The Prayer-Book, with Scripture Proofs and Historical Notes. By A.
Theodore Wirgman. (Bemrose.)—This is a little manual containing some useful information and some doubtful opinions, compiled in the interest of sacerdotal views not of the extreme kind. Here, for in- stance, is a gloss on the last rubric in the Communion Office :—"This Rubric is never meant to deny our Sacramental Union with our Lord's Spiritual Body in the Holy Eucharist." And the writer quotes Bishop Brown to the effect that the writers of this rubric did not mean by the
words "natural body" to convey the same idea that St. Paul attaches to the term in 1 Cor. xv., "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." Of course they did not. The risen body of our Lord is a "spiritual" body, and it is against the truth of that body to be at one time in more places than one. Does the word "oblations" in the prayer for the Church Militant really mean the elements of bread and wine ? The words are directed to be omitted when there is no collection. And in the Scotch Communion Service of 1637 it is ordered that the oblations shall be brought in a basin, alms being clearly meant.
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