Sacrifice and the Sacrament has no ground whatever in the Word of God.

3. Nor does this separation of what God has joined together find any warrant whatever in the practice of the Primitive Church. Nay, that practice contains implicitly a strong protest against non-communicating attendance. Such attendance was indeed recognised in the Church of the third and fourth centuries,—but, so far from being recognised as a privilege, it was imposed as a penance. The penitents of those days were divided into four orders, who had different places assigned to them in the Church, and different privileges allowed them. The furthest advanced of these orders were called Consistentes (or, standers together), from their being allowed to stand with the faithful near the altar, and see the oblation (of the Eucharist) offered, but yet they might neither make their own oblations, nor partake of the Eucharist with the congregation. That even this was considered a heavy censure, may be gathered from a canon of the council of Nice,5 which prescribes two years of this penance for the crime of idolatry (after ten years in lower stages), and speaks of the persons subjected to it, as communicating with the people in prayers only, without the oblation. The

5 Canon XI. It runs thus :-"As to those who have transgressed without necessity, or without loss of their substance, or without peril or any thing of that sort, —a thing which hath happened under the tyranny of Licinius, -the Synod hath decreed, albeit they are unworthy of clemency, nevertheless to deal indulgently with them. As many of them therefore as sincerely repent, shall spend three years (assuming them to have been formerly in communion) among the hearers and for seven years [more] they shall be prostrators: and then for two years they shall communicate with the people in prayers only, without [being admitted to] the oblation."

:

Mr. Scudamore tells us (p. 394), with a reference to Bona, that "there is an almost universal consensus of the better Divines, Ritualists, and Canonists of the Church of Rome in favour of the historical statement that has been now made, viz., that, with the above-named exception of the Consistentes, no one was permitted to be present at the Sacred Mysteries but those who were able to offer and to partake of the things offered.""

use which we wish to make of this disciplinary canon is to show from it what was the view taken by the early Church of the subject under consideration. If non-communicating attendance had been in those days regarded as a privilege, and held to be a legitimate source of edification and comfort (which is the view now sought to be inculcated in our Church), it never could have been inflicted as a penance. The penalty

"Show

to which the Consistentes had to submit was, his eyes and grieve his heart;" let him be tantalized with the mere spectacle of a privilege open to others, but which in his present state cannot be his; let him be like the cripple at the Beautiful gate of the Temple placed in sight of a glorious and soul-inspiring worship in which he himself is shut out from joining. It must be admitted that this estimate of the position of a noncommunicating attendant is totally different from that which finds in such a position a stimulus to reverence and devotional sentiment, and a help of no mean value to communion with Christ. And what shall we say of the recognised impossibility, implied in the terms of the canon, of participating in the oblation without communicating? Does it not run in the very teeth of this new-fangled notion, that we may join in the sacrificial part of the ordinance, while holding entirely aloof from its sacramental part?

4. As regards, lastly, the mind of those who drew up our own Office of the Holy Communion, and of those who brought it into its present state, it is often pleaded by the advocates of non-communicating attendance that nowhere in that Office do we find any direction for noncommunicants to withdraw. This is no doubt a matter of fact; but is a matter of fact which does not stand by itself; and which, when quoted as if it did, conveys an impression very wide of the truth. Our Communion Office was not all at once brought into its present shape. It passed through several revisions, before it reached the exact form in which it now stands. The First Prayer Book of King Edward the Sixth, put forth in 1549, contained a rubric after the Offertory Sentences, and

before the direction to set the bread and wine upon the Altar, to this effect; "Then so many as shall be partakers of the holy Communion, shall tarry still in the quire, or in some convenient place nigh the quire.

All other (that mind not to receive the said holy Communion) shall depart out of the quire, except the ministers and clerks" ( (whose functions might be necessary as assistants, though they themselves might have communicated at an earlier hour). Such was the first rule of the Reformed Church on the subject, and it certainly does not favour non-communicating attendance. The second Reformed Prayer Book, put forth three years afterwards (in 1552), made a step in advance. An address was then introduced, great part of which we still retain in the Exhortation which is to be used, in case the Minister "shall see the people negligent to come to the holy Communion." In this address, as then put forth, were contained these words; "And whereas ye offend God so sore in refusing this holy Banquet, I admonish, exhort, and beseech you, that unto this unkindness ye will not add any more. Which thing ye shall do, if ye stand by as gazers and lookers on them that do communicate, and be no partakers of the same yourselves. For what thing can this be accounted else, than a further contempt and unkindness unto God? Truly it is a great unthankfulness to say nay when ye be called; but the fault is much greater, when men stand by, and yet will neither eat nor drink this holy Communion with other. I pray you what can this be else, but even to have the mysteries of Christ in derision? . . . . Wherefore, rather than you should so do, depart you hence, and give place to them that be godly disposed."

The

This severe discouragement of non-communicating attendance in the Reformed Church had its effect. practice of hearing Mass without communicating (as a sort of compensatory act for communicating rarely or never) had its neck broken. In the time of the great Revision of 1662, the practice no longer existed ; and

See "Notitia Eucharistica" (pp. 395, 396), from which this account is drawn.

accordingly, on the assumption doubtless that it would never be revived, the protest against gazing and looking on, having lost its point, was quietly expunged from the address in which it occurred. Such is the reason why our present Office lacks any definite protest against non-communicating attendance. But in view of these plain facts of history, it can never be said that the Reformed Church approves of the practice, or indeed does otherwise than most seriously disapprove of it.

We have argued the question, as in the last resort it must be argued, on the grounds of Reason, Scripture, the Book of Common Prayer, and the views of the Primitive Church. But if any practice could be put out of court by its manifest tendency, and by the effect which it is likely to have upon the general run of the people who compose our congregations, this would surely be so excluded. It cannot indeed be denied that there is a considerable number of very devout persons, chiefly belonging to one particular school, who do communicate very frequently, and thus habitually use the Lord's ordinance for the purpose it was given for, who yet mix with it occasionally the practice of non-communicating attendance, warmly advocate that practice as correct in theory, and wish to see it universally adopted. We do not wish to say a single word which could be construed as disparaging the devotion and simple-hearted piety of these persons, or as manifesting a want of appreciation of the graces of Christian character, which many of them display. But we ask them to consider what must infallibly be the effect of their teaching and example upon people, who do not rise above the ordinary level of Christian character and the ordinary standard of Christian attainment. We all know how many scruples the hard-worked man of the world either has, or invents, against the duty of communicating; how partly a genuine and commendable feeling of his own unworthiness, partly a fear of being upon too close quarters with God, and being driven to pursue a standard of piety for which his will has not yet mustered up courage, partly an apprehension that familiarity with the ordinance

may lead him to hold it cheap, operate to make him a very infrequent attendant at the Table of the Lord. What must (sooner or later) be the effect of instilling into his mind by precept and example, and by the putting in his hand pious little books which have a strong distillation of Romanism in them, that the Lord may be worshipped acceptably, and the Sacrifice once offered on Calvary pleaded effectually with God, by mere attendance at the holy Table, while only a sorry handful of people present themselves to communicate? The effect must certainly be to diminish the number of communicants, even if the number of attendants should be increased. And can such an effect be contemplated without dismay, whether we consider the precept, which makes the observance of the Eucharist binding on us; "Drink ye all of it," or the nature of the blessing received in it; "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of" (the means of partaking in) "the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ?" 66 Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

CHAPTER IV

AURICULAR CONFESSION

"Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day? it is neither new moon, nor sabbath.”—2 KINGS iv. 23

THE practice of Auricular Confession may not seem

in the nature of things to have any connection with our subject, which is the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It is quite conceivable that this practice might obtain in a Church, as a supposed means of grace and edification, without any special reference to the