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III. The Nature of the Presence and the "Mean whereby it is received."

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On the nature of the Presence the teaching of the Article is this. The Body and Blood are in no way carnally and corporeally present, i.e. after the manner of a body, physically, and according to the laws which govern a local and material presence, for the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner; that is, it is present in a manner above sense and nature, by the power and working of God's Holy Spirit, and for the highest spiritual ends. It has been noticed by a thoughtful writer that in this clause "the body of Christ is not said in a general way to be received,' but to be given, taken, and eaten'; as if there were a solicitude, in correcting the abuses of the sacrament, explicitly to maintain the union between the heavenly and spiritual blessing ment dependeth on the co-operation of His omnipotent power which maketh it His body and blood to us, whether with change or without alteration of the elements such as they imagine, we need not greatly to care nor inquire." Cf. the MS. note in which Hooker defends these words, quoted by Mr. Keble (Hooker's Works, vol. ii. p. 353). Bp. Andrewes: "De Hoc est, fide firma tenemus, quod sit : De, Hoc modo est (nempe, Transubstantiato in corpus pane), de modo quo fiat ut sit, per, sive In, sive Con, sive Sub, sive Trans nullum inibi verbum est. Et quia verbum nullum, merito a fide ablegamus procul inter Scita Schola fortasse, inter Fides Articulos non ponimus."-Resp. ad Bellarm. p. 13 (A. C. Lib.). So Archbp. Bramhall places Transubstantiation "among the opinions of the schools, not among the Articles of our faith."-Answer to Militiere, p. 1. Burnet also says: "We think that neither consubstantiation nor transubstantiation, however ill-grounded we think them to be, ought to dissolve the union and communion of Churches."-On Art. XXVIII. And Bp. Harold Browne, in speaking of the teaching of Roman divines, admits that "by the more learned and liberal, statements have been made perpetually in acknowledgment of a spiritual rather than a carnal presence; and such as no enlightened Protestant would cavil at or refuse."-Exposition of the XXXIX. Articles, p. 701.

and the outward and visible sign.

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To use these precise expressions, therefore, respecting the Body of Christ is, by clearest implication, to combine that heavenly and spiritual' blessing with the given and taken symbol." The words of the whole paragraph imply that the Presence is what is now commonly called "objective," ie. that it is there, in virtue of consecration, as something external to ourselves, in no way dependent on our feeling or perception of it. It is "given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner.' But the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith. It is "given, taken, and eaten (datur, accipitur, et manducatur). It is "received and eaten" (accipitur et manducatur). Three words are employed in the first sentence; only two in the second; and this designedly, for the Presence is not due to faith. Faith receives. It cannot create or bestow. The Presence must be there first, or it cannot be received. As Thorndike said, "the eating and drinking of it in the sacrament presupposes the being of it in the sacrament .. unless a man can spiritually eat the Flesh and Blood of Christ in and by the sacrament, which is not in the sacrament when he eats and drinks it, but by his eating and drinking of it comes to be there." If, however, it is clearly implied that the Presence is there first, before it is "received," it seems to be no less clearly taught in the last part of the clause that faith is a necessary condition to the reception of it, for "the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith." So much is practically confessed by Bishop Guest, the author of the clause, in a remarkable letter addressed to Cecil in 1571. Guest was very anxious

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1 A. Knox, Essays, vol. ii. p. 173.
2 Laws of the Church, c. ii. § 12.

that Article XXIX. "Impii non manducant," which had been withdrawn before publication in 1563, should not now be restored, or receive any sanction "because it is quite contrary to the Scripture and the Fathers"; and in order to make the Twenty-eighth Article harmonise with the view that the wicked do partake of the body, though not fruitfully, he suggested that the word "only" should be removed, and that the word "profitably should be inserted, and that the words should run," the mean whereby the body of Christ is profitably received and eaten in the Supper is faith."1 The Article was, however, left untouched, and the Twenty-ninth was, against his wish, inserted; and, if the words of the Articles are to be taken in their plain literal and grammatical sense, the whole paragraph would seem to indicate, (1) that the Presence is there independent of us, and thus that it is offered to all; but (2) that the faithful, and the faithful only, are able to receive it.

The subject will require some further consideration under the next Article, but so much it seemed necessary to say here, for the right understanding of the words before us.

All the positive statements of the Article with regard to the Presence in the Eucharist have now been discussed (for the fourth paragraph which still remains is concerned only with certain practices in connection with the sacrament), and if the exposition that has been given is a fair one, the result of it will be this: that while the doctrine of the real Presence is distinctly taught, and the theory of Transubstantiation is condemned, there is an entire absence of any counter theory of the manner of the Presence. And in this lies the real strength of the position taken up by the Church of England. She

1 State Papers, "Domestic," Elizabeth, vol. lxxviii. No. 37. Cf.

P. 45.

devoutly accepts her Lord's words.

a mere figure.

She does not

attempt to explain them away or to resolve them into But, on the other hand, she is content to hold them as a mystery. Her Lord has not explained them. He has nowhere revealed "how" His Body and Blood are present; and therefore she declines to speculate on the manner, and rejects as no part of the Church's faith all theories on the subject presented to her, whether that of Transubstantiation, or the Lutheran tenet of Consubstantiation, or that associated with the name of Calvin, the theory of a "virtual" presence only in the heart of the faithful recipient.1

To the present writer it appears that on this mysterious subject we may well be content to make our own the words of Bishop Andrewes in the sixteenth century, and of Bishop Moberly in the nineteenth

"Præsentiam credimus non minus quam vos veram : de modo præsentiæ nihil temere definimus, addo, nec anxie inquirimus."

"The Body and Blood of Christ are present, not corporeally (for that we know from our Lord's words

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1 This, it must be remembered, is a distinct "theory" quite as much as Transubstantiation. It is probably largely owing to the belief that it was the view of R. Hooker that it has obtained such wide acceptance in this country: It cannot, however, be fairly said that it represents the whole of Hooker's teaching on the subject. See book V. c. lxxvii. § 1, where very strong language is used on "the power of the ministry of God," which "by blessing visible elements maketh them invisible grace (a phrase which is scarcely reconcileable with a merely "receptionist " theory), and "hath to dispose of that flesh which was given for the life of the world, and that blood which was poured out to redeem souls." The arguments in c. lxvii. by which Hooker seeks to justify his conclusion that "the real Presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the sacra ment," cannot be deemed convincing, and the reader will find an able criticism of them in Freeman's Principles of Divine Service, vol. ii. Introd. p. 202 seq.

Responsio ad Bellarm. p. 13.

in John vi. 63), but spiritually, in and with the element We know no more . . . Consubstantiation, like Transu, stantiation, is a theory of the manner of the Presenc whereas the Church only knows the Presence as a fact, respecting the manner and mode and extent of which she is not informed." 1

IV. Certain Practices in connection with the Eucharist.

The sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped. Of the practices here

spoken of, at least three are directly enjoined by the Council of Trent, and it is possible that to the promulgation of the decrees of the thirteenth session of that Council (October 1551) the paragraph before us is due. The decrees in question lay down, (1) that "there is no room left for doubt that all the faithful of Christ, according to the custom ever received in the Catholic Church, exhibit in veneration the worship of latria, which is due to the true God, to this most holy sacrament"; (2) that "very piously and religiously was this custom introduced into the Church, that this most sublime and venerable sacrament should be, with special veneration and solemnity, celebrated every year on a certain day, and that a festival; and that it should be borne reverently and with honour in processions through the streets and public places"; and (3) that

1 Bampton Lectures, p. 172 (ed. 1).

2 "Nullus itaque dubitandi locus relinquitur, quia omnes Christi fideles pro more in Catholica Ecclesia semper recepto latriæ cultum, qui vero Deo debetur, huic sanctissimo sacramento in veneratione exhibeant. ... Declarat præterea sancta Synodus pie et religiose admodum in Dei ecclesiam inductum fuisse hunc morem, ut singulis annis peculiari quodam et festo die præcelsum hoc et venerabile sacramentum singulari veneratione ac solemnitate celebraretur, utque in processionibus rever

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