upon Compendiums and Abbreviators, making them their ground of their study in Divinity." How wonderful was the revival of true opinions which followed on this movement. Laud, in 1601, had engaged the attention of the Bishop who ordained him, by the circumstance of his having adopted this course of reading. Ten years before this time he had maintained the simple Church doctrines, -of the necessity of Baptism and of Episcopacy, in the midst of obloquy. Now he is President of S. John's; look forward twenty years, and the inherent character of truth and beauty in the Catholic Theology had carried along with them the great body of the University.

At this later time it was that we have the following curious indication of the state of opinion, from which we have room for but a short extract.

A copy of the proceedings of some worthy and learned Divines touching innovations in the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England; together with considerations upon the Common Prayer-book. (The Committee appointed by the House of Lords, in the year, 1641.)

" INNOVATIONS IN DOCTRINE.

3. "Some have preached the works of penance are satisfactory before God.

4. "Some have preached that private confession, by particular enumeration of sins, is necessary to salvation, necessitate medii;' both those errors have been questioned at the consistory at Cambridge.

5. "Some have maintained that the absolution which the Priest pronounceth is more than declaratory.

6. "Some have published that there is a proper sacrifice in the LORD'S Supper, to exhibit CHRIST's death in the postfact, as there was a sacrifice to prefigure in the old law in the antefact, and therefore that we have a true altar; and therefore not metaphorically so called, as Dr. Heylin and others in the last summer's convocation; where also some defended, that the oblation of the elements might hold the nature of the true sacrifice, others the consumption of the elements.

7. "Some have introduced prayer for the dead, as Mr. Brown in his printed sermon, and some have coloured the use of it with questions in Cambridge, and disputed that preces pro defunctis non supponunt purgatorium.'”—(Cardwell's Conferences, p. 270.)

Now why should we notice this document? every one, it will be said, knows that the Clergy of Charles the First's days held very extreme views, and that the Archbishop's life was sacrificed in consequence of them. But though every one knows this, it is not every one that sufficiently considers what is implied in the fact. First, it shows what are the real results of Church of England principles; for no one can deny that if fairly viewed, and fairly carried out in their consequences, the doctrines of the Church of England are those of the Laudian school. But there is a further rea

son.

It was to the Divines of this school that the last revision of our Liturgy, the last settling of our doctrines was committed. Since that time the Church, in her public acts, has only held fast what they arranged. Of course therefore their full views become most important to us. It has been already said that it is the Prayerbook of 1661, which we confess an assent to; it is the Articles in them confirmed, which we subscribe. It follows of course that these opinions are very important to us as they form the key to the expressions there; and they also show, not only that such opinions are consistent with our formularies, but that they who held those opinions were content with the formularies as they are. To this point we shall return, in speaking of the advance made by the Church in 1662. There is, however, another very important consideration. That is that the Church never condemned these opinions; nay, that so far as any judgments were given, they were favourable to them. The strong tide of popular feeling, excited by the Preachers, (who occupied the position of the Dissenting teachers of this day, except only that the one were Dissenters in, the others out of the Church :) this tide set against Church doctrines and many persons of the respectable and higher classes were deeply offended by them; still they were uncensured. The case of Montague's book, the writings of Thorndike, and Cosin, will bear out what has been said.

In tracing, however, the progress of the English Church in outgrowing the foreign element of her Reformation, it would be deep ingratitude to the memory of Archbishop Laud to pass over unnoticed the great work which he effected in this one point, among so many, in the great contest, for such that of his day really was, between Catholicity and Puritanism. Nobly as he withstood, and effectually as he overcame their encroachments-prevailing by dying the one point in which he effected in his lifetime and left behind, as an abiding legacy, was the honour due to the Altar. How great the influence of that work of his zeal has been no human mind can calculate. It is not possible to say how generation after generation has been rescued from irreverence, and that erroneous doctrine which must be an adjunct inseparable from irreverence towards the Holy Altar, by his care. Gross as our neglect has been herein, and mischievous as have been its effects, how much worse would our condition have been, had the Holy Table been rudely moved about, or set in the middle of the Church, as it unhappily still is in some portions of the English Dominions. Laud in the midst of obloquy and opposition, of cold indifference or cautious remonstrance, rescued and vindicated its honour.

The immediate effect of his exertions was discussion on the propriety of the arrangement. Attention was excited, a controversy arose on the questions: Was the position to be that of a mere table or of an Altar? Was it really only a table, or was it an Altar?

The result was that the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice was worked out with a clearness, and gained an acknowledged assent such as it had not before had, explicitly at least, since the Reformation. The works of Heylin and Mede, whose "Christian Sacrifice" was perhaps our most standard work on the subject, were produced by this contest. The Altars continue to keep their place, and we trust, the Holy Doctrine which they express has never entirely lost its hold in the faith of our Priests.

This was the most marked point in the advance made in 1662. It is of course more important to observe that the old questions were again brought forward, and that the Church again decided on the Catholic side. After years of contention, after deep sifting of the question, by appeals to antiquity, by examination of Holy Scripture, by all the workings of controversy; after all this, when there could be no question as to the meaning of the phrases, no longer any ambiguities to shelter under, in their real full Catholic sense, the Church decided on retaining them as the expression of her Faith. That this was the sense in which they were retained is plain. It was the sense in which the Puritans opposed them. It was the sense in which the Church Divines had upheld them; the sense in which they had proved them by appeals to Scripture and antiquity. This it would be impossible here to show in detail; the works of the Divines of that day are alike the repositories of the Church's teaching on the point and the evidence of the sense in which she holds the doctrines; for these Divines were they by whom our formularies were then finally modelled.

The one instance of the changes made and not made in the Communion Service will illustrate the points, both of the recognition of doctrines which had been disputed and on which the Church had been supposed not to speak explicitly; and in the doing this with as little change as possible of the words of the Prayerbook. It is important to observe the latter circumstance; because it shows that the old expressions would be retained as far as possible, and that the Catholic doctrines of the Church would be expressed under the terms which had been settled at the Reformation, rather than by the adoption of new ones.

Of the views of Bishop Cosin and the Laudian school on the subject of the Sacrifice in the Eucharist, there can be no doubt. The extracts already given from Cosin's own private interleaved Prayer-book show it. One other extract will show how fully he went along with the ancient Church. He believed,

"That the Eucharist is a representative sacrifice for the sins and for the benefit of the whole world, of the whole Church, that both those which are here on earth, and those that rest in the sleep of peace, being departed in the faith of CHRIST, may find the effect and virtue of it; and (he says) if the authority of the ancient Church may prevail with us, as it ought to do, there is nothing more manifest than that it always taught as much, quoting S. Chrysostom in Matt. viii. "Idcirco altari

assistens sacerdos pro his qui ante nos fuerunt, pro universo orbe terrarum, pro absentibus, atque præsentibus, pro his qui postea futuri sunt, sacrificio illo proposito, Deo nos gratias jubet offerre."-Nicholl, p. 50, col. 2, And again,

If we compare the Eucharist with CHRIST's Sacrifice made once upon the Cross, as concerning the effect of it, we say, that that was a sufficient sacrifice; but withal, that this is a true, real, and efficient sacrifice, and both of them propitiatory for the sins of the whole world.” And this doctrine he saw in the words of our Prayer Book, as he proceeds to say,

And therefore in the oblation following we pray, that it may prevail so with GoD, that we, and all the whole Church of CHRIST (which consists of more than those that are upon the earth,) may receive the benefit of it."-Ibid. p. 46, col. 1.

This was his understanding of the prayer of Oblation, immediately following the LORD's Prayer in the Post Communion, in which we "beseech GOD to accept this our Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving, most humbly beseeching him to grant that by the merits of our LORD and SAVIOUR, through faith in His Blood we and all His whole Church," (which includes the faithful departed, as well as those still on earth,) " may receive remission of sins, and all other benefits of his Passion." Now let us observe that Cosin so understanding the words of the Prayer, was content to leave them as they stood before. He was content also with the place of the Prayer, though he thought it more suitable that it should be before the consumption of the elements. He was content with the usual names, so that faith in the things was held. The name of altar was not introduced, though he believed altar a more fitting name than the LORD'S Table. But they did restore the material and verbal oblation of the elements, in forms of great simplicity yet speaking a language of deep force to those who were imbued with the ancient Faith, by enjoining the priest to "place the bread and wine on the table," and to beseech GOD "to accept the oblations;" according to the Roman Liturgy, in which there is such an oblation and prayer for acceptance, together with commemorations, like those in our Prayer for the Church Militant, before the consecration, as well as the more solemn one, to which ours in the Post-Communion corresponds, after it. There was also added the commemoration of the faithful departed which had been, as we have seen before enjoined as part of the bidding prayer in the Canons of 1604, and therefore might now without objection, be restored to its place in the Liturgy. What is intended by those words, Cosin's notes sufficiently intimate.*

* It is not usually known that in the first rubric after the Communion Service, the title of this prayer ought to be "for the good estate of the Catholic Church of CHRIST." This marked alteration was made in 1662, and the same title was continued at least till 1697, as may be seen in Prayer-books of that date; the return to the old title, whenever it was made, is without authority.

Among minor alterations, which yet have their meaning, was that of retaining the title of Priest in the Rubric before the Absolution, (which had been taking the place of the ambiguous one of minister during the reign of Charles I.,)* notwithstanding the Presbyterian's request that " Minister," only should be used throughout the Services, and that, on the ground that “absolution and consecration could only be performed by a Priest:" a clear determination of the Church of England, that her Ministers are proper Priests. (Ibid. Prop. xi. p. 342.)

Again, when the Presbyterians wished for the removal of holydays, particularly those of Saints not mentioned in Holy Scripture, the Church retained them in the spirit of Hooker, and though lower reasons were given for the retention of the black letter Days, the commemorations of the Saints of later days, the Apostles and Bishops of our own Church, yet retained they were, and one reason given was, that it was "for the preservation of their memories." And that this was the object is clear, from the fact often overlooked, that SS. Alban and Bede, which are not in the older books, were then first inserted, as being one the first Martyr, the other the chief Doctor of our Church, though the lower reasons from "leases and law days" do not at all hold in their case. This is an apparently trivial fact, but it implies much, and at once shows how the Church would wish us to regard those days. (Ibid. Prop. 6, p. 341.)

Such again is the retaining of expressions which have ever been opposed by those who do not hold the Sacramental Doctrines of the Church, and retaining them on the very ground that all members of the Church are "Saints by calling, sanctified in CHRIST JESUS, by their Baptism admitted into CHRIST's congregation, and so to be reckoned," &c. till formally separated. (Ibid. Prop. 15, p. 343.)

Such again was the retaining of Lent "as a religious fast," and that with the emphatic answer to the Presbyterians' plea for giving it up, which was " as an expedient to peace;" it were, the Bishops replied, "in effect to desire that this our Church may be contentious for peace' sake, and to divide from the Church Catholic, that we may live at unity among ourselves. For S. Paul reckons them amongst the lovers of contention who shall oppose themselves against the customs of the Churches of God." (Ibid. Prop. 5, § 1, p. 399.)

Again, there was a change made in the Ordinal in the words for the consecration of a Bishop; they had previously stood, "Take the HOLY GHOST, and remember, &c. ;" the words were now added, "for the office and work of a Bishop in the Church of GoD," con

* The word Minister is frequently used in the Canons of 1691, for Priest,-for example, none to be made Deacon and Minister on the same days." Canon 32, col. 31.