23

22

Latin missa, (for the Greeks had originally no such name,) to signify only evening prayer. And Bishop Usher, in his Religion of the Ancient Irish, gives us another such instance out of Adamnanus, who uses the name vespertinalis missa for what is commonly called evening prayer. And the late learned Mabillon has observed out of the Rules of Casarius Arelatensis and Aurelian, that the word missa is sometimes used for the lessons also. For it is one of Aurelian's Rules, That they should take six missas, that is, lessons, out of the prophet Isaiah, Facite sex missas de Esaia propheta. And Mabillon very judiciously remarks further," That the word missa has at least three significations. It sometimes signifies the lessons, sometimes the collects or prayers, and sometimes the dismission of the people. And indeed the third sense is the original notation of the word. For missa is the same as missio. And it was the form used in the Latin church, Ite missa est, which answers to the Greek 'ATоλúεσ¤ɛ and ПρоέλOεTε, the solemn words used at the dismission of the catechumens first, and then of the whole assembly afterwards, at the end of their respective services. Whence the services themselves at last took their names from these solemn dismissions, the one being called missa catechumenorum, and the other missa fidelium, neither of which ever signify more than the Divine service, at which the one or the other attended.

In vain, therefore, do many learned men labour to deduce its original from foreign languages, to make it signify something agreeable to the modern notion of the Roman mass, when it is so plainly of Latin extraction. Baronius," after Reuclin and Genebrard, would have it come from the Hebrew word missah, an oblation but Durantus 26 has a good reason against that; because if it had been of Hebrew extraction, the Greeks would have retained it in their language, as they do the words hosanna, sabaoth, allelujah, and amen: whereas there is no Greek writer uses it till the time of Leo Sapiens, who first borrows it from the Latin in his Tactics. Albaspinæus has still a wilder conjecture; he says, the word mess, among the northern nations, signifies a festival, and therefore he imagines the name missa and mass might come from that: which is only to invert the origination, and make the daughter to become the mother; since it is evident the name mess comes from missa, and not missa from that.

Sect. 5. In what sense Ibvine service ancient

cium.

Cardinal Bona" takes a great deal of pains to confute these and all other false opinions, and establishes the true one with undeniable evidence from Alcimus Avitus, and all the ancient ritualists, Isidore, Rabanus Maurus, Florus Magister, Remigius Altissiodorensis, Alcuinus, Gregory's Sacramentarium, Hugo Victorinus, and Bernoldus, who all agree in this, that missa comes from the dismission of the people, and not from any other original. So that I think it needless to trouble my reader with any of these authorities, since the matter is now cleared beyond all contradiction by Mabillon and Bona, two such eminent writers of the Roman communion. Another general name of the ancient service, which in later ages has met with some abuse, is sacrificium, ly called sacrsacrifice; a name borrowed from the Jewish carnal sacrifices, and applied to the spiritual sacrifices of Christians, viz. their prayers and praises, and preaching, and devoting themselves entirely, body and soul, to the service of Christ by the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper. Hence every part of Divine worship had the name of sacrifice, and not only the service of the altar. For they commonly call their evening hymns and prayers by the name of evening sacrifice. Thus St. Jerom bids Læta accustom her daughter not only to the morning hymns, and daily hours of prayer, the third, the sixth, and the ninth, but also when night comes, and the lamps are lighted, then in like manner to render to God her evening sacrifice. And so St. Hilary, upon those words of the psalmist, “Let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice," says, The sacrifice of Christians is their prayers, recommended to God by stretching forth their hands to relieve the poor. For we, says he, upon whom the ends of the world are come, do not sacrifice to God with blood or burnt-offerings: but the evening sacrifice which is pleasing to God, is that which Christ teaches in his Gospel, "I was an hungry, and ye fed me; thirsty, and ye gave me drink," &c. This is the evening sacrifice, that is, the sacrifice of the last times. In this we are to lift up our hands; for by such prayers the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven is prepared for those that are blessed of God, from the foundation of the world. In the same sense Eusebius calls the prayers of Christians the rational sacrifices, that are offered without blood to God. And Clemens Alexandrinus says, The sacri

30

29 Hilar. in Psal. cxl. p. 330. Non enim sanguine et holocaustis nos, in quos consummatio sæculorum devenit, sacrificamus Deo: sed quod sacrificium vespertinum placitum sit, audiamus Dominum-Hoc sacrificium vespertinum, id est, temporum novissimorum est. In hoc manus elevanda sunt: quia istiusmodi orationibus jam ab initio mundi benedictis Dei, regni cœlestis præparata possessio est.

30 Euseb. de Laud. Constant. Orat. p. 659. Tàs ávaíuss καὶ λογικὰς θυσίας τὰς δι ̓ εὐχῶν. Vid. de Vit. Constant. lib. 4. cap. 45. Θυσίαις ἀναίμοις, &c.

and reading of the Scriptures, and psalms and hymns before meals, and at their meals, and at bedtime, and in the night. And there are hundreds of passages in the ancients, both of public and private prayers, to the same purpose, besides what is said of the sacrifice of the eucharist, or communion service, of which we shall have reason to say something more upon another occasion. Here it is sufficient to have hinted the grounds, upon which the ancients gave the general name of sacrifice to all parts of Divine service.

Sect. 6.

Another name, though neither so And sacramenta. ancient nor so common as the former, is that of sacramenta, which in some authors signifies not what we now call sacraments, but the order or manner of performing Divine offices, and that as well the prayers and service in general, as the particular offices of administering baptism and the Lord's supper. For the word sacramentum, answering to the Greek μvýpov, is a word of a large extent, denoting not only the proper sacraments, but all sacred ceremonies and usages of the church, that have any thing of symbolical or spiritual significancy in them, representing something more to the understanding than appears to the outward senses; and in a more restrained, though not the strictest sense, it denotes the manner or method of performing Divine offices in the church, whether relating to the sacraments properly so called, or any other parts of Divine service, as the prayers, hymns, lessons, in morning or evening service. In this sense, it is observed by learned men, that the book of Divine offices composed by Gregory the Great for the use of the Roman church, bears the title of Liber Sacramentorum, The Book of Sacraments, that is, a book or method for performing Divine offices in the church. And Gelasius did the same thing before him under the title of Codex Sacramentarius, lately published by Thomasius at Rome, 1680. And Gennadius 33 says, Musæus, a presbyter of Marseilles, composed Volumen Sacramentorum, a large Book of Sacraments, that is, Divine offices, to direct what lessons, and psalms, and hymns were to be used in the communion service, according to the seasons of the year, and what prayers and thanksgivings were to make up the service of the church. And it is the

32

31 Clem. Alex. Strom. 7. lib. p. 860. Ed. Oxon. Ovariaι T Θεῷ, εὐχαί τε καὶ αἶνοι, καὶ αἱ πρὸ τῆς ἑτιάσεως ἐντεύξεις Twv yoаpwv, &c. Vid. Cassian. Instit. lib. 3. c. 3. Conc. Aurelian. 3. can. 23. Martin. Bracarensis Capitul. c. 63. 82 Menard. Not, in Sacrament. Gregor. p. 1. et Stillingfleet, Orig. Britan. p. 225.

3 Gennad. de Scriptor. cap. 79. Composuit Sacramentorum egregium et non parvum volumen, per membra quidem pro opportunitate officiorum et temporum, pro lectionum textu, psalmorumque serie et decantatione discretum, &c. Id. cap. 78. de Voconio. Composuit Sacramentorum Volumen.

shop Stillingfleet," that both St. Austin and St. Ambrose give the name of Sacramenta to the books of liturgic offices used in their time. And they observe that the old Missal published by Illyricus, bears the name of Ordo Sacramentorum, which can mean nothing but the manner of performing Divine offices in the administration of the eucharist and other parts of public worship.

Sect. 7.

siasticus.

These offices are by other writers styled cursus ecclesiasticus, the order And cursus eccleor course of Divine offices. For under this title, Gregory Turonensis is said to have composed a book, De Cursibus Ecclesiasticis, for the use of the Gallican church, which is now lost; but he himself 5 mentions it in his history. And Bishop Usher" cites an ancient manuscript out of the Cotton library, which says, that Germanus and Lupus brought Ordinem Cursus Gallorum, the Gallican liturgy, into Britain with them. And this was the liturgy of the British churches for some ages, till by degrees the Cursus Romanus was brought in upon them. Bede says," In the time of Pope Agatho, Joannes Abbas, the Roman precentor, was sent over to settle the Roman cursus, or psalmody for the whole year, according to the usage and way of St. Peter's church at Rome. And the council of Calchuth, some time after Bede, speaks of the liturgy under the same title, ordering all churches at the canonical hours reverently to perform their cursus. And Mabillon" cites the Lives of Walaricus and Senericus, where there is frequent mention of the Cursus Gallicanus.

38

Sect. 8. The names λerτουργία, ἱερουρ

via, iepà, and usual in the Greek

μυςαγωγία, most

church.

Among the Greek writers we seldom meet with any of these names, but they usually style all holy offices, and all parts of Divine service, by the general name of λειτουργία, and ἱερουρ yía, liturgy, and sacred service. Though liturgy in its extended sense denotes any public office or ministration, as the apostle uses it, Phil. ii. 30, and 2 Cor. ix. 12, for the ministration of charity; and ecclesiastical writers do the same, often applying it both to civil and sacred functions, as to the office of a magistrate or a bishop, as Casaubon" shows at large; yet in a more limited sense it is put to signify those sacred offices which make up the several parts of

31 Menard. ibid. Stillingfleet, ubi supra.

35

Greg. Turon. Hist. lib. 10. cap. ult. De Cursibus Ecclesiasticis unum librum condidi.

36 Usser. de Primord. Eccles. p. 185.

37 Bede, Hist. lib. 4. c. 18. Quatenus in monasterio suo cursum canendi annuum, sicut ad Sanctum Petrum Romæ agebatur, edoceret.

38 Conc. Calchuthens. can. 7. Conc. t. 6. p. 1865. Ut omnes ecclesiæ publicæ canonicis horis cursum suum cum reverentia habeant.

39 Mabil. de Cursu Gallican. p. 420.

40 Casaub. Exercit. in Baron. 16. n. 41. p. 471.

43

Divine worship, as prayers, reading, preaching, and administration of the sacraments. But it is never used, as the Romanists would appropriate it, for the business of sacrificing only. The council of Ephesus speaks both of evening" and morning liturgies, which doubtless mean evening and morning prayers only. And so Casaubon observes, that Justinian takes it for the office of reading the Scripture as well as administering the eucharist, when he says of a certain monastery, that the Divine liturgy was performed in it, as it was used to be in the churches, both by reading the Holy Scriptures and receiving the holy communion. And Antiochus applies the name of liturgy, not only to morning prayer, but also to the service of their midnight assemblies. Neither of which was in his time the ordinary hours of the communion service. So that Erasmus and others are governed more by prejudice than reason, who would have that passage of Acts xiii. 2, λetrovρyoúvтwv avrov, to be rendered, sacrificantibus illis, as if there were no Divine service without sacrifice in their notion of it; when yet the Vulgar translation renders it ministering, and the old Syriac and Arabic, as Beza observes, have it praying; which is agreeable to the notion of liturgy for Divine service. Yet when the epithet of mystica was added to liturgia, then it commonly signified the communion service. As when Theodoret says, that the salutation of St. Paul, 2 Cor. xiii. 14, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," &c., is the beginning of the mystical liturgy," he means the communion office, where this form of salutation was always used. And so in the Clementina Epitome," the sacred liturgy denotes the service of the altar, which came after the exĥv rŵV iepuv vμvov, prayers used in psalmody, or the service of the catechumens. And it is Bona's observation" out of Vincentius Riccardus," that except the words sacred, or mystical, be added to the name liturgy, it is never to be taken for the sacrifice of the altar, but for some other part of Divine service: though, I think, this is more than can be fairly proved. As on the other hand, when the epithet of mystical is added, it does not always, but only for the most part, as I said before, mean the eucharistical service. For the service of baptism was ever esteemed a mystical service, as well as that of the

50

eucharist. And the name μvsaywyía, communion in the sacred mysteries, is upon that account frequently given by St. Chrysostom," Theodoret," and others, to baptism, as well as the Lord's supper; as may be seen at large in Suicerus's Collections upon that subject. It is certain the author under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, uses the title of mystagogia, as well when he is describing the ceremonies and service of baptism, as the eucharist: and Cyril's Mystagogical Catechisms are equally an exposition of the rites observed in administering baptism and confirmation, as of those of the other sacrament; these being the two great mystical services of the Christian church. The names iɛpȧ, ispovpyía, and veía, are all words of the same importance: they most commonly signify the communion service, or the sacrifice of prayers at the altar. But sometimes they denote the offices of baptism, preaching, reading the Scripture, and psalmody; these being the spiritual sacrifices of Christians. It is certain the apostle calls preaching the gospel by the name of ispovpyía, Rom. xv. 16, and the conversion of the Gentiles thereby, the offering them up or sacrificing them to God. Upon which words Chrysostom observes, That the apostle does not call this service barely λατρεία, but λειτουργία, and ispovpyía, sacrifice, or sacred service. For this is my priesthood, to preach and publish the gospel; this the sacrifice that I offer to God. And St. Basil gives the same names of ispovpyía and Svoia to the duty of praise and thanksgiving: "I will offer unto thee the sacrifice of praise." And we have seen before (sect. 5.) how the evening prayer is commonly styled sacrificium vespertinum, evening sacrifice, by the Latin writers.

51

Sect. 9. Liturgy someforms of praYEL.

It is further to be observed, that as the Latins, by the names missa, cur- times taken for set sus, ordo, and officium, mean not only the Divine worship itself, but also the books containing the method and prescriptions for the regular performance of it, which we usually call set forms of prayer; so the Greeks sometimes understand the same thing by the name of liturgy; and that not only when they speak of the forms of administering the sacraments, but of any other parts of Divine service. It is plain the author of the Constitutions* takes the word in this sense, when he applies it to

47 Riccard. Comment. in Proclum de Tradit. Missæ.
48 Chrys. Hom. 21. t. 1. ad Popul. Antioch. p. 272.
49 Theod. in cap. 1. Canticorum.

50 Suicer. Thesaur. voce Musaywyia.

51 Chrys. Hom. 29. in Rom. p. 302. Ovx ánλws λarpeiar λέγων, ἀλλὰ λειτεργίαν καὶ ἱερεργίαν· αὕτη γὰρ μοι ἱερωσύνη, τὸ κηρύττειν καὶ καταγγέλλειν τάυτην προσο φέρω τὴν θυσίαν.

52 Basil, in Psal. cxv. p. 275. 'Iɛpupyńow σoι TÙY TĀS αἰνέσεως θυσίαν.

53 Constit. lib. 8. cap. 6. Η θεία λειτουργία, ἐν ᾗ προσφώνησις ὑπερ τῶν κατηχουμένων.

the forms of prayer then made for the catechumens. And Casaubon observes," That all those forms of worship which go under the names of Peter, James, Andrew, Chrysostom, and Basil, bear the name of liturgies, which the Latins call ordo, and officium, and the modern Greeks, áкoλovðía. These were sometimes also, among the ancient Greek writers, termed svxwv diaráğıç, the order of prayers; which is the name that Nazianzen gives the liturgy of St. Basil, composed by him by the direction of his, bishop, whilst he was presbyter of Cæsarea; and those forms and orders of Divine worship collected by the author of the Constitutions, bear the same title, diaráži. In Chrysostom they are styled vóμοι, the rules or appointments of the church; and the prayers particularly are distinguished into two sorts of forms, both by him and the council of Laodicea, the one called εὐχαὶ κατηχουμένων, the prayers of the catechumens, and the other, evxai

57

OTV, the prayers of the faithful, or believers. But I shall say no more of liturgies here, considered as set forms or prescriptions of worship, because they will come to be discoursed of more fully hereafter in their proper place.

Sect. 10. Of litanies This at first a general name for prayers. How and when it came to be

There is one general name more, which the first writers use to denote all sorts of public prayers, but the appropriated to cer- middle ages have appropriated it to a

tain particular forms

rogations.

of worship, called particular form of worship, that is, litanies, in Greek called Airavɛiai, and Aurai: in Latin, supplicationes, and rogationes. These words, in their original signification, are but another name for prayers in general, of whatever kind, that either were made publicly in the church, or by any private person. Eusebius, speaking of Constantine's custom of making his solemn addresses to God in his tent, before he went out to battle, says, He endeavoured to render God propitious to him by supplications and litanies, that he might obtain his favour, assistance, and direction in his enterprises. And again, he says," A little before his death he spent some time in the house of prayer, making supplications and litanies to God. In which places, litany seems to be a general name, and not to intend any particular sort of prayers. So Chrysostom also uses the word litany, when he says to his people, To-morrow I shall go forth with you to make our litany, that is, the public service. And again," speaking of the solemn form of words, Pax vobis,

54 Casaubon. Exerc. 16. in Baron. n. 41. p. 472.

55 Naz. Orat. 20. in Laud. Basil. p. 340.

56 Chrys. Hom. 2. in 2 Cor. p. 740.

57 Conc. Laodic. can. 19.

60

58 Euseb. Vit. Const. lib. 2. cap. 14. Tov Oɛdv iKETηpíais καὶ λιταῖς ἱλεούμενος, &c.

59 Id. lib. 4. cap. 61. Εὐκτηρίῳ ἐνδιατρίψας οἴκῳ, ἱκετηρίους εὐχάς τε καὶ λιτανείας ἀνέπεμπε τῷ Θεῷ.

60 Chrys. Hom. antequam iret in exilium, t. 4. p. 965. Αὔριον εἰς λιτανεῖον ἐξελεύσομαι μεθ ̓ ὑμῶν.

Peace be with you, he says, The bishop used it in all offices when he first entered the church, when he made the prayers and litanies, and when he preached. And Arcadius, in one of his laws made against heretics about the same time, takes litany in the same sense for prayers in general, when he forbids heretics to hold profane assemblies in the city, either by night or by day, to make their litany. Where it is plain, his intent was, not to prohibit heretics from making any particular sort of prayers, but all prayers in general within the city, and to cut off all opportunities of meeting either by night or by day for that purpose: and so Gothofred understands him. For this law was made with a direct view to the Arian assemblies for psalmody in their night stations, which had occasioned some tumults and murder in the city, as Socrates and Sozomen inform us. So that the morning hymns, and psalmody, and prayers then came all under the general name of litany, and the Arians were forbidden in this sense to make any litanies within the city by this law of Arcadius. What Hamon L'Estrange" alleges out of St. Austin, Cyprian, and Tertullian, proves nothing, but that there were always prayers made in the church to implore God's mercy and favours; which no one ever denied: neither is the name litany used by any of them. It is more to the purpose, what St. Basil says to the church of Neocæsarea, where Gregory Thaumaturgus was bishop; that though in Gregory's time they had no litanies, yet afterward, before St. Basil's time, they had admitted the use of them. By which argument, he defends the nocturnal prayers, and psalmody, and vigils, against those who objected that they were not used in St. Gregory's time. For neither were litanies used in his time, and yet now they were in use, and no one objected novelty against them. This shows, that St. Basil takes litanies for a peculiar sort of prayers lately set up in the church. For it cannot be doubted, but that they had prayers before, though not of this particular kind.

Some think, that litanies, in this new limited sense, were first introduced by Mamercus, bishop of Vienna in France, about the year 450. But St. Basil's testimony proves them to be earlier in the East. And it is a mistake in those who assert Mamercus to be the first author of them in the West: for Sidonius Apollinaris, who lived in the time of Mamercus, and wrote some epistles to him, says

61 Chrys. Hom. 3. in Colos. p. 1338. 'Ev Taïs ¿KKλnoíais εἰρήνην, ἐν ταῖς ἐυχαῖς, ἐν ταῖς λιταῖς, &c.

62 Cod. Theod. lib. 16. Tit. 5. de Hæreticis, Leg. 30. Interdicatur his omnibus, ad litaniam faciendam intra civitatem noctu vel interdiu profanis coire conventibus. 63 Socrat. lib. 6. cap. 8. Sozomen. lib. 8. cap. 8. L'Estrange's Alliance of Divine Offices, cap. 4. p. 100. Basil. Ep. 63. ad Neocæs. p. 97. 'AXX' ovdì ai Xıτανεῖαι ἐπὶ Γρηγορίου, ἃς ὑμεῖς νῦν ἐπιτηδεύετε.