In the Catechism there is not much said on the subject, but that little is decisive. There is only one allusion to sacrifice, and that is, to the one sacrifice of our blessed Saviour, while the Lord’s Supper is distinctly declared to be an act of remembrance of that great event. ‘Q. Why was the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper ordained?’ ‘A. For the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby.’ It is needless to stop to point out that remembrance cannot mean either continuation, repetition, or application; and with such a distinct passage before us, it is manifest that no one can claim the Catechism as teaching the doctrine of propitiatory sacrifice in the Lord’s Supper. There is an opinion in some minds that the language of the Catechism is less distinctly Protestant than that of the other documents. That opinion I believe to be thoroughly mistaken, and it certainly is very difficult to understand by what perversion of language the doctrine of propitiatory sacrifice can be wrung from such language as ‘The continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ,’ and a ‘thankful remembrance of His death,’ as we find in the answer with which the Catechism concludes.
From the Catechism let us turn to the Communion Service. And here we are met at the outset by Dr. Pusey’s remarkable admission, that the only passage teaching the doctrine is the language of thankful dedication in the prayer that follows the reception: ‘We, Thy humble servants, entirely desire Thy Fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.’ No person who understands the difference between propitiation and thanksgiving can fail to see at a glance that there is no reference in this passage to propitiatory sacrifice. The next sentence is: ‘Here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee.’ ‘Ourselves, our souls and bodies,’ what are they to make a propitiation for sin? Nothing can be plainer than that the prayer is intended to be the language of the thankful heart surrendering itself as a thank-offering to God. If the language admitted of the smallest doubt, that doubt would be removed by the position assigned to it in the Communion Service of 1552. In that of 1549 it stood with certain additions before the administration of the sacramental elements, but the human mind is so prone to misunderstand the simplest documents, that our Reformers, to avoid all possibility of mistake, first removed from the prayer any expressions which they thought could be misunderstood, and then placed it after, instead of before, the reception of the elements. Thus they secured that there should be no room for doubt that the sacrifice referred to is the surrender of self, and the motive for that surrender, not the desire for forgiveness, but the deep gratitude of a thankful heart, when sin has been blotted out through a finished atonement, and the appropriation of that atonement has been sealed to the soul by the sacred emblems of His body and blood.
But these were not the only changes made in the Communion Service of 1552. There was another of a most important character in connexion with the subject of sacrifice. You never hear of sacrifice without an altar. The altar is, in fact, an essential adjunct of sacrifice, and accordingly in former times there was an altar, generally made of stone, against the eastern wall of the chancel. Accordingly in the Communion Service of 1549, there is frequent mention of the altar; but in 1552 all altars were abolished. There is no allusion to an altar now in any document of the Church of England. When persons speak of leading brides to the altar, they are not using the language of the Church, nor are they presenting the holy rite of marriage in a very happy aspect, for the expression really implies that the poor bride is led to sacrifice. There is now nothing but a table known in the Church of England. The altar has been removed, and the table introduced, in order that all might see even in the Church’s furniture, that the doctrine of sacrifice has been abandoned, and that the doctrine of communion is the true creed of the Church of England. It may be sufficient to refer to the fourth rubric as a specimen of the changes made. In 1549 it was, ‘The priest standing humbly afore the midst of the altar shall say,’ &c. In 1552, ‘The table having at the Communion time a fair white linen cloth upon it, shall stand in the body of the church or in the chancel, where Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer be appointed to be said. And the priest standing at the north side of the table shall say,’ &c.
And now for the Homilies, the last authority to which we have to refer in this inquiry. I am not surprised that those who maintain the doctrine of a continuation of propitiatory sacrifice preserve a prudent silence with reference to the Homilies. I do not know of any one passage ever quoted by them in support of their opinions, while every allusion to the subject in the Homilies is of a distinctly opposite character. Let us turn to one or two passages from the 15th Homily of the Second Book. In the first page of that Homily we have a general description of the Sacred Feast. ‘Amongst the which means is the public celebration of the memory of His precious death at the Lord’s Table: which, although it seems of small virtue to some, yet being rightly done by the faithful, it doth not only keep their weakness, but strengtheneth and comforteth their inward man with peace and gladness, and maketh them thankful to their Redeemer with diligent care and godly conversation.’ Here we have the description of the same two purposes as are mentioned in the Articles and Catechism, but not one syllable respecting sacrifice, for no one who values correctness in language can maintain that memory is continuation, or that the memory of His precious death can be a renewed act of propitiation. But this may be thought to be only an omission. Let us pass on then to the following page, when we read, ‘For as that worthy man, St. Ambrose, saith: “He is unworthy of the Lord that otherwise doth celebrate that mystery than it was delivered by Him. Neither can he be devout that otherwise doth presume that it was otherwise given by the Author.” We must, therefore, take heed lest of the memory it be made a sacrifice; lest of a Communion it may be made a private eating; lest of two parts we have but one; lest in applying it for the dead we lose the fruit that be alive.’ In the Homily for Whit Sunday, the self-same truth is taught, with almost equal clearness. When it is said of the Church of Rome that they ‘have so intermingled their own traditions and inventions, by chopping and changing, by adding and plucking away, that now they (the Sacraments) may seem to be converted into a new guise. Christ commended to His Church a Sacrament of His body and blood; they have changed it into a sacrifice for the quick and the dead.’ And yet notwithstanding all these statements and many others, there are those who hold office as clergymen of the Church of England, who are not ashamed of circulating such a book as the ‘Eucharist Manual,’ in which it is said: ‘The Holy Eucharist is a true and substantial sacrifice offered to God the Father, offered for the quick and dead.’
Here, then, I may conclude. My object, let it be well remembered, has not been to discuss the subject from the Scriptures, but to ascertain the real teaching of the Church of England respecting it. Let it not be supposed for one moment that I have taken this position from any idea that there is any infallible rule of faith but God’s own Word as revealed in Scripture; but I have done so because the Church of England is at this present time sorely tried by internal difficulties, and it seems only due to her to ascertain with the utmost care what is the real character of her teaching. While some are loudly claiming her as teaching those very doctrines in opposition to which our Reformers went to the stake, and while others of a tender conscience are forsaking her because they partially believe those bold statements to be true, it is of the utmost possible importance that those who are faithful to the Church of England should take the trouble to make themselves acquainted with her true principles. If it is a fact that she is identical with Rome, and that the Reformers were martyrs for a merely imaginary metaphysical distinction of no importance whatever; then, indeed, we may stand aghast at the ignorance and folly of all the theologians of all schools and all countries who have been weak enough to suppose that in the Reformation there was a doctrinal separation from the Apostasy of Rome. But if, on the other hand, the Reformers knew what they were doing, and why they did it; if they drew up these documents with the utmost care, and these documents so provoked the doctrinal antipathies of Rome, that while their authors were sacrificed at the stake their principles were branded by the anathemas of the Council of Trent; if none of our most thoughtful students for the last three centuries ever for one moment doubted that there was direct antagonism between the Church of England and that of Rome; then it is too sad to be borne that devout men, dearly beloved in the Lord, staunch to the great principles of the Gospel of the Grace of God, should have their consciences wounded, and their allegiance shaken, by the unproved assertions of men who, without any appeal to the Church’s documents, claim to be the only expositors of its principles. It is moreover most deeply to be deplored that those who have a real, true, and faithful love for the Church of England should be led into error by the unproved assertion that the Church of England teaches that which she most emphatically denies. It is for the sake of both classes that I have been led to this investigation. If any are unsettled in their mind and disposed to distrust the Church of England, I shall rejoice if they are led to see how sound, how clear, and how perfectly Scriptural she is upon the subject. And if any have been led by mistaken ideas of the Church’s teaching to hold opinions at variance with the great principles of the Reformation, I shall thank God more than I can express if they may be led to see what the Church which they love really teaches, that so the love of their Church may confirm them in the love of truth, and help to establish them as steady and consistent Churchmen in the faith once delivered to the saints.
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