R K A S O N > FOR REFUSING TO CONSECRATE A CHURCH HAVING AN ALTAR INSTEAD OF A COMMUNION TABLE, TM1-: DOCTRINE OF SCRIPTURE AND OK THE PRO 'AL CHURCH AS TO 3, Sacrifice in tljc Corb's Gnppcr, AND A PRIESTHOOD IN THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. BY Charles Fcttit Mcllvaiuo. fl.D,, hoy of tl)cPioccoc of UMjio. MT. VERNON, OHIO : COCHRAN & CLARK. 1840. REASONS FOR REFUSING TO CONSECRATE A CHURCH HAVING AN ALTAR IXSTEAD OF A COMMUNION TABLE, l)io. MT. VERNON, OHIO COCHRAN & CLARK. 1816, \ INTRODUCTION. THE abruptness of the commencement of the following pages, needs some explanation. At the late Convention of the Diocese of Ohio, the author delivered his annual Address, of which these pages (somewhat enlarged since) were a part. The Convention directed that they should be published, not only in the ordinary way with the rest of the Address, in the Journal, but also in some five hundred copies, in a separate pamphlet. Hence their present appearance. REASONS FOR REFUSING TO CONSECRATE, *.) Of the latter word it is hero affirmed that it ncvrr denMrs an oftVrcr of sacrifice; and as In the former word, none nl- Irgrs that it ever stand." for a i-lirisli.in minister in the scriptures." Dist. ott Ilir I-]\i chit rial. tJ \vhai 1 li.ivr \< t to say. In the few rases of altar-form structures in -liiirrlics of Ohio, I have no reason to bclirvc tlicre has been any ob- ](<( beyond the gratification of a builder's uiste. It may therefore .-rein to some ill-timed to adopt the determination of which I havr just notified you. Hut my opinion is precisely the reverse. It seems to me far wiser to settle a definite rule of this kind, while there is nothing against it more difficult to be yielded than a mere matter of architectural fancy ; than to wait till erroneous doctrine shall have g-uned so much strength as to change a question of taste into one of principle, and make the having of an ,.ltar identical with the keeping of a good conscience. Let me first go to history. What was the primitive use? None can deny that our Lord instituted and administered the Eu- charist at a common household table. And when he says " the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table," we necessarily contemplate the Saviour and the twelve as engaged in an act of com- munion simply ; analagous to that of a household around its family table. Nothing can more perfectly exclude the idea of sacrifice, priest and altar. It was at the commemoration of the Passover. The Supper of the Lord took the place of the paschal feast. The latter was a feast after, and upon, a sacrifice, which had been previously offered at the great altar of ' burnt-offerings at the Temple.' The work of the Jewish priest was finished when the paschal lamb had been sacrificed. Other altar a Jew could not have, than that in the temple around which the blood of the lamb was sprinkled. Other sacrifice there remained none in connection with that feast, when once that lamb had been slain. But there did remain the feast of commun- ion upon that lamb, thus offered once for all the house of Israel. The lambs were many ; the sacrifice, the feast, the type was one. It *.vas the communion of the whole household of the chosen people. They met in families as we meet for our communion in congregations. They met, not at the altar where the sacrifice was offered, but at the table of the family fellowship ; as we meet, not at the cross, where Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us; but at a table expressive of the family fellowship of all believers in the reconciliation effected by the blood of Jesus. The Jews met without a Priest; all that per- tained to the office of Priest having been finished at the temple. We meet at the Lord's Supper without any mere human Priest,^ for all that pertains to the ofh'ce of a Priest, in our reconciliation to God was finished when Christ offered up himself, "once for a//," on the al- tar of the cross ; or else is being perfected in his present ever-living intercession within the veil, before the mercy-seat in heaven. The Jews met to feed upon what had elsewhere been offered as a propi- tiatory sacrifice to God. Christians meet to feed, by faith, with thanksgiving, spiritually upon a propitiatory sacrifice, long since of- fered, even the flesh and blood of Jesus, by which we draw nigh to God. The Jewish Passover was of two parts, " the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover," and ihe feast of the Lord's Passover; the propi- tiatory offering at the temple, and the eucharistic supper on that offer- tOf course I mean priest in the scasc of a sacrifccr. mg, in the family dwelling. It was as much commanded lliat the 1'east should be in the house, and not at the altar in the temple, as that the sacrifice should be at the altar in the temple, and not in any private house. Our Passover is of like two parts, the sacrifice and the feast; the offering of the Lamb of God, and the encharistic sup- per of the whole household of faith, partaking of that Lamb. In the beginning of the dispensation of the Gospel, the sacrifice of our pass- over was slain, once for all. Jesus was priest and victim. The whole period, since then, and to the end of the world, is the Feast of the Lord's Passover, during which each believer, every day, is living by faith, in the secret of his own heart, upon the sacrifice of Christ, as all his life and hope ; and the whole household of faith are, at stated periods, assembling together to express and declare in the sacrament of the breaking ot bread, their common dependence on, and their common thankfulness for, that one perfect and sufficient ob- lation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. As the Jews were not allowed to unite the offering and the eating, the priestly sacrifice and the euclvaristic feast, but '.yere commanded to separate them in point of place and time ; so we cannot, by any possibility unite them under the Gospel. The sacrifice for us was offered eighteen hundred years ago, " once for all." It cannot he repeated. The feast alone remains a f,ast commemorative of a sac~ rifice, but not a sacrifice of commemoration, except as the offering of prayer and thanksgiving is figuratively a sacrifice, and each commu- nicant, is in that sense, a Priest. All this illustrates how entirely it was, as pertaining to the design and original institution of the Lord's supper, that our Lord assembled the twelve around a common household table, for the first adminis- tration of that sacrament ; and how little connexion, it had, with any sacrifice, as then being offered, or, with any altar as then present. Long after the first institution of the Lord's supper, the Christian Church continued to keep it aloof from any thing expressive of sac- rifice, except as it commemorated that of Christ, and was accompan- ied, on the part of communicants, with the offering of their prayers and aim?. Our venerable Bishop White expressed his belief that " the term ' altar,' did not supplant the original word table,' for a considerable time after the apostolic age." || Suicer, says it is " clear- er than mid-day, that altars were not in the primitive church ;" (me- ridiana luce clarius.) Basnage says, that the writings of men of the apostolic age, such as Clement, Polycarp, Justin, never employed tin- words, High Priest, Priest, fec., for the Christian minister; nor did they any more use the word altar, to signify the table of the Enrha- rist." * Bingharn, our learned and standard author, in ecclesiastical antiquities, says that, as late as the time of Alhanasius, (4th century,) the churches had " communion tables of wood :" and of the churches of Africa and Egypt, particularly, he says : " There is no question to be made, that about this time, " the altars were only tables of wood.'* H Diss. on the Eucharist. * Basnag. Ann. 100, v. xii. Mede, with all his learning, muld find none of the fathers using "a/for," for the " table," earlier than Tmullian. AD. 2'JU. [10] In llic year f>00, n general decree was made in France, M that no altar should be consecrated, hut such as should be made of stone only." And Bingham says, "this seems to he the first public act of that na- ture, that we have upon authentic record, in ancient history. And from the time of this change iu the matter of them, the form, or fash- ion of them changed likewise. For, whereas, before, they were in the form of tables, they now began to be erected more like altars." t This, comparatively, modern use of the form of an altar, instead of ihatof a table, is strongly asserted by Bishop Jewel, in his Defence of his Apology for the Church of England, against the Jesuit Harding, ' As for the altars," he says, " which the Donatists broke down, (in the churches of the 4th century) they were certainly tables of wood, Niich as ?/'c have, and not heaps of stones, such as ye have. St. Au- gustine saith, the Donatists, in their fury, broke down the altar-boards. His words be these: Lignis ejusdem altaris eff'ractis. Likewise saith Athanasius of the like fury of the Arians ; SttbseUite, thronton. mensain Ugncam ct tabulas ecctesiie and csetera qu;e prolerunt, forix data, combusscriint. They carried forth and burnt the seats, the pul- pit, Ike wooden board, the church tables, &c.. Touching your stone altars Beatus Rhenanus saith, In nostris Basilicis, Jlrarum super ad- tlititia strurtiiranovltatem prx se fcrt; in our churches, the build- ing up of altars, added to the rest, declareth a novelty. This learned man telleth you, Mr. Harding, that your stone altars are but newly brought into the church of God, and that our communion tables arc old and ancient, and have been used from the beginning. We have such altars as Christ, his apostles, and St. Augustine, Optetus, and other catholic and holy Fathers, had and used." ^ Bishop Babingtcm, in his notes on Exodus, published in 1601, says, 11 The altars used in popery are not warranted by this example, (i. e. of the Jewish altars.) But that the primitive churches used commu- nion tables, as we do now, of boards and wood, not altars, as they do, of stone. Origen was about 200 years after Christ, and he saith that Celsus objected to it as a fault to Christians, Quod nee imagines, nee tcmpla, ncc aras haberent : that they had neither images, nor tem- ples, nor altars. Arnobius, after him, saith the same of the heathens : Jlccusatis nos quod ncc ternpla habeamus nee aras, nee imagines. Gerson saith that Sylvester first caused stone altars to be made. Up- on this occasion, in some places, stone altars were used for steadi- ness and continuance, wooden tables having been before used ; but, I say, in some plaaes, not in all. For St. Augustine saith that in his lime, in Africa, they were made of wood. For the Donatists, saitb he, break in sunder the altar boards. Again, the deacon's duty was to remove, the altar. Chrysostom calleth it the holy board. St. Au- gustine, the table of the Lord. Athanasius, Mcnsam Ugncam, the table of wood. Yet was this communion-table called an altar, not that it was so, but only by allusion, metaphorically, as Christ is called an altar, or our hearts bo called altars, &c. Mark, with yourselves, therefore, the newness of this point, for stone altars, in comparison of t Bingham's Antiquities, b. vii, c. vi. 15. ', Defence of Ajiol. P. i, eh. iii, div. .'{. [11] cur ancient use of comrannion tables, and let Popery and his parls fall, and truth and sound antiquity be regarded." The learned Perkins, one of the greater iights at Cambridge, in the latter part of the 16th century, says: "About the year 400, the use of altars began, but not for sacrifice, but for the honour and memory of the martyrs." || It would be easy to shew that the use of altars originated contem- poraneously with that inordinate veneration for the relics of saints and martyrs, which was very soon matured into that idolatrous ado- ration, which is now one of the grievous crimes of the Church of Rome. It is little to the credit of altars, in the Christian church, to look back to the various growths, of astonishing superstition, which grew up, in company with their use. Mosheim, speaking of the 4th century, says : ' An enormous train of different superstitions were, gradually, substituted in the place of true religion, and genuine piety. This odious revolution was owing to a variety of causes. A ridicu- lous precipitation in receiving new opinions ; a preposterous desire of imitating the Pagan rites, and of blending them with the Christian worship, and that idle propensity, which the generality of mankind have, towards a gaudy and ostentatious religion, all contributed to es- tablish the reign of superstition upon the ruins of Christianity : The virtues that had formerly been ascribed to the heathen temples, to their lustrations, to the statues of their gods and heroes, were now attributed to Christian churches, to water consecrated by certain forms of prayer, and to the images of holy men. * * The worship of the martyrs, was modelled, by degrees, according to the religious ser- vices that were paid to the gods, before the coming of Christ." ^f To such heights of superstition and imposture, had the veneration of relics arrived, in the latter part of the 4th century, that the 5th Council of Carthage was obliged to resist its more odious extravagan- ces. The following extracts, from the 14th canon of that Council, will show in what connexion altars arose in the Church. " It is de- creed that the altars, which are set up every where, in the fields, oj, in the ways,, as monuments of martyrs, in which no bodies or relics of martyrs are proved to be buried ; bo overthrown by the Bishops of those places, if it may be. But, if, on account of tumults of the people, that cannot be done, yet let the people he admonished that they frequent not those places, &c. And let no memorial of martyrs be allowed and accepted, except the body, or some undoubted relics be there, or that some original of their habitation or suffering, b<; there delivered, from a most faithful beginning. As for those altars, that are set up, in every place, by dreams, and vain revelations of any men, let them, by all means, be disallowed." Faithful to this original connection, between altars and tombs, with the sacrament of the Lord's supper on the top, and dead men's bones within, is the present use of the altar in the church of Rome. The Rhemish Annotators on the New Testament, commenting on Rev. Bishop Babington's work* Ed. 1622, p. 307. || Perkin's works, II ; p. 553. H Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. cent. iv. p. 11. ^ 2. [12] \i. ;t. uh r- iii-i-iirs ill." \isioiiof the soida under the altur, s;ty. "Christ, a-; nriii. (n<> du!>l.) is this nltar, under which the souls of all ',in;irtyrs lie in heaven, expecting their bodies, as Christ, their head, hath his body there already. And for correspondence to their place, or state, in heaven, the Church laycth, commonly, their bod- ies also, or relics, near, or under the altars, 'where our Saviour's body is offered in the holy Mass ; and hath a special proviso, that no altars be erected, or consecrated, without some part of a saint's body or relics." And this " special proviso," is founded on the as- sumption that " the relics of the saints add not a little to the sanctity of the sacramont, when they are contained inrthe altar ;" thus fully carrying out the abominable doctrine that we are assisted by the merits of the saints in obtaining justification through the merits of Christ. Conformed to \\ustomb-likejise of Romish altars, and their monu- mental origin^is their almost invariable shape. They are in the shape of arks or Chests, resembling, very closely, in general appear- ance, those oblong structures of stone, or brick, surmounted with a marble slab, which, from time immemorial, have been erected over the dead, as monuments to their memory. *2 This peculiar, chest-like form of the Romish altar, is wholly un- like any thing under the name of altar, of which we have any ac- count. The altars which Moses was directed to make for the wor- ship of Israel, and those which were afterwards set up, according to that model in the temple at Jerusalem, had no such character. Bing- ham says that^when such structures for altars, began to be used in the 5th century, "they were built like a tomb, as if it were some' mon- ument of a martyr ;" and he quotes an eminent authority (Bona,) -. saying that specimens of such ancient monuments to martyrs were still found, in his day, in the catacombs of Rome, and other places. *3 It is not difficult to trace the steps by which the martyr's tomb came to be so universally the Romish altar. It is well known that, at an early period, Christians took great pleasure in honouring the memo- ry of martyrs, by erecting tombs, as monuments, over the place of their burial, and in assembling there for worship, on the anniversa- ry of their death. On these occasions, the martyr's monument ser- ved as a table, on which they celebrated the Eucharist. Bt~now the habit of calling the table an altar, was fast driving *2 "The altar which has been erected" (under Tractarian auspices) "at the Round Church, Cambridge," (and which has been condemned by an ecclesias- tical court, as illegal) " is a mass of stone work, rising as an erection from the ground, and attached to the fabric of the Church. The only point in which it differs from the tomb-like altars, generally seen in Romish churches, is that it is not closed in front, (though it is on the sides,) the Romish altars being gen- erally closed all round, the interior being devoted to the reception of relics, without which, there is a very general feeling, among Romanists, that the eu- charist cannot be properly celebrated upon them. But this tomb-like form is not reckoned essential to the being of an altar, and occasionally, I believe, a portion of the front is left open, that the relics may be seen, and protected on- ly, by a trellis work of brass or other metal." Goode's Altars Prohibited in the Church of England. 3 BinjhaiiTa Antiq. b. viii. c. vi. 15. out the true and primitive name, as Christians, out of a most degra* ding disposition to conciliate the heathen by adopting their names and conforming to their customs, were getting more fond of speaking of the Lord's supper, as a sacrifice, and its minister as a Priest. Thus Jerome is quoted by a Romish Annotator, as " calling the bod- ies or bones of St. Peter and St. Paul, the 'altars' of Christ, be- cause of this sacrifice offered over and upon them." * Soon church- es were built over some of those tombs, and the relics were removed from others into churches, and, of course, were enshrined in tombs, as became the sepulture of the illustrious dead. And there, as be- fore, in the open fields, the eucharistic sacrifice was offered over, and upon them ; the doctrine having now grown up that "prayer was the more acceptable to God, when made before the relics of the saints." As the doctrine of the real, corporeal presence of the body of Christ in the Eucharist gained prevalence, so grew that of a real sacrifice and a literal altar ; and as the idea of uniting the merits of Christ's sacrifice, with the supererogatory merits of saints, for. th*- remission of sins, made progress, so seemed it the more appropriate that in the so called " sacrament of the altar," the relics of the saints, and the body of Christ, should be associated together, the one upon, the other under, the altar. Thus it cams to pass that the on- ly form, with which the Church of Rome learned to connect the idea of a Christian altar, was that of a Christian martyr's tomb. Such was the form which she handed down to the age of the Refor- mation, and to the present ; sacred now, in the eyes of her children, as identified with the whole history of her Missal solemnities, and her miracle-working relics. And now, even among Protestant Chris- tians, so is the association of ideas affected by the outward forms, which the pompous ceremonial of Romish worship exhibits, espe- cially when they appear under the garb of antiquity, and are identi- fied with a favorite style of ecclesiastical architecture, that when un- der the influence of a false architectural taste, or a wrong doctrinal sympathy, our people attempt to erect altars, instead of tables, in their churches, none ever think of copying the models which God gave to Moses for the worship of Israel, and which are hallowed in our thoughts, by all the sacred solemnities of the Jewish Church, as divinely ordained types of the sacrifice of Christ. To imitate the brazen altar of burnt offering, or the golden altar of incense, the on- * Gregory Martin, Fulke's Defence, p. 516. The doctrine of any sacrifice in the Lord's supper, b-tt as th commemoration of that of the cross, was called metonymically, a sacrifice, or as the prayers of communicants, were figurative- ly called sacrifices did not get place in the Church till long after; but there was now a dangerous use of figurative terms, and a dangerous fondness for the introduction of heathen ritrs with Christian worship, out of which very natu- rally grew, by and by, the full doctrine of a literal sacrifice, altar and priest- hood. Bishop White says, " there were no sentiments, for 300 years, in the Christian Church, which threatened to lead, even by remote consequence, to such an extreme," as the Romish errors on this subject. Lecture on the Sa- craments. In the 4th cen-tury, Eusebius said, that " the unbloody and reasonable sac- rifices, which our blessed Saviour taught his followers to offer, were such as were to be performed by prayer, an-d the mystical service of blessing and prms- ing God. 1 ' Df laudibvs Constantini, quoted by Mede. [14] ly real altar-forms thai we kim\v of, exn-pt those of heathen worship, would at once seem too Jewish. To have something inor : Chris- tian, we go to the altar of the Church of Rome, for a model ; which is Christian, just so far as the idolatrous worship of the wafer, in the M:t>-v and of dead men's bones beneath, is Christian, and no more. When one sees, in aProt. Kpis. Church, instead of a proper table. such as he has a right to find, for the holy supper, what is now call- i-ii an altar, an oblong chest or ark, of stone or wood, closed in on all sides, as if some sacred mysteries werv concealed therein: what edifying thoughts is it calculated to awaken in his mind .' Is he re- minded of the institution of the Lord's supper ? But then there was only a common table. Does it symbolize, to his eye, the nature of the Lord's supper 1 He knows of no sacrifice therein, and there- fore no altar. Does it teach him his privilege and duty, as a believ- er, spiritually to feed by faith, upon the sacrifice of Christ once of- fered on the cross ? He wants a table, not an altar, to suggest that lesson. Does it stand before him, surrounded with edifying and in- spiring associations, arising out of the recollection of the primitive and pure ages of the gospel ? Those ages had no such device. Is it even connected, in his mind, with the venerable usages of the Protes- tant Episcopal Church ? It is a novelty among them ! What then ! It is fitted only to remind him of its own original, in the midst of the rankest growths of spiritual deformity, when it was a mere martyr's tomb ; its top, the birth-place of the idolatry of the Mass ; its interior a depository of worshipped bones ; a most fit symbol of that whole system of spiritual bondage and death, all centering in the so called "sacrament of the altar," under which the Church of Rome has al- ways, since she became what she is, buried the gospel, and impris- oned the minds of men, wherever she has held dominion. If there be any thing edifying to a communicant at the Lord's board, in con- templating what suggests nothing but the remembrance of all that is false and superstitious in popery, then indeed is such an altar edify- ing. The primitive table is just the opposite. We return to our history. I need not tell you that such was the altar found in the churches of England, at the period of the Reforma- tion. But tt did not remain long undisturbed. With the revival of gospel truth, concerning the nature of the Lord's supper, came the restoration of the primitive table for its celebration. In 1550, Rid- ley, Bishop of London, issued Injunctions to the churches of his dio- cese, exhorting, that all altars should be taken down, and that they should " set up the Lord's board, after the form of an honest table." And one of his reasons was, that " the form of a table may more turn away the people from the old superstitious opinions of the popish mass, and to the right use of the Lord's supper." t An order, to the same effect was issued the same year. Under date of Nov. 19, we read, in King Edward's Journal, the following entry : " There were letters sent to every Bishop to pluck down the altars."\\ Day, Bishop of Chichester, having refused compliance was t Ridley's Works, P. S. Kd. pp. 319, :; || Burnot's Ifis=t. of Kef. vol. 11, fol [M] imprisoned. When Mary succeeded to the throne, Romanism was re-enthroned, and of course, tables were cast out of the churches, and altars restored. It was then made a serious charge against the Re- formers that they had taken away the altars ; to which Bp. Ridley, on the eve of his martyrdom, answered : " As for the taking down of the altars, it was done upon just considerations; for that they seemed to come too nigh the Jews' use ; neither was the Supper of the Lord at any time better ministered or more duly received than in those bet- ter days, (the reign of Edward,) when all things were brought to the rites and usages of the primitive Church. "J On the return of the Reformation, under Elizabeth, altars were again cast out by authority, and tables were restored. In 1564-5, certain " advertisements for due order in the using of the Lord's Supper,"" were " set forth by public authority," in which it was ordered that each parish should provide a decent table standing on a frame, for the communion table. " In 1569, Archbishop Parker issued to his diocese certain Visita- tion Articles, one of which is thus : " Whether you have in your par- ish churches all things necessary for Common Prayer and adminis- tration of the sacraments, especially, *** the Homilies, a convenient pulpit, well placed ; a comely and decent table for the holy commun- ion, *** and whether your altars be taken down according to the com- mandment in that behalf given." *2 In 1571, were issued the canons of the Synod of that year, which enjoined that the Church Wardens should provide "a table of join- er 1 s work for the administration of the holy communion."*3 In the same year, Grindal, while Archbishop of York, and after- wards, when in the see of Canterbury, set forth Injunctions directing the church wardens to provide in every parish, a comely and decent table STANDING ON A FRAME, and to see that all altars be utterly ta- ken down."* 4 Now it was with this well understood character of a table for the communion, as distinguished from an altar of sacrifice, " an honest table" "a table of joiner's work," "a table of wood standing on a frame," that in 1603, the present canon of the Church of England (the 82d,) was enacted; which requires that "there shall be a decent communiontable in every church." What the canon means by "a table" the injunctions I have cited perfectly determine. Contempo- raneously with the Injunctions published in the reign of Elizabeth, was issued our Second Book of Homilies, in one of which we are told that " God's house is well adorned, with places convenient to sit in, with the pulpit for the Preacher, with the Lord's table for the min- istration of his holy supper, with the font to christen in,"&c. : 5 In "{Ridley's" Works, ?. S. Ed. pp. 260, 281 Quoted from Goodc's Altars Prohibited, who cites Sparrow and Cardwell as his authorities. *2 Strypes' Life of Parker, app. b. II ; No. XI. *3 Quoted by Goodc, from Wilk. IV ; 266. *4 Grindal's Works, P. S. Ed., pp. 133, 131. *5 Homily on Repairing of Churches. [16] those days it would have been as impossible to mistake what in tfic laws of the Ch. of England was meant by a table, in distinction from an altar, as to confound a pulpit for the preacher^ with a font for baptism. It is an impressive fact, in this connexion that whereas in the first Prayer Book of Edward vi, 1548, the word altar was retained in some places, where a literal table was meant; when that book was revised in 1552, and the second book of Edward vi, was set forth, that word was, in every case erased, and table was put in its place. Thus has the Prayer Book of the Church of England remained to this day. The word altar is not there, in any connection with the Lord's supper. It was struck out when it was there, as not accord- ing to the doctrine of the Church. Every where now, the word is table. Thus, what is the law of that Church according to her ru- brics and canons, as expounded by the Visitation Articles and In- junctions of her Bishops and Arch Bishops, by the decrees of synods, and the declarations of her greatest divines, is manifest beyond a ra- tional question. A learned writer states it thus, " The r only thing which properly answers the legal requisition of our church, must have the three following characteristics : First, As to material, that it be made of wood. Secondly, As to form, that it be a table in the ordinary sense of the word, that is, a horizontal plane resting upon a frame or feet. Thirdly, That it be unattached, in any part, to the church, so as to be a inoveable table." * The recent decision of the highest ecclesiastical and judicial au- thority in England, commanding the altar lately erected in the Round Church in Cambridge to be removed, as illegal, fully confirms alt that we have now said as to the law of the Church of England on this subject. Before leaving this historical view, it will be edifying to reflect up- on the alternate rise and fall of altars and tables, in the history of the English Church according as Romish or Protestant principles pre- vailed. With the prevalence of the Reformation under Edward, the sym- bol of sacrifice and of priestly mediation, fell down before the ark of Christ's holy gospel, and the primitive symbol of the communion- feast at which all believers have equal rights of fellowship with their Lord and Saviour, was set up again as Christ and his Apostles left it. But with the return of the dominion of popery, under Mary, came back the priestly altars, and the casting out of the Lord's table. ' The restoration of the gospel to the pulpits, under Elizabeth, was the sig- nal for^the restoration of the symbol of its blessed feast of grace, m Jesus Christ, When, afterwards, in the times of Archbishop Laud, there was a revival of Romish sympathies and doctrines, correspon- ding perfectly in spirit and principle with what we now see, in a more mature developement under the name of Tractarianism, there was an equal revival of zeal for altars, and there were those who took advantage of the favour known to be secretly felt in high quur- Goodc's Altars Prohibited. [ 17 ] ters towards such things, and erected altars in the churches. A Bish- op (Montague, of Chichester,) went so far as to insert in his visita- tion articles, questions which were intended to suggest and promote their erection. And this same Bishop, while professedly of the Prot- estant Church of England, was, in his heart, an apostate to the Church of Rome, and was, at that time, holding secret interviews with the Pope's emissary, then in England, for the purpose of bring- ing about a union of the Chnrch of England and Rome. His zeal for altars was fitly united with a zeal to assure Panzani, " that he was continually employed in disposing men's minds, both by word and writing, for a re-union with Rome;" and that both he and many of his brethren were prepared to conform themselves to the method and discipline of the Gallican church, where the civil rights were well guarded ; and " as for the aversion (said he) we discover in our sermons and printed books, they are things of form, chiefly to humour the populace and not to be much regarded." \ Wo can- not but bo reminded, by these sad words, of certain strong expres- sions against Rome, put out in the earlier writings of certain leading Tracturian authors, and which had the effect, as was intended, of convincing many that those men were strong opposers, and perhaps the only effectual opposers of Romanism ; which expressions having done their work, kave been taken back, with the not-unintelligible in- timation that they were not sincere, only words for the times, while some of their authors have apostatised to the Church of Rome, in form, and others evidently in heart. By such men, altars were revived in the days of Laud. When those days were passed, and the Church of England had weathered the storm which, by a fierce and desolating reaction, they had raised, no more was heard of altars ; except as a lingering survivor of the non-juring divines kept up the taste for sacrifices and priests. From that time, until the recent revival of Romish doctrine and feeling among some members of the English Church, it is not known that any thing but "an honest table" was placed in the churches of that land. But now just so far as Tractarianism has extended its virus through the body of our mother church, producing its legitimate fruits in a real, though, partially, masked Romanism, has there appeared a solemn zeal for a real sacrifice in the Lord's supper ; for a sacrificing priesthood in the Christian ministry ; for a confinement of the dispen- sation of gospel grace to the ministrations of a priest in the sacrifice of the Eucharist; and, by necessary consequence, an altar in the church, as the only thing at which a priest can appropriately stand, in his mediatorial office, and offer the body of Christ as a propitiation for the sins of the faithful. This history of the alternate revival and declension of zeal for al- tars and tables, makes it so evident with what kind of sympathy, Ro- mish, or Protestant, each is doctrinally connected, and how far it is from being a matter of indifference whether we have one or the other, that he who runs may read. t Memoirs of Gregario Panzani, quoted by Goode in bia introduction to Jackson on the Church. [18] I am now prepared to state four reasons for the determination of which I have notified you, that I will not consecrate any church, hereafter, in which the structure for the ministration of the Lord's supper is of an altar-firm-, or in which there is not, for that use, a table, in the ordinary sense, as the permanent furniture. 1st, The Rubric, of our Communion Office requires such a Table. Our Prayer Book, as originally set forth, like that of the Church of England, no where used the word altar, with reference to the Lord's supper. It continued some fifteen years in that state, every where speaking of the table. It was not until the addition of the Office for the Institution of Ministers, that the word altar obtained admission, even in a figurative sense. Of this, more by and by. Only in that office is it now found. In the Rubric, at the head of the communion office, it is directed that " the table, at the Communion, having a fair linen cloth upon it, shall stand in the body of the church, or in the chancel." It would be perfectly consistent with the order of the church, as thus set forth, were the communion-table placed in the middle of one of the aisles, if the space around were large enough to be convenient for communicants ; ami there entirely open, unprotected by rails, in- stead of being, as is our present custom, enclosed within the barrier of the chancel. However inexpedient this might be, it would not be inconsistent with the provisions of our Church. Consistently with tho!"e provisions, the table might be sometimes ia one part of the body of the church, and sometimes in another. And while we think of it as a table, only the symbol of the spiritual feast, of the Lord's family, there is nothing intrinsically objectionable in this. But what would it be were it a real altar, with the sacrifice of the Lord's body offered thereon, and the special sacredness of a mediating, sacrificing Priest, of- ficiating thereat ? The very idea implies separation, a privileged place, ground specially holy, as the court of the Priests in the tem- ple, in which stood the altar of sacrifice, was separated from the court of Israel. The Rubric says " the. table." It no where goes into any account of what it means by a table. Of course then we are intentionally left to understand a table in the usual sense. To say that because an altar may, in a certain accommodated sense, be called a table, it is therefore consistent with the rubric, to have a literal altar in our churches, is just as weak as to say that whatever may in any figurative, accommodated, or unusual sense be termed a table, however perfectly unlike what all are accustomed to understand by a table, is contemplated by the Rubric. You may go out into a grave-yard and serve up your family meal upon a tomb- stone, and hence call it a table, because you have used it for a table. But is it a table in any ordinary or proper sense ? And would it be rubrical to place it in the Church for the feast of the Lord's Passover ' Would it be an appropriate symbol of the feast of the household of faith ? Why not as much as a Romish altar ? But what our Rubric means by the table, is easily and perfectly settled by the sense of the Church of England. Our rubric is pre- cisely hers. Her doctrine and practice, as to the ministration of ^ [19] Eucharist, is, by universal acknowledgment, ours. All that we have, in those respects, came through her. Consequently the whole his- tory of the removal of altars and the substitution of "honest tables" of wood, standing on a frame;" all the government orders, episcopal injunctions and judicial decisions, by which the law of the Church of England is so clearly interpreted, apply with equal conclusiveness to the interpretation of ours, and establish that what is meant by a table for the communion, cannot admit of any thing but a table in the ordi- nary sense, requiring no ingenious eye to see how it can be consid- ered a table, but intelligible, in this respect to all descriptions of men. I know it is pleaded that in the Office for the Institution of Ministers the table is called "the altur." But I cannot perceive any room to argue from that source in justification of an altar-form struc- ture, instead of a table, in our churches. I have already told you of the late introduction of that office. It speaks of "the altar" some six or seven times. Was such a thing as an altar, in a literal sense, known in the churches, at that time? We answer no, unless possi- bly as some very rare exception, to a general custom. What could the Office then have meant by the altar, but the table ; and inas- much as the table was no figurative table, but the literal thing, in the ordinary sense how could it be called an altar but in a figurative sense, just as we speak of "the family altar ;" and why should we any more infer from such use, that it is consistent with good taste, or church-propriety, to have a literal altar in our houses of worship, than we should infer from the common expression "family altar" that people really erect altars in their houses of residence; or why, if the Prayer Hook speaks literally when it speaks of "the table" and fig- uratively when it speaks of "the altar" should we have for our arti- cle of furniture for the communion literally an altar, and only figura- tively a table? But all this aside. It does seem most singular that we should al- low a word used only some five or six times in the whole Prayer Book, and that in an office so recent and so little used, to overrule the use and interpretation of centuries ; that instead of requiring it to take its interpretation from all the communion office, where, if any where, the true doctrine and use of the Church, on this head, should be ex- pected, and from the whole history of the Prayer Book, and of the Prot. Ep. Church, we should on the contrary oblige these venerable author- ities to receive their interpretation from that one word. We have no disposition to deny that the communion table may in some sense be rightly called an altar. When Romish writers, in controversy with our Reformers, adduced the use of the term among the fathers, they were answered by Dean Nowell as follows : ' If St. Basil and some other old writers, call it an altar, that is no proper but a figurative name, for that, as in the old law, their burnt-offerings and sacrifices were offered upon the altar, so are our sacrifices of prayer and thanksgiving &c., offered up to God at the Lord's table, as if it were an altar. But such kind of figurative speech can be no just cause to set up altars, rather than tables; unless they think that their cros- ses also should be turned into altars, for that like phrase is used of [20] them, where it is said Christ offered up himself upon the altar of the cross." II 2d. My second reason is that the form of a table is according to the institution of Christ, the practice of the primitive Church, the practice of the Church of England, and, until recently, the, almost unvaried practice of the Prot. Ep. Churches in these t'nitcd States; while on the other hand the form of an altar is no older in the chris- lian church than those grievous corruptions of Christianity which became prevalent in the 4th and 5th centuries, but is identified with the whole history of the Romish apostacy. 3d. My third reason is, that the form of a table is according to the nature of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; while that of an altar is not. This was one of the reasons given by Bp. Ridley, when he issued his injunction for the placing of tables in the church- es of his Diocese, and I am content to use his words : " The use of an altar, (he says,) is to make sacrifice upon it ; the use of a tablo is to serve for men to eat upon. Now when we come to the Lord's board what do we come for ? to sacrifice Christ again, or to feed up- on him that was once only crucified and offered up for us '( If we come to feed upon him, spiritually to eat his body, and spiritually to drink his blood, which is the true use of the Lord's Supper, then no man can deny but the form of a table is more meet for the Lord's board than the form of an altar." 4th. My fourth reason is that the due guardianship of the scrip- tural doctrine of the Lord's Supper, against these errors and cor- ruptions which the great adversary of Christ is ever seeking to in- sinuate among us, requires that we carefully keep up the form of a table, and reject that of an altar. And here I am content to take the language of the leading Divines of the Reformation, in the reign of Elizabeth, as found in a list of reasons for the removal of altars, supposed to have been written by Archbishop Parker : ' An altar (they say,) hath relation to a sacri- fice; for they be correlative, so that of necessity, if we allow an altar, we must grant a sacrifice; like as if there be a father, thero is also a son ; and if there is a master, there is also a servant. Whereupon divers of the learned adversaries themselves have spo- ken of late, that there is no reason to take away the sacrifice of the mass, and to leave the altar standing, SEEING THE OXE WAS ORDAIN- ED FOR THE oTiirr.."^: I will now conclude what I have to say on this subject by remind- ing you of the earnestness with which that late venerable Father of our American Ep. Church, Bp. White, contended against whatever had a tendency to introduce among us that doctrine of a real sacri- fice and priesthood, in the Eucharist, with which the altar is so es- sentially connected. One of the legacies left us by that far-seeing Divine is a Disser- tation on the Eucharist, written throughout, for the purpose of show- ing that in the Christian Church there is no such thing as a material || Novell's Reproof of Dorman's Proof. iStrypes 1 AnnaU, vol. 1, Part 1, pp. ICO, &c. [21] sacrifice since that of Clirist on the cross: no Priest, in the sense of an offerer of sacrifice, but Christ himself, and therefore no altar but that of his cross. Allow me to quote from that and from another of his works a few passages : " I conceive (he says) so unfavourably of whatever may lead, by remote consequence, to creature worship, ss to give a caution against a notion which sometimes appears in wri- ters, who were sincere, though inconsistent Protestants. The notion is that there is in the Eucharist a real sacrifice, .that it is offered upon an altar ; and that the officiating minister is a priest, in the sense of an offerer of sacrifice. Under the economy of the gospel, there is nothing under the names referred to, except the fulfilment of them in the person of the high-priest of our profession. As to our Church, although she commemorates a great sacrifice in the Eucharist, yet she knows of no offering of anything of this description, except in the figurative sense in which prayers and alms are sacrifices. She calls the place on which her oblation is made, not ' an altar,' but 'a table ;' although there is no impropriety in calling it an altar also, the word being understood figuratively. And as to the minister in the ordi- nance, although she retains the word Priest, yet she considers it sy- nonomous with Presbyter." Bp. White said that the Romish er- ror on these heads, " makes an irreconcilable division between us and the Church of Rome ;" that the intercommunity of the names altar and table, is only justifiable in an accommodated or figurative sense ; " for although an altar may be called a table because of some com in on properties which they serve, it does not follow that any table not pos- sessed of the discriminating property of the altar, may be so called. It is like occasional calling of ;i Church, a house. Such it is, with- out its being right to call every house a church. In short, an altar is a place of sacrifice; and the taking of its name carries by implication its distinguishing property,' 'II He said that the errors concerning Priest, sacrifice and altar, against which he was contending, and which were precisely those which are now striving so powerfully to gain prevalence in our Church, and have already gained such alarming ac- cessions, " appeared at first in the closet lucubrations of the few wri- ters (of antiquity) whose works have been handed down ; crept in gradually ; and began in the literal application of language which had been all along, and may be now, figuratively used on the respec- tive points. In England (he continues) the doctrine was completely put down at the Reformation. If, in later times, the notion has been entertained by some of the clergy of the Ch. of. England, it has not crept into ln-r public institutions." The venerable author closed his Dissertation on the Eucharist, from which I have just quoted, with these almost prophetic words : u The. author would lament an ap- proach to the opposite theory, (opposite to that which he was advoca- ting,) among the clergy and other members of the Church as having a threatening aspect on her peace." An approach even to the doctrine of a real sacrifice and priest and altar in the Eucharist, Bp. White thus deprecated as dangerous to the peace of the Church. How like Bp. White's I.ccturrs on tlio Catechism, Lcct. V. T Diss. on the Eucharist.