to be paid. what, and when notice of. But the chief design of it is to settle the payment of Ecclesiastical Duties. For it is hereby ordered, that yearly at Easter every parishioner shall reckon with his Parson, Vicar, or Curate, or his or their deputy or deputies, and pay to them or him all ecclesiastical duties, accustomably due, and then at that time to be paid.* What are the duties here mentioned is a matter of doubt: bishop Stillingfleet supposes them to be a composition for personal tithes, (i. e. the tenth part of every one's clear gains,) due at that time; 92 but the present bishop of Lincoln imagines them to be partly such duties or oblations as were not immediately annexed to any particular office; and partly a composition for the holy Loaf, which the Communicants were to bring and offer, and which is therefore to be answered at Easter, because at that festival every person was, even by the rubric, bound to communicate.93 They both perhaps may have judged right for by an act of parliament in the second and third of Edward VI. such personal tithes are to be paid yearly at or before the feast of Easter, and also all lawful and accustomary offerings, which had not been paid at the usual offering days, are to be paid for at Easter next following. The money given at the 94 §. 9. The last rubric is concerning the disposal of the money given at the Communion, offertory, how to and was not added till the last review; but to be disposed of. prevent all occasion of disagreement, it was then ordered, that after the divine service ended, the money given at the offertory shall be disposed of to such pious and charitable uses as the Minister and Churchwardens shall think fit; wherein if they disagree it shall be disposed of as the Ordinary shall The rubric in king Edward's first book was this: "Furthermore, every man and woman to be bound to hear and be at the Divine Service in the parish church where they may be resident, and there with devout prayer, or godly silence and meditation, to occupy themselves: there to pay their duties, to communicate once in the year at the least; and there to receive and take all other sacraments and rites in this book appointed. And whosoever willingly upon no just cause doth absent themselves, or doth ungodly in the parish church occupy themselves; upon proof thereof, by the ecclesiastical laws of the realm to be excommunicated, or suffer other punishment, as shall to the ecclesiastical judge (according to his discretion) seem convenient." In all the other old books it began thus: "And note, every parishioner shall communicate at the least three times in the year, of which Easter to be one; and shall also receive the sacraments and other rites according to the order in this book appointed." The word sacraments I suppose is used here in a large sense, for the other ordinances of Confirmation, Matrimony, &c., which were all called sacraments before, and for some time after the Reformation. 92 Bishop Stillingfleet's Ecclesiastical Cases, page 252. 93 Bishop Gibson's Codex, vol. ii. p. 740. 94 The usual offering-days at first were Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, and the feast of the dedication of the parish-church: but by an act of Henry VIII. A. D. 1536, they were changed to Christmas, Easter, Midsummer, and Michaelmas. appoint. The hint was taken from the Scotch Liturgy, in which immediately after the blessing this rubric follows: After the divine service ended, that which was offered shall be divided in the presence of the Presbyter and the Churchwardens, whereof one half shall be to the use of the Presbyter, to provide him books of holy divinity; the other half shall be faithfully kept and employed on some pious or charitable use, for the decent furnishing of that church, or the public relief of their poor, at the discretion of the Presbyter and Churchwardens. SECT. XXXI.-Of the Protestation. tion. At the end of the whole office is added a Protestation concerning the gesture of kneeling at the The ProtestaSacrament of the Lord's Supper, and explaining the Church's notion of the presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the same. This was first added in the second book of king Edward, in order to disclaim any Adoration to be intended by that ceremony either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any real and essential presence there being, of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood. But upon queen Elizabeth's accession this was laid aside. For it being the queen's design (as I have already observed more than once) to unite the nation as much as she could in one faith; it was therefore recommended to the divines, to see that there should be no definition made against the aforesaid notion, but that it should remain as a speculative opinion not determined, but in which every one might be left to the freedom of his own mind. And being thus left out, it appears no more in any of our Common Prayers till the last review: at which time it was again added, with some little amendment of the expression and transposal of the sentences; but exactly the same throughout as to the sense; excepting that the words real and essential Presence were thought proper to be changed for corporal Presence. For a real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist is what our Church frequently asserts in this very office of Communion, in her Articles, in her Homilies, and her Catechism: particularly in the two latter, in the first of which she tells us, Thus much we must be sure to hold, that in the Supper of the Lord there is no vain ceremony, no bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent; but the Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord in a marvellous incorporation, which by the operation of the Holy Ghost-is through faith wrought in the souls of the faithful, &c., who therefore (as she further instructs us in the Catechism) verily and indeed take and receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper. This is the doctrine of our Church in relation to the real Presence in the Sacrament, entirely different from the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which she here, as well as elsewhere," disclaims: a doctrine which requires so many ridiculous absurdities and notorious contradictions to support it, that it is needless to offer any confutation of it, in a Church which allows her members the use of their senses, reason, Scripture, and antiquity. CHAPTER VII. OF THE MINISTRATION OF PUBLIC BAPTISM OF INFANTS, TO BE USED IN THE CHURCH. THE INTRODUCTION.. HAVING now gone through the constant offices of the Church, I come, in the next place, to those which are only to be used as there is occasion. And of these the office of Baptism, being the first that can regularly be administered, (as being the first good office that is done to us when we are born,) is therefore properly set first. In order to treat of which in the same method I have observed hitherto, it will be necessary, in the first place, to say something of the Sacrament itself. Washing with bol of purifica tion. §. 1. Water therefore (which is the matter of water used by all it) hath so natural a property of cleansing, that it nations as a sym- hath been made the symbol of purification by all nations, and used with that signification in the rites of all religions.1 The heathens used divers kinds of baptism to expiate their crimes; and the Jews baptize such as are admitted proselytes at large; and when any of those nations turn Jews, who are already circumcised, they receive them by baptism only: with which ceremony also 2 95 First part of the Homily concerning the Sacrament. 96 Article XXVIII. and Homilies. To vdwp ȧyviče. Plut. Quæst. Rom. 2 Tert. de Bapt. c. 5, p. 225, D. 3 See this proved in Bishop Hooper's Discourse on Lent, part ii. chap. 2, and in Dr. Wall on Infant-Baptism, Introduction, §. 1, 2, ét 226, A. §. 2, p. 159; they purified such heathen women as were taken in marriage by Jewish husbands. And this is that universal, plain, and easy rite, which our Lord Jesus adopted to be a mystery in his religion, and the sacrament of admission into the Christian Church.4 New Birth. §. 2. Nor can any thing better represent Regeneration or New Birth, which our Saviour How it typifies a requires of us before we can become Christians,5 than washing with water. For as that is the first office done unto us after our natural births, in order to cleanse us from the pollutions of the womb; so when we are admitted into the Church, we are first baptized, (whereby the Holy Ghost cleanses us from the pollutions of our sins, and renews us unto God,') and so become, as it were, spiritual infants, and enter into a new life and being, which before we had not. For this reason, when the Jews baptized any of their proselytes, they called it their New Birth, Regeneration, or being born again." And therefore when our Saviour used this phrase to Nicodemus, he wondered that he, being a master in Israel, should not understand him. And even among the Greeks this was thought to have such virtue and efficacy, as to give new life as it were to those who were esteemed religiously dead. For if any one that was living was reported to be deceased, and had funeral solemnities performed upon his account; he was afterwards, upon his return, abominated of all men, as a person unlucky and profane, banished and excluded from all human conversation, and not so much as admitted to be present in the temples, or at the sacrifices of their gods, till he was born again, as it were, by being washed like a child from the womb: a custom founded upon the direction of the oracle at Delphos. For one Aristinus falling under this misfortune, and consulting Apollo to know how he might be freed from it, his priestess Pythia returned him this answer : Όσσα περ ἐν λεχέεσσι γυνὴ τίκτουσα τελεῖται, What women do, when one in childbed lies, Aristinus rightly apprehending what the oracle meant, offered himself to women as one newly brought forth, to be washed again with water. And from this example it grew a custom 4 Matt. xxiii. 19. 5 John iii. 3-7. 6 Ezek. xvi. 4. Dr. Wall on Infant-Baptism, Introduction, §. 6. 7 Tit. iii. 5. 8 See among the Greeks, when the like calamity befell any man, to expiate and purify him after this manner. And thus in the Christian Church, by our Saviour's institution and appointment, those who are dead to God through sin, are born again by the washing of Regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.10 And how proper (by the way) water is to typify the Holy Ghost, may be seen by consulting several texts of Scripture, where Water and the Blessed Spirit are mentioned as corresponding one to another." Milk, honey, and salt, and white garments, anciently given to the new-baptized. That the primitive Christians had this notion of baptism, I think may very fairly be asserted from those other rites which they anciently used in the celebration of this mystery: such as were the giving the new-baptized milk and honey, and salt, which were all given to infants new-born;12 and the putting upon them white garments, to resemble the swaddling spoken of by Ezekiel.13 All these, the ancient Fathers tell us, were done For what reason. to signify and represent spiritual birth and infancy, and out of reference to what was done at the natural birth of children. 14 And therefore who can doubt but that the principal rite of washing with water (and the only one indeed ordained by our blessed Saviour) was chosen by him for this same reason, to be the sacrament of our initiation; and that those who brought in the other rites above mentioned, did so conceive of it, and for that reason took in those imitations? In some Churches indeed they have now for a long time been discontinued ; for they being only used as emblems to signify that the persons were become as new-born babes, they were left off at such times, when, whole nations becoming Christians, there were hardly any other baptisms than of babes in a proper sense, who needed no such representations to signify their infancy. Why discon tinued. §. 3. As to the form of baptism, our Saviour The form of Bap- only instituted the essential parts of it, viz. that tism. it should be performed by a proper Minister, with water, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.15 But as for the rites and circumstances of the administration of it, he left them to the determination of the Apostles and 9 Plutarch. Quest. Romanæ. 10 Tit. iii. 5. vii. 37, 38, 39. 12 Isa. vii. 15. Ezek. xvi. 4. 13 Tertul. de Bapt. c. 6, et contra Marcion. 1. i. c. 14. Catech. Mystag. 4. 15 Matt. xxviii. 19. 11 Isa. xliv. 3. John iv. 14. John Ezek. xvi. 6. 14 Barnabas, c. 6. Hieron. adv. Luciferianos. Cyril. |