Waterland and "our excellent Liturgy"

In his discussion of ancient liturgical practices in A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, as laid down in Scripture and Antiquity, Waterland recognises that the Communion Office in BCP 1662 differs from many of the "old Liturgies" with regards to both the invocation of the Holy Ghost and the memorial and oblation. Does the absence of these from 1662 weaken the apostolic and catholic credentials the High Church tradition claimed for the rite?

In terms of the invocation of the Holy Ghost, Waterland denies that evidence for it can be found before "the fourth century, and indeed towards the middle of it". Even then, the point of the invocation coheres with, rather than contradicts, Waterland's Reformed Eucharistic theology: invoking the Spirit over the bread and wine is "to make them authentic and effective representatives of our Lord's body and blood". As such, the petition in the 1662 Prayer of Consecration he then regards as having the same intent and fulfilling the same purpose:

Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood.

Waterland states of what he terms this "invocation":

This was part of the ancient invocation; and it expresses the thing formerly prayed for, without specifying the particular manner, or means, viz. the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit: though that also must of course be understood and implied, upon Christian principles taught in Scripture. After all, I see no reason why it may not be justly thought as modest, and as reverent, to beg of God the Father the things which we want, understanding that he will grant them by his Holy Spirit, as to make a formal petition to him, to send his Holy Spirit upon the elements or upon the communicants; unless Scripture had particularly ordered some such special form, to be made use of in our sacramental solemnities, which it has not done.

What, then, of the memorial and oblation, "a very ancient, eminent, and solemn part of the Communion Service"? Here too Waterland regards it as present in "substance" in 1662:

we have still the sum and substance of the primitive memorial remaining in our present Offices; not all in a place, but interspersed here and there in the exhortations and prayers. In a previous exhortation, we read; ' Above all things ye must give most humble and hearty thanks to God the Father, &c. for the redemption of the world by the death and passion of our Saviour Christ both God and man,' &c. There is the sense and signification of the ancient memorial, only under a different form. In the Post-Communion, we beseech God 'to accept our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and to grant remission of sins to us and to the whole Church, by the merits and death of Christ Jesus.' Which words contain the substance of what was anciently the appendage to the memorial.

Rather than regarding it as somehow defective, Waterland rejoices in "our excellent Liturgy", not least when contrasted with the liturgies of Latin West and Greek East, mindful of "the lateness of those Liturgies, as we now have them, and of the confused state wherein most of them are". For Waterland, "our Communion Service", because it is both catholic and reformed, shares the strengths of other rites but without their weaknesses:

Upon the whole, though all human compositions must have their defects, more or less, I am persuaded, that our Communion Service, as it now stands, is as grave, and solemn, and as judicious, as any other that can be named, be it ancient or modern. It may want some things which were well inserted in other Offices; but then it has well left out several other things, which most Liturgies are rather burdened with, than benefited.

(The quotations are from Chapter X, 'Of the Sanctifying Grace of the Holy Spirit conferred in the Eucharist'.)

Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

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How the Old High tradition continued

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Pride, progressive sectarianism, and TEC on Facebook

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