as a divine and apostolical tradition, endure such an exposure of its novelty and unsoundness? How very distant was the period when Erigena commanded public attention, from that in which Jesus and his personal followers were said to have initiated Christians into the mysterious doctrine so long mainly distinguishing papal Rome!

That a rejection, however, of this doctrine was deeply interwoven in the religious principles of our Anglo-Saxon ancestry, appears, among many other instances, from a prayer yet extant in their offices. It is a post-communion application to the throne of grace, and the following is its language: "Grant that we may behold, face to face, and may enjoy truly and really in heaven, Him whom here we see enigmatically, and, under another species, Him on whom we feed sacramentally"." Does not this language palpably refer to St. Paul's words, "Here we see through a glass darkly; but there face to face"?" Is it credible, that those who prayed for the true and real enjoyment of Christ, in heaven, for the change of a sacramental or symbolical feeding upon him into a commerce with his genuine species, could have thought bread

b 1 Cor. xiii. 12.

and wine to be converted by eucharistic consecration into an incarnation of the Saviour?

Other presumptions against the belief of ancient England in transubstantiation may probably be drawn from the very devices of Norman times to naturalize that doctrine in the land. Among these may be mentioned a legendary tale, representing Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, to have convinced of its truth some unbelieving minds by means esteemed miraculous, but, if the relation commemorate a fact, evidently collusive 18. A more solemn and decisive testimony to the eucharistic belief of our distant ancestry flows from the queries, addressed in later periods, to bishops before their consecration. A former discourse brought to your notice an interpolation, in this episcopal series of interrogatories, respecting tradition. Transubstantiation furnished another cause for departing from earlier usages. It evidently became insufficient, in process of time, for those who bare rule in ecclesiastical affairs, that no man's brows should be dignified by the mitre, until he had publicly and solemnly declared his assent to those great principles of our holy faith which Christians have uniformly and universally received. Amidst queries from which the congregation had been used to de

rive this satisfaction, we find, accordingly, in later, though ancient pontificals, the following articles introduced: "Do you believe the bread upon the Lord's table to be merely bread before consecration, but to be converted, in the very act of consecration, by God's ineffable power, into the true nature and substance of flesh, and of no other flesh than that which was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary?" Again; "Do you believe that the wine, mingled with water, is truly and essentially converted, by . consecration, into the blood which, through the soldier's lance, flowed from our blessed Saviour's side"?" Whence the need of such disingenuous interpolations? Write they not so "that he may run that readeth it," that transubstantiation was no doctrine of our national Church in earlier times? Betray they not an importunate consciousness in those who subsequently strove to establish the innovation, that candidates for episcopacy might come to the altar, declaring themselves to have been taught no such tradition by their fathers?

Such a plea might, indeed, be urged with force irresistible by divines of English origin. Our islands have not only the remarkable

c Habak. ii. 2.

(shall there be any hesitation here in adding, the honourable) distinction of producing that most eminent theological school, in the eighth and ninth centuries, which affords some of the strongest evidences upon record against Romish eucharistic doctrines; not only did they give birth to the famous Erigena, probably the ablest, undoubtedly the most elaborate opponent of a belief in the corporal presence during the earlier years of its appearance before the learned world; in process of time they brought also upon the stage of life that master-spirit of his age the zealous and laborious Elfric, a writer not by any means outdone, in controverting Romish eucharistic doctrines, even by the homilists, and other theologians who have appeared in England, since the Reformation. It is, indeed, notorious, that, in assertions of a character figurative and purely spiritual for the holy Supper, Ælfric has not shewn himself at all behind the celebrated Ratramn, that eminent divine, who, like our own countryman Erigena, combated Radbert's hypothesis at the bidding of Charles the Bald". Ælfric's well-known paschal homily follows, in fact, upon many occasions, Ratramn's controversial tract so closely, that were other facilities wanting (as they by no means are) of ascer

taining the genuineness of that most important production, our own countryman's discourse would sufficiently supply the requisite proof. Many passages in Ælfric's composition are indeed evidently mere translations from Ratramn". Thus is established equally the existence of that author's tract when the Saxon homilist sat down to instruct our fathers, and the conformity of his principles with those then professed in our national Church22. Besides this irrefragable homiletic witness against transubstantiation, Ælfric has also left, upon two occasions, epistolary matter, affording evidence equally clear and decided, that our forefathers were taught no such tradition 23. But a circumstance greatly enhancing the value of these testimonies has not hitherto received its due share of attention. Both of them occur in addresses of considerable length to the clerical order; addresses which embody the leading points of doctrine and discipline established among our Anglo-Saxon ancestry. They may therefore fairly be considered as pastoral letters; and hence were undoubtedly composed with all that regard to accuracy which public functionaries necessarily use in the preparation of authentic instruments. Who, then, will doubt, that these two epistles and the paschal ho