[11] 1 Pet. iii. 21.
[12] Baptismal Service.
[13] Rev. iii. 11.
[14] Not more, it is estimated, than two or three out of every eight have been baptized.
[15] I may take anadditionalChristian name at my Confirmation, but I cannot change the old one.
[16] The present Town Clerk of London has kindly informed me that the earliest example he has found dates from 1418, when the name of John Carpenter, Town Clerk, the well-known executor of Whittington, is appended to a document, the Christian name being omitted.
[17] The following letter from Mr. Ambrose Lee of the Heralds' College may interest some. "... Surname, in the ordinary sense of the word, the King has none. He—as was his grandmother, Queen Victoria, as well as her husband, Prince Albert—is descended from Witikind, who was the last of a long line of continental Saxon kings or rulers. Witikind was defeated by Charlemagne, became a Christian, and was created Duke of Saxony. He had a second son, who was Count of Wettin, but clear and well-defined and authenticated genealogies do not exist from which may be formulated any theory establishing, by right or custom,anysurname, in the ordinary accepted sense of the word, for the various families who are descended in the male line from this Count of Wettin.... And, by-the-by, it must not be forgotten that the earliest Guelphs were merely princes whose baptismal name was Guelph, as the baptismal name of our Hanoverian Kings was George."
[18] Rom. viii. 25.
[19] Is. lix. 9.
The Blessed Sacrament!—or, as the Prayer Book calls it, "The Holy Sacrament". This title seems to sum up all the other titles by which the chief service in the Church is known. These are many. For instance:—
The Liturgy, from the GreekLeitourgia,[1] a public service.
The Mass, from the LatinMissa, dismissal—the word used in the Latin Liturgy when the people are dismissed,[2] and afterwards applied to the service itself from which they are dismissed.
The Eucharist, from the GreekEucharistia, thanksgiving—the word used in all the narrativesof Institution,[3] and, technically, the third part of the Eucharistic Service.
The Breaking of the Bread, one of the earliest names for the Sacrament (Acts ii. 42, 1 Cor. x. 16).
The Holy Sacrifice, which Christ once offered, and is ever offering.
The Lord's Supper(1 Cor. xii. 10), a name perhaps originally used for theAgapé, or love feast, which preceded the Eucharist, and then given to the Eucharist itself. It is an old English name, used in the story of St. Anselm's last days, where it is said: "He passed away as morning was breaking on the Wednesday beforethe day of our Lord's Supper".
The Holy Communion(1 Cor. x. 16), in which our baptismal union with Christ is consummated, and which forms a means of union between souls in the Church Triumphant, at Rest, and on Earth. In it, Christ, God and Man, is the bond of oneness.
All these, and other aspects of the Sacrament, are comprehended and gathered up in the name which marks its supremacy,—The Blessed Sacrament.
Consider: What it is;What it does;How it does it.
It is the supernatural conjunction of matter and spirit, of Bread and Wine and of the Holy Ghost. Here, as in Baptism, the "inward and spiritual" expresses itself through the "outward and visible". Both must be there. And, notice again. This conjunction is not aphysicalconjunction, according to physical laws; nor is it a spiritual conjunction, according to spiritual laws; it is a Sacramental conjunction, according to Sacramental laws. As in Baptism, so in the Blessed Sacrament: the "outward and visible" is, and remains, subject to natural laws, and the inward and spiritual to spiritual laws; but the Sacrament itself is under neither natural nor spiritual but Sacramental laws.
For a perfect Sacrament requires both matter and spirit.[4] If either is absent, the Sacrament is incomplete.
Thus, the Council of Trent's definition ofTransubstantiation[5] seems, as it stands, to spoil the very nature of a Sacrament. It is the "change of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, of the whole substance of the wine into the blood of Christ,only the appearanceof bread and wine remaining".
Again, the Lutheran doctrine of Consubstantiation destroys the nature of the Sacrament. The LutheranFormula Concordiae, e.g., teaches that "outside the use the Body of Christ is not present". Thus it limits the Presence to the reception, whether by good or bad.
TheFigurativeview of the Blessed Sacramentdestroys the nature of a Sacrament, making the matter symbolize something which is not there.
It is safer to take the words of consecration as they stand, corresponding as they do so literally with the words of Institution, and simply to say: "This (bread: it is still bread) is My Body" (it is far more than bread); "this (wine: it is still wine) is My Blood" (it is far more than wine). Can we get beyond this, in terms and definitions? Can we say more than that it is a "Sacrament"—The Blessed Sacrament? And after all, do we wish to do so?
Briefly, the Blessed Sacrament does two things; It pleads, and It feeds. It is the pleadingofthe one Sacrifice; It is the feedingonthe one Sacrifice.
These two aspects of the one Sacrament are suggested in the two names,AltarandTable.[6] Both words are liturgical. In Western Liturgies,Altaris the rule, andTablethe exception; in Eastern Liturgies,Tableis the rule, andAltarthe exception. Both are, perhaps, embodied in the old name,God's Board, of Thomas Aquinas. Both contain a truth.
This, for over 300 years, was the common name for what St. Irenaeus calls "the Abode of the Holy Body and Blood of Christ". Convocation, in 1640, decreed: "It is, and may be called, an Altar in that sense in which the Primitive Church called it an Altar, and in no other". This sense referred to the offering of what the Liturgy of St. James calls "the tremendous and unbloody Sacrifice," the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom "the reasonable and unbloody Sacrifice,"[7] and the Ancient English Liturgy "a pure offering, an holy offering, an undefiled offering, even the holy Bread of eternal Life, and the Cup of everlasting Salvation ".
The word Altar, then, tells of the pleading of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In the words of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to Leo XIII: "We plead and represent before the Father the Sacrifice of the Cross"; or in the words of Charles Wesley: "To God it is anAltar whereon men mystically present unto Him the same Sacrifice, as still suing for mercy"; or, in the words of Isaac Barrow: "Our Lord hath offered a well-pleasing Sacrifice for our sins, and doth, at God's right hand, continually renew it by presenting it unto God, and interceding with Him for the effect thereof".
The Sacrifice does not, of course, consist in the re-slaying of the Lamb, but in the offering of the Lamb as it had been slain. It is not the repetition of the Atonement, but the representation of the Atonement.[8] We offer on the earthly Altar the same Sacrifice that is being perpetually offered on the Heavenly Altar. There is only one Altar, only one Sacrifice, one Eucharist—"one offering, single and complete". All the combined earthly Altars are but one Altar—the earthly or visible part of the Heavenly Altar on which He, both Priest and Victim, offers Himself as the Lamb "as it had been slain". The Heavenly Altar is, as it were, the centre, and all the earthly Altars the circumference. We gaze at the Heavenly Altar through the Earthly Altars. We plead what He pleads; we offer what He offers.
Thus the Church, with exultation,Till her Lord returns again,Shows His Death; His mediationValidates her worship then,Pleading the Divine OblationOffered on the Cross for men.
And we must remember that in this offering the whole Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are at work. We must not in our worship so concentrate our attention upon the Second Person, as to exclude the other Persons from our thoughts. Indeed, if one Person is more prominent than another, it is God the Father. It is to God the Father that the Sacrifice ascends; it is with Him that we plead on earth that which God the Son is pleading in Heaven; it is God the Holy Ghost Who makes our pleadings possible, Who turns the many Jewish Altars into the one Christian Altar. TheGloria in Excelsisbids us render worship to all three Persons engaged in this single act.
The second aspect under consideration is suggested by the wordTable—the "Holy Table," as St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Athanasius call it; "the tremendous Table," or the "MysticTable," as St. Chrysostom calls it; "the Lord's Table," or "this Thy Table," as, following the Easterns, our Prayer Book calls it.
This term emphasizes the Feast-aspect, as "Altar" underlines the Sacrificial aspect, of the Sacrament. In the "Lord's Supper" we feast upon the Sacrifice which has already been offered upon the Altar. "This Thy Table," tells of the Banquet of the Lamb. As St. Thomas puts it:—
He gave Himself in either kind,His precious Flesh, His precious Blood:In Love's own fullness thus designedOf the whole man to be the Food.
Or, as Dr. Doddridge puts it, in his Sacramental Ave:—
Hail! Sacred Feast, which Jesus makes!Rich Banquet of His Flesh and Blood!Thrice happy he, who here partakesThat Sacred Stream, that Heavenly Food.
This is the Prayer-Book aspect, which deals with the "Administrationof the Lord's Supper"; which bids us "feed upon Him (not it) in our hearts by faith," and not by sight; which speaks of the elements as God's "creatures of Bread and Wine"; which prays, in language of awful solemnity, that we may worthily "eat His Fleshand drink His Blood". This is the aspect which speaks of the "means whereby" Christ communicates Himself to us, implants within us His character, His virtues, His will;—makes us one with Him, and Himself one with us. By Sacramental Communion, we "dwell in Him, and He in us"; and this, not merely as a lovely sentiment, or by means of some beautiful meditation, but by the real communion of Christ—present without us, and communicated to us, through the ordained channels.
Hence, in the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus is for ever counteracting within us the effects of the Fall. If the first Adam ruined us through food, the second Adam will reinstate us through food—and that food nothing less than Himself. "Feed uponHim." But how is all this brought about?
Once again, nobody knows. The Holy Ghost is the operative power, but the operation is overshadowed as by the wings of the Dove. It is enough for us to know what is done, without questioning as to how it is done. It is enough for us to worship Him in what He does, withoutstraining to know how He does it—being fully persuaded that, what He has promised, He is able also to perform.[9] Here, again, we are in the region of faith, not sight; and reason tells us that faith must be supreme in its own province. For us, it is enough to say with Queen Elizabeth:—
He was the Word that spake it;He took the bread and break it;And what that Word did make it,I do believe and take it.[10]
[1]Leitos, public,ergon, work.
[2] Either when the service is over, or when those not admissible to Communion are dismissed. The "Masses" condemned in the thirty-first Article involved the heresy that Christ was therein offered again by the Mass Priest to buy souls out of Purgatory at so much per Mass.
[3] E.g. St. Luke xxii. 17. "He took the cup, and eucharized," i.e. gave thanks.
[4]Accedit verium ad elementum, et fit Sacramentum(St. Augustine).
[5] This definition is really given up now by the best Roman Catholic theologians. The theory on which Transubstantiation alone is based (viz. that "substance" is something which exists apart from the totality of the accidents whereby it is known to us), has now been generally abandoned. Now, it is universally allowed that "substance is only a collective name for the sum of all the qualities of matter, size, colour, weight, taste, and so forth". But, as all these qualities of bread and wine admittedly remain after consecration, the substance of the bread and wine must remain too.
The doctrine of Transubstantiation condemned in Article 22, was that of a material Transubstantiation which taught (and was taughtex Cathedraby Pope Nicholas II) that Christ's Body was sensibly touched and broken by the teeth.
[6] "The Altar has respect unto the oblation, the Table to the participation" (Bishop Cosin).
[7] Cf. Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Living," chap. iv. s. 10.
[8] Cf. Bright's "Ancient Collects," p. 144.
[9] Rom. iv. 21.
[10] "These lines," says Malcolm MacColl in his book on "The Reformation Settlement" (p. 34), "have sometimes been attributed to Donne; but the balance of evidence is in favour of their Elizabethan authorship when the Queen was in confinement as Princess Elizabeth. They are not in the first edition of Donne, and were published for the first time as his in 1634, thirteen years after his death."
These are "those five" which the Article says are "commonly called Sacraments":[1] Confirmation, Matrimony, Orders, Penance, Unction. They are called "Lesser" Sacraments to distinguish them from the two pre-eminent or "Greater Sacraments," Baptism and the Supper of the Lord.[2] These, though they have not all a "like nature" with the Greater Sacraments, are selected by the Church as meeting the main needs of her children between Baptism and Burial.
They may, for our purpose, be classified in three groups:—
(I)The Sacrament of Completion(Confirmation, which completes the Sacrament of Baptism).
(II) The Sacraments of Perpetuation (Holy Matrimony, which perpetuates the human race; and Holy Order, which perpetuates the Christian Ministry).
(III) The Sacraments of Recovery (Penance, which recovers the sick soul together with the body; and Unction, which recovers the sick body together with the soul).
And, first, The Sacrament of Completion: Confirmation.
[1] Article XXV.
[2] The Homily on the Sacraments calls them the "other Sacraments"—i.e. in addition to Baptism and the Eucharist.
(I) What it is not.(II) What it is.(III) Whom it is for.(IV) What is essential.
Confirmation is not the renewal of vows. The renewal of vows is the final part of thepreparationfor Confirmation. It is that part of the preparation which takes place in public, as the previous preparation has taken place in private. Before Confirmation, the Baptismal vows are renewed "openly before the Church". Their renewal is the last word of preparation. The Bishop, or Chief Shepherd, assures himself by question, and answer, that the Candidate openly responds to the preparation he has received inprivate from the Parish Priest, or under-Shepherd. Before the last revision of the Prayer Book, the Bishop asked the Candidates in public many questions from the Catechism before confirming them; now he only asks one—and the "I do," by which the Candidate renews his Baptismal vows, is the answer to that preparatory question.
It is still quite a common idea, even among Church people, that Confirmation is something which the Candidate does for himself, instead of something which God does to him. This is often due to the unfortunate use of the word "confirm"[1] in the Bishop's question. At the time it was inserted, the word "confirm" meant "confess,"[2] and referred, not to the Gift of Confirmation, but to the Candidate's public Confession of faith, before receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. It had nothing whatever to do with Confirmation itself. We must not, then, confuse the preparation for Confirmation with the Gift of Confirmation. The Sacrament itself is God's gift to the child bestowed through the Bishop in accordance with the teaching given tothe God-parents at the child's Baptism: "Ye are to take care that this child be brought to the Bishopto beconfirmedby him".[3]
And this leads us to our second point: What Confirmation is.
Confirmation is the completion of Baptism. It completes what Baptism began. In the words of our Confirmation Service, it "increases and multiplies"—i.e. strengthens or confirms Baptismal grace. It is the ordained channel which conveys to the Baptized the "sevenfold" (i.e. complete) gift of the Holy Ghost, which was initially received in Baptism.
And this will help us to answer a question frequently asked: "If I have been confirmed, but not Baptized, must I be Baptized?" Surely, Baptism mustprecedeConfirmation. IfConfirmation increases the grace given in Baptism, that grace must have been received before it can be increased. "And must I be 'confirmed again,' as it is said, after Baptism?" Surely. If I had not been BaptizedbeforeI presented myself for Confirmation, I have not confirmed at all. My Baptism will now allow me to "be presented to the Bishop once again to be confirmed by him"—and this time in reality. "Did I, then, receive no grace when I was presented to the Bishop to be confirmed by him before?" Much grace, surely, but not the special grace attached to the special Sacrament of Confirmation, and guaranteed to the Confirmed. Special channels convey special grace. God's love overflows its channels; what God gives, or withholds, outside those channels, it would be an impertinence for us to say.
Again, Confirmation is, in a secondary sense, a Sacrament of Admittance. It admits the Baptized to Holy Communion. Two rubrics teach this. "It is expedient," says the rubric after an adult Baptism, "that every person thus Baptized should be confirmed by the Bishop so soon after his Baptism as conveniently may be; thatso he may be admitted to the Holy Communion." "Andthere shall nonebe admitted to Holy Communion," adds the rubric after Confirmation, "until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed." For "Confirmation, or the laying on of hands," fully admits the Baptized to that "Royal Priesthood" of the Laity,[4] of which the specially ordained Priest is ordained to be the representative. The Holy Sacrifice is the offering of thewholeChurch, the universal Priesthood, not merely of the individual Priest who is the offerer. Thus, the Confirmed can take their part in the offering, and can assist at it, in union with the ordained Priest who is actually celebrating. They can say theirAmenat the Eucharist, or "giving of thanks," and give their responding assent to what he is doing in their name, and on their behalf.
And this answers another question. "If I am a Communicant, but have not been confirmed, ought I to present myself for Confirmation?" Surely. The Prayer Book is quite definite about this. First, it legislates for the normal case, then for the abnormal. First it says: "None shall be admitted to Holy Communion until such time as they have been Confirmed". Then it deals withexceptional cases, and adds, "or be willing and desirous to be confirmed". Such exceptional cases may, and do, occur; but even these may not be Communicated unless they are both "ready" and "desirous" to be confirmed, as soon as Confirmation can be received. So does the Church safeguard her Sacraments, and her children.
"But would you," it is asked, "exclude a Dissenter from Communion, however good and holy he may be, merely because he has not been Confirmed?" He certainly would have very little respect for me if I did not. If, for instance, he belonged to the Methodist Society, he would assuredly not admit me to be a "Communicant" in that Society. "No person," says his rule, "shall be suffered on any pretence to partake of the Lord's Supperunless he be a member of the Society, or receive a note of admission from the Superintendent, which note must be renewed quarterly." And, again: "That the Table of the Lord should be open to all comers, is surely a great discredit, and a serious peril to any Church".[5] And yet the Church, the Divine Society, established by Jesus Christ Himself, is blamed, and called narrow andbigoted, if she asserts her own rule, and refuses to admit "all comers" to the Altar. To give way on such a point would be to forfeit, and rightly to forfeit, the respect of any law-abiding people, and would be—in many cases, is—"a great discredit, and a serious peril" to the Church. We have few enough rules as it is, and if those that we have are meaningless, we may well be held up to derision. The Prayer Book makes no provision whatever for those who are not Confirmed, and who, if able to receive Confirmation, are neither "ready nor desirous to be Confirmed".
Confirmation is for the Baptized, and none other. The Prayer-Book Title to the service is plain. It calls Confirmation the "laying on of Hands uponthose that are baptized," and, it adds, "are come to years of discretion".
First, then, Confirmation is for the Baptized, and never for the unbaptized.
Secondly, it is (as now administered[6]) for"those who have come to years of discretion," i.e. for those who are fit for it. As we pray in the Ember Collect that the Bishop may select "fit persons for the Sacred Ministry" of the special Priesthood, and may "lay hands suddenly on no man," so it is with Confirmation or the "laying on of hands" for the Royal Priesthood. The Bishop must be assured by the Priest who presents them (and who acts as his examining Chaplain), that they are "fit persons" to be confirmed.
And this fitness must be of two kinds: moral and intellectual. It must bemoral. The candidate must "have come to years of discretion," i.e. he must "know to refuse the evil and choose the good".[7] This "age of discretion," orcompetent age, as the Catechism Rubric calls it, is not a question of years, but of character. Our present Prayer Book makes no allusion to any definite span of years whatever, and to make the magic age of fifteen the minimum universal age for Candidates is wholly illegal. At the Reformation, the English Church fixed seven as the age for Confirmation, but our 1662 Prayer Book is more primitive, and, taking a common-sense view,leaves each case of moral fitness to be decided on its own merits. The moral standard must be an individual standard, and must be left, first, to the parent, who presents the child to the Priest to be prepared; then, to the Priest who prepares the child for Confirmation, and presents him to the Bishop; and, lastly, to the Bishop, who must finally decide, upon the combined testimony of the Priest and parent—and, if in doubt, upon his own personal examination.
Theintellectualstandard is laid down in the Service for the "Public Baptism of Infants": "So soon as he can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, in the vulgar (i.e. his native) tongue, and be further instructed, etc." Here, the words "can say" obviously mean can sayintelligently. The mere saying of the words by rote is comparatively unimportant, though it has its use; but if this were all, it would degrade the Candidate's intellectual status to the capacities of a parrot. But, "as soon as" he can intelligently comply with the Church's requirements, as soon as he has reached "a competent age," any child may "be presented to the Bishop to be confirmed by him".
And, in the majority of cases, in these days, "the sooner, the better". It is, speaking generally, far safer to have the "child" prepared at home—if it is a Christian home—and confirmed from home, than to risk the preparation to the chance teaching of a Public School. With splendid exceptions, School Confirmation is apt to get confused with the school curriculum and school lessons. It is a sort of "extra tuition," which, not infrequently, interferes with games or work, without any compensating advantages in Church teaching.
"The Laying on of Hands"—and nothing else. This act of ritual (so familiar to the Early Church, from Christ's act in blessing little children) was used by the Apostles,[8] and is still used by their successors, the Bishops. It is the only act essential to a valid Confirmation.
Other, and suggestive, ceremonies have been in use in different ages, and in different parts of the Church: but they are supplementary, not essential. Thus, in the sub-apostolic age, ritualacts expressed very beautifully the early names for Confirmation, just as "the laying on of Hands" still expresses the name which in the English Church proclaims the essence of the Sacrament.
For instance, Confirmation is calledThe Anointing,[9] andThe Sealing, and in some parts of the Church, the Priest dips his finger in oil blessed by the Bishop, and signs or seals the child upon the forehead with the sign of the Cross, thus symbolizing the meaning of such names. But neither the sealing, nor the anointing, is necessary for a valid Sacrament.
Confirmation, then, "rightly and duly" administered, completes the grace given to a child at the outset of its Christian career. It admits the child to full membership and to full privileges in the Christian Church. It is the ordained Channel by which the Bishop is commissioned to convey and guarantee the special grace attachedto, and only to, the Lesser Sacrament of Confirmation.[10]
[1] "Ratifying andconfirmingthe same in your own persons."
[2] The word was "confess" in 1549.
[3] The Greek Catechism of Plato, Metropolitan of Moscow, puts it very clearly: "Through this holy Ordinancethe Holy Ghost descendeth upon the person Baptized, and confirmeth him in the grace which he received in his Baptism according to the example of His descending upon the disciples of Jesus Christ, and in imitation of the disciples themselves, who after Baptism laid their hands upon the believers; by which laying on of hands the Holy Ghost was conferred".
[4] 1 St. Peter ii. 9.
[5] Minutes of Wesleyan Conference, 1889, p. 412.
[6] In the first ages, and, indeed, until the fifteenth century, Confirmation followed immediately after Baptism, both in East and West, as it still does in the East.
[7] Is. vii. 16.
[8] Acts viii. 12-17; Acts xix. 5, 6.
[9] In an old seventh century Service, used in the Church of England down to the Reformation, the Priest is directed: "Here he is to put the Chrism (oil) on the forehead of the man, and say, 'Receive the sign of the Holy Cross, by the Chrism of Salvation in Jesus Christ unto Eternal Life. Amen.'"
[10] The teaching of our Church of England, passing on the teaching of the Church Universal, is very happily summed up in an ancient Homily of the Church of England. It runs thus: "In Baptism the Christian was born again spiritually, to live; in Confirmation he is made bold to fight. There he received remission of sin; here he receiveth increase of grace.... In Baptism he was chosen to be God's son; in Confirmation God shall give him His Holy Spirit to ... perfect him. In Baptism he was called and chosen to be one of God's soldiers, and had his white coat of innocency given him, and also his badge, which was the red cross set upon his forehead...; in Confirmation he is encouraged to fight, and to take the armour of God put upon him, which be able to bear off the fiery darts of the devil."
We have called Holy Matrimony the "Sacrament of Perpetuation," for it is the ordained way in which the human race is to be perpetuated.
Matrimony is the legal union between two persons,—a union which is created by mutual consent: Holy Matrimony is that union sanctioned and sanctified by the Church.
There are three familiar names given to this union: Matrimony, Marriage, Wedlock.
Matrimony, derived frommater, a mother, tells of the woman's (i.e. wife-man's) "joy that a man is born into the world". Marriage, derived frommaritus, a husband (or house-dweller[1]), tells of the man's place in the "hus" or house. Wedlock, derived fromweddian, a pledge, reminds both man and woman of the life-long pledge which each has made "either to other".