LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 
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THE 
 
 Sacramental Teach™ 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LORD'S PRAYER, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. EDWARD A. LARRABEE, S.T.B. 
 
 A 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BT THE 
 RT. REV. GEO. ft SEYMOUR, S.T.D., LL.D. 
 Bithop of Springfield. 
 
 
 s 
 
 EPJL01839,/; 
 
 MM- 
 
 MILWAUKEE, WIS. 
 
 THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO. 
 
 1889. 
 

 The Library 
 of Congress 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 Copyright. 
 THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO. 
 
 1889. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following chapters, dealing with the seven sacra- 
 ments in association with the seven petitions in the Lord's 
 Prayer, may fairly claim a word of introduction from me, 
 since the idea of such association the author modestly says 
 was due to me, and not original with himself. 
 
 The suggestion came in this way. In an address deliv- 
 ered to candidates, who had just received the imposition of 
 hands in Confirmation, I pointed out the connection, indeed 
 the interpretation, given to the sevenfold gifts of the Holy 
 Spirit, by the things for which our Lord bids us ask in the 
 prayer which He has prescribed for our use : 
 
 1. Thus we ask for the gift of "Wisdom," its constant 
 supply and increase, when we pray "Hallowed be Thy 
 Name." "The fear of the Lord, is the beginning of wis- 
 dom." And he who learns to hallow, make holy God's 
 Name on his lips, in his conduct, and in his heart, is the 
 truly wise man. 
 
 2. We ask for the gift of "Understanding" when we 
 pray, "Thy Kingdom come," since the faculty which 
 enables us to discern the signs of the times, to read the 
 handwriting upon the wall, is God's gift, it is a knowledge, 
 a prescience, which, as the Prophet Daniel says, cometh 
 from the Almighty. 
 
 3. We ask for the gift of "Counsel," when we pray r 
 "Thy will be done." He gives himself the best advice, 
 and most wisely guides others entrusted to his care, who 
 follows in so doing the will of God. 
 
4 P BE FACE. 
 
 4. We ask for the gift of " Ghostly Strength" when we 
 pray, ' 'Give us this day our daily bread. ' ' Spiritual strength 
 like physical comes through means. The earthly bread 
 nourishes the body, and the Bread which came down from 
 heaven nourishes the soul. 
 
 5. We ask for the gift of "Knowledge ," when we pray, 
 4 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those, who tres- 
 pass against us." The knowledge of ourselves as we really 
 are, as God sees us, is contemplated alike by the spiritual 
 gift, and the fifth petition in the Lord's Prayer. 
 
 6. We ask for the gift of "True Godliness," when we 
 pray, "Lead us not into temptation, ' ' since man is most like 
 God, when he resists and overcomes temptation, and so 
 places himself beside our Blessed Lord in the wilderness, 
 when the devil left Him, and angels came and ministered 
 unto Him. 
 
 7. And finally, we ask for the gift of "the fear of the 
 Lord," when we pray, "Deliver us from evil," inasmuch 
 as evil is the only thing, which can break down and destroy 
 that awful and salutary reverence, which is inspired by 
 the Holy Ghost, and is the gift of Holy Fear. 
 
 When once evil gains dominion over a man, then God 
 is far above out of his sight, and the fear of God dies out 
 in his soul, and disappears from his life and conversation. 
 
 This is the outline of our course of thought, and the associ- 
 ation became the suggestion of the bringing together by 
 the author of this volume of the so called seven sacraments 
 of the Church, and the sevenfold asking in the Lord's 
 Prayer. 
 
 Should there be any who feel inclined to demur to the 
 expression, "seven sacraments," as being in conflict with 
 the twenty-fifth article, I would say that if their objection 
 lies no deeper than the phraseology, then their difficulty 
 
Pbeface. 5 
 
 will speedily disappear, since the article in question, loosely 
 and inaccurately as it is drawn, does nevertheless distin- 
 guish between ' 'the two sacraments ordained of Christ in 
 the Gospel," and the five, "which are not to be counted for 
 Sacraments of the Gospel." The term " Sacrament" may, 
 therefore, be lawfully used of holy rites and functions other 
 than Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, under the shelter of 
 this very article, provided they be not termed, "sacraments 
 of the Gospel." 
 
 It would not do to build an argument in any direction 
 on this article, as a foundation, since theological statement 
 is impatient of inaccuracy, not to say direct and positive 
 error, and both confront us in this formula or thesis. 
 
 It is inaccurate to assert that Confirmation, Orders. Ex- 
 treme Unction, for example, "have no visible sign or cere- 
 mony ordained of God," unless it be contended that what- 
 ever is not commanded or prescribed directly by God in 
 His own Person, as the Ten Commandments in the Old 
 Testament, and our Blessed Lord's injunctions in the New 
 Testament, is not "ordained of God." If this position be 
 assumed, then there is swept at once into the same category 
 with the five sacraments all that is enjoined by prophet and 
 Apostle, and very much of what orthodox Christians of 
 every name cherish to-day as of the very essence of their 
 systems. 
 
 Again, the twenty-fifth article affirms what is positively 
 erroneous. It divides the five sacraments into two classes, 
 which are exhaustive, namely, first, those "which have 
 grown of the corrupt following of the Apostles . ' ' and sec- 
 ondly, those, which are "states of life allowed in the 
 Scriptures." 
 
 Now Confirmation is not a state of life allowed in the 
 Scriptures, and hence, the Article forces us to the conclusion 
 
6 P BE FACE. 
 
 that Confirmation is the ' 'corrupt f ollowing'of the Apostles. ' ' 
 The truth is, the thirty-nine articles were provisional in 
 their purpose, designed to meet the exigencies of the age 
 when they were drawn up. Indeed much of the matter in 
 them can only be understood by those who are familiar 
 with the fanaticism and errors in religion of those times. 
 
 It may be sharply asserted that if these articles are to be 
 presented as a theological statement of the position of the 
 Anglican Communion, then they must be revised and 
 recast. We are not disparaging the Articles; on the con- 
 trary we are defending them, since to place them in their 
 true position, as provisional, drawn up in a period of 
 intense religious excitement to guard against errors which 
 were then prevalent, is their true, their only defence. To 
 allege that the thirty-nine Articles are a finality, to take 
 their place beside the Creed of Christendom, is to commit 
 the Anglican Communion to a position, which would be 
 fatal to her Catholicity. 
 
 The very men who shared in the labor of framing the 
 thirty-nine Articles, did not hesitate to employ the term 
 sacrament in the broader sense in which it was then com- 
 monly used, and since that clay our ablest and most learned 
 theologians have followed the example of our Book of Hom- 
 ilies, and called other functions than Baptism and the 
 Eucharist, 1 1 Sacraments . 1 ' 
 
 It is worth while to remember that our Church took her 
 departure from the Church of England, without the thirty- 
 nine articles, and endured to live for tivelve years without 
 them, and thus gave practical proof that this venerable 
 formulary, valuable as much of its matter is, since it 
 traverses the same ground as the Creed, is nevertheless not 
 essential to the Church even in her national character; and 
 still further as she subjected the thirty-nine articles to criti- 
 
P BE FACE. 7 
 
 cisni and revision, before she adopted them, she proved that 
 in her judgment they are provisional, and not final, and 
 may be modified and altered to meet the exigencies of the 
 times . 
 
 We feel sure that while the contents of this little volume 
 may not command universal acceptance, still its perusal 
 ' will prove a lasting benefit to all who read it, since the 
 spirit which breathes through it will, in association with its 
 excellent and exalted aim and purpose, win souls to love 
 Christ and His Body, the Church. G. F. S. 
 
The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LORD'S PRAYER. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Coming as it does, directly from the lips of 
 our Blessed Lord Himself, in answer to the 
 request of His disciples that He would teach them 
 to pray, we may well be prepared to find in the 
 Lord's Prayer an order and a completeness which 
 mark it as altogether divine. 
 
 It is complete as summing up every possible 
 need of soul and body, and as giving utterance, in 
 few words, to all that as children we need to ask 
 of our Father in Heaven. The very number of 
 its petitions ; seven, combining three, the number 
 of Heaven, with four, the number of earth, mys- 
 tically represents the universality of its scope, as 
 including in its range things earthly and things 
 divine. While its order, as teaching us to pray 
 first for those things which directly concern the 
 
10 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 glory of God, as we do in the first three petitions, 
 and afterwards, as in the last four, for those 
 which concern our own necessities, is in accord- 
 ance with our Lord's own command elsewhere, 
 u Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His 
 righteousness and all these things shall be added 
 unto you" (S. Matt. vi. 33). 
 
 The Our Father is thus the perfect model and 
 rule to which every other prayer should be brought. 
 "After this manner therefore pray ye" (S. Matt. 
 yi. 9). 
 
 The Church acts upon this command, not 
 merely by using the Lord's Prayer in every one 
 of her Offices as the strongest and most confident 
 appeal she is able to utter; but by taking it 
 besides as the pattern after which she frames 
 other prayers. Especially is this seen in the Col- 
 lects, which in their brevity, and in the man- 
 ner of their beginning, continuing and ending, 
 bear the mark of Him Who taught her how to 
 pray. 
 
 Such thoughts as these lie on the surface of any 
 consideration of the Lord's Prayer. But it were 
 irreverence to speak of the perfection of the 
 matter and the form of the prayer which our 
 Lord Himself gave us, while bringing to our con- 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 11 
 
 sideration of it only such standards as are applied 
 to any merely human utterance. Reverently to 
 approach it we must place ourselves under the 
 guidance of God's Holy Spirit, and ask Him to 
 show us its marvellous beauty. Since then we 
 believe this prayer to have been given by our 
 Blessed Lord as the perfect model of all prayers, 
 we must be prepared to find in it depths of mean- 
 ing, which if they do not lie open to all, are 
 nevertheless there to be revealed to those who 
 will reverently regard them. 
 
 S. Augustine, for example, draws out a corres- 
 pondence between the seven petitions in this 
 prayer, and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, as 
 he does again between both these groups of seven 
 with the Beatitudes. Some might be inclined to 
 regard such a correspondence as merely a clever 
 conceit in which an inventive mind had made 
 the most of what is in fact only a chance coinci- 
 dence. And yet it might belong to deeper 
 reverence, as well as to deeper insight into the 
 things which pertain to the kingdom of God, 
 to ascribe to the purpose of the Holy Spirit rather 
 than to chance, a correspondence with supplies 
 one more instance of the harmony which pervades 
 
12 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 Holy Scripture, and which is so strong an evidence 
 that it is indeed the Word of God. 
 
 Certainly, if we consider what prayer is, the 
 mystery out of which it grows, the relations on 
 which it depends, the guidance, helps and sup- 
 ports that it needs, the grace which sustains it 
 and the merits which it pleads, we must be pre- 
 pared to find in the form of prayer thus given by 
 our Lord, a deeper purpose than that of forming 
 a model which should be comprehensive in its 
 petitions, terse in expression and systematic in 
 arrangement. 
 
 For prayer is in its very nature sacramental. 
 Apart from the Incarnation of the Son of God 
 prayer were impossible. For what is prayer but the 
 act whereby we claim that mediatorship of Christ, 
 which is His by nature, and which results from 
 the permanent union in His One Person of the 
 nature of God with the nature of man ? 
 
 "It must be observed that the very essence of 
 our Lord's mediatorship is that all functions which 
 are discharged on God's part toward man, or on 
 man's part towards God are gathered together in 
 in His Single Person. He is the sole channel of 
 all which is done by God under the Christian 
 covenant. For He is the only mediator Who 
 
Of the Lord's Peayee. 13 
 
 unites both. And so likewise He is the only 
 mediator through Whom our prayers can ascend to 
 God, for 'no man cometh unto the Father but by 
 Me.' This is the place where heaven and earth 
 are connected; the bridge which joins them to- 
 gether. He is the Door, ; the Way, the Truth 
 and the Life.' There is one God and one media- 
 tor between God and man.'"* 
 
 Among the Jews also, by anticipation of the 
 Incarnation, the same was true. Prayer was not 
 to be separated from the appointed sacrifices and 
 the temple ritual. And this not because of any 
 inherent efficacy in the sacrifices themselves, 
 which were only "figures of the true," but because 
 they represented and stood for the sacrifice which 
 God Incarnate, the true Priest, should in time 
 accomplish in His own Person, without Whose 
 mediation none since Adam's fall have had access 
 to God. 
 
 But the mystery of the Incarnation does not 
 end with the union of human nature with the 
 nature of God in the Person of our Lord. "God was 
 made the Son of man,'' says S. Leo, "that we men 
 might become the sons of God." The mystery of 
 the Incarnation on which, as we have seen, our 
 
 * Wilberforce on the Incarnation. 
 
14 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 Lord's mediatorial office rests, carries with it all 
 those sacramental ordinances whereby He Who 
 became Man, wills to raise man up to God. The 
 Sacraments are therefore called the Extension of 
 the Incarnation. By them this marvellous union T 
 first effected in the Person of our adorable Lord, 
 is carried on, applied* and made effectual in 
 each succeeding generation of men. This, and 
 nothing less than this, is what is meant by the 
 Gospel of Christ. This is His plan for the salva- 
 tion of mankind, and the gradual restoration of 
 that image which was marred, and that likeness 
 which was lost through the fall of our first 
 parents. 
 
 The Incarnation, therefore, and the Sacraments 
 of the Church being all of one piece, prayer, 
 which as we have seen, is impossible without the 
 first, must have an intimate dependence upon the 
 second. We can not step in here and divide. 
 We can not take the one while rejecting the 
 other. What God has joined together, man may 
 not put asunder. 
 
 Now this being so, and our title to approach 
 God in prayer being so dependent upon our accept- 
 ance of the whole sacramental system of the 
 Church, we might almost be said to come to the 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 15 
 
 study of the Lord's Prayer prepared to find that 
 system set forth. We might almost have fore- 
 told that our Lord in answering the request 
 of His disciples, "Lord, teach us to pray," would 
 in the form which He should give them, 
 leave not merely the model after which all 
 prayers should be formed, but the brief yet com- 
 plete outline at the same time, of that entire 
 Sacramental system which is the charter upon 
 which all prayer depends. 
 
 A reverent examination of the Lord's Prayer 
 with reference to its Sacramental interpretation 
 will, we believe, be abundantly repaid. The 
 writer has never seen this line of thought worked 
 out in any treatise on this prayer of our Lord 
 which he has examined, and the following pages 
 are simply a humble endeavour to point out such 
 correspondence between the petitions of this prayer 
 and the Sacraments of the Church, as may seem 
 suggestive or helpful. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOLY BAPTISM. 
 
 "Onr Father, Who art in Heaven 7 hallowed be 
 Thy Name:' 
 
 The Lord's Prayer lias been called Breviccrium 
 Evangelii the "summary of the Gospel.' 1 But it is 
 itself summed up in the two words with which it 
 begins. Indeed the words "Our Father" may be 
 said to contain, as in the germ, all that we profess 
 explicitly in the creed. For in order to make that 
 dear address possible on human lips, each article 
 of the faith must contribute its mystery to that 
 chain of facts whose logical outcome is the glori- 
 ous privilege of adoption "whereby we cry Abba, 
 — Father" (Rom. viii. 15). 
 
 It is in accordance with the intimate relation 
 of prayer to the great fundamental mystery of the 
 Incarnation, that we are taught when we pray to 
 say, "Our Father." As we open our lips, these 
 two words, the first that we utter, remind us even 
 as we begin to pray, that our very access to God is 
 by virtue of a relationship to which we have no 
 natural title, but which is ours through participa- 
 
18 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 tion in that Sonship which belongs by nature to 
 the Only Begotten. 
 
 He Whom we address as Father, is Father in 
 the mystery of His eternal relationship to a Son, 
 begotten before all worlds. He is our Father only 
 because of our sacramental union with that 
 eternal Son, Who, for our sake, became also the 
 Son of man, and was not ashamed to call us 
 brethren. We say our Father. It is the right 
 only of Christ to say My Father. "I ascend unto 
 My Father and your Father"' (S. John xx. 17). 
 God is our Father only because we are made one 
 with Christ. We are members of Christ by Baptism 
 and therefore children of God. Again, He is our 
 Father because our relation to Him as children is 
 not one which we hold each by an independent 
 title apart from our brethren, but by virtue of a 
 joint title which we share with "the blessed com- 
 pany of all faithful people," who are incorporated 
 by Baptism into the mystical Body of His Son. 
 
 We say the words, "Our Father" but once, at 
 the beginning of the prayer; but we carry them 
 in our hearts all the way through, and make them 
 our confidence as each petition, in turn, is unfolded 
 from this title which was our warrant as we 
 began. Thus the whole prayer grows out of the 
 
Of the Loan's Prater. 19 
 
 words "Our Father," as the whole sacramental 
 system of the Church grows out of the great sac- 
 rament of the Incarnation, wherein He, Who grew 
 up "as a tender plant and as a root out of the dry 
 ground," is the same Whose branches, spreading 
 throughout the world in the sacramental ministry 
 of His Church, afford healing for all nations, and 
 for every generation of man. 
 
 The first petition of the Lord's Prayer might 
 well be engraved as a suitable legend upon the 
 Font, which as it stands at the door of the Church, 
 reminds us that it is only by being born again in 
 this Sacrament that we can enter into the King- 
 dom of God. The place of Holy Baptism as the first 
 in the order of the sacraments, follows of necessity 
 from the gift of life which it confers. It not only 
 gives its own sacramental grace, but it is necessary 
 to qualify us for any of the other sacraments, five 
 of which were instituted for the augmenting of this 
 "first grace," and one, Penance, to restore this 
 grace where it has been lost through sin. But all 
 other sacraments presuppose the sacrament of 
 Baptism, and can only be conferred where it has 
 been already received. 
 
 God reveals Himself by His Xame in two 
 wavs : 
 
20 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 First, as in Himself alone He stands apart 
 from all creatures, in the eternal mystery of 
 His uncreated essence in Three Divine Persons: 
 the Father, Unbegotten; the Son, Begotten; the 
 Holy Ghost, Proceeding.* 
 
 Secondly, as He is in relation to His creatures, 
 and especially as concerns those relations in which 
 as our Creator, our Redeemer and our Sanctifier 
 He is mindful of man. 
 
 Now, in saying the first petition of the Lord's 
 Prayer, "Hallowed be Thy Name, 1 ' it is evident 
 that we cannot pray that God's Name, in the first 
 and absolute sense in which it is used, should be 
 made holy. In this sense we can neither add any- 
 thing to it, nor take anything from it. With 
 Angels and Archangels and w^ith all the company 
 of heaven we simply worship it, saying, "Holy, 
 Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty" (Rev. iv. 8). 
 
 "We say, 'Hallowed be Thy Name,'" says S. 
 Cyprian, "not as wishing for God to be made holy 
 by our prayer, but asking Him that His Name may 
 be kept holy in us. By whom indeed, could God 
 be sanctified, Who Himself sanctifies ?"* 
 
 Now in the Holy Scriptures the name of God 
 frequently stands, both in the Old Testament and 
 
 ^Treatise on the Lord's Prayer, VII. 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 21 
 
 in the New, for His covenant relation to His peo- 
 ple. The priestly blessing prescribed for ritual 
 use in the Book of Numbers, and which in its 
 threefold form and its thrice making mention of 
 the most Holy Name had a mysterious significance 
 which we now understand, is described as putting 
 the Name of God upon His people. 
 
 a 0n this wise ye shall bless the children of 
 Israel, saying unto them, 
 
 u The Lord bless thee, and keep thee; 
 
 "The, Lord make His face to shine upon thee, 
 and be gracious unto thee; 
 
 "The Lord lift up His countenance unto thee, 
 and give thee peace. 
 
 "And they shall put My Name upon the chil- 
 dren of Israel; and I will bless them" (Numbers 
 vi. 23-27). 
 
 Again God says of that angel of His presence 
 who should keep Israel in the way and bring the 
 people to Canaan, "Beware of Him and obey His 
 voice and provoke Him not, for My name is in 
 Him" (Ex. xxiii. 21). 
 
 The glory of Israel was this: that because the 
 Lord had established them an holy people unto 
 Himself, all the people of the earth should see 
 
22 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 u tliat they were called by the name of the Lord" 
 (Deut. xxviii. 9-10). 
 
 So again and again the covenant of God with 
 His people is referred to as the calling them by 
 His name, or, as more literally translated in the 
 marginal reading of our authorized version, the 
 calling His Name wpon them. 
 
 "Thou, Lord, art in the midst of us, and we 
 are called by Thy name 1 ' ( Jer. xiv. 9). 
 
 u He hath commanded His covenant forever, 
 holy and reverend is His name" (Psalm exi. 9). 
 
 This oft repeated phrase is significant. It is 
 by reason of his fall that man stands in need of a 
 covenant with God, that he needs in other words, 
 to have God's Name put upon him. Before he fell 
 God's Name was upon him. When God said, "Let 
 Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness," 
 the Holy Trinity was condescending to stoop 
 down and write in the dust the Name of God. 
 Man's body was formed of the dust of the earth, 
 but into that body was breathed the breath of life, 
 and man became a living soul. It was this 
 spiritual part of his being which, while in itself 
 simple and indivisible, contained in its threefold 
 endowment of intellect, affections and will, a 
 reflection of the Blessed Trinity. 
 
Of the Lobd's Pbayeb. 23 
 
 Then came the fall. The divine likeness was 
 lost by sin, the image was marred, the divine 
 signature was blurred. Man must be made anew, 
 the image must be restored, the divine hand- 
 writing must be retraced. This is accomplished 
 through the Incarnation. The likeness to God 
 which in the first Adam was lost, is seen again in 
 the face of Jesus Christ "Who is the image of the 
 Invisible God, the First-born of every creature" 
 (Col. i. 15). u The brightness of His glory, and 
 the express image of His person (Heb. i. 3). 
 
 How then are we to be restored to the same 
 likeness ? The promise of the re-creating work 
 seems to have been given, when, by the baptism 
 of His well-beloved Son in the river Jordan, God 
 sanctified water to the mystical washing away of 
 sin. Again, as in the first creation, the Holy 
 Trinity is manifested. God the Son it is Who, 
 in the nature of man, submits to baptism at the 
 hand of one of His creatures. God the Father 
 speaks from the opened heavens, "This is My 
 beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased."" God 
 the Holy Ghost, in the likeness of a dove, descends 
 and abides upon Him. 
 
 The promise was fulfilled when, just before 
 His Ascension into heaven, the Son of God and 
 
24: The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 the Son of man gave to His apostles His great 
 commission. In that commission we are pre- 
 pared for the emphasis laid upon the kame of the 
 adorable Trinity, here for the first time clearly 
 proclaimed: U A11 power is given unto Me in 
 heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and dis- 
 ciple all nations, baptizing them in the kame of 
 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost" (S. Matt, xxviii. 18). 
 
 At every Baptism we seem again to hear the 
 Holy Trinity saying, "Let Us make man in Our 
 image, after Our likeness." Again God puts His 
 Name upon us, writing it more clearly than in 
 our first creation, for then we only reflected His 
 image, but now we are incorporated into Him 
 Who is the Image of God; then we were creatures, 
 albeit perfect in our nature, but now we are 
 children, and that by participation in the Son- 
 ship of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Does not the Sacrament of Baptism then, the 
 first in the order of the sacraments, throw light 
 upon the first petition of the Lord's Prayer ? Nay, 
 how, apart from that Sacrament, can we explain it 
 at all ? Was not the early Church indeed gov- 
 erned by a reverent regard to this, when she 
 withheld from all but the baptized the prayer 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 
 
 which begins, "Our Father Who art in heaven, 
 hallowed be Thy name ?" 
 
 As God stands apart from His creatures in 
 the absolute perfection of His own infinite nature, 
 it were indeed meaningless to say "hallowed be 
 Thy Name." But in Baptism we have put on the 
 New man which is renewed after the image of 
 Him that created him. God's name, the name of 
 the most Holy Trinity is put upon us. As 
 children bear about the honour of their parents, 
 whose name they inherit, so let us remember 
 that we are charged with the honour of the 
 blessed Trinity, Whose Name is on our foreheads, 
 and are accountable if an unholy life shall dis- 
 honour Him, and cause men to "blaspheme that 
 worthy name by which we are called" (S. James 
 ii. 7). 
 
 In saying this first petition let us pray it in 
 the sense explained by S. Cyprian, and seeing God 
 "Himself has said, ; Be ye holy for I am holy' let 
 us ask and request that we, who have been 
 sanctified by Baptism may persevere such as we 
 have begun." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HOLY ORDERS. 
 
 "Thy Kingdom Come!' 
 
 From the beginning to the end of our Lord's 
 earthly Ministry, the establishing of a visible 
 Kingdom on earth was the purpose which He had 
 always before Him. He came to fulfil all that 
 had been foretold in prophecy of a world-embrac- 
 ing, indestructible Kingdom, and to exercise 
 upon earth the authority which was proclaimed 
 by the angel who announced His Birth: "The 
 Lord shall give unto Him the throne of His 
 Father David, and He shall reign over the house 
 of Jacob forever, and of His Kingdom there shall 
 be no end" (S. Luke i. 32, 33). 
 
 Accordingly His Ministry is heralded by S. 
 John Baptist, in the warning, "Repent, for the 
 Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Then "after 
 that John was put in prison, Jesus came into 
 Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of 
 God, and saying the time is fulfilled, and the 
 Kingdom of God is at hand" (S. Mark i. 14, 15). 
 
28 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 The Kingdom of God was the subject of His 
 parables, and the burden of His teaching until on 
 the charge of making Himself a King He was 
 nailed to the Cross, and His title u The King of 
 the Jews/' was written over His Head. When 
 after He had risen from the dead, He was seen of 
 the Apostles forty days, the subject of His teach- 
 ing was still until the very day in which He was 
 taken up into Heaven, u the things pertaining to 
 the Kingdom of God" (Acts i. 2, 3). 
 
 But a King must have subjects, and since our 
 Lord came to establish a world-wide and imperish- 
 able Kingdom on earth, that Kingdom must not 
 only gather under its sway all nations of the 
 world, but it must so perpetuate its rule and its 
 order as to outlive every generation of men, and 
 defying u the gates of hell," the power of death, 
 remain unshaken until its ultimate triumph at 
 the end of the world. 
 
 In our Lord Himself all kingly authority 
 resides. He is in this alone and unapproachable. 
 Nevertheless we find Him choosing out from the 
 great multitude of His disciples, twelve men whom 
 in a way altogether remarkable He associates and 
 identifies with Himself. He gives them authority 
 and power to do what He Himself did, and to 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 29 
 
 tliem He says: "I appoint unto you a Kingdom 
 as My Father hath appointed unto Me, that ye 
 may eat and drink at My table in My Kingdom, 
 and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of 
 Israel (S. Luke xxii. 29). Again, to one of them, 
 S. Peter, He says, U I will give unto thee the keys 
 of the Kingdom of Heaven," while to all the 
 twelve He gave the assurance that in the exercise 
 of the power of binding and loosing, their judg- 
 ment pronounced on earth, would hold good in 
 Heaven (S. Matt. xvi. 19. and xviii. 18). 
 
 When our Lord ascended into Heaven He left 
 the Apostles with plenary authority to act as His 
 representatives in that Kingly, Priestly and Pro- 
 phetical office, which by their ministry He would 
 unceasingly exercise upon earth. To this end He 
 promised to send them the gift of the Holy Ghost, 
 and He left them with the assurance that He 
 Himself would be with them all days, a promise 
 reaching beyond the natural life of those who 
 first received this commission, to include all who, 
 by succession in the same office, should hand 
 down this authority to the end of the world. It 
 is then in entire accordance with our Lord's plan 
 for establishing and perpetuating a divine hier- 
 archy on the earth, that in one of the petitions of 
 
30 The Sacramental Teaching ' 
 
 the prayer which He gave us, we should be taught 
 to pray u Thy Kingdom Come" (S. Matt.xxviii.20). 
 
 Let us dwell upon the word u come." It is the 
 characteristic of this Kingdom that it comes 
 down from above. It is the Kingdom of Heaven, 
 it must therefore descend to the earth if it is to 
 take men up in its embrace. They cannot raise 
 themselves up of their own power. The answer 
 to this prayer was the day of Pentecost. 
 With the descent of the Holy Spirit upon those 
 whom our Lord had chosen and ordained for their 
 kingly and priestly work as His representatives 
 on earth, the Kingdom of God had come. 
 
 Why then do we continue to use this same 
 prayer, u Thy Kingdom come ?" Because this 
 Kingdom is always coming. The kingdoms of the 
 world are always going. They have a short life 
 and then they pass away forever. They appear 
 on the pages of history; for a little while we read 
 of their rise, and the extension of their power, 
 then they begin to wane, and at last, first of one 
 then of another, history records the fall. 
 
 Not so the Kingdom of God. It came at 
 Pentecost, it is always coming, and it never passes 
 away. For eighteen centuries, age after age has 
 seen it come; to every generation in turn it has 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 31 
 
 come with its offer of a new birtb and of a heav- 
 enly life sustained from above. Men have not 
 to go after it; it comes to them if they will but 
 receive it. It is ever coming too, in its u tendency 
 and power, while growing inwardly, to penetrate 
 ever more and more the substance of humanity, 
 to sink more deeply into its members' souls with 
 its blessings, while spreading outwardly from 
 land to land, from nation to nation, and widen- 
 ing its borders/ 1 * 
 
 And how does this Kingdom come ? Through 
 the steady onflow of that Pentecostal stream which 
 was poured out first upon the Apostles, and which 
 ever descends along the line of apostolic success- 
 ion. Holy orders are the life of the Kingdom of 
 God on earth. Should they fail (as they cannot on 
 our Lord's word), the Kingdom of God would 
 cease to come, and the gates of hell would have 
 prevailed against it. The Apostolic ministry 
 preserved and handed on, is as Julian the Apostate 
 too well understood, the vital chord necessary to 
 the perpetuation of the Kingdom of the Nazarene, 
 and which, in his edict for the extermination of 
 the priesthood, he sought in vain to sever. 
 
 And Holv Orders come. Man can no more 
 
 *Dolling*er First age of the Church. 
 
32 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 make them for himself than he can make the sun- 
 light or create a world. They are God's gift, 
 good and perfect, and they come down from 
 above. 
 
 From Christ, the true King, the true Priest, 
 the true Prophet, they descend in order. His 
 authority in this three-fold office is first trans- 
 mitted to the Apostolate to be perpetuated in the 
 Episcopate. Prom this plenary commission the 
 sacerdotal office of Christ descends in its further 
 transmission to the Priesthood, and finally to the 
 Diaconate descends the commission which is 
 exercised in union with His prophetical office. The 
 Priesthood includes the Diaconate, the Episcopate 
 includes them both; from Christ is derived all. 
 
 "All authority and power is given unto Me in 
 Heaven and earth.' 1 "Go ye therefore and disciple 
 all nations, (that is, to exercise the kingly office 
 of Christ in bringing the world to acknowledge 
 His rule), "baptizing them," (that is, to exercise 
 His priestly office for the remissiom of sins), 
 u teaching them," (that is, to exercise His prophet- 
 ical office in making known the commands of 
 God). The first office is especially that of the 
 Apostolate and Episcopate; the second is sacerdo- 
 tal in its nature, and belongs especially to the 
 
Of the Lobd's Pbayeb. S3 
 
 Priesthood; the third is shared in the ministry of 
 the Diaconate. 
 
 It is because the orders of the Sacred ministry 
 come from above, that they are charged with super- 
 natural powers. No such mysterious powers are 
 ever claimed by those, who, on the strength of a 
 mere "inward call," take upon themselves a quasi 
 ministerial relation. Even when such persons 
 seem to be ministering sacraments, they are by 
 their own vehement protest exercising no super- 
 natural power, or doing more than any other man 
 might do as well. 
 
 The petition, u Thy Kingdom Come," as thus 
 viewed in the light of the Sacrament of Orders, 
 has its bearing upon a question, the discussion of 
 which, at the present time, is at least a hopeful 
 and encouraging sign. 
 
 The reunion of Christendom when it conies, 
 will come in answer to the prayer of this petition. 
 It will come from above, not from below. No 
 mere human devices will ever be able to bring it 
 about. "Go to," said they on the plain of Shinar, 
 "let us build us a city and a tower whose top may 
 reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name 
 lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the 
 whole earth." So they builded. but they were no 
 
34 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 nearer Heaven. They inherited confusion and 
 strife as the end of their toil. 
 
 The Spirit Who alone can bind together into 
 one, is the Lord Who maketh men to be of one mind 
 in an house, the same Spirit who came down upon 
 the Apostles at Pentecost. Certainly, we may 
 expect that in His own good time, His healing 
 touch will first rest upon those who, though 
 through their sins they have lost external com- 
 munion, are nevertheless in their common inheri- 
 tance of an Apostolic commission inwardly one, 
 and that when these discern in each others' faces 
 the tokens of His presence, the whole house where 
 they are sitting will be filled with the knowledge 
 of His voice. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOLY CONFIRMATION. 
 
 "Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven." 
 
 In what was said under the first petition we 
 saw how in the Sacrament of Baptism, the Image 
 of God, clouded and blurred by sin, is impressed 
 anew upon the soul. 
 
 To the darkened intellect, the perverted affec- 
 tions and the enfeebled will, those three natural 
 faculties which in man's innocence perfectly 
 reflected the Divine Nature, the sanctifying grace 
 of Baptism restores the threefold virtues of Faith, 
 Hope and Charity. But while by the infusion 
 of these virtues the original Image is cleansed and 
 restored, another Sacrament is needed in order to 
 confer again that gift of the Holy Ghost, in Whose 
 abiding presence man's likeness to God consists. 
 
 This is the gift received in Holy Confirmation, 
 and thus Confirmation is the complement of 
 Holy Baptism, as completing our restoration, both 
 to the Image and Likeness of God. S. Paul 
 includes both Sacraments when he speaks of the 
 
36 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 faithful at Colosse as the) 7 who u have put off the 
 old man, and have put on the new man," (the 
 effect of Baptism) "which is renewed in knowl- 
 edge" (the grace of Confirmation) "after the 
 Image of Him that created him" (Col. iii. 9, 10). 
 
 As then in the petition next before this we 
 saw the work of God the Holy Ghost in the 
 Church at large, which since the day of Pentecost ; 
 He does not cease to rule and govern with His life- 
 giving Presence, so in this we are brought face to 
 face with the work of the same Spirit in the 
 individual soul. And surely that work is beauti- 
 fully epitomized in the petition u Thy Will be 
 done on earth as it is in Heaven." 
 
 The first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer 
 place us in turn before each Person of the Ador- 
 able Trinity. In the first we address Our Father, 
 Whose Name is revealed in the Incarnation of His 
 adorable Son; in the second we are face to face 
 with the mission and work of God the Son, for 
 the coming of Whose Kingdom we pray; while in 
 the third we cannot but turn to God the Holy 
 Ghost, Whose special office it is to reveal the will 
 of God, and by Whom God both "grants what He 
 commands and commands what He wills." 
 
 Or, if we look to the Image of God in our- 
 
Of the Lord's Pbayeb. 87 
 
 selves, as it lias been re-c-reated in Holy Baptism, 
 the answer to the first petition will be manifest, 
 especially in the intellect enlightened, by Faith to 
 know and to hallow God's Name; that to the sec- 
 ond in the affections, purified through Hope, to 
 wait for the Kingdom whose coming we hasten 
 by our prayer; and that to the third in the will, 
 animated by that Love which the Spirit of God 
 diffuses in our hearts to emulate those blessed 
 Spirits in Heaven, who u fulfil His commandment 
 and hearken unto the voice of His Word.' 1 
 
 We see then in the petition we are now con- 
 sidering that our wills have a sort of figurative cor- 
 respondence with the Person of God the Holy Ghost, 
 in the same sense in which the faculties of our 
 created spirits are an image of the Eternal Trinity. 
 And if we look (with all reverence) deeper into 
 the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the figurative 
 correspondence becomes more striking. In the 
 mystery of the Holy Trinity the Holy Spirit, pro- 
 ceeding from the Father, through the Son, 
 Eternally Begotten of the Father, is the Bond of 
 Union between the Father and the Son, complet- 
 ing and closing the mystery of the Godhead. 
 And in the earthly counterpart which reflects this 
 mystery, the intellect and the affections have not 
 
38 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 fulfilled the purpose for which they are given 
 until what the mind conceives and the heart loves 
 issues in the exercise of the will, which may thus 
 be said to proceed from both. 
 
 When therefore we pray, "Thy will be done' 7 
 we are giving utterance to what is the highest possi- 
 ble aspiration of our being, that perfect union with 
 God for which we were in the first place created, and 
 which is the ultimate purpose for which every 
 sacramental gift is bestowed. How shall that 
 union with God ever be effected except through 
 the Almighty Power of that Divine Person Who 
 is Himself the Spirit of Unity? He Who by His 
 overshadowing a pure Virgin, enabled her to con- 
 ceive a Son, in Whose Person the nature of God 
 and the nature of man are united; He Whose Pen- 
 tecostal work effected the union between the natu- 
 ral Body of Christ and His mystical Body, the 
 Church: He Who by Baptism has united us to 
 Christ, since, "by one Spirit we are all baptized into 
 One Body 17 (I. Cor. xii:13); He only can enable us 
 to live that life of union which consists in collect- 
 ing all the faculties of our being and bringing them 
 into conformity with His Divine purpose while we 
 pray, "Thy Will be done on earth as it is in 
 Heaven. 77 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer, 39 
 
 What then do we need that we may live as we 
 pray in this petition? We need His abiding, 
 indwelling Presence, and we need it for two pur- 
 poses: first, that by His illuminating grace., "we 
 may perceive and know what things we ought to 
 do," and secondly, that by His spiritual might "we 
 may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the 
 same." 
 
 Where shall we look, that we may receive this 
 gift of the Presence of God the Holy Spirit, if not 
 to that Sacrament which was especially ordained 
 for the very purpose of restoring that priceless 
 gift, which man forfeited in the fall ? 
 
 In Holy Confirmation the sevenfold gifts of 
 the Holy Ghost are apportioned to the various 
 faculties of our souls, which have previously had 
 the virtues of faith, hope and charity imparted to 
 them in Holy Baptism. We distinguish there- 
 fore between virtues and gifts. The virtues are 
 new powers or faculties created in the soul as the 
 result of the first or sanctifying grace received at 
 the Font. They are implanted in the soul as 
 latent faculties needing to be educated, that is 
 drawn forth and developed, by the further opera- 
 tions of the Holy Ghost. As the air, the sunlight, 
 the soil, the rain, are all necessary to the seed, to 
 
40 , The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 enable it to germinate and bring forth fruit, so 
 the purpose for which these gifts are bestowed is 
 to elicit the virtues implanted in Baptism, and to 
 foster their growth until they are perfected in the 
 fruits of the Spirit. Accordingly if we examine 
 the seven gifts of Confifmation, we shall see that 
 they have distinct reference to the virtues received 
 in Baptism. To the natural reason Holy Baptism 
 imparted the virtue of Faith, but in order to 
 enable the eye of Faith to see clearly the Holy 
 Spirit bestows upon it in Confirmation the four 
 gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel and 
 Knowledge. These are to Faith what light is to 
 the eye. Aided by these gifts the reason already 
 endowed with a new faculty of Faith is enabled 
 u to perceive and know" what the will of God is. 
 But it is not enough to know the will of God 
 in order to do it. We must also love it. u Love 
 is the fulfilling of the law." To the affections, 
 naturally prone to spend themselves on finite and 
 unworthy objects, Holy Baptism imparted a new 
 faculty of Hope, re-directing them to God, their 
 only true Object, and thus setting them on things 
 above. But this virtue of Hope is not left 
 unaided, for it must needs be exposed to two 
 opposite but deadly perils. On the one hand it 
 
Of the Lobd's Pbayeb. 41 
 
 may easily be perverted into presumption; on the 
 other it may be lost in despair. Against these 
 dangers the Holy Spirit of God imparts His Gifts 
 of Piety and Holy Fear. These Gifts are the 
 safeguards of Hope. Protected by the Spirit of 
 Piety, the child of God finds in the obedience and 
 submission of a loving and dutiful son, that calm 
 trustfulness which can never be shaken, and so 
 his Hope is preserved against despair. While on 
 the other hand, the Spirit of Holy Fear is ever 
 present in that instinct of reverence which is 
 always mindful of the awful majesty of God, and 
 which, while trusting His mercy, is afraid to 
 presume against the severity of His strict justice. 
 
 Finally, to the will was imparted in Holy 
 Baptism, the virtue of Love, as a new motive for 
 its action. Yet who does not know, who has not 
 felt in his own experience the impotence even of 
 love ? ki To will is present with me, but how to per- 
 form that which is good, I find not." 
 
 "I delight in the law of God after the inward 
 man, but I see another law in my members war- 
 ring against the law of my mind, and bringing me 
 into captivity to the law of sin" (Rom. vii. 18, 22). 
 
 There remains the gift of Ghostly Strength, 
 the Spirit of Fortitude, the crowning gift of the 
 
42 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 Spirit of God, as the very name given to the Sac- 
 rament of Confirmation seems to imply. All 
 other Gifts of the Spirit wait upon this and find 
 their completion in this, even as the intellect and 
 the affections are included in the will, and as of 
 Faith, Hope and Charity it is written, "the greatest 
 of these is Charity. 1 ' Left to itself the virtue of 
 Love might fail, but "strengthened with might by 
 His Spirit in the inner man," Charity "never 
 faileth, 11 but "beareth all things, hopeth all 
 things, endureth all things. 1 ' 
 
 The correspondence thus traced between this 
 petition and the Sacrament of Confirmation may 
 remind us, that in receiving the Holy Ghost by the 
 laying on of the hands of the bishop, we receive 
 as it were a kind of ordination. It is impossible 
 to view the reception of the Gifts of the Spirit 
 apart from a call to His active service and a 
 special mission to others. Confirmation has its 
 direct bearing upon all the varied branches of 
 Church work in which it is possible for laymen to 
 engage. We should never forget that it involves 
 the call to devote our strength, our talents, our 
 substance to His service, and that unfaithfulness 
 to opportunities of active work is unfaithfulness to 
 Him Whose gifts we have received. If every lay- 
 
Of the Lord's Pbayeb. 43 
 
 man recognized this, and if, in his work for the 
 Church, he relied intelligently and confidently up- 
 on these sevenfold Gifts, who can measure the 
 impulse that would be given to the extension of 
 Christ's Kingdom, and to the fulfilment of the 
 petition, u Thy will be done on earth as it is in 
 Heaven ?" 
 
CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHAKIST. 
 
 "Give its this day our daily Bread! 7 
 
 The application of the fourth petition to the 
 Sacrament of the Altar is too evident to need any 
 explanation. It has from the beginning been 
 used by devout souls, with this primary reference 
 to that Heavenly Food, u the Bread which cometh 
 down from Heaven," and S. Jerome's Latin ver- 
 sion even gives us as the translation of the words 
 we render "daily bread," partem supersubstantia- 
 lem, or, as we would say, "supernatural" Bread. 
 
 Let us notice th<* place which this petition 
 occupies, midway in the prayer. It is the central 
 petition as the Holy Eucharist is the centre of 
 the sacramental system, "the Tree of Life in the 
 midst of the Paradise of God." Every other 
 mystery in the Kingdom of grace has its place 
 with reference to this chief Sacrament. Baptism 
 and Confirmation prepare us for It and look to 
 Its reception; the highest privilege and the crown- 
 in g glory of the Priesthood is Its consecration; 
 
46 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 Penance and Unction cleanse the soul that it may 
 worthily approach It, while Marriage is the mys- 
 tery of that union of Christ and His Church, 
 which the Holy Eucharist consummates. The 
 . pre-eminence of the Holy Eucharist over all other 
 Sacraments is seen in this, that whereas other 
 Sacraments confer upon us some particular grace 
 as applying the merits of Christ, this gives us 
 Christ Himself, in Whose Person all the treasures 
 of grace are stored. Compare the Holy Eucharist 
 with the other great Sacrament, as they are both 
 defined in the Catechism, and the pre-eminence 
 will appear. First, a Sacrament is defined as u an 
 outward and visible sign of an inward and spirit- 
 ual grace ;" then this definition is applied to Holy 
 Baptism and to the Holy Eucharist in turn. As 
 applied to Holy Baptism only two questions need 
 to be asked as regards the Sacrament: first, u What 
 is the outward visible sign or form in Baptism ?" 
 second, u What is the inward and Spiritual grace ?" 
 These two questions draw out a complete defini- 
 tion of the Sacrament of Baptism. But when 
 the general definition of a Sacrament is applied to 
 the Holy Eucharist, two questions are not enough 
 to elicit a full definition. The Catechism inquires, 
 as before, as to the outward part or sign, and as 
 
Of the Lobd's P bates. 47 
 
 to tlie benefits or the Spiritual grace conveyed, 
 but a third question is necessaiy to draw oat as 
 distinct, both from the outward form and the 
 Spiritual grace, the inward part or Thing itself oi 
 the Sacrament, namely, "the Body and Blood of 
 Christ which are spiritually taken and received 
 by the faithful in the Lord's Supper. " 
 
 This distinction is certainly simple enough, 
 yet no one can read what is sometimes loosely 
 written, without seeing how constantly the great 
 difference between the Holy Eucharist and 
 every other Sacrament is forgotten or ignored. 
 The inward part of every other Sacrament is 
 the special grace which it conveys: the inward 
 part of this is Christ Himself, verily and indeed 
 Present under the outward forms of Bread and 
 Wine. 
 
 In the first petition we said u Our Father i' 1 
 here we say u Our Bread.'' In both petitions we 
 are reminded that we are praying not merely for 
 ourselves as individuals, but for the collective 
 body of the faithful. Thus Holy Baptism and 
 the Holy Eucharist are made prominent as espec- 
 ially the Sacraments of union — uniting us first to 
 God, then to each other. For as u by One Spirit 
 we are all baptized into One Body,' 7 and u have all 
 
48 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 been made to drink into One Spirit," so also "we 
 being many are One Bread and One Body for we 
 are all partakers of that One Bread."" It were 
 well if such texts were remembered in days when 
 so much is said about Christian unity. Christian 
 union begins in Holy Baptism where we have 
 God for Our Father, it is continued in the Holy 
 Eucharist, wherein alone we can have Christ as 
 Our Bread, and that only as the outward elements 
 are validly consecrated by rightly ordained Priests. 
 In whatever sense the word which we render 
 "daily 71 has been understood, it is satisfied in this 
 reference to the Holy Eucharist. This is our 
 "daily Bread," as never failing; "Sufficient Bread," 
 as alone satisfying, as it is written "man did eat 
 Angels' Food for He sent them meat enough." 
 It is our "Supersubstantial Bread," and our "Con- 
 venient Bread," because exactly adapted to the 
 wants of those in whom by Baptism there has 
 been implanted the germ of a new and a super- 
 substantial nature, which must be constantly 
 nourished and sustained lest it be lost amid the 
 corrupting influences of earthly passion. Here 
 again we see the close relation which exists 
 between the two great Sacraments. It is because 
 we have been regenerated (born from above) in 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer, 
 
 Holy Baptism, that the Bread which cometh 
 down from Heaven through the Priestly blessing 
 is "Convenient" to us; suited, that is, to the 
 requirements of our new birth. Except we had 
 been born again in Baptism, the Bread of the 
 Eucharist were no Food "Convenient"' for us. u It 
 is not meet to take the Children's Bread and cast 
 it to dogs." 
 
 But leaving other renderings, let us take that 
 which is familiar to us: Our daily Bread. As 
 with the common consent of Christendom we 
 apply these words to the Bread of the Altar, surely 
 they must imply that that Heavenly Food, which 
 is as necessary to the soul as material food is to 
 the body, should be easily accessible and frequently 
 dispensed. We may be thankful that those griev- 
 ous years of famine in the Anglican Communion, 
 when there w r as no Bread, except once a quarter, 
 or even once a year, have gone, let us hope, for- 
 ever — that in churches where a little while ago 
 the monthly celebration was the rule, the Blessed 
 Sacrament is now celebrated every Sunday. 
 Surely nothing less than this can be thought to 
 preserve the spirit of the petition — "Give us this 
 day our daily Bread." It would be more con- 
 sistent with this petition, if every day the 
 
50 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 Priest stood at the Altar and offered to>the faith- 
 ful the Bread of life; nor would it follow from 
 this that every one or even anyone (except the 
 Priest), should receive Communion every day. 
 We have already seen that in praying this peti- 
 tion, we are praying in the name of the whole 
 Church. We do not say: "Give me this day my 
 daily bread;" but "Give us this day our daily 
 bread." As individuals we may not feel on any 
 given day that we are prepared to receive, though 
 there can never be a day when we would not do 
 well to join in the solemn action in which the 
 Church pleads the Sacrifice of Christ. But as 
 individuals we are only a small part of all the 
 Faithful, or even of our own Parish. And what 
 day is there when some soul (if only one) may not 
 have a special longing for that Immortal Food ? 
 For have we not all known days, which, though 
 to others only as the rest, have been to us solemn 
 days, full of some deep joy or of some great sor- 
 row ? And if on such days we have felt that the 
 joy or sorrow was fully known only to ourselves, 
 have we the less on that account felt the need of 
 His Presence and support Who knows all, or 
 because of the loneliness of our joy or sorrow 
 uttered with less fervor the petition — "Give us 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 51 
 
 this day our daily bread ?" Besides we have our 
 anniversaries, our birthdays, the anniversaries of 
 Baptism, of Confirmation, of first Communion, of 
 Orders perhaps, or of Marriage, or of the departure 
 from this life of souls dear to us, parted froip. us 
 but not from Christ in Whom all the faithful 
 whether living or dead are one Body. And if we 
 do well to keep such anniversaries at all. must we 
 not feel ourselves defrauded if on days like these 
 our daily Bread is not offered to us ? 
 
 If we go further than this and, in view of the 
 exigencies of the sick and the dying, desire that not 
 only should that Heavenly Bread be daily conse- 
 crated upon oar altars, but that with great reverence 
 It should be perpetually reserved in our churches, 
 we shall go neither beyond the spirit of this peti- 
 tion, nor the teaching and practice of the Church 
 from the earliest times. 
 
 It may well form one part of our intention as 
 we pray this petition, that in the hour of our 
 death this daily Bread may be given us as our 
 Viaticum. Too many even of those who when in 
 health were wont to come with regularity to the 
 Altar, have, in their last sickness and in the hour 
 of death, when they most needed this life-giving 
 Food, been left destitute of their daily Bread. 
 
52 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 We may, it is true, partially account for this by 
 the many practical difficulties which inevitably 
 attend the communion of the sick, but certainly 
 experience has taught us that were it known that 
 the Blessed Sacrament could on any day or at any 
 hour be brought directly from the church into 
 the sick man's room, and reverently yet speedily 
 administered, without the necessity of a special 
 consecration, many of those practical difficulties 
 would disappear, and unspeakable comfort would 
 be given in many cases where it is now denied. 
 
 We have, alas, grown too sadly accustomed to 
 the fact that the majority of our Communicants 
 who depart this life are deprived in their last hours 
 of what the Council of Nicaea calls u the last most 
 indispensable Provision for the way."* Such a 
 neglect of the dying would, we may be sure, have 
 been rebuked in no mild term by this Council which 
 in the case, first, of persons under ecclesiastical 
 censure, and then of "any dying person whatso- 
 
 * Concerning the departing", the ancient Canonical law is 
 still to be maintained ; to wit, that, if any man be at the point of 
 death, he must not be deprived of the last most indispensable 
 provision for the way. But if any one should be restored to 
 health again who has received the Communion when his life was 
 depaired of, let him remain among those who communicate in 
 the prayers only. But in general, and in case of any dying per- 
 son whatsoever asking to receive the Eucharist, let the Bishop, 
 after examination made, impart to him the Oblation. Index 
 Canonum. Niccea Canon xiii. 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 53 
 
 ever asking to receive the Eucharist,'" decreed that 
 the ancient canonical law was still to be main- 
 tained, and those at the point of death were not to 
 be deprived of the Viaticum. 
 
 In the presence of this tolerated neglect 
 which does such wrong to the dying, which is 
 at warfare not only with Catholic law but 
 with the very instincts of Christian Charity itself, 
 it is difficult to deal patiently with the objections 
 of those who see "rubrical difficulties" in the way 
 of reserving the Blessed Sacrament for the sick.* 
 
 The exigencies of the case are very real. Not 
 infrequently the urgent call to the bedside of the 
 dying allows the Priest no time to make the neces- 
 sary preparations for a celebration of the Holy 
 Eucharist, even if he be himself prepared to con- 
 secrate at once. Much less will it admit of his 
 finding the "two at the least," required by the 
 rubric when there is to be a celebration in the sick 
 man's room, who are prepared to receive with him. 
 What is to be done in such cases ? Must the 
 dying man be denied the most indispensable Pro- 
 vision for the way, because the urgency of the 
 moment will not admit of Its being consecrated 
 
 *The whole question of legality is ably treated by the Rev. 
 J. W. Kempe. "Reservation tor the sick and dying- not incon- 
 sistent with the Order of the Church of England." 
 
54 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 anew on his behalf ? There can be no doubt as 
 to how the early Church and how Catholic Christen- 
 dom would answer such a question. If we may 
 say it reverently, we cannot doubt how our Lord 
 Himself would answer it. In this petition of His 
 Own Prayer He teaches us to pray "Give us this 
 day our daily Bread. 1 ' In speaking of Himself 
 as the Bread which came down from heaven, and 
 in choosing the element of bread as the outward 
 form under which in the Sacrament He gives us 
 His Sacred Body, our Lord cannot but have 
 meant that we should think of Him and of this 
 Sacrament according to the analogy thus institu- 
 ted. Bread, then, is not an article of only occa- 
 sional necessity. It is precisely that staple of life 
 which we take care always to have at hand. It is 
 in the houses of the rich: it is one thing we look 
 for even in the houses of the very poor. It is pre- 
 pared not only to be used, but to be kept. Surely 
 then it cannot be our Lord's will that His House 
 should be destitute of the Heavenly Bread at any 
 hour when His children may call for It, or that 
 any of us being a father, shall, if his son ask for 
 bread, give him a stone. 
 
 It is certainly remarkable that the Lord's 
 Prayer, as given in S. Luke's Gospel, is immedi- 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 55 
 
 ately followed by a parable which is based on an 
 urgent call for bread at a most inconvenient 
 hour. 
 
 " Which of you shall have a friend and shall 
 go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, 
 Friend, lend me three loaves ; for a friend of mine 
 in his journey is come unto me, and I have 
 nothing to set before him ? And he from within 
 shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is 
 now r shut, and my children are with me in bed ; I 
 cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you though 
 he will not rise and give him because he is his 
 friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise 
 and give him as many as he needeth ,, (S. Luke xi. 
 5-9). 
 
 Surely the Church wall have fallen into a 
 deeper than midnight slumber if She shall ever 
 withhold the wayfarer's Food at the impor- 
 tunity of her children. But She never has refused 
 It. She never can refuse It. It will be no fault 
 of Hers if when summoned to the dying the Priest 
 shall have no Bread to set before the wayfarer at 
 his journey's end. Though he be called at mid- 
 night he may betake himself to that Friend Who 
 though under the sacred veils, in the quiet Church 
 He seem to sleep, yet "Bays of Himself, "I sleep 
 
56 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 but My heart waketh" (Cant. v. 2), Who hath 
 both given His Life for His friends, and is Him- 
 self that Bread of Life which alone can strengthen 
 them in their conflict with death. No impor- 
 tunity is needed with Him. u He will rise and 
 give him as many as he needeth." 
 
 That in God's good time the primitive custom 
 of reserving the Blessed Sacrament will be gener- 
 ally restored we need not doubt, and meanwhile 
 we hasten the day of its restoration as often as we 
 say "Give us this day our daily Bread." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SACKAMEXT OF PENANCE. 
 
 "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those 
 who trespass against us!' 
 
 The fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer is 
 remarkable as being the only one upon which our 
 Lord afterwards comments. It is to the condi- 
 tion attached to the petition "Forgive us our tres- 
 passes," that He earnestly directs the attention of 
 His disciples when first giving them this prayer. 
 u For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your 
 heavenly Father will also forgive you; bat if ye 
 forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your 
 Father forgive your trespasses" (S. Matt. vi. 14, 
 15). A like warning our Lord afterwards gave, 
 under entirely different circumstances, when 
 returning with His disciples from Bethany to 
 Jerusalem on the Tuesday in Holy Week: "And 
 when ye shall stand praying, forgive if ye have 
 aught against any one: that your Father Who 
 is in Heaven, may forgive you your trespasses. 
 But if ye forgive not, neither will your Father, 
 
58 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 Who is in Heaven, forgive your trespasses" (S. 
 Mark xi. 25, 26). We are to notice therefore, 
 that our Lord Himself places the strongest kind 
 of emphasis upon the conditional part of this peti- 
 tion. 
 
 If, as we assume, the Lord's Prayer does in the 
 course of its seven petitions touch upon all the 
 Sacraments of the Church, the Sacrament of 
 Penance is clearly that to which this petition 
 must be referred, and in this manner of viewing 
 it, the condition upon which our Lord so strongly 
 insists receives a special import, and emphasizes that 
 side of the Sacrament which experience shows is 
 easily allowed to fall into the background, or even 
 to be forgotten altogether. 
 
 And here let us pause for a moment on the 
 name by which this Sacrament is commonly 
 known. If it were popularly called the Sacrament 
 of Absolution we might attribute partly to the 
 name any tendency to dwell over much on the 
 purely sacerdotal side of the Sacrament, at the 
 expense of that side which especially concerns the 
 part the penitent has to perform. Such a name 
 might perhaps justly be thought to savour of the 
 "Sacerdotalism," which, in theory at least, is by 
 some so much dreaded. But the name by which 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 59 
 
 this Sacrament is known in Western Christendom 
 is not Absolution, but Penance. We may claim 
 the authority of our own standards for this, for 
 Article xxv., in speaking of the five lesser Sacra- 
 ments, names Penance along with Confirmation, 
 Orders and the rest, and Penance, whatever may 
 be said about Absolution, concerns no one in the 
 world so much as the person who has to perform 
 it. It is the part in the Sacrament with which 
 the Priest has least, and the penitent most to do. 
 
 Whatever difficulty there may be in bringing 
 people to a right appreciation of this Sacrament, 
 the difficulty is not at all in the matter of Absolu- 
 tion. In spite of all the apparent dread of sacer- 
 dotalism it is astonishing to what lengths many 
 are willing to go in attributing power to the mere 
 words of Absolution, a power which they evidently 
 regard as so great that it quite dispenses with the 
 necessity of satisfaction, penance or even of con- 
 fession. 
 
 The wildest exaggeration of the Priestly 
 Authority has never yet surpassed the sacerdotal- 
 ism of the revivalist who takes it upon himself 
 u to declare and pronounce 1 ' over a multitude of 
 people a conditional Absolution, to take effect in 
 each individual the moment any one chooses to 
 
60 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 apply it to himself. He makes himself responsi- 
 ble for the declaration not only of Absolution, but 
 of salvation (which includes Absolution as the 
 whole includes the part) and that without a mo- 
 ment's regard to the conditions of penance, satis- 
 faction or amendment of life. 
 
 Yet the extent to which even such Absolution 
 as this is accepted, is witnessed by the numbers 
 who fulfil the solitary penance of applying it to 
 themselves. 
 
 Now in this petition, "Forgive us our tres- 
 passes, as we forgive those who trespass against 
 us," we seem to have an analogy between Divine 
 forgiveness, and man's forgiveness of man. It 
 not only makes our forgiveness of others the very 
 condition on which we dare ask God's forgiveness 
 of our trespasses, but it constitutes the usual and 
 necessary process of reconciliation between man 
 and man, as the rule whereby we are to seek recon- 
 ciliation with God. 
 
 Let us examine this analogy and see what 
 light it throws on the Sacrament of Penance. 
 
 First, then, we understand by forgiveness, 
 reconciliation and restoration to the favor of him 
 who is offended. We pray, ' 'Forgive us our tres- 
 passes," because whereas our sins have separated 
 
Of the Lord's Pbayeb. 61 
 
 between us and God, we hope through Christ to be 
 reconciled, and brought near to Him again by 
 penitence. Thus S. Paul says, "God was in Christ, 
 reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing 
 their trespasses unto them" (2 Cor. v. 19). 
 
 We pray that God will forgive our trespasses 
 in like manner as we forgive those who trespass 
 against us. In what manner then do we forgive 
 those who have injured us? What is the process 
 by which reconciliation is made ? To begin with, 
 it must be a two-sided process. There may be on 
 one side the utmost willingness to forgive, and 
 yet through want of co-operation on the part of 
 him who has offended us, an utter impossibility of 
 forgiveness beyond the mere sentiment in our 
 own heart. Some one, to whom I have freely 
 given my confidence and love, has violated my 
 confidence or abused my friendship. Now, if I 
 am Christian enough, I say the Lord's Prayer and 
 forgive him at once, as far as lies in my power to 
 do this. I pray for him; I put away every feeling 
 of resentment toward him, and keep my heart 
 open for his return. Suppose, however, he does 
 not care to approach me even when I have made 
 such approach as easy for him as I can, it is clear 
 that even with the most perfect disposition to for- 
 
62 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 give on my part, there can be in such a case no 
 reconciliation. Together with mj readiness or 
 even longing to forgive, certain acts on his part 
 are absolutely necessary to his receiving forgive- 
 ness, and that not merely because such acts are 
 due to me, but because they are morally indispens- 
 able to himself, if he would accept the love I have 
 to offer. 
 
 What are these acts ? We may reckon them 
 as three. First, there must be, in some form or 
 other, a token of regret for the injury offered. 
 Secondly, such regret ought to be accompanied by 
 an acknowledgment of the full extent of the 
 injury that has been done. Thirdly, there must 
 be a willingness to correct the injury, as far as 
 lies in his power. When these conditions have 
 been fulfilled, my disposition to forgive no longer 
 -remains as a mere sentiment in my own bosom, but 
 it passes forth to meet in my friend the disposi- 
 tion to receive it, and our reconciliation is effected. 
 
 Now if we apply this analogy to our relations 
 with God, we see that it exactly covers the teach- 
 ing of the Church in regard to Penance. 
 
 Penance is by no means such a sacerdotal per- 
 formance as is sometimes, perhaps even generally, 
 imagined. The Priest certainly has his part in it. 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 63 
 
 He has indeed authority and power to declare and 
 pronounce to God's people, u being penitent, the 
 absolution and remission of their sins," but he can 
 do nothing unless they are penitent. In his office 
 he represents God; he acts for God. "We are," 
 says S. Paul, "Ambassadors for Christ, as though 
 God did beseech you by us. We pray you in 
 Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God" (2 Cor. v. 
 20). It is comparatively a simple thing for the 
 Priest as the minister of Penance to sit in his con- 
 fessional or in the Church, and receive those who 
 come before him, but Penance is a work, and the 
 work (by the grace of God) must be done by the 
 penitent and not by the Priest. The Priest's 
 part is simply to see that the work is done, or at 
 least seriously begun, and by Christ's authority to 
 give Absolution where he is morally certain there 
 is the right disposition to receive it. 
 
 In the Sacrament of Penance then three per- 
 sons are concerned: Our Lord Himself, the Priest 
 who represents Him, and the penitent, who seeks 
 reconciliation. The meritorious work is all 
 Christ's, the appropriating work is the penitent's, 
 and the Priest, while he acts as the mouth-piece 
 of Christ, is chiefly concerned in judging whether 
 the penitent is laying hold upon the merits of 
 
64 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 Christ by a real repentance, befdte lie pronounces, 
 by the authority of Christ, the sentence of his 
 absolution. 
 
 Next to the fact that in pronouncing absolu- 
 tion her Priests really do act by the Divine 
 Authority which they claim, the mind of 
 the Church as regards this authority, is seen in 
 the care with which she limits and guards 
 its exercise. Knowing the treasure in her keeping 
 she is careful not to waste it, or to dishonour it by 
 casting it before swine. The whole history of 
 her penitential discipline is nothing else but the 
 recital of the rules and safeguards with which, 
 from time to time, she has hedged about this 
 authority and guarded against its abuse. She will 
 take heed to assure herself that those who pray 
 "Forgive us our trespasses" are sincere in their 
 repentance, before she says in her Master's Name: 
 "Absolvo te!' But how is she to judge this dis- 
 position? The answer is, She judges by applying 
 as tests those same requirements upon which as 
 men we insist, as we forgive those who trespass 
 against us. We require as tokens of regret for 
 the wrong, some worthy acknowledgment and 
 the willingness at least to make reparation for 
 the injury. The Church requires the same and 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 65 
 
 no more. Regret she calls Contrition; acknowl- 
 edgment with her is Confession ; and reparation 
 she knows as Satisfaction. She recognizes a real 
 and a true Contrition as of itself sufficient to 
 insure direct forgiveness from God; but she judges 
 of Contrition by its usual manifestation in Con- 
 fession and the declared intention to make Satis- 
 faction, and ordinarily makes her formal sentence 
 of reconciliation conditional upon these reasonable 
 tokens of sorrow. 
 
 As we are wont sometimes in our private 
 prayers, to pause at this petition until we have 
 laid aside the feeling of resentment which forbids 
 us to say it, so we should do well while we pray, 
 "Forgive us our trespasses," to examine ourselves 
 whether we have done what we could to "bring 
 forth fruits meet for repentance ;" and in Contri- 
 tion, Confession and Satisfaction, to offer to God 
 what we require of "those who trespass against 
 lis." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOLY MATRIMONY. 
 
 "Lead us not into temptation" 
 
 Marriage alone, of the Sacraments of the 
 Church, existed as an ordinance of nature before 
 it was exalted into a Sacrament of Grace. For 
 its institution we must go back to Eden and to 
 the days of man's innocency, when u He that 
 made them at the beginning made them male and 
 female, and said, for this cause shall a man leave 
 father and mother and shall cleave to his wife r 
 and they twain shall be one flesh^ (S. Matt. xix. 
 4, 5). When marriage was instituted, sin had 
 not yet gained its entrance into the world, and 
 the hour of man's temptation was still before him. 
 Perhaps it was partly in view of the coming 
 assault of Satan, under which God would not 
 leave his creature destitute of the comfort of 
 human sympathy, that He said: "It is not good 
 that the man should be alone: I will make him 
 an help-meet for him." At least we know that 
 our Blessed Lord, the Second Adam, in that gar- 
 
68 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 den which became the sad counterpart of Eden, 
 craved such human sympathy from His Apostles, 
 and taking with Him three of their number as 
 representatives of that Church, which as on the 
 morrow should be formed from His side while He 
 slumbered on the Cross, He said ^to them, "Tarry 
 ye here and watch with Me." We know also 
 how in our Lord's conflict in Gethsemane this 
 yearning for sympathy was disappointed, and led 
 to the sad rebuke, "Could ye not watch with Me 
 one hour ?" 
 
 But the temptation which resulted in man's 
 fall was to be met by him, not as in solitude, and 
 destitute of human support and companionship, 
 but in the courage of that mutual sympathy 
 which it is so much the purpose of marriage to 
 provide. It was the order of God's Providence 
 first to make a help-meet for Adam in the woman 
 taken from his side, before Satan was permitted 
 to come and put him to the test. 
 
 And yet what God mercifully gave as a help, 
 a safeguard and a blessing, was through the folly 
 of the man turned by the adversary into the 
 occasion, not only of Adam's fall, but that of his 
 whole posterity. 
 
 Eve, who might and should have been a help- 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 69 
 
 meet to Adam, became instead his tempter, and 
 Adam hearkening to the voice of his wife 
 when he should have acted as her protector, and 
 caused her to hearken to God, became partaker of 
 her sin. Fidelity to the marriage relation would, 
 in the hour of temptation, have barred the doors 
 against the entrance of sin. Unfaithfulness to 
 its mutual responsibilities, in the presence of 
 temptation threw the gates wide open and made 
 the curse of sin as wide spread as the human race. 
 
 It is as true to-day as it was when marriage 
 was instituted, that the true relation of man to 
 woman, which is the very foundation of domestic 
 and social virtues, and the strongest earthly 
 barrier against sin, may be perverted into the 
 most fatal weapon which the device of the evil 
 one employs against the souls of men. Truly 
 then in the clause "Lead us not into temptation," 
 we have a prayer which the married, and those 
 intending marriage, would do well to use with 
 special reference to an estate, which in its purity, 
 may be so great a blessing, and in its abuse the 
 source of such wide spread evil. 
 
 In the Gospel our Lord has taken up marriage, 
 which He gave at the beginning as an ordinance 
 of nature, and has exalted it into a Sacrament of 
 
HO The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 grace. It is truly a Sacrament, not only as being 
 a figure of the mystical union between Christ and 
 His Church, but also because it really imparts, in 
 the blessing of the Church, a special grace to 
 enable the man and the woman to fulfil the duties 
 and the responsibilities of the estate upon which 
 they have entered. As thus lifted up and spirit- 
 ualized, the Sacrament of marriage loses none of 
 the import suggested by the petition u Lead us 
 not into temptation.' 7 
 
 This is emphatically brought out in the 
 Marriage Office of the English Church, where, 
 among the causes for which marriage was ordained, 
 it is expressly said that it was "for a remedy 
 against sin." Grace is therein given to enable 
 persons, who else might be overcome by the power 
 of earthly passion, to "keep themselves undefiled 
 members of Christ's Body." And all this is 
 further implied in that "mutual society, help and 
 comfort" which, as the same Office says, the 
 married u ought to have one for another, both in 
 prosperity and adversity," for we certainly cannot 
 think that these benefits have reference only to 
 worldly things. 
 
 But that marriage may truly confer these 
 mutual benefits, and afford that defence against 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 71 
 
 sin which was a part of God's purpose in its 
 institution, it must be holy. It must be in the 
 Lord, and not merely in the flesh. Here at the 
 very outset we encounter a temptation which is, 
 alas, the rock upon which too many a soul has 
 been shipwrecked. Well had it been, in many a 
 case known to every Priest who has had any 
 experience in dealing with souls, if the petition, 
 "Lead us not into temptation," had been faithfully 
 and earnestly prayed, while as yet the affections 
 had not been allowed to become captivated, while 
 the will was still free, and temptation only such 
 as by the grace of God could be easily resisted. 
 u Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbe- 
 lievers," says the Apostle. Yet how many a 
 young girl, once pure minded, conscientious, at 
 peace with God, and happy in that glorious liberty 
 which belongs to God's children, has allowed her 
 heart to be captivated, and her life ensnared into 
 a union upon which it were a mockery to ask 
 God's blessing. How can that marriage be called 
 a sacrament of Christ and His Church, where 
 there is community in everything except what 
 concerns Jesus Christ and the Church, His Spouse, 
 which He purchased with His own Blood ! 
 
 Sad indeed are the vows which seal a marriage 
 
72 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 union in which one soul has surrendered all that 
 makes life worth living; in which earthly affection 
 is gratified, worldly prospects are considered, social 
 position is made, wealth and the means of self 
 gratification are purchased, and Christ and His 
 Church are betrayed in the marriage kiss. Many 
 such a union had never been, but that the prayer 
 was not said in time, u Lead us not into temptation." 
 
 Again, on the very threshold of the married 
 estate there are temptations, against which this 
 petition and the watchfulness it implies, are 
 especially needed; temptations which, without 
 prayer, may be found as terrible and disastrous 
 in their consequences, as they are insidious and 
 plausible in their approach. The passion with 
 which they are concerned is that which in its 
 assault is the most blinding, as it is in its over 
 mastering stress the most binding. The Sacra- 
 ment of Marriage does indeed recognize this pas- 
 sion, but only as it is held under control, sancti- 
 fied and brought into subjection to the will of 
 God. 
 
 ''Christian teaching," says Dollinger, u doesnot 
 recognize in marriage love any involuntary feel- 
 ing, depriving man of his liberty of will and 
 action; such a sentiment the Apostles would have 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. • 73 
 
 called by a very different name. The marriage 
 love which they hold to be a duty in Christians, is 
 a free and conscious direction of the will, 
 grounded on high religious motives — a feeling 
 under their own control, not an unbridled passion 
 — a feeling which can be made as pure and endur- 
 ing as love of friends, children or country. In 
 this sense S. Paul exhorts husbands to love their 
 wives."* 
 
 Tertullian in speaking of Christian marriages 
 says: " Words cannot be found to describe the 
 happiness of that marriage ; in which the Church 
 joins together, which the oblation confirms, the 
 benediction seals, the Angels proclaim when 
 sealed, and the Father ratifies. " Yet if any 
 word can be found more nearly than others to 
 describe the happiness of such a union, surely we 
 must have it in that dearest word of English 
 speech, Home. Home with all that it implies of 
 unclouded faith, holy hope, pure and exalted love; 
 home, with its unselfish devotion, its tender solic- 
 itude, its blessed nurture of childhood, its prayer- 
 ful guardianship of youth, its protection against 
 the very knowledge of many a form of sin, this 
 may, in some degree at least, stand for the blessed- 
 
 * First Age of the Church. 
 
74 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 ness of that marriage which Christ Himself has 
 blessed. And Home we might almost define, at 
 least as far as many of the more terrible forms of 
 sin are concerned, as the answer to the prayer, 
 "Lead us not into temptation." 
 
 Yet home, the true Christian home, can be 
 built on no other foundation than the union in 
 Christ of one man and one woman, a union holy, 
 inviolable, lifelong. 
 
 Alas, that we must turn from such a picture 
 as this to its sad and darkened counterpart. 
 
 Where do we find such fearful inroads of the 
 powers of darkness, and such rapid and wide 
 spread moral devastation, as that which ensues 
 upon the neglect of those fundamental principles 
 upon which the Christian home is reared, and 
 upon which alone it can exist ? The entrance is 
 gained for impurity first, but the whole horde of 
 fleshly and diabolical sins pours quickly through 
 the breach. 
 
 Such is the order in which the Apostle names 
 them, "Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasci- 
 viousness," in the van, and afterwards, "idolatry, 
 witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, 
 strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, and such like" 
 (Gal. v. 19-21). 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 75 
 
 Of no class of sins is it so true as of that class 
 to which the sanctity of Holy Marriage, and the 
 purity of the Christian home are directly opposed, 
 that the danger is in dallying with temptation, 
 in listening to the suggestion of possible sin, in 
 leaving on the latch the door that ought to be 
 bolted and barred. Can anyone doubt that a very 
 large number of those divorces which, in the very 
 face of the law of God, are so readily granted, 
 arise from the fact that the possibility of divorce 
 is known beforehand, and deliberately reckoned 
 upon as a means of escape from the marriage con- 
 tract, should that contract become irksome. 
 Looseness of legislation in regard to the Marriage 
 tie is itself a chief cause of those wretched and 
 unhappy alliances, which can hardly be better 
 described than as the deliberate entrance into 
 temptation, temptation involving not only those 
 who make the alliance, but their children, not 
 unlikely, and their children's children. How can 
 we better employ this petition, than as a prayer 
 that God will enable the Church in this land, 
 faithfully and courageously to maintain the indis- 
 solubility of the Marriage tie ? 
 
 A sound law when it is inforced quickly 
 creates a wholesome sentiment which does much 
 
76 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 to remove the occasions of temptation, and in the 
 light of which the violation of the law is seen to 
 be as unnatural, as it is to every Christian sense 
 repugnant. Our modern society is exposed to 
 temptations, many of which would hardly be 
 known were marriage recognized as the holy and 
 indissoluble bond which it is, the mystery of 
 Christ and His Church, and were it u entered into 
 not unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, dis- 
 creetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God." 
 
CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 THE OTOTIO^ OF THE SICK. 
 
 "Deliver us from evil J' 
 
 This petition strikes through to the very centre 
 and source of evil. We are in it taught to pray 
 for deliverance not from certain temporal conse- 
 quences of sin, such as sickness, suffering and 
 death, nor merely even from particular forms and 
 manifestations of sin itself, but from him who is 
 the personal author of all evil, Satan. The exact 
 translation of the original Greek would seem to be 
 u Deliver us from the evil one!' The writers of the 
 Greek Church* so consider it, and S. Chrysostom 
 says u He here calls the devil the wicked one." 
 
 The teaching of this last petition of the Lord's 
 Prayer, as applied to the Sacrament of Unction, 
 would in any case be sufficiently obvious. For as 
 the soul nears its final conflict with Satan, 
 "Deliver us from evil" may well be its last and oft 
 repeated cry. Blessed thought, that in that hour 
 when we are brought face to face with the ulti- 
 
 * Isaac Williams— Sermon x. on the Church Catechism. 
 
78 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 mate power of sin, we are not left alone. A 
 stronger than Satan is with us to deliver us from 
 the evil one. "Though. I walk through the valley 
 of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for 
 Thou art with me." 
 
 But in view of the perversions and misconcep- 
 tions of the Catholic practice of the anointing of 
 the sick, this petition, taken in its exact, original 
 force, has a very direct and important bearing 
 upon that Sacrament, which it will be helpful to 
 consider. 
 
 When our Lord sent forth His disciples by 
 two and two, He gave them, among other powers,, 
 authority to anoint with oil and heal the sick (S. 
 Mark vi, 13). This seems to have prefigured the 
 rite subsequently practiced by the Apostles, and 
 distinctly enjoined by S. James: "Is any sick 
 among you ? Let him call for the elders of the 
 Church, and let them pray over him, anointing 
 him with oil in the Name of the Lord, and the^ 
 prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord 
 shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins 
 they shall be forgiven him" (S. James v, 14, 15). 
 Now, against the recognition of unction as hold- 
 ing a place in the Sacramental system of the 
 Church, it is urged that the practice here referred 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 79 
 
 to by S. James was the exercise of those miracu- 
 lous and extraordinary powers of healing, bestowed 
 upon the Apostles and other primitive disciples, 
 and that as these gifts were afterwards withdrawn, 
 there was no reason why the external ceremony 
 to which they were tied should be continued. 
 The answer to this is, that if the argument is 
 good against anointing the sick, it is equally good 
 against Confirmation; since it too was originally 
 accompanied with the conferring of these miracu- 
 lous powers themselves, as the only visible token 
 that the Gift of the Holy Ghost had been received. 
 If unction had fulfilled the purpose of its institu- 
 tion when it ceased to be accompanied with 
 miraculous results, why not say the same of 
 Confirmation ? But as a matter of fact the 
 objection confounds with the miraculous powers 
 of healing, which were doubtless still exercised in 
 the Church, a rite which could only be adminis- 
 tered by the Priesthood. The miraculous gifts of 
 healing were by no means confined to the clergy, 
 nor it would seem was their exercise tied to the 
 form of anointing with oil.* If S. James had 
 only these in mind, why should he be careful to 
 refer the sick man to the elders of the Church, 
 
 * S. Mark xvi, 18. 
 
80 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 that is the Priesthood, and not rather to any one, 
 Presbyter or layman, who possessed the miraculous 
 power ? 
 
 But such a misconception could only arise 
 from losing sight of the ultimate purpose for 
 which all spiritual gifts are bestowed, and of that 
 purpose we are plainly reminded as often as we 
 say in the last petition of the Lord's prayer: 
 "Deliver us from the evil one." 
 
 We are in the habit of thinking of sickness 
 and death independently of their relation to sin; 
 but this is not the way in which they are pre- 
 sented to us in Holy Scripture. All disease 
 whether bodily, mental or spiritual is traced back 
 to its one source, sin, and to the author of sin, the 
 evil one. Our Lord, in His miracles of healing, 
 ever looks beneath the bodily affliction to the 
 disease of the soul, where Satan, as a strong man 
 armed, is keeping his house. The man sick of the 
 palsy is brought in, and laid at our Lord's feet; 
 but our Lord's eye does not rest upon the bodily 
 infirmity; it pierces through to the soul, and He 
 says: u Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are for- 
 given thee." In the woman who was bowed 
 together with a spirit of infirmity, our Lord sees 
 one "whom Satan hath bound;" and He applies, 
 
Of the Lord's Prater. 81 
 
 we may be sure, to her soul as well as to her body, 
 the words: " Woman, thou art loosed from thine 
 infirmity." To the man born blind He restores his 
 sight, but not without the warning, pointing to 
 a spiritual restoration: u Sin no more." While 
 then we find our Lord and His disciples perform- 
 ing miracles of healing on men's bodies, let us not 
 forget that the end for which such powers were 
 exercised was not in the miracles themselves. It 
 was for no such temporal purpose that the Lord of 
 Glory came into the world to suffer and to die, 
 nor was it for this that He left elders in His 
 Church to continue His Ministry among men. 
 Rather "for this cause was the Son of God mani- 
 fested, that He might destroy the works of the 
 devil/' 
 
 True, we may not presume to limit the efficacy 
 of the Sacraments to any one part of man's nature, 
 seeing that in his entire nature he has been 
 brought under the bondage of sin: yet this we 
 know, that when no more can be done for the 
 body, the soul of the sick one stands in special 
 need of spiritual support and comfort, as it enters 
 its final conflict with that evil one from whom in 
 this petition we pray to be delivered. 
 
 But while this petition thus rebukes the 
 
82 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 neglect of the Sacrament of Unction, it has its 
 application also to those strange perversions of it 
 for which such neglect is in a great measure 
 responsible. The root error of so called ''Christian 
 science," u Faith cures" and similar perversions, 
 which are so common in our time, is in their mis- 
 conception of the mystery of suffering. Sickness 
 and death, which are penalties of sin, are taken as 
 if they were in themselves inherently evil; deliv- 
 erance from them is insisted on, as if it were 
 deliverance from the evil one, and is even made a 
 test of faith itself. The blessed truth that sick- 
 ness and death have, by the Cross of Christ, been 
 plucked out of the hands of Satan, and turned, as 
 his own weapons, against himself, does not enter 
 into their philosophy. It is the same error which 
 the Book of Job seems to have been written 
 expressly to rebuke. In that Book we are left in 
 no doubt either as to the source, or as to the 
 occasion of Job's affliction. Satan afflicted him; 
 and Job's continuing to suffer, so far from being 
 due to a ivant of faith, was precisely because his 
 faith was great. God can challenge Satan and 
 say: "Hast thou considered My servant Job, that 
 there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and 
 an upright man, one that f eareth God and eschew- 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 83 
 
 eth evil ?" The challenge is accepted and Job 
 begins to suffer, for God had said to Satan, 
 "Behold he is in thine hand." But Job might 
 have continued in a whole skin, as well as in the 
 full enjoyment of his possessions, had he been 
 willing to make good the boast of Satan by cursing 
 God to His face. Power over the body may 
 indeed be exercised by the evil one, as it was in 
 the case of Job, and again in the case of Job's 
 great Antitype, our Blessed Lord Himself, Who in 
 the humiliation of His Temptation submitted 
 Himself to be bodily transported from place to 
 place by the power of the devil. But Satan can 
 have no power over the soul, except by a free 
 consent of the will to sin, and it is this consent 
 that he seeks at any cost to gain. Power over 
 the bodies of men will profit him little without 
 power over the soul, and glad would he be at any 
 moment to exchange the former for the latter. 
 
 When we pray, "Deliver us from evil," we are 
 praying for no merely temporal release from 
 Satan, but from his power over the soul. And so 
 it is in the Sacrament of Unction. It is no 
 purpose of that Sacrament to insist upon physical 
 recovery for the sick man, nor even chiefly to 
 desire it. Rather its purpose is by a distinct and 
 
84 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 authoritative act of God's appointed ministry, 
 "the elders of the Church," to submit body and 
 soul to His will. If it be for His glory He can 
 indeed restore the sick to health, and so long as 
 this condition is kept in mind, such an answer 
 may be rightly sought in the prayer of faith. 
 But surely the prayer of faith is not the less 
 answered if, the sick man's infirmity increasing, 
 the outward man decaying, he is strengthened so 
 much the more continually in the inner man. 
 Shall we not rather say that that prayer has here 
 its best, because its complete, answer, in final 
 deliverance from the evil one ? For the Incarnate 
 Son of God came not into the world to abolish 
 temporal death, but that tasting it Himself He 
 might rob it of its terror, encourage us as we pay 
 the penalty of sin, and change that penalty into 
 a blessing by making death our deliverance for- 
 ever from the power of Satan. Surely this must 
 comfort us in our last hour if it be ours to receive 
 this holy anointing. The oil, the fruit of the 
 olive, shall be to us the token of His final victory 
 over the evil one, when He encountered him 
 beneath the olive shades of Gethsemane; the 
 prayer of faith shall be no other than His, when 
 in His agony He submitted His human will, 
 
Of the Lord's Prayer. 85 
 
 shrinking from death, to the will of the Eternal 
 Father; and the answer to that prayer shall also 
 be ours, as with souls cleansed from the last 
 vestiges of sin, we are calm and strong in Him 
 Who rose from His knees to meet and to vanquish 
 forever the power of darkness. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 In what has been said thus far, the effort has 
 been made to show that the Lord's Prayer 
 naturally lends itself to an explication of the 
 Sacramental system, as each of its seven petitions 
 is applied in turn to its corresponding Mystery. 
 If there be such a correspondence as we have 
 endeavoured to point out, we have the witness of 
 the Lord's Prayer to the number of the Sacra- 
 ments as seven. They have been so reckoned by 
 the Universal Church, the teaching of the Greek 
 Church, and even of the Oriental Separatists, 
 being the same, on this point, with that of West- 
 ern Christendom. 
 
 The Church of England is by no means to be 
 accounted as at variance here with the rest of 
 Catholic Christendom. She has never, as is some- 
 times quietly assumed, limited the term Sacrament 
 to Baptism and the Holy Eucharist,* but in her 
 Twenty-fifth Article speaks of the other "five 
 
 * "It is none of the doctrine of the Church of England that 
 there are two Sacraments only, but that of those rituals com- 
 manded in Scripture, which the ecclesiastical use calls sacra- 
 ments (by a word of art), two only are generally necessary to 
 salvation—" Bishop Jeremy Taylor, quoted in Gfrueber's Catechism 
 on the Seven Sacraments or Mysteries of the Church of Christ. 
 
88 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 commonly called Sacraments, that is to say Confir- 
 mation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony and Extreme 
 Unction." While she does not give to these the 
 term Sacraments of the Gospel, which she applies, 
 as a special title of honour, to the u two only 
 which are generally necessary to salvation, " she 
 still calls them Sacraments, both here and in the 
 Homilies. There is no escaping from the fact 
 that the tivo Sacraments of the Gospel, and those 
 five u commonly called Sacraments, 1 ' make up the 
 sum of seven; so that, as far as the English 
 Church has spoken at all on this matter, she has 
 declared, as plainly as the Council of Trent itself, 
 that the Sacraments of the New Law, as they are 
 instituted by Jesus Christ, are to be accounted as 
 seven, neither more nor less. 
 
 Now, while the Lord's Prayer thus sets forth 
 the number of the Sacraments, the order in which 
 they are presented, by the correspondences we 
 have traced, is systematic and symmetrical. 
 Thus the central place is given to the Holy 
 Eucharist by its correspondence with the petition 
 "Give us this day our daily Bread," which stands 
 midway in the Lord's Prayer. This is in accord- 
 ance with the place given to the Sacrament of the 
 Altar in Theological science, as the centre of the 
 
Of the Lords Peayee. 89 
 
 whole sacramental system, "the Tree of Life in 
 the midst of the Paradise of Grod. v And this 
 because, as it has been said, the Holy Eucharist 
 "contains not as other Sacraments a little stream 
 of grace, but Christ Himself, the Fountain-head 
 of all grace. " 
 
 Taking then the Holy Eucharist, as the centre 
 of the entire group, and viewing the other Sacra- 
 ments as arranged by their corresponding petitions 
 iii-reference to It, we discover striking correspond- 
 ences in the order and system of their arrangement. 
 Holy Baptism, the initial Sacrament of the 
 Church, which as conferring the first grace upon 
 souls, till then in the death of sin, is called the 
 "Sacrament of the dead,' 7 is presented first: while 
 Extreme Unction, the last touch of Holy Church as 
 the soul departs the body, fittingly falls last by its 
 correspondence with the petition "Deliver us from 
 evil." This is all the more remarkable because 
 the correspondence between the Sacrament and 
 the petition is in each case so obvious as to require 
 no pressure whatever by way of forcing an Analogy. 
 
 But the harmony and the scientific exactness 
 of the whole arrangement grow more wonderful 
 as we proceed in our examination. Thus the 
 order in which the Sacraments are arranged for 
 
90 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 us by the reference of each to its appropriate 
 petition, gives us, around the Holy Eucharist as a 
 centre, two groups of Sacraments, each group 
 containing three. Examination will show that 
 there is nothing hap-hazard or of chance in this 
 arrangement, but that there is method in every 
 detail, and that each group is symmetrical both in 
 itself and with reference to the other. 
 
 The sacraments composing the first group are 
 those which correspond with the first three peti- 
 tions of the Prayer, those petitions which, as we 
 have seen, place us in turn before each Person of 
 the Adorable Trinity. It is remarkable that they 
 are the three Sacraments which Theology 
 distinguishes from the rest as conferring character, 
 and which as leaving an indelible impress on the 
 soul, are received but once, and once for all. Holy 
 Baptism, Holy Confirmation and Holy Orders are 
 thus set apart in a group by themselves, by virtue 
 of their correspondence with the petitions which 
 speak of the Name, the Kingdom and the Will of 
 God, a correspondence which is the more striking 
 in the light of the definition given by S. Thomas 
 to character, as a u mark of distinction by means 
 of an eternal impress stamped upon the rational 
 soul, and, after the manner of an image, conform- 
 
Of the Lord's Pbayeb. 91 
 
 ing the trinity in the creature to that Trinity by 
 Whom he is both created and recreated/'* 
 
 The gift of character is thus received only 
 through Sacramental union with Christ Himself, 
 Who is the Brightness of the Father's Glory, the 
 "Express Image" (xocpakrrjp) of His Person. 
 Accordingly, as S. Thomas says again, ^Character 
 is a certain sacramental participation, on the part 
 of the faithful, in the Priesthood of Christ;'"' from 
 which he points out that character is indelible 
 since of Christ it is said, "Thou art a Priest for- 
 ever." 
 
 Taking now the second group of three, we 
 have as corresponding to the last three petitions, 
 Penance, Matrimony and Unction. Each group 
 preserves the distinction recognized in Theology 
 between those Sacraments which are ordained 
 with primary reference to the Church as a Com- 
 munity, and those whose end is the perfection of 
 the individual soul. To the first class belong 
 Orders and Matrimony, each of which is presented 
 as the second in its group. The first and third in 
 either group are Sacraments having reference to 
 the perfection of the individual soul. The first 
 group gives us Baptism and its complement, Con- 
 
 * Summa, P. III. Qu. 63. art 3. 
 
92 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 firmation, Sacraments which in Theological lan- 
 guage are of necessity, per se, to the perfection of 
 the individual soul: the second group presents, as 
 correlatives with these, Penance and its com- 
 plement, Unction, which are classified in Theo- 
 logy as of necessity, per accidens, for the removal 
 of post-baptismal sin. The cross correspondence 
 between these two groups is also remarkable. 
 Baptism in the first group corresponds with 
 Penance in the second, giving us, as in a pair, the 
 two Sacraments ordained for the remission of sins, 
 the one as giving first grace, the other as restor- 
 ing that grace when it has been lost. Orders, by 
 this cross correspondence, is correlative with 
 Matrimony, giving us again, as in a pair, the two 
 Sacraments distinguished from the rest as states 
 of life, and having reference to the corporate per- 
 fection of the Church. Confirmation and Unction 
 are in the same way coupled as a third pair, and 
 are thus presented together as both being Sacra- 
 ments of Unction, the first, that u Unction from 
 the Holy One 77 spoken of by S. John (I. S. John 
 ii. 20, 27), which is for the work of life; the 
 other, distinguished from it as extreme or final 
 Unction, which prepares the soul for death. 
 
 All these distinctions and classifications, thus 
 
Of the Lord's Prayeb. 93 
 
 suggested by the Lord's Prayer, gather around the 
 Holy Eucharist as a centre. It is concerned in 
 them all, while It is above them all. Unique in ' 
 its central place It is distinct from other Sacra- 
 ments while binding them all together, is Itself 
 necessary, both for the body corporate and for 
 the individual soul, both in the accident of sin, and 
 before the accident of sin, both in the beginning 
 and the completing of every Sacramental gift. 
 
 Have we not a type of this whole marvellous 
 system, in the seven branched candlestick which 
 Moses was commanded to make for the Sanctuary? 
 
 u Thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold: 
 of beaten work shall the candlestick be made. His 
 shaft and his branches, his bowls, his knops and 
 his flowers shall be of the same. And six 
 branches shall come out of the sides of it; three 
 branches of the candlestick out of the one side; 
 and three branches of the candlestick out of the 
 other side. * * * * Their knops and their 
 branches shall be of the same: all it shall be one 
 beaten work of pure gold" (Ex. xxv. 31, 32, 36). 
 
 The foundation of the Sacramental system is 
 the Incarnation of the Son of God. The Sacra- 
 mental system grows out of, and is of a piece with 
 that mystery whereby God was made Man. This 
 
94 The Sacramental Teaching 
 
 is the pure gold out of which it is wrought, from 
 which it cannot be separated even in thought. 
 "All shall be of the same, 11 u all one beaten work 
 of pure gold." 
 
 In the midst of the branches, springs the 
 mystery of the Holy Eucharist, the direct exten- 
 sion of the Incarnation, and Itself the central 
 shaft around which all other mysteries are 
 grouped, to which they are all referred, and by 
 which they are all sustained in relation to that 
 Incarnate Son of God from Whom alike they alj 
 proceed. 
 

 
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