Keble's "Considerations."

Brechin. His Primary Charge, delivered on August 5, 1857, was devoted to an exposition of the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist. At the Synod held in Edinburgh in December, 1857, it was proposed to issue a declaration on the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist in opposition to the statements of the Bishop of Brechin. The motion was lost, but the Bishops of Edinburgh, Argyle, and Glasgow signed a document which, if not identical with that proposed, was to the same purport. This declaration from the three bishops was followed by others from the Clergy. Keble, who had sent his book, On Eucharistical Adoration, then just published, to the Scottish Bishops, considered the episcopal declaration a condemnation of his own book as well as of the Bishop's Charge, and addressed to the Bishop of Edinburgh a letter on the subject.* Pusey had spent the winter of 1857-58 in the neighbourhood of Paris. During his previous illness and his absence in Paris he had heard nothing of the Scottish controversy. On his return to England, however, he entered into correspondence with some of the Scottish Bishops with whom he was acquainted, especially with Bishop Trower of Glasgow and Galloway, but with ill success, for at the Synod which met in Edinburgh six Scottish Bishops determined to issue a Pastoral Letter, which they did on May 27, 1858. In this letter the Bishop of Brechin's Primary Charge is considered seriatim and condemned.

Keble, as Honorary Canon of Cumbrae, and therefore as having a recognized place among the Scottish Clergy, reviewed this Pastoral in the work to which we have already referred, his Considerations, etc.

*This letter is given at length by the Rev. D. J. Mackay, Life of Bishop Forbes, pp. 101, sqq.

The matter, however, was not allowed to rest here, The Bishop's for on October 3, 1859, Bishop Forbes was formally presentation. presented before the Episcopal Synod of the Scottish Church on a charge of holding, maintaining, and teaching in his Primary Charge doctrines contrary to the Articles of Religion, the Word of GOD, the formularies of public worship, and the Scottish Communion Office. The Bishop's Defence in answer to the presentment is the work in which the mind of the Tractarians is most fully expressed in regard to the Eucharistic Sacrifice.

We are told that Pusey spent much labour in helping him to prepare it. It forms an octavo volume of 230 pages, and when the Synod met on February 7, 1860, two days were occupied in hearing the Bishop read it. We may consider, then, that in the Bishop of Brechin's Primary Charge and in his Theological Defence of that Charge we have the fullest exposition of the mind of the Tractarians on the Eucharistic Sacrifice.

We quote from the Charge in its emended form, the Bishop having added some explanatory matter before

his trial.

Moreover, the ancient doctors teach that the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the same substantially with that of the Cross. . . . The word 'Sacrifice' may be taken actively and passively: actively it is the rite, passively it is the Victim,-just as it is with the word Passover.' Thus the Apostle says, ' CHRIST our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast.' Now in the sense that the Sacrifice is the Victim, it is evident, as a consequence of the Real Presence, that that of the Holy Eucharist and of the Cross are * Liddon's Life of Pusey, vol. iii., P. 456.

ii. Extracts from his

"Primary Charge."

substantially one. CHRIST was offered on the Cross; the same CHRIST is commemorated and pleaded in the Holy Mysteries. . . Our LORD said, This is My Body; and no words of man can strengthen the tremendous and absolute identity of the two Sacrifices— or rather, as I should prefer to say, of the one Sacrifice in its two aspects. Unless you hold that in some transcendental sense the Sacrifice of the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Altar are identical, you contradict the Apostle, who says there is no more sacrifice for sin. You must admit a true, proper Eucharistic Sacrifice, compelled to do so by the unanimous testimony of antiquity; but if it be a true and proper Sacrifice, it must be either one with the Cross or supplementary to it.*

"I believe that the non-recognition of this identity has been the main cause of the non-acceptance of the doctrine of an Eucharistic Sacrifice by many earnest minds. Say as you will, if you disjoin the Sacrifice of the Cross from the Sacrifice of the Altar, you make the former incomplete. Either there is no such thing as the Sacrifice of the Eucharist, in which case the Church has erred from the very beginning, or in some mysterious way it is, in a sense, one with the offering on Calvary."†

Again: "On the other hand, taking the word 'sacrifice' actively, you come to find a sense in which it is not the same as the Sacrifice of the Cross. It is the avτỳ ý εincov—the very image, not only of that, but of the everlasting Eucharist, which is ever going on in heaven. It is the commemoration of all the divine acts of the SON of GOD wrought for the redemption of

* That it is supplementary is denied, therefore here its identity is affirmed.

† Bishop Forbes, Primary Charge, pp. 40, 41.

the human race. So that, to conclude, passively the Holy Eucharist is the Ovoía; actively it is the ανάμνησις τῆς θυσίας.” *

Again: "In the first place we must inquire what is the One Sacrifice of CHRIST? Is it confined to the few hours during which that Holy Victim hung upon the Tree of Shame upon Mount Calvary, or was it extended beyond that? In one sense, it was' finished' then. Finished' was His work of obedience; 'finished' were His atoning sufferings; 'finished was the transgression,' and' an end made for sin.' That mysterious act stands alone throughout all time in all eternity. Not the Godhead, but GOD died. He Who was, and is GOD, and, as GOD, lives unchangeablyHe, as Man, died. And as that act of God's mercy was one and alone, so the effects of that act stand alone. CHRIST Himself, our LORD GOD, in His Human Nature, 'ever liveth to make intercession for us.' GOD Himself intercedes with GOD. Yet He hath pleased so to limit Himself, that He Himself doth not merit anything more for us now. There, on that Cross of Shame, 'He made that full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.' That Sacrifice to which all faith looked on, representing and pleading it to GOD, before CHRIST came; which our LORD pleads now; to which all Eucharists and all prayers to GOD now look back and plead, was, as an Atonement, complete in Itself. It alone was an Atonement; It alone was a Satisfaction for sin; It alone (we may dare to say, for it is the language of the Church) was meritorious.

"Our dear LORD, in the bright Majesty of His Mediatorial Throne, invested with all power in heaven and Bishop Forbes, Primary Charge, p. 41.

*

in earth, adored by the Cherubim and Seraphim and by all the company of heaven, clothed with that Body which was pierced for us, and ever exhibiting, for us sinners, to His FATHER, those wounded Hands and Feet and Side, has vouchsafed to limit Himself; He adds nothing now to that One Sacrifice which He made when He died upon the Cross, inasmuch as nothing could be added. For-It was finished,' perfect, infinite, superabundant, sufficient to redeem a thousand worlds. Yet, although the Atoning Act was one, and nothing could be added to its value (for nothing can be added to that which is infinite), still in purpose and will and representation (as at that first Eucharist that Sacrifice was presented to the FATHER before it was made), It can be and is pleaded for us to the FATHER

now.

"And are not we gainers beyond all thought, in that our Great High Priest'ever liveth to make intercession for us?' The Apostle speaks as though the object and end of His present Life in Glory were ' to make intercession for us.' And yet, although He gains everything for us by that Almighty Intercession, yet He gains all for us by the merits of that One Allsufficient Atonement on the Cross. That Sacrifice was perfected there, as an Act of Atonement, Satisfaction, Merit.

"It was applied beforehand to the forgiveness and acceptance of those who in faith (as Abraham, David, and all Prophets and holy men of old), before CHRIST came, pleaded it and were accepted: It has been, and is, and shall be applied, until CHRIST shall come again to judgment, to the pardon, grace, and acceptance of those who are His. For in another sense, the Christian Church, after S. Paul, has always held that