1852. Isolation of Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

459

the sanctuary, being thus left unanswered in the New Testament, except to the extent to which the practices and expressions of which we have spoken may be thought to have answered it, it becomes important to discover what interpretation has been put upon these: 1st, by those Christians who, from the time at which they lived, may be likely to have possessed special opportunities of discovering their true meaning; and 2nd, by the majority of Christian Churches.

The subject of traditionary authority is one which, in these days, we fear even to mention without a caveat. Believing, in common with all good Protestants, not merely in the right but the duty of private judgment, and feeling that no guidance ab extra, however trustworthy, can warrant us in extinguishing the light of our subjective understanding; nay more, being persuaded that no delegation of priestly duties can remove the character of personal priesthood which adheres indelibly to every individual Christian, or free him from the responsibilities which this character imposes, among which, not the least is that of searching the Scriptures, we regard it as no presumptuous expression of petulant self-sufficiency when we say, that we should not have wavered in adopting the consequences of our own conscientious researches, and our humble but honest thinking, had the universal tradition of Churches, and the practice of every Christian community, from Christ's time to our own, been opposed to them. Ground for most painful hesitation such a circumstance certainly would have afforded, and reason enough for again and again anxiously and prayerfully reinvestigating the subject, but not, assuredly, for the abandonment of opinions, which were either the results of an unbiassed and informed judgment, or the unequivocal answers of an unhesitating conscience. Whatever opinions, so arrived at, may have been to others, to us, whilst our belief in our own mental sanity remained unshaken, they must have been 'Victory and Law.'

But if, on the other hand, it should seem that not we ourselves, but those who differ from us, are left in this distressing minority, then to them also we must be ready to extend the benefits of that principle by which we profess to regulate our own conduct. If it shall appear that amongst all the churches of Christ which have existed throughout the world, either previous to the Reformation or since, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland stands alone in this matter; nay, further, that its present opinions are at variance with those even of its own original founders, we shall then be furnished, it is true, with reasons as strong as may well be imagined for suspecting the presence of error, but by no means with a title to enforce a

compliance with what we believe to be truth. It was the mistake of Laud and all who have persecuted for the faith, that in attempting to vindicate some peculiar Christian dogma, they have imposed the necessity of a violation of one of those original immutable laws of our responsible being, the fulfilment of which was the primary object of Christianity itself.

Immediately subsequent to the Apostolic age, probably before the close of the first century, we have an account of the Christian worship by the bands of a Roman proconsul, which, though it has been quoted ad nauseam for other purposes, has, perhaps, scarcely received the weight which is due to it in this discussion. It is the celebrated letter of Pliny to Trajan. His words are, Affirmant . . . quod essent soliti stato die ante ' lucem convenire, Carmenque Christo, quasi deo, dicere secum * invicem.' It will be unnecessary that we should do more than remind our readers, that although the word 'carmen' has in this passage been usually supposed to refer either to the Psalms of David, which the Christians had retained from the Jewish Ritual, or to hymns which they had composed, such is by no means a necessary interpretation, since the word is in common use among the best Latin writers for every species of formula, not only for the response of an oracle, a form of incantation, or an inscription on a tomb, which might possibly have been conceived in verse, but for legal formularies which we know were not. Lex horrendi carminis erat.' (Livy, i. 26. S.) Recitabat rogationis carmen' (the form of the Bill).

convey

Nor ought it to be overlooked that the words 'secum invicem' the idea of alternate recitation or responses. If we were asked at the present day to embody in four Latin words a description of a Christian Litany, and the manner of saying it, we should have difficulty in finding more appropriate ones than carmen dicere secum invicem.' The subsequent part of the passage seque sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria committerent, ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent,'-evidently has reference to the repetition of the Commandments; and then comes the Communion, Quibus peractis, morem sibi discedendi fuisse, rursusque coeundi ad capiendum cibum, promiscuum tamen, et innoxium.' According to a custom which long after continued, the Eucharist was not joined with the rest of the service, but was celebrated as a species of mysterious rite, from which all but the baptized were excluded, at another hour, and frequently at another place. We have thus, even at this early period, pretty nearly all the parts of the regular Church Service of after-times; and we have, also, what we shall pre

1852.

No One Catholic Liturgy' ever existed.

461

sently find to be the only features of resemblance distinguishable in liturgies, something approaching to the same division and arrangement of these parts. First there are the Morning Prayers, including, in all probability, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, then the Commandments, and, lastly, the Communion.

Such is the small amount of information which heathen literature furnishes us on this subject. We must now endeavour to discover to what extent it is elucidated by the practice of the Churches. From the time of Pliny, till the end of the third century, the names by which they were known are the only indications which we possess of the nature of Christian prayers; but these are not altogether unimportant. Justin Martyr speaks of them as kowaì suxaí (common prayers); and by Origen they are called suxai Tроσтaxoɛíσaι (constituted prayers); terms which could not well have been applied to unpremeditated supplications.

It may surprise some of our readers to be told, that—notwithstanding the vast amount of zealous talk which they daily suffer at the mouths of their Anglo and Scoto-Catholic friends on the subject of our Catholic Liturgy,'-it is a fact now admitted, so far as we know, by all ritualists who are not blinded either by ignorance or passion, that not only no Catholic Liturgy exists now, but that none ever did exist. Palmer, in his Origines Liturgica,' which is still the standard work on the subject, and the tendencies of whose author certainly were not to depreciate liturgies, candidly says, "It seems to have been ' often assumed by the learned, that there was originally some ' one apostolic form of liturgy in the Christian Church, to which ' all the monuments of ancient liturgies, and the notices which 'the Fathers supply, might be reduced. Were this hypothesis 'supported by facts it would be very valuable. But the truth is, ❝ there are several different forms of liturgy now in existence, which, ' as far as we can perceive, have been different from each other from "the most remote period.' Nor is the discovery one for which much merit is due to Mr. Palmer; for the comfortable idol, over the destruction of which he seems disposed to shed a Catholic tear, is one to which the prototypes of our present zealots did not feel entitled to sacrifice. Archbishop Laud continually speaks of Formularies in the plural number; and in the Speech which we have placed at the head of this Article he says expressly, that the true reason why we cannot show the exact primitive forms, is because they were continually subject to 'alterations both in times and places.' The fancy of the 'one 'Catholic Apostolic Liturgy' being thus abandoned, the next question that presents itself is,—do there exist more liturgies than one which can claim an Apostolic origin?-and here, again,

the negative of those who have investigated the subject is equally decided. Though several of the ancient liturgies bear the names of Apostles, it has been satisfactorily shown that these were conferred on them at periods long subsequent to the Apostolic age; and, as regards the Liturgy of St. James, the most celebrated of them all, Mr. Palmer has been unable to trace back the appellation beyond the fifth century. Though Mr. Trollope, in the introduction to his edition of the Liturgy of St. James, manifests some repugnance to Mr. Palmer's views as to the manner in which the name arose, or, rather, to the conclusion against the Apostolic origin of the Liturgy to which they lead, he does not bring forward a single fact or argument which tends to invalidate Mr. Palmer's reasoning.

One rather instructive fact with reference to the pretended pedigree of existing liturgies is, that they were not at first committed to writing. Le Brun contends that none of them were so committed earlier than the fifth century; and though Palmer contests this opinion, he admits that there is no reason to think that the Liturgy of the Apostolical Constitutions, which was the first, was written before the end of the third or beginning of the fourth century. The explanation which is given of this startling and, at first sight, incredible fact, is, that from the persecutions to which the faithful were then continually exposed, they refrained from committing to writing any thing which could have been used in evidence against them. Applying the command of our Lord, 'Give not that which is holy to the dogs,' to their own circumstances, they scrupulously concealed the nature, and the mode of celebration, of the holy Eucharist, from those who were likely to misapprehend and revile it; and as the Apostles alone were present at its institution, they judged it meet that, until the catechumens had passed their probationary state, they should not be permitted to partake of, or even to witness, this holy rite. From the passage which we formerly quoted from Pliny it appeared, that in the earliest ages of the Church the Eucharist was not only a distinct service, but that it was in reality a supper, a species of mysterious and holy συσσίτια,—which took place at a different time from the ordinary service, and frequently also at a different place. In addition to the necessity for concealment, arising from the danger of persecution, a certain love for mystery was probably fostered in the minds of the early Christians by ideas derived from the Heathen and Jewish worship. With such inducements, it is not impossible to imagine that a service, probably very simple in itself, may, without material alteration, have been celebrated for a series of

1852. The Four Liturgies of the Primitive Churches.

463

ages memoriter by the priests, and that the responses may have been taught to the people, or, at least, to the chorus by whom they were led.

In such circumstances, however, it is manifestly impossible, that the slightest reliance can be placed on the identity of the service, as ultimately committed to writing, with any one which may originally have been used by the Apostles, and their successors. It may have remained tolerably unchanged, at least in its parts and order, but it may also have varied infinitely, and the probability seems to be in favour of its having done so, so long as the primitive idea of the Supper was retained, and the Eucharist had not yet become a formal service. There is also another explanation of this fact, which, though perhaps less palatable to the majority of ritualists than either of those which we have mentioned, has so much probability in its favour as to merit attention. If, as we contend, no positive written formularies were communicated to the Church by the Apostles, liturgies, during the first three centuries, must have been in process of formation, and as the Lex non Scripta precedes and forms the basis of the Lex Scripta, so was it with unwritten and written liturgies. But be the reason what it may, the fact of the three centuries of memoriterizing' remains; and in the minds of most reasonable persons, however it may be viewed, we believe it will form a sufficient hiatus to cut off the so-called primitive liturgies from all claim to Apostolic authority.

Mr. Palmer considers that all the liturgies of the Primitive Churches may be reduced to four. 1st. The great Oriental Liturgy, which prevailed from the Euphrates to the Hellespont, from the Hellespont to the Southern extremity of Greece; 2nd. The Alexandrian, which, from remote antiquity, has been the liturgy of Egypt, Abyssinia, and the country extending from the Mediterranean Sea towards the west; 3rd. The Roman, which prevailed throughout the whole of Italy, Sicily, and the Civil Diocese of Africa; 4th. The Gallican, which was used throughout Gaul and Spain, and probably in the Exarchate of Ephesus until the fourth century. These in the course of ages were endlessly varied and subdivided. Palmer treats of them under fourteen heads, and though he probably exhausts the origines,' he does not even mention anything approaching to the whole of the existing liturgies even of the unreformed, or so-called Catholic Churches. In an excellent Article on Liturgies in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, between fifty and sixty are enumerated, and even these, probably, do not include all the varieties which in the same churches often existed, and