Boultbee on Article XXVIII: Of the Lord's Supper

‘Rightly, worthily, and with feith,’ corresponds to the Latin rite, digne, et cum fide. Rite refers to all that is essen- tial in the administration. Digne (used also in Article XXY.) refers to the mode and spirit of reception, which is yet further qualified by the requirement cum fide.

The Latin word used here for * partaking ’ is commumcatio.

It may be observed that our Church uses the Latin word Eucharistia, but prefers in the English version the simple ex- pression, * the Lord’s Supper.’

If we compare the present Article with the corresponding one (XXIX.) of 1552, it will be noticed that there are a few verbal differences in the first part, and in the last clause, but that the intermediate portion, viz., * The body of Christ is given … • is Faith,’ has taken the place of the longer clause in the Article of 1552, which is here subjoined : — * For- asmuch as the truth of man’s nature requireth that the body of one and the self-same man cannot be at one time in many and divers places, but must needs be in some one certain place : therefore the body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and divers places. And because (as Holy Scripture doth teach) Christ was taken up into heaven, and there shall continue unto the end of the world, a faithful man ought not either to believe or openly to confess the real and bodily presence (as they term it) of Christ’s flesh and blood in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.’

The same influence which struck out of Elizabeth’s Prayer Book the advertisement at the end of the Communion Service (restored in 1662) appears to have operated against the above clause, so similar to it, in the line of reasoning adopted against the ubiquity of the Lord’s body.

Archdeacon Ilardwick ^ suggests no sources for the text of this Article.

The Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

The opinions which have prevailed on this subject may be arranged under three principal divisions, which will be con- sidered in this order : —

I. The corporal presence. II. The denial of any peculiar presence. III. The spiritual presence.

I. The Corporal Presence.

This will fall under two separate heads, transuhstanttation and consubstantiation. The former of these, afler a struggle prolonged for some centuries (for which the reader is referred to ecclesiastical history), may be considered as finally decreed by the Church of Rome, a.d. 1216, at the Lateran Council, under Innocent III. This was confirmed by the following decree of the Council of Trent,* which also sufiSciently defines the term transubstantiation : — * That, by consecration of the bread and wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the sub- stance of His blood : which conversion is conveniently and properly called transubstantiation by the Holy Catholic Church.’

The Council proceeds to decree (c. 5) that this * most holy Sacrament shall be reverenced with the worship of latria which is due to the true God.’

Among the canons of the Coimcil on this Sacrament arc some to the following eflfect: —

1. That the body and blood of Christ, together with His soul and divinity, and therefore the whole Christ, are truly, really, and substantially contained in the Eucharist.

2. That the substance of the bread and wine do not remaia

» History of Arts, p. 395. « Sess. xiii. c 4.

together with the body and blood of Christ ; but there is a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood. The * species ’ of bread and wine only remaining.

3. That in each species, and under each individual part of each species when separated, the whole Christ is contained.

4. That this presence of the body and blood exists not only while being taken, but before and after ; and also in the con- secrated hosts or particles which remain after communion.

[^Note. — Under the last clause the Koman casuists have raised those offensive questions about a mouse taking the re* served host, and similar suppositions, which have been erro- neously attributed to Protestant irreverence ! ]

The second mode of holding the corporal presence of Christ in the elements is called consubstantiation. It is the belief of the Lutherans. Rejecting the notion of the change of the earthly elements of bread and wine, it holds that in some way the real body and blood of Christ are locally present with them. The original documents of the Lutheran Church do not explain this.

The confession of Augsburgh (X.) briefly says that * the body and blood of Christ are truly present, and are distributed to those eating in the Supper of the Lord.*

The Saxon Confession, a.d. 1551, asserts that ^ in this com munion Christ is truly and substantially present, and the body and blood of Christ are truly exhibited to those receiving.’

The mode of this presence Luther himself usually shrank from defining. See the account in D^Aubign^‘s History of the Heformation of the Marburg Conference between him and Zwingle, together with other divines of both parties.

But D’Aubign^ ^ gives this illustration from Luther’s writings : ’ Just as iron and fire, which are nevertheless two distinct substances, are confounded together in a heated mass of iron, so that in each of its parts there is at once iron and fire ; in like manner, and with much greater reason, the glorified body of Christ is found in all the parts of the bread.’

’ B. XL c xi.

.o

Luther’s illustration £ulfl before modem science, which tells us that cold and heat are only relative terms implying the presence of diflferent degrees of heat.

This dogma involved another, when the possibility of such a bodily presence was discussed philosophically, viz., uhiqui- tarianism ; or the doctrine that the glorified body of Christ ia everywhere, uhique. This led to serious divisions in the Lutheran Church ; some in their zeal for it maintaining opinions scarcely distinguishable from Monophysitism.

The Ultra-Lutherans maintained this dogma with great acrimony, arguing it after the old scholastic method. * The Form of Concord’ a.d. 1576, a formula which caused much division in the Lutheran Church,* asserts ’ that Christ truly fills all things and rules everywhere, present, not only as Grod, but also as man, from sea to sea and to the bounds of the earth.’

Further, that * the right hand of God is not any certain and circumscribed place in heaven, but is nothing else than the omnipotent virtue of God, which fills heaven and earth.’ Again, that * the divine and human nature in the person of Christ are united, so as not only to have names in common, but really and in fact communicate between themselves, without confusion and equality of essences — according to the doctrine of communicatio idiomatumJ’

Luther’s own views may be seen from the following ex- tract : 2 * We are not so foolish as to believe that the body of Christ exists in the bread in the same visible manner in which bread is in the basket or wine in the goblet… . We believe that Christ’s body is present ; othe^^vise we are quite willing that any one should say : Christ is in the bread, or is the very bread, or is there where the bread is, or as he likes. We will not quarrel about words, but merely insist upon keeping to the literal meaning, viz., that it is not simply bread of which we partake in the Lord’s Supper, but the body of Christ.’ Luther himself, in his controversy with the Swiss party, maintained the ubiquity of Christ’s body.

« Ilngonbach’s * History of Doctrines,’ vol. ii. p. 329. « Ibid. p. 299.

On this controversy our Church has made a positive declaration in the note appended to the Communion Service.

11. The Denial of any Peculiar Presence.

The name of Zwingle has been identified with that view of the Lord’s Supper which makes it merely a commemorative sign, and not a special or effectual means of grace. This view is negatived by the first clause of Article XXV. Passages from the writings of Zwingle have been quoted to show that he did express himself to that effect. At the same time, that he knew a higher significance of the Sacrament appears from his con- session of faith : ^ ^ I believe that in the Holy Eucharist the true body of Christ is present to faith by contemplation.’

The Zwinglian doctrine on the Lord’s Supper may probably be held and taught by many individuals in churches and sects, but it is not the avowed doctrine in the confession of any organized body of Christians who are orthodox on the Holy Trinity. Its consideration need not, therefore, delay us.

III. jTAe Spiritual Presence.

Very early in the Beformation on the Continent arose, chiefly in Rhenish Germany, a party who stood midway between Luther and Zwingle, and attempted to moderate between them.

Bucer, who had so much influence in England in the reign of Edward VI., Oswald Myconius, and other eminent men, enunciated the doctrine of the Spiritual Presence of Christ to believers in the Lord’s Supper, as opposed to his corporal presence in or with the elements, and to the notion of the Sacrament being a mere commemorative sign.’

This doctrine speedily prevailed against the crude and im- perfect views of Zwingle through all those sections of Reformed Christendom which were not avowedly Lutheran. Thence- forward German writers acknowledged two main divisions in Protestant Christianity, the Lutheran and the Reformed. A reference to so familiar a work as Mosheim’s ‘History of the Church’ will illustrate this. From the sixteenth century ho

Hagenbach, p. 297. ^ Seo Hagenlwch, § 258, note 10.

256 ARTICLE XXVm.

groups together under the latter name the Swiss, Bel^c, French, English, and Scotch Churches, the dividing line being mani- festly their adherence to the spiritual as against the corporal presence.

The reception of this doctrine in tihe English Church was due in the first place to Ridley, who satisfied himself by in- dependent historical and scriptural enquiry as to its antiquity and truth. ^ By his influence Cranmer was led to study, and ultimately to adopt, the same opinion. The learned foreigners, Bucer, Peter Martyr, &c., introduced by Cranmer, belonged to the Reformed rather than to the Lutheran section of the Church.

The Spiritual Presence thus became the doctrine of the English Liturgy and Articles.

Li other countries the enormous influence which Calvin’s systematic treatises exercised tended in the same direction.

The following lucid and moderate passage may illustrate his […] presence of Christ in the Supper we must hold to be such as neither aflixes Him to the element of bread, nor encloses Him in bread, nor circumscribes Him in any way (this would obviously detract from His eternal glory) ; and it must, moreover, be such as neither divests Him of His just dimensions, nor dissevers Him by distance of place, nor assigns to Him a body of boundless dimensions, diffused through heaven and earth. All these things are clearly repugnant to His true human nature. Let us never allow ourselves to lose sight of the two restric- tions —

• First, let there be nothing derogatory to the heavenly glory of Christ. This happens whenever He is brought under the corruptible elements of this world or is affixed to any earthly creatures. Secondly, let no property be assigned to His body inconsistent with His human nature. This is done when it is either said to be infinite, or made to occupy a variety of places at the same time.

• But when these absurdities are discarded, I willingly admit anything which helps to express the true and substantial com- mimication of the body and blood of our Lord as exhibited

• Institutes, iv. xvii. 19.

to believera under the sacred symbols of the Supper, under” atanding that they are received not by the imagination or intellect merely, but are enjoyed in reality as the food of eternal life,’

With these views the confessions of the principal * Reformed* Churches — the Swiss, Dutch, Scotch Presbyterian, and the Church of England — ^willbe found to be in substantial accord- ance.

Forexample, the Confession of Faith of the Established Church of ScotiLand * thus sets forth the doctrine of the presence : —

• Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this sacrament, do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified and all benefits of his death: the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally and carnally in, with, or imder the bread and wine ; yet as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.’

It is well that the student in theology should thus learn how utterly inaccurate are statements continually put forth for popular circulation, attributing Zwinglianism to Calvin and the Calvinistic Churches.

In illustration of the doctrine of the Church of England on the nature of the presence in the Lord’s Supper, we shall again allege the words of Hooker : —

• Christ is termed our life because through Him we obtain life ; so the parts of this sacrament are his body and blood, for that they are so to us, who receiving them, receive that by them which they are termed. The bread and cup are his body and blood because they are causes instrumental upon the receipt whereof the participation of his body and blood ensueth. For that which produceth any certain effect is not vainly nor improperly said to be that very effect whereunto it tendeth. Every cause is in the effect which groweth firom it.’ ’

• The real presence of Christ’s most blessed body and blood is not to be sought in the sacrament, but in the worthy

Chap. xxix. 7. […] Pol.’ v. 67.

s

258 ARTICLE XXVin.

receiver of the sacrament, . • . • I see not which waj it should be gathered by the words of Christ when and where the bread is his bodj or the cup his blood ; but only in the very heart and soul of him who receiveth them. As for the sacraments, thej reallj exhibit, but for aught we can gather out of that which is written of them, they are not really, nor do really contain in themselves, that grace which, with them or by them, it pleaseth God to bestow/ ^

The answer in the Church Catechism, ’ The Body and Blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper,’ must be interpreted in con- formity with these views of the presence. * The faithful ’ must mean those who have faith (not all persons baptized and calling themselves Christians). For ’ the mean whereby Christ is received is faith.* Therefore without faith He is not received. * The Body and Blood are veiHly and indeed taken,* but ’ only after a heavenly and spiritual manner.” ’ The natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven and not here J Nor is there * any corporal presence of Chrisfs natural Flesh and Blood: ^

The phrase ^Beal Presence ’ has been, and is, used by many of our divines to express the genuine doctrine in opposition to Zwinglianism. It should, however, be observed that our Church has avoided it in her Liturgy and Articles; and it may be a need- ful caution to all who will exercise the office of public teachers, that they should be most wary (to say the least) about permitting this expression in their popular teaching. It is generally and popularly identified with the corporal presence. In spite of explanations to the contrary, the majority of hearers usually attribute to a word or phrase what they are accustomed to understand by it. It is the part of wisdom, therefore, to avoid as far as possible ambiguous expressions which tend to nurture distrust or misunderstanding.

This caution is added with the more confidence because it is adopted by Waterland.’

It is beyond the scope of this work to multiply quotations

’ * Ecc. Pol.* v. 67. * Note appended to the Commonion Service*

’ ‘Doctrine of the Eucharist/ chap. vii.

and authorities. But the work just referred to deserves special notice on this ground. In the first half of the last century some of the non-jurors propounded doctrines on the Lord’s Supper akin to Eomanising views lately advocated so promi- nently in our own days. Dr. Waterland, then Archdeacon of Middlesex, met these opinions in his * Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist,’ and in four Charges to the clergy of Middlesex. These have been recently republished by the present Bishop of London, * at the request of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.’ Under these circumstances this work deserves special attention. In reference to the present Article, the seventh chapter will be found to deal most perspicuously with the mode of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper, It is illustrated from analogy, from the Old Testament, from the Fathers, and from recognised divines of the Foreign Reformed Churches, and of the English Church. The following passage, cited with approval from Dr. Aldrich, will serve to illustrate Waterland’s doctrine :— -

’ It is evident that since the body broken and blood shed neither do nor can now really exist, they neither can be really present, nor literally eaten or drunk ; nor can we really receive them, but only the benefits purchased by them. But the body which now exists, whereof we partake, and to which we are imited, is the glorified body; which is, therefore,

verily and indeed received and by consequence said

to be really present, notwithstanding its local absence ; be- cause a real participation and imion must needs imply a real presence, though they do not necessarily imply a local one. For it is easy to conceive how a thing that is locally absent

may yet be really received as when we commonly say

a man receives an estate or inheritance, when he receives the

deeds or conveyances of it The reception is confessedly

rieal, though the thing itself is not locally or circumscriptively present, or literally grasped in the arms of the receiver… . The Protestants all agree that we spiritually eat Christ’s body and drink his blood ; that we neither eat nor drink nor receive the dead body nor the blood shed, but only the benefits purchased by them ; that those benefits are derived

A 2

260 ARTICLE XXVm.

to us hy virtue of our union and communion with the glorified body, and that our partaking of it and imion with it is effected by the mysterious and ineffable operation of the Holy Spirit.’ The last clause of this Article, referring to certain well- known Mediaeyal and Eoman uses of the consecrated elements will, perhaps, need no illustration. These practices stand or fall together with the doctrines to which they essentially belong. One of these, however, stands partially on another footing. In early times portions of the elements were some- times reserved in order to be sent to the absent, the sick, and the prisoners for Christ’s sake.^ Messengers who conveyed the portion . so reserved might be laymen. Our Church has wisely declined to revive a practice which has given occasion to manifold superstitions ; she has ordered all th.at remains of the consecrated elements after communion to be * reverently ’ eaten and drunk immediately after the blessing.* This was also one of the early usages.’

’ See Bingham, * Antiq.* B. xv. c. viii. 1-5.

’ Eubric after Communion Service. ’ See Bingbam, as above.

Of the wicked which do not

eat the Body of Christ in the

Notes

• Soames* Hist, of English Reform, vol. iii. c. 2.