against this, as well as against Transubstantiation. But yet, ART. after all, this is only a point of speculation, nothing fol- XXVIII. lows upon it in practice, no adoration is offered to the elements; and therefore we judge that speculative opinions may be borne with, when they neither fall upon the fundamentals of Christianity, to give us false ideas of the essential parts of our religion, nor affect our practice; and chiefly when the worship of God is maintained in its purity, for which we see God has expressed so particular a concern, giving it the word which of all others raises in us the most sensible and the strongest ideas, calling it jealousy; that we reckon, we ought to watch over this with much caution. We can very well bear with some opinions, that we think ill grounded, as long as they are only matters of opinion, and have no influence neither on men's morals nor their worship. We still hold communion with bodies of men, that, as we judge, think wrong, but yet do both live well, and maintain the purity of the worship of God. We know the great design of religion is to govern men's lives, and to give them right ideas of God, and of the ways of worshipping him. All opinions that do not break in upon these, are things in which great forbearance is to be used; large allowances are to be made for men's notions in all other things; and therefore we think that neither Consubstantiation nor Transubstantiation, how ill grounded soever we take both to be, ought to dissolve the union and communion of Churches: but it is quite another thing, if under either of these opinions an adoration of the elements is taught and practised. : This we believe is plain idolatry, when an insensible piece of matter, such as bread and wine, has divine honours paid it when it is believed to be God, when it is called God, and is in all respects worshipped with the same adoration that is offered up to Almighty God. This we think is gross idolatry. Many writers of the Church of Rome have acknowledged, that if Transubstantiation is not true, their worship is a strain of idolatry beyond any that is practised among the most depraved of all the heathens. The only excuse that is offered in this matter is, that since the declared object of worship is Jesus Christ, believed to be there present, then, whether he is present or not, the worship terminates in him; both the secret acts of the worshippers and the professed doctrine of the Church do lodge it there. And therefore it may be said, that though he should not be actually present, yet the act of ART. adoration being directed to him, must be accepted of God, XXVIII. as right meant, and duly directed, even though there should happen to be a mistake in the outward application of it. In answer to this, we do not pretend to determine how far this may be pardoned by God; whose mercies are infinite, and who does certainly consider chiefly the hearts of his creatures, and is merciful to their infirmities, and to such errors as arise out of their weakness, their hearts being sincere before him. We ought to consider this action as it is in itself, and not according to men's apprehensions and opinions about it. If the conceits that the ancient idolaters had both concerning their Gods, and the Idols that they worshipped, will excuse from idolatry, it will be very hard to say that there were ever any idolaters in the world. Those who worshipped the Sun, thought that the great Divinity was lodged there, as in a vehicle or temple; but yet they were not by reason of that misconception excused from being idolaters. If a false opinion upon which a practice is founded, taken up without any good authority, will excuse men's sins, it will be easy for them to find apologies for every thing. If the worship of the elements had been commanded by God, then an opinion concerning it might excuse the carrying of that too far: but there being no command for it, no hint given about it, nor any insinuation given of any such practice in the beginnings of Christianity; an opinion that men have taken up cannot justify a new practice, of which neither the first, nor a great many of the following ages knew any thing. An opinion cannot justify men's practice founded upon it, if that proves to be false. All the softening that can be given it is, that it is a sin of ignorance; but that does not change the nature of the action, how far soever it may go with relation to the judgments of God: if the opinion is rashly taken up and stiffly maintained, the worship that is introduced upon it is aggravated by the ill foundation that it is built upon. We know God by his essence is every where; but this will not justify our worshipping any material object upon this pretence, because God is in it; we ought never to worship him towards any visible object, unless he were evidently declaring his glory in it; as he did to Moses in the flaming bush; to the Israelites on mount Sinai, and in the cloud of glory; or to us Christians in a sublimer manner in the human nature of Jesus Christ. But by this parity of reason, though we were sure that Christ were in the elements, yet since he is there invisi- ART. ble, as God is by his essence every where, we ought to XXVIII. direct no adoration to the elements; we ought only to worship God, and his Son Christ Jesus, in the grateful remembrance of his sufferings for us; which are therein commemorated. We ought not to suffer our worship to terminate on the visible elements; because if Christ is in them, yet he does not manifest that visibly to us: since therefore the opinion of the Corporal Presence, upon which this adoration is founded, is false, and since no such worship is so much as mentioned, much less commanded in Scripture; and since there can scarce be any idolatry in the world so gross, as that it shall not excuse itself by some such doctrine, by which all the acts of worship are made to terminate finally in God; we must conclude that this plea cannot excuse the Church of Rome from idolatry, even though their doctrine of the Corporal Presence were true; but much less if it is false. We do therefore condemn this worship as idolatry, without taking upon us to define the extent of the mercies of God towards all those who are involved in it. If all the premises are true, then it is needless to insist longer on explaining the following paragraph of the Article; that Christ's body is received in the Sarament in a heavenly and spiritual manner, and that the mean by which it is received is faith: for that is such a natural result of them, that it appears evident of itself, as being the conclusion that arises out of those premises. The last paragraph is against the reserving, carrying about, the lifting up, or the worshipping the Sacrament. The point concerning the worship, which is the most essential of them, has been already considered. As for the reserving or carrying the Sacrament about; it is very visible, that the institution is, Take, eat, and drink ye all of it; which does import, that the consuming the elements is a part of the institution, and by consequence, that they are a Sacrament only as they are distributed and received. It is true, the practice of reserving or sending about the elements began very early; the state of things at first made it almost unavoidable. When there were yet but a few converted to Christianity, and when there were but few Priests to serve them, they neither could nor durst meet all together, especially in the times of persecution; so some parts of the elements were sent to the absent, to those in prison, and particularly to the sick, as a symbol of their being parts of the body, and that they were in the peace and communion of the Church. The bread was ART. sent with the wine, and it was sent about by any person XXVIII. whatsoever; sometimes by boys; as appears in the faEus. Hist. mous story of Serapion in the third century. So that the lib. vi. c.44. condition of the Christians in that time made that necessary, to keep them all in the sense of their obligation to union and communion with the Church; and that could not well be done in any other way. But we make a great difference between this practice, when taken up out of necessity, though not exactly conform to the first institution; and the continuing it out of superstition, when there is no need of it. Therefore instead of consecrating a larger portion of elements than is necessary for the occasion, and the reserving what is over and above; and the setting that out with great pomp on the altar, to be worshipped, or the carrying it about with a vast magnificence in a procession, invented to put the more honour on it; or the sending it to the sick with solemnity; we choose rather to consecrate only so much as may be judged fit for the number of those who are to communicate. And when the Sacrament is over, we do, in imitation of the practice of some of the ancients, consume what is left, that there may be no occasion given either to superstition or irreverence. And for the sick, or the prisoners, we think it is a greater mean to quicken their devotion, as well as it is a closer adhering to the words of the institution, to consecrate in their presence: for though we can bear with the practice of the Greek Church, of reserving and sending about the Eucharist, when there is no idolatry joined with it; yet we cannot but think that this is the continuance of a practice, which the state of the first ages introduced, and that was afterwards kept up, out of a too scrupulous imitation of that time; without considering that the difference of the state of the Christians, in the former and in the succeeding ages, made that what was at first innocently practised (since a real necessity may well excuse a want of exactness, in some matters that are only positive) became afterwards an occasion of much superstition, and in conclusion ended in idolatry. Those ill effects that it had, are more than is necessary to justify our practice in reducing this strictly to the first institution. As for the lifting up of the Eucharist, there is not a word of it in the Gospel; nor is it mentioned by St. Paul: neither Justin Martyr nor Cyril of Jerusalem speak of it; there is nothing concerning it neither in the Constitutions, nor in the Areopagite. In those first ages all the elevation that is spoken of, is the lifting up of their hearts to God. The elevation of the Sacrament began to be practised in Tit. 12. Missæ.T.ii. Bibl. pat. the sixth century; for it is mentioned in the Liturgy ART. called St. Chrysostom's, but believed to be much later XXVIII. than his time. German, a writer of the Greek Church Germ. of the thirteenth century, is the first that descants upon Const. in it; he speaks not of it as done, in order to the adoration Theor. of it, but makes it to represent both Christ's being lifted Bibl. patr. up on the cross, and also his resurrection. Ivo of Char- Ivo. Carn. tres, who lived in the end of the eleventh century, is the Ep. de Sacr. first of all the Latins that speaks of it; but then it was not commonly practised; for the author of the Micrologus, though he writ at the same time, yet does not mention it, who yet is very minute upon all particulars relating to this Sacrament. Nor does Ivo speak of it as done in order to adoration, but only as a form of shewing it to the people. Durand, a writer of the thirteenth century, Dur. Rat. is the first that speaks of the elevation as done in order to div. offic. the adoration. So it appears that our Church, by cutting sexta parte off these abuses, has restored this Sacrament to its primi- Can. tive simplicity, according to the institution and the practice of the first ages. lib. iv. de |