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at the custom of reserving the Holy Eucharist in the sacrarium is so ancient that even the age of the Council of Nicæa recognised it. Moreover, as to the carrying of the sacred Eucharist itself to the sick, and carefully reserving it to this purpose in churches, besides that it is conformable with the highest practice, equity, and reason, it is also found enjoined in numerous Councils, and observed according to the most ancient custom of the Catholic Church. Wherefore this holy Synod ordains that this salutary and necessary custom be by all means retained."1 These chapters are followed as usual by canons condemning with an anathema those who deny the lawfulness of these practices.

The statement made in the Article is worded with the utmost care, and with studied moderation. It cannot be said that any one of the practices is condemned or prohibited by it. It only amounts to this: that none of them can claim to be part of the original Divine institution. The sacrament ... was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped. That is all that is said; and in a formulary, such as the Articles, that was sufficient. The four practices in question, belonging mainly to the ritual use of the Church, came more directly into consideration connection with the arrangements for public worship in the Book of Common Prayer.

in

enter et honorifice illud per vias et loca publica circumferretur."-Conc. Trid. Sessio xiii. cap. 5.

1 "Consuetudo asservandi in Sacrario sanctam Eucharistiam adeo antiqua est ut eam sæculum etiam Nicæni Concilii agnoverit. Porro deferri ipsam sacram Eucharistiam ad infirmos, et hunc usum diligenter in ecclesiis conservari, præterquam quod cum summa æquitate et ratione conjunctum est; tum multis in Conciliis præceptum invenitur et vetustissimo Catholicæ Ecclesiæ more est observatum. Quare sancta hæc Synodus retinendum omnino salutarem hunc et necessarium morem statuit."-lb. cap. vi.

1. Reservation for the sick, undoubtedly a primitive practice,1 was permitted, under certain restrictions, in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI.2 In the Second Book (1552), in view of the danger of superstitious reservation, the provision for it was omitted altogether. At the last revision in 1662 an express direction was inserted in one of the rubrics at the end of the Order for Holy Communion, that " if any remain of [the bread and wine] which was consecrated, it shall not be carried out of the church, but the priest and such other of the communicants as he shall then call unto him, shall, immediately after the blessing, reverently eat and drink the same." It is tolerably clear that the intention of this rubric was to guard against the irreverent custom, which was only too common, of a priest taking away what remained of the consecrated elements for his own use; but at the same time it is difficult to believe that the rubric could have been so worded had those who introduced it contemplated reservation as still permissible under the directions of the Book of Common Prayer.

1 See Justin Martyr, Apol. I. c. lxvii.: тoîs où wapoûσi dià tŵv diakóvwr πέμπεται.

2 The sick were communicated with the reserved sacrament if there was a celebration of the Holy Communion on the same day; but if the day was "not appointed for the open Communion in the church," provision was made for a special consecration. See the rubrics before "the

Communion of the Sick" in the book of 1549.

The danger of such superstitious reservation is very clearly indicated by the last rubric at the close of the Order of the Holy Communion in the Prayer Book of 1549: Although it be read in ancient writers that the people many years passed received at the priest's hands the sacrament of the body of Christ in their own hands, and no commandment of Christ to the contrary: Yet forasmuch as they many times conveyed the same secretly away, kept it with them, and diversely abused it to superstition and wickedness: lest any such thing hereafter should be attempted, and that an uniformity might be used throughout the whole Realm, it is thought convenient the people commonly receive the sacrament of Christ's body, in their mouths, at the priest's hand."

2. The festival of Corpus Christi was removed from the Calendar in 1549, and the "carrying about" of the Eucharist in procession through the streets and public places is forbidden by the rubric that has just been quoted.

3. The Elevation of the Host for purposes of adoration is said to have been introduced about the year 1100,1 and (like the institution of the festival of Corpus Christi) was a direct consequence of the growth of a belief in Transubstantiation. It was distinctly prohibited in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI., though the prohibition is not repeated in the Second Book.2

4. Adoration of Christ present in the sacrament is not and cannot be prohibited. But it is one thing to worship Christ there present, and quite another to find in the sacrament a distinct localised object of worship; and the "Declaration concerning Kneeling," restored (with the important modification previously mentioned) in 1662, expressly says that by the posture of kneeling "no adoration is intended or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Corporal Presence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood."8

1 See Scudamore's Notitia Eucharistica, p. 546 seq. (ed. 1). And on the earlier elevation connected with the proclamation τὰ ἅγια τοῖς ἁγίοις, which was certainly not for purposes of adoration, see the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. i. p. 605.

2 These words before rehearsed [i.e. the words of consecration] are to be said, turning still to the altar, without any elevation, or showing the sacrament to the people."- Rubric after Consecration in the Prayer Book of 1549.

3 Reference may be made in general on this subject to Mozley's Lectures and other Theological Papers, p. 210 seq.

ARTICLE XXIX

De manducatione Corporis Christi, et impios illud non manducare. Impii, et fide viva destituti, licet carnaliter et visibiliter (ut Augustinus loquitur) corporis et sanguinis Christi sacramentum dentibus premant, nullo tamen modo Christi participes efficiuntur. Sed potius tantæ rei sacramentum, seu symbolum, ad judicium sibi manducant et bibunt.

Of the Wicked which do not eat the
Body of Christ in the use of the
Lord's Supper.

The wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as S. Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ; yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ, but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing.

THE first appearance of this Article (to which there is nothing corresponding in the series of 1553) is in Parker's MS., which was signed by the bishops on January 29, 1563.1 It is also found in two English MSS. of almost the same date, now in the Record Office, in one of which there is a marginal note: "This is the original, but not passed." In a Latin MS. in the same office it is altogether wanting, as it is in the published edition issued a few months later by Wolfe, the royal printer, under the direct authority of the Queen. It must, therefore, have been omitted either in the passage of the Articles through the Lower House of Convocation, or else at an even later stage by the direct intermosition

1 See

p. 30.

er sn

rough

2 State Papers, "Domestic," Elizabeth, vol. xxvii. Nos. 40 and 41.

b. No. 41a.

of the Queen herself, the reason for its omission evidently being a desire to avoid needlessly offending some of those who sympathised with medieval belief and feeling, whom it was desired, if possible, to retain within the limits of the Church. Since it lacked all authority it is naturally wanting in the printed copies up to 1571, when we meet with it again. On May 11th of that year the Articles were considered by the Upper House of Convocation, and a copy was subscribed by Parker and ten other bishops. In this the Twenty-ninth Article is contained. A few days later we find Bishop Guest, by an appeal to Cecil, making a determined effort to prevent the ratification of it on the ground that it "will cause much business." 2 His efforts were, however, unavailing, as it is contained in the copy which was ratified by the Sovereign, and from this time forward it finds its place in all printed copies, both Latin and English. It will be remembered that by this date (1571) the AngloRoman schism was complete, and therefore there was not the same reason as there had been eight years earlier for withholding the Article.

The language of the Article has been traced to no earlier formulary; but it is throughout suggested by a

1 A copy of this is given in Lamb's Historical Account of the ThirtyNine Articles, No. iv.

2 Seo above, p. 662, and G. F. Hodge's Bishop Guest, Articles XXVIII. and XXIX. p. 24.

3 Guest's letter in May 1571 had, however, apparently led to the interview between Cecil and Parker on June 4, referred to in Strype's Parker, pp. 331, 332, when Cecil questioned the reference to S. Augustine. The interview was followed by a letter from Parker on the same day, in which he told the Treasurer that he was "advisedly" still in the same opinion concerning the authority of S. Augustine, "and for further truth of the words, besides S. Austen, both he in other places and Prosper in his 'Sentences wrote of Austen' (Senten. 338 and 339), doth plainly affirm our opinion in the Article to be most true, howsoever some men vary from it." (Parker's Correspondence, p. 381.)

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