The Henson Journals

[36]

Tuesday, December 27th , 1927.

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I read through the debate in the House of Commons as reported in the Times. The Prime Minister spoke well from his characteristically detached point of view, but evidently the temper of the House had become too fanatical for serious argument. The issue as stated by the leading opponents was nakedly doctrinal e.g. Sir Douglas Hogg:–

"In order to justify the rejection of the Measure there must be something which in the view of any member who voted for the rejection was vital to the Church or to the State. In his judgement there were in the Deposited Book matters which were of vital importance".

He then specified Transubstantiation which he alleged was implicit in the alternative Communion Office. The assurances of the Archbishops Bishops were either ignored or scornfully swept aside It was assumed that the House of Commons was competent to determine the doctrine of the Church of England, and legally entitled to do so! Is this an assumption which any self–respecting Churchman can admit? Does the Enabling Act really authorise such an exercise of spiritual authority?

[37]

[']The constant supply of the reserved Eucharist appears to be definitely ordered for the first time in the Capitula Ecclesiastica issued by a council that met at Aix–la–Chapelle somewhere between A.D. 810–813, wherein it was enacted, "That the priest shall always keep the sacrament in readiness, so that if any one be overtaken by sickness or a child should be ill, he may give them communion immediately, none may die unhounselled".[']

Freestone, "The Sacrament Reserved" p.134.

The development of Reservation seems to have been of this kind. 1. the deacons carried the Elements from the public Communion to absentees as stated by S. Justine. 2. the communicants themselves carried away the course–crated Elements, kept them at home, as indicated by Tertullian. This practice arose during the persecutions. 3. the sick were communicated in both elements by Intinction. 4. the doctrine of concomitance tended to encourage communion from the Reserved Sacrament only in the Bread. 5 the doctrine of Transubstantiation the withdrawal of the Cup from the Laity established the modern practice of Reserving in one Kind only, led to various Sacramental cults.