Prayer Book Form.

Bishop Seabury's Form.

And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father to hear us; and of thy almighty goodness, vouchsafe to bless and sanctify with thy Word and Holy Spirit these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine. that they may become the that we receiving them Body and Blood of thy according to thy Son our most dearly beloved Son. Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood.

The alteration thus made in the Invocation before it was given a place in our Canon, has a parallel in the action of the Roman censor, who in the seventeenth century first revised the Armenian liturgy for the Uniats. He retained, as did the General Convention of 1789, the petition for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the holy gifts, but, like the General Convention, he so changed the rest of the Invocation as to make it a prayer, not that the bread and wine might become the Body and Blood of Christ, but for a worthy reception of the Sacrament, thus removing all verbal inconsistency with the teaching of the Roman Church, which, like the Church of England, holds that the form of the Eucharist is the words of institution.

It is also noteworthy that the phraseology of our Invocation coincides with the explanation given at the Council of Florence by the Greeks desirous of union with the Roman See. "We profess," they said, "that by these words (i. e., the words of institution) the

cf. Galano, Conciliatio Ecclesia Armenæ cum Romana, Rome, 1658, t. ii., 538-603. Le Brun does not think that either this or the subse quent alterations were necessary, as in his judgment the epiklesis of the Oriental rites is in no way inconsistent with the definition of the Council of Trent. (Explication, t. iii, diss. x.)

holy bread is transubstantiated and made the Body of Christ, but afterwards, just as you yourselves (i. e., the Latins) say: 'Command that these things be borne by the hands of thy holy Angel to thine altar on high,' so we also pray, beseeching: 'that the Holy Ghost may come down upon us, and make this bread to be unto us the precious Body of his Christ, and that which is in the Chalice the precious Blood of his Christ, and that he may change them by his Holy Ghost, so that they may be unto us that partake for purification of soul, for remission of sins, and not for judgment, nor for condemnation." "

The alteration made by the General Convention in the wording of the Invocation as it stood in the Connecticut Office, demonstrates how careful it was to give no endorsement to Bishop Seabury's extreme position, and also how desirous it was to continue to adhere to the teaching of the English Prayer Book on this point. The significance of the modification made. was fully appreciated by the Connecticut clergy. The action of the Convention was not what they had desired and hoped for. They, indeed, assented to the new Prayer Book, but with some reluctance, determining, at the Convocation held in Newtown in 1790, to "approach as near the Old Liturgy as a compliance with the rubrics of the New will allow." Some of the clergy, however, would have nothing at all to do with the new Communion Office, and persisted in the use of the form set forth by their Bishop, in which the Invocation is so absolutely consecratory. Even as late as 1819, Bishop Brownell, we are told, "found some Labbe et Cossart, Concilia, xiii, 491.

A Voice from Connecticut, p. 27.

of the older clergy still using Bishop Seabury's Communion Office, and that he had considerable difficulty in persuading them to substitute the Prayer Book office in its place."

Our Invocation speaks of "creatures of bread and wine" after the consecration has taken place. The Latin Canon does likewise: "Per quem [i. e., Christum] haec omnia, Domine, semper bona creas, sanctificas, vivificas, benedicis, et praestas nobis." Whatever the "haec omnia" may have been intended originally to refer to, there is no doubt that now they are made to refer to the sacramental species on the altar, for the rubric directs the Latin Priest that he "signat ter super Hostiam et calicem simul," as he says the concluding words. But in speaking of the consecrated species as "creatures of bread and wine," or, as having been 'created sanctified, quickened, blessed and bestowed upon us by God through his Son Christ our Lord' there is nothing incongruous. It must be remembered that although by the Words of Consecration the bread has been already changed into the Body of Christ, and the wine into his Blood, so that "the inward part or thing" (res) which is present upon the altar is the Body and Blood of Christ, according to our Lord's own words: "This is my Body," and "This is my Blood," nevertheless all the properties of bread and wine remain unchanged, as says Saint Thomas: "Nothing which appeals to the senses (secundum sensum) is changed." "That the Body and Blood of Christ might be had for spiritual and divine refreshment, and not as common meat and drink, and that horror might not be provoked by the eating of human flesh and blood; it is received 8 Hart, Bishop Seabury's Com. Office, p. 27.

under the species of bread and wine.

Nevertheless

we do not say that this so comes to pass, as if these species which appear in the Sacrament were only the mere fancy of the beholder, as is wont to be the case in the illusions of magic, because nothing unreal is becoming to the truth of this Sacrament." And so

recent a writer as Gasparri tells us that "the common opinion among theologians is that the Eucharistic species are something objectively real;" and that this opinion has a twofold reason: in the first place, "the Eucharist would not have the nature of a Sacrament if the sensible element ceased to be real;" in the second place, "this opinion, which is everywhere received in the schools, is more agreeable with the words of the Fathers and Councils."10 These species then, which are the veils under which, and the means by which we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, may with perfect truth, nay must be acknowledged to have been "created by God through Christ," and to be still "creatures of bread and wine." And there is nothing inconsistent with the doctrine, that the consecration is effected by the words of institution, that we should afterwards pray that we receiving the forms of bread and wine. may be partakers of the Body and Blood of Christ. already present under these outward forms.

XI. OF THE POSTURE OF THE CELEBRANT WHILE COMMUNICATING HIMSELF.

The posture of the Priest when communicating himself in the Mass is always standing, and never kneeling. The irreverence of the Puritan laity expressed by their

St. Thom. Aquin. Contra Græcos, cap. viii.

10 Gasparri, Trac. Canon. de Sanctiss. Eucharistica, i. p. 8.

refusal to kneel when receiving the Sacrament, led many of the Bishops of the seventeenth century to insist strenuously upon the general observance of kneeling, even by the celebrant, when Communion was. received. But, however laudable the motive of these Bishops was, there can be no doubt that on this point they were supported by no law of the Prayer Book, as indeed Bishop Cosin admits, and were acting clean contrary to the traditional practice of the Church of England. This is not the only instance in which these good Bishops, from excellent motives, took a line of action quite ultra vires, and in defense of which little can be said.

Some of the reasons for the Celebrant standing at his Communion may briefly be summarized: First, In communicating himself, he exercises a twofold office. He is the minister of the Sacrament, and he is also the recipient of the Sacrament. But the former office being one of authority is of greater dignity than the latter; and therefore it takes precedence of the office of recipient, even to the Celebrant communicating himself before he communicates the Bishop of the diocese. And as in administering all the other Sacraments, the minister assumes the posture of authority (i. c., he either stands or sits), so in the Mass, when administering to himself the Communion, he should also assume the posture of authority, which in this case is standing. His humble acknowledgment of unworthiness and of thankfulness as a recipient is expressed by his genuflecting after he has received the Sacrament.

In the second place, the posture of standing was the universal custom of the English Priests under all the old Uses. And as there never has been any rubric or