Forbes on Article XXIX: Of the Wicked which eat not the Body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper

THIS Article was first published in 1571. It is wanting in all the printed copies till that date. It is found in the Parker Latin MS. of 1563, and in the Parker English MS., 1571 ; also in the Latin edition of 1571, printed by John Day, and published by the Queen’s authority. It does not appear in the early

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printed copies of the Articles as finally put forth3. The passage from the supposed treatise of St. Augus tine, which, extruded by the Benedictine editors from that author, is found in Bede, Alcuin, and others, was distinctly verified by a reference to the treatise from whence it is taken b. The Twenty-ninth Article was re- adopted on the llth of May, 1571, and finds its place in all the printed copies of that date, whether English or Latin. We must account for the hesitation with regard to its enunciation on the grounds either of Queen Elizabeth’s own feelings, or on those of the scruples of her advisers. In fact we know that an interview took place on the subject between Parker and Cecil0, where the latter called in question the fairness of the quotation from St. Augustine.

The doctrine concerning That which is received by the wicked in the Holy Sacrament, stands in a middle position between two truths, with e’ther of which it must be reconciled. On the en 3 hand, )garding the blessed Sacrament as the food of the soul and the subjective appropriation of the merits of Christ, remembering also that the Sermon on this doctrine, in the sixth chapter of St. John, is entirely silent on the subject, we must hold that there can be no beneficial reception to those in a state of sin ; that it cannot act as a charm in the case of those who are unprepared ; that so far are they from the blessedness

a Hardwick, p. 128, n. 2. b ibid., p. 140.

c Strype’s Parker, p. 331.

of union with. Christ, that it were far better that they had not approached those holy mysteries. On the other hand, it is equally true that the Holy Commu mon is such by virtue of consecration ; that Christ’s presence does not depend upon the mental emotion and spiritual condition of the recipient ; that the Sacrament is what it is by the power of the institution of Christ. If this be so, wherein shall we reconcile these apparent contradictions ? It is found in the fact that Christ is, in certain cases, present in the Sacrament, not to bless, but to judge — that reception of the Sacrament by the wicked conveys something more serious than a negation — that the wicked not only do not receive grace, but do receive judgment.

The language of the Article means that the res Sacramenti is received by the wicked ; and the great voice of antiquity, with the exception of some passages in St. Augustine, supports this view.

It is in entire conformity with the teaching of the Epistle to the Corinthians : — ” Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and (or) drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not dis cerning the Lord’s body d.”

Unless the Bread and the Cup be what we believe

d 1 Cor. xi. 27.

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Them to be, how can an unworthy communicant be guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ ? On any other theory he may be ungodly, irreverent, profane, even sacrilegious ; but on this theory alone can these terri ble words be used in their truth, ” Guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord.” What else can they mean than that to receive the inward part, the Body and Blood of Christ, unworthily, is to be guilty in that very respect ?

Again, in the next verse, the Apostle supplies the way and means towards avoiding that profanation — “Let a man examine himself.” The whole Church system of penitence is here placed between past sin and the Holy Communion. The lapsed Christian is to purge his unworthiness by examination, and its con comitant exercise of repentance.

And all this in view of the dreadful results of a neg lect of these means, for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh rcpi/na, ‘judgment/ which our translators have rendered by the very strong word ’ damnation ;’ and why ? because they do not discern “the Lord’s Body.” Bengel says, “Domini Antonomasia, i.e. Jesu. Ecclesia non dicitur corpus Jesu aut corpus Domini, sed corpus Christi, hie igitur de proprio corpore Domini Jesu agitur.”

How could the Lord’s Body be discerned, if It was not there ? Why should St. Paul give this reason for these fearful condemnations falling upon the irreverent sinner, if there were no presence of the Lord to be violated — no ineffable condescension to be disdained.

p p

In the words of St. Chrysostom e, commenting on the words, ” Not discerning the Lord’s […] not searching, not bearing in mind as he ought, the great ness of the things set before him — not estimating the weight of the gift, — For if thou shouldst come to know accurately, Who it is that lieth before thee, and Who He is who giveth Himself, and to whom, thou wilt need no other argument, but this is enough for thee to use all vigilance.”

The argument from St. Paul rests partly on the whole tenor of what he says in this passage, partly on his very express words. That first argument from the whole context may be stated syllogistically in this fashion : —

Unworthy communicants either receive something besides bread and wine, or they do not.

If they receive nothing but bread and wine, their sin is not greater in kind than the misuse of any other ordinance, e.g. prayer.

But St. Paul plainly teaches that it is greater in kind, that it is something sui generis, a sin standing by itself. It is to be guilty of, or in relation to, the Body and Blood of Christ.

Therefore they who are so guilty cannot be receiver of nothing but bread and wine.

And there being no alternative between real absence and real presence, they must in some sense receive Christ, the inward part of the Sacrament.

But, distinct from, and over and above this, i

e Horn. 28, in 1 Cor., sect. 2.

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St. Paul’s remarkable phrase, the most characteristic and doctrinal expression in the passage, that which St. Paul assigns as the ground why to ” eat and drink unworthily/’ is to eat and drink damnation to them selves, Viz. /JL7J SiCiKpLVWV TO fJCOyLta TOV KvpiOV, //,?)

SiciKpivtov, that is, not discerning in the Latin sense — not discriminating between the Body of the Lord and all other foods. But there would be no blame in not so discriminating between the Body of the Lord and other food, unless that Body were present there.

If these words of the Apostle may be turned aside from their meaning, there is no safety for the reten tion of any plain and explicit statement of the Word of God.

The formularies of the Church rightly understood support the view that the res Sacramenti is received by the wicked.

1. In the exhortation before the actual reception we are told — ” For as the benefit is great, if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that Holy Sacrament (for then we spiritually eat the Flesh of Christ and drink His Blood ; then we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us : we are one with Christ, and Christ with us) ; so is the danger great if we receive THE SAME unworthily.” Whether ” the same” here applies, according to the strictness of construction, to “the Flesh of Christ,” or to the antecedent word “Holy Sacrament,” we arrive at the same result, and that is, that that which is received by the good, the Same is received by the wicked and unworthy.

2. Moreover, in the warning before the Communion, we are exhorted ” to consider the dignity of that Holy Mystery, and the great peril of the unworthy receiving thereof ’;” where we again see that what is provided for the good may be unworthily received by the evil.

3. Again, the same “Holy Sacrament” is described to be ” so divine and comfortable a thing to them who receive it worthily, and so dangerous to them that will presume to receive it (that is, the same) unworthily.”

4. Then, the Church commits herself to the belief that Judas received the Holy Sacrament, according to the almost unanimous consent of antiquity, and de duces a warning lest, after the taking of the Holy Sacrament, certain evil results follow.

5. So also the receiving the Holy Communion un worthily is said to ” do nothing else than increase the sinner’s damnation.”

It must be observed that here, in an address to the people, the word Sacrament is taken in the popular sense, not to mean the Sacramentum, or outward part only, but the whole ordinance.

6. In the prayer of Humble Access the emphatic word “so to eat the Flesh of Christ, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His Body,” implies thereby that there is, such a way of eating the Flesh of Christ as that men may not be cleansed thereby.

7. In the second Post-Communion Prayer, or public thanksgiving, beginning ” Almighty and ever-living God,” emphasis is laid on the word ” duly.”

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But the Article under consideration affords another proof of the position.

At the end of Article XXV., in speaking of the Sacraments generally it is said : — ” The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them. And in such only as worthily receive the same they have a wholesome operation, but they that receive them unworthily purchase to themselves damnation, as St. Paul saith.”

Here, though the passage is put under the head of the Sacraments in general, it is clear that the Holy Eucharist is specially alluded to, for no one then gazed on Baptism, nor could they carry it about; but the other Sacrament was both gazed upon and carried about. Assuming then that it is the Holy Eucharist which alone is alluded to, we find in the end of this Article the same doctrine which we have found in the Exhortations, and therefore, under pain of detecting a fearful inconsistency, we must believe that the true sense of Article XXIX. must be in accordance with this. It is also to be observed that by connecting this passage of Article XXV. with Article XXIX. we are led to identify the statement, that in worthy receivers only Sacraments have a wholesome effect or operation, with the statement that unworthy receivers are in no wise partakers of Christ. In other words, to be a “partaker of Christ/’ in the sense of Article XXIX., is to have in one’s self that wholesome operation, which is identical with the “strengthening and re-

freshing ” of the Catechism — which strengthening and refreshing is distinguished by the Catechism from the Body and Blood, as the Virtus Sacramenti from the Res Sacramenti.

Moreover, it must be mentioned that there is much that is curious about the reception of this Article. It is a well-known fact that Queen Elizabeth never, in the midst of her worldly policy, lost her faith in the Objective Presence of our Lord in the Holy Sacrament. Peter Heylin mentions f, in close connexion, these two anecdotes :— ” That when Dean No well of St. Paul’s spoke less reverently in a sermon preached before her, of the Sign of the Cross, she called aloud to him from her closet window, commanding him to retire from that ungodly digression, and to return unto his text.” And, ” that, on the other side, when one of her divines had preached a sermon in defence of the Real Presence on the day commonly called Good Friday, in 1565, she openly gave him thanks for his pains and piety.”

She was not likely then to accept this Article in any other sense than one consistent with this belief. Now the Article appears to have been composed in the end of 1562, and submitted to the Convocation of that date by Archbishop Parker s. It was accepted by the Upper House, but rejected by the Lower, unless, as has been thought, its omission in the authorized text, as settled after the Synod, was the result of Queen Elizabeth’s will h.

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In the Convocation of 1571, the Article was restored. It is noteworthy that this was the very Convocation in which the bishops, by the famous canon Conciona- tores, imposed upon the clergy, as their guide in the doctrinal interpretation of Scripture, the authority of the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops.

Now, if there is any fact in theological history capable of demonstration, I think it is this, that the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops did teach, alike in liturgies and in treatises, that in some sense the unworthy communicants do receive the Body and Blood of Christ to their condemnation. This, to say the very least, must throw a strong light upon the interpretation of this Article.

The words of the Article cited as St. Augustine’s, are not in the treatise as fully as there quoted. The interpolation is that of Venerable Bede, in the eighth century ; such an interpolation being in consistence with the faith of Bede, who most emphatically taught that ” the Holy Body and Precious Blood were offered up” in ” sacrifice” on the altar.

It is right, however, to say that the interpolation is wholly in accordance with the mind of St. Augustine. It becomes our duty, therefore, from other passages in this great Father, to deduce what he really meant. We must premise that, amid the many and conscien tious retractations by which in his latter days he cor rected any mis-statements even in minute matters in his early teaching, no trace of retractation is to be found on this point. We may therefore arrive at

a pretty strong probability as to what he really felt on the subject.

1. The following expressions appear to be in unison with the famous passage quoted in the Article : — ” The sign which shews that one has eaten and drunk is this, if he dwelleth and is dwelt in, if he inhabiteth and is inhabited, if he cleaveth that he be not abandoned1.” ” There are persons who have not only in the Sacra ment, but in reality, eaten Christ’s Body, being placed in that very Body of His, of which the Apostle saith, ’ We, being many, are one Bread and one Body/ He who is in the unity of that Body, in the coherent mass of the members of Christ, of which Body the faithful communicants are wont to receive the Sacrament from the Altar, he is truly to be said to eat the Body of Christ, and to drink the Blood of Christ k.” “The wicked are not to be said to eat the Body of Christ, because they are not to be accounted among His mem bers,” and adds that Christ’s words, ” Whoso eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood dwelleth in Me, and I in him,” ” shew what it is to eat the Body of Christ, and to drink His Blood, not as to the Sacra ment only, but in truth ; that is, to abide in Christ, so that Christ also should abide in him l.”

The key-note to many of the dicta of St. Augustine is his theory of perseverance. Alike as to Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, he often seems to speak as though a gift that was not retained was not really possessed,

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i.e. as if in the sight of God any existence of good which was not permanent was actually unreal. It is, in short, a Christian application of the heathen maxim, ” Count no man happy before his end.” This is one-sided language, and such as men do not usually employ.

2. This language, then, must be held in combination with such other Augustinian language as follows : —

On St. Paul’s words, “Guilty of the Body,” &c., St. Augustine says ” that the Apostle was discoursing on those who, treating the Lord’s Body like other food, took it in a negligent and indiscriminating waym.”

” Do so many who, either in hypocrisy eat that Flesh and drink that Blood, or who, after they have eaten and drunk, become apostate, — do they ’ dwell in Christ and Christ in them ?’ Yet assuredly there is a certain manner of eating that Flesh and of drinking that Blood in which whosoever eateth and drinketh It dwelleth in Christ. He, then, doth not dwell in Christ and Christ in him who eateth the Flesh and drinketh the Blood of Christ in any manner whatever, but only in some certain manner11.”

” Any one who unworthily receives the Sacrament of the Lord does not, because he himself is evil, cause it to be evil, nor because he receives not unto salva tion, has he received nothing, for that was no less the Body and Blood of the Lord to those also to whom the Apostle said, ’ He that eateth and drinketh

m Tract. 62, in S. JoTi. ” Serm. 71.

unworthily eatetli and drinketh damnation to him self0.”

3. These expressions arrive at their intensity when they are brought to the crucial point whether the wretched Judas did or did not receive the Lord’s Body.

St. Augustine says : — ” The Lord allows Judas to receive among the innocent disciples what the faithful know to be our Ransom p.”

” Of one Bread hath Peter and Judas received. Peter received unto life, Judas unto death q.”

How shall we reconcile this apparent discrepancy ? It is reconciled by St. Augustine himself.

He says, ” the good, together with the bad, eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ, but with a great distinction, for these are clad in the wedding garment, but those have it not… . And hereby, although at one and the same feast, these eat Mercy, those Judgment r.”

In both cases there is a reception of the Body and of the Blood of Christ, but there is only a profitable reception to the good, for, as we have seen, St. Augus tine uses Real as if it meant beneficial, in conformity with his views on final perseverance. Those who, in the language of the liturgies, keep what they have re ceived, who persevere in the spiritual union of Christ’s mystic Body, are said by St. Augustine ” so to partake of Christ as to dwell in Him.”

i Tract. 50, in S. Joh. See other passages of S. Aug. in Dr. Pusey’s ” The Real Presence the Doctrine of the English Church/’ pp. 262 — 265. r Ad Donat. post Collat., n. 27.

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To sum up the teaching of St. Augustine, it must ever be borne in mind, in seeking to ascertain his meaning, that he holds, as it were, two inward parts or res in the Sacrament : 1st. Christ’s real but now spiritual Body, which He took of the Blessed Yirgin ; 2nd. His mystical Body, the Church of God’s elect, and that all receivers partake of the first, and only worthy receivers of the other.

This will be yet more clearly seen, if we observe the context of that passage from which the Article quotes. Our author is there speaking of a res, of which only worthy communicants partake, and this res is, strictly speaking, a permanent inherence in the mystical Body of Christ. This mystical aspect of the Holy Commu mon — which, it will be remembered, is so beautifully illustrated in that prayer of our Church which speaks of due receivers of the holy mysteries as ” very mem bers incorporate in the mystical Body of” our Lord, and in its holy fellowship, — was by no means absent from the mind of Fathers like St. Chrysostom and St. Cyril, who would not have agreed with St. Augustine on the question of the decrees of God.

But the Article does not in any way stand com mitted to St. Augustine’s view of predestination. It does not even use his precise language in the very place which it quotes from him. It gives its genuine meaning, but it substitutes words which express that meaning for his own. St. Augustine in that passage says, ” Who dwelleth not in Christ, and in whom Christ dwelleth not, doth neither eat His Flesh nor

drink His Blood, but rather, unto judgment to him self, eat and drink the Sacrament of so great a thing.” Bede rightly explained St. Augustine’s words by add ing the word ” spiritually,” i.e. to the health of his spirit, or, in other words, so as to be “partaker of Christ.” As St. Jerome says, “His blood we drink, and without Him we cannot drink.” Without Christ, we cannot be “partakers of Christ.” This, which St. Augustine shews to have been his meaning, the framer of our Article directly expresses. Instead of saying that ” the wicked cannot eat the Flesh of Christ, or drink His Blood,” i.e. as St. Augustine himself shews that he meant these words, ” cannot so eat the Flesh of Christ and drink His Blood as to be partakers of Christ/’ the Article at once uses the scriptural phrase. ” The wicked are in no wise partakers of Christ.” By the necessity of the case they cannot be. They can not be ” partakers of Christ” of whom Holy Scripture uses the awful language, that they are ” none of His/’ They abide not in Christ, nor He in them. Thej^, He says, are ” cast forth as a branch and withered.” To be a ” partaker of Christ/’ is the language of St. Paul. Our Article uses St. Paul’s language in St. Paul’s meaning. No one ought to attempt to maintain that our Art^le uses the words of Holy Scripture in a non-scriptural sense. There can be no beneficial reception to those in a state of sin. It is impossible to point out any distinction between the statement of the Article, that ” the wicked are in no wise partakers of Christ,” and that ” there can be no beneficial reception to those in

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a state of sin.” Whatever our bias may be, we dare not affix to words of Holy Scripture used in our Articles any other than their scriptural meaning. The words ” partakers of Christ,” in the Article, must mean the same as ” partakers of Christ” in Holy Scripture, from which our Article has taken them. But in Holy Scripture, to be “a partaker of Christ” is to have a share, so to speak, ” in Christ and of Christ,” to be united with Him, to have a share of the blessedness, the graces, the acceptance which is in Him and from Him. No paraphrase expresses the depth of those simple words of Holy Scripture, ” partakers of Christ.” For whatever blessedness flows from Him, what they primarily mean is, share in Christ Himself. This the Article denies of the wicked. To those who re main such unto the end, Christ tells us that He shall say, ” I never knew you.” However near they ap preach to Him, they are none of His; and since by His grace alone we can partake of Himself, they who have not His grace cannot “partake of Christ,” can have no share of Him.

The framer of the Article altered St. Augustine’s words. He brings out St. Augustine’s meaning by changing the concise words which St. Augustine used, and by substituting the scriptural phrase, which, as appears from the other places of St. Augustine, ex presses what that Father really meant. And this meaning we must have taken, whether it made for or against our views. For we are bound to take the words of our Articles in their strict, grammatical mean-

ing, and we must take a scriptural phrase in its scriptural meaning. But we now happen to know, over and above, that this was the meaning of the framer of the Article.

It appears from Archbishop Parker’s Letter to Lord Burleigh, that he alleged St. Augustine’s authority in this Article only up to a certain point. Parker wrote : ” Sir, — I have considered what your Honour wrote to me this morning concerning St. Augustine’s authority in the Article, in the first original agreed upon, and I am still advisedly in mine opinion concerning so much, wherefore they be alleged in the Article.31 Now, as has been observed, to say that the words of St. Augustine were alleged only ” concerning so much,” implies that there was some further point for which it might be supposed that they could be alleged. Now, St. Augus tine’s own words might (though not in their true meaning) have been taken to deny that ” those who dwell not in Christ, nor Christ in them,” in any way receive within themselves the Body and Blood of Christ. People have so understood them. Archbishop Parker says that the Article stops short of some fur ther point. But there is no further point of which the Article could stop short, but that the wicked in some way receive within themselves the Body and Blood of Christ. The words, ” are in no ways par takers of Christ,” exclude all benefit from the recep tion — any share of Christ Himself. There is only one further point for which Parker could say that the Article stopped short of alleging St. Austin, viz. that

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they received in themselves, though they have no share in them, no benefit from them, the Body and Blood of Christ.

Even supposing that we had no light thrown on the true interpretation of this Article from St. Augus tine, from other Fathers, or from the Prayer- Book, it seems that its own words, “but rather to their con demnation,” are the key to the whole. The Article is antithetical. One member of the antithesis, is, ” In no wise are they partakers of Christ.” The other is? ” But rather to their condemnation they eat and drink,” &c. These two members must be logically opposed. The idea denied in the first must be the opposite to that which is affirmed in the second. But the idea affirmed in the second is that of condemnation. There fore the idea denied in the first must be that of jus tification. Justification, then, must be implied in the partaking of Christ ; in other words, the partaking of Christ means a beneficial reception only.

The popular objection has no weight at all, except by importing into the words of the Article a mean ing which they will not bear. The Article does not deny (God forbid !) that we receive orally the Body and Blood of Christ; it does not say, that by faith we feed on Christ at the Right Hand of God, con templating Him there. It is speaking of beneficial reception only. It had said, that “to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ.” It anew states this, “Faith is the mean whereby we beneficially receive it.”

An argument has been drawn from the heading of the Article, ” which eat not the Body of Christ/’ that the Church of England meant to deny that they re ceive it at all, not to assert that they receive no benefit from it. But since the body of the Article only says that ” the wicked are in no wise partakers of Christ/’ (which, plainly, they cannot be,) then the heading can not be held to contain more than this. For no heading of an Article or Canon (any more than of an Act of Parliament) may lawfully be employed to introduce into the substance of such Article or Canon, a mean ing which the grammatical structure of the words of such Article or Canon does not admit. Nor can the heading of an Article form a proposition, binding upon us, distinct from the meaning of the body of the Article. For this would be to make such heading a 40th Article, which is, of course, inadmissible. Both statements must mean the same. But this they do, if we understand the words ” eat not” in the sense which they have in St. John, &c., whence they are taken, ” eat not so as to dwell in Christ and He in them s.”

Notes

• Hist. Ref., p. 296, ed. 1674. K Hardwick, Hist. Art., p. 128, ed. 1851. h Ibid., 136, 139.
• Tract. 27, in S. Joh. k Civ. D.> xxi. 25. l Ibid., 25, s.f.
• De Bapt., c. Don., v. 8. P Ep. xliii.
• See Dr. Pusey “The Eeal Presence the Doctrine of the English Church,” pp. 252—259.