PRAYER BOOK REVISION

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sm,—The Provost of Worcester College will, I hope, forgive an old member of his society if he asks lath to consider some pieces of evidence which have not yet appeated in this dis- cussion on Reservation. The Articles ate doeurnents which cannot be construed without reference to their historical context. They are connected with other formularies, Continental as well as English, and there are many points in them the interpretation of which can be settled only by contemporary testimony. The Provost, if I understand him aright, holds that all those who assert that the word " reserved " in Article XXVIII. has no reference to reserva- tion for communicating the sick, are either consciously or unconsciously dishonest. I submit that so far from this being the case their interpretation is the only one which can be squared with history, and that they should be praised for accuracy instead of being accused of disingenuous subtlety.

In '1553 the Twenty-ninth Article of the Forty-two ended with the declaration that the Sacrament of the Lord's Slipper Was not commanded by Christ's ordinance to be kept, carried about, lifted up, nor worshipped (ex institutione Christi non servabatur, circumferebatur, elevabatur, nec adorabatur).

Now in 1560 appeared the Latin version of the 'Prayer

Book which was put out with the authority of Queen Elizabeth. In this book provision is made for reserving the Sacrament in order to communicate the sick. What meaning did the Queen and those who produced the book at her order put upon the word " servabatur " in the Article ? If it was well known that it involved prohibition of reservation for the sick they could not possibly have published an office for such reservation without any explanation of 'their total disregard of the Article.

A century later Dr. Anthony Sparrow, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, published his Rationale . of the Book of Common Prayer. In the section on the Communion of the Sick he writes thus :—

" The Rubric at the Communion of the Sick directs the Priest to deliver the communion to the sick, but does not there set down how much of the Communion service shall be used at the delivering of the communion to the sick ; and therefore seems to me to refer us to former directions in times past. Now the direction formerly was this : If the same day (that the sick is t3 receive the Com- munion) there he a celebration of the Holy Communion in the

Church. then shall the Priest reserve (at the open communion) so much of the sacrament of the -body- and blood as shall serve the sick person, and so many as shall communicate with him."

Here, again, the question arises, Is it to be supposed that a man of Sparrow's learning would have been ignorant of the fact that reservation for the sick was forbidden in the Article, if such a prohibition had been commonly understood to be there ?

With these facts before us it is plain that the term reservation did not necessarily include reservation for the sick. This is made Clear in the Confession of Wtirtemberg, a document presented by Reforming divines to -the Council of Trent as a summary of Reformed doctrine. This confession was known to and consulted by Archbishop Parker, the chief agent in the revision of the Articles in Elizabeth's reign. In it we read :—

" Another error is the carrying about and reserving of one part of the Eucharist for the special worship of God. . . . It is clear that the bread which is carried about and reserved for adoration is not reserved for the sick."

Here- the two purposes of reservation are distinguished.

Parker's draft of the Refonnatio Legum shows that he desired to continue reservation for the sick. Calvin in reply to an appeal from England for his advice recommended reserva- tion for communion of the sick on the same day.

With these aids to interpretation the limitations Of the reference in Article XXVIII. are clear. The restraint of its langimge is certainly remarkable. Compare not only the much stronger hingtiage on the same subject in some of the Continental utterances, but also the terms used by the Articles themselves when they wish to prohibit any practice unequivocally. They will denounce it as' "repugnant to the word of God," or write that those who support it are to

be " condemned" or even " accursed." But my point here is that whatever the force of the clause the word " servaliatur " does not include reservation for the sick, but refers to reserva- tion which is meant to be accompanied by processions, elevation, and. worship. The Article declares that we are only - on safe ground when we use the Sacrament .for the purpose- contemplated in the Institution, that is, communion. And this is precisely 'what is emphasized in the regulations of the. new Prayer Book, which safeguard the doctrine of the Article. If the rubric of 1662, in intention or in fact, excludes reservation for the sick, it goes beyond the Article. In any case a Church which makes one rubric can make another to meet changed conditions two and a half centuries later.

I submit, therefore, that to assert that the Article wholly forbids reservation is to ignore the results of recent historical

research. I hope I may at any rate persuade the Provost that those who have reached a conclusion different from his own have done so as the result of painstaking investigation, and need not, therefore, be condemned as sorry rogues whose conduct he feels constrained in his last letter to liken to that of companies of thieves.--I am, Sir, &c.,

C. T. DIMONT.

Theological College, Salisbury.