The word Altar, then, tells of the pleading of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In the words of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to Leo XIII: "We plead and represent before the Father the Sacrifice of the Cross"; or in the words of Charles Wesley: "To God it is an Altar whereon men mystically present unto Him the same Sacrifice, as still suing for mercy"; or, in the words of Isaac Barrow: "Our Lord hath offered a well-pleasing Sacrifice for our sins, and doth, at God's right hand, continually renew it by presenting it unto God, and interceding with Him for the effect thereof".
The Sacrifice does not, of course, consist in the re-slaying of the Lamb, but in the offering of the Lamb as it had been slain. It is not the repetition of the Atonement, but the representation of the Atonement.[[8]] We offer on the earthly Altar the same Sacrifice that is being perpetually offered on the Heavenly Altar. There is only one Altar, only one Sacrifice, one Eucharist—"one offering, single and complete". All the combined earthly Altars are but one Altar—the earthly or visible part of the Heavenly Altar on which He, both Priest and Victim, offers Himself as the Lamb "as it had been slain". The Heavenly Altar is, as it were, the centre, and all the earthly Altars the circumference. We gaze at the Heavenly Altar through the Earthly Altars. We plead what He pleads; we offer what He offers.
Thus the Church, with exultation,
Till her Lord returns again,
Shows His Death; His mediation
Validates her worship then,
Pleading the Divine Oblation
Offered on the Cross for men.
And we must remember that in this offering the whole Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are at work. We must not in our worship so concentrate our attention upon the Second Person, as to exclude the other Persons from our thoughts. Indeed, if one Person is more prominent than another, it is God the Father. It is to God the Father that the Sacrifice ascends; it is with Him that we plead on earth that which God the Son is pleading in Heaven; it is God the Holy Ghost Who makes our pleadings possible, Who turns the many Jewish Altars into the one Christian Altar. The Gloria in Excelsis bids us render worship to all three Persons engaged in this single act.
The Table.
The second aspect under consideration is suggested by the word Table—the "Holy Table," as St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Athanasius call it; "the tremendous Table," or the "Mystic Table," as St. Chrysostom calls it; "the Lord's Table," or "this Thy Table," as, following the Easterns, our Prayer Book calls it.
This term emphasizes the Feast-aspect, as "Altar" underlines the Sacrificial aspect, of the Sacrament. In the "Lord's Supper" we feast upon the Sacrifice which has already been offered upon the Altar. "This Thy Table," tells of the Banquet of the Lamb. As St. Thomas puts it:—
He gave Himself in either kind,
His precious Flesh, His precious Blood:
In Love's own fullness thus designed
Of the whole man to be the Food.
Or, as Dr. Doddridge puts it, in his Sacramental Ave:—