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ing for the war, seem about to close in deadly strife. Hitherto the movement, checked though it has been in some of its manifestations, and now and then turned aside from its direct course into other channels, has been still onward. Less extended probably in numerical strength, and less swollen by the adherence of the mixed multitude than at a former period, never did it flow in so deep a channel, or so headlong a current as at the present moment. Again are its timid friends, as amid the stunning events of 1845-47, becoming startled, and shrink back terror-stricken at the prospect of the catastrophe they have themselves contributed to hasten on.* Meanwhile, the ultimate resolution of the movement,-the terminus ad quem, -to which so many influences, and the labour of so many agents, have been leading, has been becoming more and more apparent. The essence of the Roman system may be said to lie in two cardinal points. The one is ecclesiastical unity, the other is sacramental grace. The first has its culminating point in the Papacy, the latter in the Mass. These two institutions respectively form the proper, legitimate, logical development of the two principles. Now the Oxford movement of the last twenty years, disguised as its character may sometimes have been, and diverse as may have been the ultimate and conscious aims of its promoters, has been throughout right in the direction of these two points. To the former it had long since approached as near as it was possible, in consistency with even a nominal continuance within the English pale. In the theory of a catholic visible unity without a pope, they had given the principle its utmost conceivable development out of communion with Rome, and no further step remained to be taken short of an actual submission to her claims. It remained only that a similar full development should be given to the other principle. To the nearest approximation to an Anglican catholic unity, there must be added the nearest approximation to an Anglican mass. Towards this point, accordingly, have the labours and aspirations of the party of late years been more and more converging. No longer satisfied, as in earlier years, with Christ's real spiritual presence in the ordinance, they must have his actual, substantial presence on the altar; instead of a mere commemorative sacrifice, they must have a real propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; the practice of frequent communion, so earnestly contended for at first, is despised as "light bread," and they pant for participation in the eucharistic sacrifice, with or without the reception of the sacrament. To this object all the varied resources of the party have been made to conspire,--the mummeries of ritualism, the glories of architecture, and the dogmatic lore and

* See a recent article on excessive ritualism in the "English Churchman."

scholastic subtility of divines. For this purpose, the simple communion table of the prayer-book must be transformed into an altar; with this view it must be made if possible of stone, and raised as high as possible above the chancel floor, so as to loom altar-like in the view of the congregation; tapers, as many as the law will allow, must burn upon it, a cross, in lack of the prohibited crucifix, must surmount it, and the sedilia, the credence table, and all the other essentials of a mediæval shrine must guard it round; priests and choristers must bow before it, and endless processions, prostrations, genuflexions, mark the sacredness of the place; the dimly muttered prayers must imitate the sotto voce repetition of the Latin mass; and even the elevation of the host must be insinuated in poor mimicry, and the people taught to bow the head at the tremendous spectacle; priests shall advance to the altar muttering Latin prayers, and communicants shall kneel trembling, and receive the awful mysteries in the open palm, with hands disposed in the form of a cross, while they whisper the missal prayer, "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak thou the word," &c. All this may be done has been done-and for a while has amused and almost satisfied its miserable votaries. But the spell soon dissolves. What avails all this pompous ceremonial without the doctrine and the faith which alone can give life and meaning to it? What is the form of the mass without its reality, the costly shrine without the awful dogma it enshrines. A tabernacle without a present God. A sacrificial ceremonial without a sacrifice. What but a miserable, empty mockery-the amusement of children, not the worship of earnest men. The deeper minds of the party felt this; and so, while some were busying themselves with the outward drapery of the Anglo-Catholic system, others set themselves in earnest to revive its living body, its dogmas, its faith, its worship, as a thing of conviction and of the heart. The present volume, with other lesser emanations of a similar kind, are the result of this. It is an attempt to insert a firm foundation beneath that structure, hitherto more imposing than solid, of which the ceremonial fooleries of St Barnabas, and the devotional garbage of Masters', Aldersgate Street, and Lumley's, Holborn, are but the lesser features and ornaments. Shall the attempt be allowed to succeed? Shall England farther endure the progress of a party who will never rest until mass is sung in Westminster Abbey, and the confessional reigns in

"On applying for these rosaries at Masters or other accredited publishers of the Tractarian school, you are told that they have been suppressed; but at the same time you are significantly informed that they are to be procured at Lumley's, Holborn,' and comforted with the assurance that Mr Lumley is a good churchman."-From Mr Brock's eloquent and well-toned tract, which, with the other able pamphlet at the head of this article, we cordially commend to the attention of our readers.

Shall her dear-loved

every church and parish in the land? sanctuary, founded on the blood of martyrs, be turned into a Roman mass-house, and the heritage of her children given up again to be devoured by the swarming devotees of a superstitious faith? Shall the entire Episcopate of England, individual members of which have in former days so nobly stood in the breach, stand calmly by-allow themselves to be braved by a recreant priest, the formularies of their church to be insulted, her faith reviled, a mine openly laid beneath her very foundations for destruction? Shall a Romish zealot be permitted to skulk about the land,-wearing the uniform and holding the commission of the Reformed Church, enjoying her dignities, eating her bread, betraying her people, unchallenged, unrebuked, uncondemned? We cannot believe it. The spirit of English faith and liberty may have slumbered, but we fervently hope is not dead. The time for action is come, and with the time, the men also will, we trust, be found. Now is the golden moment for striking a decisive blow, and inaugurating a course of purifying discipline which, by God's blessing, may eventually root out the fatal malady. That treachery which hitherto worked in secret now comes forth in open day; that heresy which used to quibble and palter in a double sense now speaks aloud, and in no uncertain sound; that many-headed form of error has gathered itself at last, as it were, into one head, so that striking at that you may strike at its very life. The arraignment and condemnation by competent authority of this one volume will make a shaking in the church and realm of England such as has not been seen for many a day-a shaking at the thought of which timid hearts may tremble, but which will be the necessary prelude to better days. May the God of all might and grace interpose, and both himself work, and raise up men qualified and equal to the crisis! May he send down on all "bishops and curates, and all congregations committed to their charge," the spirit of faithfulness and truth, and especially impart to those in high place and authority grace, according to their solemn vow, "with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's Word!" And may the history of the Church of England in these days be hereafter written in such words as these, "Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment, and so the plague was stayed!"

*

* The whole recent proceedings of the party shew the importance they attach to this volume. Drawn up as a catechetical treatise, and obviously intended for the use of students, the utmost exertions have been made to press it into the widest circulation. It is in short the manifesto of the Romanising party, of which Archdeacon Wilberforce is now the Coryphæus, on this most vital part of their whole system. Its condemnation, therefore, would be a blow struck at the very vitals at once of the system and of the party.

+Office for the Consecration of Bishops and Archbishops, according to the order of the United Church of England and Ireland." 2 T

VOL. III.-NO. X.

ART. VII.-Sketches of the Pulpit in Ancient and in Modern Times.

IT admits of little question that preaching took its rise from the public reading of the Scriptures. No one needs to be informed how regularly this formed a part of the synagogue service. The case of our Lord's expositions in this way is too familiar to bear recital. The apostles, and Paul in particular, seem to have followed the same method. Indeed, this may be taken as the rule, while free utterances, like that at Mars'hill, are considered as the exceptions. Little has come down to us in regard to the precise form taken by the discourses of Christian teachers in the early and less rhetorical period. The celebrated passage of Justin Martyr points towards the familiar harangue or exhortation, rather than the elaborate comment on Scripture. This we apprehend arose in part from the fact-now very much neglected, though significant― that inculcation of doctrine was carried on chiefly in the classes of catechumens, while the public assembly was more employed for lively addresses to the Christian people. Justin expressly declares that the writings of the prophets and apostles were read to the assembly. The Apostolical Constitutions doubtless report a well-known usage, when they say that the congregation reverently stood while the reading took place; of which some churches retain a vestige, in the custom of rising when the little fragment, by synecdoche called the gospel, is recited. Liberty was given to the aged and infirm to remain seated. In our times, when people refuse to stand even in prayer, such a usage would prove burdensome in the extreme.

There is good reason to believe that the portions of Scripture for public reading were at first left to the free choice of the presiding minister. After a while, when festivals and fasts became numerous, ingenuity was exercised to affix certain passages to the subject of commemoration. From this it was an easy step to a programme of regular lessons for all Sundays and great days. But these were far from being uniform or immutable. Thus we find that the churches in Syria read at Pentecost from the Acts of the Apostles, while those of Spain and Gaul read the Revelation. In Syria they read Genesis in Lent, but at Milan, Job and Jonah. In Northern Africa the history of our Lord's passion was appropriately read on Good Friday; at Easter, the account of the resurrection,-in both cases from Matthew. When we come down to the days of Augustine, we find the lessons somewhat fixed; and it would be easy to make numerous citations from his works to this point. Antiquaries refer the first collection of lessons, called

Lectionaries, in Gaul, to about the middle of the fifth century; the oldest known being the celebrated Lectionarium Gallicanum. In the eighth century it was still necessary for the imperial authority of Charlemagne to enforce uniformity in the portions read.

When matters had gradually assumed their rubrical settlement, the church customs became fixed. The reading was by a reader or lector, who stood in the elevation known as the ambo. He began with the words, " Peace unto you," to which there was a response by the people, such as is familiar to us in modern service-books. The gospels had the precedence, as they still have in the Missal, and were frequently read by the deacon. This we suppose to have been a very ancient custom, and one which might well have a place in modern liturgies, where the voice of the minister is often overtasked, in oppressive seasons and times of ill-health. The sermon was pronounced sometimes from the bishop's cathedra, before bishops had ceased to preach, or from the steps of the altar, when this had taken the place of the communion table; in some instances, however, from the ambo, which reveals a connection of the discourse with the lesson of Scripture.

In attempting to gather some notices of early preaching, we have to grope amidst darkness, most of our authorities belonging to a corrupt and ritualistic period. The preacher began with the Pax omnibus, to which the audience responded. We find Augustine asking them sometimes to help him with their prayers. "The lesson out of the Apostles," he says, in one place, "is dark and difficult," and he craves their intercession. And elsewhere: Quemadmodum nos, ut ista percipiatis, oramus, sic et vos orate, ut ea vobis explicare valeamus. The preacher sat, while the people stood, as no seats were furnished for the worshippers. Augustine speaks of this, in apologising for a sermon longer than usual, and contrasts his easy posture with theirs.

Every one must be persuaded that early preaching was without the use of manuscript. It was in regard to expression extemporaneous. Here we might again quote Justin. Socrates tells us indeed, concerning Atticus, bishop of Constantinople, that he committed to memory at home such things as he was about to deliver in the church; but afterwards, he says, that he spoke from the impulse of the moment. Sidonius, addressing himself to Faustus Rejensis, writes thus: "Prædicationes tuas nunc repentinas, nunc cum ratio præscripsit elucubratas, raucus plosor audivi." The allusion is to the audible applause given to popular orators. Pamphilus relates of Origen that the discourses which he delivered almost daily in church were extempore, and that they were taken down by reporters, and so preserved for posterity. We find Chrysostom changing his

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