SACRIFICE.
BUT adoration is not all, for there is yet a further result of the
doctrine of the real objective presence, if possible, more dangerous even
than adoration; I mean the assertion of a continued sacrifice. It is
extremely difficult to ascertain exactly what is held by the Ritualistic
party, for there is no document to which they all subscribe or for which
they can be held responsible; but there is quite enough to show that a
great number amongst them are teaching without reserve that there is in
the Lord’s Supper a continuation, or repetition, of the propitiatory
sacrifice of our blessed Lord. The extent to which this is carried may
be gathered from a book called the _Eucharist Manual_, to which
Archbishop Longley drew the attention of the Church in the year 1867, in
which it is said that ‘a real, true, and substantial sacrifice is offered
to God the Father, and not merely a spiritual or metaphorical sacrifice;’
that the Holy Eucharist is ‘a true, real, and substantial sacrifice
offered to God the Father, offered for the quick and the dead;’ the
meaning of which statement is proved beyond the possibility of a doubt by
the following prayers: ‘Eternal Father, I offer thee the precious blood
of Jesus Christ, in expiation of my sins, and for the wants of the whole
Church;’ and ‘I now join Thy minister in offering Thee this oblation of
the body and blood of Thy Son, in propitiation for my numberless sins,
and for the salvation of all bound to me by kindred or affection.’
Nothing would be easier than to bring together almost any number of
similar passages, and I feel persuaded that I am not misrepresenting the
principles of the writers when I say that they teach the continuation or
repetition of the sacrifice of our blessed Lord Himself as a propitiation
for sin. Now is this the teaching of the Church of England, or is it
not? Dr. Pusey’s own language may, I think, decide the question. In his
book, on the _Real Presence_, p. 311, he says of the Church’s documents:
‘Although the great act of Eucharistic Sacrifice remains in the
consecration itself, and it has been all along an object of belief in the
Church of England, it is mentioned only when we pray to God to accept
this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.’ This then is the only
passage in all the documents of the Church of England which we may
presume can be produced as being in favour of this teaching, and I
venture to say that Dr. Pusey is far too good a theologian not to know
that the passage is dead against the doctrine of propitiatory sacrifice.
Is it possible to suppose that such a learned man as he is does not know
the distinction between a sacrifice of expiation and a sacrifice of
praise and thanksgiving, between an atonement for sin and the free-will
offering of a thankful and loving heart? And is it possible that there
should be one moment’s doubt as to the teaching of the Church of England,
when the words, which he himself acknowledges, are the only words which
he can discover in support of the one are words which beyond all
controversy refer exclusively to the other?
But is the Church of England as silent as he appears to consider it on
this important subject? Are we left to gather its great principles from
that one passage in the Communion Service? Does it teach nothing on the
subject of propitiatory sacrifice but in that one short sentence which
has in fact no connexion with it? The whole of the Church of God depends
on a completed propitiation, and we might well tremble for the Church of
England if that one great central fact were altogether out of sight in
its teaching. But, thanks be to God! it is not thus ignored, for this is
just one of those points for which our Reformers were called to suffer,
and respecting which they were most explicit.
To begin with the Articles. The thirty-first consists of three parts.
(1.) The perfect sufficiency of the great propitiation for sin. ‘The
offering of Christ _once_ made’ (observe the _once_) ‘is that perfect
redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole
world, both original and actual.’ (2.) The declaration that in
consequence of that sufficiency there can be no further propitiation.
‘There is none other satisfaction for sin, but that alone.’ (3.) The
condemnation of the pretended sacrifice of the mass. ‘Wherefore the
sacrifice of masses, in the which it was commonly said that the priest
did offer Christ for the quick and dead, to have remission of past guilt,
were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.’ I am not ignorant that
an attempt has been made to represent this Article as referring to the
abuses which had gathered around the sacrifice of the mass, and not
against the principle of sacrifice itself. As I should be extremely
sorry to misrepresent the opinions of those who differ from me, I quote
Dr. Pusey’s words as I find them in his _Eirenicon_, p. 25: ‘The very
strength of the expressions used, of “the sacrifices of masses,” that
they were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits, the use of the
plural, and the clause “in which it was commonly said,” show that what
the Article speaks of is not the sacrifice of the mass, but the habit
(which, as one hears from time to time, still remains) of trusting to the
purchase of masses when dying, to the neglect of a holy life, or
repentance, and the grace of God and His mercy in Christ Jesus while in
health.’ To what desperate shifts are persons driven who would endeavour
to represent the Church of England as teaching the sacrifice of the mass!
The Article declares the sufficiency and finality of the one sacrifice of
our blessed Lord and Saviour, and because that one sacrifice is
sufficient and final, it condemns in the strongest possible language the
opinion current at the time, that in some form or other there was a
repetition of sacrifice in the mass. But because the language is strong,
because there is an allusion to the current opinion, and because the
plural number is employed so as to comprehend the numberless sacrifices
supposed to be offered on the numberless altars of the Church of Rome,
therefore it is argued that the Article does not refer to the doctrine of
sacrifice at all, but simply to the purchase of the mass in the dying
hour, instead of repentance and faith during the life. If the Article
were meant to condemn the purchase of masses, it is very strange that it
makes no allusion to the subject; and if it aimed at the neglect of
repentance and faith, it is most extraordinary that neither repentance
nor faith is once mentioned in its words. Our Reformers were very
plain-spoken men, and it appears from the strength of their language that
they meant to be plain-spoken in the Article. It is very strange if,
after all, while they appeared to condemn one thing, they were really
condemning another, and did it in such unintelligible language that their
meaning was not discovered till three hundred years after the Article was
written.
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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