Breaking with the Past; Or, Catholic Principles Abandoned at the Reformation

To carry out the new order of Communion a form, founded upon the celebrated work of Herman the Archbishop of Cologne, which had just appeared in an English translation, was issued and ordered to be inserted in the Latin Mass. The process of spoliation of the Church begun in the reign of Henry VIII. was continued. A bill, strongly opposed by churchmen, was passed in the House of Lords, giving to the Crown all colleges, free chapels and chantries as well as the property of all guilds and fraternities. By this measure the gravest injustice was done to the members of the guilds, which were the charitable associations, insurance societies, burial and sick clubs of Catholic England. The funds thus confiscated for the most part represented the savings of the poor. Moreover, religion suffered the gravest injury by the confiscation of the chantry funds and the revenues for anniversary prayers for the dead. These were in many cases at least intended to supply the services of additional curates for the work of larger parishes and for annual gifts to the poor.

In the second year of the King's reign Cranmer intimated that the Council had ordered the discontinuance of the old Catholic practices of blessed candles, blessed ashes and blessed palms, as well as the Good Friday ceremony of honouring the crucifix, known as "creeping to the cross."

All these changes were, however, only indications of the more serious attack on the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, which was being engineered by the now almost openly avowed English Reforming party, headed by Cranmer. On December 14, 1548, a draft of a new Prayer Book in English to supersede the ancient Missal and Breviary was introduced into the House of Lords and there followed a long debate upon the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament, contained in the service, which was intended to take the place of the ancient Mass. This part of the new Book of Common Prayer has a special interest and significance.

In the course of this debate it appeared clearly that Archbishop Cranmer had given up all belief in the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation and in the sacrificial character of the Eucharist. In the account of this discussion it also appears that the word "oblation," which had been left in the proposed new Canon when the draft was shown to the Bishops, had been struck out of the document presented to Parliament for its approval, without their knowledge or consent. On January 15, 1549, Parliament by statute approved the new form of service to take the place of the Mass; its authority being simply a schedule of an act of Parliament; the Church in synod or convocation almost certainly having had nothing to say in this vital matter of doctrine and practice.

It is not infrequently asserted that after all, except that the new Communion service was in English, there was little or no change made in form or substance. In other words, that the office of Communion, in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. – the Book of 1549 – was the Latin Mass translated into English. Whatever else it was, whether a return to primitive observances or an adaptation of ancient foreign liturgies, or any other thing of the same nature, it was most certainly not a translation; not even a free rendering of the Latin Mass into the vernacular.

Those who are familiar with the Latin Missal, or those who will take the trouble to examine it, will see at once that the Mass consists mainly of two parts, – the first a preparation for and leading up to the second. In the former we have the prayers and supplications with passages of Holy Scripture from the Epistles and Gospels, selected by the Church as appropriate to the feast or Sunday upon which they are read. In this part also we have the ceremonial offices arranged for the offering of the bread and wine prepared for the Christian Sacrifice, accompanied by prayers expressing the idea of sacrifice and oblation.

Thus, for example, at the offering of the bread the priest says these words: "Receive, O Holy Father, Almighty and Everlasting God, this spotless Host," etc. When he offers the chalice with the wine and water in it he says: "We offer up to Thee, O Lord, the chalice of Salvation, beseeching Thee of Thy mercy that our sacrifice may ascend with an odour of sweetness in the sight of Thy Divine Majesty," etc.; and he adds: "May the Sacrifice we this day offer up be well-pleasing to Thee." Finally, bowing down before the altar, the priest says: "Receive, O Holy Trinity, this oblation offered up by us to Thee," etc., and, turning to those who are assisting, he says: "Brethren, pray that this sacrifice, which is both mine and yours, may be well-pleasing to God the Father Almighty." To this the people through the server reply: "May the Lord receive this sacrifice at your hands," etc. Everyone who will carefully examine these prayers must see that the main idea contained in all is that of sacrifice and oblation. In the same way the prayer called the Secret, which follows upon the offering of the bread and wine for the Sacrifice, though it varies with the feast celebrated, practically always contains some mention of the oblation or victim to be offered. Thus on this, the second Sunday of Advent, the Secret prayer contains these words: "Be appeased, we beseech Thee, O Lord, by our prayers and by the sacred Victim we humbly offer," etc.

In the second part of the Holy Mass we shall find, if we use our Missals, or Mass books, that there is one unchanging ritual formula called the "Canon," during which the words of Consecration are pronounced by the priest over the bread and wine. By the efficacy of these words, as we Catholics believe, the substance of the bread and wine are changed by God's power into the Body and Blood of Christ; and in this Sacred Canon the Christian sacrifice is perfected. Naturally we should expect to find in this solemn part of the Mass the same idea of sacrifice and oblation clearly expressed. And so it is. The priest begs Almighty God "to receive and to bless these gifts, these oblations, these holy and spotless hosts, which we offer up to Thee;" and "to be appeased by this oblation which we offer." Again he prays: "Vouchsafe to bless this same oblation, to take it for Thy very own.. so that on our behalf it may be made into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ," etc. To this he adds: "Wherefore we offer up to thine excellent Majesty.. a Victim which is pure, a Victim which is holy, a Victim which is stainless, the holy Bread of life everlasting and the Cup of eternal salvation." Then after the words of Consecration, bowing down before the sacred species on the altar, the celebrant says: "Humbly we beseech Thee, Almighty God, to command that by the hands of Thy holy Angel, this our Sacrifice be uplifted to thine altar on high."

Now let us understand what was done by the English Reformers in the new service drawn up in 1549 to take the place of the ancient Mass. In a general way it may be said that up to the Gospel the first Communion service followed outwardly at least the old Missals. The ritual offering of the bread and wine, however, with the prayers expressing oblation and sacrifice – a part which was known as the Offertory – was swept away altogether in the new service. In its place was substituted a few sentences appropriate to almsgiving and a new meaning was given to the word "Offertory," which has since come to signify a collection. This change is significant of the Eucharistic doctrines of the German Reformers and is fully in accord with Cranmer's known opinions in regard to oblation and sacrifice, every expression or idea of which was ruthlessly removed from the new Book. The old prayer, called the Secret, which almost invariably contained a mention of the Sacrifice about to be offered, was left out.

Following upon the Offertory and Secret comes the Preface, or immediate preparation for the sacred Canon. This, with certain unimportant changes, was allowed to stand in the new composition as it was in the Missal. But the last words of the Sanctus, with which the Preface invariably concludes: "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord," although allowed to stand in the first Book of Common Prayer of 1549, was removed in the subsequent Book of 1552, and does not find a place in the present Communion Service. The reason for this later change is obvious. With the new Canon we come to understand the full significance of the changes made in the new liturgy. Our present detailed knowledge of the Canon of the Mass goes back for thirteen hundred years, and, with the exception of one short clause inserted by St. Gregory the Great, it has remained unchanged to the present day. This alone is a sufficient testimony to the veneration in which the prayer was regarded. It was a sacred heritage, coming to the Catholic Church from unknown antiquity, and it was substantially the same in every Western liturgy.

The Canon of the First Communion service was, so far as ideas go, an absolutely new Canon. Outwardly, even, it was so different to the Canon of the Mass that it was characterised by the common people as "a Christmas game." It offers prayers to God in place of "these gifts, these offerings, these holy undefiled sacrifices" of the Catholic Canon; and in a word, every idea or expression of the ancient doctrine of sacrifice was studiously omitted by the composers of the new Prayer Book. In fact, the words of "Consecration," or as they are now frequently called, "Institution," which it might have been supposed even Cranmer would have respected as too sacred to touch or tamper with, are changed for a formula taken from the new Lutheran use of Nuremberg, which had been drawn up by Osiander, Cranmer's relative by marriage.

In brief, then, it is impossible for any unbiased mind to compare the ancient Canon of the Holy Mass – the Canon which still exists unchanged in our Missals to-day – with the relative part of the new Communion service without seeing that both in spirit and substance the First Prayer Book of Edward VI was conceived with the design of getting rid of the Catholic Mass altogether. 2 It was as little a translation of the Latin Missal as the similar Lutheran productions of Germany, which were ostensibly based upon the design of getting rid of the sacrificial character of the Mass altogether. The First Prayer Book of 1549 merely represented one stage of the downgrade of Eucharistic doctrine in departure from the old Catholic beliefs towards the more advanced Protestant schools of thought represented by Calvin and others. So another – the second liturgy of Edward VI – was soon in preparation and was issued in 1552.

In one thing only did it differ. In the First Prayer Book the Communion service contained some shreds of a Canon, – a new Canon, it is true, but a Canon, – whereas Luther's declared intention was to get rid of what he called "the abominable Canon" altogether, leaving only the words of Institution. This too was effected in the Second Prayer Book of 1552. In this also there is one significant omission amongst a number of other changes. From the "Sanctus" after the Preface and immediately leading up to the Canon the words "Blessed is He who cometh in the name of the Lord" are omitted as if to emphasise the rejection of the doctrine of Transubstantiation in the new formulae.

It is unnecessary to do more than point out that the rejection of authority in religious matters had already the consequences which any reasonable man would have prophesied for a system of religion founded upon the royal power, or, as in this case of the young King Edward, upon the personal opinions of his ministers. It is in some quarters the fashion nowadays to assume that there were no substantial changes in the Liturgy of the Church at this period, and that the Catholic Mass and the Anglican Communion service to-day are essentially and substantially the same. To any one, who will put the one by the side of the other and note the changes and omissions, it must appear as clear as the noonday sun that there is a difference, essential and substantial, depending upon doctrinal teaching, on which there should be no misunderstanding. I am not here concerned to determine whether these changes were good or bad. What I wish to make clear is that these changes were made, and that they are significant of a change in doctrine.

NOTE

COMPARISON OF THE MASS AND THE COMMUNION SERVICE

1. Blessed is he who cometh, etc., left out in 1552 and subsequent recensions. 2. This is still found in the Communion Service. 3. Omitted in 1552 4. Omitted in 1552. The American Service has accept this our bounden duty and Service as above, but LEAVES out "and command these," etc.

III

THE PRIESTHOOD

LAST Sunday I spoke of the Catholic doctrine of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist; I pointed out what our faith taught us about the Blessed Sacrament and how the Mass was to our Catholic forefathers and to us to-day, the central act of worship of God; and that the Holy Communion in a very true sense is the food of our spiritual life, as it binds us to God and brings Him into our lives in truth and in reality, which is the end and object of every act of religion. I pointed out to you that by the principles of the Reformation, adopted by the followers of the Lutheran theology in England, the Mass, as a "Sacrifice and Oblation," was not merely attacked doctrinally, and spoken of by the men of the "New Learning" with scurrilous profanity, but destroyed altogether, as far as it was possible for them to do. The service of Communion in the New Book of Common Prayer, designed to take the place of the ancient missals, was drawn up in such a way as to get rid of every expression of the Catholic doctrine as to the Sacrifice of the Mass, absolutely. If the old dictum lex orandi est lex credendi– prayer follows belief – has any application at all, it must be obvious in this case that the authors of the new English Prayer Book had completely rejected the Catholic belief as to the Most Holy Sacrament. The proof lies not in the new forms only when compared with the old, but in the clear and definite statements of those who had the main share in drawing up the Communion Service of the Book of Common Prayer and the chief part in imposing its acceptance upon the people of England.

I know well that in comparatively late times one school of thought in the English Church have endeavoured to get back to the old Catholic doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass. Some have been so dissatisfied with the formula of the Communion in the Book of Common Prayer that they have added to it and have even in some cases made use of our ancient Canon from the Latin missal. In other instances, as in the Communion Service in the American Church, a longer Canon had been adopted, taken from the First Prayer Book of 1549 and arranged differently from that of the Second Book now in use in England. But the doctrine in this is in no sense our Catholic doctrine. For, although the words "sacrifice" and "oblation" may be found in it, as indeed in the Anglican prototype, the word signifies not the Catholic sacrifice, the offering up of the Body and Blood of our Lord as a living victim upon the altar, but as the words in the Communion office define it, "our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving," in which "we offer and present ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice unto thee." Mind, for my present purpose, I am not here contending that the work of the Reformers in the 16th century in thus composing a new formula was wrong. All I would insist upon is that this was in fact done; that certain ancient Catholic principles were abandoned in the New Communion Service, and that this new Book by the authority of the State was imposed upon the consciences of all.

That the change thus forcibly effected was disliked very generally cannot be doubted. The new Service was ordered to come into general use in the Churches on Whitsunday, 1549, and the very next day the people of Stamford Courtenay in Devon compelled their parish priest to return to the old missal. This was but an indication of the spirit of the people and a beginning of those numerous disturbances in various parts of the country which for a time seriously alarmed the men in power. In Oxfordshire the rising was put down with a firm hand and many priests were hanged from the towers of their parish churches, as the obvious leaders of their people to resist these innovations. In Devonshire the rising took a more serious aspect and the people assembled in their thousands demanding the restoration of the Latin Mass and the abolition of the new service in English, which they described as "a Christmas game." "We will have," they said, "the Mass as of old and the Blessed Sacrament hanging in our churches"; and to show the religious character of their revolt against the State-imposition of the new form of religion, the insurgents carried the Most Holy Sacrament in a pyx in their midst, and marched with processional crosses and banners. By the aid of foreign mercenaries – German and Italian – they were defeated, and thousands, some say twenty thousand of the men who rose in defence of the Catholic doctrine of the Mass were slaughtered.

We have now to go a step farther in our contrast of our Catholic belief with the Reformation principles. This morning I propose to speak of the sacred priesthood. The Catholic doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass imples a sacrificing priesthood. To us a priest in the first place is a man chosen, set aside and consecrated for the service of the altar. He is a man and, alas! sometimes, in spite of the dignity of his calling, he shows himself to be very human; but by the vocation of God that is given to him and by his ordination at the hands of the bishop he receives a character which nothing can take away and which enables him to stand before the altar and offer the Christian Sacrifice. At his word, spoken by the power God has given him, he changes the elements of bread and wine into the true and real Body and Blood of Christ, and offers them to God a sacrifice for the living and the dead. This is the Catholic belief as to the priesthood, and it has been the belief of Catholics from the earliest ages. I am not concerned to prove this, but merely state it as a part of our belief.

As might be expected, the doctrine is set forth clearly in the form of Ordination, to be found in the ancient Pontificals, or Books containing those forms, which to-day are practically the same as those used in England in the sixteenth century. If we take the rite of Ordination to the priesthood we shall immediately note in the address of admonition to the candidates that the Bishop speaks of the purity of life necessary for those "who celebrate Mass and consecrate the Body and Blood of Christ"; whose hands are anointed "that they may know that they receive the grace of Consecrating"; and who receive the chalice and paten to show "they receive the power of offering sacrifices pleasing to God, since it belongs to them to consecrate the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord on God's altar." The candidate is likewise reminded of the excellence of the priestly office by virtue of which the Passion of Christ is daily celebrated on the altar.

In the course of the rite, the priest's hands are blessed, since he is to consecrate the sacrifice offered for the sins and offences of the people; and he is given the chalice, etc., to show forth and emphasise the power to offer sacrifice and celebrate the Mass; and in the final blessing God is asked to bless the newly ordained in the priestly order who is to offer Sacrifices pleasing to Him. In a word the whole Ordination service in the Catholic Pontifical reiterates and most emphatically states the fact that the priest is ordained to offer up the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ upon the altar. This is the dominant note running through the entire rite: the ordained is made a "sacrificing priest." Towards the close of the ceremony, and after the new priest has acted as such by co-consecrating with the Bishop at Mass, the Bishop gives him the power of jurisdiction by placing his hands upon his head saying: "Receive the Holy Ghost: whose sins ye shall forgive they are forgiven," etc.

This was the rite of Ordination to the priesthood which was in existence in England at the time when the First Prayer Book of Edward VI was imposed on the English clergy and people. On the face of it there could be no possibility of allowing this old Ordination service to stand as it was. The Mass had been changed into a Communion service, – a memorial of Christ's Passion, – and the doctrinal teaching of the former had been made, rightly or wrongly, to give place to the Reformed principles clearly expressed in the latter. The notion of oblation and sacrifice was now wholly foreign to the Eucharistic teaching, as understood by the followers of the Lutheran German reformed religion, who had presided over the composition of the new Prayer Book. It became therefore necessary to draw up another form for the Ordination of ministers, conceived on the same doctrinal basis as that of the Book of Common Prayer.

This new Ordinal was in fact already prepared when the Prayer Book was issued, and on January 5, 1550, a Bill to sanction it was introduced into the House of Peers. It gave rise to much discussion, and for refusing to assent to it one of the bishops was lodged in the prison where others of the Catholic-minded prelates were already confined. The "New form and manner of making and consecrating archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons" was, however, approved of by Parliament in anticipation and ordered to be ready for April 1.

The new Ordinal did in regard to the ancient Catholic Pontifical what the Communion service had done for the Missal. Having first swept away all the minor Orders and the Subdiaconate, the new form carefully and systematically excluded every word that could be interpreted to mean that the candidate was ordained to be a sacrificing priest. For the most part the new rite was a new composition, drawn up to meet the doctrinal views as to the Holy Eucharist of the English Reformers of advanced Lutheran principles. One of the few passages of the Pontifical preserved in the Ordinal were the words, "Receive the Holy Ghost: whose sins ye shall forgive," etc, which accompanied the Imposition of Hands after the ordination in the ancient rite and conferred "the power of the Keys." In the new rite this subordinate form became the substantial form of the new Ordination service, although in it there was for a hundred years, until 1662, no mention of the Order conferred. There can be hardly any doubt that this omission came about by the adoption of the old form by the compilers of the new Ordinal. In the case of the Catholic Pontifical no such specific mention was called for, as when used in that to convey jurisdiction, the priest was already ordained and had co-celebrated with the Bishop.

Once more I repeat that I am not here concerned with any discussion as to whether the new Ordinal was better or worse than the ancient Pontifical. I desire merely to bring out the facts and to make it clear that the service of Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordination service in a doctrinal point of view go together. They are the expression of a change, of a serious organic change from the ancient teachings of the Faith, as expressed in the Missal and Pontifical. The Prayer Book and the Ordinal of Edward VI were the serious expression of the deliberate alteration in the Eucharistic teachings of the official heads of the Church in England at this time. They constituted a break, clear, sharp and decisive with the past. There can be no doubt of this in view of the facts. The change may have been for good or for ill, but it can hardly be denied that it was made, and made not by accident but of set purpose. It was a deliberate breach in the continuity of teaching as to the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Mass, which had existed in the Church in England from the earliest days of Christianity; and the new teaching found its expression in the new formularies. 3

There can be no doubt as to what the ardent Reformers, who had the matter in hand, intended to do. The press teemed with books of ribald denunciation of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Orders of the ancient Catholic rite were derided in such terms as "greasy and stinking" Orders. Moreover, the destruction of the altars obviously emphasised the change which had taken place. The abolition of the Sacrifice and the Sacrificing priesthood made them obsolete and unnecessary. Bishop Ridley, a reforming prelate of the most uncompromising type, directed the Churchwardens of London to pull down the popish altars and to procure in their place "the form of a table" in order "more and more to turn the simple from the old superstitious opinions of the popish Mass." The substitute for the Catholic altars was to be "after the form of an honest table decently covered," and was to be placed anywhere in the chancel or choir, as was found most convenient. At St. Paul's, London, for example, various experiments were made both as to the best position of the table and as to how best the minister could stand at it. Four years later Bishop White of Winchester taunted Ridley about this. "When your table was constituted," he said, "you could never be content in placing the same, now east, now north, now one way, now another, until it pleased God of His goodness to place it clean out of the Church."