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 importance as the precise
_time_ when communion is to be received, while they themselves must
acknowledge, that they have _abolished communion_ itself as well as
_consecration_ on _nearly_ all the days of the year, and that they
have reduced the oblation of the mass from a '_mystery_' and a
'_venerable, tremendous_ and unbloody sacrifice' (Palmer vol.
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