Ritual Conformity Part 15

[d] "Verba Canonis _rotunde_ dicantur, et distincte, nec ex festinatione retracta, nec ex diuturnitate nimis protracta."--_Decree of Herbert, Archbishop of Canterbury_, in a general synod at London, A.D. 1200: Spelman's _Concilia_, ii.

p. 123; John Johnson's Canons, A.-C.L., vol. ii. p. 84.

[e] In most Prayer-Books printed in this century, the words 'and Banns of Matrimony published' have been omitted from this rubric; and a corresponding alteration has been made by the printers in the first rubric in the Marriage Service, under a mistaken idea of the effect of Stat. 26 George II. cap. 33, which contained the same clause as that quoted above from the Act of 4 George IV. c. 76.

Even supposing that the words of these Acts were irreconcilable with the rubric, they did not alter the rubric.

[f] The order of reception in the Clementine Liturgy is:--The Bishop, priests, deacons, sub-deacons, readers, singers, monastics, deaconesses, religious virgins and widows, children, all the people in order (apparently first men, and then women).

[g] The direction of St. Cyril of Jerusalem was to use the hands, making the left hand a throne for the right, and hollowing the palm of the right to receive the Body of Christ.

The fact of receiving in the hands is also noticed by Tertullian in blaming people for using for purposes which he considered unworthy the hands which they had held forth to receive G.o.d.

[h] There seems a disposition to reduce the minimum lower than that appointed in our Rubric. The Lower House of Convocation of Canterbury have recommended its reduction to two or three, and the testimony of Bishop Torry to the ancient usage of the Scottish Church is that one was considered sufficient.

[i] Cosin's Works, A.-C.L. Edition, vol. v. p. 129.

[j] This is A.D. 1643, the date of the total abrogation of the Prayer-Book.

[k] A distinction must, however, be drawn between the natural juice freshly pressed from the grape which has sometimes been allowed as valid matter for the Sacrament in cases of necessity, and the compounds now sold as 'non-alcoholic' or 'unfermented'

wines. The reason why the former may be allowed is because it is potentially wine, and so to speak a child-wine, and would become true wine, if given time. But the principle of wine has been killed in the latter cases, so that the artificial fluids in question not only are not wine, but never can become wine, and are therefore invalid matter. The statement that the Jews employ unfermented wine at the Pa.s.sover, is contrary to fact. They could not have employed it in our Lord's time, because the process of arresting fermentation during so long an interval as that between the vintage and the Pa.s.sover, was unknown until very lately; and the Pa.s.sover cup is now naturally fermented grape wine, carefully watched from the grape to the bottle to provide against accidental admixture from without: while vinegar, itself the product of two processes of fermentation, is also used by them at the Pa.s.sover.

[l] Note.--It is sometimes customary, with a view of scrupulously consuming the entire of the consecrated wine, to cleanse the chalice with a little wine previously to using water; and not to pour away any water thus used until it is absolutely certain that all the consecrated species has been consumed. In the rare cases where wine has been consecrated in the flagon, that vessel must be cleansed with the same care as the chalice.