IN the course of our examination of the sublime and beautiful office for the celebration of the Lord's Supper, the falsity of the charge that it has been drawn from the Church of Rome will evidently appear. It will be seen that the Church of England rejected the gross superstitions and. silly puerilities of the Mass, and with a wise discrimination selected from the Liturgies of the ancient Churches such portions of them as she judged to be agreeable to the Word of God, and suitable to aid the soul in commemorating the love and sacrifice of the Saviour; and added whatever else she deemed necessary to give completeness, fervor, and edification to the blessed commemoration. If our own service and that of Rome have any thing in cominon, it is because the latter has here and there retained in her offices some fragment of the purer doctrine which she had so large an agency in corrupting. 1

The continental Reformers were not unfrequently compelled to show that an absolute difference on all subjects from Rome, was not necessary to the preservation of the truth. Fanaticism has this short syllogism ever at hand; "Rome is in all things wrong. Whate

Upon comparing our service with the present service of the Church of England, it will be seen to be almost identically the same. The Lord's Prayer, the Collect following, and the Ten Commandments, are in both. The chief differences in the remainder of the service are, that instead of the Saviour's summary of the Ten Commandments and the Collect in our service, which may or may not be said, in the English service are two prayers for the Queen, one of which only is to be offered; that the Nicene Creed which follows the Gospel in the English service, is not printed in our Communion Office, and is to be used only when neither it nor the Apostles' Creed have been said in the Morning Prayer; that after the prayer of Consecration, the Oblation and Invocation are not in the English service, and that the prayer which, in our service, follows the Invocation, in the English service succeeds the administration of the elements, and is placed immediately after the Lord's Prayer. The other variations in the service are chiefly in the rubrics, and are slight and unimportant. We shall take our own service as it stands, and make it the subject of inquiry

ever is directly opposite to Rome, is therefore right." Melancthon thus alludes to this subject in his "Responsio ad Scriptum concionatorum Hamburgensium de adiophoris.”

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Ought we, as in the case of factious and party spirit, from mere hatred of our adversaries, to reject even those ancient usages, consonant with God's Church, handed down from our first parents? It was in this spirit that a certain Cinesias at Athens, used to celebrate festive days opposed to those sactioned by the people; and so the Asiatics sacrificed swine and established another beginning for the year, merely to show that they were distinct from the Israelites,"

in connection with the present and past services of the English Church.

As we have already mentioned the circumstances under which the first Communion Office was formed, we may here take up its separate parts, and give them that degree of attention which our limits will allow. The changes of phraseology which we shall notice, will be seen, by the attentive reader, to be often significant of a desire to avoid or express certain views of this Holy Sacrament. 2

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The name of this Sacrament is derived from Scripture, being called in one place "the Lord's Supper, and in another place the "communion" of the body and blood of Christ. 4 In the first book of Edward it was called the "Supper of the Lord, and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Mass." At the re

2 But the alterations of 1552 were of such a nature as to be consistent with the belief that the sacred elements had no new virtues whatever imparted to them, and that Christ was present in the Eucharist in no other manner than as he is always present to the prayers of the faithful. That this important change was actually intended is evident from the words addressed individually to the communicants, which may fairly be considered as the cardinal point of the whole service. These words were no longer "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life," but merely “Take and eat this in rememberance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving;" and the new form seems to have been suggested from the ritual of a Church of foreigners then resident in England, who were most remarkable for their rejection of ancient practices and distinct confessions of faith.

31 Corin. xi, 20.

CARDWELL'S His. of Conferences, p. 6. 41 Corin x, 16.

view of this book in 1552, the title assumed its present form.

The first rubric authorized the Minister to repel from the Communion 66 any notorious evil liver," or any one who may have done such wrong to his neighbor by word or deed as that the congregation are thereby offended " The second rubric conveys the same power to the Minister in the case of those "betwixt whom he perceiveth malice and hatred to reign." No doubt a real power of repelling from the Communion is hereby entrusted to the Ministers of the Church. When they perceive the malice to reign, and take note of the " notorious evil liver," they are to exercise the power. But it is a power which they are particularly called upon to exercise in the meekness of wisdom." It is a power

limited to the cases specified. The Minister has no right to set up qualifications which his own judgment dictates should have been specified, or to prohibit what he thinks should have been enjoined by the Church. The recommendation of the House of Bishops to all the members in communion with the Episcopal Church to abstain from certain specified amusements, 5 invests the Minister with

5

EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS.

"TUESDAY, MAY 27, 1817. The House met. terday.

Present as yes

"Resolved, That the following be entered on the Journal of this House, and be sent to the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies to be read ther in:

"The House of Bishops, solicitous for the preservation of the purity of the Church and the piety of its members, are induced to impress upon the Clergy the important duty, with a discreet but earnest zeal, of warning the people of their respective cures, of the

a moral power of reproof and dissuasion, in effect little short of law in the case of those who frequent such scenes; but still it clothes him with no legal power to repel those who are addicted to them, unless they are so far devoted to them, as in the estimation of the Minister, to be notorious evil livers." In all cases, where this power is exercised, it is provided that the Minister should "give an account of the same to his Ordinary, (or Bishop,) so soon as conveniently may be." This regulation is taken from the English rubric, and implies a power of appeal on the part of the repelled communicant. It is difficult to see the propriety of such a regulation, if it does not suppose a right on the part of the Bishop to ratify or reverse the sentence."

danger of an indulgence in those worldly pleasures which may tend to draw the affections from spiritual things. And especially on the subject of gaming, of amusements involving cruelty to the brute creation, and of theatrical representations, to which some peculiar circumstances have called their attention-they do not hesitate to express their unanimous opinion that these amusements, as well from their licentious tendency, as from the strong temptations to vice which they afford, ought not to be frequented. And the Bishops cannot refrain from expressing their deep regret at the information that in some of our large cities, so little respect is paid to the feelings of the members of the Church, that theatrical representations are fixed for the evenings of her most solemn festivals."

The same subject is enforced in the Pastoral Letter of the House of Bishops for that year. The Convention of the Diocese of Virginia in the year 1818, passed a resolution similiar to that of the House of Bishops. There is a Canon of the Diocese of Maryland, with the title, "Theatrical Exhibitions, and other light and vain Amusements, forbidden." The sense of the Church as to the incompatibility of such amusements with a Christian profession, is seen to be distinct and emphatic.

6 Bishop Brownell's Common Prayer, p. 362.