7. Thus, then, we offer the Eucharist as our Sin-Offering; Burnt-Offering; Thank-Offering; and Peace-Offering. It is the highest Act of Christian worship, embracing as it does Confession; Petition; Intercession; Thanksgiving; and Praise, viz.:— Confession in the Confession. Petition in the 1st Lord's Prayer, the Collects, the Prayer of humble Access, and the two Post-Communion Prayers. Intercession in the Prayer for the Church Militant, and the Prayer of Oblation. Thanksgiving (=Eucharist) in the Proper Prefaces for Christmas and Easter, in the 2nd Lord's Prayer, and in the Prayer of Thanksgiving (or 2nd Post-Com. Pr.). Praise in the Sanctus or Triumphal Hymn, and the Gloria in excelsis. 8. When the merciful and good Lord so lovingly invites us to His Sacred Banquet; when He saith, Gather My Saints together unto Me: those that have made a Covenant with Me with Sacrifice;' when He saith, Do This''offer This' (see p. 33); when He commands to offer Him this one Service, shall we try to offer Him something else instead-in short, shall we treat God worse than we should treat our own children? for if they ask Bread, should we give them a stone? or if they ask a fish, should we give them a serpent? No indeed! Let us not defraud God, let us not rob Him of the honour due unto His Name; but let us approach Him in the One way of His appointing, and offer unto Him the pure, bloodless, holy Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist. X. The Holy Eucharist a Sacrifice (ii.). ZEPH. I. 7. guests.' 'The Lord hath prepared a Sacrifice, He hath bid His In speaking to you from time to time of the Holy Eucharist, it is impossible not to touch sometimes upon the same subjects, and apparently to go over much the same ground. And yet to speak the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, whilst for you it is safe. There are very few indeed who can understand, and grasp, and remember everything at once going over. And therefore our instructions must necessarily be line upon line, and precept upon precept. The Catholic Faith, the Faith once for all delivered to the Saints, the whole Truth as it is in JESUS, cannot all be fully comprehended in a single day. Let us be patient and willing to learn, and never ashamed to say we do not know this, or do not understand that; and then shall we know if we really try to do God's Will, and follow on to know the Lord (Hos. vi. 3f); for God's promise to His Spouse, the Church, is, 'All thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children' (Isa. liv. 13). When our Blessed Lord after the last Passover Supper instituted the Holy Eucharist, He bequeathed to His Church therein a Sacrifice, which she should offer day by day, and year by year continually, until He come again. 'That last night at supper lying, 'Mid the Twelve His chosen band, Keeps the Feast its rites demand; -Allar Hymnal, 111, ver. 3. Now a Sacrifice implies a victim slain, and the offering up of that victim upon an altar. And it is one of the most remarkable things in the history of the world, how Sacrifice appears to be a very instinct of man's nature, and how the doctrine of Sacrifice, especially with shedding of Blood, is well-nigh universal. The idea is that of offering to God something very precious as a token of love, and as something to propitiate His favour, and obtain reconciliation for sin and trespass committed against Him. The most precious Offering, and the most appropriate, has ever been acknowledged to be a life, the life-blood of some person or some thing,— an animal in lesser cases, a man in extraordinary ones. And even in those Sacrifices which we term unbloody, such as corn, flour, dough, bread, wine, oil, incense, there is maintained this same idea of the offering up of life,-these sacrifices had the life destroyed within them. And we find this instinct of Sacrifice nearly universal; as though God had written it upon man's conscience that 'without shedding of blood is no remission' (Heb. ix. 22). The sacrifices of the Jews, bloody or unbloody, all looked on and derived their meaning and efficacy from that One Sacrifice of the most precious thing this world ever contained, the Sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God, on Calvary. When He, our Great High Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec, offered Himself as a Lamb without spot to God (Heb. ix. 14; 1 S. Pet. i. 19); and afterwards entered into the Holy of holies, even Heaven itself (Heb. ix. 24), and presented His Precious Blood before the Father, God Almighty. For as His Sacred Body saw no corruption (Acts ii. 27, 31), so is His Precious Blood incorruptible, and remains in the Presence of God (see Sadler's One Offering, p. 44 and note), and that 'Blood of Sprink. ling speaketh better things than that of Abel' (Heb. xii. 24). Abel's blood for vengeance For our pardon cries.' The Blood of Sprinkling speaks and prays, -Altar Hymnal, 132, ver. 2. Had our Blessed Lord only died we should have had no part in the Sacrifice. But there has never been a moment, since He was slain upon Mount Calvary, in which He has not been continually offering His Blood as an atonement for our sins unto the Father. JESUS our Lord is the Saving Victim • Victim Divine, Thy Grace we claim While thus Thy spotless Death we show : In Thy great Temple here below; And standest now before the Throne.' -Altar Hymnal, 132. Priest and Victim, both in one, He pleads the merits of His Five Sacred Wounds. Our Great High Priest has entered into the Holy Place not made with hands; He has opened the kingdom of Heaven to all believers. Thou within the veil hast entered, Robed in Flesh our Great High Priest; Thou on earth both Priest and Victim In the Eucharistic Feast.' -Altar Hymnal, 3, ver. 4. Yes! in Heaven itself JESUS our Lord is ever pleading His One all-availing Sacrifice of Himself once offered; and also in the presentation of Himself alive He is ever presenting 'the devotion and energies of a present Life, which includes the Life of His people' (see Sadler's One Offering, p. 47). Whilst on earth His priests, acting in His Name and by His authority, re-present before the Father on the ten thousand altars of the Church, the One Sacrifice, which the Great High Priest Himself once offered upon Calvary, and which He is ever presenting and pleading continually in Heaven. 'Yet wondrous thought, while JESUS there The Victim in the bloodless Rite On earth's ten thousand altars bleeds.' -Altar Hymnal, 175, ver. 3. The command Do This, i.e. offer This, for a Memorial of Me (S. Luke xxii. 19), once spoken by the Lord to His Apostles, is really addressed to every priest. To offer the Christian Sacrifice is one of the chief duties of the Christian priesthood. The priests are those who act for God towards the people, and for the people towards God' (Sadler, p. 51). They are Christ's stewards, ambassadors, and deputies; men acting for God in His Name, by His authority, and in the discharge of their office with His power. As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you' (S. John xx. 217). 'We pray you in Christ's stead' (2 Cor v. 20/). Our Blessed Lord wills in Heaven all that is done on earth, in His Name, by the Church, which is His Body; but He puts forth the Hands of His Body upon earth, and works by the ministers and stewards of His mysteries. So, too, the Holy Ghost uses the agency of men, and works by means. And although it is the Spirit that quickeneth and transforms the elements of Bread and Wine into the life-giving Food of the Body and Blood of Christ: yet He does it by their word. For when at the altars of the Church the priests say, This is My Body -This is My Blood, it is no more we that speak, but the Holy Ghost which speaketh in us (S. John xiv. 17), yea! Who speaks and it is done, Who commands and it stands fast. 'Oft as the high mysterious Words Are duly breathed o'er Bread and Wine, -Altar Hymnal, 175, ver. 4. Whilst the words of S. Paul, 'As often as ye eat This Bread and drink This Cup, ye do show forth the Lord's Death till He come' (1 Cor. xi.), show us the object and intention of the Christian Sacrifice, viz. the continual offering up and pleading before the Father of the Saving Victim Himself, never to be slain again, but to be shown and re-presented. "One Offering, single and complete," With lips and heart we say ; And so we show Thy Death, O Lord, And feel when we approach Thy Board -Altar Hymnal, 128. And thus is done by His priests on earth, what JESUS, our Great High Priest for ever, is doing in His own Person, at the Heavenly altar ; 'Our Great High Priest is standing And pleading there His merits, Our Hope and Peace alone; And we on earth are pleading And so reconciliation is made for the people. -Altar Hymnal, 177. Again, as by Holy Baptism we are all made members of the Body of Christ (I Cor. xii. 13), yet in that One Body all members have not the same office (Rom. xii. 4-9), for there are different organs, diversities of gifts, differences of operation, and the Great High Priest in Heaven, who is the Head, works by the hands of the Priest on earth: so also the whole body of the faithful-who are 'a chosen generation, a royal priesthood' (I S. Pet. ii. 9, 5), seeing that He hath made us kings and priests unto God (Rev. i. 6)-do This, i.e. offer This Eucharistic Sacrifice, by the hands of their official representative, the parson or persona ecclesiæ, whilst by their Amen at the end of the Prayer of Conse cration they set their seal to the act of the Priest, assent unto it, and make it their own. And thus the very position of the Priest at the altar is full of meaning: When as God's deputy he speaks for God to the people, he turns round and speaks to them face to face : But when he is speaking for the people unto God, or when he is offering to God on their behalf, he stands before them and in front, as it were at their head, as their spokesman and representative acting in their name. We magnify our office as Priests of God and stewards of His mysteries; but we also remind you of the priesthood of the laity, the priesthood of all baptized Christians. True, none may join himself to us, or take upon himself the special functions of the Holy Ministry (Acts v. 13; Num. xvi.), but he that is duly called, ordained, and sent forth by a successor of the Apostles (S. John xx. 217; Heb. v. 4, 5; Art. xxiii., and Preface to Ordinal). At the same time, we do insist most strongly upon your taking your own proper part in what pertains to the priesthood of the laity, as in other services, so especially in this our chiefest and highest Service, by uniting constantly in offering unto God the Christian Sacrifice, the one Worship of earth and heaven, and by setting to your seal to the action of your agent and representative the Priest, by saying the solemn and loud Amen at the end of the Prayer of Consecration (1 Cor. xiv. 16), with one heart and one voice. 'Ye royal priests of JESUS rise, -Altar Hymnal, 130. |