It can scarcely be denied that the prayer is drawn up in the spirit of assumption; we may confine the question, therefore, to the declaration. Now, if there be any truth in the rule that where there is anything personal in a passage, the person affected is always assumed to be in fact what he is in profession, it must apply to these words which are pre-eminently personal in their character. Earnest prayer has just been offered; the Church has done her utmost to arouse the spirit of repenting faith; a declaration of faith and repentance has just been made; and the sole object of the sentence is to move the congregation to united thanksgiving and prayer. Assumption, therefore, is absolutely necessary to the construction of the service; thanksgiving would be impossible without it; and if, in such circumstances, the Church did not assume the gift, she must be compelled to stop the mouth of God’s faithful children, when they would pour forth the gratitude of a hopeful and overflowing heart. This view of the passage is confirmed by the similar assumption in the corresponding prayer after the reception of the other sacrament “Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank Thee, for that Thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,” &c. Here are two assumptions—1st, That all the communicants have received the sacrament duly; and 2nd, That they have all been fed with the spiritual grace of which it is a sign. But no one with the Articles before him can suppose that the Church intended to teach that every communicant invariably feeds on the most precious body and blood of Christ.