ON EUCHARISTICAL ADORATION. THIED EDITIOK. WITH CONSIDERATIONS SUGGESTED BY A LATE PASTOKAL LETTER (1858) ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE MOST HOLY EUCHARIST. BY THE LATE KEV. JOHN KEBLE, M.A., M VICAR OF HURSLEY. " IT pleased GOD the WORD to unite the created Flesh which is of Us without blemish unto Himself: therefore It is adored, with GOD the WORD, inasmuch as He hath deified It." Anon. ap. Chrys., ed. Sav., vi. 962. " Grant, O LORD, that in reading Thy Holy Word, I may never prefer my private sentiments before those of the Church in the purely ancient times of Christianity." BISHOP WILSON, Sacra Privata, p. 135, ed. 1853. JAMES PAEKEE AND CO. 1867. . : : ADVERTISEMENT. THE second of the following Treatises having in a manner grown out of the first, it has seemed well to publish the two in one volume; which thus contains the matured views of the Author the most decided expression of his thoughts on the subject of the Holy Eucharist. ~p. O LOED JESUS CHEIST, the same yesterday, to-day, and /or ever. ty. Preserve us from being carried about with divers and strange doctrines. Almighty, everliving FATHEE, Who hast promised unto Thy faithful people life by Thine Incarnate SON, even as He liveth by Thee ; Grant unto us all, and especially to our Bishops and Pastors, and to those whom Thy Providence hath in any wise entrusted with the treasure of Thy holy doctrine amongst us, Thy good SPIEIT, always so to believe and understand, to feel and firmly to hold, to speak and to think, concerning the Mystery of the Com- munion of Thy SON'S Body and Blood, as shall be well-pleasing to Thee, and profitable to our souls ; through the same our LOED JESUS CHEIST, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the same SPIEIT, One God, world without end. Amen. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. WISH here to say a few words, by way of explaining why this little book re-appears with only such slight changes, as will be found on comparing the present with the First Edition. Besides correcting a few oversights, more, however, and less excusable than I could have wished, those changes are mostly confined to that portion of the work which deals with the intention of the final revisers of the Prayer-book ; on which point, as far as I have gone hitherto, all additional researches have tended only to strengthen our case. I could not be without misgivings, when I found that some of those, whom I am bound on all accounts deeply to respect, thought the treatise incorrect in reasoning, and (what indeed I should most exceedingly deprecate) its conclusions, if not its general spirit, alien to those of the English Church. I have therefore re-considered it to the best of my leisure and ability ; and can only hope that it is not mere self- deceit which makes me feel unable to plead guilty to either of these very serious charges. It has been said that the two first chapters of the Essay are irrelevant, that they proceed on an ignoratio elenchi, because they do not, it is conceived, of themselves prove, that our Lord's Person is to be adored as present in the Eucha- rist by a Real Presence of His Body and Blood, the In- ward Part of that Sacrament. Waiving the question how far the negative is correct, the places there alleged will not, VI PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. I imagine, seem irrelevant, if taken together they constitute a reasonable presumption in favour of that Presence, and the worship resulting from it : just as the fact, that everywhere in the Holy Scriptures we are encouraged to pay all honour and devotion to our Lord, and nowhere warned against excess in so doing, would constitute a strong presumption in favour of His proper Godhead, though there were no express texts to assert it; and is a strong reason for interpreting doubtful texts and ambiguous sayings of the Church in the higher rather than in the lower sense concerning Him. This is, indeed, all that those two first chapters profess 8 ; and if they do carry us so far, I cannot allow that they are irrele- vant to the main argument ; which, in this aspect, may be stated thus : If the general presumption from Scripture and from Natu- ral Piety be in favour of Eucharistical Adoration, then doubt- ful passages in Scripture, in Fathers and Liturgies, and in our own Formularies, should be construed in that sense. But such presumption does exist, unquestionably, to a very great amount. Therefore such should be our rule of inter- pretation. Proceeding to Christian Antiquity, the treatise alleges certain undeniable facts. 1. Writers of high credit in the fourth and fifth centuries affirm it to have been the custom of the whole Church in their time to worship in the Eucha- rist the Flesh which Christ took of the Virgin Mary. 2. They mention it as a primitive universal tradition. 3. They account for it by the Incarnation, and by the Eeal Spiritual Presence in the Sacrament. 4. The Christian world, during the whole time of which that worship is affirmed, had with one voice, both in Church and out of Church, been declaring its faith in such a Presence as no man could believe without adoring b . (This I do not profess to demonstrate, but accept See the last section of cbap. ii. and I hope it will be borne in mind b At ^ least in heart; for I have all along, that nothing external is stated in the outset of the argument, necessarily implied ; nothing indeed PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Vll it as demonstrated by Dr. Pusey and others.) So that the historical statement is just what one might expect from the doctrinal : and there is nothing in antiquity to contradict either of them ; and very much, as we have seen, both in Scripture and in man's natural heart, to bespeak our favour- able acceptance of them. It is thought, however, that men may safely disregard the historical evidence to the fact of Eucharistical Adoration, (a.) because, as here exhibited, it is comprised in only four or five passages; or, (j3.) because these passages are re- ferred to by Roman Catholics for the same purpose : and as to the doctrinal statements of the first five centuries, con- curring as they do entirely with the historical testimonies, it is by some replied, (y.) that the Fathers and Liturgies teach a Virtual Presence but Real Absence of the Body and Blood of Christ : by others, not so many, (S.) that there is indeed full testimony to the Presence, but that the wor- ship does not follow, seeing that His Body and Blood may be present apart from His Divine Person, (e.) Cases (and they are very numerous) to which neither of these state- ments can be made to apply, are presently disposed of with the remark, That the Ancients were writing rhetorically, not theologically, and would have expressed themselves otherwise had they been aware of the errors which should one day arise in the Church. On each of these solutions I will say a few words, just to indicate why they do not appear satisfactory. (a.) To a public matter of fact, such as the custom of Adoration, four or five contemporary witnesses, circum- stanced as those Fathers were, would be held by most his- torians amply sufficient ; unless there were strong counter evidence, or an overpowering degree of intrinsic improba- new or strange, nor more than pious No need to start back, as if one were Church people (unless they have been teaching some new thing, instead of embarrassed by theories) habitually only helping Christians to approve to practise, though it may be with some- their own judgments what they have thing of ignorance or indistinctness, always felt devoutly in their hearts. viii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. bility in their statements; neither of which can here be alleged. All that has been said comes to, "There might have been more evidence than there is." (ft.) A moment's thought will shew that the mere use of a doctrine or an interpretation by the Horn an Catholics is no reason why we should reject it ; unless we are prepared to reject all points in our common Creed, which they prove, as we do, by Scripture and Antiquity. (7.) The question between a Real and Virtual Presence can only be decided (as far as it depends on Ancient Con- sent) by a thorough critical induction of passages. For the groundwork of such a process, and something more, a person may well avail himself of Dr. Pusey's work above mentioned ; and the Liturgies, which do not enter into Dr. Pusey's plan, are happily being made accessible through the series in course of publication by Mr. Neale. To these and other like helps the readers of this Essay are referred : the Essay itself, taking generally the doctrine of the Real Presence for granted, tries to illustrate and enforce from it, and from the Prayer-book which teaches it, the moral and devotional duty of Adoration. I have used advisedly the term " Virtual Presence but Real Absence," believing, the two phrases to be so connected, that they who limit themselves to the former do in effect teach the latter, however many of them may shrink from owning it to themselves ; thereby giving a blessed token that their loving hearts believe more than their pre-occupied reason discerns in this miracle of mercy. "They feel that they are happier than they know." But this does not hinder the ill effect of such inadequate doctrine upon the average sort of those who teach and hear it. In order to maintain their view, they are obliged to make out that those sayings of the Fathers, comparatively very few, which seem to deny the Real Presence, are the staple of the whole ancient doctrine. The Eucharistical thoughts and words of the great theologians, the very Anaphora of PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. IX the primitive Liturgies, are to be toned down till they are in unison with that one saying of S. Augustine, " Sacra- ments, from their resemblance to the things of which they are the Sacraments, receive for the most part the names even of the things themselves ;" and accordingly, whenever our Lord's Body and Blood is so spoken of as to imply a Real Presence, we are to understand it, if we can, of the outward sign only, called by the name of the Inward Part : which appears to me no more reasonable than for a Socinian to insist upon such a text as " I have made thee a god to Pharaoh," by way of warrant, for explaining away all the declarations of our Lord's proper Divinity. It is a sad habit of thought for a theologian to train himself up in, that of instinctively adopting, out of various expositions, the most earthly and least supernatural. The least harm that can be said of it is, that it is just contrary to what we should have looked for from the known analogies of God's suc- cessive dispensations ; it is more in harmony with Jewish than with Christian interpretations of the Old Testament. I fear that the Church is too likely to experience more and more of this. (S.) In the face of such a tendency on the one hand, and of the pressure from Rome on the other, it is neither sur- prising nor uninstructive to find persons learned in the Liturgies especially, unable to hide their eyes from the unquestionable and unquestioning acknowledgement of a Real Presence there everywhere to be found, but equally unable to reconcile themselves to the inevitable corollary of that tenet, Adoration. And so they are driven, as I have said, to imagine such a Real Presence of our Lord's crucified Body and Blood shed, as shall not involve a peculiar Pre- sence of His Divine Person. An imagination which every one, who will consider the force of the word abicuperos in Church decrees on our Lord's Incarnation, will allow to be untenable, since in logical consequence it could not stop short of plain Nestorianism. X PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. (e.) There remains the common and popular allegation, that the Fathers (to whom must be added the compilers of the Liturgies) spoke rhetorically, not exactly, and would not have so taught had they known what was coming. It is not speaking too strongly to say, that this statement, in order to be effectual, must dispose of nearly the whole of what An- tiquity has left us on the subject. Applied on such a scale, it sounds (I do not say is meant to be) very disparaging to the Fathers and to their authority. In itself it is most im- probable. Considering the endless variety of individuals and of circumstances, comprehended in the one term, Christian Antiquity, it was very unlikely that with one consent, being left to themselves, all Churches and all writers should err in the same direction by over-statement. Compare, in this point of view, the patristical remains with the series of our own standard divines since the Reformation. You will find in those ancients little or nothing, as among us on this topic, of variety arising from school or section, from the fancy, temper, or feelings of the several men. The plain inference is, that the Church, they thought, had settled the point for them. We cannot (as has been alleged) account for this uniform tenor of their language, by the supposition that in those days there was no tendency to deny or forget the Real Humanity of our Mediator. For all through those ages, from the Docetse to the Monophysites, from S. John to the Fourth (Ecumenical Council, the Church had to deal dis- tinctly with that particular phase of false doctrine. If the idea of a Real Substantial Presence does indeed con- tradict the truth of Christ's Body, certainly the times of those dreamy Oriental heresies required especial care in the Church, not to encourage that idea by glowing language, as in S. Chrysostom and the Liturgies. And here it must be asked, Have people seriously con- sidered what a thing it is to set down the Prayer-books of the ancient Church as incorrect vehicles of sacred truth; PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. XI to separate, in this case, the "Lex Credendi" so entirely from the " Lex Supplicandi ? " It is just what gave so great offence eight or ten years ago, when the doctrine of Baptism was disturbed by the sentence of the Privy Coun- cil in a certain cause. Is it not indeed somewhat shocking, for a person saying his prayers to be told that he is not to understand them exactly as they speak? that in the highest act of Divine communion, both God's words spoken to him, and the words put into his mouth by the Church whereby to pour out his devotion to God, are to be taken as it were at a discount ? that instead of lifting up his belief and feeling to his prayers, the truth requires him to lower his understanding of the prayers to something else, which ought to be his feeling and belief? Yet so it was, according to this hypothesis, with all Christians who at any time have worshipped with the ancient Church in her Liturgies : to say nothing of our own. They have had to keep them- selves on their guard, lest they should be misled by the Formularies in which they were joining with the whole Church. Would not S. Chrysostom have dismissed such a thought at once with an'^Traye "away with it it can- not be c ?" But the mischief goes even deeper, if possible, than this. If on this one doctrine the Fathers and the whole undivided Church, not excepting the great (Ecumenical Councils, are to be regarded as habitually overstating the truth, either unadvisedly, in a kind of enthusiasm, or (for so it has been stated) advisedly, by way of counteracting the irreverence to which heathen converts had been accustomed in cele- c The same topic has been applied word irpocrct parts of our earthly frame, whereas the work of this heavenly nourishment is to transform our being into itself; to change * us after His image, "from glory to glory," from the fainter to the more perfect brightness ; until " our sinful bodies be made clean by His Body, and our souls washed through His most precious Blood; and we dwell evermore in Him, and He in us :" " we in Him," as members of " His mystical Body, which is the blessed company of all faithful people;" "He in us," by a real and unspeakable union with His divine Person, vouchsafed to us through a real and entirely spiritual participation of that. Flesh and Blood which He took of our Father Adam through the Blessed Virgin Mary ; wherewith He suffered on the Cross, wherewith also He now appears day and night before His Father in heaven for us. So that a holy man of our own Church was not afraid thus to write of this Sacrament : 8 All Grounds of Worship made intense in the Eucharist : CHAP. I. " By the way of nourishment and strength Thou creep'st into my breast, Making Thy way my rest, And Thy small quantities my length, Which spread their forces into every part, Meeting sin's force and art. " Thy grace, which with these elements comes, Knoweth the ready way, And hath the privy key, Opening the soul's most subtle rooms" 1 ." 10. The sum is this. Renewed nature prompts the Chris- tian, and Holy Scripture from beginning to end encourages him, to use special adoration to Almighty God at the receiv- ing of any special gift ; adoration the more earnest and in- tense as the gift is greater, and the appropriation of it to the worshipper himself more entire and direct. So it is with all lesser, all partial gifts ; how then should it not be so when we come to the very crown and fountain of all, that which comprehends all the rest in their highest possible excellency, and which is bestowed on each receiver by way of most un- speakable participation and union, that gift which is God Himself, as well as having God for its Giver? " Christ in us," not only Christ offered for us ; a " divine nature" set before us, of which we are to be made " partakers." Must we cease adoring when He comes not only as the Giver, but as the Gift; not only as the Priest, but as the Victim; not only as "the Master of the Feast," but as "the Feast itself 11 ?" Nay, but rather this very circumstance is a reason beyond all reasons for more direct and intense devotion. 11. This brings us to the third circumstance, mentioned above as an obvious motive of adoration in the Holy Eucha- rist. For consider, to take the lowest ground first, when men are receiving a favour from a superior, is not a sense of his condescension a natural ingredient in their loving acknowledgments ? and if there is anything generous and m G. Herbert's Remains, p. 99, ed. n Bp. Taylor, Holy Living: Works, 1826. iv. 310, Heber's edition. Especially that of God's deep Condescension. 9 grateful in their hearts, do they not honour and revere him CHAP. I. the more for every suffering, humiliation, debasement, in- "~ dignity which he may have incurred in doing them good? and can they well endure to hide and repress their venera- tion for him? are they not the more hent on avowing it, the more they see him slighted by others, possibly on this very account, that he had not spared so to demean himself for their sake ? Caleb "stilled the people before Moses," when the spies were setting them against him . Joshua was jealous for Moses' sake, when some appeared to be prophesying with- out commission from him p . It is plain that their loyalty to him was quickened by the reproach they saw him endur- ing. So all the dark feelings and speeches of the unhappy Saul concerning David, served but to settle Jonathan's heart in loving and honouring him more than ever. So Shimei's ursing David in his affliction kindled the zeal of his soldiers and servants. And our Master, when He was with us in the flesh, more than once gave token of especial approbation and blessing to those who confessed Him the more unreservedly for the wrong that was done Him; as to the sinful woman, who, unconsciously or not, supplied the Pharisee's discourtesy by a washing, anointing, and salutation of her own ; to Simon Peter, speaking out before the rest, to own as the words of eternal life those sayings about Holy Communion, which had just driven away many of the disciples in disgust; and very significantly to the man born blind, when he in dutiful and pious gratitude had stood up for Christ, his Restorer, against the Pharisees, and had incurred their scorn and hatred. " Thou wast altogether born in sin, and dost thou teach us ? and they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? he answered and said, Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him ? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And lie worshipped HimV The Pharisees' reviling of Christ, Numbers xiii. 30. * Numbers xi. 28. S. John ix. 3438. 10 The Penitent Thief a Model of Eucharistical Worship. CHAP. I. and of himself for Christ's sake, led him not only to belief, but to adoration. And what shall we say of the Thief on the Cross ? It may appear by the tenor of the sacred history, that the provi- dential instrument of his conversion was the revilings of the crowd and of his fellow-malefactor, in which he himself at first ignorantly joined, so meekly and majestically borne by the Holy Jesus. When he saw that, he perceived at once that " This Man hath done nothing amiss ;" and he became the first to know and own Christ, "and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death r ." The deep veneration, he had conceived for our Lord, as for an innocent Man re- ceiving the due reward of such wicked deeds as his own, was rewarded with an adoring faith in Him as Lord and Judge of the whole world; and he became the first example of those who should be saved by the blessed Cross. And beholding his Lord's glory through the veil of His extreme humiliation, and taught from above to understand that for that very humiliation's sake he was to surrender himself en- tirely to Christ, to worship Him with all the powers of his soul, he became also a pattern for all who would be worthy communicants. For what is that which we remember spe- cially, and on which we fix our mind's eye in Holy Com- munion, but the same which he then saw with his bodily eyes? the Body and Blood of Christ, i.e. Christ Himself, offered up by Himself for that thief and for each one of us? And if he worshipped, and was blessed, why not we? We seem to have been drawn up unawares, by this enu- meration of examples, from the contemplation of a high moral sentiment to that of a cardinal principle in the king- dom of heaven ; for such undoubtedly has ever been the rule of acknowledging Christ's Incarnation, and all His con- descensions and humiliations consequent upon it, by special and express acts of homage and worship, inward and out- ward, according to the time and occasion. But this topic may better be referred to the second and r Philipp. iii. 10. The Antecedent Presumption is in favour of Worship. 11 third heads of our proposed enquiry, What are the more CHAP. I. direct bearings of Holy Scripture, and ancient Church testi- monies, on the practice of worshipping Christ in the Eu- charist ? CHAPTER II. SUGGESTIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 1. AFTER what has been alleged, it will not, I think, be assuming too much, if we turn to those passages of ou r Bibles which more immediately relate to the Eucharist and the great theological verities connected with it, in the ex- pectation of finding the worship of Christ in that Sacrament rather enjoined than discouraged ; seeing that therein are combined and concentrated, in a manner and degree past human imagining, the several reasons and occasions of spe- cial worship, such as, in minor instances, natural piety points them out to us, and as they are everywhere recognised by Holy Scripture and the Church. There is (1.) a peculiar Presence of the Most High ; (2.) bringing with it an awful, an infinite blessing; (3.) appropriating it, moreover, to each one of us in a way inconceivably near and intimate ; and (4.) with a measure of condescension and humiliation on His part, such as could not have entered into the heart of man to conceive. Surely if, notwithstanding all this, our Lord's will is that we should not so adore Him, we might expect to find somewhere a distinct prohibition of the practice. The onus probandi lies upon those who would restrain us. We may require them, in legal phrase, to "shew cause" from the Word of God, as understood always, everywhere, and by all, why we should do violence to so many instincts of our nature. As Bishop Taylor has taught us to ask, " If Christ be there, why are we not to worship?" I say again, Accord- ing to all sound rules of argument, it is rather our right to call upon those who censure the practice to cite some text forbidding it, than it is theirs to call upon us for one ex- pressly enjoining it. It has been repeated over and over again, that neither our 12 Worship due to Christ's Manhood, CHAP. II. Lord in the words of institution, nor S. Paul in his inspired comment on them, has said anything about worshipping Christ there present "under the form" (or "outward part") " of Bread and Wine ;" and therefore, that to abstain from such worship is the safer way. " If it be not commanded, it is virtually forbidden." Perhaps the foregoing considera- tions may lead some to invert the argument, and say rather, " If not forbidden, it is virtually commanded." I proceed to point out in Holy Scripture what appears to me a very strong additional argument for the practice, a complete justification, even if it do not amount to an im- plicit recommendation of it. 2. Carrying on the idea with which the former section ended, may we not say, that throughout Holy Scripture, as afterwards throughout the traditions of the Catholic Church, is discernible an evident anxiety (so to speak) to preserve, and encourage, and impress on all believers this portion especially of the sacred doctrine of the Incarnation, That "the Manhood is taken into God?" the human nature abid- ing in our Lord's Person, true and entire, from the very moment of His Incarnation; and thenceforth eternally re- ceiving from the Divine Nature, to which it is inseparably united, all such properties and perfections as it might en- joy without losing its reality and ceasing to be human. The manifestation, indeed, of these properties and perfections, the "Beams of Deity," restrained and enlarged themselves according to the exigencies of the marvellous work in pro- gress, known only to the great Ruler thereof; but in deed and in truth the Communication itself of the properties of the higher nature to the lower, (to use a comparatively late ecclesiastical form,) was complete within the limit above- mentioned, from the very moment that the Second Person of the Trinity became Man. 3. With regard especially to that property to which the present enquiry relates, the Epistle to the Hebrews ex- pressly declares, "When He bringeth in the First-begotten into the world, (els rrjv olKov/j,evr]v } ) He saith, And let all the Angels of God worship Him 8 ." What is els rrjv Heb. i. 6 ; from Ps. scvii. 7, and Deat. xxxii. 43. LXX. as taken into God. 13 " Into the created and inhabited world :" (such is the con- CHAP. II, stant use of the word in Holy Scripture). Therefore the saying, "Introducing the First-born into the world," literally means " causing Him to become one of the creatures, one of the inhabitants of the world which God had made ;" as He describes Himself, " These things saith the Amen, the faith- ful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God V or as the Holy Ghost describes Him by S. Paul, He is " the Image of the invisible God, the First-born of every crea- ture";" "the First-born among many brethren V the First- born, not in time, but in rank, and in the counsel of God. Of course, when our gracious Lord began to be of the number of God's creatures, i.e. at the time of His incar- nation and birth, He began to be the First-born in this- sense. To that moment, and to no other, we may with some confidence affirm, the Apostle carries us back, as the prophet David, whom he by the Holy Ghost is interpreting, carries us forward, in the words, " And let all the Angels of God worship Him." The prophecy we know was literally fulfilled : to the Hebrew Christians, to whom the Apostle was writing, it was matter of well-known history. At the very time that the blessed Yirgin Mary brought forth her First- born Son, the Angel appeared to the Shepherds with the good tidings of great joy ; but the multitude of the heaven!}' host, with their full hymn of praise, did not appear until the words of deeper humiliation were added, " Ye shall find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." A thing which has been often observed, and which is surely much to our present purpose : it has a doctrinal as well as a moral meaning. Read by the light which is thrown back upon it by the Apostle's saying to the Hebrews, it looks like a proclamation from the Great King, This is He whom I delight to honour, " worship Him all ye gods," all that is called God in heaven and in earth; let the highest of Created beings adore Him with a special worship by reason of His unspeakable humiliation, now that He is made man, " wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger ;" let them understand that on this day the Father of all by the * Rev. iii. 14. u Coloss. i. 15. x Kom. viii. 29. 14 The Angels commanded to adore Christ's Manhood. CHAP. II. Holy Ghost hath become the Father of the Man Christ Jesus, in that sense in which Christ vouchsafes to be " the Beginning, the First-born of every creature ;" in that sense in which it is said to Him, "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee y ." God never said so to any of the Angels, but He said it to Christ, when He " glorified Him to become an High-priest ;" anointing the human nature that was in Christ with the Holy Ghost, without stint or measure 2 . That was at the moment of His Incarnation, for from that moment it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell " all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. " To that, and not to anything added by the Holy Ghost which had just descended upon Him, the word spoken from heaven at His baptism evidently refers : " Thou art My beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased." So also, I venture to think, does the quotation of S. Paul in Acts xiii. 33 ; although our translation would seem rather to connect it with the resurrection : " "We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that He hath raised up Jesus, [avacrTrjo-a^ 'Irjaovv] : as it is also written in the second Psalm, f Thou art My Son j this day have I begotten Thee/ ' That this, not "raised up again" is here the more natural rendering of the word avacmjcras, may appear from the texts cited below a . The leading idea seems to be that of " raising up a seed unto David to sit on his throne," and also (as in the text last cited below), to be a Priest as well as a King. And this will account for the repetition of the word with express reference to the resurrection in the following verse : " As concerning that He raised Him from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, He saith on this wise, ' I will give you the sure mercies of David.' " That is the decree, the law, which the Father in the second Psalm declares, and the Son in the fortieth Psalm accepts " in the midst of His heart." Henceforth for ever the Son y Heb. v. 5. Jer. xxiii. 5 ; Ezek. xxxiv. 23 ; Acts * S. John iii. 34. ii. 30 ; S. Mattb. xxii. 24 ; Rom. xv. , * Deut. xviii. 15 ; 2 Sam. vii. 12 ; 12, from Isaiah xi. 10 ; Heb. vii. 11. They did so at His Birth, and after His Baptism. 15 is made perfect Man, and as Man is to be adored with special CHAP. II. adoration by all the Angels of heaven. 4. Observe again, according to this interpretation, the deep significance of that which is written by two Evangelists out of three in their report of our Lord's temptation. In S. Matthew we read, "The devil leaveth Him, and behold Angels came and ministered unto Him." But in S. Mark, from the condensation of, the narrative, the lesson of adora- tion is brought out in a still more striking manner : " There came a Voice from Heaven, saying, Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit driyeth Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan ; and was with the wild beasts; and the Angels ministered unto Him V There is a mysterious correspondence, if I mistake not, between the order of these events and of those which hap- pened on Christmas night. First, in both cases alike, Angels and men are called upon to take notice that the human presence of our Lord is the presence of the Only-begotten Son : with this difference, however, that at Bethlehem it was the actual Incarnation of the Word, His taking to Himself a natural body ; by the river Jordan, it was His taking to Himself His mystical body, typified in His baptism, to which the Voice from the excellent glory referred. So we are in- structed by one of the earliest fathers, S. Clement of Alex- andria : " Unto the Lord at His Baptism sounded out from heaven a Voice, the Witness to the Beloved, ' Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee/ .... Whether these people will or no, must they not confess that the perfect Word, Offspring of the perfect Father, was perfectly regene- rated by way of economy and prefiguration ? . . . . Now this same happens also to us, of whom our Lord became the re- presentation. In baptism we are illuminated, in illumination adopted, in adoption perfected, in perfection immortalized. His word is, ' I said, ye are gods, and children of the Highest, all of you V ' Angelical service follows in both, but in neither immediately. The hymn of congratulation at our Lord's birth, and the lowly ministry and homage after the b S. Mark i. 1113. c Psedag. i. 25, 26. 16 Angelical Homage to our Lord in His Agony. CHAP. II. proclamation at His baptism, (the former of which we know was accompanied with adoration; and how can we doubt it concerning the other?) were each of them reserved, as it were, until His mysterious humiliation had been announced by additional circumstances. The multitude of the heavenly host did not sing Gloria in Excelsis until they had heard of the swaddling bands and the manger; the Angels did not come and minister unto Him who was declared the only- begotten and beloved Son until He had been cast out into the wilderness, had abode there forty days fasting, with no companions but the wild beasts, and (most mysterious and fearful self-abasement,) Satan tempting Him. Then, not before, they were allowed to shew themselves at hand with their adoring homage, homage paid as to Him whom they knew to be their Lord and their God, and accepted by Him just after He had re-affirmed the rule, binding alike on angel and man, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve/' 5. The same words were once again uttered by the same voice at our Lord's transfiguration : an earnest, no doubt, of His glory after His resurrection ; but as they were not then accompanied by any special humiliation, so neither was there any response of angelic praise and worship. 6. But the next occasion on which we do read of such ministration being accepted by our Lord after the flesh, is when He was in the lowest and saddest of His agony : " His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And there appeared an Angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him d ." S. Luke, who singly relates this, had omitted the homage of the Angels in his account of the temptation, but had added, that the devil's then depart- ing from our Lord was but "for a season;" i.e. until the moment came which in the same Gospel is described as the " hour " of Christ's enemies, " and the power of darkness." As though the good and bad spirits stood watching in their several ways for each new step in the process whereby He was " emptying Himself of His glory ;" the one to indulge in their despairing fierceness, the other to pour themselves out in d S. Luke xxii. 4144. How our Lord was "seen of Angels ." 17 adoring love and duty. Thus both the one and the other CHAP. II; sort became witnesses the one willing, the other unwilling of His condescension, and of the victory thereby achieved ; as the same Father again writes: "The Lord after His baptism is tossed as witn a tempest for a type of us, and Cometh first to be with wild beasts in the wilderness; then having overcome these and their prince, He, as now a true King, is ministered unto by Angels. For He who in the flesh overcame Angels, good reason is it that Angels should now be His servants 6 ." There were Angels attending, too, on Christ's resurrec- tion, but employed chiefly, as far as we are told, in guard- ing His tomb and grave-clothes, and other tokens of hu- miliation, and by them declaring His glory to those who came seeking Him. 7. Thus from the moment of His Incarnation, while yet in this world under the veil of His flesh, as well as afterwards, now and unto the end of the world, while He is being "jus- tified in the Spirit f ," shewn all holy and righteous by the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ was and is < seen of Angels ;" or rather, as holy writers take it, " hath appeared unto Angels." For, " that is said to appear which hath it in its own power to be seen or not to be seen, and is not under the power of the person seeing. Thus we say not, ' The stone appears to me/ but f I see the stone/ If, there- fore, an Angel had it in his own nature or power to see the Word, it would not be said that the Word ' appeared* unto him, but rather that he himself saw the Word when he would. And therefore the Apostle saith, ' He appeared unto Angels/ because in their own nature they saw Him not. And true it is that from the beginning He appeared unto the Angels, when upon their turning towards Him He made them par- takers of a divine nature ; but when He was made flesh,, many mysteries became known to the Angels which they had not known before g ." These are the things which they stoop down from heaven "to look into," the sufferings of their Lord and ours, and the glories that follow : the sufferings. S.C1 m. Alex. Fragm., series i. 85. f 1 Tim. iii. 16. * Aquin. in 1 Ep. ad Tim. c. iii. 16. 18 Good and bad Angels wailing on the Eucharist, 11. first, and then the glories ; in that order " the manifold wisdom of God" is "made known by the Church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places ;" and whatever may be said of us fallen creatures, with them, we are sure, to know is to worship. 8. Just as, on the other side, the evil Spirits, " the princes of this world V* came to know by degrees the " wisdom" which the gospel "speaks among them that are perfect;" a kind of " wisdom not of this world," but the " wisdom of God in a mystery ;" a wisdom which they knew not at first, for " had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory ;" and as they knew more of it, they hated and scorned it more and more, as it is written, " The devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." So from the be- ginning the Church taught, "There were three mysteries unknown to the prince of this world the virginity of Mary, her lying-in at Bethlehem, and the true account of our Lord's death; three mysteries most worthy to be proclaimed aloud, yet wrought in the silence of God 1 ;" and the spite and maKce of the devil was as discernible in regard of each of these mysteries, when he came to know them, as was the joy and salutation of the Angels ; Herod, and the Pharisees, and Judas, being his instruments. . 9. That which, according to the same authority, takes place in the spiritual world among the good and bad Angels invisibly attending on every Holy Communion, is but another step in the same process. From the beginning it has been understood that the blessed Angels are ever at hand attend- ing on the Christian altar, taking part in our hymns and thanksgivings, and wafting upward in a mysterious way all our dutiful prayers and offerings. S. Paul k makes this well- known fact a principle on which Christians ought to regulate all their demeanour, even their dress, in doing God service. "A woman ought to have power," i.e. some mark of her being under power and authority, " on her head, because of the Angels :" that everything may be done decently, and in order, in the presence of those glorious beings. And on the h 1 Cor. ii. 68. S. Ignatius ad Ephes. c. 19. v 1 Cor. xi. 10. a Token of our Lord's adorable Presence. 19 other hand, Satan was waiting at the very first Eucharist of CHAP. II. nil to enter into Judas Iscariot ; and we know what great and peculiar danger there is of his entering in and re-possessing unworthy communicants. Why are the Angels so especially present, why is Satan so to be feared as near at hand, in Holy Communion, more than in other Church ceremonies? Surely because the Gift is greater and nearer, and more distinctly applied to each one, and that with more unreserved condescension on the part of the Giver, than on any other occasion in the Christian life. Surely because it is the Word made Flesh, personally pre- sent and revealed in the truth of His human nature, and offering thereby to make His own partakers of His divine nature also : and " wheresoever the Carcase/' the holy slain Body is, " thither will the eagles be gathered together ;" the good, and saintly, and angelical Spirits to feed on it, the Judases and enemies of Christ to mangle and to scorn it. 10. All this is no more than Holy Scripture, as in- terpreted by the ancient Church, plainly teaches; and all this plainly implies a Heal objective Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ, and that to be both eaten and wor- shipped, in Holy Communion. It implies such an union of condescension and power for the deification (so termed by the Fathers) of each one of us x , as the very Incarnation and Cross exhibited for the salvation and redemption of all man- kind. Therefore, as our Lord newly incarnate, and nailed to His Cross, was to be specially adored by men and Angels, so also in this Sacrament. 11. Other scriptural facts and associations tending to the same conclusion are, First, The reverence ordained to be paid, and always paid from the beginning, to the Name of Jesus above all other names ; to the sign of the Cross above all other signs ; to the Gospels above other portions of Holy Scripture; and to Nazareth, Bethlehem, Calvary, above all other places. Secondly, The peculiar significancy and use of the term Son of Man. Cf.2S.Pet.i.4. SO Jesus a Name of Humiliation, therefore honoured CHAP. II. Thirdly, The ways in which believers, while He was yet on earth, found themselves gradually and instinctively drawn to worship Him present in the flesh, and the manner in which He received that worship. Fourthly, and above all, The account constantly given of the rationale of the Holy Eucharist itself, both as a sacrifice,, and as a sacrificial feast. 12. As the Body of Jesus during His earthly sojourn was marked out to be honoured by the holy Angels, so afterwards was the Name of Jesus also; and, as we may reverently believe, for a like cause. The Body was to be especially glorified, as being the inferior part of Christ's in- ferior nature ; the very footstool, as the Psalmist speaks, of His feet m ; the " heel" of the Seed of the Woman, which was to be "bruised." In like manner, because Jesus is (humanly speaking) the name given to Him by a poor man as to a poor woman's child, the name by which He was ordinarily known when supposed to be a mere man among men; because peo- ple called Him by that name while He went up and down as a carpenter's son, and Himself a carpenter, in the despised vil- lage of Nazareth ; because it was a name associated in the minds of all His acquaintance, during the first thirty years of His life, with the tasks and cares, and the very tools, of that ordinary trade; with recollections, indeed, of a most blame- less and devout demeanour, but not as yet with anything transcendent, supernatural, or divine : because it was the name which, being connected with Nazareth, (out of which town, it was taken for granted, no good thing could come,) proved afterwards through His whole ministry a most effec- tual stumbling-block to those who were unwilling to believe : because it was the name whereby He was described as a Nazarene, the name which His enemies in mockery wrote upon His cross, as contrasting most signally with His high and sacred claims : because it was the name whereby He should be named in scorn among all generations of the un- believing, (whether worldly-minded Romans, who could not endure to be told "that there is another King, one Jesus;" or bigoted Jews, exasperated by the notion that "this Jesus. by Angels, good and bad; instrumental in Miracles. 21 of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and change the customs CHAP. II. which Moses delivered/ 7 and convinced therefore, with Saul, that they ought to do the most they could contrary to His name ; or apostate Mahometans and heretics, in the East or in the West, delighting to call Him by that one of all His titles which they take to be merely of earth :) in one word, because it is the name most expressive of His humiliation, therefore His thoughtful servants would instinctively select it in preference to all His other names for especial honour and reverence. 13. And so we see they did, prompted not by their feelings only, but by the special inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, whose will it was that in this way the dignity of Christ the Son of God, and His most true incarnation, might never want a witness. The Angels called Him by that name to His honour, remembering, no doubt, how they had brought it from heaven, " Be riot affrighted ; ye seek Jesus of Naza- reth, which was crucified n ;" and the evil Spirits in their tor- menting dread of Him, " What have we to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God ?" " What have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth ?" "What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the most high God p ?" By that name, in preference to all others, the disciples proclaimed Him after His death 1, and the Apostles after His ascension r . In that name they wrought their miracles s : " In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk ;" " .ZEneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole;" "I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." By that name the forgers of lies pretended to cast out evil spirits: "I adjure thee/' they cried, " by Jesus, whom Paul preachethA" To the N^ame of Jesus were annexed all saving as well as healing powers ; " By the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole : neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved u ." " S. Mark xvi. 6. r Acts ii. 22. S. Mark i. 24. * Acts iii. 6; ix. 34; xvi. 18. P S. Mark v. 7. * Acts xix. 13. 1 Luke xxiv. 19. u Acts iv. 10, 12. 22 Prerogatives of the Name of Jesus : CHAP. IT. Therefore to the Name of Jesus, rather than to any other, ~~ are to be referred the many promises made by God Almighty concerning His Name; whether things are said to be done TO) ovo^a-Tiy "by the use and instrumentality of it," as in S. Matt. vii. 22, " Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name? and in Thy Name have cast out devils? and in Thy Name done many wonderful works ?" or eV TW QVQ- fjLari, implying that it is He, not the visible agent, who doeth the work, or obtaineth the blessing, as in S. Mark xvi. 17, "In My Name they shall cast out devils;" and S. Luke x. 17, "Lord, even the very devils are subject unto us through Thy Name ;" and especially in the gracious promises near the end of S. John's Gospel, "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will do it v ;" or els TO ovopa, when in a mystery men are made or accounted partakers of the name, or of Him who is named, as in S. Matt, xviii. 20, " Where two or three are gathered together in My Name ;" xxviii. 19, (et? TO ovopa,) "Unto the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;" and S. John i. 12, " But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name;" which three texts declare respectively the virtue of the communion of saints, of baptism, and of faith, for the uniting of us to Christ ; or eVl TW ova'pari, " for the pro- nouncing or profession of it ;" as in S. Matt, xviii. 5, " Who- soever shall receive one such little one in My Name, receiveth Me;" and xxiv. 5, "Many shall come in My Name, saying, I am Christ;" and S. Luke xxiv. 47, "Remission of sins should be preached in His Name;" and Acts ii. 38, "Be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ ;" or Sia TO ovopa, "because of the Name" outwardly called on them, and ma-de a ground of persecution, as in S. Matt. xxiv. 9, "Ye shall be hated of all men for My Name's sake;" and in S. John xv. 21, "All these things will they do unto you fop My Name's sake." ]4. The Apostle, gathering together in one all these and the like promises, and the manifold daily fulfilments of v In one instance the same form of tion of persons in the Godhead itself; speech seems to indicate the distinc- S. John xiv. 26. Rule of Bowing at it; Mystical Allusions to it. 23 them to which he was witness, did by the Holy Ghost enact CHAP. II. and pronounce this canon, for the inward and outward wor- ship of all God's reasonable and understanding creatures, not only in time, but in eternity, That " at the Name, of Jesus every knee should bow x ." Why at the Name of Jesus, rather than at that of Christ, or Immanuel, or Saviour, or any other of His good and great names? Why should Jesus be alone specified, as the Name which is above every name? Surely, if the Scripture did not expressly inform us, yet, from its in- direct notices, such as have now been exemplified, a sufficiently probable answer might have been given to this question ; but now we are not left in the smallest doubt. It was because, "being in the form of God," He "thought it not robbery to be equal with God : but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men : and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name which is above every name : that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth ; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." As if he should say, Jesus is His title of humiliation ; therefore by that title He is evermore to receive especial homage. 15. From Angels, both good and bad, He does receive it, as we have seen. In their several ways they bow, and ever will bow, their knees to the Name of Jesus. And the Holy Church from the beginning has venerated this Name above the rest, in affectionate reverence encouraging her children to refer to it on all occasions, in preference to any other of our Lord's names; as the very sayings of her enemies suffi- ciently prove, who cannot contain themselves for scorn at the cold, and strained, and forced allusions to that Name (so appearing to them) which the writers of the first ages are continually finding or inventing, both in Holy Scripture and in the course of nature and of Providence. A single in- stance will sufficiently explain what is meant. S. Clement * Philipp. ii. 10. 24s Testimonies of Reverence to the Name of Jesus. CHAP. II. of Alexandria, in the course of an essay in which he traces out the mystical tenor of each of the ten commandments, as indicated by the number which marks its place, says of the collective meaning of them all?, "The Decalogue taken alto- gether doth, by the letter I (==10) signify the blessed Name, setting before us JESUS, Who is the Word." If you ask why this Name is set forth in preference to any- other of His names, S. Augustine will answer for the rest - " Jesus has one meaning, Christ another : Jesus Christ our Saviour being one only; Jesus, nevertheless, is His proper Name. As Moses, Elijah, Abraham, were so called by their proper names, so our Lord, for His proper Name, hath the Name Jesus ; whereas Christ is His sacramental Name 2 ;" or, as S.Augustine goes on to explain, His name of office, "as if you should call a man prophet or priest." That is why the Church has always distinguished the Name of Jesus above all other names, because it is His very own Name; the Bride delights in it, because it is the very own Name of Him whom her soul loveth ; His own Name, which He as- sumed as the token of His taking her to Himself for ever, and of the infinite, inconceivable condescension of His being made man in order to that union. Therefore, as a distinguished mediaeval commentator wit- nesses, "There is a common and laudable custom of the Church, whereby the Name JESUS is even more honoured than the Name GOD. For which cause, when the Name of JESUS is heard, the faithful people either bow the head OF bend the knees; which they do not on hearing the Name of GOD a ." S. Bernard gives a testimony such as one might expect from the author of the " Jesu, dulcis Memoria" Preaching on Canticles i. 3, Thy Name is oil poured out, he says b , " I shew you a Name which is fitly compared to oil; how fitly, I will explain. Many titles of the Bridegroom you read here and there in every page of God's Book, but in two I will em- brace them all for you. You will not, I think, find one which y Strom, vi. 145. * Abulensis, in Corn, a Lapide oa z S. Aug. in 1 Ep. Johannis, tr. iii. Philipp. ii. 10. 6. b Serm. xv. 1, 3, 4. Honour to the Name Jesus, medieval and Anglican. 25 sounds not either of the grace of Mercy, or the power of CHAP. IL Majesty. . . These two things I have heard, that POWER be- longeth unto God, and that Thou, Lord, art MERCIFUL. E.g. * The Lord our righteousness' is a name of power; 'Em- manuel/ of mercy. Now the name of majesty and power is in a certain way poured over into that which is of mercy and grace ; and the latter is poured out abundantly by Jesus Christ our Saviour. . . "Run, ye nations: salvation is at hand, the Name is poured out, which whosoever will call on shall be saved." . . "I recognise the Name of which I have read in Isaiah, He will call His own servants by another name, wherein whosoever is blessed upon the earth, shall be blessed in the Lord. O blessed Name ! O oil poured out in all directions ! Where will it stop? From heaven it runneth out upon Judsea, and thence over all the earth; and from the whole world the Church crieth out, Thy Name is oil poured out, poured out, indeed, so that not only hath it imbued heaven and earth, but hath sprinkled also the un- seen world, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and in earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess and say, Thy Name is oil poured out." It would appear that there was no need of enforcing this reverence by synodical enactment until one hundred years after S. Bernard ; but in the second Council of Lyons, 1274, the Church uttered this among other most impressive warn- ings : " ' Holiness becometh the house of the Lord ;' it is becoming that He whose abode hath been made in peace, should be worshipped in peace with due veneration. Where- fore let men's entrance into churches be humble and devout. Let their demeanour therein be quiet, well-pleasing to God, .composed in sight of men, such as not only to edify, but to soothe thoughtful observers. When they come together in that place, the Name which is above every name, besides which there is none other under heaven given unto men, where- in believing they must be saved, i.e. the Name of JESUS Christ, who saved His people from their sins, that Name let them exalt by manifestation of especial reverence. And that which is written concerning all, that ' in the Name of 26 English Canons for Bowing at the Name of Jesus. CHAP. II. Jesus every knee should bow/ the same let each for his own part fulfil in himself, (especially while the sacred mysteries of the Eucharist are being celebrated,) by bowing the knees of his heart at every mention of that glorious Name, and in witness thereof at least inclining his head c ." 16. Neither has the reformed Church of England ever had any scruple in continuing so dutiful a ceremony ; only it appears by the 52nd Injunction of Queen Elizabeth, 1559, that there was need to enforce it, not as a new thing, but as an ancient custom in more or less danger of disparage- ment. " It is to be necessarily received, . . . that whensoever the Name of JESUS shall be in any lesson, sermon, or other- wise in the Church pronounced, due reverence be made of all persons both young and old, with lowness of courtesy, and uncovering of heads of the men kind, as thereunto doth ne- cessarily belong, and heretofore hath been accustomed d ." In what quarter, and from what spirit, the necessity for this injunction arose, we may gather from the following pas- sage of Cartwright's first Admonition 6 : " When JESUS is named, then off goeth the cap, and down goeth the knee, with such a scraping on the ground, that they cannot hear a good while after, so that the word is hindered ; but when other names of God are mentioned, they make no curtesy at all; as though the names of God were not equal, or as though all reverence ought to be given to the syllables." "What Hooker, on the part of the Church, replies to this, will be cited presently. Whitgift, affirming also the primi- tive origin of the ceremony, adds, in substance, the same account of it : " One reason that moved Christians in the beginning the rather to bow at the Name of Jesus than at any other name of God, was because this name was most hated and most contemned of the wicked Jews and other persecutors of such as professed the Name of JesusV The royal injunction, as everyone knows, was confirmed a few years afterwards by synodical authority : " When in time of divine service the Lord Jesus shall be mentioned, c Hard. vii. 716. c Abp. Whitgift, Defence, &c., 749. d Cardwell, Documentary Annals, * Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. xxx. 3, and: i. 198. note. Bowing at Jesus' Name warrants Eucharistical Worship. 27 due and lowly reverence shall be done by all persons present, CHAP. IL, as it hath been accustomed, testifying by these outward cere- monies and gestures, their inward humility, Christian reso- lution, and due acknowledgment that the Lord Jesus Christ, the true eternal Son of God, is the only Saviour of the world, in whom alone all the mercies, graces, and promises of God to mankind for this life, and the life to come, are fully and wholly comprised"/' And this regulation seems generally to have been acquiesced in, so far, at least, as that the Pres- byterian divines in the Savoy Conference make no mention of bowing at the holy Name as one of the points which then disturbed men's consciences in the Prayer-book. 17. Now all the reasons alleged from the beginning, and accepted by the universal Church and our own, for the hon- ouring the Name of Jesus above all other names, hold with as great or greater force for special adoration of our Lord in the holy Eucharist, and make it still more imperative upon the prohibitors to produce some irresistible authority from Holy Scripture, or express Church law, if they would bring their prohibition home to a Christian man's conscience. Was Jesus the Name, among all His names, most expressive of His deep humiliation? So are the sacramental elements among all the means of grace, both as being in themselves so cheap and ordinary, and as representing especially His Death and Passion. Was Jesus our Lord's proper Name, brought from heaven, with a command that by It above other names we should make mention of Him ? So was the holy Eucharist divinely ordained, that by it above all other rites we should make memorial of Him. Is Jesus His Name as a Man one of ourselves? So is the holy Eucharist that by which He, the Wisdom of the Father, delighteth to be among the sons of men h . Is the Name of Jesus especially connected everywhere with the healing, saving works of the Son of God, and expressly made adorable both by men and angels ? Yet no promise associated with it can surpass what He, who is Truth, has annexed for ever to the eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood. Has the reverence due to this Name been ever cherished in the Church, as one great s 18th Canon, 1603. h Prov. viii. 31. 28 So does standing up at the Gospel. CHAP. IT. safeguard of the faith of His true Incarnation ? So we know- that against ancient heretics one topic for effectually assert- ing that same faith in its integrity was the analogy between it and the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, testified by our adoration. It should seem, then, that whatever can be alleged for peculiar devotion to the holy Name, the same, and much more, can be alleged for peculiar devotion to the holy Thing received in the Sacrament; with this single exception, that we have no distinct form of words commanding us to adore in Holy Communion, as we have commanding us to bow at the Name of Jesus. But we have (as I hope presently to shew) declarations of our Lord fully equivalent to any such form of words. In the meantime, the simple fact that ado- ration is commanded at the mention of Christ's human Name might well warrant the Church in claiming it for the Heal Presence of His holy Humanity. 18. The same principle is recognised in the rubric which .enjoins standing up while the Gospel is read; not, of course, as though it were more truly and entirely God's Word than the Epistle and other Scriptures are, but because it is that portion of God's Word in which He most abases Himself, hiding His Divinity and Majesty beneath that humble and lowly veil. So universal was this custom, that Sozomen, writing in the middle of the fifth century, knew but of one exception to it, and that was in the Church of Alexandria, -where the Bishop continued sitting even- at that time 1 . The Apostolical Constitutions k , which, in such matters, may pro- bably be taken as representing the general mind of the Church, direct as follows : " When the Gospels are in reading, let all the priests and deacons, and all the people, stand up in great quietness ; for it is written, ' Be still, and hearken, O Israel/ And again, f But do thou stand here and .listen 1 /" S.Chrysostom on the beginning of S. Matthew says, " Let us not therefore with noise and tumult enter in, but with the silence due to mysteries ; for if in a theatre, when a great silence hath been made, then the letters of the king are read, much more in this city must all be 1 ii. 57. k ii. 57. ' Deut. v. 31. So does the Primitive Custom of Crossing. 29 posed, and stand with soul and ear erect. For it is not the CHAP. II. letters of any earthly, master, but of the Lord of angels, which are presently to be read." The rationale of this, as of bowing at the Name, is ex- pressed by Hooker in words which it would be wrong to omit, because they contain in them the principle of all that has been now alleged : " It sheweth a reverend regard to the Son of God above other messengers, although speaking as from God also. And against Infidels, Jews, Arians, who derogate from the honour of Jesus Christ, such ceremonies are most profitable." As if he should say, "Behold God Himself coming close to us, and humbling Himself to do so: so- much the more ought we to adore Him." 19. By the same rule that the Name of Jesus is to be honoured above all other names, the sign of the Cross has been set apart from the beginning to be honoured above all other signs. I say, " from the beginning," for such un- doubtedly is the case : it is not here as in some other Church usages : the further we go back in Christian antiquity, the more distinctly and unequivocally does this devotion appear. If we look to the employment of it in baptism, and in almos^ every other holy ceremony, as well as in the practice of ordinary life, we have the well-known witness of Tertullian m . If to the instinctive use made of it in emergencies and dangers, spiritual or temporal, we have the allusion of S, Cyprian", the statement of Origen , and the earnest exhorta- tion of S. Chrysostom p . If to the practical and mystical m De Corona Mil. c. 4. ap. Hooker, adds which Origen refers to. Ap. V. Ixv. 2. Oper. Hieron. v. 95 ; Origen, ed. Be- n ii. 125. "Muniatur frons, ut sig- ned. iii. 424. nuin Dei incolume servetur." P 21 Horn, de Statuis, t. vi. 611 ; Fragm. from Origen on Ezeldel " When thou art on the point of step- ix. 4 (after mentioning two other per- ping over the threshold of thy door, sons, with their interpretations): "A utter this word first, * I renounce thee r third, professing to have believed in Satan, and thy pomp, and thy ser- Jesus, said that in the ancient alphabet, vice; and I enrol myself under Thee, Thau resembles the sign of the cross, O Christ.' And do thou never go out and that the prophecy relates to the without this word. This shall be to sign made among Christians on the thee a staff, a shield, an impregnable forehead, which all believers employ tower. And with this word form thou at the commencement of any transac- also the cross upon thy forehead : for tion whatever, but especially of prayers so, nob only no man meeting thee, but and holy readings/' It is the Sama- not even the devil himself shall be ritan Thau so the editor of S. Jerome able to hurt thee at all." 30 The Cross a warrant for honouring the Eucharist. CHAP. II. way of detecting allusions to it in nature, we have S. Justin Martyr referring the very heathen to ijt S. John xiv. 12. Laying on of Hands associated with Healing. 37 Touch, taking him, as he lay, by the right hand, and lifting CHAP. II, him up. 25. Six other cases occur in which, for aught we see, our Lord might have touched the person, and it pleased Him to heal with a word only. In each of these we may observe, I think, unusual stress laid in the narrative on the Faith of the person receiving the cure, or of those by whom he was presented to our Lord. Two of them happened at Capernaum, to persons of rank. The nobleman, somewhat tardy in his belief, was however rewarded for it when it came, by our Lord healing his son at a distance ; the Cen- turion, his townsman, in his good and ready confession at once of Christ's power and of his own unworthiness, shewed a faith marvellous even to Jesus Christ Himself. Of those who brought the man sick of the palsy we read, "Jesus seeing their faith," forgave and healed him not without some trial of the sufferer's own faith also ; for it was a great trial to so helpless a person to set about obeying the com- mand, " Arise, take up thy bed and go unto thine house." The like may be said of what happened at the pool of Beth- esda, and of the man bidden to stretch forth his withered hand ; and, in a different way, of the ten lepers setting out to shew themselves to the priests. By these comparatively rare examples our Lord may have designed to symbolize the necessity of faith in all capable receivers of sacraments, and the sufficiency of it in certain cases without literally receiv- ing; according to the principle, Gratia Dei non est alligata sacramentis. 26. But however this may be, the general fact is obvious to the most cursory reader of the Gospel, that almost as soon as ever He came to be known by His miraculous cures, the touch of His blessed Body came also to be known as the ordi- nary visible mean whereby He performed them. Beginning from Simon's house and the streets of Capernaum, " the fame of Him went out into all Syria/' not only of His healing, but of His touching or laying on of hands in order to heal m . Thenceforth we meet with such sayings as, " Come and lay Thine hand upon her, and she shall live ;" the deaf and the ro Cf. S. Luke vi. 19. 38 Reserve exemplified in some Miracles. CHAP. II. blind are brought to Him, with a request that He would lay His Hands upon them ; mighty works are said to be done by His Hands; He could do no mighty works at Nazareth, save that " He laid His hands upon a few sick folk ;" the turn of expression indicates how completely the idea of mighty works of healing was associated in the writer's mind with laying on of hands. Indeed, it could not well be otherwise, seeing that our Lord Himself, promising miraculous power to the first generation at least of those who should believe, had used the same form : " they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover 11 ." After a while it came into the heart of the humble person with the issue of blood to come and touch the hem of His garment ; and, instead of a reproof for superstition, she received not only the virtue which went out of Him to heal her, but also His solemn approval, and a blessing on her faith. And this, too, spread abroad; so that a short time after, "wheresoever He entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch if it were but the border of His gar- ment : and as many as touched Him were made whole ." It should seem, moreover, that an additional sanction to this popular notion is supplied by each of those remarkable cases in which our Lord was pleased to withdraw Himself, and deal in a peculiar way with certain sufferers ; such as the deaf and dumb man in S. Mark vii. Being asked only to lay His hand on him, He takes him apart from the mul- titude, puts His fingers into his ears, spits, and touches his tongue; and again, at Bethsaida, a blind man is brought to Him with the same petition : " and when He had spit on his eyes, and put His hands upon him, He asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that He put His hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up : and he was restored, and saw every man clearly P." And then the well-known cure of the man born blind, in S. John ix., which also seems to have taken place in private : " He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, n S. Mark xvi. 18. Ib. vi. 56. * Ib. viii. 23. The Five Loaves, and the Discourse ensuing. 39 (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went his way there- CHAP. IL fore, and washed, and came seeing." These may well remind us of the singular and exact discipline ever observed when the Church was free to use it ; the cure of all inward evils being one and the same, the Body and Blood of Christ, but the time and mode of its application, and the degree of tender and charitable reserve employed, varying much with the specialities of the case. 27. The minds of the disciples, and indeed of all within hearing of our Lord, being thus providentially trained to think much of His blessed Body as the instrument of all good to them ; and also, as we have seen, to regard His title, Son of Man, as indicating rather than any other the relation, in which He vouchsafed to stand to them ; it could not but strike them deeply (such as were at all thoughtful among them), and dwell much upon their minds, when towards the beginning of the third year of His ministry (a time of many great revelations concerning Himself), He bound the two ideas together in the way recorded by S. John. He told them, first, that the Son of Man should give them meat; secondly, that this meat was only to be had by eating His flesh and drinking His blood ; and, thirdly, that this was to be done in a heavenly, supernatural manner a manner cog- nizable only by faith, since it would be consistent with their seeing " the Son of Man ascend up where He was before q ." If the title, " Son of Man," as the Church has always be- lieved, means the Second Adam, the root of life as Adam of death, coming in a true body to save men's bodies as well .as their souls, what were they to imagine of this eating unto life, but that it should be as real and true, as was that by which Adam ate unto death? a real and true eating of His real and true Body, which should constitute a great and indispensable portion of the marvellous system of divine mercies now in course of being revealed to them. It is plain, they did so understand Him; why otherwise should they be offended? Had the eating and drinking been commonly understood, as some writers think, to be a sort of parable^ 4 S. John vi. 27, 53, 62. 40 Meaning of the Seven Loaves, CHAP. II. a figure to express the receiving our Lord's doctrine, there was nothing in that saying so hard, but they might very well have borne with it. But we see that at the time it was taken. by all, both friends and enemies, as a great and real mystery, and that it proved just the same sort of trial to the Jews who drew back, to the Eleven who believed, though they could not understand, and to Judas, who remained with Christ in hypocrisy, as the Holy Communion has evermore been to rejectors and unworthy receivers on the onejiand, and to faithful communicants on the other. It must not be overlooked, that around these great sayings are gathered, as it were, a group of miraculous doings, every one suggesting more or less plainly the supernatural virtue of our Lord's body. First they came to Him and He healed their sicknesses; then not without His taking them into His hands and breaking them the loaves were multiplied and distributed ; then in His true flesh, by the power of His true Godhead, He walked on the water; then He communi- cated virtue to His favoured Apostle to do the same ; and when he was sinking and cried out, " Jesus stretched forth Ilis hand and caught him;" finally, "when they were gone over, they came into the land of Gennesaret : and when the men of that place had knowledge of Him, they sent out into all that country round about, and brought unto Him all that were diseased ; and besought Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment : and as many as touched were made perfectly whole 1 ." 28. And what if the other miracle, happening so soon after, and recalling this by so many circumstances, were in- tended to represent the great doctrine and ordinance under another of its "aspects?" I mean the feeding of the four thousand with seven loaves and a few small fishes 8 . If the former miracle was typical of the Eucharist, as by the con- sent of Christendom (one may say) it most certainly was, it seems hard not to associate the later one also with that sacrament. And if, as ancient writers teach*, and as the r S. Matt. xiv. 35, 36. cepistis, vos estis quod accepistis. Apo- - S. Matt. xv. 32; S. Mark viii. 1. stolus enim dicit, 'Unus panis, unuin * S. Augf. Serin. 227 : " Si bene ac- corpus, multi surnue.' Sic exposuit Sa and of the "few small Fishes." 41 chief of the schoolmen undoubtedly taught, (grounding their CHAP. II. opinion mainly upon S.Paul's saying, "For we being many are one bread and one body : for we are all partakers of that one bread ;") the Church, or mystical body of Christ, may be regarded as present by the real presence of His heavenly and glorified Body, and so as constituting in a secondary sense, and one infinitely below the glory and dignity of the other, yet in a very true sense the res sacramenti, or thing signified in Holy Communion u ; then the circumstances of the miracle in question may seem to make it a sufficiently apt parable for the expression of that doctrine. The twelve loaves being a known symbol in the old dispensation for the twelve tribes, i.e. for the whole Jewish Church, and as such presented day by day in the temple ; and seven being the number which from the beginning, in the figurative language of Scripture, had represented completeness 1 ; the seven loaves, by no forced analogy, might be taken to represent the whole Christian Church, and the partaking of them after Christ's special blessing, to signify that union and incorporation of Christians one with another, which, depending on their union with Christ their Head, is perfected more and more by every sacramental participation of Him ; according to His own prayer, offered in conjunction with the very original Eu- charist : " That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us*'." And since the fish is an acknowledged emblem both of our Lord and of His members, and in the former miracle the two fishes are considered by S. Augustine z to represent Christ in His two characters of King and Priest, it might not, per- haps, be straining the exposition of this latter miracle too far, were we to conjecture that the few small fishes which "He blessed and commanded to be also set before them," might cramentum Mensae Dominicse." Cf. 4: "Duplex est res hujus Sacramenti Serm. 229, 272. " Si vos estis Corpus . . . una quidem, quse est significata et Christiet membra, mysterium vestrum contenta, scilicet ipse Christus; alia in mensa Dominica positum est : rnys- autem est signiticata et non contenta, terium vestrnm accipitis." scilicet Corpus Christi inysticum, quod u Aquinas, Surnm. Tlieol. p. iii. qu. est societas Sanctorum." 60. 3 : "In Sacramento Altaris est x S. Aug. Serm. xcv. 2. duplex res significata, scilicet Corpus * S. John xvii. 21. Christi verum et inysticum ;" qu. 80. z De Diversis qusest. Ixi. 2, t. vii. 25. 42 Other mysterious Hints concerning His Body. CHAP. II. represent the holy martyrs and other eminent saints, few, and very small in comparison, but in some especial manner and degree having Christ imparted to them more than to the rest, and therefore especially called by the same title with Him ; and the partaking of those fishes may answer to the Communion of Saints, as that of the loaves to our por- tion in the holy Catholic Church. The four thousand may be the multitudes coming in from the four winds of heaven north, south, east, and west, to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the spiritual feast, the kingdom of heaven. If the old method of interpretation be at all allowed, this would seem no improbable account of the second miraculous feast, occurring so soon after the first, and tending in its degree to deepen the impression that the Body of Christ was to be, in some mysterious way, all in all to those who should be saved by Him. 29. Very shortly after, but not until His Divine nature also had been more openly than ever declared to His disciples, by the benediction pronounced to S. Peter on his confession, nor yet until He had begun to predict to them in detail what He was to suffer, He took His three chosen into a high mountain apart, and shewed them that Body, in which He had so many ways invited them to trust, transfigured, His face shining as the sun, and His raiment white as the light; thereby, as it may appear, giving them to under- stand something of the properties of His glorious body; at the same time that, by the discourse in their hearing with Moses and Elias, He prepared them to see it in the lowest humiliation and suffering. And twice on the same occasion He taught them to believe that it was, and always would be, a real Body; and as such the instrument of all good to all believers, by touching, first, the three saints, (as Ezekiel and Daniel had been touched of old,) and so enabling them to endure the beatific vision; and presently afterwards by touching the young man out of whom the evil spirit had been cast, and restoring him to his father, and to the state of probation and hope. Between the Transfiguration and the week of our Lord's Passion there is nothing on record to draw attention to the The Anointing at Bethany. 43 prerogatives of His blessed Body, if we except perhaps what CHAP, l r. took place at the Feast of Tabernacles, in the last year of His preaching, when, having asserted His Godhead, and seeing that the Jews were taking up stones to stone Him, Jesus made Himself invisible, " and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by a ." And *' passing by," He healed the man blind from his birth; not without spitting, and making clay of the spittle, and anointing the eyes of the blind man with the clay; pro- ceedings well calculated to impress those who knew of His Transfiguration, especially, with an increasing awe towards that Body which they saw so marvellously and peculiarly gifted, beyond the bodies of the sons of men; and with a wondering expectation what Almighty God might be on the point of working thereby. 30. The Holy Week itself begins with the anointing at Bethany, commended by our Lord Himself to all ages as a signal instance of devotion to His blessed Body, and ever understood by the holy Church as a warrant for sparing no trouble nor expense in providing for that Service, which ac- knowledges the mysterious continuance of the same among us. She must not be troubled nor interfered with; "she hath done it for My burial;" it was as impossible for her to help doing it now, as it was for her, or one very like her, to abstain from the like loving worship, when she first came to Me, loving much, and hoping, as far as she might dare hope, to have much forgiven ; as impossible as it will be within a few days for her not to wait on Me with spices and ointments, when I am to be laid in My grave ; " trouble her not," "she hath done what she could;" "she hath wrought a good work on Me b ." And why was that work so significantly decreed to be spoken of throughout "the whole world," but that all might understand that they could not go too far in loving, honouring, adoring that Body which He had vouchsafed to take into His divine Person, by which He was about to save the world, which was soon to endure such humiliation for our sake, as nothing could equal, save the glory to which it was afterwards to be visibly exalted for our perfect salvation ? S. John viii. 58. b S. Matt, xxvi. 10. 44 The Passion : the Water and Blood. CHAP. II. Moreover, in close connection with tins comes another thought, indescribably fearful, as it seems to me, if we carry it out : what manner of man he was who suggested to his fellow disciples to have indignation and count it " waste," as though too much were being made of Christ's real, and then visible, Body, and the poor, His mystical body, were being robbed. Others in their simplicity for a moment adopted the no- tion, but they presently received His correction ; Judas, who had devised the scruple in hypocrisy, refusing to be cor- rected, (though never surely were such gracious warnings addressed to any one that we read of,) went out to commit the two most outrageous sins that could be committed against that blessed Body : first partaking of it with a heart and mind actually at the moment determined on betraying it, and so actually betraying it, as far as in him lay, to Satan, who forthwith entered into him ; and afterwards, openly in the sight of man betraying it betraying the Son of Man by a kiss ; the loving penitent's token of adoration was the hypocrite's token of insult and unearthly malice. And then, as if to prove that the holy Flesh which endured all this, and was about to endure much more, was still, as ever, the Temple of the divine glory; first, by shewing Him- self, and declaring, "I am He," He forced His assailants to recoil and fall to the ground, either on their faces in involun- tary worship, or backwards as in despair. Presently after- wards He touched Malchus' ear, and healed him. The cure was wrought by His touch, as in so many instances before. And since the man had been hurt in laying rude hands upon His Body, the healing may be received as a merciful token, that even unworthy communicants are not shut out from His mercy, and the benefit of the mysteries which they have profaned, except they persist in unworthiness. 31. Then it was that our blessed Redeemer, withdraw- ing, as it were, His power into Himself, gave up His Body to the sacrifice, with the words, " This is your hour, and the power of darkness." His disciples understood Him to signify that nothing more could be done for Him, and they might as well forsake Him and fly ; His enemies, both on earth and in hell, knew that they were left to do their worst with Him; Tone of the Evangelist in recording it. 45 and they did it unsparingly ; and while His Body was, in CHAP. II. fact, winning the decisive and eternal victory for which He came into the world, it seemed to the eyes of men, perhaps of all creatures, to be surrendered, for good and all, to suf- fering and insult. But the first thing seen, when the pre- ternatural darkness was over, and the light of day was again permitted to shine upon the cross and those standing by it, was the blood and water, flowing out from our Saviour's side, as soon as ever He was certainly known to be dead. There is no need here to explain at large the symbolical and sacramental meaning of that miracle, a meaning wit- nessed by all antiquity, and adopted by the Church of Eng- land especially in her office of Holy Baptism, where she de- clares that " for the forgiveness of our sins, Christ shed out of His most precious side both water and blood/' "His most precious side :" the very phrase instinctively indicates what all devout persons have felt towards that sacred Form, drawn to it the more by this parting insult from those who were bent upon making themselves every way " guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ our Saviour." We may perhaps realize those feelings most effectually, by reverently imagining how they may have begun in the heart and mind of the beloved disciple, chosen by the Holy Ghost to testify the transaction to us, and of the blessed Virgin, and other holy women ; the special alarm and horror which they must have felt as they watched the brutal soldiery breaking the legs of the two malefactors, and approaching their Lord's cross with the same intent ; the comparative re- lief when they saw that all that was done was ignorantly and wantonly to pierce His unconscious side ; the awful sense of Divine interference and of Divine consolation, when, knowing that He was already dead, they saw the stream gush out, not of blood only, but of water and blood. Probably, indeed, it was in this instance as is noted elsewhere in S. John's Gospel c : " These things understood not His disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of Him, and that " His ene- mies " had done these things unto Him." Yet the very tone c Chap. xii. 16. 46 Sacramental Presence taught in 1 St. John v. 6 9. CHAP. II. of the narrative implies that even at that moment of exceed- ing grief and dismay, the Evangelist's mind as often happens when dearest friends are departing was deeply impressed with the circumstance, and would naturally go on wondering what it could mean. " He that saw it bare record, and hi& record is true : and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe d ." Perhaps it should be written, " HE know- eth/' for the Greek words (fcd/celvos olSev) will bear that con- struction ; as though the historian were saying with S. Paul, "Behold, before GOD, I lie not." But that it should be in- serted with such an asseveration, calling such peculiar atten- tion to it, in this which may be eminently called the theolo- gical Gospel, for this, we might reverently conjecture, if we did not know, some deep theological reason must probably exist. As it is, the knowledge of the reason is vouchsafed to- ns ; it is indicated in the Scripture quoted. The saying, " A bone of Him shall not be broken," carries with it the sacri- ficial character of our Lord's Passion, that it was the very antitype of slaying the Paschal lamb. And again, "They shall look on Him whom they pierced" is the prophetic de- claration of the mode of applying His Passion to the remis- sion of His people's sins: the "piercing" is the opening of " a fountain for sin and for uncleanness ;" and it is signified that it would not take full effect until the Lord had " poured out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications ;" i. e. until a beginning had been given to Christian baptism by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles gathered on Mount Zion, and the setting up of the kingdom of heaven. And the rationale, the principle of all this, is shadowed out in the farewell letter of the same Evangelist: "This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost : and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood : and these three agree in one. If we receive d S. John xix. 35. Allusions to the Work of the Spirit in the Sacraments. 47 the witness of men, the witness of God is greater : for this CHAP. II. is the witness of God which He hath testified of His Son." What is this threefold witness, this witness of God, on which the Apostle would thus unreservedly rest our faith? It is Jesus Christ, God incarnate, coming to His Church, and to each one of us, by water, by blood, and by His Spirit. To His whole Church He came by water, when, as the surety and representative of His people, He was baptized by S.John in Jordan; by blood, when He died on the cross; by His Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost. To each several child of Adam, whom He takes out of the world as one of His own, He comes by all three at once by the Spirit, by water, and by blood, in His two Sacraments, the one as well as the other: for water in Scripture signifies sanctification and cleansing; blood signifies satisfaction and atonement; and both these are, by His ordinance, in both the Sacraments, because in both the true gift is Participation of Christ, our life and our all, begun in Baptism, continued and growing in the Eucharist. And they are in the Sacraments by the special operation of His Spirit : " It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is Truth/' The Spirit is that Truth which both declares and makes them to be what they signify, as our Lord declared of one of them : " The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life;" the words in this case being, for the one, "This is My Body ;" for the other, " I baptize thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost/' And ac- cordingly the Church, expressly or virtually, has always prayed for this descent of the Holy Ghost, in Baptism, to "sanctify the water to the mystical washing away of sin;" in Holy Communion, according to the old Liturgies, to make the elements what our Lord declared them to be ; according to our own Liturgy, to make us, receiving them, partakers of those holiest things. To this doctrine, probably to expressions of it even then in liturgical use, the Apostle alludes more than once : " By one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body e ." And else- 6 1 Cor. xii. 13. ' 48 Sacraments, the Extension of the Incarnation. CHAP. IT. where f the Church service is described partly by the use in it of Psalms and hymns in the way of response (so we may best understand " speaking to yourselves/') partly by its in- volving a continual sacrifice of thanksgiving, and that for all, in the Name of Christ, to the Father, a definition of a Christian Liturgy, as far as it goes, critically exact. We may add the often-quoted passage in Rom. xv. 16 : " That I might be a minister of Jesus Christ unto the Gen- tiles, doing a priest's work in respect of the Gospel of God g ; that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost ;" where S. Paul represents his calling as a missionary by an image borrowed from his other calling as a priest, the body of Gentile Christians being that which he had to offer, and requiring, in order to be acceptable, sanctification by the Holy Ghost, as the proper sacrifice of Christians did. In a word, the patristical doctrine, that the Incarnation is not only applied, but extended as it were, by the blessed Sacraments, supplies the sufficient and only interpretation, both of the mysterious opening of the Redeemer's side on the cross, when He was in the sleep of death, and of that which is always referred to by antiquity as the ordained type of that circumstance in the Passion, the piercing of the first Adam's side in his sleep, and the formation or building up of that which was taken out of it into the first woman, his spouse, and the mother of us all. And (it is a serious and alarming thought) if there be any who now scorn the doctrine, wilfully I mean, and in spite of helps to know better, we know for certain that they will not always scorn it. Holy Scripture tells of a moment to come, when that wound in our Lord's side, the fountain of Sacraments, and the door of life to us all, will be openly seen by all. " Every eye shall see Him, and they also who pierced Him :" even they who, by abusing His Sacrifice and Sacraments, shall have crucified and pierced Him afresh. f " Speaking to yourselves in Psalms in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ." and hymns and spiritual songs, singing Eph. v. 19, 20. and making mekdy in your hearts to f lepovpyovvra rb svaryyiXiov TOW the Lord; giving thanks always for eov. all things unto God and the Father Nothing in Scripture to check Devotion to Christ's Body. 49 The scar in His side will be to them an especial condemna- CHAP. IT. tion, as it will be a pledge of grace received and not wasted to all penitent and devout receivers. It is S. John again to whom this was revealed h ; the disciple whom Jesus loved is throughout, by special Providence, the great teacher of the doctrine of His life-giving Body, and of the devotion due to it. 32. But whatever beginnings of high and hopeful thought the miracle of the water and blood may have occasioned in S. John's mind, to the outward eye the blessed Body was still in the lowest and most pitiable condition, in the hands of enemies, exposed to the worst indignities, until the mo- ment when Joseph of Arimathea begged it of Pilate. This must have been an hour or two after our Lord's death ; for He gave up the Ghost at three, P.M., and, although the Sabbath did not begin until six, it seems that the taking down from the cross, the wrapping in linen clothes with the spices, and the entombment itself, had to be somewhat hastily performed. Some time, therefore, had probably elapsed be- tween the piercing of Christ's side and the application of Joseph to Pilate; and since Nicodemus was near, a colleague of Joseph's, and known to have looked favourably on Christ, it is not perhaps exceeding the bounds of reasonable conjecture, if we suppose S. John to have applied to him, and through him to Joseph, whose own new tomb was known to be near at hand, but who was not yet known for a favourer of our Lord, as Nicodemus was, and therefore, perhaps, less ob- noxious to the Pharisees. And so, between them, though ac- cording to His condescension, our Lord's grave would have been " with the wicked," yet He was " with the rich in His death" and obsequies; unintentional testimony being thus borne by Pilate and others of His persecutors, that " He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth." Whatever the process may have been, whether it origi- nated with S. John or no, we know for certain that, from that moment forward, His true servants have never ceased to shew, in all possible ways, their entire devotion and love to that Blessed Body, enhanced beyond measure by all that they , h Rev. i. 7. E 50 Instances of Devotion to Christ's risen Hody, CHAP. u. were permitted to see and know of Its mysterious agonies; and never was one word uttered from above to stay or check them, or imply that they were going too far. When Corne- lius fell down at S. Peter's feet to worship him, he was told, " Stand up ; I myself also am a man." When S. John did the like to the angel who was shewing him the heavenly vision, he was stopped by what, among men, would have been an exclamation of religious horror : " See thou do it not : I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the tes- timony of Jesus: worship God 1 ." But nowhere in Holy Scripture will you find anything at all answering to this in respect of the worship and reverence shewn to Christ's Body, as if it were possible to exaggerate or carry it too far ; not one letter or syllable to interrupt or moderate the deep devo- tion of the Church for all these centuries that she has re- mained, with the beloved disciple, standing by the Cross, and with adoring love and wonder contemplating 'the blood and water as it flows from His pierced side ; seeing it, and bearing record, and her record is true, and she knoweth that she saith true, that we all might believe. What, indeed, is the history of the three days of Christ's burial, and of the forty days after His resurrection, but a course of solemn acts of worship to His real Bodily Presence, offered on His servants' part and accepted on His own ? There are Joseph and Nicodemus, and the holy women, laying Him in the grave with their myrrh and spices, such as they knew that the Holy Ghost, by the prophets, had ap- pointed to be offered to the King's Son. There are the Maries coming to the sepulchre in the early morning to complete their religious purpose, and she first who loved best : and they have a great reward they are permitted to be the first to see His risen Body, and hear His voice ; and as soon as they see and hear, they worship ; and so (as has been often noted) they obtain the privilege of preaching the Gospel of the Eesurrection to the very Apostles themselves. There is S. John, who by his presence beneath the Cross, and when our Lord's side was pierced, may be supposed 1 Rev. xix. 10. during the Great Forty Days. 51 to have learned deeper thoughts of the prerogatives of His CHAP. II. Body than were yet familiar to any of the rest As he was first of the Apostles at the sepulchre, so was he first to believe without seeing, and to recognise our Lord appear- ing suddenly at a distance k ; even as many years afterwards he knew Him by sight through all His glory in the heavens, in the midst of the golden candlesticks, and on the cloud of judgment, discerning "one like unto the Son of Man 1 ." Certainly it is a remarkable fact, that the two most noted and most highly-favoured for their special love of our Lord, the Magdalen and the beloved disciple, should thus be marked out for their especial devotion to His Body. Then there is His sudden appearance on the road to the two disciples, and His no less sudden vanishing out of their sight, just as their eyes were opened, and they had come to know Him in the act of breaking of bread ; a history, the significancy of which in our present argument surely needs no elucidation; as neither do the circumstances of His last appearance that evening, the entry through the closed doors, the real Body with Its real scars, and Its real partici- pation of meat with them, at the same time that It was visi- bly breathing His own and His Father's Spirit into their hearts, and audibly giving them that commission which none could give but He that is equal with the Father. Who does not feel, as he reads or hears, a deepening veneration and inward worship of the holy Humanity of Him who thus spake and acted? How much more those who saw Him all along with their eyes! who "looked upon" Him, and "handled with their hands " Him who is " the Word of Life m ! " A week more, and the doubts of S. Thomas are removed by the touch of the holy Body with Its scars, or rather, by that permission to touch It, whereby the timid Apostle might discern the omniscience of the speaker. With confirmed faith he makes his confession, the very confession of devout communicants in all ages, "It is my Lord and my God." Observe the answer he received, a blessing, not so imme- diately for himself as for us, whose trial is, that the same Lord and Christ, the same Son of God Incarnate, is present k S. John xxi. 7. l Rev. i. 13; xiv. 14. m 1 S. John i. 1. E2 52 The Presence of Christ risen at the Disciples' Meals. II. with us, and permits us to touch Him, as really indeed, but invisibly, and in a different kind of presence. " Blessed are they now, and blessed shall they all be hereafter, who shall believe and worship as thou now dost, without waiting for the actual sight, which has at last convinced thee." These are not words to make a Christian afraid of believing too much of his Lord's Presence in Holy Communion, or of adoring Him too earnestly. 33. Rather it might perhaps not untruly be said, that one apparent purpose of our Lord's abode upon earth during those forty days was, that He might inure them to the faith and contemplation of a certain Presence of His now spiritual- ized Body among them, occasional only, and in the highest degree mysterious, but in itself most real and blessed, and associated with all the best gifts and fruits of His Incarna- tion the evidence and conveyance of the eternal life to which He had risen. This Presence the sacred narrative (we may almost say) studiously connects with the meals which He took with them ; as at Emmaus, as He sat at meat with them, He took the loaf, and blessed, and brake and gave to them, recalling to their very eyes the miracle of the five thousand and its antitype the greater miracle of the Eucharist. The same day, at evening, having shewn them " His hands and His feet, while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, He said unto them, Have ye here any meat ? And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And He took it, and did eat before them"." The following Sunday, as it may seem, He appeared unto the eleven (Thomas having now taken his place among them) "as they sat at meat." The remarkable appearance and miracle at the sea of Galilee, related in the last chapter of the last Gospel, and considered by S. Augustine as ex- hibiting a kind of link or transition from Christ's earthly to His heavenly kingdom, had for its visible and immediate occasion the present hunger and destitution of the disciples. They had caught nothing that night; the morning light n S. Luke xxiv. 40 43. dis, et in captura piscium commenda- In S. Joan. Evang. Tr. 122: verit Ecclesisa Sacramentum, quails "Narratur hie quemadinodum se ma- futura est ultima resurrectione mor- xifestaverit Dominus ad mare Tiberia- tuoruin." Significance of His partaking with them. 53 shewed Him to them standing on the shore, but not, as yet, CHAP, n. recognised by them. He enquires of them, " Children, have ye any meat?" They answer, No. He tells them where to cast their net; they obey, and in a moment it is full of great fishes ; and not only so, but, before they could land any of these, their condescending Lord had provided for them "a fire of coals, and fish laid thereon, and bread;" and His word is to them, " Come and dine ;" or, in more modern language, " Take your morning meal." Then, and not be- fore, the disciples knew that it was the Lord. It was the third time of His shewing Himself to any number of them together, and each time had been at a meal. The whole transaction looked back, as it were, not only to the similar miracle, the former extraordinary draught of fishes provided for the same persons on the same waters, but also to the two instances of supernatural feeding, when the hunger of those coming to Christ was satisfied by a few loaves and fishes. And did it not look forward also to the state of things shortly to take place in the Church? how that in our spiritual toil and hunger He would shew Himself to us by glimpses of His blessed Body ; standing on the shore, i.e. Heaven, and calling on us from time to time to partake of the heavenly food He hath provided for us, until the whole Church, the net full of great fishes, a hundred and fifty and three, (the perfect number of the elect,) be drawn after Him to the land, and the Bridegroom, with them that are ready, go in finally to the marriage- feast. Perhaps it was not without meaning of this kind that the Holy Ghost P, describing the intercourse of Christ with His disciples during those forty days, selected a word * which (whatever its derivation) was evidently associated by the fiarly Greek Christians with the idea of fellowship in meals. Forty days, in the symbolical language of Scripture, would represent the whole time of the Church's probation, until the day come in which she shall ascend with her Lord: and then His partaking of her banquet, or, (according to one P Acts i. 4. S. Chrys. (Ecum. Theophylaet. in loco; i (Tvva.\i6/j.evos ) "being assembled S. Chr. in S.Joan. Honi. 87, Ed. Sav. together with them;'* ma rg. "eating ii. 325; Theodoret, Eranistes, Dial. ii. together;" .Vulg. " convescehs '* cf. t. iv. 119. 54 Significance of the Apostles 9 Miracles. CHAP. II. interpretation), " eating salt with her," would denote His presence at the celebration of the great sacrificial feast of the new covenant, which He in His unspeakable condescen- sion, accounts Himself partaker of with us : as when He says, " I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God r ;" "I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God ." For His " meat is to do" His " Father's will, and to finish His work 1 ;" and where on earth is the Father's will and work more perfectly found than in holy and devout Communion ? There, if any where on this side heaven, is the "very image of" those "good things to come," which the gracious Lord encourages us to look on. to in those words of unutterable condescension, "Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching : verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them u ." 34-. Then came the day of the Lord's Ascension, when His natural but now glorified Body was to go up to His Father's right hand, there to abide, in its visible form and substance, until the times of restitution of all things. As they saw His Body in the act of departing, "they wor- shipped v ;" He left them prostrate, or on their knees. Very strange it would have seemed to them, had they been told that His sacred Body was the less to be worshipped because it is now glorified, and must wear a veil over it to be en- dured by mortal sight. And when the Holy Comforter had come down upon them, and they were admitted fully into the kingdom of heaven; besides their knowledge, now made perfect, of all doctrine connected with the Ascension, they would find, in the visible prerogatives with which both them- selves and others through them were endowed, fresh reasons every hour for magnifying the holy Humanity of Christ, divinely ordained to be all in all to them. For by their communion with Him through His Spirit, as His chosen and select witnesses, chief members of His mystical Body, the . * S. Luke xxii. 16. S. Mark xiv. 25. * S. John iv. 34. * S. Luke xii. 37. T S. Luke xxiv. 52. How Christ's Body ivas glorified in them. 55 works that He had done they were enabled to do also ; and CHAP. II. for the more confirmation of this union, they were autho- rized to use the very words and gestures which their Lord had commonly employed in His miracles of healing. This began with the very beginning of the Church, on the Day of Pentecost ; but the first instance particularly recorded is the healing of the lame man by S. Peter, in which there is the same combination of the divine Touch and the divine Word as in the majority of our Lord's own miracles, and also in the outward and visible parts of His Sacraments : the Touch, in that the Apostle took the patient " by the right hand and lifted him up;" the Word, in his saying, "In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk x ." So we read afterwards, that " by the hands of the Apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people *';" that Ana- nias laid his hands upon Saul, and he recovered his sight; that S. Peter gave Tabitha his hand to complete her recovery after he had wakened her from death, besides saying, " Ta- bitha, arise ;" that S. Paul, upon the sudden death of Eu- tychus, went down, and fell on him, and embraced him, saying, "Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him;" recalling the remembrance of what Elijah and Elisha had done, and intimating to thoughtful persons the typical sig- nificance of their history, (and that miracle, we may observe, took place during a celebration of the holy Eucharist) : lastly, in Melita he cured a fever by prayer and laying on of hands. Moreover, from the members, as from the Head, of the Church, it was noticed that the healing virtue did, as it were, overflow, communicating itself to their garments, and those even apart from their persons. From Paul's body " were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them." And in Acts v., still more remarkably, " they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them." The excep- tions also to the rule of healing by touch appear to be of the * Actsiii. 6. r Acts v. 12. 56 Direct Argument for Eucharistical Adoration. CHAP. II. same kind as those which have been noted in the Gospel history : they are, the casting out devils ; the infliction of punishments, as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, and of Elymas ; special faith, affirmed in the case of the cripple at Lystra, and implied in that of ^Eneas; and all in that one only Name, whereby it might be known without question that Christ is the only Healer, as He is known to be the only Baptizer and the only Consecrator. Who can doubt that the effect of all this was still to deepen men's reverence and gratitude towards the awful and blessed Body which they knew to be the fountain of it all ? which Body, be it noticed, was every day presented before them in a sacra- mental way in the holy Eucharist ; for in the mother Church of Jerusalem, at least, we know that they " continued daily in breaking of bread." 35. "We may perhaps not unfitly close this series of scrip- tural facts by noticing that it is the Lamb which is selected, rather than the Lion, or any other animal, as that symbol of our Lord which may most meetly represent Him in His ce- lestial estate, all through the Book of Revelations ; in part, doubtless, for the same reason that the Cross is His chosen standard among inanimate things, and the Son of Man His chosen title : that wherein He abases Himself most, or is most evil spoken of, therein He may receive especial glory. And the general result of the survey comes, I think un- deniably, to as much as this that every where such encou- ragement is given to the worship of our Lord in His human nature, made adorable by its union with the Divine, as to Create a strong probability, at least, that such worship would not be forbidden, but rather sanctioned and enjoined, in that Sacrament which, rather than any thing else, is the standing monument of the Incarnation, and extension of it. 86. And such, in fact, is the case, as a very few words -will shew. Worship is a personal thing; the true, real, pri- mary object of worship, in the proper and high sense of the word, for all reasonable and understanding creatures, must of course be some personal Being, and that Being the Most High God. On this point there is no need of any abstract It follows immediately from the Real Presence. 57 discussion ; it is settled for us at once on the very highest CHAP. II. authority: "Thou shalt worship the Lord Thy God, and Him only shalt Thou serve." The Person therefore of Jesus Christ our Lord, wherever it is, is to be adored to be honoured, acknowledged, sought unto, depended on, with all possible reverence, with the most entire and single- hearted devotion, incommunicable to any finite being by all creatures whom He has brought to know Him. This proposition, though in the heat of theological warfare it may seem to have been denied, and that recently, cannot, I conceive, be really and advisedly denied by any one who believes the Divinity of our Lord. Taking it for granted, I will state it once again. The Person of Jesus Christ our Lord, wherever it is, is to be adored. And now I will add the next proposition in the argument, viz. Christ's Person is in the holy Eucharist by the presence of His Body and Blood therein. From which, as will be seen, follows, by direct inference, that the Person of Christ is to be adored in that Sacrament, as there present in a peculiar manner, by the presence of His Body and Blood. It is on the second or minor of these three propositions, if on any, that opposition is to be expected, and explanation is necessary. It raises, evidently, the whole question of that which is denominated "the real objective Presence" of Jesus Christ in the holy Eucharist. That is to say, whereas the Divine nature in Christ is everywhere and always equally present, and so everywhere and always alike adorable; but to us frail children of men He has condescended at certain times and places to give especial tokens of His Presence, which it is our duty to recognise, and then especially to adore : thus far, I suppose, all allow who in any sense believe the Creeds of the Church, that in the holy Eucharist we are very particularly bound to take notice of His divine Presence, as GOD THE WORD, and to worship Him accord- ingly. That which some in modern times have denied is, that He is then and there present according to His human nature, really and substantially present, as truly present as He was to any of those with whom He conversed when He went in and out among us ; or again, as He is now present 58 No necessary Temptation to adore the Sign. CHAP. II. in heaven interceding for us. Both of these two last men- tioned are modes of His human Presence, acknowledged by all who confess Him come in the flesh. But that which some affirm, some deny, as part of the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, is a third and special mode of Presence of the holy Humanity of our Lord, denoted and effected by His own words " This is My Body, this is My Blood ;" a Pre- sence the manner of which is beyond all thought, much more beyond all words of ours, but which those who believe it can no more help adoring, than they could have helped it had they been present with S. Thomas, to see in His hands the print of the nails ; or, again, with so many sick persons to touch the hem of His garment, and so to be made whole. It is no more natural for them to think, one way or the other, of worshipping the Bread and Wine, than it was for the woman with the issue of blood to think of worshipping the garment which she touched, instead of Him who was condescending to wear it and make it an instrument of blessing to her. If we may reverently say it, (using an illustration which is applied by the Church to a subject, if possible, still more awful than this,) "as the reasonable soul and flesh is one Man," and as " God and man is one Christ," so the conse- crated Bread and Wine, and the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, are one Sacrament. And as we know the soul of a man, which we cannot see, to be present by the presence of his living body, which we can see, so the presence of that Bread and Wine is to us a sure token of the Presence of Christ's Body and Blood. We are not more certain of the one by our reliance on God's ordinary providence, than we are of the other by our faith in Christ's own word. And as persons of common sense are not apt to confound a man's soul with his bod}', because of the intimate and mysterious connection of the two, (to bring men to that requires either extreme subtilty or extreme grossness of understanding) ; nor yet can you easily bring them to doubt whether meat and drink serve to keep the two together, whether life can come by bread, because they cannot understand how, so no plain and devout reader of Holy Scripture and disciple of The Real Presence, as taught in S. John vi. 59 the Church would, of his own accord, find a difficulty in CHAP. II. adoring the thing signified, apart -from the outward sign or form; or in believing that the one may surely convey the other by a spiritual and heavenly process, known to God, but unknown to him, and to all on earth. 37. It is not the object of these papers to reason out at large that great, and comfortable, and (I will add) necessary truth, known to the faithful under the name of "the Real Presence," but rather to point out the inseparable connection between it and the practice of adoration. But I must here borrow so much from the premisses of that argument as to assume that the sixth chapter of S. John really and pri- marily relates to the Sacrament of Holy Communion ; ac cording to the well-known interpretation of Hooker, which is the interpretation of all antiquity, and lies so obviously on the surface of Scripture, that one can hardly conceive a sim- ple, unlearned reader giving any other turn to the discourse in that chapter, unless he were prepossessed by a theory. Allowing then, that, as Hooker alleges, the Apostles at the Last Supper could not but understand the sayings and doings of our Lord as the intended fulfilment of His typical miracle and prophetic sayings a twelvemonth before, let us calmly consider what doctrine about Holy Communion they must have taught and believed, from that day forward, or at least from the day of His coming upon them Who was to bring all Christ's sayings to remembrance. They must have believed that, as ordinary food and drink are necessary to ordinary temporal life, so His Body and Blood, sacramentally received, are necessary to spiritual life ; for f< except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you :" that as a common meal, with God's blessing upon it, has a virtue to keep us alive for a certain time, so this hea- venly meal has the like virtue in respect to the life everlast- ing ; for " whoso eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath eternal life :" that it has a certain special quality of preparing our bodies for the general resurrection ; for " I will raise him up at the last day z ;" that ordinary food and drink is but the shadow of this, the true Bread from heaven, and Cf. 1 Cor. xv. 45. 60 Use of the Title " Son of Man" in S. John vi. CHAP. II. the fruit of the true Vine, in the same kind of way that Christ is the true Light, and this material light but a figure of Him ; heaven the true riches, of which the earthly mam- mon is but a coarse and unreal image ; and all other Gospel antitypes far more real and substantial than their legal or natural types : for which cause, mainly, (as I suppose,) Christ is called the Truth, in contradistinction to Mosaical shadows ; so that in the Sacrament we eat and drink more really and substantially than on any other occasion : all this they might gather from the saying, "For My Flesh is meat in- deed, and My Blood is drink indeed." Again, they would understand that His Flesh and Blood in Holy Communion is the special means appointed by Him, not for beginning, but for continuing, spiritual life, the instrument whereby the members adhere to their Head, as- well as the remedial token and pledge whereby they know that they are very members incorporate in Him, and not yet cast off for their many backslidings ; for "He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him." Finally, to set the most awful seal to the greatness and reality of all this, to put down for ever the notion that He was merely using figures of speech, the Holy Ghost caused them to remember that our Lord had said, "As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me a ." 38. And for a key to the whole mysterious transaction, so far as man might comprehend it, He had introduced the title, Son of Man, three times in the course of the conversa- tion, and apparently just at those points of it where it would come in most significantly, supposing His intention to be to- intimate thereby the office of the Sacrament in extending and applying the benefit of His Incarnation. First, in leading His hearers to the whole subject, He had said, " Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you : for Him hath God the Father sealed V Him the Father had " sanctified and sent into the world," anointing His holy Manhood with the Holy Ghost * S.John vi. 57. ' > b Ibid. 27. Bearing of Christ's Ascension on the Eucharist. 61 and with power without measure, for this especial purpose, CHAP. II. that He, being the Son of Man, might give us the meat that endureth unto everlasting life. Secondly ; when in His gracious disclosures, keeping even time (so to speak) with the stubborn and insolent answers of the Jews, He had arrived at that saying, so offensive to the ear and heart of philosophy falsely so called, "The Bread that I will give is My Flesh ;" it began, as soon as spoken, to be a cause of strife : for in regard of this doctrine espe- cially has the saying ever been too truly fulfilled, " I came not to send peace on the earth, but a sword." And accord- ingly the Jews, at the very first hearing of it, began to strive with one another, saying, " How can this Man give us His Flesh to eat c ?" Whereupon our Lord, in repeating it, with the addition that they must drink His Blood, was careful to point out to them that it was the Flesh and Blood of the Son of Man: "Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you." As Son of Man, He had decreed to bestow on them His Flesh and Blood, that it might be within them, to be the very life of their souls. , Once more, when the trial and agony caused by the "hard saying d " seemed at the keenest, in His prophetic mercy and pity He warned them of an event which would make it harder still : " What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before?" He accompanied the warning with a significant repetition of the title, Son of Man ; which, when the time was come, His disciples would under- stand to imply that His going up to heaven bodily, in His human nature, was indeed a most essential link in the chain of wonders which began with His Incarnation. His work as Son of Man would be very incomplete without it ; He could neither sit as a King on His Father's right hand in heaven, " until Plis enemies be made His footstool/' nor stand before Him, either there or in earth, as " a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." Since the commemorative Sacrifice in heaven was necessary for the efficacy of the Eucharist of- fered on earth, which, indeed, is only efficacious by being joined to the oblation above, the Communion, however c S. John vi. 52, 53. d Ibid. 60. 62 .' The Holy Spirit's Work in the Eucharist. CHAP. II. blessed a thing, cannot be understood as having done all its work before the glorious Ascension of our Lord. Mary must not touch Christ, because He hath " not yet ascended to His Father," to send down, as the first-fruits of His priestly office in heaven, the Holy Spirit, by Whose regenerating power mortals might be united to Him, and made worthy to touch Him spiritually. Such is S. Cyril's exposition of that mys- terious saying, " Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father e ." And if any one hesitate to accept it, as incon- sistent with our Lord's offering His Body, as He did so often, to the touch of His disciples during those forty days, he may consider that such permission was granted, by way of mira- culous evidence, to such as were yet imperfect in the faith of the Resurrection ; whereas the blessed Magdalene seems to have had no doubt, but only wanted to kiss His feet, as be- fore His death, in loving adoration. Her touch would repre- sent the ordinary approach of believers to Christ's Body in the Holy Eucharist, and was therefore to be deferred until she had been purified by the Holy Ghost. To return for a moment to His own words in the sixth chapter: "What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before ?" Understood in this connection, they do in a wonderful manner intimate the three great mysterious Unities comprised in the idea of Christian re- demption : first, the Unity of the Father and the Son, im- plied in "where He was before;" next, the Unity of God and Man in the Person of Christ, implied in the title, Son of Man ; thirdly, the Union and Communion between Christ and His saints, in that partaking of His Body and Blood is here connected with His Ascension. And in the next verse He turns our thoughts towards that other Divine Person, Who, as Holy Scripture informs us, is in some heavenly way the bond and principle of each of these divine unities. " It is the Spirit that quickeneth." The Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, of Whom the Church says f that " in His unity" the Son liveth and reigneth with the Father; and Whom our Lord, speaking to the Father, seems in one place to entitle, " The Love wherewith Thou hast loved Me e " by In S. Joan. xx. 17. t. vi. 10841086. Ed. Aubert. f Collect for Whitsunday. * S. John xvii. ult. Christ's Person is the Bread of Life. 63 Whose power, overshadowing the blessed Virgin, the God- CHAP. II. head and Manhood were united for ever in Christ : He it is that quickeneth the souls and bodies of men dead in tres- passes and sins : He also (so our Lord seems to speak) shall descend upon the earthly creatures which I by My priests shall bless, and cause them to be the Flesh and Blood of the Son of Man, life eternal to those who go on worthily receiv- ing them. " The flesh profiteth nothing :" not even the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, could you conceive it separated from His divine Person and Spirit, much less the Bread and Wine used as a charm, could ever do your souls any good : any such superstition or witchcraft could only come of this earth, or worse ; but " the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." But whatever turn may be given to this verse in particular, certainly there is nothing in the above-mentioned way of stating the general drift of that chapter of S. John, but what the words will very well admit of: nothing unwarranted by the testimony of the ancient Church : and the mere statement of it shews sufficiently what an exact analogy it bears to the Scriptural accounts of the other portions of the divine process of salvation, how naturally it finds its place among them. 39. Now to apply all this to the question of adoration ; is the Person of Christ, God and Man, present in the holy Eucharist by this transcendental Presence of His Body and Blood? The affirmative seems distinctly proved by His own words in the same discourse; in that He more than once interchanges the first personal pronoun, I, Me, &c., with the phrases, " This bread, My flesh," &c. I will not dwell on the 32nd and 33rd verses h , which in our English translation would seem to exemplify this ; for it may be that the sen- tence which is rendered, "The Bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world," should rather be rendered " that which cometh down from heaven ;" although the word " giveth" strongly suggests the idea of a person acting, and is distinctly so employed through- h 'O IToT?;p fj.ov SiSuffivvfjuVTbit &prov Upros rov eou eon-u/ 6 Kara^alvuv c'/f rov ovpavov rbv o.\T]Qiv6v. 'O^&p , TOV ovpavov, Ka.1 %La, and the like; as if one should say,, avToei/c&v as complete an image as in the nature of things, and according to the mind of Him who framed them what they are, could possibly exist. The word -^apaKr^p (=" express image," or " stamp,") in Heb. i. 3, seems to convey the same idea, in reference to the mystery of the revelation of the Father through the Son ; as we read, " No man hath seen God at any time : the only- d Heb. x. 1. The Law has Shadows ; the Gospel, Images. 79 begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath CHAP. II, declared Him ;" the Son, to speak with the Athanasian di- Yines, being the airapaKKaKros el/cav, the unswerving, unde- viating, unmodified Image, of the Eternal Father. Applying this exposition to S. Paul's phrase, we come to some such result as the following : that the visible part of the Gospel system, or at least some portion of it which the Apostle was particularly speaking of, is not simply the shadow, but the reflection, as perfect as can be, of certain invisible things now existing in the heavenly places, of which the cor- responding part of the law was but an "example," VTTO- Se2>y/za, an indication by way of pattern or sample, and in comparison a most imperfect " shadow." In the Gospel you see the object itself, as in a mirror ; the Law could at most present but a rough outline or sketch of it. And the Image in the Gospel is of things even now in being, only far above out of our sight \ whereas the Law was altogether prophetic, foreshadowing ra p,k\ovTa a