NOTE
XXVII.

NOTE XXVII.

Q. What is the most essential act in this part of the Liturgy? A. The utterance of the words which Jesus Christ spake in instituting this Sacrament, (Matt. xxvi. 26, 27, 28.) and after this the Invocation of the Holy Ghost and the Blessing the Gifts, that is, the bread and wine which have been Offered.-Orthodox Catechism, p. 63.

I. Here shall be transcribed first some portion of the Consecration Prayer from the present Liturgy of the Scottish Church:

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:

"For in the night that He was betrayed, He took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, Take, eat, THIS IS MY BODY, which is given for you: Do this in remembrance of Me. Likewise, after Supper, He took the Cup; and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of this, for THIS IS MY BLOOD, of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many, for the remission of sins; Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of Me." ... [The Oblation.] "Wherefore, O Lord, and heavenly Father, according to the institution of Thy dearly-beloved Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, we Thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here before Thy Divine Majesty with these Thy holy gifts, WHICH WE NOW OFFER UNTO THEE, the memorial Thy Son hath commanded us to make; having in remembrance His blessed passion, and precious death, His mighty resurrection, and glorious ascension; rendering unto Thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same.". [The Invocation.] "And we most humbly beseech Thee, O merciful Father, to hear us, and of Thine 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 Body and Blood of Thy most dearly beloved Son." ... “And we earnestly desire Thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, most humbly beseeching Thee to grant, that by the merits and death of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, and through faith in His Blood, we, and all Thy whole Church, may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of His passion. And here we humbly offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee, beseeching Thee, that whosoever shall be partakers of this holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, and be filled with Thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one Body with Him, that He may dwell in them, and they in Him. And

although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto Thee NOTE XXVII. any sacrifice, yet we beseech Thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord; by Whom, and with Whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto Thee, O Father Almighty, world without end, Amen.”... After which, there follow immediately solemn Prayers by the consecrating Bishop or Priest for the whole Church, and for all estates and conditions of men.

II. With respect to the virtue of the words of Institution and the Invocation of the Holy Ghost, Bishop Sparrow, in his Rationale of the Book of Common Prayer, has the following passage:

"The holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,' says St. Chrysostom, 'which the Priest now makes, is the same that Christ gave to His Apostles, &c.'.. Again: Christ is present at the Sacrament now, that first instituted it. He consecrates this also; It is not man, that makes the Body and Blood of Christ by consecrating the holy Elements, but Christ, that was crucified for us. The words are pronounced by the mouth of the Priest, but the elements are consecrated by the power and grace of God. This is, saith He, my Body, &c.; by this word the bread and wine are consecrated.”— Oxford ed. 1840. pp. 211. 216, 220.

III. From Dr. Brett's Dissertation on the Liturgies:

“Tertullian says, 'He made His Body by saying This is My Body. But if Tertullian did mean that the whole consecration was really to be made by these words only, (though I do not think that he did, or that his words necessarily imply it) he is perfectly singular in his opinion. For as Mr. Johnson (Unbloody Sacrifice, P. I. p. 234.) has very fully proved, though the Church always believed that there was very great force and energy in those words, yet they did not believe that the recital of those words by the priest was all that was necessary to the consecration of the Eucharist. He plainly proves that they judged three things to be necessary to the consecration of this Sacrament: 1. The reciting the Words of Institution: 2. The Oblation of the Symbols: 3. The Prayer of Invocation. All these three... in all the ancient Liturgies follow each other in the order here mentioned: and each of them was believed to contribute towards the consecration of the elements. . . . St. Chrysostom, as cited by Mr. Johnson, says much the same that Tertullian does, only he explains a little more fully. The priest,' says he, fulfilling his office, stands pronouncing those words, but the power and grace is of God: that word, This is my body, &c., changes the gifts laid in open view. And as the word that says Increase and multiply, was but once pronounced, but is virtually operative upon our nature ever since, so that voice, once pronounced, has its effects on the prepared Sacrifice on the table of the Churches from that time to this, and

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NOTE until His own advent.' Here St. Chrysostom plainly teaches that this XXVII. word of Christ, This is my body, operates as the word of God does in other cases, particularly as it operates in the words, Increase and multiply. As therefore the words Increase and multiply do not operate but when those rites are performed which God has appointed for that purpose, so neither, according to St. Chrysostom, do the words This is my body, but when those things are done which Christ did and commanded. What those things are, I shall shew more particularly, when I come to speak of the Oblation and Invocation."-Dissertation on the Liturgies, p. 183.

Again: "Mr. Wheatley, a learned Divine, who has taken a great deal of useful pains to explain and defend the English Liturgy, says expressly, that none he yet knows, except the Church of Rome, ever attributed the consecration to the bare pronouncing of these words only.”—Ib. p. 193.

And again: "Renaudotius observes that ‘a learned man, Richard Simon, who has wrote much upon this subject, affirms, that all the Orientals are of this opinion; which he seems to acknowledge is no other than what is commonly attributed to them; that is, that the consecration is made not by the sacramental words of our Lord Christ, but by the invocation of the Holy Ghost. But this opinion,' he says, 'is wrongfully accused of error; because it is not a matter of faith to believe that the Eucharist is consecrated by our Lord's words only, neither has it been determined by the Church; forasmuch as not a few divines have without censure opposed that doctrine; which he proves chiefly by the authority of Ambrosius Catharinus, and Christopher de Capite Fontium.' (Renaudot. Comment. ad Liturg. Copt. St. Basil, p. 246.) Renaudotius seems afraid to speak so plain himself in this case as father Simon has done, knowing that the Missal of the Church of Rome clearly attributes the whole force of consecration to the words, This is my body, &c. However, he shews that this opinion was not condemned in the Council of Florence, . . . and that it was so far from being determined in that Council both by Greeks and Latins, as is pretended, that the consecration of the Eucharist was perfected by the words of institution only, that not only the Greeks declared the direct contrary, but even the Pope himself would not permit it to be so decreed. (Renaudot. ib. p. 246, 7.)"-P. 242, &c.

IV. Speaking of the words of Institution, and referring to Chrysostom, (De Prod. Judæ, Tom. v. p. 63.) the Scottish Bishop Rattray observes ;"It is by virtue of these words spoken by Christ, that the following Prayer of the Priest is made effectual for procuring the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Bread and the Cup."-Instructions, &c. p. 23.

And he refers to a passage in Bingham's Antiquities: "In the Mozarabic Liturgy and the old Gothic Missal published by Mabillon, there are prayers for the descent of the Holy Ghost to sanctify the Gifts, and make them the Body and Blood of Christ, even after the repetition of the words,

XXVII.

'This is My Body,' and 'This is My Blood;' which evidently shews that NOTE the ancient formers of the Liturgy did not think the consecration to be effected by the bare repetition of those words, but by prayer for the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the bread and wine."-B. xv. ch. iii. § 31.

See the passage which is quoted at length from the same Bishop Rattray on the subject of the Eucharist, under Note xxvi. Also the Scottish Catechisms; that of Aberdeen, pp. 38, 39; and that by Bishop Jolly, p. 63.

Here it will be proper to treat of the Great Oblation, which is made between the rehearsal of the words of Institution and the Invocation of the Holy Ghost, and which continues to be referred to in those prayers for the whole Church which follow immediately after the Consecration in the Scottish Liturgy. The points to be shewn are; 1. That there is in the Eucharist a Sacrifice, true, proper, and propitiatory, available both for the living and the departed: 2. That the Great Oblation itself ex parte nostrâ consists in the Bread and Wine, the antitypes of the Body and Blood of Christ, Offered after the rehearsal of the Words of Institution and before the Invocation of the Holy Ghost: 3. That the Sacrifice is consummated or perfected by the Holy Ghost Himself, Who descends and changes the Elements: 4. That a special efficacy attaches, in virtue of the change and consummation of the Sacrifice, to those commemorations and prayers for all estates in the Church both living and departed, which are made immediately after: 5. That the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is in a certain sense one and the same with that once for all made upon the Cross: 6. That it is in a certain sense true to say that Christ is offered or sacrificed in the Eucharist.

V. Bishop Andrewes on this subject writes as follows:

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"We hold with St. Augustine, 'Quod hujus Sacrificii Caro et Sanguis ante adventum Christi per victimas similitudinum promittebatur; in passione Christi per ipsam veritatem reddebatur; post adventum Christi per Sacramentum memoriæ celebratur."-Ans. to Card. Perr.

VI. Bishop Overall, who drew up the last Section of the Catechism of the Church of England, has left us the following comment on those words of the English Liturgy, "sufficient Sacrifice of that His precious Blood:"

"If we compare the Eucharist with the Sacrifice once made upon the Cross with reference to the killing or destroying of the Sacrifice, or with reference to the visibility of it, in that sense we call it only a commemorative Sacrifice, as the Fathers do. (Chrys. Hom. Contr. Jud. part 2. Sentent. lib. 4. dist. 12.) But if we compare the Eucharist with Christ's Sacrifice made once upon the Cross as concerning the effect of it, we say that (of the Cross) was a sufficient Sacrifice; but at the same time that this (of the Eucharist) is a true, real, and efficient Sacrifice, and both of them propitiatory for the sins of the whole world. . . . . Neither do we call this Sacrifice of the Eucharist an efficient Sacrifice, as if that upon the Cross

NOTE wanted efficacy; but because the force and virtue of that Sacrifice would XXVII. not be profitable unto us, unless it were applied and brought into effect by

this Eucharistical Sacrifice, and other the holy Sacraments and means appointed by God for that end: but we call it propitiatory, both this and that, because they have both force and virtue in them to appease God's wrath against this sinful world. Read Mald. de Sac. p. 323. Therefore this is no new Sacrifice, but the same which was once offered, and which is every day offered to God by Christ in heaven, and continueth here still upon earth by a mystical representation of it in the Eucharist. And the Church intends not to have any new propitiation or new remission of sins obtained, but to make that effectual and in act applied unto us, which was once obtained by the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. Neither is the Sacrifice of the Cross, as it was once offered up there modo cruento, so much remembered in the Eucharist, (though it be commemorated,) as regard is had to the perpetual and daily offering of it by Christ now in Heaven in His everlasting Priesthood: and thereupon it was, and should be still the juge Sacrificium, observed here on earth, as it is in Heaven, the reason which the ancient Fathers had for their daily Sacrifice. (St. Chrysostom in 10. Heb. St. Augustin de Civ. Dei, lib. 10. c. 20.)"-Additional Notes on the Book of Common Prayer, Nicholls's Commentary, p. 46.

Again, on the words of the Liturgy, "This our sacrifice of praise, &c.:""So the ancient Fathers are wont to call this Sacrifice, Sacrificium laudis et gratiarum actionis; not exclusively, as if it were no other Sacrifice but that; for they called it also, Sacrificium Commemorationis, and Sacrificium Spiritûs, and Sacrificium obsequii, &c.; and, which is more, Sacrificium verum et propitiatorium.”

VII. Mason on the same subject writes as follows:

"So often as we celebrate the Eucharist, so often do we offer Christ in a mystery, and sacrifice Him by way of commemoration or representation."Vindication of the Church of England, b. v. p. 470.

VIII. And to the same effect Bishop Jeremy Taylor:

"As Christ is a Priest in heaven for ever, and yet does not sacrifice Himself afresh, (nor yet without a sacrifice could He be a Priest,) but by a daily ministration and intercession represents His Sacrifice to God, and offers Himself as sacrificed, so He does upon earth, by the ministry of His servants. He is offered to God, that is, He is by prayers and the Sacrament represented and offered up to God, 'as sacrificed;' which, in effect, is a celebration of His death, and the applying it to the present and future necessities of the Church by a ministry like to His in heaven. It follows then, that the celebration of this sacrifice be, in its proportion, an instrument of applying the proper sacrifice to all the purposes, which it first designed. It is propitiatory, it is Eucharistical, it is impetratory: &c." -Life of Christ, Disc. xix. Works, vol. iii. pp. 296, 298.