like promise of the Holy Spirit, founded in the same merits of Christ's obedience and sufferings: there is the same reason for a consecration of the outward symbols in both, the same ground for expecting the presence of the Spirit; the same warrant for asking it; the same rule to go by in the doing it; and the like primitive practice to countenance it. If we proceed upon favourable presumption, that what obtained universally, without order of councils, in the third or fourth century, (and of which there is no memorandum left when it began,) must be taken for apostolical, then the practice as to either Sacrament will bear the same date: but if we choose rather, apart from all conjectures, to set the practice in each no higher than we have certain evidences of it, from monuments now extant, then we must date the practice with respect to Baptism no higher than the third, or however second century, when Tertullian flourished; and with respect to the Eucharist, no higher perhaps than the fourth, as we shall see presently ". I am aware, that several very worthy and learned men (and among the rest Dr. Grabe) have thought of an earlier date than I have just now mentioned; and by their united labours and searches into that question, have enabled those that come after them to see the more clearly into it. Two very learned writers, (not to mention more now,) Mr. Pfaffius abroad, and Mr. Johnson at home, have particularly traced that matter with all the diligence imaginable, and have both of them endeavoured to carry it up as high as there was any colour for carrying it. One of them appeals even to Ignatius, as a voucher for the practice o, because he makes mention of some heretics who 'abstained from the Eucharist and prayer, as not acknowledging the Eucharist to be the flesh of Christ The testimonies of such invocation in the Eucharist are collected by Pfaffius, p. 374. &c. Bingham, xv. 3, II. Collier, Reasons, &c., p. 21, &c. Deylingius, Observ. Miscell. p. 196, &c.. U 344, &c. Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice, part i. p. 241, alias 245; part ii. p. 180. Compare Collier, Reasons, &c., p. 22. Defence, p. 101, &c. Vindication, p. 109, &c., 128, &c. Jesus P.' But I cannot see how, by any ever so distant consequence, we can thence fairly conclude, that it was the practice of that time to pray for the descent of the Holy Ghost in the Eucharist: for if the words of the institution were but used in the prayer of Consecration in those days, that alone is sufficient to account for all that Ignatius says there, or anywhere else. Mr. Pfaffius, more plausibly, endeavours to run up the practice as high as Irenaeus of the second century. And, indeed, could he have sufficiently warranted the genuineness of those fragments which he has obliged the learned world with, under the name of Irenaeus, there could have been no room left for further dispute on that head 9. But he has not done it; neither is it, I believe, possible to be doner. As to his argument drawn from the use of the word ekkλnois, or énikλnois, invocation of God, in Irenaeus's certainly genuine works, it is too precarious a topic to build a thing of this moment upon; because there may be an invocation of God in prayer, without any praying for the descent of the Holy Spirit; and nikλnois is nothing but a common name for any kind of invocation in prayer; as when the three Persons are named or invoked in the form of Baptism, (for so Origen uses it t,) or are otherwise named in the Eucharist; as they certainly were by Justin Martyr's account ". No proof therefore hath been yet given of the practice of praying for the descent of the Holy Ghost, in the eucharistical service, so early as Irenaeus's days. Mr. Pfaffius endeavours next w to make it at least as ancient as the third century; because the Dialogue against the Marcionites, commonly ascribed to Origen, or else to Maximus of the same age, makes mention of the Holy Spirit's coming upon the Eucharist. But besides that there is no mention of any prayer for such descent, (so that the evidence here comes not up to the point in question,) I say, besides that, the author of that Dialogue, most certainly, was neither Origen, nor Maximus, nor any of that age, but probably another Adamantius, who lived in the fourth century, in the time of Constantine; as the learned editor in his new edition of Origen has observed at large y. At last then, we must be content to come down as low as the fourth century, and indeed towards the middle of it, (when the elder Cyril wrote,) for clear and undoubted evidence of the practice of praying for the illapse of the Spirit upon the symbols in the holy Communion. No doubt but it was used in the Church of Jerusalem before, for Cyril did not invent it, nor first use it: but how long before, is the question; which, for want of higher records, we cannot now certainly determine. Cyril intimates part of the very form of the invocation then in use; and it may be worth the setting down here for the reader's perusal. We beseech the all-merciful God to send the Holy Ghost upon the elements, that he may make the bread Christ's body, and the wine Christ's blood. For whatsoever the Holy Ghost once touches, that most certainly must be sanctified and changed. That is, as to its uses or offices. Some time after, the Priest says; 'Holy are the elements which lie before us, having received the illapse of the Holy Spirit: holy also are ye, being now endowed with the Holy Spirit a.' This was said before the receiving; which I note, for the · Τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα ἐπὶ τῆς εὐχαριστίας ἔρχεται. Adamantius Dialog. sect. ii. p. 826. edit. Bened. Delarue in Admonitione praevia, p. 800, &c. * Παρακαλοῦμεν τὸν φιλάνθρωπον Θεόν, τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα ἀποστείλαι ἐπὶ τὰ προκείμενα· ἵνα ποιήσῃ τὸν μὲν ἄρτον σῶμα Χριστοῦ, τὸν δὲ οἶνον αἷμα Χριστοῦ· πάντως γὰρ οὗ ἐὰν ἐφάψαιτο τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα, τοῦτο ἡγίασται καὶ μεταβέβληται. Cyrill. Mystag. v. cap. 7. p. 327. Cp. Albertin. 320. a ̔́Αγια τὰ προκείμενα, ἐπιφοίτησιν δεξάμενα ἁγίου πνεύματος· ἅγιοι καὶ ὑμεῖς πνεύματος ἁγίου καταξιωθέντες. Τὰ ἅγια οὖν τοῖς ἁγίοις Kaтáλλŋλа. Ibid. c. xix. p. 331. sake of some inferences to be made from it: 1. That the elements are not here made the conduit of the Holy Spirit, (for the Spirit is supposed to be received by the communicants before them and without them,) but the service of the Eucharist is the conduit rather, if either of them properly be SO. 2. That the meaning of the prayer for the illapse of the Spirit is, to invite the Spirit to come down upon the communicants immediately, or principally, to make them holy in a sense proper to them, as well as to make the elements holy in a sense proper to things inanimate: therefore Cyril adds, 'holy things then are meet for holy men.' Hence also came that ancient eucharistical form of 'sancta sanctis,' holy things for holy men b, made use of previously to the reception of the sacred symbols. 3. Though the elements are sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and thereupon become relatively holy, as being now sacred symbols and representatives of our Lord's body and blood, yet they are not beneficial to unholy persons, but hurtful, and therefore are not to them the body and blood of Christ in real grace, virtue, energy, or effect. 4. Since the persons are supposed to become holy by the presence of the Holy Spirit, previously to receiving, in order to reap benefit from it, it is plain that, as to the request for making the elements Christ's body and blood, the meaning only is, that they may be so made, not in themselves, but to the communicants, considered as holy: b A full account of it may be seen in Menardus's Notes upon the Gregorian Sacramentary, p. 566. Touttée's Notes on Cyril, p. 331. And Bingham's Eccles. Antiq. book xv. ch. 3. sect. 31. vol. v. p. 344. Oxf. edit. So in the Canon of the Mass, and in our Communion Service of King Edward's Prayer-Book of the first edition, the words run, 'That they may become to us the body and blood of Christ.' Of which Mr. Thorndike very judiciously comments, as here follows: These words "to us," make an abatement in the proper signification of the body and blood. For the elements may be said to become the body and blood of Christ without addition, in the same true sense in which they are so called in the Scriptures: but when they are said to become the body and blood of Christ to them that communicate, that true sense is so well signified and expressed, that the words cannot well be under stood otherwise than to import, not the corporal substance, but for, were the elements absolutely Christ's body and blood, they would be so both to the holy and unholy, which they are not. Indeed both good and bad do receive the consecrated signs, but those only who are worthy do receive the things signified. The next oldest form we meet with, after Cyril's, may be that of the Constitutions, falsely called Apostolical: We) beseech thee, O God, thou that art above the need of anything, to look graciously down upon these gifts here lying before thee, and to accept them favourably for the honour of thy Christ, and to send thy Holy Spirit upon this sacrifice,.. the witness of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus; that he may make this bread become the body of thy Christ, and this cup become the blood of thy Christ; that they who partake thereof may be confirmed in godliness, may obtain remission of sins, may be delivered from the devil and his impostures, I need not go on may be filled with the Holy Ghost,' &c.d to later forms of like kind, many of which are to be met with in the large Collections of Liturgies, published by Fabricius, Goar, Renaudot, Mabillon, and others. English reader may find a competent number of the same in a Collection translated by several hands, and published by the Reverend Dr. Brett, with several very learned and curious Dissertations upon them, worth the considering e. the spiritual use of them.' Thorndike, Relig. Assemb. p. 369. 'In the book of the holy Communion we do not pray absolutely, that the bread and wine may be made the body and blood of Christ, but that unto us, in that holy mystery, they may be so: that is to say, that we may so worthily receive the same, that we may be partakers of Christ's body and blood, and that therewith in spirit and in truth we may be spiritually nourished.' Archbishop Cranmer against Gardiner, p. 79. edit. 1580. 4 Αξιοῦμέν σε ὅπως εὐμενῶς ἐπιβλέψῃς ἐπὶ τὰ προκείμενα δῶρα The ταῦτα ἐνώπιόν σου, σὺ ὁ ἀνενδεὴς Brett's Collection of the principal Liturgies, printed A.D. 1720. |