on earth, one might dwell upon the spiritual 
 disasters which have resulted from the " conversational." 
 But this kind of thing you and I, dear friend, would 
 rather leave to others. The great preservative against 
 an insufficient or unworthy, or careless, or worldly, or 
 sinful use of the call to God's ministers to deal with 
 souls is the confessional. I suppose that is why the 
 devil hates it, and why the " world " scoffs at it with 
 
52 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 such violence. It is a special outcome of the love of 
 Jesus. It protects God's minister in the awful duty 
 laid upon him to deal with the sins of his fellow-sinners 
 entrusted to his care, for it reminds him that above all 
 he is only a minister, and the human representative for 
 the moment of the Most Awful Presence. Everything, 
 as I have said, has been misused by fallen man, but I 
 can imagine nothing that so protects a man from stand- 
 ing upon lower levels than being placed in the serious 
 position of a priest hearing a confession. He would be 
 a devil indeed who could misuse such a position. Every 
 other relationship of life, and other ministerial relations 
 in religion, are more easily misused ; and I suppose it is 
 just because this ministerial function is so Divine and 
 so blessed, and so calculated to lift the minister who 
 exercises it into the highest thoughts, into the noblest 
 feelings of fatherhood, into the closest sense of union 
 with his Divine Master, that when, alas ! it has been mis- 
 used men have dwelt upon it in such a furious temper, 
 while they seem to show such quiet indifference to all 
 the accumulated misuses of human relationships which 
 go on every day. The anger — the just anger — against 
 any misuse of the confessional is a constant witness 
 to its Divine origin, and to the protection that it above 
 all things gives to the necessary intercourse between 
 souls involved in the relationship of pastor and people. 
 
 (4) There is another kind of practical objection which 
 I think weighs upon men's minds in spite of argument, 
 and is made much of by opponents of Catholic teaching, 
 viz. the fear lest it should make persons too introspec- 
 tive — lest people should be led to what was called " the 
 numbering of sins." As a matter of fact, there is pro- 
 bably nothing which so delivers souls from introspection 
 as confession wisely used. The English Church abolished 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION 53 
 
 at the Reformation enforced confession, and rightly. 
 " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." The 
 result is that I do not suppose in any part of Christen- 
 dom there are more thorough, good, honest, helpful, and 
 manly confessions made than by Englishmen in the 
 English Church. The Church does not require a detailed 
 foolish introspective " numbering of sins." The soul 
 " does what it can." It knows what is pressing upon 
 its conscience, when the conscience is honestly and care- 
 fully examined, " by the rule of God's commandments," 
 as the Prayer-book directs it ; and what sins it may have 
 committed but does not remember, it knows well enough 
 — and every wise priest would tell it — are received as 
 confessed through the illimitable merits of its Redeemer. 
 It is no small thing for the young, especially our young 
 men, fighting a severe battle of life amidst the dangerous 
 temptations of the world, in the heyday of their opening 
 manhood, to have some definite opportunity of escape 
 from sins that press upon them, and may darken and 
 destroy. They cannot go and converse with some 
 minister, however pious, about the grave secrets of their 
 souls. They feel a loss of self-respect in doing so. But 
 they can use a Divine ordinance wherein the minister, 
 under the most severe and solemn sanctions, is simply 
 ministering to them the grace of Christ, and acting as 
 a father in such fashion that their seeking at his hands 
 guidance and the ministration of grace is in a totally 
 different sphere from any intercourse they may hold 
 with him at other times. The use of the confessional 
 as sanctioned by the Church of England is the freeing 
 of the laity. 
 
 I have said, my dear friend, that the question before 
 us in this controversy, and in relation to this point of 
 Confession and Absolution, is not whether it is scriptural 
 
54 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 or unscriptural, but whether it is or not the teaching of the 
 Church of England. I have shown that it is the teach- 
 ing of the Church of England, from the Prayer-book and 
 her other formularies, from the testimony of her great 
 divines, from the enactment of one of her canons, from 
 the witness of a canon of a Church in communion with 
 her, and from the testimony of fair-minded Dissenters 
 who do not accept the doctrine — as witness my quotation 
 (p. 48). I affirm that whilst Dissenters have a perfect 
 right to take their stand against such teaching — although 
 I may regret their missing part of the truth in doing 
 so — no English Priest who has pledged himself to the 
 formularies of the English Church has a right to do so, 
 much less has he a right to hold up to popular indigna- 
 tion those laity and clergy who accept and act upon the 
 teaching of the Church. It is quite impossible, I believe 
 as regards this doctrine and practice, for any one to 
 escape from the conclusion that Confession and Absolu- 
 tion is the teaching of the Church of England, except 
 by unworthy casuistry, and a Jesuitical way of affixing 
 non-natural senses to plain words, and juggling with 
 language in a way that is not right. 
 
 There are only two remaining ways of escape from 
 submission to the Church's teaching in this matter which, 
 as far as I have observed, are attempted. 
 
 (1) It is pretended that Holy Scripture does not give 
 directions for the practice, nor sanction the doctrine. 
 As I have said, this is not really germane to the matter 
 before us, for — scriptural or unscriptural — I have shown 
 that the Church of England teaches it, and while we 
 remain in her ministry we are bound by her teaching. 
 Still it may be well for a moment to glance at this 
 objection about Scripture, because, I think, it is entirely 
 without foundation. To relieve a " burdened conscience," 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION $ 5 
 
 as it has been said, "by the open acknowledgment of 
 its guilt, is an instinct of natural piety." In the Mosaic 
 Law this is taken for granted, for regulations are made 
 which imply confession of sin. You will remember in 
 this connection Hooker's explanation of Confession 
 under the Mosaic Law : " The Law imposed upon them 
 [the Israelites] that special confession which they in 
 their books called confession of that particular fault, 
 for which we, namely, seek pardon at God's hands. The 
 words of the Law concerning confession in this kind 
 are as followeth;" and then he goes on to quote 
 Numb. v. 6 and Lev. v. 5, and after dwelling upon the 
 special sacrifices for special sins, he adds, "Finally, 
 there was no man amongst them at any time, either 
 condemned to suffer death, or corrected, or chastised 
 with stripes, nor even sick and near his end, but they 
 called upon him to repent and [confess his sins" x The 
 case of Achan you will at once think of, and Joshua's 
 words : " My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel ; 
 confess unto Him, and unto me" The Law foreshadowed 
 and was a type of the Gospel. Human nature is human 
 nature under both, and it was not intended that it 
 should be worse off under the Gospel than under the 
 Law. Special personal cleansings, special ministrations 
 accompanied by confession of sin, are necessarily, then, 
 to be looked for under the Gospel as means for applying 
 to us personally the power of grace. 
 
 In the preparatory period immediately before the 
 coming of the kingdom of God, the same is implied. 
 When John the Baptist came preaching his great mis- 
 sion, people came to him not confessing their sinful- 
 ness, but confessing their sins. And it has been truly 
 said that the commission to the Christian priesthood, 
 
 1 " Eccles. Polity," bk. yi. ch. iv. 4 (Keble's edit. yoI. iii. p. 19). 
 
56 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 " Whose soever sins ye remit/' etc., implicitly involved 
 the practice of Confession. For confession had been 
 required under the earlier dispensation " as a neces- 
 sary condition for such remission of sin as could 
 then be bestowed." The necessity of reconciliation 
 under the new dispensation was more perfect, and 
 for it the continuance of confession would, of course, 
 be understood to be implied, unless it was expressly 
 excluded. A "type," of course, "interprets its anti- 
 type." But, besides that, it would, of course, have been 
 impossible for the commission to the priesthood to be 
 properly exercised in direct application to individual 
 souls unless the priest were sufficiently aware of their 
 secret state to enable him to form a judgment as to their 
 fitness. This he could only know by their own con- 
 fession. And thus, as it has been said, " Bishop Cosin, 
 commenting on the First Exhortation in the Communion 
 Office, observes that 'confession of sins must neces- 
 sarily be made to them to whom the dispensation of the 
 mysteries of God is committed/ and quotes St. Basil 
 adducing New Testament authority for the statement, 
 ' For so they which in former times repented among the 
 saints are said to have done. It is written in the 
 Gospel that they confessed their sins unto St. John 
 Baptist (St. Matt. iii. 6). In the Acts they all confessed 
 their sins unto the Apostles of whom they were baptized 
 (Acts xix. 18)/ Cosin adds St. Augustine's application 
 of a passage of St. Paul: 'He that willingly judge th 
 himself, lest against his will he be judged of the Lord, 
 let him come to the priests, by whom the keys are 
 ministered unto him in the Church, and receive of them 
 that have the oversight of the sacraments, the manner 
 of his satisfaction/ " l 
 
 1 Carter, "Doctrine of Confession," p. 12. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 57 
 
 It is curious and interesting that some have tried to 
 evade the force of the fact that confessions were made 
 to St. John the Baptist, by saying that he was not a 
 priest. Well, he was certainly of a priestly family, and 
 succession in the Old Dispensation went in the line of 
 natural, and not of supernatural, generation ; but, besides 
 that, he was directly called and sent as a prophet, before 
 the exact regulations of the New Dispensation, to gather 
 disciples for a new life. 
 
 But on the principle of Confession in Holy Scripture, 
 one of the most important statements is, of course, that 
 made by St. James (v. 13-16). The force of this passage 
 has been evaded by declaring that it refers to confession 
 of faults between Christian people. Doubtless it does 
 apply to such cases, but it by no means follows that, 
 having that wide interpretation, it has not also a 
 reference to a special intention to confession to a 
 priest. Jeremy Taylor, for instance, considers that it 
 refers to both. 1 But, however much the passage may 
 point to the general duty of acknowledging our faults 
 to one another, no one in his senses can deny that it 
 takes for granted, and is written under the sense that 
 everybody knows, that there is a special exercise of an 
 appointed ministry ; otherwise the direction to send for 
 the priests of the Church (or " elders," if any one likes 
 that translation better) would be useless. Confession and 
 prayer are spoken of ; then the penitent is spoken of as in 
 consequence being " healed," or his " sins being forgiven 
 him." And then I may quote to you the sayings of such 
 men as Dean Comber and Bishop Wilson on this passage. 
 Dean Comber says, " Absolution seems to be posi- 
 tively enjoined by St. James to be given to the sick 
 penitent by the priest that comes to pray over him 
 1 " Holy Dying." 
 
$8 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 (you will notice how exactly the Church of England, 
 in her Visitation Office, takes this view); for the 
 Apostle adds, * and if he have committed sins, remission 
 or absolution shall be given him ; ' which is the right 
 translation of the impersonal verb used in the original, 
 and the practice of the primitive Church (the best of 
 Commentaries) confirms this exposition, they being 
 always wont to grant absolution to all sorts of penitents 
 lying in danger of death." 1 And Dean Comber adds 
 further, that the expression about " the righteous man " 
 really means the minister of God ; and he adds, " Here 
 ' confess one to another ' is the people to the ' elders of the 
 Church/ for to them only Christ committed the power of 
 binding and loosing, and ' when a man is overtaken in a 
 fault, he that is spiritual must restore him ; ' and this was 
 so received a doctrine in the primitive times, that the 
 confession of sins to a priest, in the case of a troubled 
 conscience, was esteemed an Apostolical institution." 2 
 
 Bishop Wilson says, and supports his interpretation 
 of the passage on Hammond's authority, " If we have 
 committed sins against God, these are to be confessed to 
 the elders of the Church, and afcOriaETai avrQ, he shall 
 be absolved, or absolution shall be given him, i.e. upon 
 his confession." Other teachers of the English Church 
 refer ct propos to the system of Confession of the Sick 
 in the primitive Church. 
 
 Holy Scripture, then, teaches the principle of Con- 
 fession as being of Divine revelation, and according to 
 the will of God. It does not determine all manner of 
 details about it. Persons who require that every detail 
 of the usage of a sacred ordinance of this kind should 
 
 1 "Guide to the Infirm," Stretton, who quotes it, and quoted by 
 Carter, ut supra. 
 
 * " On the Offices," pp. 309, 310, quoted by Carter, ut supra. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. §9 
 
 be drawn out in Holy Scripture, really misunderstand 
 the office of the Scriptures and the office of the 
 Church. The New Testament is not a Directory for 
 the details of Divine service, or of ministerial action. 
 Our blessed Lord did not write a book ; He founded a 
 society. He promised to be with His society to the 
 end. He taught His disciples, before He left them, the 
 " things concerning the kingdom of God." x Even then 
 they did not understand them all, but He promised 
 that whilst in His lifetime there were "many things" 
 which they could not bear, afterwards the Spirit of 
 Truth would guide and teach them. 2 You might as 
 well expect Holy Scripture to tell you how to say 
 Matins and Evensong, or whether you are to wear the 
 black gown or the surplice in the pulpit, as expect it 
 to give minute directions about the confessional. What 
 Holy Scripture does record is the blessing, and in many 
 cases the necessity, of confession, not only to God, but 
 to God in the presence of and using the ministrations of 
 others ; and the commission for absolving in the Name 
 of God, so that appointed ministers may convey the 
 grace of cleansing and forgiveness to the penitent soul. 8 
 
 The Church has applied these teachings and principles. 
 And our part of the Catholic Church, in applying them, 
 has taught us the truth and blessedness of individual 
 and private confession and absolution if we require it. 
 
 I think, then, my dear friend, that every loyal son 
 of the Church of England will feel that her teaching 
 upon such solemn doctrines and practices as, say, Holy 
 Baptism and (as the Fathers called it, the "Second 
 Plank ") Confession and Absolution is the right inter- 
 
 1 Acts i. 3. * St. John xvi. 12. 
 
 8 St. John xx. 21, 22, 23 (as interpreted, as we have seen, by our 
 Church and our great divines). 
 
60 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 pretation of Holy Scripture, which he willingly learns 
 and to which he loyally submits. 1 
 
 As I have said, in this special controversy the point 
 is not what Holy Scripture teaches, but what the 
 Church of England teaches. However, of course we 
 know perfectly well that the teaching of the Church is 
 her interpretation of the Scriptures guided by the Holy 
 Ghost. We feel that, if you attack the doctrine and 
 practice of Confession and Absolution, you give no 
 adequate meaning to the teachings of Holy Scripture 
 from first to last as to the dealing with human sin. 
 
 Then, secondly, men try to evade the force of this 
 overwhelming evidence by saying that occasions for 
 confession and absolution are to be very exceptional. 
 In great crises, they say, or just before death. Now, 
 the Church of England is the land of liberty. Her 
 principle has been evidently to throw much more 
 responsibility upon the individual conscience, and much 
 less upon the priest. When and how often private 
 confession should be made is a matter for each conscience 
 to decide, acting upon wise advice. There is one thing 
 quite certain, and it cannot be escaped from, that our 
 Church insists that her priests shall never, if they can 
 help it, permit a soul to pass out of its present state 
 of probation into the near vision of the Holy God with- 
 out — if it have any weighty matter, any serious sin (and 
 how many have not ?) upon it — making its confession 
 
 1 An eminent controversialist apparently does not believe this. Ho 
 wishes I would tell) him what I mean (Contemporary Review, September, 
 1893, p. 355). I answer by a handy example. Why is he bound to 
 believe, as I am, in baptismal regeneration? The answer is, because 
 that is the interpretation put by the Church upon the teachings of Scrip- 
 ture on Baptism. Other interpretations are put on these sayings by 
 various Dissenting teachers. We are bound to accept, in these doctrinal 
 matters, the interpretation and teachings of the Church. The Church 
 does interpret Scripture for us in these things. 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 61 
 
 and receiving absolution from the priest. This cannot 
 be gainsaid. To this every one of us is bound, and he 
 who, being a priest of the English Church, neglects to 
 perform this duty, or so leads men in life, by his denun- 
 ciation of this holy ordinance, that their eyes are closed 
 to their need of it, at least in dying, incurs a heavy 
 responsibility indeed. 
 
 And can it be supposed by any reasonable man that 
 that which the Church enjoins so strictly for the dying 
 hour is never to be used till then ? Surely not. Surely 
 souls, if they are awake and feel their need, will, according 
 to that need, use every means of grace they can. 
 
 I must now, my dear friend, pause as to this one 
 point. I have, of course, not nearly exhausted the 
 evidence, but I have said enough to answer these absurd 
 calumnies. The Church of England teaches the freedom 
 of confession. She does not teach that private con- 
 fession and absolution are necessary in all cases 1 for 
 salvation; but that where the communion of the soul 
 with God is disturbed, this ordinance should be used 
 before receiving Holy Communion ; that it may be 
 used whenever Christian people feel that they need it ; 
 and that it OUGHT to be used, at least in a very large 
 number of cases, in preparation for death. Its blessed 
 effects when rightly used are known to you and me. 
 It helps to deepen repentance ; it helps to make souls 
 more watchful ; it strengthens resolutions ; it deepens 
 reality; it guards purity; it confirms manfulness; it 
 revives hope; it stimulates flagging strength. It can 
 be used with the large liberty of the English Church. 
 
 1 An adverse critic actually says that it is all very well for me to say it 
 is not necessary, but that I must know well enough that, where encouraged, 
 it will be used. I wish I did know this. I hope devoutly, for the saving 
 of souls, it will be used more and more. 
 
62 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 No one is driven to it. Each one can choose his own 
 time and his own confessor. Blessed, most blessed, for 
 many now struggling with sin in loneliness and desola- 
 tion, if they realized and used this ordinance of grace. 
 It is an outcome of common sense. It is taught and 
 sanctioned by Scripture. It is proclaimed in unmis- 
 takable terms by the Church our Mother. It is a 
 result of the love and sorrow of our Blessed Lord and 
 Master. If this is " sacerdotalism," then the teaching of 
 common sense, of the Bible, of the Church of England, is 
 " sacerdotalism." You, my dear friend, and I, and every 
 member of the Church, lay or clerical, are " sacerdo- 
 talists ; " and it is our duty to strive and pray that such 
 " sacerdotalism " should be more and more understood 
 and loved and lived. For it is nothing else but " the 
 truth as it is in Jesus ; " it is nothing else but the 
 " Blessed Gospel of the Everlasting God." 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 W. J. KNOX LITTLE. 
 
 P.S.— The frequent quotations from Bishop Wilber- 
 force and the one from Archbishop Tait I have not dealt 
 with for this reason : They are unfair. Even if they 
 were the mature views of those prelates, they could not 
 override the teaching of the Prayer-book and a long line 
 of great divines. I myself, however, have had testimony 
 of an exactly opposite view from Bishop Wilberforce, 
 and possess letters from Archbishop Tait greatly modi- 
 fying the remark quoted. These hasty utterances of 
 good men plunged in the midst of a controversy, taken 
 away from their context, it is not — in my opinion — fair 
 to use. Whatever these two prelates may have said or 
 felt, I have shown, I contend, on evidence which cannot 
 be set aside, that the doctrine and practice of Confession 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION 63 
 
 and Absolution form part of the authoritative teaching 
 of the Church of England. 
 
 Tee College, Worcester, 
 Michaelmas, 1893, 
 
 Additional Postscript. 
 
 It is difficult always to get men to keep steadily 
 before their minds what is the question at issue. I 
 have reiterated, again and again, that the question is, 
 " What does the Church of England teach ? " In spite 
 of this, I find some of my critics already going off, not 
 merely into rhetorical abuse — which, of course, one 
 expects from " the baser sort " — but into their views of 
 the meaning of Holy Scripture ! This, my dear friend, 
 we have nothing to do with. When you and I say, " I 
 believe in the Holy Catholic Church," we mean what 
 we say, and therefore we mean that the meaning of 
 Holy Scripture as to certain important doctrines — such 
 as the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, 
 the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, Confession 
 and Absolution — have been settled for us by the 
 Church as the true interpreter of Scripture on these 
 points. We believe, of course, that the Church of 
 England, being our part of the Catholic Church, teaches 
 the Catholic Faith on all these particulars and others 
 as clearly as any other part of the Catholic Church. 
 To see what Catholic doctrine is, and what the meaning 
 of Scripture is on any of these important matters, we 
 examine what the Church of England has handed on 
 to us. 
 
64 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Now, in the extraordinary indifference to, and mis- 
 understanding of, and carelessness about, the Penitential 
 System, and the dealings of God with sin, which prevail 
 among many at present, men who actually call them- 
 selves Churchmen have denied and denounced Confession 
 and Absolution ! This is astonishing ; and I have shown 
 in the earlier part of this letter that if they do so deny 
 and denounce, they are contradicting the teaching of 
 the Church of England. That is the point, and men 
 may if they like — as Dissenters do, though of course I 
 am sorry for their erroneous views — find fault with 
 Catholic teaching, and therefore with the teaching 
 of the English Church ; but, whether they like it or 
 whether they leave it, they have no business to say that it 
 is not the teaching of the English Church, much less have 
 they any right to denounce English priests for teaching 
 precisely what the Church requires them to teach. 
 
 The Church of England, then, I repeat, teaches 
 clearly and emphatically the blessed gospel truth of 
 Confession and Priestly Absolution. There is a re- 
 markable passage on the subject from a public man of 
 some eminence, whose name is well known, and which I 
 wish to quote to you. 
 
 When Lady Georgiana Fullerton wrote her novel, 
 " Ellen Middleton," you may perhaps remember that 
 she makes her heroine, in great trouble, find comfort 
 and help by making her confession to an Anglican 
 priest. Lord Brougham — who, as you remember, was 
 an eminent statesman, but very far from a religious 
 man — dashed off a letter to the authoress, telling her, 
 in the conventional jargon to which we are so well 
 accustomed, that this was "rank Popery." Lady 
 Georgiana sent the letter to Charles Greville. You 
 know the sort of person Charles Greville was — not at 
 
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION. 65 
 
 all theological, and, I suppose, by no means very religious ; 
 but a most intelligent man. I want to call your atten- 
 tion to his answer to his correspondent. 
 
 " London, Monday. 
 
 " I have been out of town since I saw you, and there 
 was no ' E. M.' [< Ellen Middleton 'J at Stoke, so I have 
 not had time yet to compare Brougham's criticisms 
 with the text — indeed, I can't read half of them till I 
 do ; but meanwhile, I write a few lines to say I think 
 you may well do battle with him on what he says 
 about Absolution. 
 
 " ■ What authority has a priest to absolve from sin ? ' 
 he says ; ' absolutely none. It is rank Popery to say 
 so. The Liturgy does not venture on it, except in the 
 Visitation of the Sick.' You are much more competent 
 than I am to argue this question, and it is quite super- 
 fluous to suggest anything to you ; but this criticism of 
 his seems to me a mere tissue of errors and gross im- 
 pertinences. He may reject the doctrine of the Church 
 of England, and adopt any other creed he pleases, but 
 most assuredly the doctrine of Absolution is the doctrine 
 of our Church, and, according to it, a priest has authority 
 to absolve from sin. If it is rank anything, it is rank 
 Church of Englandism to say so. Nor is it true that it 
 is only to be found in the Visitation Service. Not but 
 what it would be quite sufficient to establish it as the 
 doctrine of the Church, if it were found in any one of 
 her authorized services, uncontradicted either by her 
 Articles or anything in any other part of the Rubrics. 
 But there can be no question on the subject, because the 
 Form of Ordering Priests contains, in terms the most 
 clear and unmistakable, this authority and power con- 
 ferred upon priests." 
 
66 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Then the writer quotes the words of the Ordinal, 
 " Receive/' etc. His common sense and natural intelli- 
 gence, unbiased by that kind of party prejudice which 
 makes men empty words of their plain meaning, leads 
 him to see clearly that the words of Ordination imply 
 priestly power, and true sacerdotalism. 
 
 After this he alludes to some rather wild statement 
 of Lord Brougham's about the Liturgy teaching " pagan- 
 ism," on which he says — 
 
 " You may leave him to settle that with the Liturgy. 
 It is enough for you that whatever the Liturgy does 
 teach must be taken to be the doctrine of the Church 
 of England. I don't well know what he means by 
 paganism. As to his sneers at the doctrine of Priestly 
 Absolution, . . . who supposes that any l mere man has 
 the power of saving other men's souls ' ? Nobody can 
 pardon or save souls, but the Almighty. But the priest 
 is consecrated to His service, and receives with certain 
 ceremonies a Divine commission, and God ' hath given 
 him power and commandment to declare and pronounce 
 to his people being penitent the absolution and remission 
 of their sins.' This appears to me to be the office of the 
 priest, his duty and his power. And this is the doctrine 
 of the Church of England." 1 
 
 You see, my dear friend, how the matter strikes an 
 intelligent man by no means biased in favour of the 
 Catholic Faith. We may well say with him — for there 
 is no denying it — that if this doctrine " is rank anything, 
 it is rank Church of Englandism." 
 
 1 '-' Life of Lady Georgiana Fullerton," translated from the French of 
 Mrs. Augustus Craven, by H, J. Coleridge, pp. 139-141. 
 
PAKT IL 
 
 ERRATA TO PART II. 
 
 Page 74, line I, for "demonstratively" read "demonstrably." 
 
 Page 98, line 10, after the word "practice," instead of the next five lines, read as follows: 
 " He and Sozomen allude to the practice. Sozomen says, 'But amongct the Egyptians, 
 in many cities and villages, contrary to the custom received by all, coming together 
 on Saturday at evening, having already breakfasted (or supped, ^o-rnKOTer ii&n), they 
 partake of the Mysteries Outxr-rnptwi/ nerexovai).'— Sozomeni, ' Hist. Eccles.,' lib. vii. 
 c. xix. c. fol. ed., Paris, 1678. And Socrates says, • The Egyptians near Alexandria, 
 and those who inhabit the Thebaid, hold their assemblies on the Saturday, but contrary 
 to the custom of Christians, they partake of the Mysteries. For after having feasted 
 and filled themselves with all manner of food, they towards evening make the 
 oblation and partake of the Mysteries.'— Socrates, 'Hist. Eccles.,' bk. v. chap. 22 D. 
 fol. ed., Paris, 1678." 
 
 „ line 15, instead of ** He " read " Socrates then. 
 
 „ line 17, after the word " then " insert ■ as well as that of Sozomen." 
 
 Page 133, line 8, after the word "are" insert "scarcely." After the word "justified" 
 insert " in leaving ; they are certainly justified in being devoutly present." 
 
 believe both practices to be devout and right ; to be, 
 for any Churchman, in the Anglican part of the Catholic 
 Church, at least permissible, generally desirable, and 
 often coming under the head of positive duty; that, 
 therefore, if by these is meant " sacerdotalism," then 
 " sacerdotalism " is the teaching of the Church of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 I. We may, perhaps, first examine the question of 
 Fasting Communion. 
 
64 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 There are difficulties in the way of meeting as- 
 sailants on this point, because of their habit of shifting 
 their ground. In one passage in a recent controversy 
 the attack seems to be on those clergymen who are said 
 to teach that not to keep the fast before Communion is 
 " a deadly sin." 
 
 Of this I say at once, as I have said before, that " if 
 there are clergymen who teach this (although I myself 
 do not know of any such), one may well believe . . . 
 that they use very extreme language." 
 
 The question is not whether the Church of England 
 insists that her children should keep their fast before 
 Communion under pain of deadly sin — that she cannot 
 be said to do; but the question is, Is such a custom 
 opposed to her mind and teaching ? Is it unscriptural ? 
 Is it uncatholic ? Is it a bad custom ? Is the practising 
 it and teaching it and encouraging it a wrong " sacer- 
 dotalism," showing disloyalty to the English Church ? 
 
 My opponents, I suppose, would answer all these 
 questions in the affirmative. I, on the contrary, main- 
 tain that they must all be answered in the negative, 
 and I proceed to show cause why. 
 
 (1) And first, my dear Dean, I turn to the scriptural 
 aspect of the question. I do not think this is the point 
 in the present controversy, as I have already said. The 
 point is loyalty to the Church of England, whether 
 scripturally she be right or wrong. That, it is im^ 
 portant to keep before our minds ; for the only chance 
 which adversaries to Catholic teaching have, is shifting 
 about, and using Jesuitical arguments, avoiding the 
 point, and appealing, sometimes with abundant decla- 
 mation, to Scripture. 
 
 However, though, I repeat, that is not the point in 
 question at the moment, it is well to consider the scrip- 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 65 
 
 tural ground of such a custom ; for this, of course, has 
 ever been before the mind of the Church. 
 
 Now, broadly speaking, how about Fasting, as a 
 solemn duty, on solemn occasions, in Scripture ? Well, 
 those who are severe on Fasting Communion must 
 acknowledge — if they will be honest — that all their tone 
 of teaching on this subject is strangely out of joint with 
 the Bible, which they so loudly profess to follow. St. 
 Paul 1 speaks language about discipline of the body, about 
 striking it severe and heavy blows, which, had it come 
 from a Catholic priest in the Church of England, would 
 have formed a foundation for lively and rhetorical 
 denunciation, as you and I can well imagine, in certain 
 quarters ! He lays tremendous stress upon physical 
 self-discipline. (Were it not St. Paul, one can imagine 
 the robust denunciation of " detestable materialism ! ") 
 St. Paul, who had been tried "above measure" by a 
 Divine discipline of suffering, still, by a voluntary 
 discipline of a severe character, brought his body into 
 subjection lest he should in any way fail. The fears 
 which the great Apostle entertained cannot, of course, 
 have been imaginary. The whole thing has — for those 
 who believe in the teaching of his Epistles as being 
 Divine — God's seal upon it. He, even he, needed dis- 
 cipline of the body. 
 
 There surely is a grave danger of self-deceit if men 
 in modern times imagine that they — to be true to 
 Scripture — need no discipline of the body. To speak 
 or think of bodily discipline and fasting as a " carnal 
 ordinance," as some have done, is clearly to be in 
 opposition to the teaching of the Spirit of God. With- 
 out the performance in some degree of such duties, we 
 may be well assured that the spiritual life can have no 
 
 1 1 Cor. ix. 27, viroiriafa. 
 
66 SACERDOTALISM, 
 
 real soundness at all. If such a one as St. Paul needed 
 such exercises as bodily discipline and fasting, certainly 
 we do. Here I may quote well-known words which 
 you probably remember : " It must be feared that it is 
 one of the subtlest devices of the enemy, to persuade us 
 that we may become spiritual through means merely 
 spiritual ; that we can cherish better the things of the 
 Spirit by neglecting those of the flesh ; that we can 
 have the victory over the flesh without fighting against 
 it ; that, being in the body, we can transfer the conflict 
 wholly to the soul ; that we can cultivate spiritual 
 feelings, desires, longings, love, without discipline of the 
 body, which would obstruct them and weigh them 
 down. This self-deceit is not a snare of these times 
 only. It has been practised, on system, before as now. 
 Only then by heretics, who, thinking the spirit alone 
 worthy of God, the body, which He also created, all 
 evil, thought it no evil to do all evil with it. It is so 
 not unfrequently now with those who make spiritual 
 feelings the test of holiness. It will ever be, that they 
 who think themselves move spiritual than the Church, 
 or seek these easier, shorter roads, will find their 
 spirituality to be sickly and carnal, puffed up by some 
 false spirit, rather than borne aloft by the indwelling 
 Spirit of God." 1 
 
 Now, fasting and self-discipline are lowly and 
 unexciting courses, but they are the ways put before 
 us by Holy Scripture. The end, indeed, is communion 
 with God, spiritual affections, and the love and vision 
 of the Most Holy ; but fasting is a means, and an 
 important means, insisted upon in Holy Scripture. Is 
 it possible for men to close their eyes to this ? Those 
 who believe in the Divine authority of the Old Testa- 
 1 Pusey, " Parochial Sermons," vol. i. p. 185. 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 67 
 
 ment, believe that " fasting and weeping and mourning " 
 were appointed ways of approach to God ; l that the 
 penitence of Ahab and the repentance of Nineveh were 
 accepted through fasting ; that David, held up to us in 
 this matter as an example, fasted for his sins ; that the 
 Day of Atonement was appointed as an unbroken fast ; 
 that the approach of such holy men as Moses and Elijah 
 to God was prepared and secured by fasting ; that 
 Samuel, Esther, Jehoshaphat, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 
 Daniel are all given as examples of the power and need 
 of fasting as a preparation for entering on any serious 
 and solemn duty, and a means of disciplining the soul 
 for greater nearness to God. 
 
 You will readily remember, my dear Dean, that, 
 even if men put aside the testimony of the Old Testa- 
 ment, they cannot escape from that of the New. 
 Suffering, deliberate self-discipline and fasting, were 
 not taken away, they were specially blessed by our 
 Blessed Lord. He Himself fasted, and with great 
 severity, in preparation for His most solemn under- 
 takings. By His sacred Passion He gave a new virtue 
 to this form of discipline, and made it " a token of His 
 disciples, and a channel of grace." As He submitted to 
 it in preparation for His own ministry, so He left it as 
 a mark of His own people, of " the children of the bride- 
 chamber." Certainly, any fair-minded man, on studying 
 the New Testament, would surely conclude that fasting 
 is one chief mark and duty of a Christian. Is it so put 
 forward by the representatives of that school which 
 denounces "Ritualism" — i.e. Catholic teaching in th$ 
 Church of England ? 
 
 More, our Lord taught us how to fast. 2 And yet 
 fasting has been called " unspiritual," and fasting before 
 1 Joel ii. 12-14. 2 St. Luke v. 35. 
 
68 SA CERD TA LISM. 
 
 Communion " detestable materialism " ! 1 Is it right for 
 men to call a practice " unspiritual," which our Lord 
 has taught us to do to God as our Father ? 
 
 Then, again, the Apostolic teaching on the subject 
 is, of course, quite at one with that of our Lord. It 
 was when fasting that the Apostles were " separated " 
 by the Holy Ghost for the work of their ministry ; 2 by 
 fastings as well as other things it was that St. Paul 
 approved himself as a minister of God. 3 It would 
 weary you to enumerate well-known instances. This 
 is certain, that Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Saints, 
 Martyrs, and our Lord Himself, taught and practised 
 fasting as a religious duty, and as acceptable to God, 
 and as a proper means of preparation for and entering 
 into the more solemn and serious things and occasions 
 of religion. 
 
 Well, then, is there anything — even to those who take 
 the lowest views on the subject — is there anything, I 
 ask, to any serious Christian, more solemn, more moving, 
 than the Communion of the Lord's Body and Blood ? 
 Apart from any further question, is it not astonishing, 
 as a matter of elementary piety, that any should be 
 found — if they believe in the teaching of the New 
 Testament at all — to discountenance, not to say to 
 denounce, the evidently pious custom of keeping the 
 fast before Communion ? 
 
 I am afraid, with all the professions which are made 
 about "scriptural authority," men evidently do not 
 believe, and do not care to be guided by, the New 
 Testament. For, to consider it further, on this question 
 of fasting it is perfectly astonishing the amount of 
 Jesuitical casuistry which is used to escape from the 
 
 1 Quoted by Dr. Farrar, Contemporary Review, July, 1892, p. 57. 
 * Acts xiii. 2. 8 2 Cor. vi. 4, 6, 7. 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 69 
 
 plain teaching of Holy Scripture. Something of this 
 sort has been very truly said by a great teacher on such 
 a subject. 1 People assert that the thing is to fast from 
 sin. True ; spiritual fasting and mortification are the 
 chief things. Bodily fasting has this end in view. Do 
 those who are so wholly spiritual that they despise 
 bodily fasting, show themselves complete in sanctity in 
 these things ? Do they who neglect the means attain 
 the end ? It is contended that you should fast in speech, 
 fast with the eyes, fast with the ears, fast with the 
 limbs, fast as to money, as to dress, as to the esteem 
 of others ; only that to keep the physical fast is " legal " 
 and " carnal," and obeying " the letter " and not " the 
 spirit." True, these things are to be done — true, the means 
 are not the end; but is it a fact that those who despise 
 the teaching of Scripture and the example of the saints 
 on bodily fasts are high examples of this spiritual com- 
 pleteness ? Evil-speaking, gossip, harsh and angry words, 
 reproaches, falsehoods, statements meant to feed vanity 
 and exalt self — is the absence of these specially charac- 
 teristic of all who despise the teaching of Scripture on 
 fasting ? Is there among them no looking for pomps 
 and vanities, no gazing on what arouses evil thoughts, 
 no coveting things seen ? Is there no listening with 
 satisfaction to words that do hurt, to evil tales, and 
 unkind rumours, and corrupting language, and sayings 
 which feed personal pride ? Is there no luxury, and 
 softness, and sloth, and indolence in this age ? Are all 
 ways of life simple and self -restraining ? Is there no 
 love of money, no pomp of apparel, no struggling to 
 be first ? Surely, my dear friend, we know that all 
 this profession of a lofty "spiritual" way of using 
 the gospel ; all this supercilious contempt for the 
 1 See Pusey, sermon on "Fasting," "Parochial Sermons," vol. i. 
 
7 o SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 practical duties of self-denial laid down by Christ 
 and His Apostles, is a hollow sham. Catholic teaching 
 is practical common sense. Fasting is a religious 
 duty, taught clearly by Holy Scripture, taught by 
 precept and example by our Lord and His Apostles. 
 It is not everything. It is a means to an end ; but it is 
 a means, and a divinely appointed means. It cannot 
 be put aside with impunity. They who try to shirk 
 such a duty are closing their eyes to the teachings of 
 Holy Scripture and the precepts and example of Christ. 
 
 I repeat, then — looking at these — we should expect 
 such a devout custom as Fasting Communion ; for fasting 
 has ever been one ordained way for preparing for the 
 great things of religion, and nothing in religion can be 
 greater or more serious than Communion in the Body 
 and Blood of the Lord. Prima facie, then, we should 
 expect, I say, from the teachings of Scripture, and the 
 example of Christ and His Apostles and all the saints, 
 that Christians would be encouraged to keep their fast 
 before so solemn a matter as the making of their 
 Communion. We should be surprised if such was not 
 the case, for it would be contrary to the whole drift of 
 the teaching of the gospel ; much more should we be 
 astounded to discover that to do such a thing, or en- 
 courage men to do it, is positively wrong, and indeed 
 " teaching for doctrines the commandments of men " ! 
 
 Scripture, I maintain, prima facie, is in our favour. 
 We shall need overwhelming evidence indeed to lead us 
 to believe that in this matter alone Scripture is quite 
 inconsistent with itself ! 
 
 Have we such evidence ? 
 
 I suppose our duty is to examine, after the general 
 teaching of Scripture on which we have already dwelt, 
 (2) specific statements of Scripture which are said to 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 71 
 
 forbid the custom, and what is meant by an English 
 Churchman if he holds that "the Church" interprets 
 these; (3) the evidence to be found in the history of 
 the Church from the beginning ; and (4) the teaching of 
 the Church of England. 
 
 (2) As to certain specific statements of Scripture 
 which are said to forbid the teaching of Fasting Com- 
 munion. What are they ? The palmary argument of 
 opponents is that our Lord instituted the Blessed 
 Sacrament " after supper/' It is difficult to believe that 
 fairly instructed persons who use this argument are in 
 earnest, and sincerely believe what they say. It would 
 be just as sensible to argue that you are a "sacerdotalist " 
 for observing the Lord's day, instead of observing the 
 Jewish Saturday. It is certain that our Lord when on 
 earth did observe Saturday, and did not observe Sunday ; 
 but no one, as far as I know, has ever been called a 
 " sacerdotalist " for departing from His undoubted habit 
 of " resting the seventh day." I 
 
 Well, there can be no doubt that the "supper" of 
 which the Lord partook with His disciples was as ex- J 
 ceptional in character as were those who joined in par- 
 taking of it. It was, in fact, a very serious religious 
 ceremony. It was the winding up of the Old Dispen- 
 sation by Him Who " fulfilled all righteousness." To 
 compare taking part in it with our taking part in an 
 ordinary meal, in breakfast or dinner, is worse than 
 absurd. The Old Dispensation was, so to speak, wound 
 up in the partaking of the Paschal Supper, the New 
 Dispensation begun in the institution of the Holy 
 Eucharist. Our Lord's case was a special and very X 
 exceptional one. It seems to me, therefore, that it is 
 altogether wide of the mark to plead the circumstances 
 of the institution as against Fasting Communion ; from 
 
 I — — =3Tf 
 
72 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 the nature of the case, the Paschal rite was developed by 
 the Divine Lord Himself — not in the presence of any 
 lay persons, or of a general congregation, but only in the 
 presence of His Apostles — into the fuller reality of the 
 Blessed Sacrament. It is only when people lose sight of 
 the amazing difference between themselves and that first 
 assembly at the institution that they can argue so lightly 
 from the observance of the Paschal Supper to an every- 
 day common meal. St. Cyprian implies the same — that 
 in his judgment the case of the first Eucharist was to be 
 considered exceptional. 1 It is really not to the point, 
 then, when men object to keeping the fast on the plea 
 of a closer imitation of our Lord and His Apostles. It 
 would be just as sensible to insist on wearing sandals 
 instead of shoes by way of imitating Christ. The ordi- 
 nance of the Eucharist being "after supper" was not 
 — no one can pretend it was — an essential point in the 
 institution to be carried on for ever, and the fact that 
 it took place " after supper " was, as we have seen, the 
 result of exceptional circumstances. 
 
 The fact is that questions of this kind were to be 
 settled by the Church. It is here that the real crux of 
 such questions comes in. I had said that " the Church 
 is the pillar and ground of the truth," and that the 
 Church is to us the interpreter of Holy Scripture. I 
 should have imagined that this proposition would have 
 been endorsed by every Christian, whatever interpre- 
 tation he might put upon the word "Church." Dr. 
 Farrar, however, falls upon me with great severity for 
 these assertions. This is interesting, for he, as I think, 
 so evades my answers to him, and drops some things 
 out of view, that a definite charge of this kind cannot 
 
 1 Ep. lxiii. Dr. Farrar apparently thinks very badly of St. Cyprian. 
 Still the testimony of the Blessed Saint has its value. 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 73 
 
 fail to arrest attention. He considers my "scriptural 
 quotations extraordinary in their irrelevance ; " in par- 
 ticular the above text is not, he thinks, "relevant." 
 Accordingly, he explains that some commentators think 
 the phrase applies not to " the Church," but to Timothy. 
 He gives various reasons why he thinks so — all more 
 or less interesting, still all such as are pretty well known 
 to students of the Epistles, as they are the common- 
 places of Greek Testament criticism, but all, I submit, 
 beside the mark. It is not right, in a discussion like 
 this, to ride off upon a side issue. I differ from Dr. 
 Farrar's conclusions. I know what has been said about 
 1 Tim. iii. 15, and I think that the view of many com- 
 mentators (the view, by the way, of the translators of 
 the Revised Version), that it does apply to " the Church," 
 is the true one. But — however that may be — all this 
 Greek Testament criticism is beside the mark. Whether 
 or not the translation in 1 Tim. iii 15 be correct, whether 
 or not St. Paul ever said so, does any serious Christian 
 deny — whatever his definition of " Church " may be — 
 that the Church is " the pillar and ground or stay of 
 the truth " ? If any do, we need not argue. We have 
 no basis on which to go. Our Lord's promise to guide 
 His Apostles into all truth, on such a hypothesis, has 
 failed, and we have no guide but our own sweet will. 
 
 As to the Church being an "interpreter" of Holy 
 Scripture, Dr. Farrar's statements on the subject seem 
 to me to be equally irelevant. He assures us the 
 Church " has never laid down any rules of interpreta- 
 tion." Well, but who said it had ? We must try, at 
 least, not to misunderstand one another. We must lay 
 down and defend, as best we can, certain elementary 
 propositions. The different parts of the Church, for 
 instance, Dr. Farrar seems to think, are agreed upon 
 
74 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 nothing! That, I think, is demonstratively false. 
 There are many disagreements in the Church, but 
 many points are settled. When one speaks of the 
 Church " interpreting " Scripture, one means, of course, 
 that in matters of doctrine or practice which have given 
 rise to various interpretations of Holy Scripture, for a 
 Churchman, the decision of the Church has settled the 
 question. 
 
 For instance, Socinians interpret the teachings of 
 Scripture so as to deduce from them the view that our 
 Lord is not Divine in the sense of His real and essential 
 Godhead. Will it be pretended that the Church has not 
 been the interpreter of Scripture for us in this matter ? 
 Will it be pretended that it is open to any Churchman 
 to treat the everlasting: and essential Godhead of Christ 
 as an open question, because the Church has laid 
 down no " rules of interpretation " or " exegesis " ? The 
 Church is— and those who bind themselves to her creeds 
 cannot but admit that she is — the " interpreter of Scrip- 
 ture " for us in all important matters. She is, whatever 
 the text in 1 Tim. iii. 15 may mean, "the pillar and ground 
 or stay of the truth." 
 
 Of course it would be readily acknowledged that a 
 custom of the Church need not, ordinarily speaking, 
 bind the conscience of a Churchman in the way in which 
 a doctrinal decree would. Still a custom having reference 
 to spiritual life and the deepening of reverence would 
 surely be of grave importance in the eyes of all who are 
 the obedient children of the Church. We can scarcely 
 doubt this, if we trust in our Lord's promise to guide 
 His Church into all truth, and to be " with her to the 
 end." If a practice has had the approval of the Church 
 — though it may not be a " deadly sin " to depart from 
 it — it surely ought to command the deepest respect, and 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 
 
 75 
 
 to disparage it would be a grave thing indeed. If the 
 Church, then, has countenanced and encouraged and 
 even enjoined Fasting Communion, then if Fasting Com- 
 munion is a mark of "sacerdotalism," all I can say is, 
 " sacerdotalism " is in that case a mark of the Church. 
 
 But before I go further, I am pulled up, my dear 
 friend, to my astonishment, by Dr. Farrar's suggestion 
 that in the word " Church " latet fallacia. 
 
 Now, of course, we know that the question De Ecclesia, 
 the question, What is " the Church " ? is the crux of con- 
 troversy among Christians — Roman, or Anglican, or 
 Dissenting. Quite so ; but our present controversy is 
 one which is within the frontiers of the Anglican Com- 
 munion. When an Anglican priest thinks it his duty 
 to assail his brethren for believing in " sacerdotalism," 
 when they in answer point out that what he includes 
 under the invidious title of Sacerdotalism is the teach- 
 ing of "the Church," their meaning is, of course, of 
 " the Church " as the Anglican Communion interprets 
 that phrase. What is my astonishment, then, when this 
 Anglican priest, my assailant, speaks as follows : " I wish 
 he [that is myself] would tell us what he means by 
 this [the Church]. Does he mean the Romish Church ? 
 or the Greek Church ? or the English Church ? or ' a 
 congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word 
 of God is preached, and the Sacraments are duly ad- 
 ministered ? ' or what ? If by the Church he means 
 anything narrower than this, if he limits the word to 
 any one fold in the universal flock, he uses the word 
 in a sense which we repudiate " ! 
 
 Very well ; Dr. Farrar may be at rest. I do not 
 "narrow it." By " the Church," I mean what the Anglican 
 Communion teaches me and, I submit, teaches him to 
 consider " the Catholic Church." And what is that ? 
 
76 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Well, Dr. Farrar refers us to four statements on the 
 subject which he is, apparently, prepared to accept as 
 " the definition of the Church," to which he and I, as 
 Anglican priests, are alike bound. I am prepared to 
 accept them also, and the — I hope he will forgive me — 
 rhetorical flourishes about " the Romish Church," " the 
 Greek Church," and so on, might well have been omitted. 
 It is a controversy between Catholic priests of the 
 Anglican Communion. 
 
 Of these statements the first is in Article XIX., 
 and runs as follows : w The visible Church of Christ is a 
 congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure 
 Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly 
 administered according to Christ's ordinance in all those 
 things which are requisite to the same." 
 
 Now, here the teaching is with regard to the "visible " 
 Church. What we learn about it is this : (1) that in it 
 " the pure Word of God is preached," i.e. the teaching 
 is in accordance with the Catholic Faith, which is, as 
 we know from the Prayer-book, necessary for salvation ; 
 and (2) "the Sacraments be duly administered." 
 
 This latter clause (2) makes matters clear. We know 
 that, in the view of the Anglican Church, for the due 
 administration of the Sacrament of Holy Baptism it is 
 necessary that water be used, and the holy words, "in 
 the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
 Holy Ghost." We know, again, that, in the view of 
 the Anglican Church, for the due administration of the 
 Sacrament of Confirmation there must be the laying- 
 on of hands of the bishop. We know again, that, in 
 the view of the Anglican Church, confessions must be 
 heard and absolutions given by a priest who has received 
 orders through the episcopate. We know, further, that, 
 in the view of the Anglican Church, for the Sacrament of 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. y 7 
 
 the Body and Blood of the Lord there must be consecra- 
 tion by a priest episcopally ordained. We reach, then, 
 this meaning of the definition of the nineteenth Article : 
 The Church is a Society which holds and teaches the 
 Catholic Faith, and in which there is the Apostolic 
 Ministry — Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. 
 
 It may be well to dwell upon this further, and here 
 I cannot do better than quote a great teacher. " If 
 Christ, the Eternal Truth," he says, "hath built His 
 Church, Truth, transformed by the Spirit into Love, is 
 become living among men. The Divine Truth, embodied 
 in Jesus Christ, must thereby be bodied forth in an 
 outward and living phenomenon, and become a deciding 
 authority, if it is to seize deeply on the whole man, and 
 put an end to pagan scepticism — that sinful uncertainty 
 of the mind, which stands on as low a grade as ignor- 
 ance. It is, then, the duty of the Church to preach the 
 pure Word of God ; to communicate, on the authority 
 of God, that truth with regard to the nature of God 
 and the destinies of creation which He has revealed; 
 to impress upon the intellects of men the true doctrine 
 of Christ, — by oral instruction, by the development of 
 a school of theology, by symbolical and suggestive rites, 
 by catechetical instruction, by preserving and inter- 
 preting Holy Writ." 1 I hope you will notice, in 
 passing, that this profound theologian agrees with me 
 — in contradistinction to the views of opponents — 
 that the Church must in some sense " interpret " Holy 
 Scripture. " Its emphatic office," he goes on, " so far as 
 regards the intellects of men, is to impress upon the 
 minds of men an abiding conviction of certain truths ; 
 which truths not merely lead to a holy life here and 
 to salvation hereafter, but of which the mental accept- 
 
 1 Bishop Forbes in loc. 
 
78 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 ance is itself a part of the integral Christian life, one 
 phase of that supernatural life, which, begun in this life, 
 receives its fulness in the eternal world. Thus one 
 department of the Church is to be an Ecclesia Docens. 
 To the hierarchy, as distinguished from the great body 
 of Christians, is committed the duty of handing down 
 and communicating these truths ; not merely as spiritual 
 nourishment to those within the fold, but also to those 
 without — to heathens and strangers — that they may be 
 brought to share in the supernatural blessings which 
 attach themselves to this blessed yvcjaig. 
 
 " But this is not all. When we come to consider the 
 question of the sacraments, we shall see that these are 
 the channels whereby the virtue that proceeds from 
 Christ our Head flows into His Body in general, that is 
 the Church Catholic, and into us the members in par- 
 ticular. From all antiquity the custody of the sacra- 
 ments has always been attributed to the Church ; in fact, 
 they are, among other things, tesserce of membership with 
 her. And, given this custody, it is the duty of the 
 Church to administer them. Next to the teaching office 
 of the Church comes the ministerial; next to the 
 appeal to the intellect and heart comes the appeal to 
 the purely spiritual part of the nature, and this is made 
 by the sacraments. A sacrament does not appeal to 
 the intellect. It does not move the soul by any intel- 
 lectual consideration. It only per accidens touches the 
 heart. It works solely by virtue of the institution of 
 Christ. It derives its power from Him; nay, in a 
 primary sense He Himself operates in all the sacraments 
 as the High 'Priest of the new law, using the earthly 
 minister as the organ only. 
 
 " But the sacraments are so far influenced by the 
 elements of the world that they have their proper 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 79 
 
 matter and form ; that is, there are certain conditions 
 that must be observed, very simple ones indeed, but still 
 definite, which go to give validity to each ordinance. 
 Therefore the Article makes it a note (or mark) of the 
 Church that in it the sacraments are duly administered 
 according to Christ's ordinance ; that all the necessary 
 conditions to a valid sacrament are observed. Thus 
 there is no true Baptism without the water and certain 
 words ; the water alone, or the words alone, are not 
 sufficient; moreover, only certain definite words may 
 be used with profit and effect. So to a valid consecra- 
 tion of the Holy Eucharist, in addition to a definite 
 matter, that is, bread and wine, and a definite form of 
 words, there must be the action of a priest, episcopally 
 ordained, else the Body of Christ is not consecrated." * 
 
 Here is a fuller and more profound statement of the 
 truth to which I have drawn your attention above, viz. 
 in the view of the Anglican Church, that is part of the 
 Catholic Church — of what I may call the executive of 
 the kingdom of God — and that only which witnesses to 
 the Catholic Faith, and in which there is the Apostolic 
 Ministry of Bishops and Priests (I may add in view of 
 the Ordinal) and Deacons, although this office does not 
 come within the view directly of the Article. 
 
 Now, my dear friend, the Anglican Church may be 
 right or wrong, but " the Church " — so far forth accord- 
 ing to her teaching — is that Society, and only that, 
 which teaches the Catholic Faith, and is officered by 
 the Apostolic, threefold, ministry. 
 
 The second definition to which we are referred is 
 that in the fifty-fifth Canon, which describes " Christ's 
 Holy Catholic Church " as " the whole congregation of 
 Christian people dispersed throughout the whole world." 
 
 1 Jd., ut supra. 
 
 G 
 
80 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Here, doubtless, is a recognition of the place of the 
 baptized. It is true, of course, that all baptized souls, 
 when they have duly received the initial sacrament, 
 are baptized into the Catholic Church. If. they live in 
 " Dissent," or use a ministry not Apostolically appointed, 
 they are indeed still children of the family, but under 
 loss, since not living according to the rules of the 
 family. They are children of the household, but erring 
 children, and their varying organizations and ministries 
 are not included in the organization and executive 
 action of the Catholic Church. The English Church 
 does not recognize any Communion which has not the 
 threefold ministry coming down in succession from the 
 Apostles as an integral part of the Catholic Church, 
 in such sense that that community is a divinely ap- 
 pointed guardian and depository for the faith and 
 customs of the Church. This is clear from the fact 
 that while she requires no reordination in cases of 
 those who may enter her ministry from the Eastern 
 or the Roman Communions, any who seek to enter her 
 ministry, coming from among her own " Dissenting " 
 children, are disqualified from doing so until they have 
 received the Sacrament of Orders from Apostolic hands. 
 
 When a custom, then, is said to be a Catholic cus- 
 tom, it is meant that it has been a custom sanctioned 
 and approved by the Church of Christ, which has 
 maintained the ministry in unbroken descent from 
 Christ and His Apostles. In this sense Fasting Com- 
 munion is a Catholic custom, and has the force of the 
 approval of the Catholic Church. 
 
 To avoid this, it seems to me that men yield to the 
 temptation of resorting to a misuse of words. That is, 
 they use the word Catholic to mean Latitudinarian. 
 This is the old trick of heresy, and it is an unworthy 
 
FASTING COMMUNION, 
 
 trick. Opponents, as Dean Hook says, * assume that 
 under the general title of the Catholic Church must 
 necessarily be included every sect and denomination of 
 professing Christians, however different in doctrine, in 
 discipline, or even in faith, from the primitive Church." 
 This, he argues, is not just. * If," he goes on, w in the 
 study of the literature, the philosophy, or the political 
 economy of the ancients, we were to meet with a 
 technical expression or a term of art, should we rest 
 contented with the imperfect notions conveyed by either, 
 in their first and literal sense ? Should we not rather 
 refer to the writings of the poet, the philosopher, and 
 the politician, and adopt the term — whether agreeable 
 or not to its strict etymological signification — in the 
 precise sense to which it had been restricted by them ? 
 This, surely, is consonant with every principle appli- 
 cable to the investigation of truth, and must, in justice, 
 be adopted in analyzing any question connected with 
 the first and greatest of all truths, ' the reason of the 
 faith which is in us.' 
 
 " When, therefore, we adopt, and daily repeat, the 
 Creed of the early Christians, we are surely bound to 
 ascertain not only the meaning of their words, but the 
 precise sense in which they were used, and in which 
 those holy Fathers intended that we should receive them. 
 
 " By this test, then, we are prepared to abide ; and 
 we may, without presumption, challenge the opponents 
 of our interpretation to point out one instance in which 
 the term ' Catholic ' is applied by the ancients in the 
 indefinite and indiscriminate manner for which they 
 contend. They will invariably find it used for a pur- 
 pose directly opposed to that which they profess. They 
 will find it used, to speak logically, as a word of the 
 second intention — to distinguish the one true and 
 
82 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Apostolic Church, existing through all ages the same 
 by the succession of its bishops, from the various 
 sects, heresies, and schisms. . . . 'Christianus mihi 
 nomen, Catholicus cognomen,' the former to distinguish 
 him from the heathen, the latter from the heretics, was 
 the motto not of Pacian alone, but of every orthodox 
 member of the Church." * 
 
 Now, surely, my dear friend, no one can doubt that 
 the Anglican Church looks upon the Catholic Church as 
 that great Society, founded by Christ and His Apostles 
 and officered by them with the three orders of ministry, 
 holding their orders in direct succession from the 
 Apostles. She further repudiates any desire to separate 
 from the Churches of Italy, France, and Spain — in fact, 
 from the rest of Western Christendom. She treats as 
 parts of the Catholic Church the great Eastern as well 
 as the great Western Communions, i.e. the Greek and 
 the Latin Church. She does not consider that the inter- 
 ruption of external communion with them severs the 
 bond ; that though there have been serious " quarrels in 
 the family " in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the 
 family has ceased to be a family still. What is held 
 in common by her with them is Catholic Faith or 
 Catholic custom as distinguished from late and un- 
 Catholic accretions in the Eastern Church, or Romish 
 accretions in the Latin Church, or Protestant accretions 
 in the Anglican. A custom handed on, with more or 
 less exactness and uniformity, in these branches of the 
 Catholic Church, would be Catholic custom, and would, 
 in consequence of our Lord's promises to His Church, 
 have a strong presumption in its favour that it is 
 according to the mind of Christ. 
 
 It is no answer to this, then, for any one to say that 
 1 " The Church and her Ordinances," Hook, vol. i. pp. 17, 18. 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 83 
 
 " in many branches of the Catholic Church — if that word 
 is to mean ' the blessed company of all faithful people ' — 
 it is wholly unknown." I can only rejoin that, in view 
 of what the Anglican Church recognizes on the subject, 
 this statement is not accurate. The "faithful people" 
 who constitute the Catholic Church as a witnessing body 
 are, in the mind of the Anglican Church — as action 
 even more eloquently than word shows — those who 
 are faithful to the Apostles' " doctrine and fellowship, 
 and the breaking of the bread, and the prayers ; " those, 
 that is, who hold the Creeds, and use the Apostolically- 
 appointed ministry, and feed on a sacrament validly 
 consecrated, and unite in the appointed worship of the 
 Church. The English Church may be right or she may 
 be wrong ; but in a question as to loyalty to her teaching 
 when we use the word " Catholic " we must use it in her 
 sense. 
 
 It is, surely, one thing to be thankful for goodness 
 wherever it is found, one thing to believe that all baptized 
 Christians have been baptized into the Catholic Church, 
 one thing to recognize thankfully that where their 
 separation is from prejudice, or mistake, or want of in- 
 formation, or in some way through no fault of their 
 own, we may well believe that God will help them, as 
 He helps all who seriously seek Him, and that they are 
 what may be called crypto- Catholics — and quite another 
 to look upon the various communities into which they 
 have formed themselves, without Apostolic ministry and 
 destitute of valid sacraments, and often holding a muti- 
 lated creed, as integral parts of the Catholic Body and 
 witnesses to what is or is not Catholic custom. 
 
 I repeat, therefore, that the absence of this custom 
 in all the various bodies of Christians who have separated 
 from the Church is no disproof of the fact that it is, as 
 
84 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 I said, the long-established custom of the whole Catholic 
 Church. Do not quibble about the word * Catholic," or 
 give to it a non-natural meaning, but understand it in 
 the way in which the Church of England understands 
 it, and the statement may be shown to be true that 
 " Fasting Communion is the long-established custom of 
 the whole Catholic Church." 
 
 At any rate, we have gone so far as this — that Holy 
 Scripture teaches fasting as a spiritual exercise with 
 almost as much emphasis as it teaches prayer. That we 
 have seen already. Further, that the Church of England, 
 whilst recognizing all baptized persons as having been 
 baptized into the Catholic Church, recognizes as or- 
 ganized parts of the Catholic Church only those com- 
 munities which have maintained the Apostolic succession 
 of the ministry through the Episcopate, and therefore 
 recognizes as Catholic custom only such customs as have 
 been sanctioned in some sort by such communities. 
 Such customs we may, I repeat, fain believe — if our 
 Lord has kept His promise to His Church — are not at 
 variance with the mind of our Lord. 
 
 Well, then, we now reach the consideration of the 
 practice of the Primitive Church (3), and the teaching 
 of the English Church (4). Forgive me if, for con- 
 venience' sake, I partly reverse this order, partly consider 
 the two points together, as indeed they are closely 
 connected. Now, how does the Church of England 
 stand in relation to this practice herself ? And how 
 far can it be shown to be a primitive and a general 
 practice in the early Church ? 
 
 As to the Church of England — and what support she 
 gives to the custom is, after all, the main question before 
 us — she lays down no law on the subject totidem verbis 
 in her Prayer-book. But, then, there are a great many 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 85 
 
 things on which she does not lay down a direct law ; 
 and the reason is not far to seek. Being a part of the 
 Catholic Body, she accepts the ways and teachings of 
 that Body. She only mentions specifically things which 
 needed to be emphasized, and which she was desirous 
 strongly to enforce. Whenever anything is really 
 Catholic, it is of necessity part of the heritage of 
 an English Churchman. The Prayer-book warns the 
 children of the Church of this, by teaching us to express 
 our belief in * the Holy Catholic Church ; " by telling 
 us of the " sundry inconveniences " which ensue by 
 changes being made in " things advisedly established ; " 
 and by assuring us of her disapproval of anything 
 which strikes at any " laudable practice of . . . the 
 whole Catholick Church of Christ.' 
 
 If a custom, then, is a Catholic custom, it is ipso facto 
 a possession of every member of the English Church. 
 That being the case, it is all the more certain that this 
 custom is according to the mind of the English Church, 
 because of the great emphasis she lays on fasting 
 generally. No part of the Church has been more em- 
 phatic on this grave duty than our own. 
 
 (1) For there is no part of the Church in which Lent 
 has been introduced with greater solemnity and even 
 severity. 
 
 Think of the opening of the Commination Service — 
 
 "Brethren, in the Primitive Church there was a 
 godly discipline, that, at the beginning of Lent, such 
 persons as stood convicted of notorious sin were put to 
 open penance, and punished in this world, that their 
 souls might be saved in the day of the Lord ; and that 
 others, admonished by their example, might be the more 
 afraid to offend. 
 
 " Instead whereof, (until the said discipline may be 
 
86 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 restored again, which is much to be wished,) it is thought 
 good, that at this time (in the presence of you all) should 
 be read the general sentences of God's cursing against 
 impenitent sinners. . . . Let us . . . return unto our 
 Lord God . . . seeking to bring forth worthy fruits of 
 penance," etc. 
 
 Then in the prayer at the close, " Be favourable unto 
 Thy people, who turn unto Thee in weeping, fasting, and 
 praying. . . ." 
 
 (2) The Table of Days of Fasting and Abstinence 
 is precise and even severe. It is called, " A Table of the 
 Vigils, Fasts, and Days of Abstinence, to be observed in 
 the year. The Evens or Vigils before" certain Holy 
 Days . and Saints' Days. Then there are " Days of 
 Fasting or Abstinence ; " and then the list is given 
 beginning with " The Forty Days of Lent." 
 
 It is worth while to recall these statements of our 
 Prayer-book, because curious and wild things have been 
 said from time to time, sometimes, I believe, even by 
 persons in high positions, as to the Church of England 
 not teaching fasting as a Christian duty ! If such sayings 
 were not saddening (as an evidence how laxity will 
 creep even into the Church itself), they would make 
 one smile. No part of the Catholic Church has been 
 more exact, and even severe, in teaching fasting and 
 abstinence as practices of Christian duty and devotion 
 than the English Church. 
 
 We reach these conclusions, then, so far — 
 
 (1) Fasting is taught in Holy Scripture as a de- 
 votional duty, and a fitting preparation for solemn 
 occasions. 
 
 (2) The receiving of the Holy Sacrament is a 
 specially solemn occasion, and therefore we should expect 
 keeping the fast to be part of a due preparation for it, 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 87 
 
 especially as the Church of England makes an emphatic 
 appeal to Holy Scripture. 
 
 (3) The Church of England teaches the duty of 
 fasting as strongly as, if not more strongly than, any 
 other part of the Catholic Church. 
 
 (4) The Church of England also claims as her own 
 all truly Catholic teachings and customs, and this may 
 be shown to be such. 
 
 That is what I now proceed to do. 
 
 (1) Before going back into the earlier habits of the 
 Church, however, as witnessed by history, I must dwell 
 upon some further teachings of the English part of the 
 Catholic Church as 'pointing in the direction in which 
 we are looking. 
 
 The Prayer-book orders, as you will remember, my 
 dear friend, that when people desire to communicate 
 they should signify their names to the curate " at least 
 some time the day before" It is true that this rubric 
 has become to a certain extent obsolete, and naturally. 
 At the time when it was written it was needful, on 
 account of abuses. Communions had become infrequent. 
 Reaction had made men, probably, careless both about 
 Communion and about proper preparation. As time has 
 gone on, we have acted in a larger spirit of liberty. God 
 the Holy Spirit has mercifully revived among us a 
 deeper desire for Communion, as well as a fuller sense 
 of the privilege and blessing of Confession and Absolu- 
 tion as the appointed way — when needed — of prepara- 
 tion. The common sense of the living Church departs 
 from the letter of such rubrics as this one, and the one 
 as to the priest not celebrating unless there are " at the 
 least three" communicants, because in the spirit they 
 are fulfilled. People do now understand the duty of pre- 
 paring for Communion, and — if they need it — of making 
 
88 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 their confessions. They do communicate so regularly 
 that there is no need now of stopping the offering of the 
 sacrifice unless a given number of communicants is 
 first (by a somewhat inquisitorial process !) secured at 
 the moment. Still these rubrics, if more widely inter- 
 preted by the common sense of the Church now, witness 
 to the mind of the Church. If the one shows that 
 she desires to encourage Communion, the other shows 
 that that Communion should be made in the early 
 hours of the day — otherwise, why send your name * the 
 day before ? " — in fact, at an hour when the custom of 
 the Church of keeping the fast could be more easily 
 observed. 
 
 Our Church never, indeed, as I have said, lays 
 down an express law in her rubrics or post-Reformation 
 Canons. But why ? Why, because it never occurred 
 to the minds of those who framed them that such a 
 law could possibly be needed. To celebrate early was 
 the universal practice, coming from the earliest times. 
 There were few exceptions to this, and those were 
 specified by authority. The thing was understood 
 because, among other reasons, priests in celebrating and 
 people in communicating were felt to be bound to keep 
 their fast. 
 
 This fact is brought out to our minds by the horror 
 very generally felt by the novel and scandalous practice 
 of Evening Communion. I use the word scandalous 
 in the strict sense of the term, for it casts a stumbling- 
 bloch in the way of Christians. It is felt to be utterly 
 novel. The defence put forward is the usual fallacy — 
 imitation of our Lord, " after supper ; " and expediency, 
 for a help to busy people. As to the first, there was, as 
 we have seen, a special reason for the time of the first 
 Eucharist ; but, indeed, there is nothing more remarkable 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 89 
 
 than the way in which Protestant controversialists deal 
 with these solemn questions. (1) Their manner is to 
 discard the weight of the customs and teachings of the 
 Catholic Church in which they profess a " belief," when 
 these run counter to their private fancies ; and (2) their 
 habit is to treat our Lord and His Apostles as though 
 they were ordinary people — no better and no worse, no 
 wiser and no more foolish, than themselves ! Their effort 
 strictly to adhere to our Lord's example to the letter, in 
 spite of the usage of the Church, implies that they know 
 better what our Lord desired than His Church. If they 
 are consistent, as I have said, they must keep Saturday, 
 not Sunday, as the day of rest. Our Lord spoke with 
 great exactness about certain essential points in the 
 celebration of the Eucharist; He did not speak about 
 the time of its celebration. He promised to guide His 
 Church into all truth ; and as to the time of celebrating, 
 the Church did settle that, as we shall see presently, 
 and accordingly the time so settled we may fairly 
 believe is according to the mind of our Lord. But my 
 point now is, that the fact that the practice of Evening 
 Communions is felt to be novel (for it is novel), is 
 another presumption in favour of the contention that 
 fasting before Communion is according to the mind of 
 the Church. 
 
 Before passing from this, however, it is quite worth 
 while to remember that while the Primitive Church 
 shrank with horror from late Communions, they must 
 have had many strong reasons to which God had guided 
 them. (1) First, of course, the feeling that as the Pass- 
 over in the evening commemorated the evening deliver- 
 ance from Egypt, so the Holy Eucharist in the morning, 
 as the Lord's own service on the Lord's own day, 
 commemorated the early morning deliverance of God's 
 
90 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 people in the Resurrection. This is no fancy, as you 
 will remember, recalling the words of St. Gregory of 
 Nazianzum and St. Cyprian. 
 
 St. Gregory says, " Christ instituted it [the Eucharist] 
 in a supper-room and after supper, and on the day 
 before His Passion. We celebrate it in Christian temples, 
 and before taking supper, and after His Resurrection ; " * 
 implying that, since the Risen Life, all had a fresh 
 meaning and a natural change, and that what was 
 inevitable in passing from the old to the new dispensa- 
 tion, and in connecting the Eucharist with the Passover, 
 and before the Lord's Passion, had a new aspect and 
 implied new duties after the Resurrection. 
 
 St. Cyprian says, " It did behove Christ to offer 
 about the evening of the day, that the very hour itself 
 of Sacrament might show the setting and evening of the 
 world. But we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord 
 in the morning." 2 
 
 (2) And, knowing the custom of the Church, another 
 reason probably was, the more easily to lead and enable 
 faithful Christians to keep the fast. 
 
 The English habit, therefore, unbroken until quite 
 recently in the shocking outbreak of Evening Com- 
 munions, — the English Church habit of celebration in 
 the morning seems to point in the same direction, viz. 
 of remembering solemnly the Lord's Resurrection, and 
 encouraging the keeping of the fast. 
 
 But now more specifically as to the Catholicity and 
 Antiquity of the custom. There are persons who allow 
 themselves to speak of the Church as if it had its origin 
 in the convulsions of the sixteenth century. We can 
 understand this in a Roman controversialist trying to 
 make a point against our own part of the Catholic 
 1 Orat. xl., torn. i. p. C59. 2 Ep. lxiii., p. 156. 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 91 
 
 Church. It is difficult to understand it in those who 
 have ex animo accepted the statements of the Prayer- 
 book, or fairly examined history. We know that, 
 though the English part of the Catholic Church has 
 reformed herself from time to time, although possibly 
 some of her reforms may not have been the best 
 possible — for no single part of the Catholic Church 
 is infallible — still they have been reforms in a long 
 existing Church, not brand-new laws of a newly formed 
 community. If any one really believes what we all 
 profess to believe, that the Church is as old as the 
 Day of Pentecost, then any arrangements, or customs, 
 or teachings endorsed by her— unless these have been 
 directly cancelled by the same authority at a later time 
 — receive necessarily from such a one at the least re- 
 spectful attention. 
 
 Well, the rule of Fasting Communion was at least 
 of great antiquity. And it was sanctioned in our own 
 Church certainly as early as A.D. 960. " We charge that 
 no man take the Housel after he hath broke his fast, 
 except it be on account of extreme sickness." 1 That 
 such a law should have been in force, that no contrary 
 statement should have been made at the reform of our 
 Prayer-book and Canons, and that the Church clearly 
 maintains the principle of fasting, and appeals directly 
 to antiquity, goes far to show that those who seek 
 to follow the guidance of the English Church would 
 naturally accept with reverence the custom of Fasting 
 Communion. 2 
 
 For when we turn to Antiquity, certainly we find it 
 
 1 King Edgar's Laws, n. 36 ; Johnson, vol. i. p. 419 ; quoted by 
 Scudamore, " Notitia Eucharistica," p. 34. 
 
 2 It may be added that as adults are expressly taught to prepare for 
 Baptism by prayer and fasting, the Church would be likely to encourage 
 such preparation for Communion also. 
 
SA CERDO TALIS M. 
 
 there; and to Antiquity the Church of England does 
 appeal. Her appeal is to the whole Catholic Church of 
 Christ and to the ancient Fathers. We are loyal to her, 
 indeed, only because she is to us the expression of the 
 mind of the Catholic Church. I repeat, when we find in 
 pre-Ref ormation times that she allowed the law of Fasting 
 Communion, that in Reformation times she never abro- 
 gated that law, that she insisted on the principle of 
 which that law or practice is a natural and devout appli- 
 cation, by so strongly witnessing to the duty of fasting 
 — finding all this, we can scarcely help saying that 
 Fasting Communion is a practice sanctioned by the 
 English Church. But think, my dear friend, strong as 
 this is, how much stronger it becomes when, I repeat, 
 remembering the appeal of our Church to Antiquity, we 
 find what Antiquity actually teaches. 
 
 Now, supposing it to be true that in the very first 
 years of the Church the celebration — perhaps from 
 some idea of imitating the circumstances of the institu- 
 tion — took place after the Love Feast ; supposing that 
 the abuse which St. Paul wished to correct arose in con- 
 sequence ; * — what we find is, that in the very first fervour 
 of devotion a practice was permitted which, as the Church 
 enlarged her borders, it was found impossible to permit. 
 It will scarcely be contended that we in this age are so 
 devout that we can safely abandon a restriction which 
 in such very early days it was necessary to introduce. 
 For it was found necessary. A change of hour from 
 " after supper " to early morning was made, at any rate, 
 pretty certainly in the first century. St. Augustine 
 believed that it was made by St. Paul himself, in con- 
 sequence of the abuses at Corinth. This is not im- 
 probable, because, although the early writers refer often 
 1 1 Cor. xi. 21. 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 93 
 
 enough to the Love Feast, there is no passage in which 
 it is referred to as coming before the celebration after 
 the passage in First Corinthians (if it do refer to it). 
 There appears to be an allusion to the celebration of the 
 Eucharist, followed by the Love Feast, a very few years 
 later in the account of St. Paul's visit to Troas. 1 If this 
 be so, we find the Love Feast after the Communion in 
 the very heart of the Apostolic age. 
 
 Then we have the remarkable evidence of Pliny's 
 celebrated letter to Trajan. That letter was written in 
 A.D. 104 That is, it was written, according to some reckon- 
 ings, in the very year in which St. John died ; and, if not 
 so, then a very few years after the death of the Apostle. 
 
 In Pliny's letter he informs the Emperor as to all 
 he has been able to 'discover of the worship of the 
 Christians. They were, he said, " accustomed to meet on 
 a set day, before it was light, and sing a hymn together 
 alternately to Christ as God, and to bind themselves by 
 a sacrament (or military oath) ; . . . which things being 
 done, they were wont to depart, and to meet again to 
 take food — in common, however." When he wrote, he 
 had examined persons who had been Christians many 
 years before, and the natural construction of their lan- 
 guage, as he reports it, would be that they had at that 
 time been accustomed to have the Eucharist in the early 
 morning and the Agape in the evening. Bishop Light - 
 foot admits that the time of celebrating the Eucharist 
 was in the early morning before Pliny wrote; but I 
 think it ought further to be admitted that, according to 
 the evidence laid before Pliny, this was the case long 
 before. He thinks that the change was made in order 
 to avoid charges of horrible wickedness ; but such charges 
 might still be made so long as the Agape was held in the 
 1 Acts xx. 7, II. 
 
9; SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 evening ; for although what was then eaten was not 
 spoken of as the Lord's Body and Blood, malicious or 
 stupid informers might to some real extent pervert the 
 meaning of the Agape — at any rate, by charges of gross 
 sins such as had, among others, been brought against 
 Christians. Calumnies could not be defeated unless by 
 an absolute suppression, instead of a merely temporary 
 suspension of the Agape itself; and the Agape went on, 
 certainly, long after the celebration of the Eucharist in 
 the evening had become generally obsolete. The change 
 of hour must have been made, then, on other grounds 
 than the effort to avoid calumnious charges. 
 
 I venture also, with much respect, to differ from 
 Bishop Lightfoot as to St. Ignatius's reference to the 
 Agape in the Epistle to Smyrna (c. 8). He seems 
 to think the Agape there a mere equivalent for the 
 Eucharist already mentioned. It seems to me that the 
 order of the words insists on the need of the bishop's 
 sanction for three rites : (1) the Eucharist, (2) Baptism, 
 (3) the Agape. Any one who takes the pains to examine 
 the question can judge of this for himself. Then, as to 
 Justin Martyr's account of the Eucharist, that will not, 
 I take it, be thought to suggest evening celebrations as 
 a usage, so I need scarcely dwell upon it. 
 
 St. Cyprian's language on the subject is interesting. 
 He argues (Ep. 63) against Christians who, in order 
 not to provoke heathen suspicion, used water only in 
 the chalice. Some of them seem to have pleaded, " We 
 do use wine when we celebrate in the evening ; it is 
 only in the morning that we use water only, lest when 
 we go to our business the smell of wine should betray 
 us ; it was specially in the evening that Christ offered 
 the mixed chalice, so that in the evening we can strictly 
 follow His example." 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 95 
 
 To this St. Cyprian in effect replies : " (1) Your 
 argument is unpractical ; for we can't, in fact, bring all 
 our people together when they are severally at their 
 own domestic suppers. (2) It involves a gross depar- 
 ture from Church custom ; it proposes to have two 
 Eucharists on the same day, in order to comply thoroughly 
 with the institution at the second of the two, whatever 
 deviations you make at the first. But Christ had a 
 special reason for celebrating in the evening, which 
 ceased to apply after He had risen again in the early 
 morning. The hour of His triumph fixes the right time 
 for our celebration." 
 
 (1) We reach this, then, clearly, putting it at the 
 latest — the Church did not celebrate in the evening or 
 after a meal within some years of the death of St. John. 
 (2) This is borne out by the testimony of Pliny, a dis- 
 passionate witness; of St. Ignatius; I submit, fairly 
 considered, of Justin Martyr ; and then of St. Cyprian. 
 
 Supposing, then, that owing to special circumstances, 
 and in a time of special fervour and devotion, the actual 
 precedent of the Last Supper was followed in the early 
 Apostolic age ; before that age closed, or at furthest, soon 
 after the death of St. John, the Church saw fit to apply 
 the rule of fasting before the receiving of the Commu- 
 nion of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Anyhow, the 
 Agape took place in the evening, and the Communion 
 was at an early hour. 
 
 Now I must say a word as to the testimony of St. 
 Chrysostom, which to me is most interesting. He may 
 be right or he may be wrong, but he believes that in 
 the Apostle's time — in St. Paul's time — the Agape 
 folloived, did not precede, the Eucharist. When he states 
 the reason of the Apostle's reproof, this is what he says — 
 
 " When the solemn service was completed, after the 
 
96 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 communion of the Mysteries, they all went to a common 
 entertainment, the rich bringing their provisions with 
 them, and the poor and destitute being invited by them, 
 and all feasting in common. But afterward this custom 
 also became corrupt." l 
 
 Now, rightly or wrongly, St. Chrysostom believes 
 that the corruption was in the Agape, in the Feast of 
 Charity, not in the Eucharist. 
 
 St. Chrysostom may be mistaken, certainly. I have 
 argued above on the supposition that he is mistaken, and 
 that the Agape or Love Feast preceded the Communion. 
 Let any one read his argument in his twenty-seventh 
 Homily on 1 Cor. xi. 20 and the following verses, and 
 judge for himself. I think he is right. It seems to me 
 that the Suirvov Kvpiov, Lord's Supper, or Lord's break- 
 fast, of which St. Paul speaks, is, as St. Chrysostom 
 thinks, a very different thing from the Holy Communion. 
 
 I cannot do better in support of my own view 
 than quote Mr. Keble on the passage. Mr. Keble is, 
 at any rate, a weighty authority, and he writes as 
 follows : — 
 
 " The whole drift of his [St. Chrysostom's] argument, 
 or rather of St. Paul's, as explained by him, is, that 
 such ill-behaviour at the Feast of Charity (the Agape), 
 just after the Holy Communion, gave just reason to 
 fear that men had not come with charitable and reverent 
 hearts to the Holy Communion itself." 2 
 
 1 1 Cor. xi. 17; Horn, xxvii. 
 
 8 Dr. Farrar, I think, misunderstands me. He says (Contemporary, 
 September, 1893, p. 354) that I quute " St. Chrysoistom and Mr. Keble" 
 as against his appeal to " Christ and His Apostles." No. I only say that 
 St. Chrysostom's and Mr. Keble's interpretation of what " Christ and His 
 Apostles " meant is, at least, as likely to be the right one as his or mine. 
 Surely this is not an extravagant position. However, my argument holds, 
 even if (as I have admitted is possible) St. Chrysostom and Mr. Keble 
 are mistaken. 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 97 
 
 The point, then, is this, that as Mr. Keble — no mean 
 authority — and as St. Chrysostom, — believed, the Agape, 
 in Apostolic days, followed the Eucharist ; that even 
 so early as St. Paul's dealings with the Corinthian 
 Church the fast was not broken before the receiving 
 of the Holy Communion. This, as we have seen, was 
 at any rate the case a few years after, at the time of 
 the celebration at Troas. 1 
 
 Whoever be right as to the Corinthian matter, this 
 is certain. St. Chrysostom is so possessed with the idea 
 that Communion must be in the morning, that he 
 insists that St. Paul's Stiirvov (supper) must mean break- 
 fast. Then, again, he censures some persons — who fasted 
 before Communion that they might seem in some sense 
 fit to communicate, but immediately afterwards indulged 
 in excess — not because they fasted, which he accepts as 
 right, but because they allowed so scandalous a sequel 
 to their Communion. He never supposes that such 
 revelry took place before Communion. That was, to 
 him, unheard of. The persons he has in view would 
 never have dreamt of it. What they did wrong was to 
 contravene the moral purport of their fastiug by rushing 
 into selfish and excessive indulgence as soon as the 
 Eucharist was over. 
 
 This is clearly the drift of his argument. This 
 has been, however, — I may say in passing, — somewhat 
 daringly, or at least carelessly, misquoted in modern 
 times so as to imply that he was thinking of some who 
 came to Communion in a state of intemperance ! 
 
 An exception is advanced as against the practice 
 
 1 See Alford, in loco—"yev<Tdnevos, 'having made a meal.* The 
 Agape was a veritable meal. Not ' having tasted it' . . . usage decides 
 for the other meaning." This is also quoted by Scudamore, " Notitia 
 Eucharistica," p. 31. 
 
98 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 from the testimony of Socrates as regards Egypt. 1 
 Whatever his testimony is worth, it is quoted (1) too 
 absolutely, as if it took in all Egypt, whereas he 
 limits it to Upper Egypt, and to the neighbourhood of 
 Alexandria ; and (2) whenever quoted, there should be 
 added the expressions of disgust of the historian by 
 way of comment, and the emphatic statement that such 
 communicating was " contrary to the custom of Chris- 
 tians." Socrates really gives a much milder account 
 of the practice. " In many cities and villages of Egypt, 
 the Egyptians near Alexandria, and those who inhabit 
 the Thebaid, contrary to the custom received by all, 
 meet in the evening on the sabbath (on Saturday), 
 and partake of the mysteries when they have already 
 had their breakfast (rfptdTrjKoreg ?$»»)•" 2 He speaks of 
 them as " having feasted and filled themselves with all 
 manner of food." His testimony, then, is to an ex- 
 ceptional practice, and one that was blameworthy. The 
 exception proves the rule. I think one may fairly 
 speak of a custom being that of "the whole Catholic 
 Church," when one reads of this gross exception, which 
 meets with censure. But further, this practice could 
 hardly have been recognized in Alexandria under the 
 eye of the Archbishop Timotheus, for he (a.d. 380-385) 
 had a case of conscience put to him, as to whether, if 
 one had unintentionally swallowed a drop of water 
 while washing the mouth, or in the bath — when keeping 
 the fast in order to communicate — he ought or ought 
 not to proceed to communicate. The answer is in 
 effect, " Yes, you had better do so." The answer will 
 be felt to be a wise one; but the question shows, I 
 submit, what the custom of the Church, as a rule, was. 
 
 1 Contemporary, September, 1893, p. 353, n. 
 
 2 Soc., "Hist. Eccles.," lv. c. 22. 
 
FASTING COMMUNION, 99 
 
 In the face of this, how is it possible for persons to 
 assume that the custom was of recent introduction when 
 St. Augustine wrote ? * 
 
 Again, Tertullian writes, " Will not thy husband 
 know what thou art tasting secretly before all other 
 food ? " 2 St. Basil, writing of priests, says, " It is not 
 possible to venture on the sacred "work [of celebrating] 
 without fasting." 3 
 
 St. Augustine's testimony, you will remember, is quite 
 distinct. In his celebrated utterance on the matter he 
 is not arguing as to Fasting Communion as his main 
 point. He is really arguing as to the lawfulness of 
 that special, well-known case, viz. the lawfulness of 
 celebrating on Maundy Thursday otherwise than after 
 a meal. There were some, St. Augustine seems to tell 
 us, who, in order more exactly to imitate the Lord, 
 offered and received after taking food "on one particular 
 day in the year, to wit, that in which the Lord gave 
 the Supper itself." 4 
 
 It is plain from his statement that these very 
 Christians who did, on one set day in the year, com- 
 municate after taking food, kept their fast on all other 
 days. The Maundy was then, again, the exception 
 which proves the rule. Only on one special day (uno 
 certo die), and that for a special reason, was the break- 
 ing of the fast permitted (tanguam ad insigniorem 
 commemorationum), which shows, according to the 
 testimony of the great Father, that the highest im- 
 portance was universally attached to the observance of 
 the rule of fasting at other times. He does recognize 
 the existence of the exception on Maundy Thursday, but 
 he emphatically states that the custom of fasting — at 
 
 1 " Mansi Concilia," iii. 125a 2 " Ad Lex," lii. c. 5, 
 
 3 Horn, i., " De Jejuu." 4 Ep. liv. c. 7. 
 
ioo SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 any rate, at all other times — is a universal custom, and 
 he is of opinion that it was Apostolic. He says the 
 Church is not to be censured for her rule of Fasting 
 Communion, since our Lord left no rule to the contrary ; 
 for he considers that this was just one of those points 
 which our Lord left for His Apostles to settle. He is 
 of opinion that when St. Paul said, " The rest will I set 
 in order when I come/' and since the custom is universal, 
 it was one of the points St. Paul did "set in order." 
 His inference may or may not be right, but his testi- 
 mony is valuable, for it shows his sense of the univer- 
 sality of the custom, and his belief that the reason was — 
 it had Apostolic authority. His words as to the view 
 and practice of the Church are as strong as well could 
 be. He grants that the disciples did not at the first 
 Communion remain fasting. That all will grant. We 
 have seen, however, that there was a special reason for 
 this, as the early Church felt. He argues that, though 
 this was the case, the Catholic Church is not to be 
 blamed "because it is always received by persons 
 fasting. For," he goes on, " therefore did it please the 
 Holy Ghost, that in honour of so great a sacrament, 
 the Body of the Lord should enter the mouth of a 
 Christian before other food ; for on that account is this 
 custom observed throughout the whole world." 1 
 
 The Council of Carthage sanctioned the Maundy 
 exception in a.d. 397. The same council sanctioned the 
 rule of fasting. The Council of Trullo, A.D. 691, 
 abolished the exception. The rule had been felt, in 
 fact, to be a good rule of the Church, and, as St. 
 Augustine said, pleasing to "the Holy Ghost." 
 
 The nine-o'clock hour was a very universal one for 
 the celebration for many ages. Even as to the Maundy, 
 1 Ep. liv. c. 6. 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. ior 
 
 St. Augustine says, " There is an offering in the morn- 
 ing because of those who dine, but at eventide for sake 
 of those who fast." x In the East — at one time, at any 
 rate — it appears that, lest the rigour of the fast should 
 be relaxed by the receiving of the Holy Communion, 
 the celebration was late on certain fast-days, at the 
 ninth hour, " inasmuch as the faithful used to fast on 
 those days." 2 
 
 I am just now reminded, too, of another testimony 
 worth recording. 
 
 " In the capitula of Theodulph, a.d. 794, which were 
 much used as an Episcopal Charge in France and 
 England (being translated into Saxon by Elfric in the 
 tenth century), we have a similar rule for Lent : ' It is 
 requisite that after Noon-song (Nones, at the ninth 
 hour, or 3 p.m.) a man hear Mass, and after Mass 
 his Evensong at the season . . . and afterwards take 
 meat' " 8 
 
 Now, my dear friend, I venture to submit that from 
 all such testimony there are certain conclusions which 
 are inevitable. No one can doubt that self -discipline, 
 in many ways, is a real need in the Christian life. 
 
 " St. Paul," says a great teacher (now, alas ! gone from 
 us), "opposes to the 'spirit of fear' — that $u\ia, that 
 meanness of heart, that coward and craven shrinking 
 from responsibility and effort, which is portrayed in 
 the unprofitable servant who could find nothing to 
 do with his one talent — St. Paul opposes to this, that 
 triple characteristic of all high action on human souls — 
 
 * the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind ; ' 
 
 1 Ep. liv. c. 7. 2 St. Epiph., "Adv. Herses," liii. 
 
 8 C. 39, Johnson's "Canons," vol. i. p. 476; quoted by Scudamore, 
 
 * Notitia Eucharistica," p. 35. 
 
102 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Svva/ung, aycnrr], Gux^poviGfjiOQ — energy, charity, discipline 
 in its work and its results. . . . Vigour and activity 
 are always in danger of becoming imperious or absorb- 
 ing. Love may degenerate imperceptibly into self- 
 pleasing dreaminess. Both need the corrective of a 
 manly severity, at least with ourselves ; of the spirit 
 of sober self-command — what our version calls ' a sound 
 mind.' " Then he goes on : " I have ventured to speak 
 to you of ... ' the sound mind,' which is the spirit 
 and the fruit of self-discipline, and which is also the 
 truest and most genuine form of manly and noble 
 humility. For it implies the true acknowledgment 
 to. ourselves of our shortcomings and mistakes, and 
 when they continue, as they so often do, the courage 
 and patience to bow ourselves to the task of self- 
 correction. Of all the work that we do, the work 
 with our own spirits and characters is to ourselves 
 the hardest to judge of : with some of us, the most 
 disappointing. But the reality of all our work — I do 
 not say the outward success — must depend on the 
 reality of this. And if we go on with it in faith and 
 honesty, surely it will not be in vain, even if less than 
 we hoped for. For there is One Whose Divine help 
 is promised and pledged to us, if we are honest and 
 true ; One Whose hand works in His own secret and 
 wondrous way; Who is the Source to men of insight, 
 and wisdom, and counsel, and strength — the Holy Spirit 
 and Comforter. . . . Confiding in His help, our fathers 
 trained themselves to be the guides, the pastors, the 
 comforters, of His flock and people. The task of con- 
 quering ourselves, of governing ourselves, may now 
 seem to us, as doubtless it seemed to them in their day, 
 ' toilsome and incomplete.' ' Toilsome and incomplete ' 
 it seemed to them at the time, in the doing. But they 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 103 
 
 now look back with other eyes on their efforts after 
 self-discipline, from their place of rest." x 
 
 Here is a noble and generous statement of the need 
 of a spirit of self-discipline, of which the practice 
 we are considering is a tiny but, I think, valuable 
 expression. 
 
 To look in a " legalist " or " rigorist " spirit upon 
 such a detail is petty and wrong, purely, however, it is 
 a grave mistake, as life is a practical matter, in view 
 of the need of this far-reaching spirit of self-discipline, 
 to close our eyes to the wise and serious customs of the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 The discipline of Almsgiving, of Fasting, of Prayer, 
 has ever been put before men in the Church's work. 
 Times have changed. Once the Church was severe, and 
 perhaps too exacting in requiring of her children the 
 grave exercises of penance, and the careful and exact 
 restraints of holy custom. We treat matters of this 
 kind with greater freedom (sometimes, we may fear, with 
 an excess of levity) now. It may be better — anyhow, it 
 is necessary — that responsibility for individual discipline 
 of life should be more and more thrown on the in- 
 dividual conscience, and less and less on the Church. 
 This is the wisdom of the Church of England. Con- 
 science is required by her to do its own work more 
 freely and with more entire responsibility. The Church 
 as a body, the clergy as God's ministers, less and less 
 interfere. There is freedom of Confession or of not 
 using Confession, freedom even of Communion or of 
 absence from the Table of the Lord (though this is very 
 different), freedom of observing or neglecting the Fast. 
 This is well, and at any rate it is inevitable^ But, 
 
 1 R. W. Church (late Dean of St. Paul's), " Cathedral and University 
 Sermons," pp. 207, 217, 218. 
 
104 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 surely, all the more it is right to keep before the minds 
 of a relaxed and self-guiding generation the quiet but 
 practical customs which the Church lms_^an^tioned, as 
 reminders of, and assistances to, a more disciplined life. 
 
 Just in proportion as we have passed away from the 
 more searching and perhaps trammelling discipline of 
 a vigorous Church system, such as prevailed in earlier 
 davs, so is it not necessary that the children of the 
 Church — our common Mother — should be reminded of 
 certain wise and practical modes of self-denial which she 
 has sanctioned by her practice and authority ? Trifles 
 make up life, and some little things remembered as duties 
 and acts of self-discipline are, though apparent trifles, 
 not to be despised. 
 
 Again, it cannot but be well to keep before the minds 
 of Christians the seriousness and blessedness of Com- 
 munion in the Body and Blood of the Lord. Human 
 nature is strangely capricious. If the pendulum swings 
 far in one direction, it has a corresponding swing in the 
 other. We are subject, all of us, to the law of reaction. 
 The neglect of Communion was, and often still is, a danger 
 against which we all have had to fight. Low views of 
 that Sacred Mystery, a system of theology prevailing 
 from Protestant teaching, which leaves no necessary or 
 practical room for sacraments at all, led our people for 
 long to treat Communion rather as the privilege of 
 saints, or warm and enthusiastic professors of religion, 
 than as a means of help and strength for weary and 
 weak but penitent sinners. You, my dear friend, must 
 remember the days — I do — when the young scarcely 
 dreamt (unless possibly once after their Confirmation) 
 of making their Communion at all. To a great extent 
 those days are passed, and we thank God for it. The 
 need of the Bread of Life is, through the reviving 
 
FASTING COMMUNION. 105 
 
 power of the Spirit of God, more widely felt — at least 
 among those who profess anything like allegiance to the 
 teachings of the Church. There are now more frequent 
 Communions. We may indeed be thankful. Still, what 
 we want and pray for, after all, is not so much frequent 
 Communion as good Communion. The thing to be 
 desired is that there should be both. Surely then, side 
 by side with increased Communion, it is to be desired 
 that, in an age and in a Church so free as ours, 
 devout persons, and especially the young, should cling 
 to some of these simple methods of self-discipline — such 
 as Confession and Fasting Communion — that they may 
 be helped to appreciate the dignity and enjoy the full 
 benefit of that wondrous gift. 
 
 The fact that the Lord promised His guidance to 
 His Church; the fact that He Himself insisted on 
 fasting as a religious duty; the fact that the Church 
 has so strongly approved — as I have shown that it has 
 — of this custom, all point in the same direction. The 
 custom, as we have seen, was a very early one. It was, 
 / we may say, practically universal. The exceptions noted 
 only bring this into bolder relief. Are we so spiritual, 
 so unearthly, so free from the bonds of the world, so 
 impervious to temptation in this age, that we can afford 
 to throw away a means so simple and so religious for 
 helping us to rise to higher thoughts ? 
 
 It is true, of course, — as I have admitted, — that the 
 Prayer-book lays down no positive command on the 
 subject; but, then, what does the Prayer-book do which 
 leads us to feel that we have, in maintaining such a 
 custom, the approval of our Church? This. It teaches 
 us that the effort of our Church has been to reject all 
 changes that were " of dangerous consequence, as secretly 
 striking at some established doctrine or laudable practice 
 
106 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 of the Church of England, or indeed of the whole 
 Catholick Church of Christ." l If our Lord encouraged 
 fasting with prayer as a spiritual exercise ; if He prac- 
 tised it Himself in preparation for His more solemn 
 undertakings ; if, in view of the awful solemnity of the 
 Sacrament, His Church very early and very universally 
 made the rule of fasting her way of preparation for 
 her children for that Holy Sacrament; if the Church 
 of England in years long passed positively enjoined the 
 custom ; if she has never revoked that endorsement of 
 the habit of the rest of Christendom ; — then we may 
 be pretty sure that this is one of those "laudable 
 practices of the Church of England, and indeed of the 
 whole Catholick Church of Christ," to alter which she 
 has meant to resist, or at least to discourage, as of 
 " dangerous consequence." 
 
 The fact is, that, like many other things — like the 
 Gloria, for example, before the Gospel — no positive order 
 was given on the subject, because, like other good and 
 well-known customs, it was taken for granted. 
 
 The Fathers of the sixteenth-century Reformation — 
 no more than the Fathers of the many earlier reforma- 
 tions through which our part of the Catholic Church 
 has passed — could never have dreamt of the strange 
 habit of some in later times, who treat our Church as if 
 it were an insular society started on a fresh basis by 
 Cranmer and his coadjutors, instead of a part of the 
 Catholic Church, which rearranged its Office-books, 
 made certain readjustments for the benefit of its 
 children, but remained in possession of all Catholic 
 teachings and customs as by right her own. The truth 
 is — to put it shortly — Fasting Communion is a wise 
 detail of self-discipline which the Church has adopted : 
 
 1 Preface to the Frayer-bjok. 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 107 
 
 it is a Catholic custom ; and therefore, as the Church 
 of England is one part of the Catholic family, it is her 
 custom and her teaching for us all. 
 
 I do not, indeed, deny that about the habit of 
 fasting, whether in this particular manner or generally, 
 there are serious difficulties. A hurrying age, an age in 
 which life is so full and so strained that the exhaustion 
 of the nervous system is probably much greater than 
 in an earlier and calmer time, makes these difficulties 
 very real. 
 
 Then, again, the severities of our climate in the more 
 rigorous seasons of the year may make a difficulty for 
 the aged or the delicate not likely to be felt in the more 
 genial temperature of the East. There are difficulties 
 in all things. Customs have not the force of doctrines 
 or of articles of the Creed. The Church is a living body. 
 Souls have to act with a wise freedom, and under wise 
 advice. " I will have mercy, and not sacrifice," is our 
 Lord's teaching ; i.e. " I will have sacrifice, but not with- 
 out mercy." Bishops may grant — as they do more 
 frequently — dispensations, when necessary, from the 
 rigour of the Lent Fast, and, I suppose, from other fasts. 
 The aged, the weak, those who are at great distances 
 from their church, especially if they have been brought 
 up without any teaching of this Catholic custom, we 
 may well believe come under the head of those who are 
 hindered from strict observance of the Church's rule by 
 "reasonable cause." Still, there the Church's rule is. 
 The testimony of ages is in its favour. The practice — I 
 believe the uniform practice — of other parts of the 
 Catholic Church support it. We can hardly plead that I 
 we are so spiritual as to be beyond the necessity of | 
 treating such a custom with respect. 
 
 I am sure of this, my dear friend — and I imagine 
 
108 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 that your experience will bear me out — that it is most 
 important, for a robust and practical religious life in 
 the young, to teach them to grip and cling to certain 
 tangible religious customs which often serve as anchors 
 in dangerous days. We are ready enough, in these days 
 of self-pleasing, to take a lower line. That scarcely 
 needs much exhortation. The World, the Flesh, and the 
 Devil are fairly strong. I am sure that definite self- 
 denying customs, of a simple but practical character, 
 are of enormous advantage to our young people in help- 
 ing them to realize great principles, and to be loyal to 
 religious obligations. It seems to me that those who 
 have to do with the young, especially in our schools 
 and parishes, incur a very serious responsibility if they 
 do not give them the opportunity of early celebrations, 
 so that they may, if they will, without detriment to 
 health, observe the Church's rule. 
 
 Be that as it may, a simple and definite habit of 
 self-denial in so solemn a matter cannot be far from 
 the mind of Christ. To put God first is a good rule. 
 " You English," said a Mahometan to me once in 
 Jerusalem, " are the only people here who attend to the 
 solemn things of your religion after you have had your 
 breakfasts ! " What has been so wide a custom in the 
 Church, what has had the sanction of some of the 
 greatest Saints and Fathers, can surely scarcely with 
 justice be described as " materialism." 
 
 It is, it seems to me, a pious practice, greatly to be 
 encouraged in a luxurious and self-pleasing age. We 
 can scarcely doubt that, when done with prayer and 
 religious principle, it must bring God's blessing ; and if 
 to teach it be " sacerdotalism," it is surely " sacerdo- 
 talism " of a truly scriptural and catholic character, 
 helpful to souls in the life of devotion, quite in con- 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. i C9 
 
 sonance with the teaching of the Church of England, 
 and, what is of course the highest of all things, not out 
 of tune with the mind of Christ. 
 
 II. 
 
 Eucharistic Worship. 
 
 I now turn, my dear Dean, to the third of those 
 devout practices, which seems to be condemned by those 
 who take a strong anti- Catholic line in the Church of 
 England, as another indication of the " sacerdotalism " 
 to which they object — that is, Eucharistic Worship, or 
 what is called sometimes " non-communicating atten- 
 dance," or sometimes — though this phrase is objected to 
 on other grounds — " hearing Mass." 
 
 Whatever be the name employed, what is meant is 
 clear enough. It is looked upon by some as being wrong, 
 and objectionable, and out of tune with the teaching of 
 the English Church, that Christians should ever be 
 present at the celebration of the Holy Communion 
 except on such occasions as they actually make their 
 communion ; whilst to others it appears — and I am 
 myself, of course, among the number — a devout practice, 
 much to be encouraged, and very necessary for these times. 
 
 The objections made to Eucharistic Worship are, I 
 confess, to me, among the most unintelligible of all 
 objections to Catholic practices. Of course, the deep 
 meaning and real comfort and joy of such a practice is 
 not reached if men do not hold the Catholic doctrine of 
 the Eucharistic Sacrifice ; but I should have thought 
 that, even to those who unhappily embrace any one of 
 the various lower views of sacramental doctrine, such a 
 practice would have some meaning, and bring some real 
 comfort. 
 
no SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 It is difficult to discover why men should denounce 
 with so much energy as they do, anything which seems 
 to us so evidently religious and consoling. I cannot but 
 think that their denunciations really arise from a strong 
 antecedent prejudice, and not from well-weighed con- 
 sideration of facts as they are. In any case, it is not 
 waste of time if one endeavours to make clear why a 
 " sacerdotalism " which encourages this is not an evil 
 'sacerdotalism," but something not unworthy of a 
 priest of the Church of England, and indeed of any 
 serious servant of Christ. 
 
 Well, in the first place, I think we do well to remem- 
 ber that the great thought of worship has not been as 
 well kept betore us in England in these later days as it 
 should have been. Perhaps I may remind you of the 
 words of our dear friend Liddon on the subject. You 
 will remember, of course, his view on the whole question 
 before us ; and, by the way, I remember well how, 
 speaking of the strange objections raised to this practice, 
 he said to me — I think I can quote his very words — 
 " Surely, dear friend, this is at least a question of liberty 
 for the faithful laity ; and, in any case, they should not 
 be precluded from presence at the great service if they 
 please." But this by the way. His words on worship 
 I venture to quote, because they are so entirely ad rem. 
 
 " When we assemble and meet together in church, it 
 is, as we are daily reminded, to ' render thanks for the 
 great benefits that we have received at God's hands, to 
 set forth His most worthy praise, to hear His most Holy 
 Word, and to ask those things which are requisite and 
 necessary, as well for the body as the soul.' Of these 
 four objects of assembling together in church, that of 
 hearing God's Word, whether read or preached, is not 
 now in question. But what is the relation of the 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. in 
 
 other three, thanksgiving, praise, and prayer for bless- 
 ings, to adoration ? They all three differ from adoration 
 in this, that in each of them the soul is less prostrate, 
 more able to bear the thought of self, than in pure 
 and simple adoration. Certainly, in praise we seem to 
 forget self more easily than in thanksgiving or prayer, 
 since thanksgiving carries the mind back to something 
 which we have received, and by which presumably we 
 have profited ; and prayer, in the narrower sense of the 
 word, asks for new blessings, whether for the body or 
 the soul. Pure adoration has no heart for self ; it lies 
 there silent at the foot of the throne, conscious only 
 of two things — the insignificance of self, and the great- 
 ness of God. And yet adoration must be the basis, so 
 to put it, of true thanksgiving and praise and prayer ; 
 it is the fitting acknowledgment of our real relations 
 with God which should precede them. It sometimes 
 does, indeed, imply so paralyzing a sense of this our 
 nothingness before God, that left to itself it would make 
 praise, thanksgiving, and prayer impossible. But here, 
 as we lie in the dust, the one Mediator between God 
 and man bids us take heart as He utters that most con- 
 soling sentence, ' No man cometh unto the Father but 
 by Me/ He bids us, as it were, take His hand, and thus 
 with Him and by Him, not merely adore God, but praise 
 Him, thank Him, pray to Him. Prayer, we know, is 
 effectual when it is offered in His prevailing Name. 
 1 Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He 
 will give it you.' Praise is accepted when it is asso- 
 ciated with Him, by Whom and with Whom, in the 
 Unity of the Holy Ghost, all glory and honour is 
 rendered unto God the Father Almighty. Thanksgiving 
 is welcomed when it is offered in union with Him Who 
 is the one Thank-offering of Christendom, no less than 
 
 I 
 
U2 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 its one Propitiatory Sacrifice, especially when it is offered 
 in that most solemn of all services that are possible on 
 earth, in which we venture most daringly into the very 
 presence-chamber of the heavens, because leaning on a 
 strength and covered with a righteousness which most 
 assuredly is not our own. But until our Lord and 
 Saviour thus takes us by the hand, adoration, the most 
 distant and the most lowly, of the Infinite and Almighty 
 God is all that is, seriously speaking, open to such as 
 we are. And when He has thus taken us by the hand, 
 and has taught us to thank and praise and pray to God 
 in virtue of the strength which flows in union with 
 Himself, adoration still remains ; it remains as the ex- 
 pression of our original and permanent relation as 
 creatures at the footstool of the Creator. ' come, 
 let us prostrate ourselves, let us bend low, let us fall 
 before the Lord our Maker,' is addressed to all human 
 souls for all time." 1 v 
 
 We have here, I think, my dear friend, a masterly 
 and exact statement, such as would naturally be expected 
 from so careful a thinker and so eloquent a speaker 
 as Dr. Liddon was, of the meaning of worship and its 
 relation to those other attitudes of the soul towards God 
 described as thanksgiving, praise, and prayer. And 
 here, also, we are reminded very rightly that it is in the 
 Eucharist, above all things, that all these efforts of the 
 soul find their highest opportunity, but especially 
 the effort of worship. This thought has, of course, been 
 greatly obliterated by the heresies of the sixteenth 
 century, which — although they could not move her from 
 her proper witness to the faith — have left a stain here 
 and there on the teaching and practice of the Church of 
 
 1 Dr. Liddon, sermon on " Adoration," preached in St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, August 15, 1886. 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. u 3 
 
 England, and seem still to cloud the minds of some of 
 her members who have no clear grasp of sacramental 
 truth. But there is something besides this which has 
 probably in later days hindered in this country a proper 
 use of the mysteries as the great opportunity for worship, 
 as the "Church's prayer-meeting," and as the sacrifice 
 of praise and thanksgiving. It is probably this, that as 
 our days are busy ones and what are called " practical," 
 and as we are in some respects a somewhat materialistic 
 people, there has been more and more of an inclination 
 to remember our duty to our neighbour rather than 
 our duty to God, and to look upon worship and thanks- 
 giving as somewhat idealistic and sentimental, whereas 
 they are in fact imperative duties. We are rather 
 inclined to look upon the Church as an institution for 
 doing people good, and especially social good. Every 
 one, of course, acknowledges that the Church has social 
 duties which she must be careful to perform, but as men 
 are immortal beings, and their most solemn relation is 
 their relation to God, the most important dut}' of the 
 Church is to offer to God the worship which is His due 
 from His creatures. The first duties of the Church are 
 to men's souls in their relation to God. Her later duty 
 — though not an unimportant one — is the extension of a 
 philanthropy which will affect their bodily needs and 
 their social condition. If we are to live at all as men 
 should live who are immortal, and who have a God, we 
 have first of all to learn the great duty of worship. It 
 is of the last importance to our spiritual welfare. It 
 keeps us face to face with God, and helps to prevent the 
 commission of that grave sin which besets us all — the 
 forgetf ulness that we are creatures. It helps us to keep 
 our eye fixed upon a future life, and exercises us this 
 side the grave in that which will be a main occupation 
 
ii4 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 and happiness there. It impresses us with a practical 
 sense of our immortality. It is an exercise also through 
 which not only do we get light to our understanding 
 and warmth to our affections, but by it the will itself is 
 braced, for it brings us into closest touch with the great 
 reality. All this is drawn out in careful detail by our 
 dear friend in close connection with the passage I have 
 just quoted, and it is always a saddening thing if religion 
 tends towards such a subjective character that the soul 
 not only is inclined to neglect a primary duty towards 
 God, but also loses much of the strengthening force 
 which helps it to robustness and vigour by a habit of 
 real worship. 
 
 One great weakness, so it seems to me, in the im- 
 perfect statements of truth and duty which have always 
 marked Puritan teaching, and are to be seen in the 
 utterances of " Evangelicals " now, is the quite inadequate 
 sense they have always revealed of the necessity of 
 objective worship. From this there has come a certain 
 weakness and absence of fibre. There has been a 
 tendency to rest rather on words than on things, on 
 phrases more than on facts ; a tendency to emotional 
 religion, and introspective self-analysis, which so often 
 makes their system inefficient, or even destructive to the 
 young. Their question has ever been — quite a proper 
 question in its proper place, of course — " What must I 
 do to be saved ? " The favourite question of more prac- 
 tical and vigorous Catholic theology has been — " What 
 can I do to glorify God ? " God, not self, the Church 
 has ever been teaching, is to be the centre of the life. 
 Worship has, therefore, been a watchword of the Catholic 
 Faith. In it the soul learns to forget itself, and not to 
 think so much of what it can get from God, as of what 
 it can give Him ; and, knowing its own utter insufficiency 
 
EVCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 115 
 
 in approaching Him apart from the one Mediator, finds 
 that the truest and noblest opportunity for worship is 
 that great service which the Lord Himself appointed, 
 and in which, in a special manner, He places Himself at 
 the disposal of His creatures, so that " by Him and with 
 Him, in unity with the Holy Ghost," they may be able 
 not altogether inadequately to laud and magnify God's 
 glorious Name. 
 
 I think it is impossible for any thoughtful person 
 to deny that the Eucharistic Service is the service of the 
 Church, and gives the opportunity for the highest act 
 of worship that the creature can offer to the Creator 
 on earth. This is evident from the place it took in the 
 mind of the Early Church. It is the one service of 
 which we read in the opening days of Christianity. It 
 is still more evident when we remember that it is the 
 one service appointed by the Lord Himself. The wretched 
 habits into which Christians have gradually drifted in 
 these later days, in allowing their religious exercises to 
 be confined, for the most part, to taking part in Matins 
 and Evensong, and to attendance at a sermon, does not, 
 the moment we think of it, allow of any defence. Our 
 Lord did not say, "Say Matins, or say Evensong, or 
 listen to a sermon in remembrance (or commemoration) 
 of Me;" but He did say, "This do (or, this offer) 
 in remembrance (or, in commemoration) of Me." And, 
 indeed, the constant habits of closing almost every 
 prayer in the Name or through the merits of Jesus 
 Christ, which we have all learnt from the Church, our 
 Mother, would naturally lead us to expect, I think, that 
 those lesser memorials or reminders of the merits of His 
 Passion would point towards some more solemn manner, 
 in which the memorial or reminder should be made not 
 in word only, but in act. In fact, the closing phrases of 
 
n6 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 our every prayer would lead us to look for our great 
 Eucharistic Service. 
 
 But now the crux of the question comes in, and some 
 persons condemn in very severe terms the attendance of 
 those who do not at the time make their Communions. In 
 fact, " Eucharistic Worship," or " hearing Mass," or " non- 
 communicating attendance," — by whatever name men 
 describe the presence of those Christians who at the time 
 do not communicate, — is censured as if it were contrary to 
 Catholic usage, and as if the practice of it were an act of 
 disloyalty especially to the Church of England, and the 
 encouragement of it an exhibition of evil "sacerdotalism." 
 
 As I believe that attendance at Eucharistic Worship 
 is a distinct duty, which at certain times every in- 
 structed Christian ought to discharge, and the present 
 neglect of it a most melancholy departure from duty, 
 and injurious to the spiritual life, you will allow me, 
 my dear friend, shortly to examine some of the ob- 
 jections which are made to it. 
 
 1. And, first, I would observe that it would seem a 
 very strange thing, if you come to think of it, that our 
 Lord should institute one service for His Church, that 
 He should call even little children, as our Church 
 teaches us, to come to Him by baptism, and to be made 
 " members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors 
 of the kingdom of heaven," and that these children of 
 the Divine family should be excluded from joining in 
 the worship which He appointed for that family. It 
 is not merely a strange thing, it is an impossible thing. 
 So strongly does the Church seem to have felt this 
 that, as you know, for a time there was infant com- 
 munion ; but gradually it seemed to be felt — one cannot 
 doubt, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit — that the 
 close personal act of communion might be delayed with 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 117 
 
 advantage until a time when the soul was more fully- 
 alive to its personal responsibilities, whilst a share in 
 the great act of worship of the Church might be taken 
 by those who, being baptized, were not yet admitted to 
 the full privilege of Communion. 
 
 The fact is — and one cannot help feeling it as one 
 reads the history of the Church — there are two aspects 
 to the use of the Holy Mysteries. On the one hand, 
 they are for a " perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice 
 of the death of Christ and of the benefits which we 
 receive thereby." We are ourselves reminded of the 
 love of our Lord in dying and rising for us, and, what 
 is more important, we commemorate and show forth 
 before God, and — if I may so say — remind Him of, that 
 unspeakable gift. And when the Church does so, her 
 baptized children, being members of the one body, take 
 their part in the great act, and plead the merits of the 
 sacrifice offered on the cross. On the other hand, it is 
 the great opportunity for each soul that is communicating 
 to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord for the 
 " strengthening and refreshing " of the soul. Doubtless 
 there have been times in the Church when so much 
 attention has been given to one aspect of the Holy 
 Mysteries, that the other aspect has been unduly lost 
 sight of. Apparently, before the Reformation of the 
 sixteenth century, there was more attention paid to 
 " hearing Mass " than to making Communions. Almost 
 the reverse was to be noted as the state of things some 
 twenty or thirty years ago. I say almost the reverse, 
 for although the duty of Communion was admitted, 
 Christians so widely neglected attendance at the 
 Eucharistic Service, that — as you and I very well re- 
 member, and as is notorious — the habit of communi- 
 cating was very widely neglected also. 
 
ii8 SACERDOTALISM, 
 
 2. For, whilst it would appear obvious that every 
 baptized member of the family of God should attend 
 the Eucharistic Service even before the time comes when 
 the intimate blessing of Communion is permitted, so it 
 has proved to be a fact — of which there is plenty of 
 indisputable evidence all round us, of which you and 
 I have often had plenty of evidence before our eyes, — 
 that it is just where the duty of Eucharistic Worship is 
 encouraged, that the duty and blessing of communicating 
 is most widely felt. Strangely enough, one of the favourite 
 objections of those who oppose this Catholic custom is, 
 that there is a danger of putting attendance at the 
 Eucharistic Service in the 'place of making one's Com- 
 munion. I have already admitted, my dear friend, that 
 there are plenty of dangers everywhere for fallen man, 
 and that there is nothing so good or sacred but that it 
 may be abused or misused. If any one considers that 
 attendance at the Eucharistic Service without commu- 
 nicating is precisely the same blessing as Communion, 
 and absolves them from the duty of making their Com- 
 munion at proper times, of course this is wrong. 
 
 But the objection is really devoid of any weight; it 
 is purely unpractical. Facts knock it to pieces. As I 
 have said, and as everybody knows, in our own days, 
 when Eucharistic Worship was neglected, Communions 
 were neglected ; and since Eucharistic Worship has, by 
 God's mercy, been revived in the Church, the number of 
 communicants has enormously increased. It has been 
 urged that before the Reformation men attended Mass 
 and did not make their Communions, and that may 
 happen again. If it was so — and to what extent it was 
 so it is difficult to say ; rather wild statements are made 
 sometimes about " mediaeval corruptions," and the 
 iniquities of the " Dark Ages," which on closer inspec- 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 119 
 
 tion shrink considerably ; — but granted it was so ; well, 
 the thing might happen again, which is another way of 
 saying that evils recur among fallen men unless we are 
 watchful and diligent and keep near to God ; but it is 
 hardly a sound argument, I think, to urge that you are 
 to neglect one duty because, while fulfilling it, you may 
 neglect another. If this argument is to be made opera- 
 tive, then — as far as the evidence before us goes — it 
 would take us back to the times which we have person- 
 ally known and which I have referred to, when the one 
 duty was wholly neglected and the other also to a very 
 great degree. 
 
 3. Those who oppose attendance at the Eucharistic 
 Service will not deny this, that it is clearly a part of 
 Christian liberty for a devout Christian to regulate the 
 times and number of his Communions according to what 
 he has conscientious reason to believe is best for his 
 own soul, and most for the glory of God. The very 
 persons who object to Eucharistic Worship have been 
 the foremost to find fault with frequent Communions. 
 In so high and solemn a thing as Communion it is surely 
 right to be careful. For the young especially most 
 persons would feel that the wise plan in order to secure, 
 not so much frequent Communion as good Communion, 
 is to increase their Communions carefully and by degrees. 
 No one would advise every one always to communicate, 
 whether they felt that it was best for them to do so or 
 not, whenever they happened to be within reach of the 
 service of Holy Communion. 
 
 Now, imagine a devout young fellow who is trying 
 to serve God, and who is a regular communicant, but 
 who, for very proper reasons of humility and carefulness 
 which all religious persons would approve, communicates, 
 say, once a month or once a fortnight ; is he to be told 
 
120 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 that, as a Christian duty, and to avoid the " dangers 
 of popery," he is under a religious obligation on the 
 intervening Sundays, or week-days when the Holy 
 Communion is celebrated, to lie in his bed, or go out 
 for a walk, or converse with his companions, or gossip 
 with his neighbours, but — whatever he does — to beware 
 of being in church, and on his knees and loining in the 
 prayers, when the Christian Church is commemorating 
 the Passion of the Lord ? My dear friend, the thing is 
 monstrous ; it is an infringement of Christian liberty, 
 even if it were not an iniquitous checking of devout 
 habits. The question of Christian people staying to be 
 present throughout the Communion Service is not a 
 question between communicating and not communi- 
 cating, but it is a question between spending some 
 time in meditating upon, giving thanks for, and com- 
 memorating before God, the Passion of our Lord, and 
 deliberately departing from God's house in the middle 
 of the service of Christ's appointment, and going to some 
 ordinary secular occupation. 
 
 4. There is one very odd notion apparently hanging 
 about the minds of many who discountenance the duty 
 of Eucharistic Worship, which I think they certainly 
 ought to guard against. They practically act as if, when 
 you are in Church at the Communion Service, though 
 not at that moment communicating, you are out of 
 communion with our Lord. This is, of course, utterly 
 untrue. As I have said, it may be, and often is, from 
 the truest devotion and high and wise religious motives 
 that persons do not communicate on any particular 
 occasion. They are, of course, in communion with our 
 Lord; but the very love and devotion and desire to 
 please Him which restrain them from making their 
 Communion, except in accordance with some wise and 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 121 
 
 regulated plan of their devotional life, would also lead 
 them to be present and join in the Eucharistic Service, 
 when for such proper reasons, and exercising their 
 Christian liberty, they are not communicating. 
 
 Then again. Speaking in a positive direction, surely 
 natural piety would lead us to suppose that the right 
 thing for good Christians is to have the Lord's own 
 service on the Lord's own day, while reverence and 
 humility could not fail to lead many not to communicate 
 always. The only way out of this is the Church's way 
 for centuries — neglected, alas ! among us in cold and 
 dead times, revived again now by the mercy of God — 
 viz. the Eucharistic Service always as the service of the 
 Lord's day, and Communion made by each Christian 
 according: to his or her individual needs and sense 
 of duty. 
 
 But further, wherever there can be the early celebra- 
 tion, and later the high celebration, or more dignified 
 service, what an immense spiritual benefit, to speak of 
 nothing else, must accrue to many ! Take the case of 
 communicants who, in the early morning, have made 
 their Communions. Surely it is something for them, 
 with the sense of nearness of our Lord so deeply felt 
 as it would be, then to join in the Church's praise and 
 thanksgiving, and realize more and more the life, the 
 corporate life, of the whole Body of the Church. The 
 Communion, which is the highest privilege, and the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice, seem to me to meet two longings 
 in the soul — the longing for intimate intercourse, and 
 the longing for worship. 
 
 And further, however much and rightly the Church 
 may have set her face against abuses of the past, 
 wherein the holy sacrifice became a real opportunity 
 
122 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 for profanation, from the formality or the sin of men, 
 certainly, if prayer and intercourse with God be a daily 
 privilege and a daily duty, surely then for the Church 
 as a body there is need — when it may be so — of the 
 Daily Sacrifice. And to many it is a blessed thing to 
 associate themselves then with the one Sacrifice, even 
 though they may judge it best and most reverent in 
 their own cases to refrain from Communion at that 
 special time. Surely no devout person can doubt, 
 unless they are partially blinded by a prejudice, that 
 for a quiet half -hour on an ordinary morning, it is good 
 and helpful, and for God's glory, for an earnest man to 
 be on his knees in church, thinking of, and thanking 
 God for, and commemorating, and pleading, — the Passion 
 in the Eucharistic Service of the Church. 
 
 Again, I repeat, if you consider that the Church is 
 the family of God ; that all who are baptized are God's 
 children ; that Christ is the great Elder Brother and 
 the one Mediator ; that to plead His Passion is every- 
 thing; that this, the only service He ever appointed, 
 is " the family prayers " of the Church ; — is there not, 
 my dear friend, something positively grotesque in the 
 notion that the children of the family are not to come 
 to u family prayers " ? These are broad considerations, 
 but they bring before us the common sense of the 
 question. It is impossible to shut one's eyes to the fact 
 that the Catholic Church is the home of common sense. 
 When one meditates seriously upon things, however 
 much one understands and allows for the various revolts 
 of Protestantism, it is impossible to close one's eyes 
 to the truth, that departure from Catholic custom and 
 Catholic teaching is narrowing and unreal and untrue 
 to common sense. Puritanism was so spiritual and so 
 indignant at what it called error, that the multitudes 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 123 
 
 were left out of account, and its methods became only 
 practically useful for elect Pharisees. The Catholic 
 Church, on the contrary, runs risks, I dare say, makes 
 great ventures certainly, but at least she is Catholic. 
 Our own part of that great Communion, however much 
 she has suffered by the clouds and fogs of Protestantism, 
 just as the Latin part has suffered by the clouds and 
 fogs of Romanism, has still been true to the Catholic 
 spirit of liberty. We have our great service appointed 
 by our Lord ; in the inner 'penetralia of its deeper 
 meaning Christ's people make their Communion ; in the 
 fulness and power of its majestic expression of the 
 relation of man to God through the presentation before 
 God of the effectual commemoration of the unbounded 
 merits of His Divine Son, our elder Brother, — it is the 
 service, the only service, the prevailing service which 
 any serious Christian would care to offer when he recog- 
 nizes the true relation between earth and heaven. There 
 are three classes of persons who — following the example 
 of the early Church, and again following the teaching 
 of religious common sense — may well be excluded from 
 such a service : (1) The unbaptized (they are not in 
 the family, and they have no right to come to " family 
 prayers ") ; (2) the excommunicate (they, though in .the 
 family, have deliberately given up its privileges); (3) 
 the demoniacs, those who have abandoned themselves 
 to the powers of evil. For the rest, it seems to me to 
 be simple common sense that the children of the family 
 should be permitted to appear at " family prayers " if 
 they please. 
 
 But further, there are other considerations which 
 seem to show how we have blinded our eyes by fogs 
 of prejudice and controversy, if we endeavour to forbid 
 the attendance of Christians — except when they intend 
 
124 SACERDOTALISM, 
 
 to communicate — from the Lord's own service on the 
 Lord's own day, or on any other day when that ser- 
 vice can be performed. It was all very well for the 
 early Church — on the one hand dealing with heathen 
 who were coming to Christianity, on the other hand 
 dealing with penitents who were prepared to submit to 
 severe penitential discipline — to exclude either of these 
 classes from the mysteries. Times have changed. The 
 Church is a living body. She deals with things as they 
 are. Do these good people, who denounce what they 
 call "non-communicating attendance," propose that we 
 should return to the severe penitential discipline of the 
 early Church ? I presume not. Well, then, they accept 
 the principle of liberty of the English Church. They 
 assume that, according to the practice of the English 
 Church, and the "principles of the Reformation," the 
 stress of responsibility is laid upon individual conscience 
 more and more, and less upon the Church and upon 
 the priesthood. Are they going to be liberal with 
 one hand and narrow with another ? Are they not, by 
 their opposition to * non-communicating attendants," 
 practically asserting the Church's right to assume that, 
 unless at a particular service a Christian is prepared 
 to communicate, he is to be considered as de facto a 
 heathen, or excommunicate, and unfit to join in the 
 Church's great service, and that when Christian people 
 are saying holy prayers and Christian ministers doing 
 holy acts in commemoration of the love and merits of 
 the Redeemer, they are so unworthy as to be unfit 
 to join their prayers with the prayers of the Church, 
 or to associate themselves in faith and love with her 
 acts as performed by her ministers ? The thing, I 
 think, is monstrous. It is indefensible. People ought 
 to be consistent. You have not the right, I submit, 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 125 
 
 to turn Christian people out when Christian prayers 
 are being said, and Christian acts done, because at that 
 moment — though presumably in communion with their 
 Lord — for reasons of real devotion, they do not make use 
 of their highest privileges, or because — submitting to 
 the rules of the Church — being not confirmed they 
 are not yet eligible to take their part in the highest 
 blessing of all. I submit it is their duty, in accordance 
 with the principle of the Lord's teaching, to " do what 
 they can." If it is not so, Christianity and Christian 
 practice seem to me to be narrower than the teaching 
 and the spirit of men. But more, as I have before 
 implied, they are losing the opportunity of helping the 
 young — who are baptized children of God, but not yet> 
 confirmed — to be trained in the great religious duty of 
 objective worship. 
 
 So far, my dear friend, as to general considerations, 
 according to which, as I conceive, and according to 
 common sense in the present state of the Church, as 
 guided by Divine Providence — may I not say, as guided 
 by the Holy Spirit of God ? — " non-communicating 
 attendance " is a Christian duty. But now I am met by 
 a grave objection which it is necessary to examine, viz. 
 the custom and witness of the primitive Church. 
 
 I pause to remark that it is at least remarkable that 
 those who lay stress upon this, in this particular matter, 
 seem in so many other matters to treat the witness of 
 primitive antiquity with contempt and even scorn. I 
 am content myself, believing as I do that the Church 
 is a living body, and that the Spirit of God is always 
 guiding her, to rest my argument for non-communicating 
 attendance upon such considerations as have already 
 been before us ; but it is well that the objection as to 
 
126 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 primitive custom, however inconsistent it be in the 
 mouths of the opponents, should be seriously examined. 
 Let us grant that non-communicating attendance was 
 not a primitive practice. The question is, why ? The 
 answer is, that it was presumed that all " the faithful " 
 would communicate every Sunday. It may be worth 
 reminding you that the Council of Trent itself expresses 
 a wish that the same state of things could still exist. 1 
 It is worth remembering this, although I know, from 
 many not unnatural reasons, our opponents (although I 
 think their action is somewhat unchristian) are in the 
 habit of being angry if a wish is expressed for the re- 
 union of Christendom in the Roman direction, and there- 
 fore are scarcely prepared to rejoice in any of the better 
 features of Roman decisions. However, that by the way. 
 Now, the custom of attending at the Mass every 
 Sunday without communicating, except at intervals, 
 grew up from what we may call " the next best thing." 
 That is, it grew up from what, humanly speaking, may 
 be described as " common sense ; " from what may, 
 religiously speaking, be described as the guidance of 
 the Spirit of God. When the influx of multitudes into 
 Church fellowship and the consequent diminution of 
 primitive fervour took place, it made it, I submit, impos- 
 sible to secure the ideal standard with safety to souls, 
 and with proper reverence for the greatness of the Holy 
 Mysteries. Let us admit, then, that "non-communicating 
 attendance," when recognized in the first four centuries 
 was at first the peculiar privilege of the highest order 
 of penitents, who were all but restored to the status of 
 " the faithful ; " let us admit that the aspect of a " high 
 celebration " in the primitive Church at that time was 
 different, so far forth, from the aspect of such a service 
 1 C. T. Session 22, de Sacrificio Missse, etc, 67. 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 127 
 
 in later days ; let us admit that in the first days there 
 may have been no succession of early Communions, 
 followed by a more solemn celebration at which a 
 number of Christians were not supposed to communicate ; 
 let us admit that the celebration on Sunday in early 
 days — and we have plenty of evidence for this — was 
 about nine a.m., and that the right thing then was that 
 " the faithful " on the whole should attend and receive ; 
 — admitting all this, it is necessary to insist upon the 
 grave unfairness of quoting certain ancient canons or 
 patristic sayings as if they told against the more modern 
 service of a Catholic type. 
 
 For, first of all, I repeat again, times and circum- 
 stances change, and times and circumstances must 
 be taken into account, as the Church is not a fossil 
 or a repository of antiquarian precedents, but a living 
 fact. But next, take for example the " Apostolical " 
 and " Antiochene " canons which censure those " faith- 
 ful," i.e. those Churchmen not under penance who did 
 not w remain for the Holy Reception," or who did not 
 "join with the rest in the [Eucharistic] prayer, but 
 turned away in a disorderly fashion from the Holy 
 Communion." There have been learned students of 
 early Church history who have given reasons for 
 believing that even this does not imply that the duty 
 of " the faithful n was actually to communicate on these 
 occasions,, but that to " remain for the Holy Reception " 
 meant merely to " remain during the celebration." They 
 may be right or they may be wrong. Supposing that 
 they are wrong, it is still evidently absurd to apply the 
 censure of such canons to cases of attendance throughout 
 the service for purposes of devotion. The censure is 
 aimed solely at persons who (1) leave the Church before 
 " the faithful " ought to leave it ; and (2) who thereby 
 
 K 
 
128 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 exhibit disorderliness and irreverence. The position of 
 " non-communicating attendants" in our time is, I submit, 
 morally and in fact entirely different, so far as we are 
 concerned to defend them. " Non - communicating 
 attendants " are not disorderly and indevout people who 
 scorn and insult "the Holy Reception." It may be true, 
 of course, that there may be mere spectators among 
 these " attendants " who have no real sympathy with 
 the solemn service. There may be a risk of this. There 
 is a risk in everything. We live in a world of " ven- 
 tures." But if there be such at our celebrations of 
 " the Mysteries," they have generally been Protestant 
 controversialists and informers who are there, not for 
 purposes of worship — we have all known of such cases 
 — but to spy and rind fault. These we may leave to 
 the just censure of the ancient canons. But, after all, 
 there is a risk of the presence of ungodly persons in 
 any ordinary congregation — say at Matins or Evensong 
 — though, of course, the risk, though real, is of a less 
 grave kind. But if persons cite such canons as against 
 Catholic practice in these days, one may fairly ask them 
 this question : Do they or do they not wish, if possible, 
 to restore the primitive conditions of Church fellowship ? 
 Do they or do they not wish to restore the primitive 
 severity of penitential discipline ? Are they prepared, 
 as a sine qua non, and under pain of excommunication, 
 to require that all confirmed persons shall communicate 
 every Sunday ? If not, it is not logical, and it is 
 evidently disingenuous to argue from one bit of a system 
 without recognizing, or endeavouring to restore, the rest 
 of that s} 7 stem. 
 
 But then we are confronted with St. Chrysostom's 
 strong words in his third homily on the Ephesians. It 
 is, I submit, equally disingenuous to argue against the 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 129 
 
 Catholic practice of modern times, and indeed of many 
 ages, from the sayings of that great Father. Why ? 
 Why, because those whom he censures were in a totally 
 different condition from those with whom we are con- 
 cerned. They did receive on holy days, but " per- 
 functorily, without seriousness ; " on other days they 
 remained through the celebration without receiving, 
 and — which is the point — simply as indifferent spec- 
 tators, not worshipping, not in any devout mood. There 
 is the case before St. Chrysostom. He treats it with a 
 dilemma. " If you are not (as you are not) morally in 
 a condition to communicate, you are not fit to stay 
 through the service. If, not being under penance, you 
 are ecclesiastically competent to remain, you are 'de- 
 spising ' the Eucharist by not receiving " (i.e. you being 
 in this careless mood in which you are). He is not for 
 a moment contemplating the case of persons who, though 
 not under penance, might think — using their Christian 
 liberty — that it was better humbly and devoutly to 
 remain, rather than to wander out to secular occupa- 
 tions and amusements, but yet to deny themselves the 
 supreme privilege of "the faithful," viz. Communion. 
 Those whom he complains of have no such feeling or 
 motive. They are not awed, nor moved, nor devout, 
 nor wishing to make their intercessions, nor medi- 
 tating upon the Passion, nor pleading the great sacri- 
 fice of Calvary ; they seem to treat the matter " as a 
 nullity." 
 
 Now, my dear Dean, I ask you, can you imagine any- 
 thing more grossly unfair than to quote St. Chrysostom's 
 censure of such persons as if it were directed against, or 
 meant for those who are devout, and are only not com- 
 municating because either by the Church's rule they are 
 not yet permitted to have that high privilege, or through 
 
130 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 devotion restrain themselves from exercising it — when 
 the whole context shows that he is indignant at what 
 he calls the "effrontery" of gross carelessness? This 
 is the sort of unfairness which isolates or misstates 
 serious sentences, conveying blame from the context 
 which shows why the blame is conveyed. This I think 
 dishonest. This is sophistry. In short, my dear Dean, 
 the case of reverential "attendance" — such as I believe 
 the Spirit of God has guided " the faithful " to, as time 
 went on — was not before the Fathers at all, to whom 
 reference is usually made. Canons or exhortations 
 such as are quoted point to a different case. They 
 point to a different state of things. If you cannot 
 find in them any definite approval of the practice 
 of later times, no more can you find in them any 
 censure. New needs and new conditions emerged. 
 The Church brought out things " new and old." 
 Cases arose which were not contemplated by them 
 exactly as they are now. " Yes/' says an opponent, 
 " but they lay down principles which condemn it." We 
 answer, " Define what you mean by it." If you do that, 
 they do not lay down any such principles. If people 
 nowadays attend indevoutly, or without the fear of 
 God, they are condemned by the principles of the 
 Fathers for such attendance at the Holy Mysteries ; 
 yes, and for such attendance — if it come to that — at 
 Matins or at Evensong. If people substitute attendance 
 for Communion, when they ought for their soul's good 
 to communicate, and when the Church's rule does not pre- 
 vent them, then the principles laid down by the Fathers 
 would condemn them; and so would we, and so would any- 
 body. I quite grant that the highest privilege is Com- 
 munion. I quite grant that, if people " hear Mass " in a 
 merely perfunctory way, it is wrong. I think it quite pos- 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 13 r 
 
 sible that in the later Middle Ages there may have been 
 an ignorant notion that to receive the hallowed Bread 
 at Mass (the pain beni of the French Church) was 
 practically as beneficial as to communicate. If so, this 
 of course was wrong, and our Reformers were right in 
 setting their face against it. This is certainly not our 
 danger now. There are, as I have said, dangers now 
 and always, but we do not avoid dangers by neglecting 
 duties ; and to say that we are either to encourage all 
 our people to be always communicating, or else — though 
 they are devout communicants at proper times, or 
 though they are preparing to be such when they are 
 permitted by the Church after Confirmation — to teach 
 them that they are to stay away and rather to employ 
 themselves in any secular occupation or amusement, than 
 be present and join, as far as they may, in the one great 
 service of the Lord's appointing, is to stunt the growth of 
 their devout life, is to fall foul of the principles of our 
 Master's teaching, is to neglect the custom — the devout 
 custom sanctioned by the most prevailing usage of the 
 Catholic Church — and is, as I think, a monstrous abuse. 
 If to teach the duty of devout attendance at the Holy 
 Mysteries, communicating when we can with benefit to 
 our own souls and to God's glory, and when we cannot, 
 still " doing what we can," — if this, my dear Dean, be 
 " sacerdotalism," then, indeed, I think Christians ought 
 to be " sacerdotalists." 
 
 But now as to the Church of England. There 
 seemed to be a danger, some years ago, that, under stress 
 of a Puritan attack upon Catholic practice, Convocation 
 might have been induced to commit us all to a terrible 
 innovation, and cut up the service of the Holy Com- 
 munion, and sanction with authority the terrible habit 
 
132 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 of Christians " going out in the middle of the service." 
 That danger, one would hope, is overpassed. The 
 Church of England is the land of freedom. People, 
 using their rightful liberty, should certainly be per- 
 mitted to leave their church when they please. I have 
 maintained that it is a principle of the action of 
 our Church that responsibility should more and more 
 be thrown upon conscience, and less and less on the 
 Church and the priest. It is most desirable to break 
 through many of our merely conventional ways ; most 
 desirable to do what Catholic-minded men, on the 
 whole, have struggled for in the Church of England — 
 while keeping reverent ways and rules, still to avoid 
 mere stiffness, and to set people free. But authori- 
 tatively to sanction the abuse of using bits of the Com- 
 munion Service, without the chance of offering the 
 great oblation, or giving " the faithful " the opportunity 
 of communicating, would have been serious indeed ! A 
 Communion Service without the offering of " the Sacrifice 
 of our ransom " would have been like a baptism without 
 a baby, or a marriage service without a bride and bride- 
 groom, or a funeral without a corpse. We were, thank 
 God, as we have been so often before, by the Divine 
 mercy saved from such a catastrophe. 
 
 But the fact that such a proposal was made, is itself 
 a witness to the truth that the Church of England has 
 been true to Catholic custom and teaching and tradi- 
 tion ; that her Prayer-book, as it stands, recognizes the 
 true meaning of the celebration of the Mysteries ; that 
 " non-communicating attendance " is contemplated, as 
 by all other parts, so by our part of the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 Well, the question really is this : — Are true members 
 of the Church justified in turning their backs upon the 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 133 
 
 great service in commemoration of the Passion of Christ 
 at such times as, for good reasons, they do not desire to 
 communicate ? Or is it their duty, if they are faithful 
 members of the Church, to be devoutly present at the 
 celebration of the Holy Mysteries, even at such time 
 when, as I repeat, for good and serious reasons, they do 
 not intend to communicate ? 
 
 I think they are justified, according to the teaching 
 of our Church. I think, if they understand their 
 privileges and duties, it is their duty to be present at 
 the celebration of the Mysteries — at least on Sundays 
 and Holy Days, if they can. I think our young people 
 should be taught the duty. I think it is a real help in 
 spiritual life, and I think it is in accordance with the 
 teaching of the Church of England ; and if this be 
 " sacerdotalism," then " sacerdotalism " is the teaching 
 of the English Church. 
 
 (1) Now, the Church of England contemplates the 
 attendance of her people at Holy Communion as she does 
 at no other service. Why ? At no other service are 
 public notices ordered to be given. As to Matins and 
 Evensong, they, though adapted for the use of the 
 people, are to be said " either privately or publicly." 
 That is not the case with Holy Communion. It is the 
 one service at which the Church of England invariably 
 contemplates the presence of the congregation. 
 
 (2) Now, it is evident that in every assembly of 
 Christians there must be many who cannot communi- 
 cate. There are the unconfirmed. There are those who 
 for devout reasons are right in not communicating at 
 every opportunity. Do opponents say that baptized 
 children who are unconfirmed may not be present ? The 
 Church of England distinctly teaches godparents that 
 children are to " hear sermons ; " and she has appointed 
 
134 SA CERD TA LISM. 
 
 no preaching of sermons except in the Celebration 
 Service. It is clear that she contemplates the presence 
 of baptized but unconfirmed children, who therefore 
 cannot, according to her rules, communicate; and of 
 those — for she leaves her children free — who may not 
 wish to communicate at any given celebration. 
 
 (3) For not the smallest hint does the Prayer-book 
 give that any one is to " go out in the middle of the 
 service." She requires her children to communicate at 
 the least three times in the year, and Easter is to be one 
 of these times. If she only requires this, however she 
 may wish for more ; if she requires her children to be 
 present — for, as we have seen, children, if her commands 
 are fulfilled, must be there — if she gives no hint of leaving 
 in the middle of the service, one thing is clear, the 
 Church of England contemplates " non-communicating 
 attendance." 
 
 (4) This is still more clear when we remember that 
 she considers " communicants " to be a special division. 
 They are to be "conveniently placed." She gives no 
 permission to any one to leave before the celebration 
 of the mysteries, and she does not require all— as I 
 have shown — to communicate. So far, we see, the 
 teaching of the Church of England is " non-communi- 
 cating attendance." 
 
 (5) The service suits both classes — those who then 
 and there are to communicate, and those who are en- 
 gaged in Eucharistic Worship. For example, the Prayer 
 of Humble Access suits any Communion — for a faithful 
 Christian as well as the Communion made at that 
 moment. The Prayer of Oblation offers petition for 
 those who communicate and for those who offer the 
 sacrifice. If the Thanksgiving be used, it suits all who 
 communicate at any time ; and if the young who have 
 
EUCHARISTIC WORSHIP. 135 
 
 not yet been admitted to Communion are present, they 
 may well pray for those who have. 
 
 The Church of England is clear on the subject. She 
 expects her people to be present at the service. She 
 expects unconfirmed children to be present. She re- 
 quires no one to communicate more than three times 
 in the year. She gives no permission to leave before 
 the end of the service. Whatever evil habits may have 
 crept in and grown up, one thing is clear — the Church 
 of England, our Mother, contemplates and expects from 
 her Prayer-book — to which all of us are bound — " non- 
 communicating attendance," or Eucharistic Worship. 
 Those who denounce this Catholic custom are not sup- 
 ported by the Prayer-book. 
 
 This is, after all, the question in dispute. Who is 
 loyal to the Church of England ? Those who oppose 
 Eucharistic Worship, those who are indignant that 
 Christians should " hear Mass," or attend without com- 
 municating, whatever other plea they have, they are not 
 true to their Prayer-book. 
 
 I beg you, my dear friend, to consider the case 
 apart from the mere denunciation of controversialists. 
 Remember, I say again, (1) the Church of England only 
 requires her children to communicate three times in 
 the year ; (2) she expects her children ' to be present 
 at that service, for at that alone she provides for 
 necessary notices; (3) she contemplates the presence 
 of the unconfirmed, for she orders that they shall 
 "hear sermons," and only in this service does she 
 provide for sermons; (4) she remembers two classes, 
 those who communicate and those who do not, for the 
 communicants are to be " conveniently placed ; " and (5) 
 she gives no sort of hint or encouragement for any one 
 
136 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 to leave the church during the celebration of the Holy 
 Mysteries. I might add that in the eighteenth Canon 
 she is somewhat stringent in her directions not to leave 
 in the middle of the service. 
 
 If " non-communicating attendance," if u Eucharistic 
 Worship," that is, is only encouraged or taught by 
 " sacerdotalists," then " sacerdotalism," like devotion 
 and common sense, are, I contend, when rightly under- 
 stood, the teaching of the Church of England. 
 
 I am sure, if men would open their minds, they 
 would see that it is a reasonable and sensible thing. 
 All this suspicion, all this anger, all this hardness and 
 scorn, come, I think, from a furious prejudice. Partly 
 the roots are good. They imagine that those who 
 teach Catholic practice are putting services in place 
 of Christ. Fancy it ! 
 
 Imagine putting anything in place of your Redeemer ! 
 Why, we love His service because He is there ! We 
 love it because He appointed it. We think it narrow 
 and unloving to keep His children from gathering 
 round His sacred Feet. We cannot but feel that 
 Eucharistic Worship deepens devotion to Jesus Christ. 
 
 I am, my dear Dean, yours affectionately, 
 
 W. J. KNOX LITTLE. 
 
 The College, Worcester, 
 October 13, 1893. 
 
PART III. 
 
 THE REAL PRESENCE AND THE 
 EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 
 
 My dear Dean, 
 
 I now turn from practices to doctrines. All 
 action must ultimately rest upon conviction. The 
 practices which I have defended — which unbelievers 
 or half -believers, or opponents serious or careless, have 
 found fault with — are only, I maintain, the natural 
 and, indeed, necessary outcome of real loyalty to the 
 Church of England, and a true grip of the Catholic 
 Faith. 
 
 We turn now, therefore, to much deeper questions. 
 These are questions on the truth of which the devout 
 practices — which I have asked you to remember are in 
 agreement with the teachings of the Church — literally 
 depend. 
 
 No one in their senses — that I entirely grant — would 
 keep their fast before Communion ; no one would be 
 likely to take the trouble, at least for any length of time, 
 to be present at the service ; in fact, it appears to me 
 no really thoughtful person would take, pains to com- 
 municate, unless there be in the Eucharist something 
 very serious and very awful, something implying deeper 
 Truth than ordinary Protestant theories seem to recognize. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the teaching of the Catholic 
 
 L 
 
138 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Church be true ; if the Holy Sacrament be the meeting- 
 point between Earth and Heaven ; then it is worth while 
 keeping your fast; then it is worth while — when 
 not communicating — being present and " pleading the 
 Passion;" then it is in accordance with true piety to 
 prepare for the "Holy Mysteries" by Confession, if 
 need be, from time to time, and by prayer and fasting. 
 
 To justify my contention as to the wisdom of 
 Fasting Communion, then, and as to the duty of 
 Eucharistic Worship (or " non- communicating attend- 
 ance," to borrow a somewhat objectionable phrase), and 
 indeed as to the need or wisdom of Confession, I am 
 bound to two things — 
 
 (1) To vindicate the teaching of the Church as to 
 " the Real Presence." 
 
 (2) To vindicate her teaching as to " the Sacrifice 
 of the Altar." 
 
 The Real Presence. 
 
 Now, before I enter upon this part of the subject, 
 my dear Dean, I have three observations to make. In 
 an investigation of this kind it is important to investi- 
 gate with care — 
 
 (1) What is the teaching of Holy Scripture ? 
 
 (2) What is the mind of the early Church ? 
 
 (3) What is the view of all the rest of the Catholic 
 Church besides our own part ? 
 
 (4) What is the teaching of our own part of the 
 Catholic Church, i.e. of the Church of England ? 
 
 This last (4) in the present controversy, I repeat, is 
 the point. W T hether the Church of England be right 
 or whether she be wrong, the thing to determine as 
 to our loyalty to her is — What does she teach ? 
 
 If her teaching be contrary to Holy Scripture and 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 139 
 
 to the early Church, it might be our duty to abandon 
 her ministry ; but we are her loyal children so long 
 as we teach what she teaches, whether it be right or 
 wrong. 
 
 Then, again, to go back to my original thesis, the 
 accusation of opponents is that we are guilty of " sacer- 
 dotalism." In trying to discover what " sacerdotalism " 
 means, we find it means belief in " the Keal Presence," 
 and — to borrow the phrase of a great Father — " the 
 Sacrifice of our Ransom." If, then, we plead guilty to 
 this part of the charge — as I unhesitatingly do — we are 
 concerned to show that these doctrines are true, and 
 that the " sacerdotalism " in which they are included 
 is The Truth, and that those who condemn them are 
 — whatever else they are — not in a position to speak of 
 us as other than good Catholics, and loyal children of 
 the English Church. 
 
 Now we know where we are. The issue is plain. 
 
 It is asserted that there is practically no " Real 
 objective Presence " at all. Whatever " the Presence " 
 — if that word is to be used of it at all — it is not extra 
 usum ; it is not, in fact, there at all, unless you receive, 
 and unless you receive in faith. The fact of the 
 Presence — if Presence it can be called — depends on your 
 act and condition, not on the Lord's act and promise. 
 
 This Presence, I say, the Church teaches is real ; it 
 is objective, i.e. it is, whether you have faith or not, 
 whether you receive or not; it depends not on your 
 act and condition, but on the Lord's act and promise. 
 
 I, on the other hand, assert that the teaching of 
 Holy Scripture, of the early Church, of the whole 
 living Catholic Church now, and — above all, for that, 
 I repeat, is our point of our own English part of it — is 
 that there is " the Real Presence of the Body and Blood 
 
140 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 of the Lord" — therefore of Himself, His Soul and 
 Divinity — "under the form of Bread and Wine" in 
 the Sacramenfc of the Altar. (2) And I further add, 
 that if it were not so the whole thing would be scarcely 
 more than a more or less picturesque and pleasing 
 ceremony, hardly — to my mind — deserving the atten- 
 tion of a serious man. 
 
 (1) Now, first of all, it is well to consider this. 
 
 Few things in religion — to an outsider, say, viewing 
 the subject philosophically — are more striking and ex- 
 traordinary than the Blessed Sacrament in the Catholic 
 Church. To remember that for nearly nineteen centuries 
 this extraordinary rite has been observed ; that the same 
 " creatures " have been used; bread and wine — generally 
 mingled with water — that the same words have been 
 recited ; that only men ordained to a special office have 
 been permitted to celebrate the rite ; that certain motions 
 of the hands (or " manual acts," as we say) have been 
 required; and that all this has been asserted to have 
 a close connection with the Death and Resurrection of 
 Christ ; — this is remarkable ! 
 
 Well, the Catholic Church has always felt from the 
 first that this was a " Holy Mystery." The supernatural 
 instinct, so to speak, led her to this. How could it, 
 indeed, be otherwise ? Think of it. It is a strange 
 thing. In lowly rooms; in excavated chapels under- 
 ground, where men were driven under stress of persecu- 
 tions ; in quiet village churches — sometimes reverently, 
 sometimes, as time went on, in a slovenly manner ; in 
 stately cathedrals, east and west, and north and south, 
 with simple services or with impressive rites, this strange 
 thing was done, is done, has been done, for well-nigh 
 nineteen centuries. Bread has been blessed, wine — 
 mostly mixed with water — has been blessed, always 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 141 
 
 by ministers consecrated to the office of the priesthood, 
 always with the same awful words used by the Lord 
 " the same night that He was betrayed : " " This is My 
 Body," " This is My Blood/' Always this has been, and 
 it is. I ask you first to remember, my dear friend, this 
 remarkable fact, and — in passing — to remember that we 
 are required now to believe that those who think it 
 means anything corresponding in fact to the words 
 used and the acts done are " sacerdotalists," and to be 
 considered disloyal to the English Church, and, indeed, 
 to Christianity ! Anyhow — for any thoughtful person 
 — here is a remarkable thing. It is a strange thing. 
 It is an odd thing. It is not a common religious 
 ceremony. It means something very serious, or it is 
 a foolish piece of sentiment which ought, by persons 
 who are in earnest, to be swept into the sea of forgotten 
 delusions. 
 
 It seems to me "the Sacrament," the blessing and 
 receiving of the bread and the wine, is either, at least, 
 something mysterious, majestic, overwhelming, moving, 
 sublime, or — forgive me — it is rank nonsense. 
 
 Now, here I pause to inform you of an interesting 
 fact. I knew a man, by no means devoid of intelligence, 
 who, amidst the cross-currents of modern controversy, 
 and having a taste for German speculation, lost his 
 faith. One thing held him. He was arrested and 
 amazed at the startling fact of this rite, this blessing 
 of the bread and of the wine, so unlike anything else 
 in the world. He examined it ; he followed the clue thus 
 given, and he returned to the Christian Faith. This by 
 the way. Still, this matter of bread and wine (and 
 water), blessed by one order of men, and received as a 
 solemn thing all these centuries, is an arresting fact, 
 whatever we are to make of it. 
 
142 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Now, what has the Catholic Church made of it ? 
 Well, unquestionably it has, I repeat, ever been treated 
 as a " Holy Mystery." 
 
 I must dwell upon this. "Mystery," even though 
 it occurs in the Bible and the Prayer-book, is — if I may 
 so say — a suspected word. An Englishman is — each one 
 of us Englishmen is — a suspicious animal! Our dear 
 friend Liddon used to say that the word " mystery " 
 roused in the average Englishman a certain amount of 
 " mental discomfort." He imagines that it implies some 
 want of straightforwardness. This is like us English, 
 but notwithstanding, when we come to think of it, it is 
 absurd. " Mystery " which existed — as an expression 
 for solemn and half-revealed things — was adopted by 
 the Apostles, and has been used ever since by the 
 Church. It does not mean a fancy, a sentimental 
 notion; it means pre-eminently a truth, but a truth 
 which in its completeness is more or less veiled. Well, 
 the Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood is a 
 "Mystery." It is a truth, a solemn and awful truth, 
 which in its completeness is more or less veiled. * 
 
 Now, again, I pause, my dear friend, to observe this. 
 Any religion which comes to us pretending to be Divine 
 and is not full of mystery, we may be sure is an im- 
 posture. That is why, I think, all reasonable men, 
 whatever they hold, ought to hesitate before they com- 
 mit themselves to any — professedly Religious — system, 
 which, while it pretends to be a positive religion, shuns 
 and discourages faith in unseen realities. For it is untrue 
 to human nature ; it is untrue to Divine revelation ; it 
 is in danger of becoming a debasing superstition or a 
 hollow form of veneered worldliness, or a corrupted 
 
 1 See Dr. Liddon's sermon on u The Mysteries of God," preached in 
 St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 143 
 
 form of unbelief. If it discards mystery, it is, therefore, 
 and so far forth, untrue. 
 
 Nature — I must dwell upon this — is one vast 
 mystery. We know by experience the change of 
 seasons, the growth of grass, the blowing of the flowers, 
 the bursting of the leaves, and their yearly change to 
 autumn crimson and gold. We know it. Do we know 
 how or why ? Certainly not. In spite of our almost 
 immeasurable conceit, we are in a land of mystery. 
 We know the fact of human life and human growth. 
 We are surrounded, in obedience to God's laws of love, 
 by those who take their lives from us, and whom we 
 love. Why they come we know not ; how their bodies 
 and their minds develop we cannot tell ; but there it 
 is. We are in a world of mystery. Again, to us our- 
 selves, in the inner circle of our very own lives, — changes 
 come. Our minds develop ; our convictions are formed ; 
 new experiences leave their traces upon us ; years go 
 on, and we, who feel that life is fleeting, and that 
 each thought and act is leaving its mark behind, are 
 becoming aware that we are moving on to eternity. 
 We are creatures of mystery. Let any man offer such 
 a being as man a religion which is not a religion of 
 mystery,— it is an insult. That is the — one might even 
 say — impertinence of systems which have attempted to 
 take the place of the Christianity of the Church 'of 
 Christ. They have the impertinence — I can use no 
 other word — to offer to a being so wonderful, so mys- 
 terious, so great as man, a petty, shallow Philosophy 
 instead of a Religion. 
 
 This is nowhere more evident than when you touch 
 on the sublime mystery of the Blessed Sacrament. For 
 the theories which are placed in opposition to the teach- 
 ing of the Catholic Church have an unhappy affinity — 
 
144 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 it seems to me — to such systems. My dear Dean, I beg 
 you, at any rate, to notice the salient points of the 
 theory which even some Catholic priests have actually 
 put before us as the teaching of the English Church. 
 
 Strong words have been written against those who 
 teach the truth of the Real Presence (sometimes, I dare 
 say, in scarcely exact phraseology). 
 
 1. I do not want to lay too much stress upon them. 
 I think the words must have been written in haste. 
 They are too passionate, I think, for any sober-minded 
 theologian. Expressions of opponents which are certainly 
 not exact in theology, but which, like a great deal of 
 the language of enthusiastic devotion, have to be dis- 
 counted with fairness of mind, are described as " abject 
 heresy." We are told that St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. 
 John would have "revolted with horror and indigna- 
 tion " against these statements. We are told that the 
 " adoration of the elements " is now " openly recom- 
 mended," and is " a degrading idolatry." * I do not 
 desire, as I have said, to dwell on these statements. 
 I think their author in calmer moments would regret 
 them. They are surely somewhat unbalanced ; they are, 
 I think, exaggerated ; they are, I think also (though 
 doubtless unintentionally) not quite accurate. But what 
 I must call attention to is this. It is declared that 
 " there is no possibility to hesitate or to doubt respect- 
 ing the doctrine of the Church of England. It is," so 
 it is stated, " and always has been, absolutely and trans- 
 parently clear. She rejects Transubstantiation formally, 
 expressly, unmistakably, indignantly ; she rejects no 
 less clearly Luther's doctrine of Consubstantiation ; she 
 rejects also Zwingli's doctrine that the Lord's Supper 
 
 1 Contemporary Recitw, July, 1893, p. 66. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 145 
 
 is a commemorative act alone." And now we come 
 to what she is said to teach. 
 
 " She teaches with absolute precision that the Lord's 
 Supper is not a sacrifice ; that the Lord's Table is not 
 an altar ; that the Body and Blood of Christ are received 
 spiritually alone, and only by the faithful ; that the 
 Presence of Christ is in the heart of the true wor- 
 shipper, and not, in any sense of the words whatever, 
 in the hands of the priest, or locally on the Lord's Table ; 
 that there is no Presence whatever extra usum" l 
 
 Well, there is one thing satisfactory, and only one, 
 about such a statement ; it shows us the worst, I think, 
 that can be said against the Anglican Church, and it is 
 always well to know the worst. In such a statement 
 there is, I think, a mixture of truth and falsehood ; but, 
 on the whole, it is, I am sure, unfair to the Anglican 
 Church. I do not think that any Roman cardinal, trying 
 to make out the worst case against us, could have said 
 anything more damaging, if indeed it were true. I do 
 not believe it to be true, as I shall try to show, but in 
 great measure false with a fascinating varnish of truth. 
 Realize, my dear friend, for a moment, what this amounts 
 to. The Romans are wrong, the Lutherans are wrong, 
 the Zwinglians are wrong — I may add, the New Testa- 
 ment is wrong* — but the Anglican Communion is abso- 
 lutely right. She differs from the existing Catholic 
 Communions — for the Easterns also hold the Real Ob- 
 jective Presence — she differs apparently from the views 
 of other Christian Bodies. She alone is right. Having 
 realized this — which, I submit, makes the truth of such 
 a proposition, to say the least of it, improbable — I beg 
 you to realize the details of the proposition. (1) The 
 Anglican Church, it is said, " teaches with absolute pre- 
 1 Contemporary Review, July, 1893, p. 66. 
 
146 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 cision that the Lord's Supper is not a sacrifice." This 
 I hope to show, by-and-by, is entirely untrue. If it 
 were true, the Anglican Church would have departed 
 from the teaching of the Catholic Church. (2) The 
 Anglican Church teaches that " the Lord's Table is not 
 an altar." This, again, I hope to show is entirely un- 
 true. Again, I say, if it were true, she would have 
 departed from the teaching of the Catholic Church. 
 (3) The Anglican Church teaches that " the Body and 
 Blood of Christ are received spiritually alone." This 
 is true, and it is the teaching of the whole Catholic 
 Church, only we must be sure as to what it means. I 
 have to reiterate that " spiritually " does not mean " un- 
 really ; " that, on the contrary, it means " really ; " that 
 there is no fact more " real " than a ** spiritual " fact, and 
 that to think accurately is at least to remember that 
 " real " does not mean " material." (4) That the Body 
 and Blood of Christ are received * only by the faithful." 
 On this I have to say, that in one sense it is quite true, 
 but it must not be forgotten that it is juggling with 
 words to use " the faithful " otherwise than as the 
 Church uses the expression. It is meant, I imagine, 
 here that the gifts are only received by those who are 
 " full of faith." The Church means nothing of the kind 
 when she speaks of " the faithful." In her language, 
 " the faithful," as can easily be shown, is an expression 
 which implies " Church-people," without inquiring as to 
 their exact spiritual condition before Almighty God. 
 Communicants — as I shall show — who are members of 
 the Church, receive the gift, whether they are "full of 
 faith " or not ; but only those who are " full of faith " 
 receive it to their souVs benefit. (5) " That the Presence 
 of Christ is in the heart of the true worshipper, and not, 
 in any sense of the words whatever, in the hands of the 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. H7 
 
 priest." This proposition, as I shall hope to show, is 
 in great measure false; though here, again, truth and 
 error are so mixed up, that it is difficult to disentangle 
 them. (6) That the Presence is not "locally on the 
 Lord's Table." This proposition has a mixture of truth 
 and falsehood about it, as I shall hope to show. It is, 
 in one sense, perfectly true, but it may be used so as to 
 imply what is false. (7) "That there is no Presence 
 whatever extra usum" This proposition is, as I shall 
 also hope to show, untrue. Taking the statement on 
 the whole, here is almost, though not quite, the Zwin- 
 glian heresy in an approximately accurate statement: 
 it is, I think, untrue to the highest thoughts of human 
 nature; untrue to Scripture; untrue to the belief of 
 the early Church ; untrue to the witness of the whole 
 Catholic Church; untrue to the Church of England — 
 a form of half-bred unbelief. If this, indeed, were 
 the interpretation to be put upon the teaching of the 
 Church of England, no man, I grant, who holds Catholic 
 doctrine, who has respect for the morality of language, 
 for the sanctity of conscience, or for the revelation of 
 God, ought to serve her in the priesthood for another 
 half-hour. But this is not her teaching. It is neither 
 more nor less than somewhat diluted Zwinglianism. 
 
 But consider again, from another point of view, the 
 salient points, I say, of this teaching. 
 
 (1) According to it, our Lord does not mean what 
 He says. If He says, " This is My Body," " This is 
 My Blood," He means that it is nothing of the kind. 
 
 (2) When Apostles talk of the bread they break 
 being the " Communion of the Body of Christ," and so 
 on, they are talking at least in riddles. That bread is not 
 so. Whatever Communion there is, has really nothing 
 to do with that : it is a matter of the faith of individuals. 
 
148 SACERDOTALISM, 
 
 (3) When they talk of men being " guilty of the 
 Body and Blood of the Lord," if they receive the Holy 
 Sacrament without right dispositions, they are allowing 
 themselves in rhetorical exaggeration, for there is no 
 " Body and Blood" to be guilty of! 
 
 In fact, in this as in so many things, Puritanism and 
 Protestantism, I fear, discard mystery, deny the Bible, 
 and are false to Kevelation. Surely this kind of thing 
 is perilously near to becoming a watered-down Ration- 
 alism. "Sacerdotalism" is found fault with because 
 " sacerdotalism " is true to Revelation, true to Mystery, 
 true to the Gospel of Christ, true to Reality. 
 
 Such systems of teaching mean, dear friend, moon- 
 shine and fog and half-truth. 
 
 The Catholic Faith is Reality. 
 
 Of course, I do not mean that all men who call them- 
 selves " Protestants " consciously abandon themselves to 
 this. There is a vast difference between a system — as such 
 — and good persons who call themselves by a name. What 
 I mean is, that here we have in the Christian religion 
 a striking rite ; that one modern system practically 
 empties it of any meaning at all, that another and more 
 ancient system accounts for it in a serious and practical 
 way ; that the latter is the system of common sense and 
 of the English Church, and that we are not to be 
 stigmatized as " disloyal " to the Church if, as her 
 priests, we adhere to her system. 
 
 Well, then, what is denounced as " sacerdotalism," 
 what I maintain is the teaching of Christianity, the 
 teaching of Antiquity, the teaching of the English 
 Church, as well as of the rest of the Catholic Church, is 
 this — that in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, after 
 consecration by an episcopally ordained priest, there is, 
 apart altogether from the faith or unfaith of those who 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 149 
 
 are present, the Real Presence of the Body and Blood 
 of Christ, His Soul and Divinity to be adored and loved 
 of all His faithful people under the form of bread and 
 wine. 
 
 Further, I assert that this, being the teaching of 
 the Anglican Church, is not Transubstantiation. Further, 
 I contend that if — per impossibile — this Catholic doctrine 
 were not true, the Sacrament would be painfully like 
 a more or less picturesque, but not very instructive, 
 commemoration, possibly affecting the sentiments of 
 some, but likely in the long run to be ignored by 
 reasonable people. 
 
 On this, it seems to me, priests of the English Church, 
 as of every other part of the Catholic Church, may 
 well be prepared to stand or fall. If the Christian 
 religion is good for anything, its watchword is Reality. 
 If Christ our Lord is to be trusted, He meant what He 
 said. If His expressions have to be explained away, so 
 that, e.g., when He said, " This is My Body," He really 
 meant, " This is not My Body," then all I have to say, as 
 a plain man, is — the less we have to do with His teachings 
 the better. Reality is the watchword of the Catholic 
 Faith. Subjective Sentiment may be the watchwords 
 of any other systems. The English Church — as part of 
 the Catholic Body — teaches real regeneration in Holy 
 Baptism, real forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance, 
 real ordination, with gifts of grace, in the Sacrament 
 of Ordination, real grace of the Holy Ghost in the 
 Sacrament of Confirmation, and the Real Presence in 
 the Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood. 
 
 The Catholic Church, and the English Church as 
 part of her, is the home of reality. 
 
 Now, before I go further, the odd thing which I 
 must notice is this. There are pious persons who, from 
 
150 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 prejudice or misunderstanding, are quite horrified at the 
 Catholic doctrine — who yet would not dream of denying 
 that there is "a Presence" in the Sacrament, only it 
 must not be a " Real Presence." Now, I ask you, my 
 dear friend, what sort of a Presence is an "Unreal 
 Presence " ? Your friend is with you or he is not You 
 cannot have him present, but not "really present." 
 Either our Lord is present in the Sacrament, or He is 
 not If He is not, there is no presence at all, and there 
 is the end of it, there is a Eeal Absence ; there is a 
 ceremony more or less edifying but very much out of 
 proportion, in its meaning, to the language used in it. 
 Or He is present, and then it is a Heal Presence. If 
 this is " sacerdotalism," I as a plain man, having an idea 
 what reality means, and what unreality means — what 
 Presence means and what Absence means — find it diffi- 
 cult to understand what is meant when both are asserted 
 as a state of fact at the same time. The Sacrament is, 
 it seems to me, a more or less picturesque and edifying 
 and sentimental piece of ritualism, or it is a most august 
 and awful and solemn fact. If our Lord is not there, it is 
 the former. It is the latter if there is the Real Presence of 
 His Body and Blood under the form of bread and wine. 
 
 For, before we go further, surely we ought to realize 
 this. 
 
 (1) Good people sometimes say, " Yes, I cannot be- 
 lieve the Real Presence, I believe a spiritual Presence." 
 What is implied in such a statement, so often made ? 
 This ; " Spiritual " means " unreal." Is it not evident, my 
 dear Dean, that people who speak in this way commit 
 themselves to this absurdity ? Why, dear friend, what 
 is so real as a spiritual fact ? Are granite mountains, 
 or public buildings, or pyramids, or rolling oceans, or 
 strata of rocks, or travelling stars, more real than a 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 151 
 
 living soul, a splendid character, a trial of deep and 
 penetrating sorrow ? We are a materialistic nation, 
 I am afraid, and we grow to think that there is 
 positively not such a thing as a spiritual fact. This 
 spirit of unconscious materialism goes far, I think, to 
 account for half the things that are said against the 
 truth of the Real Presence. 
 
 We come to this. The Sacrament is emptied of its 
 most serious meaning unless there is the Presence. If 
 there is the Presence, it must be Real. If real in this 
 august Mystery, it must be spiritual. 
 
 (2) Then another class of pious persons say, " Yes, 
 He is there if you have faith ; all depends upon your 
 faith." Is it possible, I ask you, to conceive anything 
 reasonable, and indeed, I think, less consistent with a 
 spirit of reverence^ Apply such a notion to ordinary 
 life. " I am coming, dear friend, to visit you. If you are 
 kind and good-tempered, and glad to receive me on my 
 arrival, I shall be there ; if not, I am not present." Did 
 you ever hear — one may say without rudeness — such 
 nonsense, such genuine nonsense ? Our Lord's coming 
 or not coming must depend upon His word and promise. 
 The amount of blessing it brings to us must depend 
 upon the disposition in which we receive Him. 
 
 If He promised, He will perform. Whether we are 
 lit or unfit to profit by it, in the Blessed Sacrament 
 there is — surely according to all reasonable principles — 
 there is, I say, to be expected, the Real Presence. 
 
 So far, I have dealt with broad principles and 
 common sense. I assert that so wonderful, so mys- 
 terious, so prevailing a rite as the Blessed Sacrament 
 coming into religion at all, can only be accounted for 
 reasonably by the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence. 
 
 Now, dear friend, let us do two things. Let us state 
 
IS2 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 the Other view again, then let us state the Catholic 
 Doctrine. Then let us examine witnesses. 
 
 (1) #Well, there are, of course, shades of variation in 
 the Protestant view, but practically, I think, they all 
 come to this — 
 
 The Sacrament is a ceremony in which we remember 
 the death of Christ. We eat bread in it, which is 
 common bread, and drink wine, which is ordinary wine. 
 We use words which Christ used in doing so. They 
 are strange words, Eastern words, metaphorical words ; 
 they are from " Semitic modes of thought," we must not 
 attach too much importance to them. They don't really 
 mean what they appear to say. If we have pious dis- 
 positions, and, so, go through this strange ceremony, we 
 have some sort of blessing. But, on the whole, the 
 ceremony is embarrassing. It is in the Bible, so we 
 can't leave it out. On the other hand, if you are " con- 
 verted " and good, you are " saved," therefore really there 
 is no need for it, and no room for it, properly speaking. 
 It is — very extreme persons have gone the length of 
 saying — rather " carnal." It is a " broken cistern." We 
 must not " lean " upon it. Protestant truth would have 
 been better without it. It is a difficulty. We could 
 almost wish it had never been started. It really in 
 itself means nothing. Some people think it means 
 something. They are " sacerdotalists." They " savour 
 of Rome." This is practically the general Protestant 
 view of the Blessed Sacrament, put in short words. 
 
 I pause for a moment to recall to you that nothing in 
 the world can be imagined more unlikely to remind you 
 of the sufferings and death of a good man than eating 
 bread and drinking wine ! I can't imagine — on this 
 half -believing theory — anything more inappropriate for 
 its supposed purpose, than the Sacrament. Christ is 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 153 
 
 nailed up to a cross as a malefactor, and — according to 
 this most strange hypothesis — we Christians, in order to 
 remember this fact, kneel down and eat bread and drink 
 wine ! Could anything be more entirely inappropriate ? 
 I can imagine a command being given to Christians to 
 meet and gaze on a crucifix, or look at a picture, or read 
 over together the story of the Crucifixion, in order to 
 remember that Christ was crucified; but that they 
 should be commanded to meet together, and eat bread 
 and drink wine in order to remember that awful fact — 
 dear friend, this is strictly inconceivable. The Sacra- 
 ment would surely, I say again, be a singularly inap- 
 propriate memorial unless it is an awful and majestic 
 mystery, and that because of a Divine, a Blessed, a 
 Supernatural, a Spiritual, a Real Presence. 
 
 Now for evidence. 
 
 The question — as I have often said — in the immediate 
 discussion is, " What does the Church of England 
 teach ? " Whether she is right or whether she is wrong, 
 to be true to her teaching is to be loyal to her. That 
 must, I think, always be kept clearly before us. None 
 the less, the opponents of Catholic teaching appeal to 
 Scripture, and to the early Church. What Scripture 
 means, in such a matter as this, is settled for us Church- 
 people, of course, by the decisions of our Church, by 
 which we are bound. We are not at liberty, while we 
 remain in her ministry, to interpret Scripture, in such 
 matters, so as to contradict her decisions. Her appeal, 
 however, is to Holy Scripture and also to the Catholic 
 Church. So that to examine Scripture, and to examine 
 the teachings of the early Church, is important, because 
 the evident teachings of both illuminate the decisions 
 by which, as ministers or children of the English part 
 of the Catholic Church, we are bound. 
 
 M 
 
154 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 I. Now first as to Holy Scripture. As to the Old 
 Testament, on that we need not dwell at any length. 
 Speaking broadly, then, we are given to understand, 
 that whereas men then were in shadow, and subject to 
 figures and representations, the time was coming when, 
 instead of shadow, they would have substance ; instead 
 of figures and representations, they would have the real 
 thing. If there be no Real Presence in the Blessed 
 Sacrament, then the men who had the Shechinah were 
 better off than we are, and, what is more, the not very 
 apposite argument about " the localization of the Deity," 
 which is a favourite weapon of opponents, tells — to say 
 the least of it — as much against the revealed fact of the 
 Shechinah than it can against the Real Presence. 
 
 But now as to the New Testament. When you 
 turn to that, it seems to me that nothing but some sort 
 of shuffling and Jesuitry, and casuistical assigning of 
 non-natural meaning to words, can get over the mass 
 of evidence here. 
 
 The earliest record that we have of our Lord's 
 mention of the Blessed Sacrament is to be found in the 
 sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel. It is a striking fact 
 that this Evangelist — the eagle-eyed teacher who saw 
 most deeply into the mysteries of his Master's work — 
 is the one who goes into the deep meanings of the 
 Sacraments. In the second chapter of his Gospel, he 
 records the miracle of Christ changing water into wine ; 
 and then in the third chapter he gives our Lord's 
 instruction to Nicodemus on the Sacrament of Holy 
 Baptism. So also in the sixth chapter is recorded the 
 miracle of feeding five thousand ; and then, following 
 upon that, comes the discourse on the mystery of the 
 Blessed Sacrament. Some five times in that discourse 
 our Lord declares that His " Flesh and Blood," His 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 155 
 
 glorified and sacred and life-giving Humanity, must 
 be partaken of by us as our very Food, in order that 
 we may live by Him. He calls Himself the " living 
 Bread," and tells us that men are to eat thereof in order 
 not to die. The striking thing is that whilst the other 
 Evangelists give the account of the institution of the 
 Blessed Sacrament, St. John — who seems to supplement 
 their teachings and to record what they had omitted — 
 gives no account of the institution, but records this 
 wonderful discourse which throws light upon the 
 mystery. Think of St. John's words : " Except ye eat 
 the Flesh of the Son of man, and drink His Blood, ye 
 have no life in you ; " and again, " My Flesh is meat 
 indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed." * Now, if we 
 believe the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence, this, 
 I submit, my dear friend, though mysterious, is intelli- 
 gible. It is felt to be a tremendous difficulty by those 
 who deny the Faith of the Church, as is shown by the 
 astonishing shifts to which they betake themselves in 
 order to — what I can only call — " wriggle out of " its 
 plain teaching. Sometimes they say that eating the 
 Flesh and drinking the Blood only mean attending to 
 His teaching, as we might say that a man " drinks in 
 a sermon," or " devours a book." 2 This evasion is dis- 
 credited at once when we remember what happened 
 on the occasion. The Jews, and among them His own 
 disciples, like all Eastern people, were perfectly used 
 to the language of metaphor and allegory, and such 
 language would have presented no difficulty to them. 
 They felt, however, that our Lord meant a great deal 
 more than that. Numbers of them were offended, and 
 even devoted followers left Him in consequence, and all 
 of them thought it a " hard saying," and some — which 
 
 1 St. John vi. 53, 55. 2 Cf. Littledale, " Tlie Real Presence." 
 
156 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 makes the thing quite plain — asked point-blank, " How 
 can this Man give us His Flesh to eat ? " 1 This mode 
 of evading our Lord's teaching must evidently be 
 abandoned. It cannot honestly be maintained. 
 
 But, further, it was certainly in accordance with 
 our Lord's usual manner, and what may be called His 
 " sweet reasonableness," to make things clear where 
 it was possible, if men misunderstood His sayings. It 
 was not His way wantonly to encourage misconception. 
 How easily could He have said on this occasion, " You 
 have quite misunderstood Me ; I have only meant that 
 My teaching would enlighten you " ! Does He do so ? 
 Nothing of the kind ; even though they " strove among 
 themselves, saying, How can this Man give us His 
 Flesh to eat ? " He proceeded to repeat His statement 
 without any change. But more than that ; when His 
 very disciples were staggering under the hardness of 
 the saying, He warns them that they will have to 
 prepare their minds to realize the astonishing properties 
 of His Sacred Body ; that they will have to be awakened 
 to the truth; that in that very Body of Flesh which 
 they saw He would ascend to heaven. " Both this 
 offend you ? What and if ye shall see the Son of man 
 ascend up where He was before ? " 2 He does not with- 
 draw one word of His astonishing statement, but He 
 does go on to throw light upon the mystery by explain- 
 ing the power by which it was to be effected. It is 
 quite clear, then, that our Lord spoke of a mysterious 
 but real giving of His Body and Blood, and that such 
 attempts at evading His statements are not really 
 capable of being justified to unprejudiced reason. 
 
 But, then, others, who are as much staggered as the 
 Jews or the disciples at our Lord's teaching as to His 
 1 St. John vi. 52. * St. John vi. 62. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 157 
 
 Real Presence, get out of their difficulty in this way. 
 They say, " Doubtless there is some kind of presence of 
 Christ connected with the Sacrament, but it is only a 
 spiritual one in the hearts of believers ;" and they support 
 this by quoting our Lord's explanatory saying, " It is 
 the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing : 
 the words which I speak unto you, they are spirit, and 
 they are life." l This, I suppose, is what has been called 
 the " virtualist " view. It is a wonderful view. It is, 
 I think A one of those examples of the ways in which 
 Puritanism has managed to juggle with words. Its 
 dogmatic statement would amount to this : * Our Lord 
 is not really present, but He is virtually present." This, 
 I imagine, from the quotation I have given above, would 
 be the view of opponents who stop, at least in words, 
 just short of Zwinglianism. It seems to me that bare 
 Zwinglianism itself is less contrary to right reason than 
 a notion of this sort. It empties the Sacrament of any 
 real meaning at all. For consider, according to this, to 
 receive the Body and Blood is, after all, only to receive 
 grace. The Sacrament is no longer a thing sui generis ; 
 in it people receive grace which — for some unexplained 
 reason — is called the "Body and Blood;" but they receive 
 grace when they pray heartily or form good resolutions. 2 
 Where, then, is the meaning of the Sacrament ? The 
 unique position assigned to it in the practice of the 
 Church at all times has no reasonable justification. 
 It is a work of supererogation. It is, as we have 
 constantly seen in practice, a real embarrassment and 
 difficulty in a system of religion of this sort. One can, 
 to a certain extent, understand a Zwinglian who joins 
 
 1 St. John vi. 63. 
 
 2 Cf. Littledale, ut supra, tract, " The Real Presence ; " and Carter, 
 " Letter on the Blessed Sacrament." 
 
158 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 in a commemorative banquet in honour of the Founder 
 of his religion, and looks upon it as a commemorative 
 banquet and nothing more. He is thoroughly un- 
 scriptural, and he has no support from the Church ; but 
 he is intelligible. But it is difficult to understand a 
 " virtualist," who is by way of resting his convictions 
 on the teaching of the Church, and who makes much 
 of Holy Scripture, when he explains such a phrase as 
 11 the Body and the Blood " to mean nothing more than 
 a presence of Christ in the souls of those who have 
 faith, seeing that he cannot deny that that is equally 
 true — as I have said — of any faithful person who says 
 his prayers earnestly, or makes good resolutions. Our 
 Lord is really present or He is not. 
 
 A Zwinglian says He is not, and thereby breaks 
 with Scripture and the teachings of Christ and the 
 witness of the Church. A Catholic says He is really 
 present, and thereby gives an intelligible meaning to 
 our Lord's statements and to the Church's witness. 
 A virtualist says He is present, but He is not present, 
 and thereby assigns the most impossible and, I must 
 say, senseless meanings to such a phrase as " the Body 
 and the Blood." " Virtualism " seems to me to be 
 one of those miserable subterfuges to which men 
 betake themselves when they cannot deny a truth 
 altogether, and yet will not commit themselves to it 
 with all its consequences. I cannot but say, in passing, 
 that if we allow ourselves to use such a phrase as " the 
 Body and the Blood " in non-natural senses of this kind, 
 we are indulging in a lax treatment of sacred words 
 which is logically sure to lead to wider application, 
 and to induce men to deal in a similar fashion with 
 texts and statements relating to the Incarnation itself. 
 But, in saying all this, the point that I desire to dwell 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 159 
 
 upon at the moment is, that such teachers are given 
 to rest their contention upon our Lord's words of 
 explanation to His disciples : " It is the spirit that 
 quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing : the words 
 that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are 
 life." From this they endeavour to deduce that there 
 is no Beat Presence, for it is always spiritual. Now, 
 first of all, we have this usual and really astonishing 
 confusion of thought. Of course it is spiritual. The 
 whole question is a question of spiritual things, although 
 connected with their material expressions. But spiritual, 
 I repeat, does not mean fanciful, or imaginary, or unreal. 
 Whenever these people use the word spiritual, they 
 apparently mean something that has no reality at all. 
 It is this absurdity, it is this rooted prejudice, it is this 
 form of materialistic thought, it is this want of faith in 
 the reality of the Unseen, which is at the bottom of so 
 much heresy. A spiritual fact, I repeat, is as real a 
 fact as a granite mountain, or the dome of St. Paul's. 
 Our most real and important part is our spiritual and 
 immortal nature. Angels are spirits, but they are as real 
 as we are, if the Bible and the Church speak true. 
 St. Paul himself says, " There is a natural body, and 
 there is a spiritual body ; " and the presence of our 
 Lord's Sacred Body and Blood is, of course, according 
 to the laws of spiritual substances, not according to 
 the laws of materialistic things ; but it is a Ileal 
 Presence all the same, and our Lord's explanation to 
 His disciples merely explains that it is so. 
 
 What He means is evidently this : His Humanity by 
 itself would have no power ; but by the power of His 
 Godhead (the Spirit, as He calls it) that Humanity 
 becomes a sacred and powerful and life-giving Force. 
 " I do not speak to you," He seems to say, " of My Flesh 
 
160 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 and Blood in a carnal or natural state, nor of these 
 by themselves alone; but I speak of them in their 
 mysterious union with My Divine Nature. By the 
 power of that Divine Nature they will ascend, and 
 after what I call My ' Ascension ' — which will give you 
 some idea of the mysterious powers of My Sacred Body 
 — they will be communicated to My people through the 
 power of My Spirit in the Holy Sacrament, and become 
 to them a source of everlasting life." 
 
 We may put aside St. John's testimony if we please, 
 but we cannot satisfy the conditions of His statements 
 — to use a phrase of mathematicians — unless we accept 
 the Catholic doctrine of the "Real Presence of the Lord's 
 Body and Blood under the form of bread and wine." So 
 much for the testimony of St. John. 
 
 Now we turn to the testimony of the others. If St. 
 John teaches us what may be called the philosophy of 
 the Holy Sacrament, the three other Evangelists teach 
 us definitely the Institution. Of these, one was present 
 when the Institution took place, and the definiteness and 
 exactness of the other two is all the more remarkable 
 because they were not present themselves. Now, what 
 took place ? " On the same night that He was betrayed," 
 He explained many things to His disciples. Last words 
 are solemn words. We in the Anglican Church, at any 
 rate, believe that our Lord, the Man, is very God. His last 
 words, in His earthly life, are more than ever solemn 
 words. He tells His disciples about His betrayal, about 
 His death, about His going back to His Father. They 
 are human, they are loving ; they are filled with sorrow 
 and with fear. They have a sense of being deserted, and 
 a sense of their own incapacity, when He Who was their 
 Strength was gone. He comforts them by assuring them 
 of the coming of the Holy Spirit. But He goes further ; 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 161 
 
 He says, " I will not leave you orphaned " (that is the 
 meaning of His word) ; " / will come to you." According 
 to the moral law of Divine teaching, such words have 
 a wide fulfilment, in the constant inward communion 
 that Christ has, through the Spirit, with His people; 
 but they have this wide fulfilment because they have a 
 special fulfilment in the Great Mystery. This, after 
 speaking these words, He proceeded to institute. The 
 three Evangelists record the words of Institution, and 
 in each case He says, " This is My Body," " This is 
 My Blood." If the Real Presence be not true, these 
 words must be explained away. Remember the force 
 they have from the time at which they were spoken, 
 from the previous statement of St. John which we have 
 considered, and from the unbroken custom of the Church, 
 from then until now, to use them in the consecration of 
 the Holy Sacrament. It is strange, indeed, if our Lord 
 and His Church have gone out of their way to mislead 
 men on so grave a subject when it would have been so 
 easy to make all things plain. They have not gone out 
 of their way to do so. What they have said, and say, 
 is truth. Instead of Jesuitical and casuistical and non- 
 natural twistings, if we only will simply and straight- 
 forwardly believe, then there is nothing to explain away ; 
 for when we do what He has commanded us to do, we 
 can trust Him to keep His promise. This is His Body ; 
 this is His Blood ; there is His Real Presence under the 
 form of Bread and Wine. Now, I think, my dear 
 friend, I must remind you on what tortuous paths — in 
 order to escape the force of straightforward truth — 
 Protestant prejudice or unbelief has trodden. It has 
 been asserted that our Lord only meant, " This represents 
 My Body," and that it is parallel to His statements, " I am 
 the Vine," " I am the Door," " I am the Good Shepherd." 
 
1 62 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 When men say these things, it is really difficult to believe 
 that they believe what they say. It is difficult to believe 
 that they can be the victims of such an extraordinary 
 confusion of thought. The statements have no likeness 
 to one another whatever. They could only have that 
 likeness, if our Lord, putting His hand upon a vine tree, 
 had said, " This vine is Myself ; " or, taking hold of a 
 door, had said, " This door is Myself ; " or, laying His 
 hand upon a shepherd, had said, " This shepherd is 
 Myself." In the one case, He is alluding to certain things 
 or persons fulfilling functions, fulfilled by Him in ideal 
 perfection : in the other case, by His Divine authority 
 He is using certain portions of a creature of His own 
 creation as a vehicle to convey His Divine and Human 
 life. He did not, in the institution of the Blessed 
 Sacrament, speak about bread in general at all, but He 
 spoke about a particular thing — apparently only bread 
 — as becoming, by Divine power, also His Body. 
 
 When our Lord spoke, His words were " with 
 power." To the outward sign, which was a part of His 
 own creation, He added the inward part or thing 
 signified. The words He used denoted the higher or 
 nobler part. By His own power He united earthly 
 and heavenly substances, and made them one through 
 Sacramental Union. The Bread did not cease to be 
 Bread, the Wine did not cease to be Wine, but through 
 the consecration of Christ, and by the power of the 
 Holy Ghost, they became the Body and Blood of the 
 Lord. The substance of the one was not changed into 
 the substance of the other, but a fresh spiritual force 
 was, by the power of Him Who created them, given 
 to the Elements, so that they were transformed into 
 Holy Mysteries, and became sacred Tabernacles of a 
 heavenly Presence, and so justly received the names 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 163 
 
 which indicate their supernatural dignity. The Elements, 
 to the eye and touch of man, became the outward sign 
 of those awful and unseen realities on which the soul 
 fixes its attention by faith. Take the words of Insti- 
 tution as the Evangelists have recorded them, as the 
 Church has received and used them ever since, and you 
 have the record of a Divine and blessed fact, and the 
 witness to our Lord's fulfilment to His own promise. 
 Take them with all the glosses of — what might be called 
 — Protestant Jesuitry, and casuistry, and shuffling, and 
 twisting, and unreality, and you are lost in an uncon- 
 soling and, indeed, chilling fog. As far as the testimony 
 of the four Evangelists go, you have, I submit, the 
 most direct evidence from Scripture of the Keal Presence 
 of the Lord's Body and Blood, under the form of Bread 
 and Wine. 
 
 And now we turn to St. Paul. St. Paul, as you know, 
 my dear friend, is supposed by extreme Protestants to 
 be their stronghold when they are staggered at any part 
 of the Catholic Faith. His testimony, therefore, ought 
 to be received by those who deny this doctrine with 
 special respect ; and that testimony, I submit, is exceed- 
 ingly strong. First of all, he tells us that he also had 
 received that which he delivered on the subject of 
 the Blessed Sacrament. We know that he was exceed- 
 ingly sensitive as to any supposition that he received 
 the truths which he taught through others, and not 
 directly from our Lord Himself. The Blessed Sacra- 
 ment, then, must indeed have been a matter of supreme 
 importance, since our Lord thought fit Himself to 
 reveal it directly to St. Paul. " For / have received of 
 the Lord that which also I delivered unto you." And 
 then he proceeds, like the Evangelists, to inform us that 
 our Lord's statement as to the Bread and Wine, when 
 
164 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 consecrated, was, <l This is My Body," " This is My 
 Blood." ! He is a further witness, then, to this fact of the 
 Real Presence, and a witness directly illuminated by a 
 revelation from Christ our Lord. His witness, besides, 
 goes directly to an important point, there can be no 
 mistake here as to allegory or metaphor. He does not 
 speak of bread in general or wine in general as typifying 
 the life-giving qualities of our Blessed Lord ; he speaks 
 of the Bread and the Wine, consecrated according to 
 Christ's command in the Sacrament. " The Cup of bless- 
 ing 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 ? " 2 His testimony 
 goes further still. He shows beyond all question that 
 the Real Presence of the Lord's Body and Blood in the 
 Sacrament does not depend in any way whatever upon 
 the faith or unf aith of communicants. Notice his words : 
 " Whosoever shall eat this Bread and drink this Cup of 
 the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and 
 Blood of the Lord; " 3 and, " He that eateth and drinketh 
 unworthily, eateth and drinketh condemnation to him- 
 self, not discerning the Lord's Body." 
 
 Put side by side with this statement of the great 
 Apostle, the assertion quoted above, that " the Body and 
 Blood of Christ are received . . . only by the faithful," 
 and that " the Presence of Christ is only in the heart of 
 the true worshipper." Can you, my dear Dean, imagine 
 a more flat contradiction ? How could any man be 
 "guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord," if that 
 Body and Blood are only present in his heart when he 
 is full of faith and love ? How can any one eat and 
 drink to his own condemnation when he does not " dis- 
 cern the Lord's Body ; " that is, when he does not 
 
 1 1 Cor. xi. 23. 2 1 Cor. x. 16. 3 1 Cor. xi. 27. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 165 
 
 discriminate between common food and a supernatural 
 and awful Presence, if that Presence can never be there 
 unless he is such a person, so full of faith and love, 
 that " unworthily " receiving is to him impossible ? The 
 fact is, my dear friend, that the teaching of all four 
 Evangelists, and above all the teaching of St. Paul, 
 becomes, I submit, unintelligible, becomes almost non- 
 sense, contrary to the plainest axioms of right reason, 
 unless you accept the Catholic doctrine of the Real 
 Presence of the Lord's Body and Blood under the form 
 of Bread and Wine. If you accept that, the teaching of 
 Scripture is plain and reasonable and consonant with 
 common sense. You then, I think, and only then, satisfy 
 the conditions of the statements. 
 
 What I think, then, should be fairly remembered is 
 this, that if the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence 
 be true, all these statements of Holy Scripture are intel- 
 ligible, and that this action of the Christian Church, 
 both in using such words as she has used, and in doing 
 as she has done in regard to the Mysteries, is reasonable 
 and sensible ; but that if you are to ride off upon 
 any of the shifty explanations which one after another 
 have arisen from the fertile hotbed of Protestant heresy, 
 you empty Scripture of its meaning — and as for the 
 action of the Church, — the less, then, said about it the 
 better. 
 
 Turning from Holy Scripture, then, we necessarily 
 examine what the early Church has believed and done 
 in relation to this Holy Mystery. 
 
 I must pause for a moment to remind you, my dear 
 Dean, that although we have examined the statements 
 of Holy Scripture, and although we have seen that, 
 according to right reason, they are only satisfied by the 
 Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence ; still, that for 
 
1 66 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 all believers, what Holy Scripture means in relation to 
 any doctrine is decided by the Church. " I believe in 
 the Holy Catholic Church," is a statement which we are 
 all repeatedly making, with great solemnity, before God. 
 I think I have shown that there are reasonable grounds 
 for believing that Holy Scripture teaches the Real 
 Presence. I now go on to show that that is the inter- 
 pretation put upon the statements of Holy Scripture by 
 the " Holy Catholic Church." 
 
 Still, however, there are several points which require 
 to be stated before we pass to the direct teaching of 
 the Church. 
 
 (1) In the first place, you cannot forget that the 
 Church has always felt how the mystery of Easter 
 morning has illustrated the mystery of the Real Presence. 
 There are, of course, those — especially in this age of 
 narrowness and materialism — who would consider that 
 the one is about as foolish as the other. With people 
 of that sort we have nothing now to do. A soul entirely 
 guided by the canons of what is called practical —i.e. 
 materialistic — philosophy, it is impossible to approach 
 with the mysteries of the Christian Faith. To those, 
 however, who have still their eyes wide enough open 
 to believe that there is another world, and that there 
 are such things as spiritual facts, it may not be wasted 
 time to reassert the mysterious revelation of the Resur- 
 rection Body of our Lord. 
 
 Now we know, if we believe the Gospels (cf. St. Matt, 
 xxviii. 2-6), that our Lord had risen from the dead before 
 the appearance of the angel who rolled away the stone. 
 He came — that blessed messenger — to tell the holy 
 women that the Lord "was risen, as He said." This, 
 as you will remember, is emphasized by St. Chrysostom * 
 
 1 St. John, Horn. 85, § 4, p. 764 ; Oxford Trans. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 167 
 
 and St. Jerome. 1 So — to remind you of the commentary 
 of St. Gregory of Nyssa — " the angel said, ' He is not 
 here ; He hath risen (rjyipOr}).' . . . For had this not been 
 so he would have said, ' Lo, He riseth (eyeiperai)' pointing 
 to what was then taking place. But since it had pre- 
 ceded, he said, using the past tense, ' He is not here ; He 
 hath risen (vytpOi)).' " 2 
 
 I would weary you, my dear friend, and all my 
 readers, if I were to fill my pages with the innumerable 
 references there are to this : viz. that the early writers 
 of the Church felt the mysterious but real fact of the 
 spiritualized Body of the Lord, witnessed to by the 
 historical truth that, without the door being opened, there 
 was that real Body and Blood present to the disciples 
 in the Upper Chamber; and, without the stone being 
 rolled away, there was the Lord's real self — Body 
 and Blood — on the morning of the Resurrection ; and 
 that, therefore, His Real Presence under the form of 
 Bread and Wine is far enough from being contrary to 
 revelation and contrary to reason, but is, as a matter of 
 fact, consonant with both. 
 
 The fact is, my dear friend, that those who deny the 
 Real Presence are the victims of a materialistic imagi- 
 nation. They are carried away, I think, by a notion 
 that we must mean something gross and material, but 
 surely all this is to " walk by sight," and not " by 
 faith." If we seriously believe Christian revelation 
 and Christian history at all, if we are not the victims of 
 a priori theories, and do not so far break with common 
 sense as to say a thing can't be because we are not used 
 to it, then the appearances of our Lord, in spite of closed 
 
 1 St. Jerome, "Epist. ad Hedip.," 9, 6. 
 
 2 " In Christi Resurrec," Orat. 2, t. iii. p. 401. See Pusey, " The 
 Doctrine of the Real Presence," Note C, p. 57. 
 
168 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 doors, in spite of the unrolled stone — nay, as the Fathers 
 have said, though that, for obvious reasons, I do not 
 dwell upon — in spite of the mystery of His birth, by the 
 illcesa virginitate — all point to the wonderful powers of 
 that divinely gifted body which makes it not surprising, 
 after all we have considered of the teaching of Holy 
 Scripture, that it should be given " under the form of 
 Bread and Wine." 
 
 You can't get out of the Lord's words, " This is My 
 Body," " This is My blood." They are wonderful words, 
 but what so explains them as the Catholic doctrine of 
 the Real Presence ? I am wrong. You can get out of 
 His revelation, if you rationalize, if you do not believe. 
 A system of denial is often unrestrained human nature 
 — on the one hand clutching at religion, on the other 
 refusing to " walk by faith." Protestantism in its 
 extreme forms is neither more nor less than " walking 
 by sight." And it is a real help to well-meaning and 
 devout Protestants to be reminded that the doctrine 
 of the Real Presence is the only doctrine quite in tune 
 with the teaching of Holy Scripture as to the Resur- 
 rection Body of the Lord. 
 
 (2) Then, again, it is worth while to remember — is 
 it not ? — what has been said, in fact, by a very great 
 teacher — that mankind generally has felt that it is a 
 fundamental principle of law, that in testaments the 
 plain, the direct, the simple, and evident meaning of 
 words is not to be departed from. 1 " It is not right," 
 says a great teacher on law, "to depart from the 
 meaning of words, save when it is manifest that the 
 testator meant something else." Then, again, says 
 another great legist, " If the testator meant the contrary, 
 there was no difficulty in so disposing it." 2 
 1 Pusey, " Doctriue of Real Presence," Note D, p. 60. 2 Id., ut supra. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 169 
 
 Now consider ; here we have a " New Testament." 
 The " Testator " — being Divine and all-powerful, as 
 well as human — leaves His testament. He foretells 
 that He will give His Body and Blood. He insti- 
 tutes a rite by which He declares that, using His 
 own creatures, He does give His Body and Blood. He 
 orders His followers to carry on the rite. His followers 
 do so, and tell us that this rite, as carried on by them, 
 and those who follow them, is the Communion of His 
 Body and Blood; and, after all that, His professed 
 followers are positively angry with us if we venture 
 to say that He, the Everlasting Truth, meant what He 
 said, and does what He has promised ! 
 
 If the Real Presence is not true, then the promises 
 and the sayings of Christ our Lord have in a measure 
 failed ; then His Testament is not to be interpreted, as 
 every testament is, according to the plain meaning of 
 words ; then, instead of being honest men, we are, in a 
 matter of serious gravity, to play fast and loose with 
 language, and we are to say in effect, " This is My Body," 
 " This is My Blood," means, " This is not My Body," "This 
 is not My Blood." " Don't be so stupid as to believe 
 one word I say ! " This may be that immorality in the 
 use of language too common with sinful man, too usual 
 in diplomacy, when words seem to be used to hide 
 men's meanings, not express them ; one thing it is not — 
 this is not consistent with Christian morality, this is 
 not in accordance with the simplicity of Christ. 
 
 Men must juggle with language ; men must affix 
 non-natural senses to it ; men must allow themselves to 
 drift, by prejudice, or temper, or some other evil " under- 
 tow," far into the ocean of doubt and half believing, 
 before they can say, " This is My Body," " This is My 
 Blood," means anything except the Real, true, objective 
 
 N 
 
170 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Presence of the Body and Blood of the Lord under the 
 form of Bread and Wine. 
 
 (3) I need not detain you on what I may call " the 
 figure theory, because I have, to a certain extent, dwelt 
 upon it already ; still, I touch on it again, to make 
 things clear. Those who deny the truth of our Lord's 
 saying call it " figurative language." Now, here — just to 
 recur to the matter for a moment, because it is one of 
 those fallacies, I think, which tend to lead even good men 
 from the truth — I can't be wrong in reminding you of 
 the wise saying of a great teacher, who says that a 
 figure must lie either in what is spoken of, or in what 
 is said about it, or in the word or phrase which connects 
 the two. I can't quote his words, but I am sure this is 
 the gist of them. Anyhow, no reasonable being can 
 deny that this is a fact} 
 
 Well, to go back again to the usual assertions that 
 our Lord's statement as to the Real Presence is paralleled 
 by His phrases, " I am the Door," " I am the Good 
 Shepherd," "I am the Vine." Compare the sayings. 
 Clearly there is a figure in these sayings — as one would 
 expect — in the final word, i.e. in the predicates. There 
 is a "figure" in "Door," "Vine," "Good Shepherd." 
 These statements, then, are " figurative." You can't, 
 however, have a figure in a whole sentence if you haven't 
 a touch of it in any part of the sentence. That is clear. 
 Any one- who denies that, is outside argument. Where, 
 then, dear friend, I ask you, is the " figure " in this great 
 saying of our Lord, " This is My Body " ? 
 
 Certainly there is no " figure " in " This." The word 
 indicated a definite portion of His creature of bread, 
 then and there to be consecrated. 
 
 With equal certainty there is no " figure " in the 
 
 1 Pusey, '• Doctrine of the Real Presence," Note E. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 171 
 
 word " is." This word is simply a copula — a word of 
 use to join two parts of a sentence ; a word which in 
 the Hebrew idiom may often be omitted ; a word which is 
 qualified by a negative, before which we insert the word 
 not, if the two parts of the sentence do not correspond. 
 
 I need hardly say, "My Body which is given for 
 you " is no " figure," but expresses the fact of a real, 
 definite, sacred Body nailed to the Cross for us sinners. 
 
 The fact is, as far as the argument from language 
 goes, there is not a shred of strength in the anti-Catholic 
 contention. If this kind of immoral use of language is 
 permitted — for I can call it nothing else — then, of course, 
 the Incarnation itself goes. Anything may mean any- 
 thing else. You are out on an open sea of uncertain 
 and unmeaning verbiage. " The Word was made Flesh " 
 may mean "The Word was not made Flesh," and the 
 Docetae may be as right or as wrong as the Christian 
 Church. You have to deal in Scripture either with 
 evident and well-understood picture-language, or — 
 when figures are used, Scripture tells you they are 
 figures ; but not a single instance can be shown in 
 which names which represent an actual thing are used 
 — without the slightest notice given — used in a perfectly 
 unreal sense. Men have seriously to ask themselves, 
 when they juggle with our Lord's words in this way, 
 " Did our Lord come to give us another ■ shadow ' in 
 addition to the many ' shadows ' of the Old Law, or 
 did He come to give us an absolute and blessed 
 Reality ? " Is it conceivable, further, that, using the 
 strongest language He could use in declaring that He 
 gave us a Beality, all the time He was not giving a gift 
 at all, but only adding — and adding in a way terribly 
 to confuse us — to the land of shadows ? It seems to me, 
 dear friend, there can be but one answer to a thoughtful 
 
172 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Christian : He, the Great Reality, gave, as He said He 
 did, His own Real Presence, His own Body and His 
 own Blood. 
 
 (4) Again, people have raised an objection — an 
 objection again, I think, simply coming from " shortened 
 thought," from a want of real faith — when they say, 
 " How could the Lord, being present in the body before 
 the very eyes of His Apostles, also give His Body to 
 them under the form of bread and wine ? " We answer 
 at once we do not know, and we do not profess to 
 know ; we do not know everything as to the mystery 
 of His sacred Humanity. Even " virtualists," however, 
 believe that somehow or other He does give some grace 
 or gift which He calls His Body and Blood — otherwise 
 the Sacrament is an unmeaning and roundabout way 
 of giving what is given in answer to any prayer — and 
 yet He is now present in His Body in heaven. Think 
 in answer to this objection — which is an objection of 
 pure unbelief — of Bishop Jeremy Taylor's saying — 
 
 " When we say we believe Christ's Body to be 
 1 really ' in the Sacrament, do we believe ' that Body, 
 that Flesh, which was born of the Virgin Mary, that 
 was crucified, dead, and buried ' ? I answer that / 
 know of none else that He had or hath. There is but 
 one Body of Christ, natural and glorified ; but he that 
 says that Body is glorified which was crucified, says 
 that it is the same Body, but not after the same manner : 
 and so it is in the Sacrament ; we eat and drink the 
 Body and Blood of Christ that was broken and poured 
 forth; for there is no other Body, no other Blood of 
 Christ ; but though it is the same which we eat and 
 drink, it is in another manner . . . it is not eaten in 
 a natural [or carnal] sense." 1 
 
 1 Bishop Jeremy Taylor, on the Real Presence, vol. ix. p. 431. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 173 
 
 On these points it is necessary emphatically to dwell. 
 We are, of course, as a Catholic believes, in presence 
 of a real fact, but also of a majestic mystery. Once 
 grasp, once believe in the overwhelming mystery of 
 the Incarnation, and this mystery which follows from 
 it presents no difficulty at all to faith. Still, for our 
 present purpose, we must deal with questions of evidence. 
 
 II. Well, after the teachings of Holy Scripture, and 
 after such considerations as these, we must turn for 
 a moment to the testimony of the early Church. If 
 the early Church is against us, we of the English 
 Church may find ourselves in difficulties, for the appeal 
 of the Church of England is emphatically to Holy 
 Scripture and to the early Church. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be worth while again to call atten- 
 tion, in passing, to this fact. The real question before us 
 is, What does the Church of England teach ? Opponents 
 declare that she denies the Real Presence in the Sacra- 
 ment. I affirm that, rightly or wrongly, she asserts 
 this as truth. Now, that being so, it is worth while 
 to remember the words of her canon, passed by the very 
 Convocation which passed the Articles — 
 
 " They [that is, preachers] shall in the first place be 
 careful never to teach anything from the pulpit to 
 be religiously held and believed by the people, but 
 what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old or New 
 Testament, and collected out of that very doctrine by the 
 Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops." 
 
 Now what, on this solemn subject, do " the Catholic 
 Fathers and ancient Bishops " say ? We have seen 
 what has been said by Holy Scripture ; we have seen 
 that only by explaining aivay the Holy Scripture, and 
 by affixing non-natural meanings to its statements, 
 can any plain man get rid of the doctrine of the Real 
 
174 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Presence : what, then, as to the teaching of these other 
 authorities to which we are referred ? 
 
 The difficulty here is to write within any reasonable 
 limits. The evidence for this majestic truth, as it is 
 plain from Holy Scripture, so it is overwhelming and 
 superabundant from the witness of the early Church. 
 
 This I may introduce by quoting weighty and true 
 words : " The words ' This is My Body/ ' This is My Blood/ 
 have been . . . the subject of long, still-continued, and 
 often very bitter controversies.. There was, however, 
 scarcely a dispute concerning them for a thousand years 
 after they were uttered." l 
 
 The fact is, men who held the Christian Faith at all, 
 took for granted, during that long reach of time, that 
 what our Lord said, that He "meant. Well, let us see. 
 
 One or two examples amongst the vast mass of 
 evidence are all that one need mention now. St. 
 Ignatius, as you will remember, who, if any man, must 
 have known the mind of the Apostles, and who was 
 martyred about A.D. 107, writes as follows : " They [that 
 is, the heretics who denyed the reality of our Lord's 
 human Body] abstained from Eucharist and Prayer, 
 because they confess not that the Eucharist is the 
 Flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ which suffered for 
 our sins, which the Father in His mercy raised again. 
 They, then, who speak against the gifts perish while 
 disputing : good had it been for them to love it, that 
 they might rise again ! " 2 In another place he writes, 
 " Haste ye, then, to partake of our Eucharist. For there 
 is one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one Cup for 
 the uniting of His Blood." 8 And yet again he writes, 
 " Breaking one Bread, which is the medicine of immor- 
 
 1 Carter, " Letter on the Blessed Sacrament." 
 
 2 Ep. ad Smyrn., n. 7. 3 Ep. ad Phil, n. 4. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 175 
 
 tality, the antidote that we should not die, but live in 
 Jesus Christ for ever." l 
 
 You will remember, of course, the celebrated passage 
 in St. Justin Martyr's " Apology." St. Justin was con- 
 verted in A.D. 133 and martyred a.d. 165. In describing 
 the Eucharistic Service, he says this, among other 
 things : " This Food is amongst us called Eucharist. . . . 
 We do not receive it as common bread or as common 
 drink ; but, in what way Jesus Christ our Saviour, 
 being through the Word of God Incarnate, had both 
 flesh and blood for our salvation, so also have we been 
 taught that the Food, over which thanksgiving has 
 been made by the prayer of the Word which is from 
 Him (from which [food] our blood and flesh are by 
 transmutation nourished), is the Flesh and Blood of Him, 
 the Incarnate Jesus." 2 
 
 I do not want to weary you ; and others also would 
 be tired out if I were to quote anything approaching 
 to the vast mass of testimony which comes from the 
 early Church ; still I think it is well to remind you and 
 others of the words of such a man as St. Irenreus. 
 Perhaps it may be interesting to some — although, of 
 course, you remember it — to recall what St. Irenseus 
 himself says about his experiences, apart from the ques- 
 tion immediately before us. 
 
 " I remember," he says, " the things of that time [viz. 
 when he was young with St. Polycarp] better than 
 recent things (for those which we have from boyhood, 
 growing up with the soul, are made one with it), so that 
 I can even name the place where the blessed Polycarp 
 sat and conversed, and his goings-out and his comings-in, 
 and the character of his life, and the appearance of his 
 person, and his discourse with the multitude, and his 
 1 Ep. ad Eph., n. 20. 2 " Apol.," i. 65-67. 
 
176 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 familiar intercourse with John, which he used to tell 
 us of, and with the rest who had seen the Lord ; and 
 how he used to recall their sayings, and concerning the 
 Lord, what things he had heard from them, and concern- 
 ing His mighty works, and His teaching, as Polycarp, 
 having received them from the eye-witnesses of the 
 Word of Life, used to relate them ; agreeing in all things 
 with the Scriptures. These things at that time also, 
 through the mercy of God towards me, I heard with 
 diligence, and noted them down, not on paper, but in my 
 heart, and ever, by the grace of God, I meditate truly 
 upon them." * 
 
 Now, can any man in ithe early Church be more 
 valuable as a witness to the mind of those who had 
 been with the Lord Himself ? Well, discussing various 
 Gnostic speculations and absurdities in connection 
 with Dualism, he goes on — pointing out the absurdity 
 of thinking of any creator but the one Creator, and 
 any father but the one Father — as follows : — 
 
 " How shall they know for certain that that Bread 
 over which thanks are given is the Body of their Lord, 
 and that the Cup is the Cup of His Blood, if they do not 
 acknowledge Him as the Son of the Creator of the 
 world, i.e. His Word, through which wood yields fruit' 
 and fountains flow, and the earth yieldeth, first the 
 blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear ? 2 But 
 counselling also His disciples to offer to God firstfruits 
 from His creatures, not as though He needeth ought, but 
 that they might not be unfruitful nor ungrateful, He took 
 that which of His creation is bread, and gave thanks, 
 saying, ( This is My Body; ' and likewise the Cup, which 
 is of that our creation, He confessed to be His Blood, 
 and taught that it is the new oblation of the New 
 1 Fragm., Ep. ad Florin., in Euseb., H. E., v. 20. 2 iv. 18. 4. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 177 
 
 Testament, of which among the twelve prophets Malachi 
 thus presignified : ' I have no pleasure in you, saith the 
 Lord of hosts, neither will I receive an offering at your 
 hands ; for from the rising of the sun unto the going 
 down thereof My Name shall be great among the 
 heathen, and in every place incense shall be offered unto 
 My Name, and a pure offering : for My Name shall be 
 great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts;' most 
 clearly signifying by these words that the former people 
 indeed shall cease to offer to God ; but in every place 
 sacrifice shall be offered to Him, and that pure ; and His 
 Name shall be glorified among the heathen." ' And again 
 he says, " If the Lord belong to another Father, how 
 was it just that taking bread of this our creation He 
 confessed that it was His own Body, and He affirmed 
 that the mingled drink of the Cup was His oivn Blood? ' 2 
 Now, here, dear friend, we have, so to speak, exem- 
 plary testimonies to the Real Presence from those who 
 sat at the feet of Apostles, and to whom, above all, the 
 Church of England appeals. It would be, as I have 
 said, utterly wearisome to go on quoting testimony 
 after testimony of the early Church. No one who 
 takes the trouble to examine the writings of these early 
 teachers can doubt for one moment — unless they twist 
 their language into non-natural senses — that they held 
 a simple and straightforward faith in the great fact of 
 the Real Presence. I might, as you know, quote St. 
 Melito (A.D. 170), and Tatian (a.d. 172), and St. Clement 
 of Alexandria (a.d. 192), who says, "He is both Bread 
 and Flesh, and giveth Himself, being both, to us to eat." 
 I might quote Tertullian, who says, " When the Body 
 of the Lord hath been received and reserved, both are 
 saved, i.e. both the partaking of the Sacrifice and the 
 1 iv. 17. 5. 2 iv. S3. 2. 
 
178 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 fulfilment of the Service." x And again, " The flesh feeds 
 on the Body and Blood of Christ, that the soul may be 
 enriched from God." 2 I might quote, as you know, the 
 sayings of heretics who jeered at the Faith of Catholics, 
 and who all witness to the Faith of the Church in the 
 Real Presence. You remember the striking inscription 
 at Autun, at the close of the second century, in which 
 occurs the words — 
 
 " Keceive the honey-sweet Food of the Holy Things of the Saviour ; 
 Eat, drink; having IX0T2 in thy (or two) hands." 3 
 
 Then I might quote St. Hippolytus, the disciple of St. 
 Irenseus (about A.D. 220) : " He gave us His Divine 
 Flesh and His Precious Blood, to eat and to drink for 
 the remission of sins." 4 Then, of course, Origen (A.D. 
 230), in innumerable passages ; and St. Firmilian (A.D. 
 231), a most illustrious bishop ; and St. Dionysius the 
 Great of Alexandria ; and St. Cyprian (martyred A.D. 
 258), a real witness for the African Church, even 
 though I fear that Dr. Farrar does not approve of him ; 
 and so on, and so on : so that it is impossible to find 
 any of those " Catholic Doctors and ancient Fathers," 
 to whom the Church of England appeals, who do not 
 bear the strongest testimony to the great truth of the 
 Real Presence. 
 
 Now, here, my dear friend, surely it is well to 
 pause and consider this. Mere naturalism, mere " walk- 
 ing by sight," mere following the usual ways of the 
 natural understanding, mere efforts to be guided by 
 the ordinary, easy-going ways of men, could never 
 lead people to imagine that, in this strange world, so 
 
 1 "De Orat.," § 19, p. 312; Oxford Trans. 
 
 2 " De Res. Cam.," c. 8, p. 384. 
 
 3 Quoted by Pusey, " Doctrine of the Real Presence," p. 338. 
 
 4 In Prov. ix. I. 1, 282. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 179 
 
 strange a thing had been done, as that the Eternal Son 
 of God should not only come down from heaven to take 
 flesh, but also should feed us with His Sacred Humanity, 
 in order to renew our sinful, human nature, — I say, 
 nothing so strange could have come into the minds of 
 men unless it had come by Divine Revelation. Well, 
 then, we find a distinct assertion of the fact from the 
 lips of Him Who is Eternal Truth ; we find the same 
 from the direct teaching of His Apostles ; we find an 
 unvarying testimony to the same truth from those who 
 sat at the feet of the Apostles ; we find that, for about a 
 thousand years after the great Institution, no one ever 
 dreamt of denying this blessed truth ; we find that, in 
 order to deny it, modern and new-fangled heresies have 
 to twist and torture the Word of God, the teachings of 
 Apostles, and the teachings of the ancient Fathers who 
 knew best what was the Apostolic mind. We are justi- 
 fied, then, in saying that we will have nothing to do with 
 these new-fangled heresies ; that the Catholic Church 
 has always accepted this blessed truth ; that the 
 English Church — being part of the Catholic Church — 
 has therefore accepted it ; that as she especially appeals 
 to Holy Scripture and the ancient Fathers, she is 
 specially bound to the maintenance of this doctrine, to 
 which both — as I have reminded you — bear such em- 
 phatic witness ; and that, therefore, if under the head 
 of " sacerdotalism " is included (as it seems to be) the 
 teaching of this doctrine, then " sacerdotalism " is cer- 
 tainly the teaching of the Church of England, as she 
 by her appeal to Scripture and the Fathers evidences 
 plainly that she holds the doctrine of the Real Presence 
 of the Body and Blood of the Lord in the Holy Sacra- 
 ment under the form of Bread and Wine. 
 
 III. But two questions require to be dealt with in this 
 
180 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 connection, in order to make things clear on this solemn 
 subject. It is contended by opponents that when we 
 assert the doctrine of the Real Presence, we are in fact 
 teaching Transubstantiation,and that Trans instantiation 
 is directly contrary to the teaching of the English 
 Church. Out of this, I say, there arise two important 
 questions which ought to be considered. (1) Does 
 belief in the Real Presence involve belief in Transub- 
 stantiation ? (2) Does the English Church, in denying 
 Transubstantiation, deny the doctrine of the Real 
 Presence ? I answer emphatically " No ! " to both these 
 questions, and I proceed to show cause why. 
 
 (1) Turn, then, to the first. I repeat the question 
 again — Does belief in the Real Presence involve belief 
 in Transubstantiation ? 
 
 Now, here I may remark that, if one did not know 
 the violence of passion which has been aroused by 
 controversy, it would be almost unintelligible the fierce- 
 ness of anger raised in the minds of some by the bare 
 word "Transubstantiation." This way of explaining 
 the mystery of the Real Presence as to its mode or 
 manner, I do not believe to be a way justified by either 
 philosophy or revelation. Still it is, after all, only the 
 expression of an opinion as to the manner in which the 
 Lord is present. Now, suppose it to be a mistaken way 
 of explaining the fact —as I think it is — why, I wonder, 
 should men be so furious about it ? If members of the 
 Roman Church believe — as I suppose they do — that the 
 manner or method of the Lord's Presence is by Transub- 
 stantiation, the worst you can say of them as to their 
 belief is, that they explain a fact, which is certainly true, 
 by a method of which they have no proof, and for which 
 they can adduce no evidence. If this method had been 
 advanced — as our own Archbishop Bramhali called it — 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. i8t 
 
 as " an opinion of the schools," no fault could be found. 
 Reasonable men would say, " I don't hold that opinion," 
 "You cannot assert it as an article of faith," and 
 there would have been the end of the matter. But 
 what really has occurred, my dear friend, amounts to 
 this— 
 
 (a) The word " Transubstantiation " has been used 
 in a popular and unphilosophical sense. I suppose in 
 this sense the popular imagination before the Reforma- 
 tion was impressed with some fancy which was gross 
 and carnal; that after Consecration there was in no 
 sense any bread and wine, but only flesh and blood. 
 There seems to have been a notion that that "Substance," 
 in the ordinary meaning of that term, had passed away ; 
 that there was no " outward sign ; " that there was only 
 " the thing signified," and that in a gross and materialistic 
 manner. Now, against this meaning of Transubstantia- 
 tion the Church of England protested in her Article. 
 She affirmed that Bread and Wine must be there, other- 
 wise the "nature of a Sacrament" is destroyed. If 
 a Sacrament is a mystery with " an outward sign " 
 and " an inward part," and if you take away " the 
 outward sign " — as this popular notion did — and leave 
 only " the inward part," you of course " destroy the 
 nature of the Sacrament." Against all this the Article 
 protested, and rightly. It did not protest against the 
 Decree of Trent, and for this very good reason, that 
 the Article was written before the Decree of Trent 
 was framed. 
 
 (b) Again, there is the other sense in which the 
 word " Transubstantiation " is used. This is the philo- 
 sophical sense, and this is the sense of the Decree of 
 Trent. There is nothing gross, or carnal, or heretical 
 about it. It is " an opinion of the schools ; " it is an 
 
182 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 opinion which people might hold if they liked, so long 
 as they did not assert it as an article of faith. 
 
 It is based on that form of speculative philosophy 
 which represents all things as having two parts — sub- 
 stance, or the thing in itself; and accident, or the thing 
 as it appears to our senses. 
 
 According to this philosophy of the substance, or 
 substantia, or ovcria, or thing in itself, or that which 
 makes it to be what it is, we know nothing at all. 
 What we do know is the " accident," i.e. what it appears 
 to our senses. Now, the Decree of Trent takes for 
 granted the truth of this philosophical theory. It asserts 
 nothing gross or carnal about the Presence. What it 
 assumes is, that all things consist of substance and 
 accident; i.e., as I have said, of what they are in them- 
 selves, in their very fundamental being, and of what 
 they appear to the senses — of their phenomena, in fact. 
 The Decree assumes the truth of the philosophy, and 
 then lays down as an article of faith, that after Con- 
 secration the substantia, or ovcria, or substance of the 
 consecrated elements, become the Body and Blood of the 
 Lord, while the accidents are still the accidents of 
 Bread and Wine. 
 
 This meaning of Transubstantiation is a totally 
 different one from the gross and carnal and materialistic 
 meaning according to which it is condemned in the 
 Sacrament ; what we really have to quarrel with in the 
 Decree of Trent is this — 
 
 (1) It is framed by a mere section of the Catholic 
 Church, being the Latin section, and not by the whole. 
 It is an example of those unhappy assumptions of the 
 Roman or Latin part of the Catholic Church, whereby 
 she has unfortunately taken upon herself to legislate as 
 to faith and morals, without the agreement of the rest of 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 183 
 
 the Church in her action, and so has emptied her decree 
 of value. The Articles of the Anglican Church may 
 be excellent ; the Decree of Trent may be excellent ; 
 but neither one nor other are infallible truth, for the 
 simple reason that they are the outcome of the mind of 
 a section of the Divine Family, and not of the whole. 
 The first objection to Transubstantiation is that it is 
 decreed as an article of faith by a mere section — the 
 Latin section — of the Catholic Church, and no such 
 decree can hold with binding authority unless it comes 
 from the consensus of the whole Church. 
 
 (2) Another objection to the Decree of Trent as 
 regards Transubstantiation is this. It — passed, as I 
 have said, by only one section of the Western Church, 
 and therefore not Catholic — pretends to sanction, as of 
 Divine Revelation, a philosophy which, to say the least, 
 is open to question. Men may quite reasonably doubt 
 whether all things are divided into substance and acci- 
 dent. They may consider the philosophy which so 
 dealt with things as an exploded philosophy, or they 
 may believe in it ; but it is — to say the least of it — to 
 be regretted when one single section — the Latin section 
 — of the Catholic Church deliberately accepts that par- 
 ticular philosophy as being a Divine Revelation, and 
 deliberately frames a decree as to the mode of the 
 Divine Presence, which assumes the absolute truth of 
 that philosophy. 
 
 If men will only remember, my dear friend, that 
 " Transubstantiation " — the gross, popular, carnal notion 
 — condemned by our Article, has nothing in common 
 with " Transubstantiation " as decreed by the Council 
 of Trent; if they will remember that the Decree of 
 Trent rests upon the philosophy which I have touched 
 upon ; — this, at least, I am sure, will follow — / 
 
1 84 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 (a) They will not lose their tempers over the word 
 " Transubstantiation," as if it meant a belief in some- 
 thing gross, carnal, abominable, and only fit for the 
 depraved and for fools ! 
 
 (b) They will, while they regret the unhappy as- 
 sumptions by the Roman Church, and her unfortunate 
 way of issuing decrees, as if she were the whole of the 
 Executive of the kingdom of God, instead of only one 
 department of it — they will, I say, feel that " Transub- 
 stantiation," as the Decree of Trent teaches it, is "an 
 opinion of the schools," a speculation as to the manner 
 of the Divine Presence, in no sense a heresy. Men may 
 hold this opinion as to the manner of the Presence if 
 they please, so long as they do not teach it as a matter 
 of faith. 
 
 I differ from any who do so think. The philosophy 
 in which such an opinion is founded is, anyhow, a 
 doubtful philosophy; but, no matter what I think, or 
 you think, this opinion, as an opinion, men may hold 
 if they like, so long as they do not put it forward as 
 a matter of faith ; one thing is certain, if any do hold 
 this opinion of the mode of the Divine Presence, you 
 and I may not agree with them, but they certainly do 
 not contravene the Article, which is aimed at a totally 
 different sense of Transubstantiation, which we should 
 all — which I imagine the Roman part of the Catholic 
 Church would herself — condemn. 
 
 (c) And then this is the thing to be remembered 
 above all. Holding the doctrine of the Meal Presence 
 has nothing whatever to do with holding the doctrine 
 of Transubstantiation. Nothing whatever ! There is 
 no more sense in saying that it has, than in saying that 
 when a man declares that he is going from London to 
 Edinburgh, he thereby declares that he must go by the 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 185 
 
 Great Northern Kail way ! The Catholic Church, like 
 Holy Scripture, has always taught the majestic truth 
 of the Real Presence of the Lord's Body and Blood 
 under the form of Bread and Wine. She has never 
 committed herself to any statement as to the manner 
 of that Presence. The Latin Church has unhappily 
 committed herself to a statement of the " how," of the 
 manner of the Presence. She may be right or she may 
 be wrong. She is certainly wrong in pretending to 
 make decrees without the assent of the rest of the 
 Catholic Church. But, right or wrong, one thing is 
 certain — that from the first and now " the Holy Church 
 throughout all the world " has been faithful in teaching 
 the Real Presence, while only the Latin section has 
 unfortunately attempted to say hoiv that Presence is. 
 To believe in the Real Presence is to hold a truth held 
 and taught from the first — to deny which is to deny 
 the plain teaching of Holy Scripture and the Fathers ; — 
 to believe in Transubstantiation is to believe a philo- 
 sophical doctrine of very doubtful validity, adopted in 
 comparatively recent times by one department of the 
 visible Church. If a man denies the Real Presence, he 
 must explain away Scripture and the teaching of the 
 Church in all ages in the interest of a rationalistic 
 prejudice. If a man denies Transubstantiation, he 
 denies — to say the least of it — a very questionable 
 philosophical theory, and a comparatively modern pro- 
 nouncement of one section of the Church. I must say 
 I think it astonishing, then, when opponents are so 
 carried away as to say that to teach the Real Presence 
 is to teach Transubstantiation. It is nothing of the kind. 
 Here, my dear friend, one cannot help noticing a 
 wonderful illustration of the old saying that " extremes 
 meet." Violent Romanists — anyhow in the past — ran 
 
 o 
 
1 86 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 perilously near a denial of the " outward sign " of the 
 Sacrament. Violent Protestants at present, even among 
 ourselves, run perilously near a denial of " the inward 
 part or thing signified." The Holy Sacrament has 
 two parts. If we drift towards the Zwinglian heresy, 
 our religion becomes a matter of subjective impression, 
 and such a rite as the Blessed Sacrament an almost 
 unmeaning, and certainly an embarrassing, accretion. 
 Accept frankly the Catholic Faith as Holy Scripture 
 has taught it, as the Church long before her " family 
 quarrel " witnessed to it, and you have real Bread and 
 Wine an " outward sign," without any philosophical 
 hair-splitting or confusion, and you have also, after 
 consecration, and according to the terms of the Divine 
 promise, the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of 
 the Lord under the form of Bread and Wine. 
 
 The question, however, I again repeat, before us is 
 this — not so much what is or is not taught in Holy 
 Scripture, not what is or is not according to right 
 reason, but what is the teaching of the English Church. 
 Let us see how far we have gone. Surely so far as 
 this — 
 
 (1) Holy Scripture — unless it be mangled or mani- 
 pulated in an unfair and, indeed, Jesuitical manner — 
 teaches the doctrine of the Real Presence. 
 
 (2) The Fathers of the Church, who had special 
 opportunities of knowing the mind of our Lord and 
 His Apostles, with one voice do the same. 
 
 (3) The doctrine of the Real Presence and the 
 doctrine of Transubstantiation are by no means the 
 same thing. One does not involve the other. 
 
 (4) The Church of England, by her appeal to Holy 
 Scripture and to the Fathers, asserts the truth of the 
 Real Presence in accordance with the rest of the 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 187 
 
 Catholic Church, while she condemns the carnal notions 
 once represented by Transubstantiation, and leaves the 
 philosophical notion — unhappily endorsed by the Latin 
 Church — as a matter quite untouched, and for dis- 
 cussion in the schools, not for a decree as to faith. 
 
 Two further points, however, require to be touched 
 upon. The one is perhaps of no grave importance, 
 after all that we have already considered; the other 
 is, however, the piece de resistance of our discussion. 
 
 I. The first is, What do the ancient Liturgies say on 
 this solemn subject ? 
 
 This is, of course, important, for " Lex orandi, Lex 
 credendi " is, as I have said before, a rule of serious and 
 necessary and general application. The early Liturgies 
 are the early Communion Offices of the Church. There 
 are, as you remember, five important families of these. 
 (1) The Liturgy of St. James, i.e. of Jerusalem ; (2) of 
 St. Thaddeus, i.e. of the East; (3) of St. Mark, i.e. of 
 Alexandria ; (4) of St. John, i.e. of Ephesus ; (5) of St. 
 Peter, i.e. of Rome. As to the dates of these Liturgies ; 
 at least they are of great antiquity. That of St. James 
 was venerable when St. Cyril's Catechetical Lectures 
 were delivered, i.e. in A.D. 340. These Services for Holy 
 Communion, though we cannot of course say that they 
 were composed by the Apostles whose names are con- 
 nected with them, yet, we have every reason to believe, 
 contain their teaching, and are, as they have been called, 
 " the legitimate development " of what they handed on 
 regarding the Christian Sacrifice. The words even in 
 many portions of them appear to have been handed on, 
 unchanged, from authors at least of the Apostolic age. 
 The Liturgy of St. James is certainly in the main 
 earlier than a.d. 200. The Liturgy of St. Mark is 
 nearly as old. The Liturgies of St. Basil and St 
 
<?A CERD O TALISM. 
 
 Chrysostom really, in greater measure, appear to come 
 from these saints. St. Basil died A.D. 378, St. Chrysostom 
 died A.D. 407. 
 
 In the Liturgy of St. Mark we have these words : 
 " We pray and beseech Thee ... to send down . . . the 
 very Paraclete . . . that He may . . . make this Bread 
 the Body . . . and this Cup the Blood, of our very 
 Lord, and God, and Saviour, and Universal King, Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 In the Liturgy of St. James we have these words : 
 " Send . . . upon these proffered gifts Thy Most Holy 
 Ghost, the Lord and Life-Giving . . . that coming upon 
 them with His holy, and good, and glorious Presence, 
 He may hallow and make this Bread the Holy Body of 
 Ihy Christ . . . and this Cup the Precious Blood of Thy 
 Christ:' 
 
 In the Liturgy of St. Clement are these words : 
 " Send down Thy Holy Spirit . . . that He may make 
 this Bread the Body of Thy Christ, and this Cup the 
 Blood of Thy Christ" x 
 
 I need not go further. The thing is manifest, and 
 cannot be denied. Men may, if they please, say that 
 they know better than those who were much closer to 
 Apostolic times and more likely to know the mind of 
 Apostles ; or they may twist and distort the language 
 of St. John and St. Paul to what looks very like non- 
 natural senses ; or they may despise the witness of the 
 Communion Services of the early Church, and prefer 
 the modern and more new-fangled theories of Zwingli 
 or of Calvin; but if they will simply and straight- 
 
 1 Cf. Dr. Neale, Letter to Bishop of Brechin, " Earnest Plea for the 
 Retention of the Scotch Liturgy," pp. 9, 10, 13 ; cf. also Dr. Neale in 
 " Ante-Nicene Christian Library " (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh), Intro- 
 ductory Notice to Early Liturgies, p. 4 ; also "On the Holy Eucharist" 
 by Lord Forbes, who quotes these. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 189 
 
 forwardly study the teachings of the Apostles, and of 
 the ancient Liturgies which came anyhow from near 
 their times, then there is little room for question, as it 
 seems to me, that the Church held then, as she holds 
 now, the blessed truth of the Real Presence of the Lord's 
 Body and Blood in the Sacrament under the form of 
 Bread and Wine. 
 
 IV. And now, my dear friend, we come to the direct 
 testimony of the Church of England herself. 
 
 As I have reminded you before, if a doctrine is a 
 doctrine of the Catholic Church, it is, of course, and 
 therefore, a doctrine of the Church of England. The 
 Church of England is in one sense as old as the Day 
 of Pentecost; and in this island, and with her special 
 mission from God, as that part of the Catholic Church 
 sent to work in and for England and the English people, 
 she is older than the English kingdom or English Parlia- 
 ment, which in fact she formed. It is enough to know her 
 history to be sure, then, any really Catholic doctrine is 
 hers. Since, however, the convulsions and troubles of 
 the sixteenth century, since " the quarrel in the family," 
 in consequence of which the Roman and Anglican parts 
 of the Church have been so unhappily standing apart, 
 we are sometimes challenged to show from our trans- 
 lated Office-books — from our present Prayer-book, in fact 
 — that the Church of England is still true to her earlier 
 traditions. This, in regard to this doctrine which we 
 are just now discussing, is not, I submit, difficult 
 to do. 
 
 I repeat, indeed, that if there were the slightest 
 shade of doubt in her utterances as they stand in our 
 present books, these would be dispelled by reference to 
 early witnesses to whom I have already referred ; being 
 part of the Catholic Church, all her teachings must be 
 
190 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 interpreted in a Catholic sense. But there is not, I think, 
 a shade of doubt on the subject. 
 
 (1) The Church, first of all, is an Ecclesia Docens, a 
 teaching Church. We turn naturally, therefore, first to 
 her Catechism to learn what, on so serious a subject, 
 she teaches the young. Here we are left in no sort of 
 doubt. There is no room for mistake. In order to 
 evade the truth, we must twist and mangle the Church's 
 language; otherwise the Church is clear on the Real 
 Presence. 
 
 " Q. What is the inward part or thing signified ? 
 
 " A. The Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily 
 and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the 
 Lord's Supper." 
 
 Now, notice the inward part is not merely a grace, 
 or a blessing, or a benefit. It is more ; it is the Author 
 of grace ; it is — no words can be clearer — " the Body 
 and Blood of Christ." 
 
 This is direct ; this is plain. There is no getting 
 over this, whatever Jesuitry we may be tempted to 
 employ. The Church of England — rightly or wrongly 
 — that is not the point now — says the inward part of 
 the Sacrament is "the Body and Blood of Christ." 
 They, then, who teach the Real Presence of His Body 
 and Blood under the form of Bread and Wine are 
 certainly not disloyal members of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 Then the Catechism goes on to say, these are " verily 
 and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the 
 Lord's Supper." 
 
 On this I have first to observe, if " verily and indeed " 
 does not mean " in real and actual fact," then language 
 is useless to express ideas, and we may abandon the use 
 of it in despair ! And again I ask you, for plain and 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 191 
 
 straightforward people, how can anything be " taken " 
 if it isn't there to " take " ? How can a thing be " re- 
 ceived " if it isn't there to " receive " ? The thing is 
 absurd. Supposing— per impossibile — that our part of 
 the Catholic Church had departed from the Faith, and 
 embraced some of the Zwinglian or Calvinistic theories, 
 which some of her members apparently teach, in the 
 teeth, as it seems to me, of their undertakings to the 
 contrary, — I say, suppose for a moment she had aban- 
 doned the Faith on this point, and had denied what 
 appears to be our Lord's teaching as to His Real 
 Presence, how, I ask, could she have expressed herself 
 in a manner less calculated to convey her real meaning 
 than she has done in the Catechism ? 
 
 Imagine for a moment that yon are a framer of the 
 Catechism, and that yon hold, with some of our oppo- 
 nents, "that the Presence of Christ is in the heart of 
 the true worshipper, and not, in any sense of the words 
 tvhatever, in the hands of the priest," — I say, supposing 
 you held this view, how would you frame that answer ? 
 I undertake to say your answer would be something 
 of this sort : " The inward part or thing signified is 
 a grace from God. I have to remember that it is, 
 above all, not the Body and Blood of Christ. These are 
 never taken or received, for they are not there, and as, 
 ' in no sense of the words whatever/ are they 'in the 
 hands of the priest/ he can't give what he hasn't got, I 
 can't ' receive ' from him what he can't give, therefore 
 he does not give, I do not take, and I can't receive the 
 Body and Blood of Christ." 
 
 Now, my dear friend, this would be the true answer 
 in the Catechism if those who deny the Real Presence 
 had had the framing of it. What is the answer ? Again 
 I say, she may be right or she may be wrong, but what 
 
192 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 we want to know is, What does the Church of England 
 teach ? This : " The Body and Blood of Christ ... are 
 verily and indeed taken and received!' Can there be a 
 more explicit statement of the Real Objective Presence ? 
 I say there cannot. If the Real Presence be not true, 
 then the less we have to do with the Church of England 
 the better, for certainly she has done her best to teach 
 us that it is true. If it be true — as it is — no part of the 
 Catholic Church has been more distinct and emphatic 
 in the matter than the Church of England. 
 
 But the tortuous resources of opponents to her 
 teaching are almost inexhaustible. I am ashamed to 
 allude to such an absurdity, but it is, I believe, a fact, 
 that there are men who try — if I may so say — to 
 " wriggle out " of the teaching of the Catechism by 
 saying, " Yes, they are received by ' the faithful in the 
 Lord's Supper/ i.e. by those only who are full of faith." 
 
 Well, (1) granting this — what is doubtless not meant 
 to be, but which looks very like a — bit of shuffling ; well, 
 even so — even by those who are " full of faith " — that 
 cannot be "taken and received" which is not there. 
 But (2) you know as well as I that " the faithful " is a 
 technical expression for professedly devout Church- 
 people, without inquisitorial investigation as to their 
 exact condition before God. Everybody knows this, 
 and to ride off on a " stick " of this sort shows to what 
 straits people are brought in trying to saddle the 
 Church of England with uncatholic teachings. 
 
 The Catechism is explicit. In the Sacrament of 
 Baptism it deals with " the outward sign " and " the 
 inward grace." In the Blessed Sacrament it no longer 
 asks, " What is the inward grace ? " but " What is the 
 inward part or thing signified ? " The answer is, " The 
 Body and Blood of Christ." Then come the question 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 193 
 
 and answer as to the " benefit." " The thing signified " 
 is something distinct from the " grace " or " benefit ; " the 
 " Res Sacramenti " from the " Virtus Sacramenti." All 
 Church-people who communicate receive the " Res Sacra- 
 menti/' i.e. all " the faithful " receive the Body and Blood 
 of the Lord ; but those who receive it " worthily " are 
 the only ones who receive the " Virtus Sacramenti," to 
 the " strengthening and refreshing of their souls ; " those 
 who receive "unworthily," i.e. without faith and re- 
 pentance, " eat and drink condemnation." But the 
 reason, in the one case of blessing, in the other, of con- 
 demnation, is that " the Body and Blood of the Lord " 
 are there. You could not be guilty of desecrating some- 
 thing that was not there. 
 
 There is, it seems to me, no getting out of this 
 teaching of the Catechism ; it is plain and exact, and 
 teaches " the Real Presence of the Lord's Body and 
 Blood " under the form of Bread and Wine. 
 
 Objections, as you know, have been made to this 
 on the ground that the Twenty -ninth Article contradicts 
 it by denying the reception by the wicked. Now (1) 
 if the Article in question appears to deny that unworthy 
 communicants in some sense receive the Body and Blood 
 of the Lord, it must be interpreted according to the 
 Prayer-book. It cannot mean to deny it, even if it 
 appears to do so. But (2) the Article, of course, cannot 
 mean this. If it did, it would contradict Holy Scripture. 
 St. Paul, again I remind you, said, " Wherefore whoso- 
 ever shall eat this Bread and drink this Cup of the Lord 
 unworthily " (i.e. without penitence and earnestness and 
 faith — in fact, in a bad worldly spirit), " shall be guilty 
 of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But let a man 
 examine himself, and so let him eat of that Bread and 
 drink of that Cup. For he that eateth and drinketh 
 
194 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment (tcpi/ma) to 
 himself, not discerning the Lord's Body." 
 
 Now, I repeat, if the Bread and Wine be not the 
 Body and Blood of the Lord, it is not possible for an 
 unworthy communicant to be "guilty of the Lord's 
 Body and Blood." If the Sacrament were only the 
 pious rite for which opponents to the Catholic Faith 
 contend, then an unworthy communicant might be un- 
 godly, or sacrilegious, or profane, or irreverent, or neg- 
 lectful — as he might be by being careless or thoughtless 
 in his prayers — but "guilty of the Lord's Body and 
 Blood "he could not be. The Sacrament has — the Church 
 and surely also the Bible teach — the " outward part," 
 " Bread and Wine ; " it has the " inward part," " the 
 Body and Blood of the Lord." This " inward part " is 
 " verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful," 
 i.e. by professing believers and Church-people. If any 
 of them receive it " unworthily," they are " guilty of 
 the Body and Blood of the Lord." Why ? Because it 
 is there, and they receiving it are not in a state ready 
 for so great a gift. If they receive no such gift, of 
 course they can't be guilty of receiving it in a wrong 
 way. 
 
 But further, St. Paul goes on to point the way to 
 avoid such a danger. " Let a man examine himself." 
 The way is the use of real penitential discipline. Past 
 sin is cleansed through repentance. Self-examination, 
 and all that that implies, is the way to avoid the danger. 
 The danger, I repeat, then, is real ; it is the danger of 
 eating and drinking "judgment," because unworthy 
 communicants do not " discern the Lord's Body." My 
 dear friend, there could, I repeat, be no fault in not 
 " discerning " what is not there. St. Chrysostom, com- 
 menting on St. Paul's words, says, " Not discerning, not 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 195 
 
 searching, not bearing in mind as he ought, the greatness 
 of the things set before him — not estimating the weight 
 of the gift ; for if thou shouldest come to know accu- 
 rately Who it is that lieth before thee, and Who He 
 is Who giveth Himself, . . . thou wilt need no other 
 argument, but this is enough for thee to use all 
 vigilance." * 
 
 The matter, if you think of it, really comes to 
 this — 
 
 (1) Unworthy communicants either receive some- 
 thing more than Bread and Wine, or they do not. 
 
 (2) Well, if they do not, they may be acting sin- 
 fully, but no more sinfully than in being careless about 
 prayer or any other religious service, and St. Paul's 
 words about being " guilty of the Body and Blood " 
 would be, to say the least of them, singularly inappro- 
 priate. 
 
 (3) But their sin stands by itself ; it is a much more 
 serious sin; it is a guilt in regard to the Body and 
 Blood of the Lord. 
 
 (4) What they receive, then, is something more than 
 Bread and Wine. It is the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 (5) For you can't, I repeat, have an Absence and 
 a Presence. Our Lord is really Absent or He is really 
 Present — one or other. Present He must be, then, for 
 such sin to be possible. 
 
 Besides, again St. Paul reminds us that the sin is 
 "not discerning the Lord's Body," i.e. not distinguish- 
 ing or discriminating between it and all other food — 
 jurj §iaicpivii)v to crw/ia tov Kvpiov. Now, there could be 
 no possible sin in not making such a distinction between 
 the Body of the Lord and all other food if the Body of 
 the Lord be not there ! 
 
 1 Horn. 28, 1 Cor. v. 29, sec. 2. 
 
196 SACERDO TALISM. 
 
 Either this is so, or it seems to me language has 
 no meaning, and we may play fast and loose with the 
 clearest statements of Scripture, so that they may be 
 made to mean anything or nothing, according as it suits 
 our taste. 
 
 The Article XXIX. cannot, then, mean to deny the 
 reception by the wicked ; for if so, it would contradict 
 Holy Scripture, to which the Church appeals. 
 
 But (3) the Article really is meant to teach a truth 
 ivhich depends upon the Real Presence. In the Holy 
 Sacrament is (a) the outward sign, (b) the thing 
 signified, (c) the benefit. There is (a) the signum, (b) 
 the Res Sacramenti, (c) the Virtus Sacramenti. 
 
 The penitent, and those who approach in faith and 
 earnestness, receive all three. Unworthy communicants 
 receive not the last. They receive, indeed, the Body 
 and Blood of Christ, but not to " the strengthening and 
 refreshing of their souls," but to condemnation. Christ, 
 in fact, is in the Sacrament — in some cases to bless, in 
 others to judge ; but Christ is always really there. 
 
 This is still more clear if we compare Article 
 XXV. with this. There, speaking evidently of the 
 Holy Communion, the Article says — 
 
 " In such only as worthily receive the same, they 
 have a wholesome operation ; but they that receive 
 them unworthily, purchase to themselves damnation 
 [i.e. condemnation], as St. Paul saith." 
 
 When, then, Article XXIX. speaks of the wicked 
 being " in no wise partakers of Christ," it means 
 by "partakers of Christ" what Article XXV. means 
 by saying there is " a wholesome effect or operation/' 
 That is, Article XXIX. does not deny the reception of 
 the wicked, does not, therefore, deny the Real Presence ; 
 does affirm, along with Article XXV., the absence of 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 197 
 
 benefit in such reception, and indeed the sin of it, which 
 depends upon the reality of the Presence. 1 
 
 So far we have seen that the Catechism and Articles 
 teach this truth. 
 
 We turn now to the Communion Service itself, and 
 here again the plain statements of the Prayer-book must 
 be explained away, it seems to me, unless we hold this 
 truth. 
 
 In the first Exhortation we are reminded that " in 
 that Holy Sacrament " Christ is " our Food." " Spiritual 
 food and sustenance " is the expression. I need hardly 
 repeat that " spiritual " does not mean " unreal," but the 
 reverse. It is not " grace," or " blessing," or " benefit," 
 or good things coming from Christ, which are declared 
 to be given to us, but Christ Himself, to be " our Food in 
 that Holy Sacrament." 
 
 Again, in the Exhortation just before receiving, the 
 Church tells us how worthy communicants not only 
 receive the Res Sacramenti, but also the Virtus Sacra- 
 menti; not only receive the Body and Blood of the Lord, 
 but receive it so that they are united to Him. 
 
 If we " receive that Holy Sacrament with a true 
 penitent heart and lively faith, then we spiritually eat 
 the Flesh of Christ, and drink His Blood ; then we dwell 
 in Christ, and Christ in us ; we are one with Christ, and 
 Christ with us." Here is the Real Presence, and — to a 
 worthy communicant — all its benefits. These words are 
 also valuable, for they show that the Church of England, 
 like the rest of the Catholic Church, holds the great dis- 
 course in the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel to refer 
 to the Blessed Sacrament. It is that chapter which 
 
 1 Cf. Pusey, "Doctrine of the Real Presence in the Church of 
 England," chaps, ii., viii. ; also " Theological Defence " of the Bishop of 
 Brechin. 
 
198 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 supplies to our Church authority for saying that then 
 " we eat the Flesh of Christ, and drink His Blood." 
 The words of this Exhortation are almost a repetition 
 of His own blessed words, " He that eateth My Flesh, 
 and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in 
 him." » 
 
 Blessed, surely, it is to know that if, by His help, 
 we bring only " a true penitent heart and lively faith," 
 there He is — not created by our faith, but waiting for 
 us ; and we receive all that we can desire because of the 
 reality of that Presence, by His own power and 
 love. 
 
 Again, in the Prayer of Humble Access the same is 
 clearly taught — 
 
 " Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the 
 Flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink 
 His Blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean 
 by His Body, and our souls washed through His most 
 precious Blood,- and that we may evermore dwell in Him, 
 and He in us." 
 
 Now, here, dear friend, it is clear that if we pray 
 " so " to partake of His Body and Blood that the effect 
 may be blessed, it is evident that it may be partaken of 
 in another way. In either case the presence of the 
 sacred gifts is assumed. 
 
 Again, there is no mere general allusion to being 
 saved by faith in Christ's death. Here is a cleansing 
 of body and soul, through contact with the blessed 
 Body and Blood of the Lord, so clearly and strongly 
 put, that one cannot but feel that if such words were 
 our words, and not the words of the Prayer-book, 
 opponents would probably rebuke us for what they 
 are so inclined to call " materialism," but what, when 
 1 Cf. Pusey, ut supra. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 199 
 
 you avoid confusion of thought, you perceive to be 
 spiritual fact and reality. 
 
 Again, in the Consecration Prayer, the priest is 
 praying over God's "creatures of Bread and Wine." 
 They are " His creatures " then, and only so, at that 
 moment, as not yet consecrated. They remain — these 
 elements — even after consecration, " His creatures in 
 their natural substance ; " but now, if they are received 
 " according to our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institu- 
 tion," i.e. if they are consecrated by His own words, and 
 in His own power, then we pray that if we so receive 
 them according to His will and way — what may 
 happen ? That we may have a blessing, or some grace 
 given ? Not at all ; but that we may " become partakers 
 of His most blessed Body and Blood." 
 
 The words with which the consecrated elements 
 are given, state the great truth emphatically : " The 
 Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given 
 for thee . . . the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which 
 was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto 
 everlasting life." Is it conceivable, my dear friend, 
 that the Church in such a moment could put such 
 words into the mouth of her priests if she meant some- 
 thing totally different? It is not conceivable. It 
 would be to juggle with language on a most sacred 
 subject and at a most sacred moment, if she allowed 
 herself so to speak of the Body and Blood of Christ, 
 when she really meant that there was no presence of 
 the Sacred Humanity ! The thing would be monstrous, 
 and, in the interest of the morality of language, if the 
 Real Presence be not true, the use of such words is 
 wrong. 
 
 And yet these same words, with slight variations, 
 but always as strong, have been used in the Church at all 
 
2oo SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 times. The Church has formed them out of our Saviour's 
 promise; and in the Church of England herself, ever 
 since her earliest days, such words have been used. 
 Every one held the Real Presence then. It is trifling 
 with language to pretend that now they are to bear 
 some different meaning, when their meaning has always 
 been well understood, and are to be subjected to non- 
 natural interpretations in order to make them do duty 
 for a meaning the very reverse of what has always been 
 affixed to them, and what they were meant to express. 1 
 
 These words are important, it seems to me, to dwell 
 upon, for they are a direct address to each communi- 
 cant. Two or three points about them require to be 
 thought of. 
 
 (1) The second clause added takes nothing away from 
 this. The second clause enforces a duty. The duty is 
 to be grateful to God for His blessed gift, to be earnest 
 and spiritual in receiving it, and to remember that the 
 Holy Eucharist is also a remembrance, and has a com- 
 memorative aspect. 
 
 (2) With some such words as these, as it has been 
 truly said, 2 in every Liturgy or Communion Service of 
 the Christian Church, the Body and Blood of Christ 
 have been given by the priest to the communicants. 
 " With such words of blessing the consecrated elements 
 were delivered to every communicant in every church 
 in our land. What these words meant during nine 
 centuries, what they meant in the reign of Henry VIII., 
 that they must still have meant, when, at the very 
 beginning of Edward VL's reign, the old words of 
 benediction sounded to us again in our own tongue." 
 Every one knew what they meant. The same they 
 meant, of course, in Edward's First Book. The same 
 
 1 Cf. Pusey, ut supra. 2 Pusey, ut supra. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 201 
 
 they mean now. They meant then, and now they 
 mean, that the priest does not give the communicant 
 common bread and common wine, but, in giving the 
 consecrated bread and consecrated wine, he gives the 
 Very True Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 which He took of the Virgin Mary, not in a carnal 
 manner, but in a mystery according to the laws of a 
 spiritual Body, but really and certainly " under the 
 form of Bread and Wine." * 
 
 (3) So completely was it known that these words 
 taught the Real Presence, that when evil influences of 
 heresy were at work they were dropped out. And no 
 more striking proof can be given of the deliberate 
 purpose of our Reformers to maintain the doctrine than 
 their deliberate reintroduction of these words. To deny 
 the Real Objective Presence is really, it seems to me, 
 to violate " the principles of the Reformation " in the 
 English Church. 
 
 The quantity and weight of testimony in this matter 
 is so great, that it would be out of the question to 
 dwell on it all ; but these further considerations, I 
 think, ought to be remembered before I close this 
 part of our subject. Nothing, perhaps, more clearly 
 expresses the Catholic doctrine on the subject as taught 
 in Scripture, as held by the undivided Church, and as 
 witnessed to by the Church of England, than the phrase 
 used at the end of the First Book of the Homilies — " of 
 the due receiving of His Blessed Body and Blood under 
 the form of Bread and Wine." This precisely expresses 
 the doctrine of the Real Presence as taught by the 
 Church, apart from and to be distinguished from that 
 ' opinion of the schools," as Archbishop Bramhall called 
 
 1 Pusey, "Doctrine of the Real Presence," pp. 178, 179. 
 
 P 
 
202 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 it, as to the 'manner of the Presence, which is called 
 Transubstantiation. I repeat, that to teach the Real 
 Presence is to teach a Scriptural doctrine as our Church 
 interprets Scripture, and a Catholic doctrine, and one 
 authorized and endorsed by the Church of England ; 
 while to teach Transubstantiation is to teach a special 
 mode of the Presence, which has no authority, except 
 the authority in later times of the Latin section of the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 Those who oppose Catholic doctrine have, oddly 
 enough, argued against this phrase of the Homilies, as 
 if it had no authority, and I believe that some of them 
 have gone so far as to say that the phrase was with- 
 drawn. This, of course, is not the fact. It is worth 
 while, in this connection, to quote the learned words of 
 the late Sir Robert Phillimore, in his judgment de- 
 livered as official Principal of the Arches Court of Can- 
 terbury, in the celebrated case of Sheppard v. Bennett. 
 The words of the learned judge are as follows : " This 
 form of expression has been used in our formularies as 
 applicable to the substances of Bread and Wine remain- 
 ing unchanged. They were so used in the Articles of 
 
 1536, and in the 'Institution of a Christian Man' in 
 
 1537. In the Six Articles a direct statement of Tran- 
 substantiation took their place. They do not appear 
 in the 'Necessary Erudition' of 1543. After a lapse 
 of four years, they reappear under the auspices of 
 Cranmer and other bishops at the end of the First 
 Book of the Homilies, where it is said ' Hereafter shall 
 follow sermons of the Nativity, Passion, Resurrection, 
 and Ascension of our Saviour Christ ; of the due 
 receiving of His Blessed Body and Blood under the 
 form of Bread and Wine.' And it is not unimportant 
 to observe that, early in the reign of Elizabeth, the 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 203 
 
 bishops advert to this statement ; for, in their title to 
 the Second Book of the Homilies, they speak ' of such 
 matters as were promised and entituled in the former 
 Book of Homilies/ And in Queen Elizabeth's Primer 
 of 1559, we find the prayer which begins, ' Our Saviour 
 and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, Which in Thy last Supper 
 with Thine Apostles didst deliver Thy Blessed Body and 
 Blood under the form of Bread and Wine.' The First 
 Book of Homilies has undergone two revisions, and the 
 statement ' under the form of Bread and Wine ' re- 
 mains unchanged up to the present time." 1 The judge 
 then goes on to point out that pretty much the same 
 form of expression had been used by Ratramnus, who 
 is quoted with approval by Bishop Burnett. He re- 
 minds us also that under the inhuman statute enforced 
 in the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V., the followers 
 of Wickliffe and the Lollards suffered for teaching this 
 very doctrine, "the Sacrament of Christ's Flesh and 
 His Blood in form of Bread and Wine," and refusing 
 to acknowledge that after the words of Consecration, 
 material bread and wine no longer existed. Sir John 
 Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, suffered in 1414 for asserting 
 the very same doctrine of the Real Presence, but not 
 believing in Transubstantiation. The learned judge 
 also reminds us that in the First of the Six Articles 
 which went back to Transubstantiation , this expression 
 had to be varied, and the statement was, " that in the 
 Eucharist is really present the natural Body of Christ 
 under the forms and without the substance of bread and 
 wine." This is a plain enough evidence that the phrase 
 of the Homilies does not teach Transubstantiation, but 
 does teach the Real Presence. Ridley, he reminds us, 
 was certainly in accord with, and would have adopted 
 1 Judgment, p. 71 [The italics are mine. — W. J. K. L.] 
 
204 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 the language of, Ratramnus, and have induced Cranmer 
 to do so. 
 
 It is well known, also, that the Confession of Augs- 
 burg teaches the same, and uses the very same expres- 
 sion ; and it is worth remembering that at the time the 
 Jerusalem bishopric was formed, the instructions to the 
 English bishop sent from Lambeth and London were, to 
 ordain Prussian subjects who had subscribed the Con- 
 fession of Augsburg as well as the Thirty-Nine Articles 
 of the English Church. There can be no doubt, then, 
 I submit, that the expression, " the Body and Blood of 
 the Lord under the form of Bread and Wine," as it is 
 a statement of the doctrine of the Real Presence, and 
 not of Transubstantiation, so it expresses the mind of 
 the English Church. 1 
 
 Again, it is worth while to call attention to the fact 
 that no one who dwells upon this Blessed Mystery 
 desires to use such language as that "the elements 
 locally contain in themselves the Presence of Christ's 
 Body and Blood." Attention has been drawn recently 
 to two passages which it is worth while to quote in this 
 connection. 2 
 
 (1) " Christ is present in the Sacrament only in 
 substance, and substance does not require or imply the 
 occupation of place, but if place is excluded from the 
 idea of the Sacramental Presence, therefore division or 
 distance from heaven is excluded also; for distance 
 implies a measurable interval, and such there cannot be 
 except between places. Moreover, if the idea of distance 
 is excluded, therefore is the idea of motion. Our Lord, 
 then, neither descends from heaven upon our altars, nor 
 moves when carried in procession. The visible species 
 
 1 Judgment, pp. 72, 73. 
 
 2 By Canon Bodington, Guardian, Oct. 18, 1893. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 205 
 
 change their position, but He does not move. He is in 
 the Holy Eucharist after the manner of the spirit, we 
 do not know how ; we have not parallel to the ' how ' 
 in our experience. We can only say that He is present, 
 not according to the natural manner of bodies, but 
 sacramentally. His Presence is substantial, spirit-wise, 
 sacramental, an absolute mystery. Not against reason, 
 however, but against imagination, and must be received 
 by faith." x 
 
 And (2) " the opinion of those . . . seems to be most 
 safe and most right who think — nay, who most firmly 
 believe — that the Body and Blood of Christ is truly, 
 really, and substantially present, and taken in the 
 Eucharist, but in a way which is incomprehensible to the 
 human understanding, and much more beyond the 
 power of man to express, which is known to God alone, 
 and not revealed to us in Scripture." 2 
 
 The fact is, my dear friend, that in speaking of tlie 
 Real Presence we are dealing with a great and solemn 
 Mystery; that is, we are dealing with a Divine Fact, but 
 a Fact partly veiled from us, and of the manner or 
 mode of which we know nothing at all. Unfortunately 
 for the peace of Christendom, the Roman Church 
 undertook to define the manner or mode, and called it 
 Transubstantiation. Unfortunately, various Protestant 
 teachers not only refuse to believe in this mode, but 
 actually deny the fact. Some of them, like the 
 extreme Zwinglians, followed by a number of Protestant 
 Dissenters in this country, make the Sacrament into a 
 mere sign of the love that Christian people ought to 
 have for one another. With them the nature of a 
 
 1 "Via Media," vol. ii. 
 
 2 Bishop Forbes, ■ Considerat. Modest, de Eucharist," lib. iii. 
 
206 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 sacrament is destroyed, for there is no inward 'part at 
 all, and it becomes a mere ceremony of questionable 
 appropriateness, in the use of which persons, if devout, 
 may expect some blessing from God, just as they might 
 expect it from any other religious act devoutly fulfilled. 
 Others rise a step higher, and seem to believe in some 
 kind of presence or gift, given to persons who receive 
 the Sacrament devoutly and with faith. According to 
 these, there is no sort of Presence of Christ extra usum. 
 According to them, whatever Presence there is, is the 
 consequence of their faith. 
 
 All such views, I submit, are inconsistent, as we have 
 seen, with the teaching of Scripture as our Church 
 interprets it, with the Faith of the early Church, and 
 therefore with the teachings of the Church of England. 
 The important point to remember is, that the con- 
 secration of the elements by a properly ordained priest, 
 not the faith of the receiver, nor the fact of his re- 
 ceiving, is the characteristic circumstance upon which 
 the validity of the Sacrament, and the reality of the 
 Divine, mysterious, and blessed Presence, depends. 
 Think, my dear friend, as I draw to a close of this part 
 of our subject, of the words of St. Augustine : " Our 
 Bread and our Cup is not any one " (that is, any 
 specimen of such food in its ordinary condition), . . . 
 " but it is a mystical one, which is produced by a fixed 
 consecration, and does not come by growth. That which 
 is not produced in this way " (that is, by consecration), 
 " though it may be bread and a cup, is a means of 
 bodily refreshment, not a Sacrament of religion." x 
 
 Think, again, of the words of St. Ambrose : " Before 
 the blessing of the sacred words, another species is 
 named ; after consecration, the Body is signified. Before 
 1 " Contra. Faustum ," xx. 13. 
 
THE REAL PRESENCE. 207 
 
 consecration, it is called a different thing ; after conse- 
 cration, it is called Blood." * Or, again, of his words as 
 follows : " Sacraments, by the mystery of holy Prayer " 
 (that is, by consecration) " are transfigured into the Flesh 
 and Blood." 2 Think, again, of the strength of belief in 
 the Real Objective Presence shown in the many state- 
 ments of our own great divines. It would weary you, 
 and require too much space, to quote one-tenth of such 
 utterances ; but think of one, as an instance, from Sher- 
 lock's " Practical Christian " — 
 
 " Grant, Holy Jesus, that as I have now received in 
 faith Thy precious Body and Blood, veiled under the 
 species of Bread and Wine, I may hereafter behold Thy 
 Blessed Face revealed in Heaven." 3 
 
 " He discerns not this Body of our Lord, who sees not 
 with the eye of faith Christ really present under the 
 species of Bread and Wine, though he conceive not the 
 manner thereof . . . not curiously questioning, much 
 less pragmatically defining, the way and manner of His 
 Presence, as being deeply mysterious and inconceivable." 
 
 " These old verses, expressing the Faith of the wisest 
 
 of our first Reformers, may satisfy every modest, humble, 
 
 sober-minded, good Christian, in this great Mystery of 
 
 godliness — 
 
 " * It was the Lord that spake it, 
 He took the bread and brake it ; 
 And what His Word did make it, 
 So I believe and take it.' 
 ***** 
 
 " And he that receives Christ's Holy Body and Blood 
 into his soul, not first emptied of all his sins by holy 
 faith, and all the sacred offices of true repentance, doth 
 
 1 " De iis qui initiantur Myst.," c. xi. 
 
 2 " De Fide," iv. 10, n. 124, t. ii. 544. 
 
 3 "Practical Christian," part ii., chap. x. 
 
208 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 with Judas betray His Master into the hands of His 
 enemies — even those very enemies which crucified Him ; 
 for those were our sins. And therefore it is said of 
 such unworthy enemies that they are guilty of the 
 Body and Blood of Christ." x 
 
 To draw to a close, then. It is a comfort, of course, 
 to remember that persons, who unhappily deny the 
 Catholic doctrine of the Keal Presence, often, in their 
 heart of hearts, are holding what in words they deny. 
 They really mean — we may well believe — to deny some 
 carnal or material notion which they imagine to be 
 implied in the Catholic doctrine. It is a comfort to 
 think how these devout persons approach the Sacrament 
 with loving faith, and receive the inestimable blessing 
 of that Divine Presence, which in words and through 
 misunderstanding they would deny. Still, there is 
 always some loss, we cannot but feel, in the want of a 
 clear view of truth where it may be had. Once let us 
 believe the Lord's own words, the teaching of His 
 Apostles, and the voice of His Church, we no longer 
 are driven to juggling with language, and torturing our 
 minds and spirits by such notions as those of Zwinglian- 
 ism or Virtualism, which perplex us by using the sacred 
 words that assert a Real Presence, while yet they 
 practically insist upon a Real Absence. Once hold the 
 majestic doctrine of the Catholic Church, and you have 
 all that you can need. For think of its simplicity and 
 consolation. Simplicity — for what the Lord says, that 
 we know He does — how He does it we do not know, nor 
 do we care to inquire ; consolation — for think of the 
 joy in loneliness, in sorrow, in the trials of absence, in 
 the loss of friends, to find ourselves before the Holy 
 
 1 "Practical Christian," part ii., chap, i., quoted by Phillimore, 
 Judgment, p. 75. 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 209 
 
 Sacrament in the very Presence of Divine Compassion, 
 and in closest touch with Him, Who is there, not by 
 virtue of any faith or feeling of ours, but in fulfilment 
 of His own promise, and by virtue of His own power. 
 Reality, as I have ventured to say before, is a watch- 
 word of the Faith. It is too sad to think how 
 Christian men have struggled over this awful and 
 blessed Mystery; but surely many of their struggles 
 and disagreements would pass away, if they only got 
 the length of feeling and acknowledging that however 
 mysterious and awful and inexplicable this great 
 Mystery of the Holy Sacrament may be, it is — because 
 Christ is — as I have said, quite apart from our faith 
 or feelings, quite apart from explanations how — a most 
 certain, a most blessed Reality. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Eucharistic Sacrifice. 
 
 Closely connected with the doctrine of the Real 
 Presence, you will remember, my dear friend, is the 
 doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. In endeavouring 
 to discover what is meant by " sacerdotalism " in a bad 
 sense, I find that there seems to be included under 
 that title a belief in the " Sacrifice of the Altar." 
 Opponents of Catholic doctrine state that the Church 
 of England " teaches with absolute precision that the 
 Lord's Supper is not a sacrifice ; that the Lord's Table is 
 not an altar." l This statement is, I think, about as wide 
 of the truth as it is possible to imagine. A great deal 
 which relates to this question is involved in the question 
 of the priesthood, which must be treated of by-and-by. 
 1 Contemporary Revieio, July, 1893, p. 66. 
 
210 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Something, however, ought to be said here and now on 
 the doctrine of the Sacrifice itself. My contention is. 
 that the Church of England teaches that the Eucharist 
 is in a true sense a Sacrifice, and that if such teaching 
 involves " sacerdotalism," then to be true to the teach- 
 ing of the Church of England is to be a " sacerdotalist." 
 Well, there are two remarks to be made on the 
 threshold of such a subject — 
 
 (1) Whilst the Holy Eucharist may be said to have 
 two aspects — the one that of Communion, i.e. the re- 
 ceiving the Body and Blood of the Lord for the health 
 of the soul, the other that of sacrifice, i.e. the showing 
 forth before God the Passion of Christ, and thereby the 
 pleading of the merits of that Passion — it is quite 
 probably true that the former aspect is more promi- 
 nently put forward in our Prayer-book than the latter. 
 The reason is twofold : (a) that the doctrine of the Real 
 Presence, which is, as we have seen, emphatically taught, 
 involves the Sacrifice ; and (6) at the time of the Refor- 
 mation, Communion having been somewhat neglected, 
 it seems to have been felt desirable to lay great stress 
 upon it. 
 
 (2) Another point which ought to be remembered, 
 I think, is this. The denial of the truth of this 
 doctrine in some quarters seems to arise from a misunder- 
 standiDg. Opponents have often imagined either that 
 it is meant that the sacrifice of the Cross was insuffi- 
 cient, and therefore had to be supplemented, or that 
 it is repeated, or that something is substituted for it. 
 Of course this is an entire misconception. 
 
 There is but one sacrifice for ever for the sins of 
 the whole world, and that is the sacrifice of Jesus 
 Christ, true God and true Man, upon the cross. Just, 
 however, as there were numberless sacrifices ordained 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 211 
 
 by God in the earlier dispensation, which are called 
 " sacrifices " because they were types and shadows, or 
 foretellings, of the one great Sacrifice ; so in the New 
 Dispensation there is the "perpetual memorial of His 
 Death and Passion," as the commemoration or showing 
 forth before God of the one Sacrifice. 
 
 What the Catholic doctrine means is in fact this — 
 that, as we have seen, by virtue of consecration, there is 
 the real, true, but mysterious, sacramental, and invisible 
 Presence of the Body and Blood of the Lord on the 
 altars of the Church; so consequently we have some- 
 thing besides our prayers to present to the Father — 
 something beyond and out of ourselves, the Body and 
 Blood of His Son, which were broken and shed for us, 
 and which He in His words, " Do this in remembrance 
 of Me," or, as they mean, " offer this for a memorial of 
 Me," taught us to present and plead to the Father. The 
 Catholic doctrine is, further, that this sacrifice is not a 
 separate one from that of the Cross ; it is the same 
 substantially (that is, in respect to its substance, viz. 
 the Body and Blood of Christ) as that of the Cross. 
 The manner of the offering is different. The offering 
 of the Cross was in blood-shedding and sorrow and 
 death. The offering of the Altar is sacramentally and 
 in mystery. But in the two cases there is an essential 
 identity, for there is the offering of the Body and Blood 
 of the Lord. 
 
 What is meant, then, is, that as our Lord offered 
 Himself once for all in the great sacrifice of Calvary, 
 and, as bearing His human nature with Him in heaven, 
 He by His very Presence there "ever liveth to make 
 intercession for us," by ever showing forth and pleading 
 the merits of His Passion; so His Church on earth, 
 which is united to Him as the body to the head, and 
 
212 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 in which He is ever working, is doing precisely the same. 
 She is doing on earth — or rather He, by her, is doing — 
 that which He does in heaven. 
 
 This majestic doctrine is so stately and so wonderful, 
 and so falls in with the analogy of faith, and with the 
 highest yearnings and needs of man, that when once it 
 is taken hold of, it seems to me we cannot but feel that 
 it could not be an invention, it must be a revelation ; 
 and far from derogating from the merits of the Passion, 
 it presents before our minds a vivid picture of the splen- 
 dour and extent of those merits, and we see before our 
 mind the Great High Priest, uniting with Himself all 
 His children, and showing forth that one sacrifice once 
 offered, which is a '* sufficient sacrifice, propitiation, and 
 satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." 
 
 As I have said, such a doctrine is so closely con- 
 nected with that of the priesthood, which we shall have 
 presently to consider, that there are only a few points 
 in relation to it which need be touched upon now. 
 
 1. It ought never to be forgotten, surely, that in all 
 times sacrifice is the great act of religion. It is by it that 
 man offers something to God in a solemn manner, and 
 freely, in token that he recognizes the duty of obedience, 
 and his place as a creature, and his duty of thanksgiving, 
 and the necessity of penitence, and his desire to make 
 propitiation for sin towards his God. We read of this 
 in the very opening teachings of the Bible, and before 
 the Mosaic Law was given. Sacrifices then consisted, 
 for the most part, either of animals who were slaughtered 
 and their bodies burnt on the altar, or of the fruits of 
 the earth, such as corn and wine. Man, as we know, 
 had an instinctive feeling, reinforced by revelation, that 
 in his fallen state he was unfit to appear before the All- 
 Holy God ; he had also an instinctive sense that it was 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 213 
 
 his duty to offer some acts of acknowledgment that all 
 things come from God, and acts of thanksgiving for 
 all God's gifts. Hence these two classes of sacrifices. 
 There can be no doubt, to those who believe in the Bible, 
 that whether or not sacrifices were first revealed from 
 God as a duty, they were certainly sanctioned by Him 
 under the Mosaic Law. And here I cannot do better than 
 quote words which put this part of the subject excellently, 
 and with which you are probably not unacquainted — 
 
 " The chief public sacrifices under the Law were : (a) 
 The Passover. This was a lamb slain, roasted, and 
 solemnly eaten, partly in memory of the deliverance 
 by the children of Israel from Egypt, and partly in 
 memory of the destroying angel passing over the houses 
 which had the lamb's blood on the door-post (Exod. 
 xii. 27). (b) The burnt offering, presented daily in the 
 temple, morning and evening, consisting of two lambs, 
 with flour, oil, and wine (Exod. xxix. 38-42), and with 
 increased amounts on sabbaths and festivals, (c) The 
 meat offering — not of flesh, but of bread or flour — some- 
 times along with the burnt offering (Exod. xxix. 38-42), 
 and sometimes by itself, as the shewbread, which con- 
 sisted of twelve cakes placed on a table in the taber- 
 nacle, and changed by the priests every sabbath day 
 (Lev. xxiv. 5, 8) ; and as the firstfruits (Lev, xxiii. 
 10-20; Numb. xv. 20; Deut. xxvi. 1-11). (d) Sin offer- 
 ings, on the chief festivals (Numb, xxviii. and xxix.), 
 and on the great Day of Atonement (Lev. xvi.). (e) 
 Incense, sometimes offered by itself (Exod. xxx. 7, 8), 
 but more generally in union with other sacrifices. 
 Besides all these, there were private offerings, made by 
 the people separately, as thanksgivings, or as acts of 
 penitence, to obtain pardon for sin." l 
 
 1 Littledale, tract. " The Christian Sacrifice," p. 1, v. 
 
214 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 In speaking of the great Day of Atonement, the 
 same writer goes on — 
 
 "Only the High Priest could perform it, and its 
 most solemn portion took place in the Holy of Holies, 
 within the veil. The High Priest, dressed in white, 
 brought a bullock as a sin offering for himself, and two 
 goats and a ram for the people, to the door of the 
 tabernacle, where lots were cast to find which goat 
 should be slain, and which should be the scapegoat. 
 
 " Then he killed the bullock in the Holy Place, and, 
 taking a smoking censer and some of the blood within 
 the veil, he sprinkled the blood on the mercy-seat. 
 He returned to the Holy Place, slew the goat, and 
 passed once more to the Holy of Holies, doing as before. 
 Then he came out to hallow the Holy Place, and made 
 atonement for the sins of the people, and for the pollu- 
 tions of the temple. Next, he laid his hands on the 
 scapegoat's head, confessed the sins of the people over 
 it, and gave the animal in charge to a man to carry 
 into the wilderness. Finally, he put on his priestly 
 garments, and came out to offer the burnt offering in 
 the presence of the people. 
 
 " In Lev. viii. the order and rank of the sacrifices 
 is clearly laid down. First must come the sin offering. 
 Till that, the chief act of expiation and penitence, is 
 ended; the burnt offering, which denotes self -surrender 
 to God, cannot be offered ; far less the peace offering, or 
 thanksgiving, which is, as it were, only a part of the 
 burnt offering. This teaches us that first we need to be 
 cleansed from our guilt ; then that we are to be obedient 
 servants of God, after He has made us fit to stand 
 before Him ; lastly, that by this obedience we shall 
 obtain the peace of God, and thank Him for ever." x 
 1 Ibid. p. 2, vi., vii. 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 215 
 
 Now, an important thing to remember is — to quote 
 the same writer further — that " the sacrifices of the Law 
 were only shadows of a better oblation yet to come. 
 They had no value in themselves and by themselves, 
 but drew all their strength from it, just as the sky 
 at early dawn has its light from the yet unrisen sun. 
 That better oblation, the only one that ever has been, 
 ever can be, offered to take away sin, is the crucifixion 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. x. 12)." l 
 
 Now, the belief of the Christian Church has always 
 been, as indeed the analogy of faith would suggest, that 
 as the Jews were enabled to offer a foretaste of the 
 great Sacrifice, so there must be some Christian con- 
 tinuance of it, otherwise we Christians would be worse 
 off than Jews. If our Eucharist is only a memorial 
 ceremony — strangely inappropriate it would seem in 
 that case — if it is only bread and wine, if there is no 
 Real Presence of the Divine Victim and no real showing 
 forth before God of His death, then we are in a land 
 of shadows indeed, and we have not reached the " good 
 things to come," and the covenant between God and 
 man, instead of being drawn close by the Atone- 
 ment, would appear to a great extent to have been 
 broken off. 
 
 We have such a means provided, my dear friend, as 
 we very well know, in the sacrifice of the Altar, and 
 this is (1) foretold in prophecy ; (2) taught in the New 
 Testament ; (3) witnessed to by the Service-books and 
 the great writers of the Early Church ; (4) sanctioned 
 by the formularies of the Church of England, and 
 proclaimed by her great divines. 
 
 To touch on these points — without going deeply 
 into them, as that involves much which, as I have said, 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 2, viii., ix. 
 
2i6 SACERDOTALISM, 
 
 we shall have to treat of in speaking of the priesthood 
 — will be my duty now. And, again, I must repeat 
 that the real question before us is not so much whether 
 the doctrine be true or not — though incidentally I hope 
 to show that it is true — but whether or not the Church 
 of England, in her appeal to Holy Scripture, in her 
 appeal to the early Church, in the statements of her 
 formularies, and by the witness of her divines, teaches 
 the doctrine. If she does, as I think I can show she 
 unquestionably does, then those who teach it — sacer- 
 dotalists or not — are her loyal children. 
 
 (1) As to prophecy, Isaiah foretells that there shall 
 be a Church of the Gentiles, and that from the Gentiles 
 should be taken Priests and Levites. The whole idea is 
 the appointment of an order of ministers consecrated 
 and set apart to offer a real sacrifice. 1 
 
 The most remarkable prophecy of all, however, is 
 that which immediately precedes and ushers in the 
 New Dispensation. If this prophecy refers — as the 
 great teachers of the Church have believed that it does 
 — to the Eucharistic Sacrifice, it is at least intelligible. 
 If its reference to it is denied, then at least this must 
 be said — it will have to be carefully explained away. 
 These are the words of the prophet : " For from the 
 rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same 
 My Name shall be great among the Gentiles ; and in 
 every place incense shall be offered unto My Name, and 
 a pure offering : for My Name shall be great among the 
 heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." 2 
 
 Now, here, " the sacrifice which should be offered is 
 
 designated by the special name of meal offering." It 
 
 was not to be accepted from the Jews, but from the 
 
 Gentiles. " It was a special sacrifice, offered by itself 
 
 1 Isa. lxvi. 21. * Mai. i. 11. 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 217 
 
 as an unbloody sacrifice, or together with the bloody 
 sacrifice. ... In the daily sacrifice it was offered 
 morning and evening with the lamb ; as this was typical 
 of the precious blood-shedding of the Lamb without 
 spot upon the Cross, so was the meal offering which 
 accompanied it of the Holy Eucharist." 
 
 The early Church — to which the Church of England 
 makes her appeal — saw the force of the contrast. They 
 saw that the bloody sacrifices, which came to an end, 
 foretold the one " full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, 
 oblation, and satisfaction" which was made on the 
 Cross ; and so the meal offering, to be offered with 
 incense, foretold the sacrifice of the Altar. 
 
 St. Justin Martyr was converted probably within 
 thirty years of the death of St. John. He would be 
 likely to know. What does he say on this verse ? 
 This : " God has, therefore, beforehand declared, that 
 all who through this name offer those sacrifices, which 
 Jesus, Who is the Christ, commanded to be offered, that 
 is to say, in the Eucharist of the Bread and of the Cap, 
 which are offered in every part of the world by us 
 Christians, are well pleasing to Him." 
 
 St. Irenams in the same century says, " He took that 
 which is part of the creation, viz. bread, and gave 
 thanks, saying, ' This is My Body.' And the cup like- 
 wise, which is of the creation which appertains unto 
 us, He professed to be His own Blood, and taught men 
 the new oblation of the New 1 estament." 
 
 Eusebius says, " The truth bears witness to the pro- 
 phetic Word. . . . We sacrifice also the memory of that 
 great Sacrifice, performing it according to the Mysteries 
 which have been transmitted by Him." 
 
 In the Liturgy of St. Mark it is quoted as finding 
 its fulfilment " in the reasonable and unbloody sacrifice, 
 
 Q 
 
218 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 which all nations offer to thee, Lord, from the rising 
 of the sun to the setting thereof." * 
 
 It can only be, I contend, by juggling with words, 
 and emptying them of their meaning — in the way in 
 which Protestant controversialists sometimes do — it can 
 only be by ignoring the testimony of the early Church, 
 that such a " sure Word of prophecy " can — according 
 to the principles of the Church of England — be made to 
 refer to anything but the Eucharistic Sacrifice. 
 
 (2) And as prophecy foretold, so the New Testament 
 aught. 
 
 Our Lord Himself, in the Sermon on the Mount, 
 alludes to "the Altar," to which, if the gift is to be 
 brought, first of all care is to be taken to be "in 
 charity ." His reference can scarcely be merely to the 
 Old Law — that was passing away ; He was intro- 
 ducing a New Kingdom. If He refers to the reality of 
 heart needed for the old worship, He cannot mean that 
 it is only for that. If in the new worship there was 
 to be no altar, it is difficult to imagine that He 
 would not there and then have emphasized so great a 
 difference. 
 
 The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us 
 that " we have an altar, whereof they have no right to 
 eat which serve the tabernacle." Opponents of Catholic 
 doctrine interpret this solely of the act of sacrifice on 
 
 1 Cf. Dr. Pusey on the Minor Prophets, in loc. ; cf. also Thorndike 
 (one of the Royal Commissioners at the Savoy Conference), who says, 
 "In like manner it may be granted that the words of the Prophet 
 Malachi ... is a prophecy of the institution of this Sacrament." — 
 Chambers's "Thorndike on the Eucharist," p. 66. Grabe also says: 
 " With Irenseus, Justin, Tertullian, Cyprian, Chrysostom, and a vast 
 number of Fathers . . . have interpreted this plan of the Sacrifice of 
 the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist." — " In Irenseus," lib. iv. 
 p. 323. 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 219 
 
 Calvary. The expression "no right to eat" gains a 
 meaning, otherwise wanting, if we view such a state- 
 ment in the light of the Eucharistic oblation. Christ 
 is, Scripture tells us — not was — " the Propitiation for 
 our sins;" it tells us that Christians are "a royal 
 priesthood ; " it tells us that " Christ is " — not was — " a 
 Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." " There- 
 fore," it is justly said, "in some mysterious way His 
 sacrifice is going on, though His pains and death are 
 over." * Light is thrown upon this at once if we believe 
 in the Eucharistic oblation. In it there is Priest and 
 Altar and Sacrifice. 
 
 (3) The same truth is witnessed to by the early 
 Communion Services (or Liturgies, as they are called) 
 of the early Church. The testimony of these, I repeat, 
 is important, for the appeal of the Church of England 
 is to the early Church. What do they say ? 
 
 Well, from out of their vast mass of evidence the 
 following quotations will suffice : — 
 
 (a) From the Liturgy of St. Mark, which is nearly 
 coeval with that of St. James, i.e. of earlier date than 
 A.D. 200 : "Rendering thanks to Thee with Himself" (i.e. 
 one Lord and God, and Saviour Jesus Christ), " we offer 
 to Thee this reasonable and unbloody sacrifice, which all 
 nations offer unto Thee, Lord, from the rising of the 
 sun until the going down of the same." And then 
 come the words of Consecration : " For the Lord Him- 
 self, and our God and universal King Jesus Christ, in 
 the night wherein," etc. 
 
 (6) From the Liturgy of St. James, certainly earlier 
 than A.D. 200, which speaks as follows after the Conse- 
 cration : " We, therefore also, sinners, remembering His 
 life-giving Passion, His salutary cross, His Death, and 
 1 Littledale, ut supra, p. 3, xii. 
 
220 SA CERD0TAL1SM. 
 
 Resurrection from the dead on the third day, His 
 Ascension into Heaven, and sitting on the Right Hand 
 of Thee, His God and Father, and His glorious and 
 terrible coming again, when He shall come with glory- 
 to judge the quick and the dead, and to render unto 
 every man according to his works, offer to Thee, Lord, 
 this tremendous and unbloody sacrifice" etc. 
 
 (c) From the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom : " In behalf 
 of all and for all, we offer Thee Thine own of Thine own. 
 . . . Moreover, we offer unto Thee this reasonable and 
 unbloody sacrifice." 
 
 In this connection it is well to recall the fact that 
 in the Institution of the Holy Sacrament terms of sacri- 
 fice are employed. 
 
 (1) The word translated " do " — the Greek ttoieitl — 
 might be translated "sacrifice" or "offer." In Exod. 
 xxix. 36-39 there occurs four times in our translation 
 the word "offer." This is the same word which our 
 Lord used in the Institution of the Sacrament, which 
 is there translated " do." So it is in Lev. vi. 22, and 
 ix. 7. The same word, again, is translated " sacrifice " in 
 Exod. x. 25. Again, the same word is used constantly 
 of the Passover (Numb. ix. 2 ; Deut. xvi. 1, 4 ; 2 Kings 
 xxiii. 21 ; 2 Chron. xxv. 1, 2), and is translated " keep." 
 The translation might have been, " Do the Passover," or, 
 " Sacrifice the Passover." The words " Do this " may 
 be, therefore, rightly translated, " Offer this," or, " Sacri- 
 fice this." 
 
 (2) St. Luke and St. Paul use the word translated 
 "remembrance" (avd/dvtimg), which is also a term of 
 sacrifice. It corresponds to another word, //vrj/ioowov. 
 The one is an active form, the other a passive form. 
 The one might be translated, perhaps, " commemoration," 
 the other " memorial." By offering the " memorial " (i.e. 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 221 
 
 the /uLvrifiocTvvov) the commemoration (i.e. the avd/uvr^dig) 
 was made. 
 
 (3) The term SiaOiiicri, i.e. "covenant" or "testament," 
 is connected with this word in a religious sense in the 
 Bible. A " covenant " (SiaQriKrj) was concluded by a 
 visible instrument, which thus became a nvr)jx6<ywov, or 
 " memorial," i.e. a thing which could be pleaded or 
 offered up to God, that He might " remember " the 
 " covenant " and show mercy ; and this was always an 
 awe-inspiring thing. The " bow in the cloud " was the 
 sign of the covenant with Noah, and so became a 
 HWfAoavvov, or ** memorial," before God. In the Mosaic 
 " Covenant" the priest made an avafivr\aiQ — a "commemo- 
 ration " — by the Blood of the Sacrifice, and this then 
 became a fivrj^o^vvov, or " reminder," or " memorial," 
 before God. 
 
 Now, in Christianity there is a "New Covenant," 
 a " New Testament." The Blood of Christ is the instru- 
 ment through which the " covenant " is made good. 
 It is that Holy Thing on which God oxptrai rov 
 juvwOrivai, "will look to be reminded," and to give 
 the benefits of the Christian Covenant. 1 
 
 In the Institution of the Holy Eucharist we have the 
 three terms, " Covenant " (S«a0/|ie?O, " Blood," " Memorial," 
 together, and the sacrificial word " do," or " offer." 
 
 And then the whole runs thus : " The same night 
 that He was betrayed, He took bread, and when He 
 had given thanks (evxapivTi'icrag, made His Eucharist), 
 He brake it, and said, This is My Body which is broken 
 (jcXw/ievov) for you. Make this oblation (or ' offer this,' 
 or ' sacrifice this,' or ' do this,') for that Memorial which 
 peculiarly and alone can be Mine (elg rijv ifjttjv avdjuvrimv, 
 not ug e/uLov avdfxvt](nv). After the same manner also (He 
 
 1 Cf. " The Holy Eucharist," Lord Forbes, pp. 17, 18. 
 
222 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 took) the cup, when He had supped, saying, This Cup is 
 the New Testament in My Blood (the New Covenant 
 made good through the instrument of My Blood). Make 
 this oblation (or ' offer this/ or ' sacrifice this,' or ' do 
 this ') as oft as ye drink it for that Memorial which 
 peculiarly and alone can be Mine (elg rr\v Ifirjv 
 avd/uLvrimv)" 
 
 These solemn words, it has been truly said, " have an 
 obvious reference to the Memorials of the Old Law, or 
 Covenant, and our Blessed Lord seems to say, ' As God 
 concluded a covenant with Moses through sacrifice . . . 
 so God concludes a New Covenant through My sacrifice : 
 My Body, My Blood, slain in sacrifice — this is the Holy 
 Instrument of that Covenant, and it is that which is to 
 be offered to God, for that Memorial which alone can be 
 properly Mine.' " * 
 
 Read in this way, there is a deep and consistent 
 meaning in all. The Old and New Covenants interpret 
 each other, and are knit together. Holy Scripture has 
 light thrown upon it, and is clear where all is cloudy 
 by other interpretations. St. Paul has a real meaning 
 when he adds that thus " ye do show or proclaim the 
 Lord's death till He come ; " and the Ancient Com- 
 munion Services or Liturgies of the Church are seen to 
 be in exact conformity with Holy Scripture. 
 
 (4) Here, then, is the Faith of Scripture as the 
 Church has interpreted it and of the Ancient Church as 
 to what St. Augustine calls "the Sacrifice of our 
 Ransom." Has the Church of England denied and 
 abandoned this ? Is anything so terribly true as the 
 saddening statement that " she teaches with absolute 
 precision that the Lord's Supper is not a sacrifice " ? 
 
 If such a statement were true, it would be sad 
 1 Cf. "Theological Defence," Bishop of Brechin, pp. 75-80. 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 223 
 
 indeed. The worst that enemies have said of the 
 Church — our Mother — would then be realized. She 
 would have been unfaithful to her trust, unfaithful to 
 her Lord, untrue to the Bible, untrue to the teaching 
 of the Ancient Church. Our hearts might well sink 
 within us were there any colouring for so dreadful a 
 charge. 
 
 There is no truth in such a charge. We know, 
 dear friend, that, amid all her sorrows, our part of the 
 Catholic Church has been true in her witness to the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice. 
 
 Let us grant that many efforts were made by the 
 new-fangled teachings of foreign heresies in the six- 
 teenth century to silence her witness to this truth. A 
 convulsion like that of " the Reformation," partly bad 
 and partly good, could not well be passed through 
 without its mark for evil and for good being left 
 behind. 
 
 Let us grant that, as " the Churches of Jerusalem, 
 Alexandria, and Antioch, and . . . Rome " 1 have erred, 
 so also the Church of England, we may humbly believe, 
 has not been absolutely immaculate, or always done 
 the best thing in the world. This is a statement con- 
 sistent, it seems to me, with truth and modesty. 
 
 Let us further remember, as I have already said, 
 that the desire to restore — and the right desire to 
 restore — communion to its proper place, may have 
 induced the Church of England not to bring forward 
 the idea of the sacrifice as prominently as Scripture 
 and the early Church would seem to suggest. 
 
 Let us grant that it is possible to believe that some 
 of the alterations in our Communion Office made it 
 apparently less scriptural, and are to be deplored. 
 1 Article XIX. 
 
224 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Grant all this to the utmost, and still the Church 
 clearly, I submit, teaches " the truth as it is in Jesus," 
 on this solemn subject ; still she teaches " the Eucha- 
 ristic Sacrifice ; " still she teaches us to make " the great 
 Oblation ; " still she shows before God the death of 
 Christ " till He come ; " still she is true to the Catholic 
 Faith in this matter ; still the above statement of 
 opponents is as contrary to fact as it well can be. 
 
 Now (1) remember the steady appeal of our Church 
 to Holy Scripture, and remember what we have seen 
 to be the voice of prophecy, and of the New Testament ; 
 (2) remember her appeal to the Ancient Church, and 
 recall what we have said from the Fathers and the 
 Liturgies, and recollect that — it is scarcely an exag- 
 geration to say — a volume might be filled with similar 
 testimony. 
 
 But then comes the question, Having made the 
 appeal, has she been true to it ? If " she teaches with 
 absolute precision that the Lord's Supper is not a 
 sacrifice," then she has, indeed, I acknowledge, been 
 false to that appeal ; but she teaches — as I now proceed 
 shortly to show — nothing of the kind. 
 
 (a) In considering briefly the direct teaching of our 
 formularies, naturally and rightly we first go to the 
 Catechism. 
 
 The teaching of the Catholic Church is — that one 
 great object of the Sacrament is to continually present 
 before the Father the offering of the Precious Body and 
 Blood of Christ, really present in a mysterious and sacra- 
 mental manner " under the form of Bread and Wine ; " 
 and to plead thus the merits of His atoning sacrifice 
 offered — in blood and sorrow — once for all upon the 
 Cross, and so to apply effectually and with ever-renewed 
 power the saving and life-giving virtues of that sacrifice, 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 225 
 
 — this is the meaning, I repeat, of the sacrifice of the 
 Altar. 
 
 Well, what does the Catechism say ? What does the 
 Church of England teach her children ? 
 
 " Q. Why was the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
 ordained ? 
 
 u A. For the continual remembrance of the sacrifice 
 of the death of Christ." 
 
 I have already drawn your attention to the meaning 
 of the word "remembrance" in the Institution. Here 
 the meaning is, of course, the same. 
 
 The Church of England, then, teaches her children, 
 before she goes on to dwell upon Communion, that the 
 first object is " the commemoration," " the memorial ; " in 
 other words, " the sacrifice." 
 
 Nothing but a twisting of words, in a Jesuitical 
 fashion, into non-natural meanings, can get over this. 
 So far our Church teaches that the Lord's Supper is a 
 sacrifice. 
 
 The Church is exact in this, for you first plead the 
 Sacrifice before you feed on the Victim. That was the 
 way with all sacrifices. You first, therefore, are taught 
 of the Sacrifice before you are taught of Communion. 
 The Church of England, whatever her faults, is exact 
 and careful in her theology in teaching the young. She 
 teaches in her Catechism the Sacrifice of the Altar. 
 
 (b) But, it is sometimes said, her Article on the 
 subject — Article XXXI. — is entirely against this. 
 
 (1) If it appeared to be so, I repeat, "Lex Orandi, 
 Lex Credendi," we should have to interpret the Article 
 by the Prayer-book. But — 
 
 (2) It is not opposed to the truth of the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice. The first part of the Article dwells — and 
 dwells rightly — on the entire and absolute sufficiency 
 
226 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 of the one great Offering on the Cross. The Article 
 warns against any notion that anything except the 
 offering of Christ can atone for sin. So far good. 
 Then come the words which are supposed to deny the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice. 
 
 A form of error had apparently crept in at the time, 
 of a very serious kind, viz. a popular notion that some- 
 thing more could be done, besides and beyond the 
 Sacrifice of the Cross, in order to merit "remission 
 of pain and guilt." This the Article rightly withstood. 
 It was an error destructive of the meaning of the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice. " The Sacrifices of Masses, in the 
 which it was commonly said that the priest did offer Christ 
 for the quick and dead " — these were denounced. This 
 was right. " It was commonly said " — a popular notion 
 had grown up, apparently- — "that the priest offered 
 Christ afresh, that the Cross was insufficient," and so 
 on. The results were serious. Masses viewed in this 
 way became abuses for raising money, and encouraging 
 irreverence and superstition. 
 
 Popular errors of this kind are dangerous. Compare 
 the then state of things with more modern faults. 
 Respectable people with fair income have in modern 
 times hired cosy pews ; they have kept out the poor ; 
 they have lived worldly lives, and got into the way of 
 thinking that a quiet Sunday evening "in the roomy 
 pew," where they could hear the form of heresy most 
 satisfactory to them — which they called " the gospel " — 
 preached, would do instead of Eucharistic Worship and 
 a good life. 
 
 If Reformers now were framing an Article for such 
 people, they might fairly say, " The sacrifice of Evening 
 Service, in the which it is commonly supposed that 
 making yourself comfortable in a cosy pew which is all 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 227 
 
 your own, and listening to a " gospel sermon," will do 
 as well as worshipping God in the service He appointed, 
 and doing your duty in life, is a blasphemous fable and 
 dangerous deceit." This would not mean that it is 
 wrong to go to Evensong properly, or to listen to 
 sermons in a right spirit, when desirous humbly to 
 learn and practise the Catholic Faith. 
 
 The Article never condemns " the Sacrifice of the 
 Mass." It only condemns a popular view of " Masses " 
 which hinders the true view of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. 
 
 Christ, the Church teaches, is the One Victim. 
 There can be no fresh sacrifice of Him. The Sacrifice 
 of the Altar points back to — is one with — the Sacrifice 
 of the Cross. 
 
 The Article guards the Eucharistic Sacrifice from 
 perversion. 
 
 (c) Then we turn to the Service for the Eucharist, 
 the Communion Service, the Liturgy, the Mass — by 
 whichever name you call it. 
 
 (1) There is the first Oblation. The elements of 
 bread and wine, and the alms of the faithful, are offered 
 in " the Church Militant Prayer " to " the Divine 
 Majesty." In this offering, the alms are set apart for 
 sacred uses, for God's work ; the elements are set apart 
 from all common purposes, to be an acknowledgment 
 of God's sovereignty over all created things, and the 
 outward and visible signs of " the Holy Mysteries." 
 
 (2) There is the Exhortation, in which, after much 
 teaching as to the Real Presence, and as to the necessity 
 of right dispositions for receiving the benefit of that 
 Presence, and the danger — as the Presence is Real — of 
 receiving without these dispositions ; then we are advised 
 to call to mind that these " Holy Mysteries " are both 
 " pledges of His love " in giving Himself for us, and also 
 
SA CERDOTALISM. 
 
 the means of a "continual remembrance" — i.e., as we have 
 seen, a continual commemoration or memorial of His 
 Death. Here we have the Eucharistic Sacrifice again. 
 
 (3) Then, in this connection, we come to the Conse- 
 cration. This great Act is a solemn prayer first of all, 
 for the priest is bub a minister, and it is not in his own 
 poiver that the thing is done. The priest is here ap- 
 pointed to act as an instrument — set apart by his ordina- 
 tion to fulfil the conditions in accordance with which 
 the great promise is claimed — to speak, in fact, the 
 appointed words. 
 
 What does he do ? He appeals to the Almighty 
 Father ; he " reminds " Him — if I may say so — that His 
 Son was given to " suffer death upon the Cross for our 
 redemption ; " he makes an " act of faith " in the " one 
 oblation of Christ once offered " on Calvary, as a " full, 
 perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction 
 for the sins of the whole world ; " he " reminds " the 
 Father that His Son did, in order to perpetuate and 
 apply the effects of that one Oblation, " institute, and in 
 His Holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual 
 memory" (i.e., as we have seen, a continual commemora- 
 tive offering) "of that His precious Death, until His 
 coming again." Then, having thus "reminded" the Father 
 of the atoning power of the Blessed Passion of His dear 
 Son, and of the means instituted for the commemoration 
 before Him, he goes on to make the Memorial. He first 
 prays for the grace of a right reception, and then he 
 does the very same acts and uses the very same words 
 which the great High Priest did and used at the Institu- 
 tion of the Mysteries, and then he proceeds to use the 
 sacrificial words, — after the Consecration which secures 
 the Real Presence — " Do this " (or, " offer this," or, 
 " sacrifice this ") " in remembrance," or as a memorial, 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 229 
 
 "of Me," making thereby, and as he says this, the offering 
 appointed to be made. 
 
 In every celebration, then, of the Mysteries, the 
 priest uses the same words and acts, making the 
 Memorial, before God, of the great Offering. 
 
 Here, in the Act of Consecration, we have the Eucha- 
 ristic Sacrifice. 
 
 (4) Then there is the Prayer of Oblation. In this the 
 Father is besought to " accept the one sacrifice of praise 
 and thanksgiving " (in other words, " this our Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice "). Here we use the very terms of the Ancient 
 Liturgies. Here also the Church prays that, as we have 
 been pleading and applying the merits of the Cross, " we 
 and all " His " whole Church " — the living and the dead, 
 the whole Body of Christ — may " obtain remission of 
 our sins, and all other benefits of His Passion." After 
 this act of oblation, in which we bear all before God 
 in union with the great Sacrifice, we offer " ourselves, our 
 souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively (or 
 living) sacrifice " unto God. Then, as this latter part of 
 the prayer is specially suited to communicants — though 
 not necessarily to those who communicate at this moment, 
 for there may be those there who are in communion with 
 Christ, but, for devout reasons, not at that moment 
 communicating — we pray that God will accept * this our 
 sacrifice," etc., for all, even those not yet old enough to be 
 admitted to Communion, who may yet be present to join 
 in the offering. 
 
 Here, again, my dear friend, is the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice. It seems to me that, examining even so 
 much of our formularies, nothing can be further from 
 the truth than to assert that the Church of England 
 " teaches with absolute precision that the Lord's Supper 
 is not a sacrifice " ! The Church of England, with Holy 
 
230 SA CERD TA LISM. 
 
 Scripture, with the Ancient Church to which she appeals, 
 with the whole of the rest of the Catholic Church, 
 " teaches with absolute precision " the great and precious 
 truth of the Sacrifice of the Altar. 
 
 It might, perhaps, be advisable to show from the 
 great divines of the English Church that such a reading 
 of the Prayer-book is in conformity with their minds. 
 This, as you know, would not be difficult. The difficulty 
 is, with such an overwhelming mass of evidence, to keep 
 within reasonable limits. I content myself, therefore, 
 with reminding you of one or two examples. 
 
 Here is a statement from Archbishop Bramhall's 
 views — and no man, you will remember, was stronger 
 against anything merely Romish. "All the essentials 
 of this sacrifice are contained in our celebration of the 
 Holy Eucharist. ... It was therefore truly said by 
 the learned Bishop of Ely, "Take away your Tran- 
 substantiation, and we shall have no difference about 
 the sacrifice." * 
 
 Here, again, is Thorndike : " The Apostle declareth 
 that the same one individual sacrifice which Christ 
 carried into the Holy of Holies, through the veil, to 
 "present it to God, is that which all Christians participate 
 of, in the Eucharist always. ... If the prayer of the 
 Church be accepted of God in consideration of the 
 sacrifice of the Cross appearing always before the Throne 
 of God within the veil, to intercede for us, is it not all 
 reason that the Church, when it celebrateth the remem- 
 brance thereof upon earth, should offer and present it 
 to God?" 2 
 
 Again, "The elements so consecrate are truly the 
 
 1 "Ordination Defended," etc., Bramhall's Works, v. 217. 
 
 2 Thorndike, vol. i., part 2, p. 477. 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 231 
 
 sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, inasmuch as the 
 Body and Blood of Christ crucified are contained in 
 them, not as in a bare sign which a man may take up 
 at his pleasure, but as in the means by which God hath 
 promised His Spirit ; but not properly the sacrifice of 
 Christ upon the Cross, because that is a thing which 
 consists in action and motion and succession, and there- 
 fore, once done, can never be done again. ... It is, 
 therefore, enough that the Eucharist is the sacrifice 
 of Christ upon the Cross, as the sacrifice of Christ 
 upon the Cross is represented, renewed, revived, and 
 restored by it, and as every representation is said to be 
 the same thing with that which it representeth ; taking 
 representing here, not for barely signifying, but for ten- 
 dering and exhibiting thereby that which it signifieth." 
 
 Think of Bishop Wilson's words : " May it please 
 thee, O God, Who hast called us to this ministry, to 
 make us worthy to offer unto Thee this sacrifice for our 
 own sins, and for the sins of Thy people." 1 
 
 But I would weary you if I went on. The testimony 
 of English divines is overwhelming. 
 
 We may not forget, my dear friend, that this is no 
 question of debating about words, but one of serious 
 importance. I cannot express what I mean better than 
 by quoting the weighty words of our dear friend Dr. 
 Liddon, in speaking of the grave consequence of making 
 light of Eucharistic truth. 
 
 "As our Lord's Divinity," he says, "is the truth 
 which illuminates and sustains the world-redeeming 
 virtue of His Death, so in like manner it explains and 
 justifies the power of the Christian Sacraments as actual 
 channels of supernatural grace. To those who deny 
 
 1 " Sacra Piivata," p. 104, edit. 1854. 
 
232 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 that Jesus Christ is God, the Sacraments are naturally 
 nothing more than ' badges or tokens ' of social co- 
 operation. The one Sacrament is only a * sign of pro- 
 fession and mark of difference whereby Christian men 
 are discerned from others that be not christened.' The 
 other is at best only a ' sign of the love that Christians 
 ought to have one towards another/ Thus Sacraments 
 are viewed as altogether human acts ; God gives nothing 
 in them ; He has no special relation to them. They 
 are regarded as purely external ceremonies, which may 
 possibly suggest certain moral ideas by recalling the 
 memory of a Teacher Who died many centuries ago. 
 They help to save His Name from dying out among 
 men. Thus they discharge the functions of a public 
 monument, or of a ribbon or medal implying member- 
 ship in an association, or of an anniversary festival 
 instituted to celebrate the name of some departed his- 
 torical worthy. It cannot be said that in point of 
 effective moral power they rise to the level of a good 
 statue or portrait, since a merely outward ceremonial 
 cannot recall character, and support moral sympathy as 
 effectively as an accurate rendering of the human coun- 
 tenance in stone or colour on the lines of an engraving. 
 Rites, with a function so purely historical, are not likely 
 to survive any serious changes in human feelings and 
 associations. Men gradually determine to commemorate 
 the object of their regard in some other way, which 
 may perhaps be more in harmony with their personal 
 tastes ; they do not admit that this particular form of 
 commemoration, although enjoined by the Author of 
 Christianity, binds their consciences with the force 
 of any moral obligation ; they end by deciding that it 
 is just as well to neglect such commemorations alto- 
 gether. 
 
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 233 
 
 " If the Socinian and Zwinglian estimate of the 
 Sacraments had been that of the Church of Christ, the 
 Sacraments would long ago have been abandoned as 
 useless ceremonies. But the Church has always seen 
 in them, not mere outward signs addressed to the taste 
 or to the imagination, nor even signs (as Calvinism 
 asserts) which are tokens of grace received indepen- 
 dently of them, but signs which, through the power 
 of the promise and words of Christ, effect what they 
 signify. They are ' effectual signs of grace and God's 
 good will towards us, by the which He doth work in- 
 visibly in us.' Thus in Baptism the Christian child 
 is ' made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an 
 inheritor of the kingdom of heaven ; ' and ' the Body 
 and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and 
 received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.' 
 
 " That depreciation of the Sacraments has led, with 
 general consistency, to the depreciation of our Lord's 
 Eternal Person, is a simple matter of history. True, there 
 have been and are believers in our Lord's Divinity who 
 deny the realities of Sacramental Grace. But experience 
 appears to show that their position is only a transitional 
 one. For history illustrates this law of fatal declension, 
 even in cases where Sacramental belief, although im- 
 perfect, has been far nearer to the Truth than is the 
 naturalism of Zwingli. Many of the most considerable 
 Socinian congregations in England were founded by the 
 Presbyterians who fell away from the Church in the 
 seventeenth century. The pulpit and the chair of 
 Calvin are now filled by men who have, alas! much 
 more in common with the Racovian Catechism than 
 with the positive elements of the theology of the 
 Institutes. The restless mind of man cannot but at 
 last push its principle to the real limit of its application, 
 
 K 
 
234 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 even although centuries should intervene between the 
 premiss and the conclusion. Imagine that the Sacra- 
 ments are only picturesque Memorials of an absent 
 Christ, and the mind is in a fair way to conclude that 
 the Christ who is thus commemorated as absent by a 
 barren ceremony is Himself only and purely human." * 
 
 It is, my dear friend, the solemn sense of the peril, 
 thus eloquently described, which besets those who take 
 a low view of the Sacraments, which makes it, so it 
 seems to me, incumbent upon us all to do everything in 
 our power to arrest so dangerous a decline. 
 
 As I close this part of my subject, I am reminded by 
 the teaching of the Church to-day that the Church and all 
 her teachings rest upon " the Foundation of the ^Apostles 
 and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the Head 
 Corner-stone." May God give us all grace more and 
 more so to hold the truth in love and faith, in loyalty 
 and self- watchfulness, that we may be " living stones " 
 in His temple, and may be so joined together in unity 
 of spirit by their doctrines that we may be acceptable 
 to Him at the last ! 
 
 I am, my dear Dean, yours affectionately, 
 
 W. J. KNOX LITTLE. 
 
 The College, Worcester, 
 
 Feast of 8. Simon and S. Jude, 
 October 28, 1893. 
 
 1 Liddon, Bampton Lectures, 1866 : " The Divinity of Our Lord," 
 Lect. viii. p. 719. 
 
PAET IV. 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 
 
 My dear Dean, 
 
 We have now reached the last part of the 
 question before us. In examining what was meant by 
 " sacerdotalism " as it has been denounced by opponents, 
 we have seen that Confession and Absolution, Fasting 
 Communion and Eucharistic Worship, — that these devout 
 practices, if taught, are believed to indicate in the 
 teachers the " sacerdotalism " which is objected to. I 
 have endeavoured to show that they are urged, or 
 encouraged, or permitted, as the case may be, by the 
 Church of England, and that so far forth " sacerdotalism " 
 is her teaching, and those who teach it are, to say the 
 least of it, not disloyal to her. 
 
 We have noticed also that to hold the doctrine of 
 the Real Presence — which in no way implies Transub- 
 stantiation — and the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice 
 — which in no way interferes ivith, but quite the con- 
 trary, the Sacrifice of Calvary, — I say, that to hold or 
 teach these things also — so we are given to understand — 
 implies this u sacerdotalism." I have endeavoured, 
 accordingly, to show that these are the doctrines of 
 the English Church, and consequently that in this 
 matter also she teaches " sacerdotalism," and that there- 
 fore those who are " sacerdotalists " are the very reverse 
 of being disloyal to her. 
 
236 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 And now we reach that part of the question which 
 is indeed the most important of all, namely, the ques- 
 tion of the Apostolic Ministry. If there be a Christian 
 Sacrifice, there must be a Christian Priesthood. If there 
 be real gifts of grace, to obtain which it is — ordinarily 
 speaking — necessary to make use of the ministrations of 
 the appointed ministry, then that ministry must be 
 divine. Those who hold the Catholic view contend that 
 that ministry is divine ; that it has its several functions 
 and regulated orders ; that it receives its official power 
 from God the Father through Jesus Christ in direct suc- 
 cession from the Apostles ; and that no ministry ordered 
 and appointed in any other way than the ministry 
 of the Church is a ministry according to the mind of 
 Christ, or has authority to administer valid sacraments. 
 Now, if this is " sacerdotalism," what I maintain is that 
 in this particular also " sacerdotalism " is the teaching 
 of the Church of England, and to be faithful to her — 
 whether she be right or whether she be wrong — we 
 ought in this respect also to be " sacerdotalists." 
 
 Before I go further, however, it is necessary, as far 
 as possible, to remove certain misconceptions. The dis- 
 cussion about the Sacred Ministry has, it seems to me, 
 been greatly darkened by fighting about words, and by 
 the most extraordinary confusions of thought. Thus 
 we hear strong statements, and even fierce declamations 
 about there being " no sacrificial priesthood " ! Again, 
 we hear indignant denials of there being any " vicarious 
 ministry," or of " presbyters " being able to perform 
 " acts of sacrifice as substitutes for the people ; " or of the 
 " claims of priestcraft " robbing people of " the inesti- 
 mable privileges of freedom which Christ purchased for 
 them with His own Blood ; " or of the Church of 
 England interposing " no sacrificial tribe between God 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 237 
 
 and man." 1 When we read statements of this kind, it is 
 difficult to discover where we are. You do not want to 
 fight with bogies ; and devout persons who say things of 
 this sort seem first of all to erect a scarecrow, or — if I 
 may say so without offence — a kind of ecclesiastical 
 " Aunt Sally," and then to throw at it and beat it as if 
 it represented the teaching of those who maintain the 
 Catholic character of the English Church. You and I, 
 my dear friend, are quite prepared to join in the throw- 
 ing if there is any special use in wasting our weapons 
 upon gigantic ninepins. Who on earth — or anyhow who 
 in the English Church — holds such absurd doctrines ? 
 Certainly not the instructed Catholic laity and clergy in 
 our part of the Catholic Church. We may, then, clear 
 the way in this part of the discussion by making four 
 preliminary statements. 
 
 (1) The priesthood in the Catholic Church is not 
 vicarious. The true doctrine of sacerdotalism does 
 not deny, on the contrary it illuminates, the truth of 
 personal and direct communion between the soul and 
 God. All may pray ; all may intercede. The difference 
 in the power of prayers does not depend upon difference 
 in official position, but upon the varying degrees of 
 holiness of character and of love towards God. 2 A 
 Christian priest does not act in place of the people, 
 but he docs act as a priest all the same, and his sacred 
 office is not to be emptied of its meaning by riding off 
 on the word " presbyter." While thinking of this, it 
 is worth while noticing that probably, when fault was 
 found with the " massing priests " of the Middle Ages, 
 it was not meant that there was anything wrong in a 
 
 1 Contemporary Review, July, 1892, 1893. 
 
 2 Cf. Gore, " The Church and the Ministry," chap, ii., where the 
 same view is upheld and stated in extenso. 
 
238 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 priest being a priest, much less in the fact that he 
 said his mass, but rather in the encouragement of the 
 notion (<z) that " masses " might be said one after 
 another like magical incantations, with so much money- 
 value, and as something separate from and independent 
 of the Sacrifice of Calvary ; — notions of this sort, Article 
 XXXI. condemned, and justly, as "blasphemous fables 
 and dangerous deceits ;" — and (b) the encouragement of 
 the notion that the priest so acted instead of the people, 
 that they were relieved of all action and responsibility. 
 This — if it was held, and in so far as it was held — was 
 undoubtedly wrong. The Christian priesthood is not 
 vicarious. It is not, that is to say, such as to relieve 
 souls of their responsibility. I quite grant that to drift 
 into belief of a vicarious priesthood is a not uncommon 
 failing in fallen man, arising from sloth and the dislike 
 of taking trouble. It has been very justly said, " It 
 is not only possible to believe in the vicarious priest- 
 hood of sacrifice, but also in a vicarious priesthoood of 
 preaching, which releases the laity from the obligation 
 to make efforts of spiritual apprehension on their own 
 account." You and I, my dear friend, must remember 
 instances in our early days in which to hear dear pastor 
 So-and-so " preach the gospel " — i.e. utter an accepted 
 shibboleth with a fair amount of unction, and a little spice 
 of denunciation of Roman Catholics and of affectionate 
 feeling towards Jews thrown in — was treated as the 
 whole duty of man, or, at any rate, the sum and sub- 
 stance of religious and Christian worship. A priest 
 acting in his office in relation to the Body of the Church, 
 can be no more a substitute for the proper and respon- 
 sible action of individual souls, than the colonel of a 
 regiment can be a substitute for the action of the regi- 
 1 Gore, ut supra p 85. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 239 
 
 ment he leads, and to the command of which he is 
 appointed, not by the regiment, but by an authority 
 above them both. I do hope, in discussions on " sacer- 
 dotalism," we shall hear no more declamations and 
 denunciations in regard to vicarious priesthood, which 
 are quite beside the mark. 
 
 (2) Again, true sacerdotalism does not teach a priest- 
 hood independent o/the everlasting Priesthood of Christ. 
 The Christian priesthood is an expression and applica- 
 tion of that everlasting Priesthood. It is the manner 
 in which, the means by which, the Lord has willed that 
 His priestly functions should have their continuance 
 among men. 
 
 (3) And then, again, true sacerdotalism does not 
 mean a priesthood independent of the Church, as if it 
 were a caste or tribe quite outside the Body. In the 
 Church, as the Body, receiving life from her Divine 
 Head, and never, of course, separated from that Head — 
 as He is the Head and she is the Body, — in the Church, 
 I say, indwelt by the Holy Ghost, reside those super- 
 natural powers which are called into play in various 
 ways, and for their own specific purposes. Some of 
 these supernatural powers for special ends are exercised 
 for the whole Body, and in union with the whole Body, 
 by the priesthood properly set apart and ordained by 
 Apostolic hands for such exercise of such powers. That 
 priesthood, by such ordination, receives from the great 
 Head of the Church special commission and special grace 
 to act in this representative, not vicarious character. 
 
 (4) And then, lastly, true sacerdotalism does certainly 
 not imply an arrogant spirit of insolent exclusiveness. 
 The appointment to exercise solemn functions — coming 
 from God, and not from any mere congregation of men 
 — ought to be productive of only a deeper sense of 
 
240 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 responsibility, and — from some realization of the vast 
 chasm between the greatness of the office and the nothing- 
 ness of the man — of a deeper humility of soul and a 
 temper corresponding to the sense of being "servant 
 of all." An arrogant and overbearing temper or attitude 
 of mind, — as though one holding a priestly office were 
 thereby better than others, or had a right, so to speak, 
 to " give himself airs," — this is a base and false sacer- 
 dotalism indeed. 
 
 For these forms of sacerdotalism, you will agree 
 with me, my dear Dean, wherever they are found — and I 
 fear they may be found even among ministers of bodies 
 which have separated from the Church, even also among 
 those in the Church who are not backward in their 
 denunciations of true sacerdotalism, — for these forms of 
 sacerdotalism, I say, the Catholic Church, and the 
 Church of England as a part of the Catholic Church, 
 can have nothing but condemnation. 
 
 There is, however, a true sacerdotalism, and to dis- 
 parage or to find fault with it, is, it seems to me, to 
 find fault with or disparage the teaching of Christ, of 
 His Apostles, of Holy Scripture, of the whole Catholic 
 Church, and — for that is the real question before us — 
 of the Church of England. 
 
 And now to a certain extent we have, I hope, cleared 
 the ground. Our opponents have been apt to confuse 
 the argument, by mixing up their attack upon what is 
 the true teaching of Christianity and the Church, with 
 their attack upon corruptions and falsehoods which we 
 condemn as strongly as they. There is, however, I fear, 
 still a serious difference between us ; and what I main- 
 tain is this — I repeat it again — that the Catholic doctrine 
 of the Apostolic Ministry is true, so it seems to me, to 
 Scripture and the early Church, and — above all for the 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 241 
 
 purposes of our discussion, which is the point — to the 
 teaching of the Church of England, and that the doctrine 
 of the ministry held by our opponents is not true to 
 any one of these authorities. 
 
 What we hold and assert as true "sacerdotalism 1 ' 
 is this— I can best state it in the form of the following 
 propositions. 
 
 (1) Christianity is not merely the statement of an 
 ideal, nor is it a philosophy only ; nor is it a system of 
 morality only ; nor is it a posture of sentiment or feeling 
 caused by oneself; it is, in order to effect these — so far 
 forth as they are true and needful — a revelation of Truths 
 of a supernatural character which must be embraced not 
 as mere opinions, but must be received by faith. 
 
 (2) It makes clear to man his end, and teaches him 
 the means by which he may attain that end, and may 
 be changed by God's power — though not without his 
 own will — into a new state of spiritual life ; i.e. — 
 
 (3) Christianity implies, in fact, a revelation of 
 supernatural truth and a gift of supernatural grace. 
 
 (4) Further, it teaches that in order to bring truth 
 and grace, a corporate Body has been established in this 
 world by Christ and continued in it. The Catholic 
 Church is a visible Society. It is not a mere religious 
 club or department of State for purposes of religion ; or 
 congeries of good people who happen to hold the same 
 opinions, and to be moved, more or less, by the same 
 class of motives; and who, for sake of order and decency, 
 make regulations about their services and their ministry, 
 though what these regulations are does not very much 
 matter. 
 
 (5) Consequently, it is not an invisible Body, con- 
 sisting of really good people who are known to be such 
 by God alone. On this point I think I have written 
 
242 SA CERD O TA LISM. 
 
 before, viz. on the consoling fact that while there are 
 what I call " crypto-Catholics," who, through no fault of 
 their own probably, are not getting the full benefits of 
 the Body, while yet they are receiving blessings from 
 God, still the Catholic Church — the executive of the 
 Divine kingdom is not a select company of good people 
 devoid of any Divine organization whatever. 
 
 (6) That the Church, then, is — as an executive, so to 
 speak — a visible Body ; that it is the appointed witness 
 in this world to God's truth, and the appointed channel 
 in this world of God's grace. 
 
 (7) Therefore, that if spiritual gifts are to be given 
 to any individual soul, those gifts, according to God's 
 ordinary laws, cannot be fully received without associa- 
 tion with others, in the way in which God has regulated 
 that association — i.e., as we say, without being in com- 
 munion with the Church. 
 
 (8) And then, that in order to the ministration of 
 grace and the witness to truth, this Church has a 
 ministry. This ministry can only be exercised — as the 
 work of the ministry is God's work — by an appointment 
 from God Himself. 
 
 (9) That God Himself has appointed a way for hand- 
 ing on the supernatural graces necessary for the exercise 
 of the ministry. That He, through Christ — the eternal 
 Word of God, Who " was made man " — gave commis- 
 sion and authority to Apostles with power to transmit 
 the necessary supernatural gifts. That the Apostles 
 received, and so, as God willed, had power to give ; i.e. that 
 in the Church, in order to an effective ministration for 
 the whole Body, there is, by the Divine will, a necessity 
 of the grace of Orders given by a proper and apostoli- 
 cally valid Ordination/ 1 
 
 1 Cf. St. John xx. 21-23. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 243 
 
 (10) Then, further, as ministers need an outivard 
 call and a regulated manner of appointment to their 
 office, that the right of giving this call and making this 
 appointment belongs only to one order of the ministry, 
 viz. the bishops ; that is, that in order to have a valid 
 ministry according to the mind of Christ, you must have 
 Episcopal Ordination. 
 
 (11) And then, lastly, seeing that there is no new 
 commission, no new revelation issuing from God from 
 time to time ; so, in accordance with the usual method 
 of Divine government in nature as in grace, the grace 
 of Orders must be handed on. The succession in the 
 earlier dispensation was by natural generation ; the 
 succession in the new dispensation, i.e. in the Christian 
 Church, is by spiritual generation. 1 God sends His Son, 
 Who becomes Incarnate " and a Priest for ever." As 
 He is sent, so He sends others ; and others send others, 
 and so on. This seems to me to be scriptural ; this is 
 in accord with God's regular ways of working; this 
 is common sense ; this is the doctrine of Apostolical 
 Succession. 
 
 Now, my dear friend, these propositions seem to me 
 to express our Faith as regards the Sacred Ministry. 
 They may, I repeat, be defended from Scripture ; they 
 certainly represent the belief of the rest of the Catholic 
 Church at this moment. They represent, as I think 
 may be shown, the Faith of the Ancient Church from 
 the first, and — which I again remind you is the point in 
 question — the teaching of the Church of England. 
 
 For all I have said, in fact, amounts to this : that 
 the Church is a divine Society, and the arrangement of 
 its officers is a divine arrangement. It means that 
 
 1 This is why the Church calls the bishop " Eeverend Father " and 
 " Father in God." Otherwise such titles would be meaningless. 
 
244 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 without bishops — who have received the grace of Orders 
 by regular succession from the Apostles — you can have 
 no priests, and that without bishops and priests you 
 can have no certainty of true sacraments. This, of 
 course, is important, for sacraments — where they may 
 be had, and at least where men are not hindered from 
 using them by ignorance, or prejudice, or necessity — are, 
 by Divine revelation, a necessary means of union with 
 Christ — in other words, a necessary means of salvation. 
 
 The contention is that it has pleased God to appoint 
 means, by the use of which the human race may attain 
 to the'end of their being ; that these means are, therefore, 
 not invented by men, are not a gradual growth arising 
 from their needs and from their experience, but that 
 they are appointed by Christ; and that among these 
 means is to be found the threefold ministry of bishops, 
 priests, and deacons, without which the Church cannot 
 be. This is the belief of all Catholics. This, I maintain, 
 is the teaching of the Church of England. 1 
 
 Now there is another view put forward by those 
 who denounce the Catholic view of the Apostolic Suc- 
 cession and of the Sacred Ministry, both outside and 
 inside the Anglican Church. Those who are outside 
 we cannot blame. Those who dissent from the teaching 
 of the Church, and therefore become "Dissenters" — 
 however full of sorrow we may be about them because 
 of the loss, as we believe, they are under — are, so we 
 must acknowledge, at least consistent. It is more 
 painful, however, when the divine character and the 
 solemn functions of the Sacred Ministry are denied or 
 minimized by those who have undertaken its responsi- 
 bilities and been ordained to its duties themselves. It 
 
 1 Cf. Haddan, " Apostolical Succession in the Church of England," 
 chap. iii. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY, 245 
 
 becomes still more painful when — practically holding 
 the doctrines of Dissenters, although remaining in 
 the position of Churchmen — they denounce as " sacer- 
 dotalists" those who in good faith hold, and act 
 upon, the teachings of the Church as to the Sacred 
 Ministry. 
 
 Now, my dear friend, I have, I think, stated with 
 sufficient explicitness the sort 6f " sacerdotalism " which 
 is condemned by all good Catholics. I think I have 
 also made it plain that they believe in Apostolical 
 Succession, and that any other system of the Sacred 
 Ministry seems to them to be at once contrary to com- 
 mon sense, to Divine Revelation, and to the teaching 
 of the Church of England. I think, also, I have made 
 it plain that — as it seems to me — they believe in a real 
 priesthood, a real sacrifice, a real altar, and that they 
 will have nothing to do with the habit of juggling with 
 words, and playing with expressions, and calling men 
 " presbyters " when they mean they are " priests ; " and 
 that in this they teach true sacerdotalism and repudiate 
 false sacerdotalism, and also repudiate a non-natural and, 
 as it seems to them, a dishonest interpretation of terms. 
 In plain English, we do hold that the English Church — 
 in common with the rest of the Catholic Church, of 
 which she is the part sent by God to this land — teaches 
 that a true Church must have the ministry of bishops, 
 priests, and deacons, not as a matter of convenience, but 
 as a matter of Divine appointment. I hope this is quite 
 clear. I hope there can be no mistake about it. To 
 throw overboard the doctrine of Apostolical Succession 
 and of a real priesthood, altar, and sacrifice, is, according 
 to the belief of Catholic Churchman, to be untrue to the 
 mind and teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, and — 
 because, again, that is the point in our discussion — to be 
 
246 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 out of accord with the teaching of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 Well, to go back to what I have said, there appear 
 to be those — even, alas ! in the Church of England — who 
 deny, as it seems to me, her teaching on the two im- 
 portant questions, which really run into one, and which 
 are now before us. I take these questions, then, in 
 order ; and the first is — • 
 
 The Apostolical Succession and the Episcopate. 
 
 It has been asserted, and lately with special emphasis, 
 as you will remember, my dear Dean, that we may love 
 and cherish Episcopacy with all our hearts, that we may 
 " believe it to be the best form of Church government," 
 but that we are not to say " it is the only form." We 
 are told that we may "care for Episcopacy," that we 
 may go so far even as to say that we " do not believe 
 that any Church can be vigorous and powerful so as to 
 fulfil her mission in the world as she ought to do except 
 under Episcopal government ; " but we are told in the 
 same breath that " the Church of England has nowhere 
 said that Episcopacy is necessary to the existence of a 
 Church," and we are challenged, any one of us, to " bring 
 forward a passage from any author of the Church of 
 England in which he has said so much as that." I 
 believe that this " challenge " has been since modified 
 into a challenge to any of us " to bring forward any 
 passage from the authorized formularies of the Church 
 of England " in which Episcopacy is spoken of as 
 necessary to the existence of a Church. 
 
 Now, my dear Dean, what does this amount to ? It 
 amounts surely, to this : (1) That Episcopacy is not 
 necessary to the existence of a Church ; (2) it is, there- 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 247 
 
 fore, a human, not a divine institution ; (3) it is in the 
 opinions of some people — but that is a matter of opinion 
 — the best form of Church government, but not the 
 only form. This, surely, is plain. If this be true, I do 
 certainly confess that " sacerdotalism," as taught in the 
 Bible, and by the Ancient Church, and by the whole 
 Catholic Church at present, cannot be defended by 
 English Churchmen ; and, therefore, what is more, that, 
 if this is true, the English Church has not a leg to stand 
 upon ; she has played fast and loose with language ; she 
 has trifled with men in the most solemn moments of 
 their lives ; and, from my point of view, no bishop or 
 priest who respects himself, or has any respect for the 
 morality of language, would serve in her ministry for 
 another day. But, my dear friend, this is not true ; 
 our part of the Catholic Church is not so faithless, so 
 immoral, and so false. 
 
 We may do well, then, to examine the above pro- 
 positions, first of all, in the light of practical common 
 sense. If Episcopacy is not necessary ; if it is only a 
 human institution, and not divine ; if this is so, — can 
 the opinion that it is the best form of Church govern- 
 ment be justified ? I do not think it can. Remember, 
 we are now on the plane of natural, commonplace, human 
 things. We have given up the idea of Divine appoint- 
 ment ; we are only to reason on the question on the 
 hypothesis that the thing is altogether a matter of 
 human convenience. 
 
 Well, (1), those who say these things are greatly led 
 to say them from a kindly motive. " Reunion " is 
 a word to conjure with ; and they amiably believe that 
 men who dissent from the teachings of the Church of 
 England may be reunited with her if Episcopacy be 
 represented as a mere matter of taste or opinion, and 
 
248 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 not as a necessity. Thus, Dissenters are invited — after 
 being told that Episcopacy is the best form, but not a 
 necessary form, of Church government — to what is 
 called " submit to Episcopal Ordination." One eminent 
 minister of a body which dissents from the Church of 
 England, on realizing this position, is reported to have 
 said that he did not think that the presence of a bishop 
 at his ordination would do any harm ! Do men seriously 
 believe that, in so grave a matter as Divine Faith and 
 Divine Grace, anything is to be gained by persuading 
 conscientious people who differ from you on many 
 points, to " submit " to what turns out to be, in their 
 minds, a harmless but senseless performance which — 
 considering the gravity of the occasion — would appear 
 rather of the nature of a solemn farce ? For my part, 
 I must say, my dear friend, that if I were a Dissenter, 
 nothing would induce me to join a Church which would 
 be playing so fast and loose with truth and honesty as 
 the Church of England would, according to this theory. 
 I do not think that such statements can be justified by 
 an amiable desire for what looks very like a hollow 
 " Reunion." 
 
 For (2) is Episcopacy the very best form of Church 
 government, if we are to treat it as a merely human 
 question ? For my part, I think the affirmative answer 
 to this question is not, at first sight, evidently the right 
 one. There have been plenty of bad bishops in the 
 Catholic Church ; plenty of pretty bad, certainly worldly, 
 and often very inefficient bishops in the English Church, 
 before now. These things ought to be borne with, and 
 they have been borne with, if the Episcopate is a neces- 
 sary and divine institution, only darkened, like other 
 things in the Church on earth, by the sins of men. But, 
 if it is only a human institution, and it is a mere matter 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 249 
 
 of opinion whether it is best or not, then why should it 
 be borne with ? It is not necessarily best. Yery well ; 
 then, under certain circumstances, it may be far from 
 best. A bishop is — so it seems to me — a divine neces- 
 sity, or else he is an expensive luxury, or, under some 
 circumstances, an expensive hindrance, or at best a relic 
 of the past of doubtful utility. You cannot get out of 
 that dilemma. It is worth while submitting to any- 
 thing, enduring anything, going to any amount of ex- 
 pense for anything, if it be according to the mind of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. But if — as the teaching we are 
 examining indicates — it is a human arrangement, a 
 matter of opinion, and open to argument, it is quite 
 another question. Try the Episcopate, then, on this 
 hypothesis, in three particulars, and say whether it is 
 necessarily the best form of Church government. 
 
 (<x) In modern times a great deal of the work of the 
 diocese must depend upon finance. Is it certain that 
 financial matters can be managed better by a bishop, 
 appointed as our bishops are, tlmn by a committee, say, 
 of businesslike laymen ? You must have known, as I 
 have, instances in which we clergy of the second order 
 have been warned to keep in mind our own natural 
 unbusinesslike ways, while always remembering the — 
 apparently innate — intelligence of the laity. If Epis- 
 copacy is a mere matter of opinion and taste, we may 
 well imagine that, in this kind of thing, " the intelligent 
 laity " in committee might possibly be more useful than 
 some bishops. 
 
 (b) Or, again, take the question of Confirmation. 
 According to the theory we are considering, this can be 
 nothing more than a more or less impressive ceremony. 
 We have suffered sometimes, we priests — have we not ? 
 — when we have brought young people to Confirmation 
 
250 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 from what I must call the extraordinary "fads" of 
 some bishops. Either there was some special time 
 when alone Confirmation could be held ; or a peculiar 
 arrangement as to places, and the answering of the 
 question by which baptismal vows are renewed, has had 
 to be attended to ; or variations of feelings in a particular 
 bishop as to age for Confirmation have had to be sub- 
 mitted to ; or only a certain number could be confirmed 
 at once, therefore some have had to be put off, to the 
 probable damage of their spiritual life ; or young 
 people have had to be taken to great distances, with 
 much inconvenience and sometimes expense, and running 
 the dangerous risk of turning a day of serious spiritual 
 import into a day of dangerous pleasuring ; or, after 
 weeks of hard work and careful preparation, when 
 candidates have been deeply impressed and really in 
 earnest about spiritual things, sometimes an unfortunate 
 parish priest has had the pain of feeling that half his 
 work has been — in so far as it could be — undone by the 
 coldness, or perf unctorin'ess, or evident want of experience 
 as to young people's trials and difficulties, of the bishop. 
 I speak of cases that I have known in the past. I have 
 to be very thankful, dear friend — as I have no doubt 
 you have — for a very different state of things under 
 some bishops of whom I have had experience ; but the 
 point is this: there are difficulties, and very grave 
 difficulties, about our Confirmations. If our bishops be 
 not a divine necessity, if they are only — in the opinion 
 of some persons — the best executors of the Church's 
 mind, I think many of us may fairly — on merely human 
 principles — differ from that opinion in regard to this. 
 It is no great stretch of imagination to realize a Con- 
 firmation in a little country parish, or in a parish in 
 the town, conducted quite as much to edification by 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 251 
 
 " presbyters " or pious laymen — if, indeed, it is worth 
 while conducting it at all — as by a bishop, since his 
 presence, so we learn, is not really necessary. 
 
 (c) And now take the case of Ordination. You 
 must remember Ordinations which, in their coldness, 
 dreariness, and perfunctory character, were enough to 
 chill any young soul, however burning the zeal might 
 have been which impelled to a life-surrender to the 
 priesthood. Things in this particular, indeed, have, 
 thank God, in later years greatly improved, though for 
 this we have certainly not to thank that party in the 
 Church which denounces " sacerdotalism." Still, Ordi- 
 nations were in the past very far from perfect, and I 
 suppose there are places in which they are by no means 
 altogether satisfactory now. Now, if the episcopate is 
 not necessary, it is quite possible to imagine how Ordi- 
 nations might be managed by ordinary " presbyters," or 
 laymen, in a kindly and loving and spiritual manner — 
 if, indeed, Ordinations be needed at all — and with quite 
 as much spiritual help as the ordinands, in some cases, 
 receive now. 
 
 If, then, Episcopacy be not divine and necessary, if 
 it be only defended as a matter of human regulation, 
 and is to be discussed on a merely human platform, it 
 is very far from being evident that it is the best form 
 of Church government. But further ; on this supposi- 
 tion, the position of the Church of England seems to 
 me to be quite indefensible. It is true that to get over 
 the difficulty about Episcopacy is not to get over all 
 the difficulties between ourselves and those good persons 
 who dissent from the teaching of the Church. It is true 
 that even after some English bishops or priests have 
 tried to empty the teaching of their Church with regard 
 to the Sacred Ministry of all its meaning, with the 
 
 T 
 
252 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 charitable desire of clearing the way for a patched-up 
 peace with Dissenters which they call " Reunion," they 
 are still met with difficulties from honest Dissenters who 
 deny various details of the Faith, and have the straight- 
 forwardness to say so. It is true that abandonment of 
 principle can never lead to a solid and valuable w Re- 
 union." Still it is also true that the existence of 
 Episcopacy is one serious bar which stops the way for 
 Dissenters who do not believe in it. Well, then, my 
 dear friend, it seems to me that a Church like the 
 Church of England, if she considers Episcopacy as 
 not necessary, but only one permissible form of Church 
 government out of many, is acting in a most im- 
 moral way. If it be not necessary, it is a hindrance. 
 If it be a hindrance, it should be swept away. Epis- 
 copacy is valuable in the eyes of any serious believer 
 only because of its divine authority. We have no 
 right, I maintain, on Christian principles to preserve an 
 antique form of Church government — which has some- 
 times worked well, and sometimes badly — as a matter 
 of taste or opinion ; seeing that — if it is only that and 
 not a divine ordinance — we are, by preserving it, adding 
 unjustifiably yet another difficulty in the way of " Re- 
 union." 
 
 I may, perhaps, strengthen my contention — which 
 indeed seems to me to be obviously true — by reminding 
 you of the words of our dear friend Liddon on the 
 matter. He says — 
 
 " If bishops are not of divine obligation, is it right 
 to uphold a cause and symbol of division with which 
 essential Christianity could dispense ? The Protestant 
 historian, Ranke, has drawn attention to the barrier 
 which is raised by the Episcopate between the English 
 Church and the Lutheran and Reformed communities 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 253 
 
 on the Continent. The maintenance of such a barrier 
 is more than intelligible, if we believe that upon a 
 true Episcopal Succession depends the validity of the 
 Eucharist — our chief means of communion with our 
 Lord. But when we consider the present pressure of 
 infidelity upon all reformed Christendom, is such an 
 obstacle to unity even defensible, if in our hearts we 
 deem the Episcopate to be only an archaeological treasure, 
 or only, as the phrase goes, a very interesting form of 
 Church government ? " 1 
 
 There can be but one answer, I maintain, to such a 
 question. Bishops are a divine necessity, or their 
 maintenance is a sin against the spirit of Christian 
 brotherhood, a sin, therefore, against Christ. 
 
 Then there is another thing to be noticed in this 
 connection. It is actually proposed that in order to effect 
 this — as, I think, conscientious Dissenters would agree 
 with me in thinking — hollow " Reunion," that the 
 present existing ministers of " other denominations " 
 should be admitted to minister in the Church, although 
 not episcopally ordained, but that all future ministers 
 should be ordained by a bishop. This is, to my mind, 
 an astonishing proposal. If men without Episcopal 
 ordination can administer valid sacraments now, why, 
 in the name of common sense, can men so appointed not 
 administer valid sacraments in the future ? If you can 
 do without Episcopal ordination now, you can do with- 
 out it for all time. In one word, if Episcopacy be not 
 essential, as being divine and according to the mind of 
 Christ, then, (1) it is by no means evidently the best 
 form of Church order ; and (2) it is a hindrance and a 
 stumbling-block, and ought not to be retained. Our 
 whole position, on this hypothesis, is untenable, and if 
 1 Liddou, serinon, H A Father in Christ," p. 13. 
 
254 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 untenable, it is unchristian. Bishops are necessary to 
 the constitution of the Christian Church, or they are a 
 distinct hindrance in the way of Christian fellowship, 
 and they ought to be abolished. 
 
 But the fact is, Episcopacy, carrying with it Apostolic 
 powers for the continuance of the Church, according to 
 the mind of the Church's Founder, is — according to 
 our convictions — necessary ; and if to believe this is 
 " sacerdotalism," then " sacerdotalism " is, as I think 
 may be shown, in accordance with Scripture, with the 
 teaching of the Catholic Church, and — which again I 
 say is the point in our discussion — the teaching of the 
 Church of England. 
 
 I. Now we may deal for a moment with the general 
 lines of the argument from Scripture. 
 
 The Church of England, as we know, distinctly 
 asserts that the existence of the Three Orders from the 
 first is evident from Scripture, if Scripture be studied 
 with care, and its teachings illuminated by the other 
 records of the early Church. The well-known words are 
 as follows: "It is evident unto all men, diligently reading 
 the Holy Scripture and ancient authors, that from the 
 Apostles' time there have been these orders of ministers 
 in Christ's Church ; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons." 
 
 Now as to the testimony of * Holy Scripture," not to 
 dwell upon the question of " ancient authors." We have 
 to remember in this, as in other things, surely, that the 
 New Testament is not a precise handbook or directory as 
 to Church government, any more than as to other things. 
 It is a collection of biographies and letters, and what 
 might be called Episcopal charges, and so on. It is 
 written by men who believed in, and lived in, a visible 
 Society — the visible Church of Christ. That Society 
 was a teaching Society, and a home of supernatural 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 255 
 
 grace, and an organized Body with its own special 
 ministers. The writings of the New Testament, as they 
 are meant to put on record the life and acts of our 
 Lord, or to correct mistakes, or to enforce truths, would 
 naturally only touch on the ministry by passing allusions, 
 and so on. The strength of the argument, then, lies in 
 this : that you find certain facts alluded to, or taken for 
 granted, in the New Testament, and that these facts, 
 when they are rendered into precise ecclesiastical 
 language, imply nothing else than the Three Orders and 
 the Apostolical Succession. In other words, take for 
 granted the Three Orders and the Apostolical Succession, 
 and you make sense of the statements and allusions to 
 the subject in the New Testament, when no other 
 theory will make sense of them ; or — again to use 
 mathematical language — the doctrine of the necessity of 
 the Three Orders and the Apostolical Succession satisfies 
 the conditions of the problem as put before us in the 
 New Testament as nothing else can satisfy them. We 
 can imagine a person in future years, when, say, the 
 present kingdom of England has developed, or changed, 
 or gone, desiring to know what was the constitution of 
 that kingdom in earlier times. We can imagine such a 
 one unable to get hold of any regular treatise on the 
 constitution, and yet coming to the conclusion, from 
 various allusions which he discovered here and there in 
 writers speaking of other subjects, that there had been 
 a Monarchy more or less limited at different times ; that 
 there had been a Parliament, consisting of two Houses, 
 with varying degrees of influence at different times, 
 and regular Convocations as the representative Bodies 
 of the Church ; and although — on the supposition — he 
 could find no formal treatise, still he would attain to 
 certainty that those who talked of the kingdom either 
 
256 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 as a pure Autocracy like modern Russia, or a Republic 
 like the United States, were wrong. Or, again, we are 
 in the habit of gathering out and inferring the customs 
 and laws of classical nations from the allusions which 
 we find in classical writers, and we are really all the 
 more certain that our knowledge of them is trustworthy, 
 just because the writers in question are not writing for 
 the purpose of proving their existence, but writing in a 
 natural way and taking their existence for granted. 
 Now, if we act on such principles in relation to our 
 present subject in reading the New Testament, we find 
 there the Three Orders, and we find that their power is 
 conveyed to them from Apostles, and evidently meant 
 to be handed on. It ought to be remembered that this 
 is not a question of words, but of things. Too often, I 
 imagine, difficulties have arisen because this has been 
 forgotten. We do not, of course, find in the New 
 Testament " bishops," " priests," and " deacons " always 
 spoken of together in that regular manner and with 
 these very names, in which and with which the thing 
 would nowadays be done ; but we do find the three 
 offices under whatever names. (1) We have the 
 Apostles holding plenary power; (2) then we have 
 another order, sometimes called bishops (e7r«TKoiroi), 
 sometimes called priests or presbyters (Tpevfiv-tpoi) ; 
 (3) and then we have deacons (Skikovoi). 1 
 
 At first the Apostles correspond to what we should 
 now call bishops, and the bishops or presbyters corre- 
 spond to what we should now call priests. Then we 
 find that the presbyters and deacons could not of them- 
 selves continue their own order, and when the Apostles 
 
 1 e.g., cf. Phil. i. 1, where Church-people— " the saints" and three 
 orders come in; or 1 Tim. iii. 1, 12, and iv. 6, 11, where three orders 
 appear, though the names not settled as now. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 257 
 
 could not undertake the work of Ordination in any 
 particular place, special officers were sent by them, with 
 special power to do the work. It was by " means of " 
 the laying-on of his hands that the grace of Orders was 
 committed to Timothy; the "presbytery" were asso- 
 ciated with St. Paul, but the Apostle was the Ordainer. 1 
 The allusion may have been to Timothy's original ordi- 
 nation to the priesthood, and the ordination alluded to 
 in 2 Timothy may possibly or even probably have been 
 to the Episcopate. 2 This sense of the two passages is, 
 of course, not their necessary sense, but it is a probable 
 one. In the same way, if we believe that Epaphroclitus, 
 the " Apostle " of the Philippians, who receives a special 
 message, and who is called St. Paul's " true yokefellow," 
 — I say, if we believe him to be the Bishop in our sense 
 of that Church, with its priests and deacons, this inter- 
 pretation gives the fullest and most natural meaning to 
 the words used. 3 In the same way, if we consider 
 Archippus, specially referred to in the Epistle to 
 Philemon, and specially warned to take heed to his 
 ministry in the Epistle to the Colossians, — I say, if we 
 consider him the Bishop of Colosse, a passage otherwise 
 rather inexplicable becomes clear. 4 
 
 Again, Timothy and Titus are marked out from all 
 other * presbyters " as having special function and 
 power ; viz. the power of administering discipline — and 
 this over presbyters and deacons, as well as over others 
 — and the power of filling up the ranks of presbyters 
 and deacons, when necessary, by Ordination. If all 
 presbyters had these powers, there would be no sense 
 whatever in St. Paul's directions to Timothy and Titus. 
 And here I may quote the words of an able writer : " If 
 
 1 1 Tim. iv. 14. 2 2 Tim. i. 6. 
 
 3 Phil. ii. 25 ; iv. 18. * Philem. 2 ; Col. iv. 17. 
 
258 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 the laying-on of hands in 1 Tim. v. 22 means, or in- 
 cludes (as it almost certainly does), Confirmation," then 
 the Apostolic power of confirming, as well as other 
 Apostolic powers, was given to them. " In other words, 
 as the Churches grew too large for the supervision in 
 each charge of one Apostle, and as the Apostles them- 
 selves felt the time of their own departure to draw near, 
 . . . each Apostle appointed others, within portions of 
 his own especial charge — as notably St. Paul appointed 
 St. Timothy and St. Titus — not to be presbyters only, 
 but above presbyters ; and, in brief, to take the Apostle's 
 place in all his permanent offices." * 
 
 Then, again, we find that they who have to dis- 
 charge their office have a special gift of grace (xaTntr/za) 
 for its discharge, and that this is given to them by the 
 laying-on of hands. This gift of grace God alone, of 
 course, can give ; there can, therefore, be no confidence 
 of receiving it, unless it is sought for in quarters where 
 God has placed the authority to convey it. If we think 
 what this means, it means nothing else but Apostolical 
 Succession. We find, of course naturally, as the Church 
 developed and became more fully organized, all sorts of 
 arrangements as to dioceses and metropolitical sees, and 
 so on ; and the later history of the Church throws light 
 on the allusions in the New Testament. Those allusions, 
 as I have said, cannot give us exact information on all 
 points ; for instance, the different functions allotted to 
 the different orders of ministers are not clearly drawn 
 out in the New Testament as we find that they were 
 afterwards. None the less, we do find in it that from 
 the first there is a ministry with different grades of 
 function and power, and in that ministry, it is only the 
 Apostles, or " Apostolic men," " who have the power to 
 1 Haddan, " Apostolical Succession," etc., pp. 88, S9. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 259 
 
 communicate the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying-on 
 of hands." We do find, as we have seen, " the ministry 
 of 'bishops' (or presbyters) and 'deacons' appearing there, 
 as an almost essentially subordinate ministry, and we 
 have clear evidence that the Apostolic office admitted 
 of being extended and localized, as in the case of St- 
 James and (more or less) of St. Timothy and St. Titus." * 
 And we do find, as we have seen, that a gift of grace 
 (xapKT/ua) given by the laying-on of Apostolic hands is 
 necessary for the discharge of ministerial function. And 
 we do find that " there is no provision whatever in the 
 New Testament either for the proper and adequate 
 administration of discipline, or for any continuance at 
 all of the ministry, save as by the hands of the Apostles, 
 or of bishops as successors of the Apostles." 2 We do 
 find also that in the case of every Church alluded to, 
 where the matter is touched upon at all, that it seems 
 in the highest degree probable, to say the least, that 
 that Church is "placed under single government, dis- 
 tinct from and above that of its presbyters." 3 And what, 
 my dear friend, I ask you, does all this amount to ? It 
 amounts, surely, to this : that whatever changes in detail 
 there may have been afterwards, or whatever develop- 
 ments of duties, or whatever variation of arrangements 
 in different parts of the Church, great principles which 
 are essential to the divine organization of the Church 
 are evident from the first — viz. the principle of Three 
 Orders of ministers ; the principle that only the highest 
 Order could hand on the grace of Orders and recruit 
 the ranks of the ministry ; the principle, in fact, of 
 Apostolical Succession, as according to the mind of 
 Christ from the first. 
 
 1 Gore, " The Church and the Ministry," p. 270. 
 
 2 Haddan, ut supra, p. 93. 3 Ibid. 
 
260 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 II. As to the witness of Church history, of the sub- 
 Apostolic and later ages, this is too large a question, you 
 will feel, for me to enter upon now. It seems to me 
 that men must strain the ^meaning of words and distort 
 the statements of history to an astonishing degree, in 
 order to doubt what the mind and action of the 
 Catholic Church — whether they think her right or 
 wrong — in all these ages has been in this matter. Those 
 who wish to study the question, when they have not 
 the opportunity of going into researches for themselves, 
 will find it, as you know, treated in a temperate and 
 scholar-like and very thorough manner by Mr. 4 Gore, in 
 his book on " The Church and the Ministry." 1 It is, how- 
 ever, notorious as she has — as we have seen — stated the 
 fact, 2 that the Church of England interprets the history 
 of the Church from the first, as witnessing to the three- 
 fold ministry. And this brings me to the real point of 
 our discussion under this head. 
 
 III. What is the teaching of the Church of England 
 as to the necessity of Episcopacy ? What is her teach- 
 ing as to Apostolical Succession f We have seen already, 
 I think, that if our Church does not consider Episcopacy 
 necessary, her conduct in relation to many who dissent 
 from her form of Church government is unchristian 
 and indefensible. But I think it may be shown that 
 she does consider Episcopacy necessary, whether she is 
 right or wrong in doing so, and that she does hold and 
 teach the doctrine of Apostolical Succession. 
 
 Men cannot, of course, deny that the teaching of the 
 Church of England is, that there have been from the 
 first the Ministry of the Three Orders. What they do, 
 however, is this : they ride off on the phrase w Historic 
 
 1 Gore, " The Church and the Ministry," chaps, iii. and vi. 
 
 2 Preface to the Ordinal. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 261 
 
 Episcopate/' and seem to maintain that whilst histori- 
 cally there has been an Episcopate, and that the Church 
 of England acknowledges the historical fact, still some 
 other form of Church government, if not quite so good, 
 is good enough, and that the Church of England, while 
 acknowledging an historical fact, does not admit a divine 
 necessity. 
 
 Further, it has been asserted that as to the doctrine 
 of the Apostolical Succession, it is not held by the 
 Church of England at all, and as a proof of this we are 
 reminded that the phrase is not used in her formularies, 
 and it is even asserted — strange to say — that it is an 
 invention of the Oxford Movement ! This latter assertion 
 is really astonishing in any thoughtful person. Whether 
 they hold the doctrine or not, they ought to know that 
 it has been held by the whole Catholic Church for many 
 centuries, and that the ministerial system of our own 
 part of the Church now, as always, long centuries before 
 the Reformation of the sixteenth century, is based upon 
 the assumption that that doctrine is true. 
 
 However, my dear friend, I can best deal with this 
 extraordinary assertion by quoting the words of one of 
 the greatest, if not the greatest living historian — a man 
 who entirely understands what he is talking about, as 
 well as being himself also an English Bishop. After 
 dealing with the attacks of Roman controversialists, — 
 with which we have nothing to do now, as the Roman 
 Church entirely agrees with the Anglican Church as to 
 the truth of the doctrine, though some of her contro- 
 versialists have, when they have been in straits to find 
 some stick to beat us with, impugned the genuineness 
 of our succession, — I say, after dealing with attacks of 
 this sort, which are so entirely baseless that they are not 
 difficult to rebut, — he goes on to touch upon the startling 
 
262 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 statement of Puritans within and outside the Church of 
 England, who deny "altogether the need of Apostolic 
 Succession, and summarily reject the claim of the Episco- 
 pate, to primitive authority or historic descent.'' Accord- 
 ing to these, he says justly, " there is no such thing as 
 Apostolic Succession, and the whole fabric based upon 
 the assumption is a false pretence to authority, not only 
 baseless in itself, but used as an instrument of exclusion 
 of faithful Christians from the privileges to which they 
 are entitled as believers, and as a ground of persecution 
 against those who reject the form of government to 
 which it belongs. Then," so he says, "comes in the 
 assertion of another school — that the men who carried 
 on the work of Reformation and Church government 
 during the first age of the Reformation did not believe 
 it themselves." Then he notices the further teaching 
 of another school — that " the doctrine of the historic 
 Episcopate " (used in its strict sense, that is, as in- 
 cluding the doctrine of the Apostolic Succession) " is a 
 comparatively modern invention in relation to the 
 Church of England, and in fact a figment, so far as we 
 are concerned, of what is called the Tractarian Revival." 
 Then this able writer continues as follows : " The argu- 
 ments of the Puritans against Episcopacy altogether, 
 are, of course, quite beyond a possibility of handling 
 now ; and they turn on quite a different sort of evidence. 
 But the statements as to the historic use of the term 
 ' Apostolic Succession ' in the Church of England, and 
 the modern idea of its real acceptance, may be dismissed 
 briefly. Up to the period of the Reformation, there 
 was no other idea of Episcopacy except that of trans- 
 mission of Apostolic Commission ; that the ministry of 
 the Episcopal government could be introduced without 
 such a link, was never contemplated, until Bugenhagen 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 263 
 
 reconstituted a nominal Episcopate in Denmark, and 
 this was an example not likely to be taken in England 
 nor was it so accepted. There is, then, no occasion to 
 test the writings of the Elizabethan divines in search 
 of traces of a belief in their own official existence. 
 Archbishop Parker's own work on the history of the 
 Church of England suffices to prove the importance 
 which he attached to succession. A catena of authorities, 
 from the days of Hooker onwards, is framed without 
 much trouble. The use of the exact term, 'Apostolic 
 Succession/ is a matter that involves a little more 
 research, but it is forthcoming. The work of Mason 
 on the English Episcopate, the language of Bishop 
 Forbes of Aberdeen in the seventeenth century, of Bishop 
 Beveridge on the Articles, of Law and Wesley, and of 
 the American Prayer-book of 1805, not to speak of 
 books that were written between 1805 and 1833, are 
 enough to prove that there is no element of innovation 
 or invention in question ; but whether or not the two 
 words are in common use, the writings of Mason, Jeremy 
 Taylor, Bramhall, and Lindsay, on the material point, 
 are sufficient to prove that the doctrine was definitely 
 held. It is not to be denied that, like many other 
 great truths which controversy has done its worst to 
 smother, the great meaning and force, both of word 
 and thing, needed, and still needs, to be more fully 
 realized." And then, when noticing the terrible troubles 
 through which our Church passed at the Reformation, 
 and the dark view taken by some of the characters of 
 various persons mixed up with the Reformation move- 
 ment, he adds this : " Surely there must be something 
 of Divine organization and Divine guidance in an 
 institution and history which has persistently continued 
 under such an array of disadvantages, and has done 
 
264 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 so much good in the world, as its enemies cannot 
 deny." * 
 
 These weighty words, my dear friend, will suffice, 
 I think, to meet any such astonishing statements, as 
 that the Church of England does not hold the doctrine 
 of Apostolic Succession, and that the doctrine was an 
 invention of the Oxford Movement. Both these asser- 
 tions, as this great writer shows us, are untrue to 
 fact. 
 
 But let us look for a moment more closely into the 
 statements of the Church of England. Of course, no 
 one can deny that in her ministry she accepts the Three 
 Orders, and declares they have been in the Church from 
 the beginning. But the contention of opponents is, 
 I repeat, that this is only an ecclesiastical or human 
 arrangement ; that, looking at the date of its origin, we 
 think it is Apostolic ; that it is not essential, but only 
 expedient ; and that, in fact, we only keep it because 
 there it is. I have already maintained that, if this be 
 all, to continue this ministry under modern circumstances 
 is morally, and on Christian principles, indefensible. 
 
 We maintain, I repeat, on the other hand, that the 
 Threefold Ministry is a divine institution, and there- 
 fore essential to the constitution of a Church according 
 to the mind of Christ ; and that this is the teaching of 
 the English Church. 
 
 (1) As to the Articles, the least determined state- 
 ments on the subject would be likely to be found there. 
 Well, turn to Article XXIII. ; we there learn that " it 
 is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office 
 of public preaching, or ministering the sacraments in 
 
 1 Charge delivered at his Second Visitation, 1893, by William 
 Stubbs, D.D., Bishop of Oxford, pp. 49, 50, 51. [The italics throughout 
 are mine.— W. J. K. L.] 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 265 
 
 the congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent 
 to execute the same." We know from the statements 
 in the Ordinal what " lawful " and " lawfully " mean 
 here, viz. according to God's law. In Article XXXVI., 
 ordination by bishops, including mission, according to 
 the English Ordinal, is declared to be an act of those 
 that have such authority, so that those who are so 
 ordained are " rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated 
 and ordered." In these Articles, except by an inevitable 
 inference, the Church of England is not engaged in 
 passing judgment upon others, but she is laying down 
 an essential law for herself. As to the first of these 
 Articles, I may quote the words of an able theologian — 
 
 " We have distinct evidence, at the end of the second 
 century, that the hierarchical constitution prevailed uni- 
 versally, without any known exception throughout the 
 whole of Christendom. ... It is impossible to account 
 for this hierarchical uniformity without presupposing 
 an original, divine institution. If we consider the 
 difficulty of transmission of intelligence, the rarity of 
 the occasions of communication, the deep-rooted, ethical 
 peculiarities of the varying tribes which were converted 
 to Christianity, we can in no way account for it, save 
 on the supposition of the Threefold Ministry being 
 a part of the original constitution of the Christian 
 Church. 
 
 " No new form could thus have established itself 
 universally without exciting some opposition ; of that 
 opposition there is no trace in any of the earlier records. 
 In the fifth century, indeed, we find the existence of 
 opposition — in the case of Aerius and Vigilantius — but 
 this opposition actually tests the universality of the 
 organization. It was left to the religious exigencies of 
 the foreign reformers to frame, first, a theory of the 
 
266 SACERDOTALISM, 
 
 non-necessity of bishops, and then to erect the platform 
 of their polity without reference to them. By some, 
 indeed, the new constitution was justified only on 
 the plea of absolute necessity. Calvin regretted this 
 imagined necessity. 
 
 " The gravity of the matter consists in this. That 
 while we are not in any way to limit the mercy of God, 
 and therefore can understand that, in exceptional cir- 
 cumstances, exceptional conditions of things may be 
 allowed; yet, in the course of the guidance of the 
 Church, it is a truth universally accepted by all who 
 have any pretensions to be sound theologians, that 
 the validity of certain rites depends upon Episcopal 
 ordination, i.e. upon the Apostolic Succession ; and, as 
 a result of the character of Holy Orders, none but one 
 so appointed can bind or loose in the name of Christ, or 
 consecrate His Body. As a matter of fact, in the Bodies 
 who have not Apostolic Mission, the belief in both these 
 functions has disappeared, and that disappearance is not 
 the least terrible result of the schisms of the sixteenth 
 century." 1 
 
 (2) And next, we may notice the great strength of 
 testimony which comes to our contention from the 
 various allusions in prayers and collects. For these 
 allusions are, so to speak, unpremeditated evidence ; 
 they are words which the Church could never rightly 
 put into the lips of her children, unless she had believed 
 in the Divine appointment of the Sacred Ministry in its 
 threefold order, and in the doctrine of the Apostolic 
 Succession. Thus she prays for the " bishops and pastors 
 of Thy flock," as being the sole ordainers ; and bishops 
 and pastors there are one class of persons, not two, as 
 our Lord is called " Shepherd and Bishop " in 1 Pet. 
 1 The Bishop of Brechin on the Thirty-nine Articles, in loc. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 267 
 
 ii. 25. Again she prays to God saying, " Who by Thy 
 Divine Providence hast appointed divers orders in Thy 
 Church." It may be said, of course, as to this prayer, 
 that it only recognizes an historical fact as being 
 providential, like any other historical fact; but it is 
 surely more in accordance with the whole tenor of the 
 Church's teaching, and less a straining of language, to 
 recognize that it means that when the Apostles appointed 
 these " divers orders," it was by Divine direction that 
 they did so. In another collect, the Church directly 
 compares the clergy of the present time with the Apostle 
 St. Peter. In another collect, she compares the bishops 
 with all the Apostles, to whom God first " gave many 
 excellent gifts," and then charged them to feed His 
 flock. What I contend is this, that as lex orandi is lex 
 credendi — the law of prayer is the law of belief — the 
 Church would never have made allusions of this kind 
 in her collects if she had not held the doctrine which 
 we are discussing. 
 
 (3) And now we turn to the great statement in the 
 preface to the Ordinal : " It is evident unto all men 
 diligently reading the Scriptures and ancient authors, 
 that from the Apostles' time there have been these 
 orders of ministers in Christ's Church ; bishops, priests, 
 and deacons." 
 
 It has been truly said that this is not stated as a 
 bare fact, but as a fact which implies a law, so that 
 none "shall be accounted a lawful bishop, priest, or 
 deacon in the Church of England" who has not had 
 " Episcopal consecration or ordination." 1 
 
 But, further, direction is given that the sermon 
 preached at the ordination both of deacons and priests 
 is to declare, among other things, " how necessary " both 
 
 1 Hadrian, ut supra, p. 142. 
 
 U 
 
268 SA CERD TA LISM. 
 
 " orders are in the Church of Christ." It is to be re- 
 membered that, according to the Church of England, 
 neither of these orders can be given except by a bishop 
 properly consecrated. 
 
 Surely no one can say after that, that the Church of 
 England does not consider that Episcopacy is necessary. 
 And here I cannot do better than quote the words of a 
 weighty writer, to whom frequent reference has been 
 already made, on this subject. 
 
 " We have," he says, " further, in the Ordinal itself, 
 the change of the words ' by His Divine Providence ' 
 (in the Ember Day prayer) into ' by His Holy Spirit ' — 
 the ascription of the sending of ministers to our Lord 
 Himself after His ascension; the description of their 
 office in the same place as ' appointed for the salvation 
 of mankind ; ' and above all the solemn words of the 
 ordination itself. And if we turn from the Ordinal to 
 the comment upon it, derivable from the other services, 
 besides the entire framework of these services, and the 
 rubrics respecting the ministers of them, — the plain words 
 of the well-known form of Absolution in the Visitation 
 Office show unmistakably, what indeed ample evidence 
 demonstrates, to have been not only the allowed, but 
 the pronounced and decided meaning of those who 
 remoulded our service-books at the Reformation. Orders, 
 then, in the view of the Church of England, are (his- 
 torically) an Apostolical ordinance; but one both in 
 itself necessary, and in its origin, a direct appointment 
 of Christ Himself by His Holy Spirit with no less an 
 end than the salvation of men's souls, and with no less 
 a power than that of administering sacraments and 
 conveying instrumentally God's gift of forgiveness of 
 sins. And those orders, of course, are asserted to be so, 
 and none other, that are set forth in the Ordinal itself, 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 269 
 
 viz. bishops, priests, and deacons, with their several 
 powers as there distinguished and declared." 1 
 
 It is important to remember, when speaking of the 
 belief of the Church of England as to the necessity of 
 Episcopacy, that in the preface above alluded to, she 
 affirms that she cannot account any one to be a lawful 
 bishop, priest, or deacon, and cannot suffer them to 
 execute any of the functions appropriate to those offices, 
 unless they are consecrated, or ordained according to 
 her own rite, or have " had formerly Episcopal consecra- 
 tion or ordination." These words are strong, but action 
 is more eloquent even than words. If the Church of 
 England receives, as she has done, — and in the above 
 words states, that she can receive — a Roman or a Greek 
 priest who may join her Communion without re-ordina- 
 tion, while she cannot admit a minister from any 
 Dissenting body unless he — I will not say "submits 
 to," but — " has the privilege of " receiving the grace of 
 Orders at the hands of the bishop, — I say, when she 
 says this and does this, is it possible for her more 
 strongly to assert the necessity, according to her teach- 
 ing, of Episcopacy to the constitution of the Church 
 in accordance with the mind of Christ ? 
 
 If, in view of this, men deny that she asserts that 
 necessity, it seems to me to be useless to attempt to 
 argue with them. Words to them must have a totally 
 different meaning from that which they have to you 
 or me. It may well be said, as it has been said, that 
 the powers which the Church of England declares to 
 be committed to those who are consecrated or ordained, 
 are " powers certainly in their own nature such as none 
 but Almighty God can give, and which, therefore, only 
 the authority of Almighty God can ever excuse, much 
 1 Haddan, ut supra, p. 143. 
 
270 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 less sanction, men in claiming to bestow. Beyond all 
 power of gloss/' the same writer justly goes on, " our 
 services are rank and fearful blasphemy, or they rest 
 upon the doctrine here laid down," * viz. the doctrine of 
 the necessity of Episcopacy and of Apostolic Succession. 
 
 I might, as you know, my dear friend, bring 
 abundant testimony from the documents of the time 
 of the Reformation to show the intention of our re- 
 formers in the same direction. In spite of a very 
 natural, and in some respects a very justifiable sympathy 
 with foreign reformers, our divines of the Reformation 
 period would never allow themselves to be drawn away 
 from the true doctrine of the Apostolic Ministry. The 
 strongest things that can be produced in an opposite 
 direction were the stray opinions of stray divines ; but 
 the Church stood firm. If any irregularities did occur 
 in stormy and difficult times, it would not be an 
 astonishing thing. The striking thing is, that whilst 
 desiring to be comprehensive and sympathetic towards 
 various bodies of Dissenters, the Church has felt this 
 matter of Orders to be so essential to her existence as 
 a part of the Catholic Church, that she has never 
 wavered. The justification for her firmness in this 
 matter, as I have already maintained, is, that it is 
 essential; were it not so, I repeat again, her faithful 
 adherence to it, under all the circumstances of the case, 
 would be a thing deserving of grave condemnation. 
 
 You will quite understand me, my dear Dean, when 
 I remind you that I am not at present engaged in an 
 attack upon other religious bodies, but in a defence 
 of our own position. Of course, to defend the Catholic 
 position of the Church of England is — by implication — 
 to differ from and condemn systems endorsed by religious 
 
 1 Haddan, ut supra. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 271 
 
 bodies which are separated from hei'. But it is a very 
 different thing to condemn a system, and to condemn 
 individuals who are under that system. It is possible 
 to make large allowances for Dissenters and others, who 
 deny what we believe to be Divine truth. The Church 
 herself, in the past, has been greatly to blame for their 
 secession. They are often where they are, we may 
 well believe, through no fault of their own. Sometimes 
 they have been brought up in a system, and it has been 
 difficult to shake off old habits and a long training; 
 sometimes they have an entirely wrong view of what 
 we mean, and think that we are putting something 
 " legal " and " carnal " in the place of spiritual religion. 
 We know that God's grace often " overflows " the 
 sacraments, and that where people have acted with 
 sincerity and an honest heart, even in irregular systems, 
 God has worked with them and given them blessings. 
 In most cases, indeed, " we only part where they deny." 
 In inviting them to consider more carefully their 
 position, and hoping that they may realize that the 
 Church's way is the way which has the imprimatur 
 of her Divine Founder, we are mostly not asking them 
 to deny truths which they have learnt, but to advance 
 into fuller truth. We cannot, then, be justly called 
 " narrow " because we refuse, in the interest of a hollow 
 comprehension, to deny the principles of the Church; 
 and others cannot be justly represented as "large- 
 minded " and " generous " if they are prepared to sur- 
 render that which they have no right to surrender, and 
 to act under the plea of "charity," in defiance of the 
 Church's teaching, and of her long-established tradition 
 as to the real character of the Sacred Ministry. It would 
 be grossly unfair to us to represent us as treating 
 Dissenters as "social lepers," because we are obliged, 
 
272 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 by the very terms of our engagements to the Church, 
 our Mother, to say that in all honesty we do not believe 
 them to possess a valid ministry. For myself, some 
 Dissenters are among my very dear friends. I recognize, 
 and rejoice in, their goodness. I know that I have 
 much to learn from them. I am sure that God's grace 
 is evidenced in their lives and characters. But that, I 
 submit, is no reason why I should go, not only contrary 
 to what I believe to be the witness of Scripture and of 
 history, but also — which is my point here — contrary to 
 the teachings of the Church to which I am bound as 
 an ordained priest. You do not fail in charity because 
 you are faithful to principle. Believing that Dissenting 
 Bodies are under loss by their abandonment of the 
 Apostolic Ministry, one is bound to say so — although 
 certainly without bitterness, or pride, or scorn. "He 
 that is not against us is on our part," said our Lord 
 Himself ; but the same Lord also said, " He that is not 
 with Me is against Me." We surely have to exercise 
 charity, but we learn also the necessity for decision and 
 faithfulness to principle. Longing as we do that all 
 who " name the Name of Christ," and are trying to serve 
 Him, although in ways that seem to be irregular, and 
 are " departing from iniquity," should act in the closest 
 conformity to His will, there is nothing " narrow " 
 or " uncharitable " in putting forward the Church's 
 system and the Church's teaching as being His own 
 revealed way. Stating this clearly, we cannot but hope 
 that many may be drawn more and more to realize that 
 they have the highest blessings by treading in " the old 
 paths." 
 
 "What is commonly understood," said a masterly 
 writer on this subject, already quoted, " to be meant by 
 the doctrine of the Apostolic Succession, was a common- 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 273 
 
 place among Christian ideas, and was bound up with the 
 whole fabric of the life of the Catholic Church." 
 
 And again, " It will appear at once as a conse- 
 quence " of this, " that the various Presbyterian and 
 Congregationalist organizations, however venerable on 
 many and different grounds, have, in dispensing with 
 the Episcopal successions, violated a fundamental law 
 of the Church's life. It cannot be maintained that the 
 acts of Ordination, by which presbyters of the sixteenth 
 or subsequent centuries originated the ministries of 
 some of their societies, were covered by their commission, 
 or belonged to the office of presbyter, which they had 
 duly received. Beyond all question, they*' took to them- 
 selves ' these powers of Ordination, and consequently had 
 them not.' It is not proved — nay, it is not perhaps 
 even probable — that any presbyter had, in any age, the 
 power to ordain j but it is absolutely certain that for a 
 large number of centuries it had been understood, be- 
 yond all question, that only bishops could ordain, and 
 that presbyters had not Episcopal powers ; and that no 
 exceptional dignity, belonging to any presbyter-abbot, 
 had ever enabled him to transcend the limits of his 
 office. 
 
 M It follows, then — not that God's grace has not 
 worked, and worked largely, through many an irregular 
 ministry, where it was exercised or used in good faith 
 — but that a ministry not episcopally received is in- 
 valid, that is to say, falls outside the conditions of 
 covenanted security, and cannot justify its existence in 
 terms of the covenant. 
 
 " This conclusion, once accepted, has, of course, an 
 immediate bearing on the obligations of individuals who 
 may find themselves members of Presbyterian or Con- 
 gregationalist bodies ; but it has also another and more 
 
274 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 general bearing on the relation of large communities of 
 Christians to the properly constituted Church. ' How 
 can you suppose/ they indignantly ask, 'that we can 
 accept conclusions which would falsify the prolonged 
 experience we have had in our Churches of the syste- 
 matic action of the grace of God ? ' The answer to such 
 pleading is surely this : We do not ask you to deny any 
 spiritual experience of the past or the present. The 
 blame for separation lies, on any fair showing quite 
 sufficiently with the Church to make it intelligible that 
 God should have let the action of His grace extend 
 itself widely and freely beyond its covenanted channels. 
 "We ask you, then, to be false to no part of experience, 
 but, rather to be more completely true to experience in 
 all its aspects." 1 
 
 This seems to me to be true and just. It would 
 seem, surely, then, to be disastrous and wrong for 
 Churchmen to allow themselves to speak — in the in- 
 terest of a desired " Reunion " — as if Episcopacy and 
 Apostolic Succession were matters of comparatively 
 little moment. To do so is scarcely likely to attract 
 Dissenting Bodies. Why should they rejoin a Church 
 which keeps up an unnecessary condition for " Reunion," 
 and appears to teach a doctrine which turns out not to 
 be of Divine origin ? To do so, also, alas ! plays into 
 the hands of Rome. Few, on the one hand, would be 
 likely to join us in consequence ; some, on the other 
 hand, might be tempted to join a Church which speaks 
 determinedly of the necessity of Apostolical Order, if 
 they are led to imagine that our part of the Catholic 
 Church does not. 
 
 But, as we have seen, she does. If, then, to believe 
 
 1 Gore, "The Church and the Ministry," pp. 339, 345, 346. See also 
 generally Boyd, " On Episcopacy." 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 275 
 
 in the necessity of Episcopacy, and the truth of the 
 Apostolic Succession, as a condition of a Church's life 
 according to the mind of the Divine Founder of Chris- 
 tianity, be " sacerdotalism," then " sacerdotalism " is the 
 teaching of the Church of England, and those who 
 uphold it are, to say the least of it, not disloyal to their 
 Mother Church. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Priesthood. 
 
 I have dwelt, my dear friend, on the necessity of the 
 Episcopate, and the truth of Apostolic Succession, not 
 only because there is a tendency to abandon these truths 
 of Catholic Christendom and of, therefore, the English 
 Church, out of a desire to promote " Reunion " with our 
 brethren who dissent from the faith of the Church, but 
 for another reason. The denial or abandonment of this 
 truth — always held in the Church — would be ineffective 
 as well as wrong, however amiable or kindly be the 
 motives of those who encourage such a thing. This we 
 have seen. But, further, this truth is in fact a part of 
 the doctrine of the Priesthood, which is an integral and 
 necessary department of the Christian revelation. 
 
 The doctrine of the Priesthood in the Church of 
 England is assailed as that evil " sacerdotalism " which 
 is so loudly condemned. It has even been denied that 
 the Church knows anything of " priest, altar, or sacri- 
 fice;" that the sacerdotal idea is foreign to the Church 
 of England, and so on. If this were true, then, indeed, 
 we could have no more to do with the English Church, 
 for she would have parted company — that is our con- 
 tention — with the teaching of Catholic Christendom, 
 and, indeed, with the gospel of Christ. 
 
276 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 This, however, is not true, as I shall try to show. 
 
 I. Well, first let us glance at the opposing theories. 
 According to this view, the Sacred Ministry, as we know 
 it, is more or less a matter of convenience. The Epis- 
 copate is a venerable institution, supposed — in the minds 
 of Churchmen who hold these views — to be the best 
 form of government, but no way necessary, and in the 
 minds of those who dissent from the Church to be 
 neither necessary nor the best. 
 
 The Priesthood, or Second Order, is supposed to be 
 also a more or less convenient ministerial arrangement. 
 The name " priest " is considered a misfortune, as it leads 
 men to think they have priests when they have not ; and, 
 in truth, the ministry means that there are three sets of 
 persons, bishops, presbyters, and deacons, appointed for 
 sake of order and convenience, holding no Divine office 
 at all, and exercising different powers, not because they 
 alone can exercise them by gifts of grace, but because 
 it is convenient to have different officials to perform 
 different functions, as — in civil matters — you might 
 appoint policemen or magistrates to discharge various 
 duties with a view to maintaining the public peace. 
 According to this view, ministers are really laymen, 
 called for convenience (or inconvenience !) " bishops, 
 priests, and deacons," and appointed to perform minis- 
 terial duties which could be done just as well by any 
 one else, except in so far as it is wise in life to have 
 a regulated division of labour. 
 
 Further, according to this view, the Second Order 
 really ought to be called presbyters ; the word priest 
 is misleading. In so far as this order is concerned, in 
 so far as it has come down from early days, each 
 member of it is to be considered a successor, so to 
 speak, of the Jewish elder, not of the Jewish priest. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 277 
 
 Well, as to this, the comparison is certainly an im- 
 perfect one, for the Jewish elder was not a minister of 
 religion at all ; he was an ecclesiastical magistrate. He 
 assisted the ruler of the synagogue in looking after the 
 affairs of the synagogue, and in supplying readers, and 
 in maintaining discipline. Any person in the congrega- 
 tion might expound or teach just as well as he. 
 
 To keep the parallel : those who hold this low view 
 of the Priesthood have to add on a ministry of religion 
 to the original view of eldership. 
 
 Now, it is interesting to remember this, because those 
 who deny the sacerdotal teaching of the Church make, 
 as one of their great objections to it, what they consider 
 a point in argument, viz. that it cannot be true because 
 it adds on certain duties and functions, which do not 
 lie in the original term presbyter. In fact, then, both 
 theories add on to the offices supposed to be represented 
 by the original term. 
 
 A notion that there is no Priesthood proper in the 
 Christian Church, but that our word priest really 
 means elder and nothing more, springs from the idea of 
 parallelism with the Jewish synagogue. It has really 
 taken form and impressed itself on men's minds only 
 within the last few centuries, and gained much of its 
 force from the learned Dutch Presbyterian Vitringa, 
 who wrote about 1759. As to any English divines 
 falling in with this notion, he quotes Lightfoot and 
 Thorndike, because they speak of the synagogue. But 
 when the term " synagogue " is used, it is used to express 
 the entire Jewish system; and Thorndike, who alludes 
 to the resemblance between a Christian minister and a 
 Jewish elder, dwells upon the still closer resemblance 
 between the Christian minister and the Jewish priest ! 
 Nothing can be imagined as a better illustration of the 
 
278 SA CERDO TALIS M. 
 
 weakness of the case of those who would saddle the 
 English Church and English divines with this mistaken 
 notion than the fact that Thorndike, of all men, should 
 be quoted by Vitringa in favour of his Presbyterian 
 theory, considering that no divine of the English Church 
 can be more full and strong and uncompromising in his 
 teaching on the doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Altar 
 than Thorndike. 1 
 
 Lightfoot also, the other divine that is quoted, uses 
 — as Vitringa himself acknowledges — the term " syna- 
 gogue " in its widest sense, and speaks at the same time 
 of " sacrifices, priests (sacerdotes), deacons, or Levites," 
 as points of correspondence between the Jewish and the 
 Christian system. This view as to the second order of 
 the ministry is certainly not the view of the divines of 
 the English Church. 
 
 This, then, is the opposing theory of the Christian 
 ministry. Ministers may be called bishops, or pres- 
 byters, or priests, or deacons, or whatever you please, 
 but their difference of grade or order only arises from 
 religious convenience. If you are to have a bishop, it 
 is because you think it advisable to have a general 
 " overseer." But another arrangement would do as 
 well, or nearly as well. If you are to have a priest — 
 whom you had much better call " presbyter," for fear of 
 mistakes — you mean that his office and his name have 
 been suggested by those of an officer of the Jewish 
 synagogue. Christianity is a revelation of an ideal of 
 life and of redemption by the death of Christ. It is 
 practically a philosophy. It implies philanthropy and 
 social duties. Its sacraments are badges of fellowship ; 
 they can be done without — each soul can carry on its 
 
 1 Cf. Carter, " The Doctrine of the Priesthood," p. 3, and Thorndike, 
 " On the Eucharist," 'passim. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 279 
 
 own religion with God without the intervention of 
 others. There is one High Priest, indeed ; but His " One 
 Sacrifice once offered " is " finished," in such a sense 
 that we have no more to do with it except to believe 
 that He offered it for us. He does not present it for us 
 in heaven, and whilst we remember it, we cannot of 
 course, therefore, present before God that Sacrifice on 
 earth. We call our Lord High Priest : the high priest 
 of the Jewish system symbolized Him, but the other 
 priests of that system symbolized nothing; there is 
 nothing corresponding to them, in any measure, in the 
 Christian system. We have no priests, no sacrifices, no 
 altar. When we speak of sacrifice, we mean it only in 
 the sense of praising God, or thanking Him with the 
 " fruit of our lips ; " and to speak of a Christian Priest- 
 hood now, except in so far as that term may be used in 
 an ideal or metaphorical sense of all Christian people, is 
 entirely misleading and erroneous ; and consequently all 
 that in any way encourages the notion of the existence 
 of a priesthood on earth, such as the teaching of Con- 
 fession and Absolution, or the advisability of prayer 
 and fasting in preparation for Communion, or the 
 presence of worshippers at the Communion Service join- 
 ing " the Church's prayer-meeting " at a moment when 
 they themselves are not communicating, or the teaching 
 of the Lord's Real Presence instead of His Real Absence 
 in the Sacrament, or of the truth of the Commemorative 
 Sacrifice as a memorial before God of the One Sacrifice 
 once offered in blood and suffering on the Cross, — all 
 these teachings which encourage the notion of a Priest- 
 hood are unscriptural and erroneous, and imply that 
 evil " sacerdotalism," which is to be withstood by all 
 faithful Christians ! 
 
 Well, my dear Dean, you and I believe that all 
 
2 8o SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 these things — which are thus denounced by oppo- 
 nents — when properly understood, are true; and that 
 this view which opposes them all is erroneous and a 
 mistake, and represents at least a very insufficient 
 Christianity, according to the witness of Scripture and 
 antiquity ; but the point, again I say, is this — What is 
 the teaching of the English Church ? Supposing for a 
 moment that all the above view was perfectly right and 
 sound; — in that case, I maintain, the English Church 
 would be wrong, for the above view is not her view. If 
 we come to the conclusion that she is wrong, not true to 
 Scripture or to the Catholic Faith, it might be our duty 
 at least to cease to exercise our ministry in her ; but 
 whether she is right or whether she is wrong, we cannot 
 be disloyal to her by teaching what she teaches. 
 
 II. The " Presbyter view " is not then, I maintain, 
 the view of the English Church. Her teaching is that 
 there are three orders of ministers by Divine appoint- 
 ment ; that as to the Priesthood, it is not a thing 
 separate from, much less opposed to, or interfering with, 
 the Priesthood of Christ, but is that very Priesthood 
 exercised according to His will through human instru- 
 ments. It is the great Office of the Christian Church ; 
 for a bishop is, after all, a priest with the added powers 
 given by God, to give the Holy Ghost by the laying-on 
 of hands, as the Apostles did, and to continue the Sacred 
 Ministry by handing on the priestly Office which none 
 but a bishop can do. 
 
 (1) Now, this is not opposed to proper independence. 
 The idea that it is, lies at the root of a good deal of 
 the opposition to this truth. There are two aspects of 
 religion for a Christian. There is, of course, personal 
 responsibility, and direct communion of the soul with God. 
 But it is also true that we are members of a Body. Our 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 281 
 
 greatest sin is to act as if we were independent of God, 
 and a kindred sin is to act as if we were independent of 
 one another. By being members of the Body of Christ, 
 we have union with the Great Head. Our new life in 
 Christ is a gift communicated to its, and the ministerial 
 succession and the Priesthood of the Church are valuable, 
 among other things, because they impress this fact upon 
 us. Christ's gifts and graces are given to us from with- 
 out ; of course, when we reach the age of responsibility, 
 we are bound to appropriate them within by faith. Our 
 souls are saved through the strength of a living faith 
 within, but by the instrumentality of grace given to us 
 from without. As covenanted channels of grace, the 
 sacraments have ever been used in the Catholic Church : 
 it is possible to quote St. Ignatius, Justin Martyr, 
 Irenreus, Tertullian, in proof of this, to say nothing of 
 the strong teachings of Holy Scripture; but I have 
 said enough on this head in speaking of the Real 
 Presence, and need not weary you with quotations 
 now. Such a belief in the sacraments implied that 
 Christianity did not merely teach personal independence, 
 and the administrators of those sacraments were ever 
 believed to be men set apart for the purpose of dealing, 
 by power from on high, with such Divine things. A 
 Priesthood, receiving gifts of grace handed on by suc- 
 cession from Christ and His Apostles, does not interfere 
 with the communion of the soul with God ; but its 
 appointment has been needful in conformity with the 
 economy of the Incarnation, for bringing man into, and 
 continuing him in, that state which makes such personal 
 communion most fully possible. If sacraments are, as 
 they are, covenanted channels by which God's grace 
 from above is given to the soul, that it may be in a 
 position to have close communion with God, then the 
 
282 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 men who administer such sacraments require a special 
 calling from on high. "There is not in the world," 
 says Bishop Taylor, " a greater presumption than that 
 any should think to convey a gift of God, unless by 
 God he be appointed to do it." x The doctrine of the 
 Priesthood, then, does not at all interfere with proper 
 Christian independence, but it is doubtless a reminder 
 that there may be improper independence, which would 
 make a man forget the Christian's place as a member 
 of the Body of Christ. 
 
 In this connection I may remind you, my dear Dean, 
 of what you have, I think, dwelt upon yourself, and 
 what seems to me to be quite obvious, that the principle 
 of " sacerdotalism " is the principle of Divine govern- 
 ment in life. Turn it out of religion, and you introduce 
 the idea of an inconsistency in the Divine dealings with 
 man. I have dwelt upon this before, I need not enlarge 
 upon it now ; suffice it to remind you, that the great 
 leaders of thought, great scientific discoverers, nay, our 
 natural parents, our very food, our medical men, do 
 not interfere between us and God, do not destroy our 
 proper independence, but are means, according to God's 
 appointment, by which in various ways we receive 
 His gifts. 
 
 I may, perhaps, in passing, allude to another point. 
 The fact that the Catholic Church accepts lay Baptism 
 does not contradict this rule as to the Priesthood, nor 
 lessen the weight of the saying of Bishop Taylor's 
 quoted above. " I will have mercy, and not sacrifice," 
 i.e. " I will have sacrifice, but not without mercy," is 
 God's way in dealing with His people. God has His 
 general methods of dealing with His people ; but He is, 
 
 1 Taylor's works, " Ductor Dubitant," xiv. p. 26. Quoted also by 
 Gore, " The Church and the Ministry," p. 82. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 283 
 
 of course, not hampered by those methods. The Catholic 
 Church puts before us His revealed way ; but she is 
 large and wise and generous, like her Divine Founder. 
 Holy Baptism is of the extremest importance if it may 
 be had; the proper minister for it is the ordained 
 priest ; but, being so important as the way of entrance 
 into the Christian family, the Church has been guided 
 to permit the administration of it, in extreme cases, by 
 other baptized Christians, if done in good faith, and 
 with the form and matter appointed by our Lord. The 
 administration is then irregular, but not invalid. To 
 make systematic use of what is an exceptional per- 
 mission in cases of extreme necessity would, of course, 
 be wrong. But this by the way. 
 
 (2) Then, again, the doctrine of the Priesthood as 
 taught by the Church is objected to on another kindred 
 ground, viz. that it is said that all Christians possess 
 a priesthood, and that the Catholic doctrine of the 
 ministerial priesthood interferes with this truth. 
 
 Far from interfering with it, my dear Dean, the one 
 is the complement of, and illustrates the other. In this 
 connection men usually quote 1 Pet. ii. 9, in order to 
 deny the Catholic doctrine. That passage is important. 
 In it the Apostle is applying a statement of the Old 
 Testament to show that a 4C royal priesthood " is in- 
 herited by all Christ's people; this calls our attention 
 to the fact that in both covenants there is unity of 
 purpose, and therefore that it is probable that both 
 priesthoods would appear in a Christian Church, as 
 they were in the Jewish Church ; it gives a high 
 probability to the existence of a ministerial priesthood 
 in the Christian as well as in the Jewish Church, as 
 the priesthood of the people in one is reproduced in 
 the other. 
 
 x 
 
284 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 For redeemed man is saved through the death 
 and atonement of Christ, and being thereby in a 
 state of salvation, he is able willingly to offer his 
 transfigured nature and his renewed powers to God. 
 This power and this duty of offering one's self, one's 
 soul, one's body, one's gifts to God, constitutes the in- 
 dividual priesthood of the Christian. But just as there 
 is this power and duty in the individual, so — God's 
 people being a corporate Body — there is a ministerial 
 priesthood for the whole Body. Further, it is by means 
 of Sacraments — Baptism and Confirmation — which 
 are administered by the ministerial priesthood, that the 
 individual soul is consecrated to God's service, and " or- 
 dained," so to speak, to a share, in his proper measure, 
 of the Priesthood of Christ. Men need not suppose — and 
 it is this supposition which so often closes their eyes to 
 this particular truth of the gospel — that the act of the 
 ministerial priesthood can take the place of individual 
 effort and faith on the part of those who must exercise 
 their individual priestly function in their own souls 
 towards God. The two must go together. "Kepent, 
 and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus 
 Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the 
 gift of the Holy Ghost," is an instance — as has been 
 truly said * — of this combination of the inward condition 
 and the ministerial act. Thus it is that we have the 
 "Amen" at the end of the Consecration Prayer, in 
 reference to which St. Paul objects to the use of 
 an unknown tongue, lest, if used, an unlearned man 
 would not know when to say his " Amen " at the 
 Eucharist at the close of the Consecration Prayer : 2 thus 
 it is that the " Sacrifice " in the Prayer of Oblation is 
 spoken of as " our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving " 
 
 1 B. Carter, " Doctrine of Priesthood." 2 1 Cor. xiv. 16. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 285 
 
 (pur Eucharistic Sacrifice), and " our bounden duty 
 and service." The Priesthood, according to the teach- 
 ing of the Church, is, as I have said, ministerial and 
 representative, not vicarious. But it is a real Priest- 
 hood ; it does not contradict ; it falls in with ; it illus- 
 trates ; it is a necessary consequence of, the priesthood of 
 the people. 
 
 (3) All sorts of arguments — if arguments they can 
 be called — are brought from etymology, from names, 
 and their original derivation. This is an instance of 
 the way in which — so it seems to me — men will allow 
 themselves to dwell on words instead of things. We 
 are told that there is no such thing as priesthood in the 
 Catholic Church, or in the Church of England, because 
 the word " priest " is derived originally from " presbyter " 
 (7rpt(rfivTepog), which means " elder," or older person. A 
 great deal of stress is laid upon the fact that Christian 
 priests are not called in the Bible by the title hpevg, 
 which was the term used for sacrificing priests. It is 
 really astonishing that such arguments should be 
 seriously advanced ; it is an example of the shifts to 
 which men are driven who oppose the doctrines of the 
 Church. For, if it comes to that, the word lepevg itself 
 means simply " one who deals with holy things," and 
 I believe that the proper word corresponding to hpevg 
 in the Hebrew is not used where it would naturally be 
 expected. But all this is absurd. Words themselves 
 are not things with necessary meanings. When " they 
 come into contact with new ideas " they " become repre- 
 sentatives " of these ideas. It is a matter of usage, and 
 according to usage they are as good representatives of 
 the new ideas as they were of the old. " What notion," 
 it has been truly said, " of a sacrament " would be likely 
 to be gained by finding that originally it had meant 
 
286 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 the oath of a Roman soldier ? What notion of Holy- 
 Baptism would be gained that originally it only meant 
 washing ? Words change their meaning or enlarge 
 their meaning, and in the difficult relation in which the 
 Catholic Church stood in the earliest age to the Jewish 
 Church, it was quite natural that another term for the 
 priesthood should be appropriated, instead of the old 
 Jewish term, to avoid confusion ; not because it was 
 not to represent a real priesthood, but because it was 
 to represent a larger and more real priesthood, dealing 
 no longer with types and shadows, but with substantial 
 realities. 
 
 The same sort of change or enlargement had, in 
 their degree, passed over former words of the same kind. 
 There is no doubt that the idea of a real priesthood, 
 involving sacrifice, is an idea well known and universal. 
 There is no doubt that this idea was well known 
 throughout Eastern and Western Christendom. Well, 
 the word " priester " in Germany, " pretre " in France, 
 "presbytero" in Spain, "priest" in England, were un- 
 questionably all used — this no one can contradict — to 
 express that idea, as meaning precisely the same thing 
 as "sacerdote" in Italy, and kptvg in the East, and 
 " sagart " — derived from " sacerdos " — in Ireland, and 
 " offeiriadd," offerer, in Wales. 1 It has been the way of 
 the Christian Church to take up words and rebaptize 
 them, so to speak ; and it is, I submit, perfectly absurd 
 to argue against the priesthood on the ground that some 
 Christian nations and some parts of the Catholic Church 
 have used, to express " priest," a word derived from 
 " presbuteros," whilst others, to express the same idea, 
 have used words more directly related to the old sacer- 
 dotal expressions. 
 
 1 Cf. Carter, " The Doctrine of the Priesthood," ut supra. 
 
* THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 2S7 
 
 (4) I need not trouble you by ranging over the 
 various arguments which are advanced from Holy 
 Scripture as against the Catholic doctrine. They 
 chiefly turn upon something more or less like what 
 we have considered, viz. the old Jewish name of 
 " priests " not being given in the New Testament to 
 the ministers of the new dispensation. I may as well 
 call your attention to three considerations which have 
 been very properly advanced in answer to such argu- 
 ments — 1 
 
 (a) It was clearly not the will of God that there 
 should be a sudden break between the old dispensation 
 and the new. " At first they continued daily with one 
 accord in the temple." They clung to the Holy City 
 and its past, to the old worship, till they were forced 
 to relinquish it, and they observed the Levitical Sabbath. 
 While they were still receiving some ministration from 
 the hands of the Jewish priests, there would have been 
 serious confusion had the same name been used for the 
 new ministry as for the old. 
 
 (b) Besides that, as we have seen, the old ideas as to 
 the Levitical law clung about the old terms, and it was 
 necessary for Christians to learn the larger meaning of 
 the Christian priesthood. It has been quite truly said, 
 therefore, " that the disuse of the term may therefore 
 be regarded as a merciful provision to facilitate the 
 progress of the Jewish mind to the spiritual realities of 
 the new kingdom. It certainly could not have been 
 meant to teach them that there were no such realities ; 
 but if this argument is to prevail, it must prevail for the 
 abolition of the Christian duty of observing " the Lord's 
 Day." Our opponents will scarcely say that we are 
 
 1 Ibid., where this is argued in extenso, from which the following con- 
 siderations are, in parf, condensed. 
 
288 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 wrong in maintaining the " Christian Sabbath," and in- 
 terpreting the Fourth Commandment, mutatis mutandis, 
 to apply to a real observance of the Lord's Day. Pro- 
 testants can scarcely object to the term " Sabbath ; " 
 the term " Sabbath," however, is nowhere used in the 
 New Testament in regard to Christianity ; indeed, very 
 strong language is used by St. Paul about the observance 
 of Sabbath Days as well as Holy Days ; l and a merely 
 superficial study of some passages of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews would lead one at first sight to suppose that 
 all Sabbath observance was abolished, of every kind, 
 and that the only rest contemplated by Christianity is 
 the rest of the soul in God. 2 And yet, side by side with 
 this, the Apostles and the whole Church were keeping 
 the Lord's Day as the Christian Sabbath ; and we can 
 trace up to the very earliest antiquity the observance of 
 Passiontide and Easter, and Wednesdays and Fridays. 
 The 'principle involved in both terms, " priest " (lepevg) 
 and " Sabbath," was maintained and consecrated by the 
 Christian Church, while the terms themselves were 
 disused. There is no strong language in the New 
 Testament against the word " priest " (hptvg), as there is 
 against " Sabbath " and " Holy Days ; " but the fact is 
 that it was necessary from circumstances to use new 
 terms and fresh arrangements while the great principle 
 was maintained; and those who argue from Scripture 
 that the Christian Priesthood is abolished, and is replaced 
 by a mere Eldership or Presbyterate because the old ivord 
 for " priest " was not used of the Christian ministry in 
 the New Testament, ought to argue much more strongly 
 against any divinely appointed day of rest, and should 
 maintain that the observance of the Lord's Day is of very 
 questionable propriety, considering the way in which the 
 1 Cf. Col. ii. 16, 17. 2 Heb. iv. 4-11. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 289 
 
 New Testament treats the " Sabbath," and at best can only 
 be defended as a matter of human convenience and having 
 nothing whatever to do with Divine Revelation. 
 
 This can scarcely be done with consistency by those 
 who show Puritan proclivities, and therefore a devotion 
 to the word " Sabbath." On this point I may quote preg- 
 nant words : " This remarkable similarity in the use of 
 these two terms forms a very strong presumption that 
 the same principle has operated in both cases. While 
 there was danger to be apprehended from Jewish ideas 
 becoming attached to the new system, from mere con- 
 fusion or from the appearance of antagonism, the Jewish 
 terms were suspended, though the ideas of ' Priesthood ' 
 and c Sabbath ' passed into the Christian system. When 
 this danger no longer existed, and the separation of the 
 two systems was complete, the terms themselves were 
 again freely used. . . . Such a change of names . . . 
 where the inner life of an institution was developed 
 under a new aspect, occurred in other cases, marking, as 
 it would seem, a general law. Thus the Passover survives 
 in Passiontide and Easter; Pentecost in Whitsuntide; 
 the Feast of Tabernacles in Advent and Christmas." 1 
 No imperfect forms of Christianity, it seems to me, my 
 dear friend, mark the consistency of God's dealings, and 
 the expansion of Judaism into Christianity, so clearly 
 as is done by the Catholic Church. 
 
 (c) The whole Mosaic system in its detail is repre- 
 sented by St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Galatians, as 
 a kind of interlude between God's original revelation 
 in patriarchal times, and His fulfilment of that revela- 
 tion in the Christian dispensation. Thus, while certain 
 features of the Mosaic system were allowed to die away 
 in the Christian Church, certain rites of patriarchal 
 1 Carter, ut supra. 
 
290 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 times which had held their ground, but in a secondary 
 place, under the Law, were brought into striking promi- 
 nence in the Christian Church. Baptism was a very 
 early custom ; but it was secondary in Judaism ; and it 
 was raised to be a sacrament in the new kingdom. 
 Laying-on of hands was a solemn custom in "patriarchal 
 times ; it has no great prominence, to say the least of 
 it, in Judaism ; and it becomes the outward sign of two 
 sacraments in the Christian Church, and is stated in 
 Holy Scripture to be one of the " first principles " or 
 " foundations " of the " doctrine of Christ." * So the term 
 " elder " came from the times of the 'patriarchs, as a 
 solemn and honoured term, to express that mysterious, 
 priestly power that lay in the head of the family ; 
 and this term was chosen as the name for that 
 minister of the Christian Church who "begets sons 
 unto God," and has the power " to feed them with 
 the bread of immortality." The new dispensation, then, 
 looks back especially to the patriarchs. And when we 
 remember this, we see that the Church selected not an 
 unpriestly, but the most priestly name possible. The 
 gospel is the carrying out of the promises made to the 
 Fathers. We expect from this the patriarchal develop- 
 ment of the Priesthood. St. Paul himself says that 
 the Priesthood was not abolished, but " changed." The 
 " change " seems to have been this : the new Order 
 came, not from the Mosaic covenant, but from Christ 
 Himself, and, like His Priesthood, this great Priesthood 
 of the Catholic Church, which is only an expression and 
 application of His own, has been formed "after the 
 order of Melchizedek." The Priesthood of the Old Law 
 was not the source from which it sprang; it was its 
 type and shadow. Think in this connection of the 
 1 Heb. vi. 1, 2. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 291 
 
 words of Eusebius: "Our Saviour Jesus Christ does, 
 even to this present time, celebrate sacrifice among men 
 by His ministers after the manner of Melchizedek ; for 
 as he, being a priest of the Gentiles, nowhere appears to 
 have used material sacrifices, but blessed Abraham in 
 Bread and Wine, in the same manner our Saviour and 
 Lord, and afterwards all priests that derive from Him, 
 performing in all nations their spiritual functions by- 
 Bread and Wine, do express the mysteries of His Body 
 and Saving Blood." x 
 
 If, then, we had no real Priesthood, we should be 
 altogether out of joint, so to speak, with the teaching of 
 Scripture in these particulars. And further, the existence 
 of the Priesthood falls in with the economy of the Incar- 
 nation. It has pleased God that invisible things should 
 be presented to us under the form of what is seen, and 
 that through such form they not only show themselves, 
 but act. It pleases God thus to approach His creatures. 
 In the Old Covenant all this was done in part, and was 
 expressed in symbol. In the New Covenant God is 
 M with us " in Christ made man, and that Incarnation 
 is extended with all its powers and blessings to all who 
 will to use it, in loving faith, by the means of a minis- 
 terial priesthood, ministering sacraments which are out- 
 ward and effectual signs — that is, signs effecting what 
 they signify — of inward grace. The " presbyter view " of 
 the ministry is " out of joint " with the whole economy 
 of the Incarnation; the "sacerdotal view" — and, I submit, 
 it alone — is consistent with the great principles of that 
 mighty mystery. 
 
 (5) Then one may perhaps notice the strong point 
 that is made against Christian teaching as to the Priest- 
 hood, by what seem to me to be misunderstandings and 
 1 Lib. v., " De Deni. Evan.," c. 3- 
 
292 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 misinterpretations of the Epistle to the Hebrews. I 
 think that you were present lately on an important 
 occasion, and heard, as I did, these objections, put in 
 what I must call a very masterly and telling way. It 
 was then denied that our Lord represents in heaven 
 the sacrifice that He offered on earth. This assertion 
 was supported, if I remember rightly, by the statement 
 that the attitude of a sacrificing priest is not to be 
 sitting for ever on the right hand of God ; further, it 
 was asserted that in the Jewish ritual no sacrifice was 
 ever carried into the holiest of all, and that our Blessed 
 Lord, therefore, could not be presenting Himself as a 
 Sacrifice in the true Most Holy Place ; that, therefore — 
 that was the argument — as our Lord did not do it in 
 heaven, the Christian priest could not be doing it on 
 earth. It was argued that the sacrifice of our Lord was 
 so entirely finished that its value and influence spread 
 throughout all ages, and it needs no representation. 1 
 
 Certainly, if all this be true, the Catholic Church is a 
 vast breakdown. We have no business to go on saying 
 in the Creed that "I believe in the Holy Catholic 
 Church ; " we ought to say, " I repudiate the Holy 
 Catholic Church," for a great part of her teachings 
 about Christ and His sacrifice is wrong. We ought, I 
 submit, to make our Act of Faith instead under some 
 such form as this : " I believe in a variety of Protestant 
 interpretations of verses of Holy Scripture, even 
 though those interpretations are contradictory to the 
 teaching of the Church, and not infrequently contra- 
 dictory to one another." But this argument, my dear 
 friend, although it was well put, and stated with excel- 
 lent temper, in a succinct and masterly way, is, I think, 
 full of fallacy, and chiefly valuable as a short and 
 
 1 By Archdeacon PeroWne, at the Church Congress at Birmingham. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 293 
 
 handy statement of erroneous interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture and of heretical teaching as to the Priestly office 
 of Christ. 
 
 The Epistle to the Hebrews argued against the 
 Jewish notion that their ceremonial law was sufficient 
 for their justification. They had forgotten that its 
 character was typical, and that it could not therefore 
 be lasting. Against this, the Epistle argues that the 
 blood of slaughtered animals cannot take away sins ; 
 that if neiv sacrifices have to be offered perpetually, it 
 shows that they are not effective; and that if their 
 priests were all that they had to act for them, the fact 
 that they had to offer for themselves as well as for the 
 others, and that they passed away and died, showed 
 their ineffectiveness. The Jews, in fact, had got into 
 the way of trusting to their priests and sacrifices with- 
 out any idea of their relationship to the covenant in 
 Christ. Against this the writer of the Epistle argues. 
 In opposition to this, he places the faultless sinlessness 
 of Christ ; the offering up of His own Blood ; the im- 
 possibility of His dying any more ; and the fact of His 
 having entered into the heaven itself, and having 
 taken His seat at the right hand of His Father, prov- 
 ing that His offering was eternal and inexhaustible in 
 its effects, and prevailed with God. 
 
 The Epistle, therefore, teaches that there is one only 
 true High Priest Who can meet the wants of mankind ; 
 that to Him there can be no successor, in such sense 
 that He hands on His Priesthood to that successor and 
 dies, and goes away and gives up the office Himself; 
 that there is one only Sacrifice for the cleansing of the 
 soul ; that it can never be repeated, and that there are 
 no defects in it which have to be supplied. The argu- 
 ment in the Epistle in the plainest manner teaches 
 
294 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 that there cannot be a priesthood which offers sacrifices 
 separate from and irrespective of the Sacrifice of the 
 Cross, and that there never can be a fresh offering in 
 blood and slaughter and sorrow of the one true Lamb 
 of God. 
 
 But the question, which is the real question in point 
 now — as to the ordained means for applying the virtues 
 of the Sacrifice of the Cross, and pleading its efficacy ; 
 and as to the appointment of an order of priests, who, 
 in the power of the one High Priest, are the appointed 
 agents for applying those means — and for such 
 pleading — does not come into the scope of the argu- 
 ment at all. The Catholic doctrine teaches, in accord- 
 ance with the argument in this Epistle, that the 
 sacrifice has been once offered, that there is one 
 great High Priest ; but it goes on to remind us that that 
 sacrifice can be pleaded, that its perfected merits are 
 applied to individuals, and that a ministerial priesthood 
 has been appointed by Him on earth to plead that one 
 sacrifice and to apply those merits. As to the remark that 
 the session of our Blessed Lord, the Eternal High Priest, 
 on the right hand of the Father, proves that He does 
 not present or show for us His meritorious Death and 
 Passion before the Father — it is one of the most inex- 
 plicable statements I have ever heard. The idea seems 
 to be that His sitting at the right hand of the Father 
 is inconsistent with the attitude of a priest, and that 
 He could not show His meritorious death in Heaven 
 because there was no altar in the Holiest Place of all, 
 in the Jewish temple. To argue in this way seems to 
 be seizing upon one detail meant to emphasize one 
 particular fact, and to make it do duty for everything 
 else ; and upon it I have to say — 
 
 (a) Our Lord sitting as the Eternal High Priest 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 295 
 
 does not tell against the appointment by Him of an 
 earthly priesthood, any more than God Almighty 
 sitting upon the throne of heaven can tell against the 
 existence of earthly sovereigns, ruling by His provi- 
 dential guidance over earthly kingdoms. 
 
 (b) Then as to the attitude of the Great High Priest ; 
 this figure is meant, of course, to emphasize His triumph 
 and the completeness of His sacrifice, but certainly is 
 not meant to teach that He does not show Himself, 
 with the merits of His Passion, before God for us, for 
 this very epistle asserts the contrary. 1 Now, to show 
 Himself there — He, being both Priest and Victim — in the 
 power of His great sacrifice, is to plead His Passion for 
 us. He is Himself, indeed, Priest and Victim and Altar. 
 Besides, we have read, I suppose, of " a Priest upon His 
 throne ; " we have read, also, in Scripture, I think, of 
 " the Lamb as it had been slain," standing upon the 
 altar ; and we read in this very Epistle, " For Christ is 
 not entered into the holy places made with hands, 
 which are the figures of the true; but into heaven 
 itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." 2 
 The Catholic doctrine is, that just as our Blessed Lord 
 so " appears " for us there, so by His priests, acting with 
 His people on earth, He " appears " for us. The great 
 Day of Atonement has at length arrived ; it does not 
 lose its power, as the old Day of Atonement did. It 
 is able to give to all acts of sacrifice " a continually 
 availing power, and to all priests and worshippers an 
 enduring acceptableness." There is no more constant 
 repetition of a mere shadow ; there is perpetual memorial 
 of the Substance. 
 
 It has, however, further been said, as you know, that 
 the Catholic doctrine of the Priesthood and the Eucharistic 
 1 Heb. ix. 24. 3 Ibid. 
 
296 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Sacrifice is inconsistent especially with two expressions 
 in this Epistle to the Hebrews : (1) " By one offering He 
 hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified ; " and 
 (2) " Now where remission of these is, there is no more 
 sacrifice for sins." But, in the first place, the Catholic 
 doctrine teaches that, in the sense here meant, there is 
 but one offering. The objectors close their eyes to the 
 fact that the Eucharistic Sacrifice is not a new sacrifice, 
 separated from the offering on the Cross, but the same 
 one Sacrifice shown forth before God. They lose sight 
 of the fact that the Catholic doctrine teaches that 
 "there is no more sacrifice for sins," in the sense of 
 some further victim being put to death, but that 'there 
 is the memorial of that one Sacrifice. If they mean 
 that everything has been already done which is required 
 to reconcile God and man, in such a sense that the 
 Church and the children of God are to do nothing at 
 all, then "it follows that sin is pardoned before it is 
 committed ; " and as for faith, and prayer, and penitence, 
 and the reading of the Bible, and Church services, and 
 Sacraments — well, of course, these and all other means 
 of reconciliation are works of supererogation, and ought 
 to be given up. 
 
 Teachings of this kind seem to me to lead, if they 
 are to be followed out, to utter Antinomianism ; and, 
 indeed, these erroneous and defective statements of the 
 gospel have often led men into an easy-going and un- 
 real religionism — a religion of phrases and of cant ; the 
 halfway house, to those who think, towards Unbelief. 
 Sacraments are nothing, or they are great realities. 
 They are not substitutes for Christ ; they are ordained 
 means of union with Him. Those who administer them 
 can do so, dare to do so, only by a Divine ordination to 
 a sacred office, in which they act in the power of His 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 297 
 
 Priesthood. He is the one High Priest for ever ; they 
 are His divinely appointed subordinates ; they are 
 agents, in accordance with the ordinary law of His 
 working, which He uses to express His supernatural 
 power. Anyhow, nothing can be more absurdly beside 
 the mark than the notion that the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews tells against a department of gospel truth, 
 which in fact it illustrates. Indeed, while the main 
 drift of the epistle is, as we have seen, concerned with 
 that great truth on which the Eucharistic Sacrifice and 
 the Christian Priesthood depend, there is, at least, quite 
 possibly in one passage an allusion to the Christians' 
 approach to the Holy Mysteries, and certainly to the 
 Sacrament of Holy Baptism. 1 
 
 III. I need not dwell upon the testimonies of 
 antiquity and of the early Church as to the fact of the 
 Priesthood. I have said enough on that head in dis- 
 cussing the question of the Real Presence and the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice, and it need not be repeated now. 
 If what the whole Church has taught as to the Sacrifice 
 be true, then there must be an Altar, and there must 
 be a Priesthood. Indeed, it should never be forgotten 
 that, if for nothing else than because the Church of 
 England appeals to antiquity, those only can be loyal 
 to her who hold the doctrine of the Priesthood and of 
 the Sacrifice, for the Liturgies and the Fathers are full 
 of both. 
 
 But now, as to the various statements about some 
 of the early Fathers using the expression " altar " 
 in a metaphorical sense, they prove nothing against 
 the Catholic doctrine, for they certainly never would 
 have used the expression in illustration of certain truths 
 if they had not been accustomed to a veal altar, by 
 1 Heb. x. 22. 
 
298 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 which the expression was suggested. I don't suppose 
 English people even would speak of marriage in such 
 an expression as " she was singularly young and grace- 
 ful when he led her to the altar," unless, besides the 
 idea of mutual love and self-sacrifice between man and 
 wife, they had been used to the fact of a real altar 
 before which their marriage vows were made. 
 
 However, my dear friend, after all, although I have 
 touched upon them, because their arguments, such as 
 they fare, are constantly brought up, I have to remind 
 you again that the real question before us is, What — 
 rightly or wrongly — is taught us by the English 
 Church ? Such arguments as those which I have 
 noticed are legitimate enough in their place; but 
 Churchmen are placed in this position — they " believe 
 in the Holy Catholic Church ; " they believe that the 
 true representative of that Church, to them, is the 
 Church of England. She is, then, the interpreter to 
 them of Holy Scripture in all doctrinal matters. We do 
 not, then, expect to find in Holy Scripture an exact 
 directory. Important doctrines are taught there ; nothing 
 that is not contained there or, * may be proved thereby/' 
 is required as a matter of faith for salvation ; but 
 it is the Church, as a Divine Society, guided by God, 
 which tells us, in all grave and important doctrinal dis- 
 cussions, what it is that Holy Scripture means. Our 
 own part of the Catholic Church is especially free and 
 above-board, so to speak. She does not maximize ; 
 she does not pile on details of doctrine, as being of 
 necessity unto salvation. She rather minimizes. She 
 states the least, rather than the most, that is possible. 
 If she clings — as she does cling — to sacerdotal doctrines, 
 we may be pretty sure that we had better not drift 
 off into new-fangled Calvinistic theories : but that we 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 299 
 
 shall be acting wisely, and in accordance with common 
 sense, if we cling to her moderate and sensible teaching, 
 and if we take care to interpret Holy Scripture accord- 
 ing to her witness in important doctrinal matters. 
 
 Well, now, I maintain that the Church of England, 
 in the clearest manner, teaches the doctrine of the 
 Priesthood. I have ventured already to call your 
 attention to those false forms of sacerdotalism which 
 she does not teach, and I have ventured to remind you 
 that true sacerdotalism, accordingly as we believe to be 
 the mind of Christ, she does teach ; and that it implies 
 the following truths — the Apostolical Succession, the 
 necessity of Episcopacy, the truth of the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice, the Real Presence of the Lord's Body and 
 Blood under the form of Bread and Wine in the 
 Sacrament, the Penitential system, including Confession 
 and Absolution, and so on ; and now it only remains 
 for me to recall to you what has been already implied — 
 that she is consequently quite clear in her teaching — as 
 against a mere " presbyter " theory — quite clear, I say, 
 as to the truth, witnessed to by the whole Catholic 
 Church, that in Christianity, as our Lord has revealed 
 it to His Apostles, there is a real Priesthood. 
 
 If we are to examine, then, the teaching of the 
 Church of England on this important subject, about 
 that we can have very little doubt. Language must 
 be strained to snapping ; non-natural senses must be 
 put upon the plainest words ; casuistry and special 
 pleading must be employed to the utmost before the 
 teachings — the plain teachings — of the Church of Eng- 
 land can be made to square with the assertions of 
 Puritanism, denying the reality of the priestly office. 
 
 (1) It is, indeed, almost a miracle that, in the 
 midst of the storms of the Reformation, the Church of 
 
 Y 
 
3 oo SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 England preserved this and other Catholic truths at all. 
 There was a general upheaval. The Latin part of the 
 Catholic Church, under the influence of the Papal See, 
 put off the necessary reforms, until it was all too late to 
 avert a catastrophe. Lutheranism, represented by the 
 Confession of Augsburg, preserved with tenacity much 
 Catholic doctrine; it taught the true doctrine of Re- 
 generation in Holy Baptism, of Confession and Abso- 
 lution, and of the Real Presence. But the stress of 
 circumstances had led the followers of Luther to abandon 
 the Episcopate. When the divinely appointed means 
 for continuing the sacred ministry was gone, the truth 
 of the gospel soon began to die ; and modern Lutheranism 
 is in sad contrast to the Confession of Augsburg, and 
 a terrible warning that if the divinely ordered system 
 of the Church is tampered with, Catholic doctrine cannot 
 long survive. 
 
 Calvin, on the other hand, did not cling to Catholic 
 doctrine any more than to the Church system. He was 
 a dominant character, a great genius, and a thorough- 
 going opponent of the Church and the Faith. To 
 oppose his imperious will was to suffer for it, as all 
 Geneva knew to its cost, and as Servetus showed 
 by his sufferings at the stake. Calvin's desire was to 
 preserve some semblance of Christianity, while aban- 
 doning the Priesthood and the Sacraments. He had 
 to find something to do duty for the authority of the 
 Church. It was found in this way : (1) In discard- 
 ing the Priesthood and in teaching the novel doctrine 
 that to believe in that office was to derogate from the 
 everlasting Priesthood of Christ ; (2) in teaching that 
 the ministerial office only implied presbyters, pastors, 
 teachers; (3) in inventing the heresy of final perse- 
 verance and indefectible grace. Calvin was a genius, 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 301 
 
 and he was a heretic. His influence was immense. 
 Thejnischief he did, strictly speaking, incalculable. The 
 Helvetic Confession is the standing witnessalTonce to 
 his genius and his opposition to the Catholic Faith. 
 
 Calvinism has had, and even now has, extraordinary 
 power. It discards Divine commissions. It is purely 
 human. It has the power coming from a system which 
 ignores and parts company with many supernatural 
 truths, too exacting in their consequences to be plea- 
 sant to " the natural man," and yet does not altogether 
 ignore or part company with that longing for some 
 sort of religion which is one of the noblest and most 
 lasting attributes of human nature. 
 
 Calvinism left its mark upon England, and the trail 
 of its evil influence across the English Church. The 
 foreign reformers of the Calvinistic school were un- 
 ceasing in their efforts to corrupt the English Church. 
 Under their influence truths were temporarily sup- 
 pressed or watered down. Under their influence the 
 natural and healthy course of our Reformation was 
 seriously injured. The Second Prayer-book of Edward 
 VI. is the low-watermark of the struggle in the English 
 Church, and a gauge of the utmost influence upon us 
 of Calvinism. Even here, however, the doctrine of the 
 Priesthood was preserved. Even in her saddest moments 
 our part of the Catholic Church clung to this truth. 
 
 (2) Turning to our authoritative formularies, they 
 are strictly sacerdotal. 
 
 The priestly power in its fulness resides in the 
 Episcopate. From the Episcopate, with the laying-on 
 of hands and the giving of the commission, it is bestowed 
 on the Second Order. There is this reserve. The Sacra- 
 ment of Confirmation — a full consecration of the laity 
 to the Royal Priesthood of all Christian people — and the 
 
302 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Sacrament of Order, or the power of conveying the 
 grace for the continuance of the Sacred Ministry, remain 
 with the bishop. The authority of the Priesthood proper, 
 when so conveyed, is then — so far forth — inherent in the 
 Second Order. The Third Order — the diaconate — receives 
 a measure of what in a less exact sense may be 
 called priestly power, viz. the power to baptize and 
 teach, but this depends for its exercise on the bishop's 
 licence. All this has been preserved in the English 
 Church. And a clear evidence of her faithfulness 
 to the sacerdotal, and not the presbyterian, view of 
 the ministry is to be found in this, that in giving her 
 sanction to the marriage of those who enter the Sacred 
 Ministry, she does not in the Latin copy of her 
 Article — which is of the same authority as the English 
 copy — say De Gonjugio Presbyter or um, but De Conjugio 
 Sacerdotica, when referring to bishops and deacons as 
 well as to the Second Order, recognizing thereby the 
 priestly view of her ministry in its full extent. The 
 special functions of the Second Order, however, of 
 priests, that is, properly so called, are the power to 
 administer Absolution to penitent sinners, to bless in 
 the Name of the Lord, and to consecrate the Bread and 
 Wine in the Holy Sacrament, so that, under their form, 
 there may be, according to the Lord's promise, the Real 
 Presence of His Body and Blood in the Divine mystery. 
 
 As to Absolution in its most general and most 
 individual application, this we have dwelt upon in 
 considering the question of Confession and Absolution ; 
 and this is carefully committed by the Church of 
 England only to those who strictly and imperatively 
 have received the commission of the Priesthood. 
 
 In the Holy Eucharist the same is the case. Here it 
 is only one who has received the same commission who 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 303 
 
 makes the offerings of the alms and the Bread and Wine 
 as consecrated to do so by God, and as the representa- 
 tive of the people. In the consecration by which, 
 through the power of the Holy Ghost, the "inward 
 part or thing signified " is connected with " the outward 
 and visible sign," it is still one who holds the com- 
 mission of the priest who alone is empowered to act. 
 In the Great Oblation, wherein is represented before 
 God the Death and Passion of Christ, it is again the 
 commissioned priest who alone can present the sacrifice. 
 It is the priest, again, who feeds the faithful by ad- 
 ministering to them the Body and Blood of the Lord. 
 It is he who leads the people of God in the further 
 offering of "ourselves, our souls and bodies." It is he 
 who gives the final benediction. It is the Priest, 
 then — by the power given him by Christ, through 
 his Apostles, and transmitted to him in Ordination 
 by the bishop — who is the appointed minister in this 
 great act of the Christian religion. In this, in many 
 details — not necessary to refer to again, as we have 
 considered them before in discussing the Real Presence 
 and the Eucharistic Sacrifice — the English Church is 
 true to the custom and teachings and sacerdotal idea 
 of the Catholic Church by using the ministration only 
 of the priest. 
 
 This is as plain as daylight in the Prayer-book, and 
 cannot be denied. Well, then, my dear friend, think of 
 the light that is thrown upon all this by the solemn 
 words in which the great commission is given, in the 
 Ordination of Priests ; and think, on the other hand, 
 how this draws out the meaning of these words. 
 
 The bishop, you remember, says at the laying-on 
 of hands, " Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and 
 work of a priest in the Church of God, now committed 
 
304 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose sins 
 thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins 
 thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a 
 faithful dispenser of the Word of God, and of His Holy 
 Sacraments ; in the Name of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." 
 
 Now, on such words I should like to call your 
 attention to several points which are, I think, worthy 
 of notice. 
 
 (a) Here we have an echo of our Lord's own words. 1 
 If Apostolic Succession be believed, such words then are 
 intelligible. Without that they are not so much un- 
 meaning as daring and even profane. It is not a 
 prayer; it is a commission given with a gift of the 
 Holy Ghost, to authorize and enable for its exercise, by 
 one who had received himself (from one who had the 
 power to give), not only this gift, but the power to 
 transmit it from Christ. 
 
 (b) Here are the several functions of the Priest- 
 hood — the power of Absolution, authority to teach, and 
 power to administer sacraments. You remember Arch- 
 bishop Bramhall's saying, " I answer again, that in our 
 very essential form of priestly ordination, priestly power 
 and authority is sufficiently expressed. We need not 
 seek for a needle in a bottle of hay. The words of our 
 Ordinal are clear enough." 2 One cannot but say with 
 the archbishop, clear enough they certainly are ! 
 
 (c) Then you may remember — what makes the matter 
 clearer still — that whereas originally in the wording of 
 the commission it ran simply, " Receive the Holy Ghost ; 
 whose sins ye remit," etc., in 1662 the present form was 
 adopted, so that " for the office and work of a priest," etc., 
 
 1 St. John xx. 21-23. 
 
 2 Bramhall, " Defence of Ordinations," discourse v. 486. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 3°5 
 
 might be inserted to make clear the mind of the Church 
 on that point. And then the Savoy Conference made it 
 clear, beyond reasonable doubt or question, in a more 
 marked way. The Nonconformists were at the time 
 opposed to Churchmen on this very question of the 
 Priesthood. The Calvinistic view of " presbyter " was 
 what they desired to see introduced. They asked the 
 bishops to remove the word "priest" from the Prayer- 
 book, and to introduce the more general word " minister " 
 in every place instead. The bishops felt that to give up 
 the Priesthood would be to depart from the will of our 
 Lord as always understood by the Catholic Church. " It 
 is not reasonable," they said, " that the word ' minister ' 
 should be only used in the Liturgy. For since some 
 parts of the Liturgy may be performed by a deacon, 
 others by none under the order of a priest — viz. Absolu- 
 tion and Consecration — it is fit that some such word 
 as 'priest' should be used for these offices, and not 
 1 minister,' which signifies at large every one that 
 ministers in that holy office, of what order soever he be." 1 
 
 The bishops went further. They not only declined 
 to give up the term "priest ; " they even replaced it in 
 two important places, instead of "minister," where it 
 was of doctrinal importance. The term " pastor," the 
 characteristic and favourite term of the Nonconformists, 
 was removed. " Bishops, Pastors, and Ministers," in the 
 Litany, was changed into "Bishops, Priests, and Deacons." 
 Here the question was raised and discussed, and was 
 settled in a Catholic sense, with the full knowledge of 
 all parties concerned as to what was involved. 
 
 Under such circumstances it is impossible, my dear 
 friend, for any one with the smallest pretence to accuracy 
 to assert that the Church of England in her teaching 
 1 Cardwcll, "Doc. Ann.," ch. vii. prop. ii. 
 
3 o6 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 is not sacerdotal. She may be right or she may be 
 wrong, I repeat, but if to believe in a real Priesthood — 
 an order of men ordained to absolve and consecrate and 
 offer " the Sacrifice of our Ransom," — if this be " sacer- 
 dotalism," then " sacerdotalism " is the teaching of our 
 Church, and they who hold and teach it are the very 
 reverse of disloyal to her. 
 
 (d) Drowning men will always catch at a straw, and 
 those whose minds and convictions are leavened by 
 Calvinism, and who would gladly, in the face of over>- 
 whelming evidence, deny the supernatural character of 
 priestly acts, and the evidently sacerdotal teaching of 
 the Church, fall back, in their difficulties, on the one 
 consoling fact left for them, viz. the removal of the 
 word " Altar," and the substitution of " Holy Table," in 
 the Second Prayer-book of Edward VI. What consola- 
 tion they can get from this cannot be grudged them. 
 In that darkest moment of the Church's struggle, the 
 Reformers certainly went to the extreme limit for pur- 
 poses of conciliation. But they did so because they 
 knew it was a question of words, not things. It may 
 have been unfortunate that they gave even this slight 
 chance to opponents of the Catholic character of the 
 Church to cavil ; still they knew well, that if a priest 
 and a sacrifice, then of necessity an altar. To priest- 
 hood and sacrifice they were faithful, and so there was 
 no sort of change of doctrine in what they did, as they 
 knew well enough that " Altar" and " Holy Table " meant 
 precisely the same thing, and both terms were used for 
 the same thing by the Fathers. The term " Altar " pre- 
 vails universally in the traditional and familiar language 
 of all ; and the word itself is preserved in the Coronation 
 Service. 
 
 But, indeed, this foolish and, I think, somewhat 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 307 
 
 disingenuous effort to prove that the use of the term 
 " Holy Table " instead of " Altar " in some way com- 
 mitted the Church to a denial of the doctrine of the 
 Priesthood, — this effort, I say, ought to have been pre- 
 cluded by the words of St. Paul. 1 He contrasts the 
 " altar " of sacrifice or " table," as he calls it, with 
 the " Table " of the Lord. The comparison and contrast 
 — where false worship and true worship are placed face 
 to face — is entirely meaningless, but for the one idea — 
 the idea of sacrifice, and therefore of the Priesthood 
 — being common to all men, and therefore rightly 
 used by Christians, though wrongly by heathen. The 
 " altar " and " table " here are equally related to this 
 idea. Then, again, men naturally and rightly speak 
 in common language f " the altar." Not to do so would 
 be affected and foolish. It is impossible to silence the 
 witness of ordinary common sense to the truth of the 
 Christian Priesthood and Sacrifice ; and the good old 
 English custom of "bowing to the altar" — only neg- 
 lected or interrupted by the new-fangled ways of 
 Puritanism — was a witness to the sense that that part 
 of the sanctuary could not but specially remind all of 
 the special Presence of God, by its close connection 
 with the Priesthood and the sacrifice. But, indeed 
 looking at our formularies as they stand — as we clergy 
 of all three orders have bound ourselves to accept them 
 — it is surely to play fast and loose with language in 
 a very serious fashion to attempt to deny the doctrine 
 of the Priesthood. And it is difficult to imagine any- 
 thing more calculated to empty the young, who look 
 to entering the ministry, of all warmth and zeal, than 
 that they should find bishops who ordain them using 
 the solemn words of the Church, and then denying 
 1 l Cor. x. 10-21. 
 
30S SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 the doctrines they plainly teach. Whether or not, 
 however, men be faithful or unfaithful, our Church 
 speaks in no uncertain voice on this truth. 
 
 Tremendous as the crisis was, my dear friend, 
 through which the Church of England passed in the 
 convulsions of the sixteenth century, tremendous as the 
 forces were which were at work to lead her wrong, in 
 God's mercy she remained true to the Catholic Faith, 
 true to the Apostolic Succession of her bishops, true 
 to that Sacerdotalism which is involved in the Divine 
 structure of the Catholic Church. 
 
 There are only three other matters, besides those 
 which have been discussed, which are frequently in- 
 stanced by opponents as proofs of the sacerdotalism 
 they condemn. I need not weary you by dwelling on 
 them at length, but I notice them ere I close. 
 
 (1) Some Churchmen are said to show their " sacer- 
 dotal " tendencies by decrying the Reformation. 
 
 Well, I dare say extreme and one-sided things have 
 been said on the subject. But, then, it must be remem- 
 bered that such things have been provoked by equally 
 extreme things said by those of more Calvinistic or 
 Puritan sympathies. Every reasonable and temperate 
 person who comes to study history, and is not carried 
 away by controversial passion, must look upon that 
 period of our Church's history with very mixed feelings. 
 It was a cruel time and a sad time in all directions. 
 A great writer whom I have already quoted, speaking of 
 it, says justly, I think, " The state of religious life was 
 realized as a state of war, with all the moral evils of a 
 quasi-martial law." l We may thank God for the way 
 in which then He brought " light out of darkness," 
 and for His mercy in preserving our Church in her 
 1 Bishop of Oxford's Second Charge, 1803. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 309 
 
 unbroken continuity true to the Catholic Faith and 
 Apostolic organization ; but to talk of it as if it were 
 all " bright and blessed," as if it were a new revelation, 
 as if a new and glorious Church were suddenly founded 
 on the ruins of a wrecked and ruined one, is to indulge 
 in baseless and foolish fancies, and to neglect historical 
 truths. These things may serve to catch " popular " 
 applause from those who have never learnt the truth, 
 and where religion consists chiefly in Calvinistic pre- 
 judices or abuse of Rome. Churchmen, especially those 
 who are called to the Sacred Ministry, ought surely to 
 be ashamed of using extravagant language as to the 
 Reformation when they must know its mixed character, 
 if they take the trouble to study its history ; when they 
 ought to know that the Church of England has always 
 from time to time been reforming herself, and when 
 they cannot but be well aware of " the legal and con- 
 stitutional," and doctrinal and spiritual, "continuity of 
 the Church before and after the Reformation " of the 
 sixteenth century. 1 There is nothing specially "sacer- 
 dotal," I submit, in trying to see history as it is, and 
 refusing to canonize that very mixed movement — partly 
 good, partly bad — called commonly " the Reformation." 
 
 (2) Sacerdotalism is charged to those who use the 
 word " Mass " sometimes to describe the Eucharist. 
 
 Well, it is surely a matter of taste and opinion. The 
 use of the word is, anyhow, as old as St. Ambrose, 
 A.D. 385. It occurs in the First Prayer-book of Edward 
 VI., and that Prayer-book is spoken of with the highest 
 approval. It is not a " scriptural " term, and Roman 
 Catholics use it, — these seem to be the objections to it. 
 As to the first, that, I must submit, is ridiculous. " Lord's 
 Supper " is not a " scriptural " term for the Eucharist, as 
 1 Cf. Bishop of Oxford's Charge, ut supra. 
 
3 io SA CERDO TALIS M. 
 
 Mr. Keble has shown. " Matins " and " Evensong " are 
 not " scriptural " terms. We need not dwell on such an 
 argument ; it arises out of a total misconception of the 
 use of Scripture. As to Roman Catholics using it, there 
 is but one Blessed Sacrament instituted by our Lord. 
 Roman Catholics don't have one and we another. I 
 should have thought it would be rather a recommenda- 
 tion to a term that, as we have to differ in so much from 
 our fellow-Christians of the Roman Communion, we can 
 recognize points in which we do agree. Whatever the 
 derivation of the word may have been, by the " Mass *• 
 is meant neither more nor less than the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice ; and if any man in any part of the Catholic 
 Church likes to call the Mystery, — Eucharist, or Holy 
 Communion, or Holy Mysteries, or Blessed Sacrament, 
 or Lord's Supper, or Mass, surely he may exercise his 
 lawful liberty — as all these terms, with more or less 
 appropriateness, apply to the same thing — without people 
 going wild about a word, and denouncing the use of it 
 as a proof of evil sacerdotalism ! 
 
 (3) And then, lastly, this dreaded " sacerdotalism " 
 is supposed to be indicated by Prayers for the Dead. 
 
 That is a devout practice, I am glad to say, which 
 prevails among many who, by no stretch of imagina- 
 tion, could be called " sacerdotalists." Natural duty and 
 natural affection prompt us to it. Our Lord almost 
 certainly took part in it. Scripture points to it. The 
 Church has always done it from the first. Only 
 modern prejudice, and a kind of pagan temper which 
 has leavened Puritanism, and a spirit of violent reac- 
 tion against some abuses connected with " the Roman " 
 (not the Catholic) " doctrine of Purgatory," have un- 
 happily, in modern times, led even good people to 
 unloving neglect of the dead. The Church of England 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 311 
 
 has, alas ! owing to her difficulty in dealing with some 
 popular errors in the sixteenth century, allowed it 
 too much to be obscured, but she has preserved her 
 witness to its truth, by her appeal to antiquity, in 
 which it always prevailed, and by her prayers for 
 the dead, in at least the Prayer of Oblation in the 
 Eucharist, if not in the " Church Militant Prayer." 
 The present Dean of Lichfield has, as you know, my 
 dear friend, cleared up the matter in his usual tem- 
 perate and scholar-like way, and shown that the practice 
 is in accordance with the Church's mind. 1 There can 
 certainly be no evil sacerdotalism in anything so loving 
 and devout as this ; no evil sacerdotalism in " casting 
 all your care " — that about your beloved dead as well 
 as other care — upon God, as " He careth for you." 
 
 " Sacerdotalism," then, wrongly understood, means, 
 I imagine, that men holding Apostolic orders are 
 supposed to teach that they receive these in some 
 mechanical fashion. This — if any teach it — is wrong. 
 It means, T suppose, further, that some imagine that 
 there is a vicarious Priesthood, and a sacrifice which, 
 in some way, takes the place of the sacrifice of Calvary. 
 This — if any hold it — is profoundly erroneous. It means, 
 I suppose, that those who are ordained to the Priest- 
 hood form a caste or tribe which comes between the soul 
 and God. This, again, is, of course, entirely false. It 
 means, I suppose, that — in consequence of being priests 
 — men "give themselves airs," assuming an arrogant 
 or dictatorial temper, and so on. Nothing can be 
 imagined more entirely unchristian, or more contrary 
 to the teaching of the Catholic Church. 
 
 If any think or act in this way, their " sacer- 
 dotalism" you and I condemn most cordially. I am 
 1 Cf. Luckock's " After Death." 
 
312 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 bound to say, however, such teachers I have never had 
 the ill fortune to meet in the English Church. If this 
 is " sacerdotalism," let us repudiate and condemn it with 
 all our hearts. 
 
 But a ■' sacerdotalism " which insists on the truth of 
 the Apostolic Succession, on the necessity of Episcopacy 
 to the constitution and working of the Church in 
 accordance with the mind of the Founder, on the reality 
 of the Priesthood, on the reality of the Presence in 
 the Holy Sacrament, on the reality of the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice, on the wisdom of Confession where needed, 
 and the reality of Absolution, on the liberty of the 
 children of God to be present at " the Church's 
 prayer-meeting " when not communicating, on the piety 
 of fasting as well as prayer in preparation for Com- 
 munion, on the necessity of believing in the gifts of 
 the gospel being real and supernatural and needed by 
 us all, — this is true " sacerdotalism." In this sense I — 
 and I imagine you join with me in this — I am a " sacer- 
 dotalist " from head to heel ; and I maintain that, in 
 this sense, the English Church — so I have tried to show 
 — as all the rest of the Catholic Church, teaches 
 " sacerdotalism " to her children as an integral part of 
 the gospel of Christ. 
 
 Then as to those " without," those who dissent from 
 the teaching of the Church, we have, I repeat, no hard 
 word to say. God forbid ! We are misrepresented if 
 it is said that we, in the Church of England — who 
 cling to Catholic faith and practice — have anything 
 narrow or unkind to say of them. I can't express 
 better the feelings we have, and ought to have, about 
 the good and holy ones among them, who, alas ! are 
 not able to accept the teachings of the Church, than in 
 words which you will, I know, remember well — 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 313 
 
 " They are members of the soul of the Church, who, 
 not being members of the visible Communion and 
 Society, know not that, in not becoming members of it, 
 they are rejecting the command of Christ, to Whom, by 
 faith and love and in obedience, they cleave. And they, 
 being members of the body, or visible Communion of 
 the Church, are not members of the soul of the Church, 
 who, amid outward profession of the faith, do, in heart 
 or deeds, deny Him Whom in words they confess. The 
 deliverance promised in that Day is to those who, being 
 in the body of the Church, shall, by true faith in Christ 
 and iervent love to Him, belong to the soul of the 
 Church also, or who, although not in the body of the 
 Church, shall not, through their own fault, have ceased 
 to be in the body, and shall belong to its soul, in that, 
 through faith and love, they cleave to Christ its 
 Head." 1 
 
 This is what we feel. Surely a decisive faith in the 
 revealed way of the Church is not incompatible with 
 large love towards those who are — more or less — 
 " without." 
 
 Indeed, after all, the Church has one great end — to 
 bring souls into union with God through Christ. Not 
 those who can state doctrine exactly, but those who live 
 it, even if they state it imperfectly, are the children of 
 God. We must be loyal to truth, if we know it. In an 
 age like this, when " Undenominationalism " — a pleasant 
 word for indifferentism, and hollow religion — is face to 
 face with Christianity, we are bound, in loyalty to our 
 Master, in education, as in religious ministration, to stand 
 firmly by the system and teaching of the Church which 
 has come to us from Him, and to give no quarter to 
 any, however apparently pious, variety of heresy so 
 1 Pusey, * Minor Prophets," on Joel ii. 32. 
 
314 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 ,likely to degenerate into hollow sham which professes 
 [to do duty for the Catholic Faith. But goodness is 
 of God wherever we find it. " Love, joy, peace, long- 
 suffering, gentleness, goodness, trustiness, meekness, 
 self-restraint," — these are fruits of the Spirit, these the 
 Catholic Faith is meant to produce in the soul. If it 
 does not produce them, so far forth fails. // they are 
 produced, and wherever they are produced, they mark 
 the real " sacerdotalist," and we hail such with joy. 
 
 And now, my dear friend, I have finished the task 
 that lay before me. I end as I began, by reminding you 
 that I do not love controversy. Honestly, I detest it. 
 Never can controversy be right or wise unless it is 
 forced upon us as a duty. I have thought that this 
 was forced upon me. I have not wished to attack any 
 one. My business has been to defend. I have tried to 
 maintain that it is not fair to charge with any evil 
 " sacerdotalism " those who, like myself, hold or use the 
 doctrines and practices which have been impugned. 
 These doctrines and practices I believe to be justified 
 from Holy Scripture and the early Church ; but my 
 point has been to show that they are — to speak with 
 restraint — in accordance with the teaching of the Church 
 of England. 
 
 Dissenters I can understand. They dissent from the 
 teaching of the Church, and, as they dissent, they act 
 consistently and become Dissenters. I am sorry that 
 they part company with the Church. I think they are 
 under loss accordingly, under very grievous loss, but I 
 understand them and respect them. 1 am sorry if any 
 of them feel bitterly towards us. Towards them I, for 
 one, can feel no bitterness. 
 
 " Low Churchmen " I cannot pretend to understand. 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 315 
 
 They are a constant enigma to me. To go no further, 
 how bishops of the Church who strenuously deny the 
 Divine succession of the Episcopate, and the reality 
 of the sacerdotal office, can administer the laying-on 
 of hands, using the awful words of our Ordinal, when 
 continually they denounce Confession and Absolution, 
 and would be quite angry with the men they ordain if 
 they ventured to assert the fact of their priesthood, or 
 to act upon the assumption that the words of Ordination 
 are meant in good faith, — this I don't pretend to under 
 stand. How men can receive the grace of Orders, given 
 with such awful words, and accept the Prayer-book 
 with its thorough Catholic teaching, and then act not 
 one bit as Catholic priests, but as if they were Pro- 
 testant ministers, — this is a riddle that I cannot read. 
 But it is not my business to judge them. We may well 
 believe that, in some way we cannot understand, they 
 explain things to themselves. We may well credit 
 them with honesty and good faith, but we certainly 
 have a right to expect that to us they will do the same. 
 We cannot but regret their action, if we refrain from 
 judging their motives. It tends to weaken our position 
 as well towards our Dissenting brethren as towards 
 our brethren in the Roman part of the Catholic Church. 
 Still there it is ; and it is none of our business to 
 narrow the border of the English Church, but rather 
 to pray and strive that any who have " shortened 
 thoughts " as to the truth which they are to witness 
 to, and as to the grace they are to dispense, may be led 
 by Him Who alone can lead them to the fuller knowledge 
 and practice, to the fuller realization of the blessedness 
 of the Catholic Faith. 
 
 Their methods of controversy also, I acknowledge, 
 are to me astonishing. They seem to treat Holy 
 
 z 
 
3i6 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 Scripture as a sort of directorium to be referred to, 
 so that each of them, according to his private interpreta- 
 tion, settles what is true in doctrine or practice quite 
 irrespective of the teaching of the Church. This 
 method is, it seems to me, a most fallacious one. But 
 in the case of Dissenters there is nothing inconsistent 
 in employing it. In Churchmen, it is quite another 
 matter. If they do — as they say — " believe in the Holy 
 Catholic Church,'' then her interpretations of Holy Scrip- 
 ture have settled the question in any doctrinal matters 
 where her interpretation is given. For instance, I 
 submit no one in the sacred ministry of the English 
 Church is justified in interpreting the third chapter of 
 St. John in any way whatever but as teaching Regenera- 
 tion in Baptism, once they have accepted the Prayer- 
 book ex animo, and have bound themselves, therefore, 
 by its statements in the Baptismal Service. Many 
 things, I maintain, are open questions; but doctrinal 
 matters, settled by the Church's plain interpretation 
 of Holy Scripture, or continuous witness of what has 
 been taught in the " Apostles' doctrine," are not open 
 questions. 
 
 Believe in the Holy Catholic Church ; take her for 
 your guide in doctrinal and practical decisions as to the 
 mind of Holy Scripture ; and you hold the Catholic 
 Faith, and see the meaning and beauty of Catholic 
 practices. Reverse the process. " Put the carfc before 
 the horse." Interpret Scripture by your own mind, 
 quite irrespective of the Church's witness, and you may 
 call yourself a Churchman or anything else, but it is, 
 humanly speaking, a mere chance into which, out of 
 many, heresies you land yourself, or how crippled and 
 insufficient your belief may be. It seems to me that 
 we differ essentially in our methods in this — that they 
 
THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY. 317 
 
 believe in Scripture as a storehouse of doctrine which 
 they are to ransack for themselves, and make what they 
 please of, quite irrespective of the Church's teaching; 
 while we believe in a Divine Society into whose hands 
 God has put a Divine Book. They believe in unrestrained 
 private judgment; ive believe in the Holy Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 However, many men have many minds ; and Truth 
 is a large thing, and has many aspects ; and it is not 
 your business or mine, my dear friend, to judge our 
 brethren so long as we boldly witness to and cling to 
 the truth, so long as we give no countenance to the 
 idea that indifferentism is religion. We are convinced 
 that " Low Churchmen " hold an insufficient faith, and 
 are quite astoundingly untrue to much of the teaching 
 of the Church. The way, however, to lead to better 
 things is the way of love and faithfulness and prayer. 
 It is sad, and it is injurious — it seems to me — to true 
 religion when men will go out of their way to stir up 
 strife. If they do, however, and if in doing so they 
 misrepresent us, or malign the truth, then it may be a 
 duty — though always a painful duty — to defend it ; it 
 may be a duty to remove as far as possible any danger 
 of misunderstanding. 
 
 We do not desire to conceal anything. In so grave 
 a matter we are bound, I think, to be quite above- 
 board, and to make all plain. Men may not agree 
 with us, but they ought not to be allowed to mis- 
 understand us. We are bound to make our positions 
 clear. I hope, in doing so, I have avoided any 
 mere bitterness or denunciation. I pray that God in 
 His mercy may bring us to the " unity of the Spirit," 
 and to " peace through the truth ; " that we may learn 
 to bear and forbear, so that mists of prejudice and 
 
318 SACERDOTALISM. 
 
 passion may clear away ; that, remembering our dif- 
 ferent points of view, we may all make large allowances 
 for one another ; that, recalling to ourselves that the 
 love of God in Christ is the great thing ; that, knowing 
 how " toilsome and incomplete " are all our efforts, we 
 may — each one, without mere cant, without indifferent- 
 ism, without pretending that it is not important to be 
 exact and thorough as far as we may — hold the truth 
 as far as we know it in love, and not forget that, when 
 all is said — 
 
 " God's greatness flows around our incompleteness, 
 Round our restlessness His rest." 
 
 I am, my dear Dean, yours affectionately, 
 
 W. J. KNOX LITTLE. 
 
 The College, Worcester, 
 All Saints' -tide, 1893. 
 
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8 A SELECTION OF WORKS 
 
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 THE MYSTERY OF THE PASSION OF OUR MOST HOLY 
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 [continued. 
 
IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 
 
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 FOR DAYS AND YEARS. A book containing a Text, Short Reading, 
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 The Revival of Priestly Life 
 
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 in France. 
 
 A Christian Painter of the 
 
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 bossuet and his contempora- 
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 Fenelon, Archbishop of Cam- 
 
 BRAI. 
 
 Henri Dominique Lacordaire. 
 
 CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHIES. 
 
 Madame Louise de France, 
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 A Dominican Artist : a Sketch of 
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 Henri Perreyve. By A. Gratry. 
 
 St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and 
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 St. Francis de Sales' Of the 
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 Selections from Pascal's 
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io A SELECTION OF WORKS 
 
 Liddon.— Works by Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L.,LL.D., 
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 LIFE OF EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY, D.D. By Henry Parry 
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 EXPLANATORY ANALYSIS OF PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE 
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IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. n 
 
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12 A SELECTION OF WORKS 
 
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 Molesworth.— STORIES OF THE SAINTS FOR CHIL- 
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 SPECULUM SACERDOTUM ; or, the Divine Model of the Priestly 
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 THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. Being Ten Addresses bearing on 
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 THE PRAYER BOOK : Its Voice and Teaching. Being Spiritual Ad- 
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 Newnham.— THE ALL-FATHER : Sermons preached in a 
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IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 13 
 
 Newman. — Works by John Henry Newman, B.D., sometime 
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 {continued. 
 
16 A SELECTION OF THEOLOGICAL WORKS. 
 
 Williams.— Works by the Rev.ISAAC Williams, B.D.— continued. 
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 /V