CHAPTER XIX CHRIST'S PRESENCE IN THE HOLY COMMUNION "What these elements are in themselves it skilleth not; it is enough that to me which take them they are the Body and Blood of Christ. His promise in witness hereof sufficeth, His word He knoweth which way to accomplish." — Hooker. T is very important to observe here that the Church of England and the Churches in communion with her have never formulated any theory as to how our Lord is present in the Holy Sacrament of His Body and Blood. Rome has her metaphysical theory of TRANSUBSTANTIATION, or the change of substance (not of "accidents," or visible form), into the sacred Body and Blood. This theory has been described as "bad theology based on worse psychology," and is declared by our 28th Article of Religion to be "repugnant to the plain words of Scripture," and as 'overthrowing the nature of a Sacrament," inasmuch as a Sacrament is defined as having two parts," the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace," whereas, according to the theory of a change of substance, only one part in reality remains, for the "accidents" are a mere cheat to the eye.1 Luther's theory of CONSUBSTANTIATION is perhaps equally objectionable. It is that "after consecration of the Eucharist, the substance of the Lord's Body and Blood co-exists in union with the substance of Bread and Wine, just as 1 Gelasius, Bishop of Rome, in 490 wrote, "By the sacraments we are made partakers of the Divine Nature, and yet the substance or nature of bread and wine does not cease to be in them." For the original see Bingham, XV, v, 4, note 71. iron and fire are united in a bar of heated iron." The THEORY OF ZWINGLI of Zurich, on the other hand, regards "the Sacraments as mere signs of initiation and of a pledge to continue in the outward society. . . . They are not even pledges of grace."2 This also is distinctly condemned in the 25th Article of Religion, where it is said that "Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace doth work invisibly in us." by which God But all theories in regard to the bow of Christ's presence in the Holy Sacrament are equally objectionable, and equally useless. Christ has not told us how, and the Church does not presume to define what He has not defined. "How can these things be?" Nicodemus asked when our Lord declared to him the mystery of the "water and of the Spirit" in Holy Baptism." "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" the unbelieving Jews asked when He declared the mystery of the other Sacrament. And in each case the question was only met by a restatement and a fuller declaration of the mystery. The Anglican Communion is content to leave the matter just where our Lord left it when He said of the wind, "Thou canst not tell." The mystery of His Presence in "the outward and visible sign" is no greater, no more comprehensible, He would have us know, than the presence of what we call life in a blade of grass, or an electric current in a piece of wire, or a soul in the body of a man. Physical science and Christian faith are at one in accepting the mystery in each case. Neither cares to ask the useless question "How?" 1 Blunt, Dic. of Doc. and His. Theology, s. v. • Ibid. p. 812. S. John iii, 1−14. 6 There ▲ Ibid. vi, 52. Ibid. iii, 8. Cf. Hooker V, lxxvi, 12, p. 460, Keble's ed. was sound theology as well as sound philosophy in the answer attributed to Princess (afterwards Queen) Elizabeth when she replied to the question of one who would entrap her concerning the "how": "His was the Word that spake it; He took the bread and brake it, Without attempting to define the manner of Christ's presence in the Sacrament, the Prayer Book asserts very clearly, as our Lord did, the fact of His presence. The Church is but following Him when, in the Prayer of Humble Access, and elsewhere, she speaks of "eating the Flesh 1 of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and drinking His Blood"; of "receiving the most precious Body and Blood," and of "the Body of Christ" as being "given" as well as "taken, and eaten in the Supper," though "only after a heavenly and spiritual manner." And all this is but employing the very language which our Lord employed, knowing perfectly as He did how men would, in these latter days, stumble at His marvelous language as "a hard saying," while He refused to alter or withdraw a single word, even when some of His disciples forsook Him on account of this "hardness.” 2 1 The use of the word "Flesh" here instead of "Body" shows that the Church interprets our Lord's words in St. John vi., where "Flesh" alone is used, as a definite instruction in preparation for the Holy Sacrament which He instituted a year later. Compare Heb. x, 20. 2 S. John vi, 60, 66. Coleridge presses home this point as follows:"That those [who deny the genuineness of S. John's Gospel] should object to the use of expressions which they had ranked among the most obvious marks of spuriousness, follows as a matter of course. But that men who with a clear and cloudless assent receive the sixth chapter of this Gospel as a faithful, nay, inspired record of an actual discourse, should take offence at the repetition of words which the Redeemer Himself, in the per Hooker, with his keen philosophic sense, strikes at the root of the matter when he writes: "Sith we all agree that by the Sacrament Christ doth really and truly in us perform His promise, why do we vainly trouble ourselves with so fierce contentions whether by consubstantiation, or else by transubstantiation the Sacrament itself be first possessed with Christ, or no?" And again:- "Let curious and sharp-witted men beat their heads about what questions themselves will, the very letter of the word of Christ giveth plain security that these mysteries do as nails fasten us to His very Cross, that by them we draw out, as touching efficacy, force, and virtue, even the Blood of His gored side; in the wounds of our Redeemer we there dip our tongues, we are dyed red both within and without; our hunger is satisfied, and our thirst for ever quenched; they are things wonderful which he feeleth, great which he seeth, and unheard of which he uttereth, whose soul is possessed of this Paschal Lamb and made joyful in the strength of fect foreknowledge that they would confirm the disbelieving, alienate the unstedfast, and transcend the present capacity even of His own elect, had chosen as the most appropriate; and which, after the most decisive proofs that they were misinterpreted by the greater number of His hearers, and not understood by any, He nevertheless repeated with stronger emphasis and without comment as the only appropriate symbols of the great truth he was declaring, and to realize which éyévero σapέ [“He was made flesh"]; that in their own discourses these men should hang back from all express reference to these words, as if they were afraid or ashamed of them, though the earliest recorded ceremonies and liturgical forms of the primitive Church are absolutely inexplicable, except in connection with this discourse, and with the mysterious and spiritual, not allegorical and merely ethical, import of the same; and though this import is solemnly and in the most unequivocable terms asserted and taught by their own Church, even in her Catechism, or compendium of doctrine necessary for all her members; - this I may perhaps understand; but this I am not able to vindicate or excuse" (Aids to Reflection, pp. 351, 352). - this new wine; this bread hath in it more than the substance which our eyes behold; this cup hallowed with solemn benediction availeth to the endless life and welfare both of soul and body, in that it serveth as well for a medicine to heal our infirmities and purge our sins, as for a sacrifice of thanksgiving; with touching, it sanctifieth; it enlighteneth with belief; it truly comformeth us unto the image of Jesus Christ. What these elements are in themselves it skilleth not, it is enough that to me which take them they are the Body and Blood of Christ. His promise in witness hereof sufficeth, His word He knoweth which way to accomplish; why should any cogitation possess the mind of a faithful communicant but this, O my God, Thou art true, O my soul, thou art happy!" 1 It is surely a good test of one's freedom from intellectual prejudice to ask ourselves, Do I wish that Christ had used some words about this mystery other than those He has 1 Eccl. Pol., V, lxvii, 6, 12. Hooker elsewhere falls into the very error which he is here guarding others against when he formulates a theory of his own, though a negative one, concerning the "how" of Christ's presence, "The real presence of Christ's most blessed Body and Blood," he writes in this same chapter (section 6), "is not to be sought in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament." Archdeacon Freeman points out that Hooker failed to notice that S. Paul does not say, "The bread which we eat, is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ?" but "The bread which we break," "the cup which we bless" (1 Cor. x, 16; Prin. Div. Ser. II. Intro. p. 208). Hence the 28th Article of Religion declares that "the Body of Christ is given" as well as "taken and eaten." To deny this would indeed be to adopt Calvin's theory that it is the faith of the receiver that makes Christ present, and not He who wrought the mystery of the Incarnation at the beginning, namely, "the Holy Ghost, the Power of the Highest," (S. Luke i, 35), "the Lord, and Giver of life," acting through His appointed ministers. The office of faith, S. Paul tells us, is to "discern" the Lord's Body (1 Cor. xi. 29) as already present by the "breaking," and the "thanksgiving," and the "blessing," and not to make It present. |