but the priest alone
communicates: on all other days all the faithful may and many do
communicate, either during mass or before or after it according to
circumstances. Palmer having quoted a passage from Bona, in which the
Cardinal regrets that communion, as well as other rites to which the
mass is not essential, is often delayed till after the mass is ended,
subjoins the following ejaculation. "Would that they who communicate
with the Roman church were not too timid or too lukewarm to return to
the practice of the primitive church in this and many other respects".
Orig. Liturg. vol. 2, p. 154. Now in the primitive church the
faithful, and even those in health, used to communicate not only
during mass, but also at other times, as is evident from the office of
the presanctified, at which, according to the Gelasian sacramentary,
all present communicated, as well as from the numerous ancient
instances of communion under one kind mentioned in the preceding
chapter; for in these cases it was not received during the mass, and
many of them are cases of "_persons in health_". In the same page Mr.
Palmer observes that "_during all the primitive ages_ the whole body
of the faithful communicated at each celebration of the liturgy". Now
has the church of England preserved this "practice of the primitive
church"? So far is this from being the case, that Palmer considers
her _ordinary_ office as a "_Missa sicca_; or dry service" p. 164,
in which there is neither consecration or communion, and the earliest
notice of which occurs in the writings of Petrus Cantor (A.D. 1200),
according to Palmer's own admission, ibid. Even on those few days
in the year when she admits her children to communion, her ministers
generally consider that they make an oblation only of bread and wine,
and not of the body and blood of Christ, whereas, whatever Palmer or
the Tracts for the Times may say to the contrary, we are prepared to
prove from the _very liturgies_, which the former cites, that in the
mass there is an oblation not merely of bread and wine but also of the
body and blood of Christ; and accordingly even the author of Tract 81,
vol. 4, admits, p. 61, that "the real point of difference between the
primitive church and modern views is whether there be in this oblation
a _mystery_ or no". It is truly lamentable that men of learning should
falsely accuse the Roman church of departure from primitive discipline
in a matter of so little comparative impo