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 PRINCETON, N. J, 
 
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 Wilberforce, Robert Isaac, ^ 
 
 1802-1857. j 
 
 The doctrine of the Holy 
 
 Eucharist 
 

 &L 
 
THE DOCTRINE 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 
 
Ji^A^ihu^k^ 
 
 THE DOCTRINE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 "Hob-.-^T. ^ 
 
 ARCHDEACON^AVILBERFORCE, A.M. 
 
 A. ' 
 
 "'!:^piarov tare /cat -napa Xpiarov to dyiov ffanTiafM, Kai rrjs ixvaTmfjs 
 (iiXoYias j) Svvafj,is Ik rrjs a-yias tjIUv dve(pv aapKos." — S. Cyril. Alex. 
 
 " lu illo Sacramento Christus est; quia corpus est Christi." — S. Ambros. 
 
 NEW YOEK: 
 
 E. AND J. B. YOUNG AND 00., 
 COOPER UNION, FOURTH AVENUE. 
 
 1885. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This work founded on an appeal to Holy Scripture as interpreted by 
 Antiquity. 
 
 Unanimity of the undivided Church respecting the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 The authors preceding or contemporary with the four first General Coun- 
 cils mainly referred to. 
 
 The subjects, which it is proposed to explain, how limited . Pages 1 — 5 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CONSECRATION THE ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTIC OF THE HOLY 
 EUCHARIST. 
 
 The Words of Institution imply three things, Subject, Predicate, Copula. 
 The Subject, the elements as consecrated. 
 This involves reality of Consecration — 
 as affirmed by Ancient Church — 
 
 as witnessed by the rule that no one, save a Priest, can conse- 
 crate Pages 5 — 11 
 
 Contrast afforded by Baptism ; 
 
 The validity whereof does not depend on Consecration. 
 
 Why Consecration not more insisted upon by English Divines Pages 11 — 14 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EFFECT OF CONSECRATION, THAT THE BLESSING IS CONVEYED THROUGH 
 
 THE ELEMENTS. (^ 
 
 The consecrated elements the means through which the gift is conveyed in 
 the Holy Eucharist Page 14 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 Sacraments Moral, not Phyxical Instruments. 
 
 As belonging to the order of grace, not the order of nature 
 
 Pages 14 — 17 
 Three. principles, on which the blessing bestowed in the Holy Eucharist 
 may be supposed to depend : — 
 
 Ist, The value of the gift bestowed (which implies that the gift is 
 
 through the elements). 
 2ndly, The mere intention of the Giver (Calvin's system). 
 3rdly, The mere disposition of the receiver (Zuinglius's system). 
 Modem Systems afford negative proof of the necessity of the Ist principle 
 
 {i.e. that the elements a mean). 
 Zuinglius's Theory — 
 
 that the benefit of the Holy Eucharist depends on the remem- 
 brance of Christ dead, not the presence of Christ living — 
 and therefore that the consecrating principle is merely the rfis- 
 
 posit ion oi ^e receiver Pages 17 — 20 
 
 This theory untenable — 
 
 as destroying the sacredness of the Holy Eucharist — 
 as derogating from the truth of Our Lord's Personality Pages 20 — 22 
 Calvin's Tlieory — 
 
 that the benefit of the Holy Eucharist depends merely upon the 
 
 intention of the Girer, i.e. Almighty God — 
 of which the elements are a seal or pledge — 
 
 which pledge is limited by God's Absolute Decree. Pages 23 — 27 
 This theory untenable, as involving the dogma of arbitrary Peprobation. 
 Therefore since the benefit in the Holy Eucharist does not depend exclu- 
 sively upon the receiver (Zuinglius) or intention of Giver (Calvin) — 
 though both of these notions included — there must be value in the gift 
 
 itself Pages 27—28 
 
 Two Corollaries. 1st, Since Zuinglius and Calvin maintain consecration 
 to be invalid, because "no gift is bestowed through the elements," 
 they are Avitnesses that if consecration icere valid, a gift icould he he- 
 stowed through elemeids. 
 
 2ndly, Since the dogma of Absolute Decrees is the comer-stone of 
 Calvin's sacramental theory ; its abandonment identifies his system 
 with Zuinglianism. Tliis fact illustrated by the decay of belief, both 
 among Foreign Protestants, and in England, where his phraseology 
 (j.f^. that the elements are only seals or title deeds) had been insensibly 
 introduced. Hooker and Waterland Pages 28 — 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 TESTIMONY OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH TO THE EFFECT OF CONSECRATION. 
 
 The Ancient Church affords Positive proof that the gift bestowed in the 
 
 Holy Eucharist is bestowed through the elements. 
 I. The Ancient Liturgies — not adequately appreciated in the sixteenth 
 
 century. 
 
 Ist, Antiquity of the Ancient Liturgies — manuscripts of the com- 
 
^ 
 
 CONTENTS. vii 
 
 mencement of eighth century — Palimpsests. Division of parties 
 fixes their text, as employed in the Nicene age. St. James's 
 and St. Mark's Liturgy. St. Basil's and St. Chrysostom's. 
 Roman, Spanish, and Gallic. Agreement of these different 
 families of Liturgies, shows their general framework to be of 
 
 Apostolic authority Pages 32 — 41 
 
 2ndly, Number of Ancient Liturgies Pages 41 — 42 
 
 Srdly, Purpose of the Ancient Liturgies to show that the Holy 
 Eucharist is a real action, of which the elements are the subject. 
 The original consecration of the elements by Our Lord Himself, 
 perpetuated by Him through the ivords of Institution, as pro- 
 nounced by His ministers. Calvinistic Services make the words 
 
 of Institution exegetical, not effective Pages 42 — 46 
 
 Monophysite Liturgies, in which the words of Institution not re- 
 cited, rest the action on the Invocation of the Holy Ghost. His 
 descent upon the elements. Calvinistic Services represent the 
 
 spirits of men to ascend to Heaven Pages 47 — 50 
 
 ' II. Ancient Writers speak of a change in the elements. Discipline of 
 secrecy. No restraint on Catechetical instruction-;-St. Ambrose — St. 
 Cyril — St. Gregory Nyssen — St. Gaudentius .... Pages 50 — 54 
 III. Ancient xisages show that the elements supposed to undergo a change. 
 The Holy Eucharist sent as a sign of communion — Carried to the sick — 
 Reserved to be partaken at home — and reserved in Churches — whole 
 Christ supposed to be communicated through every part of either 
 element — Received fasting — and with reverence . . . Pages 54 — 61 
 Conclusion — Consecration a mockery unless the elements rendered sacred 
 
 Pages 62—63 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE GIFT BESTOWED IN THE HOLT EUCHARIST IS THE PRESENCE OF 
 CHRIST. 
 
 .The Predicate in Our Lord's words of Institution, His Body and Blood. 
 
 Our Lord's Humanity here referred to. His Godhead present also, but the 
 
 Predicate, affirmed to be present, is, "that Body, that Flesh, lohich icas 
 
 horn of the Virgin Mary." Testimony of ancient writers Pages 63 — 66 
 
 Objection of Rationalists, that the Presence of Our Lord's Body impossible, 
 
 or at least so imprdbahle, that it cannot be believed. But, 
 
 Ist, The Presence of Our Lord's Body not rightly called impossible, 
 considering our ignorance of the nature of material substance — Our 
 Lord's Body the Body of God, which derives new qualities from 
 
 oneness with Deity Pages 66 — 68 
 
 2ndly, The Presence of Our Lord's Body in the Holy Eucharist not 
 improbable, considering that His Body is the channel of grace to 
 His brethren — and the antidote to the flesh of the old Adam — 
 Ancient testimonies to the efficacy of Our Lord's Flesh — Diversity 
 between the Holy Eucharist and Baptism. The consecration of 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 the elements not essential in Baptism, because Onr Lord is only 
 
 present by spiritual power Pucjes 69 — 75 
 
 Ancient testimonies retjuire to be stated in an inverted order. The 
 Incarnation of Our Lord was deduced formerly from the reverence 
 due to His Humanity ; at present the efficacy of His Humanity is 
 a conclusion from the Incarnation. Our Lord's Presence is thought 
 improbable, because it is supposed to be unprcjitahle — Erasmus — 
 Johnson — But it is the means, whereby the purposes of the Incar- 
 nation take effect Pages 75 — 79 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RELATION BETWEEN THE GIFT BESTOWED IN THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 AND THE ELEMENTS. 
 
 Copula, or connexion between Sid)ject and Predicate, in the words of In- 
 stitution, either that of identity, or that of represenfafioii. 
 Repregentation depends either on likeness, or authority — But these the 
 
 systems, respectively, of Zuinglius and Calvin. 
 Identity, in this case, neither personal nor physical, but sacramental. 
 Sacramentum and res sacrameuti united by consecration into a com- 
 pound whole Pages 79 — 85 
 
 Four erroneous systems to be avoided : — 
 
 1st, Omission of res sacrameuti, or inward reality — Error of Zuin- 
 glius. Our Lord's Presence considered symhalicnl, because nothing 
 believed to be present, but the sign or symbol of His Body 
 
 Pages 85—86 
 2ndly, Omission of the sacrameutum, or external part — Error of the 
 Capernaites — Anastasius Siuaita. This omission censured in the 
 •28th Article — but not intended by Aquinas, or the Council of 
 Trent. Sense conversant only with accidents — By substance the 
 Church of England means the sacramentum ; the Church of Rome 
 
 the res sacrameuti Pages 86 — 90 
 
 Srdly, Confusion of the sacramentum, and res sacrameuti. Error of 
 Luther. His theory of Justification inconsistent with the doctrine 
 of sacraments. He maintained the reality of Our Lord's Presence, 
 but denied its e(licacy — admitted a res sacrameuti, but dealt with 
 it as if it were an emblem only — and were designed merely to give 
 impressiveness to ceremony — Consubstantiation . . Pages 90 — 97 
 4thly, Separation of the sacramentum and res sacrameuti. Error of 
 C^alvin. He admitted the influence of Our Lord's Humanity, but 
 denied its Presence — allowed the existence of a inritui sacrameuti, 
 but denied the presence of the res sacrameuti. The rirtus sacra- 
 meuti suppo.sed to be joined to the sacramentum merely by the 
 absolute ilecree of God — which involved the dogma of reprobation 
 and conflicted with the Church's custom of delivering the ele- 
 ments as an obsignation of Christ's Presence to each iudividual. 
 (The case of elect persons, who come to the altar before con- 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 version, like the difficulties of adult Baptism, does not require de- 
 termination.) Pages 98 — 106 
 
 The relation between the sacramentum and res sacramenti leads to three 
 modes, in which Christ's Presence may be understood. Real — imply- 
 ing the presence of a res sacramenti. Virtual — implying only a virtus 
 sacramenti. Symbolical — implying only a sacramentum or symbol 
 
 Pages 103—107 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OUR lord's presence in the holt EUCHARIST IS REAL, AND NOT 
 MERELY SYMBOLICAL OR VIRTUAL. 
 
 Christ's Presence in the Holy Eucharist supernatural, not natural. The 
 natural Presence of Christ's glorified Body in heaven conformable, but 
 not subject, to the laws of material existence . . . Pages 108 — 110 
 Supernatural Presence of Christ's Body in Holy Eucharist testified — 
 by His own promises ; — 
 by His appearances after His resurrection. 
 This manifold Presence — 
 
 a special privilege bestowed on His manhood through its union 
 
 with Godhead ; — 
 but not om?iipresence,which is peculiar to Godhead Pages 110 — 115 
 Christ's Presence sacramewial, and not sensible. The sacramentum an ob- 
 ject of sense ; Our Lord's Body the res sacramenti. Place and Form 
 conditions of Our Lord's Body as present naturally in heaven — when 
 present supernaturally, or as the res sacramenti, it takes place and form 
 
 from the elements Pages 115 — 117 
 
 Christ's Presence Beal — as being the res sacramenti, through which the 
 benefits of the Holy Eucharist are bestowed. Supernatural Presence 
 as the res sacramenti not impossible — resembles a dynamic presence, 
 yet is the essential or substantial presence of Christ's Body. A conse- 
 quence from the Incarnation Pages 117 — 123 
 
 Christ's Body may b6 said to be present in Baptism, because He is pre- 
 sent ; but His Presence in the Holy Eucharist is through the Presence 
 of His Body. In Baptism promises are attached to the ordinance at 
 large ; in the Holy Eucharist to the inward part, or res sacramenti 
 
 Pages 123—125 
 Real, Virtual, and Symbolical Presence contrasted . . Pages 125 — 126 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OUR lord's presence in the holy EUCHARIST SHOWN TO BE REAL, 
 AND NOT MERELY SYMBOLICAL OR VIRTUAL, BY REFERENCE TO THE 
 SIXTH CHAPTER OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 Our Lord's Presence in the Holy Eucharist shown to be real by Holy 
 Scripture. 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 St. John vi. likely to be a prophetic announcement of the Holy 
 Eucharist — 
 
 as corresponding with the general tenor of this Gospel : — 
 as analogous to the mention of Baptism in St. John, cap. iii. 
 
 Pages 127—132 
 
 The Chapter treats, first, of Our Lord's Mediation at large, vv. 30 — 
 
 50, and then of the communication of His Flesh and Blood, 
 
 VT. 51—58 I'arjes 132—133 
 
 Those who deny that verses 51 — 58 are a prophetic explanation of the 
 Holy Eucharist, maintain that to eat Our Lord's Flesh and Blood 
 would be understood by His hearers to mean — 
 either to profit by His death — 
 or to receive His doctrines. 
 But the first interpretation is untenable, because — 
 
 to drink hinorl must have seemed unintelligible to Jews — 
 and the application of such phrases to Our Lord's sacrifice implies 
 previous reference to the Holy Eucharist. 
 The second interpretation is untenable, because — 
 
 the expressions neither rcere, nor could he, so understood by Jews — 
 
 nor were so understood by the early Christians . Pages 133 — 140 
 
 Whitby's quotations from ancient writers are mere applications of Our 
 
 Lord's words, and therefore admit the principle, that spiritual is 
 
 founded on sacramental communion Pages 140 — 143 
 
 Waterland's theory is that the ancient writers only connected Our Lord's 
 words with the Holy Eucharist by application : but 
 
 such application assumes the efficacy of Our Lord's Flesh, which 
 
 implies reference to the Holy Eucharist : — 
 and all ancient writers refer to Holy Eucharist as the first object 
 
 of Our Lord's words : — 
 and the earliest commentators on St. John's Gospel, i.e. St. Chry- 
 sostom, St. Augustin, St. Cyril (the last sanctioned by the 
 General Council of Ephesus), interpret Our Lord's words of the 
 
 Holy Eucharist Pages 143—149 
 
 Later interpretations of this Chapter introduced to support theories ; 
 Caietan's to oppose the Bohemians : — 
 Luther's because he denied efficacy of Holy Eucharist 
 
 Pages 149—151 
 Our Lord's Presence shown by this Chapter to be — 
 
 Supernatural: For the Spirit, i.e. Our Lord's Divine nature, gives 
 
 its efficacy to His Flesh Pages 151 — 152 
 
 Ileal : For His Porly is said to be the medium of His benefits ; 
 and His Manhood to be communicated to men suhstaniiaUy, as 
 His Godhead is derived from the Father . . Pages 152 — 155 
 Sacramental: For the statement of those benefits, which the res 
 sacramenti, or thing signified, is fitted to bestow, implies the 
 efficacy of consecration. — St. Augustin discriminated from Calvin 
 
 Pages 155—159 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY, THAT OUR LORD's PRESENCE IN THE HOLY 
 EUCHARIST IS NOT MERELY SYMBOLICAL OR VIRTUAL. 
 
 The Scriptural statements of Our Lord's Presence in the Holy Eucharist 
 are explained by the Fathers Pages 159 — 160 
 
 I. Symbolical, or Figurative Presence of Christ (as maintained by Zuin- 
 
 glius), would mean that He was only an object to men's thoughts — His 
 Body not really present, but really absent. This not accordant with 
 the statements of the Fathers, that Our Lord's Presence a mystery 
 
 Pages 160—163 
 Objection, that Holy Eucharist spoken of by Fathers as an antitype of 
 Christ's Body. 
 
 Answer — the antitype not the Holy Eucharist as a ivhole, but the 
 sacramentmn, or external sign only. Those who speak of the 
 Holy Eucharist as an antitype, speak of it as a reality also — a sign, 
 but not a sign only. The sacramentuni the type of the res sacra- 
 menti — Tertullian — St. Facundus — St. Augustin Pages 163 — 172 
 
 II. Virtual Presence introduced by Calvin, as something opposed to 
 Symbolical. But unless the supernatural presence of Our Lord's Body 
 is admitted, the action must be that of His Godhead, not of His Man- 
 hood, which leads back to Zuinglianism Pages 172 — 175 
 
 Virtual, and Virtue, ambiguous terms. Virtual Presence would mean that 
 Our Lord's Body may be said to be present, because He Himself is pre- 
 sent : i. e. that His Personal Presence is equivalent to, or implies, the pre- 
 sence of His Body — Presence by Virtue would mean that Our Lord's 
 Flesh produces an effect through its inherent power . Pages 175 — 176 
 Neither hypothesis really held by Calvin : — 
 
 not the last — for it would imply that Our Lord's Flesh is endued 
 with supernatural qualities by oneness with Godhead, and so 
 would approximate to the idea of a supernatural presence — 
 not the first — fgr it would imply that specific gifts are bestowed in 
 
 the Christian covenant Pages 176 — 179 
 
 These hypotheses deceptive — producing a shoiv of agreement among those 
 who diifer in truth — and leading to an unfair use of ancient authors. 
 Albertinus. Passages which imply a mere Symbolical Presence not 
 more consistent with Virtual, than with Eeal Presence Pages 179 — 182 
 Neither hypothesis comes up to the language of Antiquity, which held 
 that in the Holy Eucharist Our Lord's Flesh was the medium through 
 which He bestowed His gifts ; i.e. that Christ was present there 
 ffimseZ/, because of the presence of His i?of/?/ . . . Pages 182 — 186 
 Baptism held to have only a virtual presence of Christ, because He Himself 
 was present there by spiritual power. Therefore consecration not 
 necessary in Baptism — the element not said to be changed — Christ's 
 Body said to be present only by implication, because of the presence of 
 Himself Pages 187—191 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY TO THE DOCTRINE OF THE REAL 
 PRESENCE. 
 
 Belief in Real Presence, as a positive fact, shows itself in various shapes 
 in the Fathers. Five schools, which used different expressions, but 
 
 entertained one idea Pages 191 — 192 
 
 First, or Ante-Nicene School, spoke simply of our Lord's Presence 
 
 Pages 192—194 
 Second, or Eastern School, dwelt on the change cf elements. But if a 
 common change were admitted, there was danger lest the inward part 
 should be supposed to be — 
 
 either some new Body superadded to that of Christ ; 
 or to be corruptible : 
 and lest the outward part should be forgotten, to be — 
 a type or sign of the inward part ; — 
 
 and to supply bodily nourishment Pages 194 — 200 
 
 Third, or Anti-Eutychian School, supplied a guard against such mistakes 
 respecting the outward part, or sacramentum. For it maintained the 
 existence of the outward part, as illustrating the permanence of Our 
 
 Lord's two natures Pages 201 — 202 
 
 Fourth, or Anti-Nestorian School, maintained the identity and sacredness 
 of the inward part, or res sacramenti, as proving that the manhood had 
 
 truly been taken into God Page 203 
 
 Fifth, or Western School, more scientific and comprehensive, united the 
 views of the other four. Sacramentum, and res sacramenti — the first, 
 or outward sign, the nourishment of the hody — the second, or Body of 
 
 Christ, the nourishment of the soul Pages 204 — 208 
 
 Aquinas, and the Schoolmen, not coincident in langimge with any of these 
 schools — but express their result in terms of the Aristotelian philo- 
 sophy. Authority of Scholastic definitions dependent on that of Council 
 
 of Trent Pages 209—210 
 
 All five Ancient Schools shown to hold Peal Presence ; 
 
 Ist, by theii asserting tcorship to be due to Christ's Body, as present 
 in the consecrated elements. This a test of belief in Real Pre- 
 sence according to Luther and Calvin. The actual worship paid 
 to Christ, present as the res sacramenti, not neutralized by the 
 
 rubric in the English Ordinal Pagt» 211 — 218 
 
 2ndly, by their affirming that whosoever receives the sacramentum, re- 
 ceives also the res sacramenti, or Body of Christ Pages 218 — 220 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE WITH 
 THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 Johns<in'8 notion, that the Holy Eucharist an " impanation " of the Holy 
 Ghost Pages 221—222 
 
 / 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 I. Scriptural proof that Our Lord's Presence in tlie Holy Eucharist does 
 not interfere with the office of the Holy Ghost. * 
 
 Such an opinion would imply that the action of the Second and Third 
 Persons was successive, and not coincident — Sabellian heresy. The 
 Second and Third Persons in the Godhead discriminated by their 
 relations to one another — Their temporal mission the result of their 
 eternal relations — The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the 
 Son — The Son Incarnate, because man's Creator — He gives His Flesh 
 in the Holy Eucharist, because Incarnate .... Pages 222 — 231 
 
 The Holy Ghost not a Son, but a Sanctifying Poiver, or Princi'ple of Love, 
 who co-operates in the Holy Eucharist, as He did in the Incarnation. 
 The doctrine of the Bl«ssed Trinity, the revealing of those Eternal 
 relations, which were not only before, but independent of time 
 
 Pages 231—238 
 
 II. Testimony of Church, that Our Lord's Presence in the Holy Eucharist 
 no interference with the office of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The gift in the Holy Eucharist asserted to be that of the same Body, 
 which was born of the Virgin, supernaturally present. Yet the Holy 
 Ghost spoken of as an agent in the transaction — Invoked to descend 
 upon the elements, in all ancient Liturgies except Roman. Invocation 
 not superseded by belief that consecration effected by words of Insti- 
 tution. The action of Divine Persons independent of time. Analogy 
 of their co-operation in the Holy Eucharist and in the Incarnation 
 
 Pages 238—245 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHAKIST BEGABDED AS A SACBIFICE. 
 
 The doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice implies and illustrates that of 
 the Peal Presence Pages 246—247 
 
 The Holy Eucharist the chief act of that public worship whereby we par- 
 ticipate in the Mediation of Christ — and the means whereby the "one 
 perpetual sacrifice for sins " is applied. No new propitiation, but the 
 perpetual, or "juge sacrificium" whereby the one sacrifice on the 
 cross cOntinueth here still on earth Pages 247 — 251 
 
 Scriptural statement of Our Lord's Priesthood " after the order of 
 Melchisedec." The Holy Eucharist analogous to the Sin-Offering. 
 Purpose of Epistle to the Hebrews. Jewish Sacrifices how divided — 
 the greater and lesser Sin-Offering. The Holy Eucharist said to be 
 analogous to that greater Sin-Offering, of which the Jewish Priesthood 
 (who served the Tabernacle) might not eat .... Pages 251 — 258 
 
 The Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist efficient — Why rejected by Luther, 
 while he admitted the Real Presence. Its efficacy dependent on that 
 of Our Lord's Intercession Pages 258 — 261 
 
 Alternatives of which the case admits. Either the Holy Eucharist is not 
 a sacrifice at all — or, if a sacrifice, it is merely the sacrifice of the 
 sacramentum, or outward part — or it includes the sacrifice of the res 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 mcramenti also. (The devotion of the communicants not specifically, 
 
 oT in itself, a sacramenfal ottering) I'wjes 261 — 262 
 
 The Holy Eucharist shown to be a sacrifice — 
 
 by the testimony of all ancient authors ; — 
 
 by the existence and construction of the ancient liturgies 
 
 rmjes 262—265 
 
 The sacrament iiin presented as a memorial or commemorative ofi'ering ; 
 
 but to account this the tchole sacrifice, would be to substitute shadow 
 
 for substance. Testimony of ^v^iters before St. Cyprian to the oblation 
 
 of the res sacramenti — This doctrine not a new one in the third century 
 
 Pages 265—269 
 Testimony of the undivided ancient Church, that — 
 
 1st, The thing ofiered in the Holy Eucharist is the Body of Christ : 
 2ndly, The Holy Eucharist is not anything superadded to the sacri- 
 fice on the cross, but its perpetual application : 
 3rdly, The victim offered in the Holy Eucharist is identical with the 
 
 real Priest : 
 4thly, The sacrifice is awful, august, and mysterious : 
 5thly, The sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist is efficacious: 
 6thly, The sacrifice of Christ in the Holy Eucharist is an antitype to 
 
 the Jewish sacrifices : 
 7thly, The Holy Eucharist differs from the Legal Sacrifices, because 
 
 they were shadows, while it is a reality : 
 8thly, To offer the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist is the especial 
 function, with which the Apostles and their successors have been 
 
 entrusted by Christ Pages 269—277 
 
 The Cliristian Church included in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, because 
 it is the Myxticid Body of Christ — and is sanctified by the presence 
 of His Body 7ja<«rai Pages 277 — 279 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE BENEFITS WHICH RESULT FKOM THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 
 
 Baptism distinguished from the Holy Eucharist, because the benefit of 
 the last is not associated with the ordinance at large, but with its in- 
 ward part, or rp.s sacramenti Pages 279 — 280 
 
 Sacrificial Benefit of the Holy Eucharist dependent on the Intercession of 
 Christ. Pealili/ thus given to the Church's worship Pages 280 — 282 
 
 Sacrame7ital Benefit of the Holy Eucharist, because it is the applicafion 
 of the Incarnation. In Baptism the Second Adam joins His members 
 to Himself by spiritual power ; in the Holy Eucharist He bestows the 
 actual Presence of His Body and Blood. The efiect of Our Lord's 
 Flesh not natural, but as the agent of His Deity — in quickening man's 
 nature — and in bringing him into relation with the nature of God 
 
 Pages 282—287 
 
 I. Christ's Body and Blood act according to a spiritual, not a physical 
 order — llieir heiiefit only attainable through faith. The process, ac- 
 cording to which Christ's Body sustains the suul, the converse of that, 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 according to whicli food sustains the body — He does not pass into the 
 receiver, but the receiver into Him — the body built up is the Mystical 
 Body of Christ. The Flesh of the Second Adam, an antidote to the 
 flesh of the first Pages 287—293 
 
 Spiritual Life the condition of profiting by the food of Christ's Body. 
 Baptism the first qualification, because then life bestowed — life main- 
 tained by prayer — recovered by repentance, confession, and absolution 
 
 Pages 293—300 
 
 II. Christ's Body unites men by the bond of love, not that of personality. 
 The Incarnation the true guard against Pantheism — as recognizing the 
 distinctioii between the Creator and the creatures, while it produces 
 a relation between the finite and the Infinite . . . Pages 300 — 303 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. ' 
 
 The Church of England, as professing to adhere to the Primitive model, 
 bound to follow the ancient rule respecting the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 A daily Eucharist the rule under the Apostles .... Pages 304 — 306 
 
 This rule interrupted at first by persecution, but prevalent even in the 
 second, and still more completely in the third and fourth centuries — 
 though more solemn assemblies were held on the Sabbath and on 
 Sunday. Daily Sacrifice and daily Reception practised and recom- 
 mended by the greatest Fathers — St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, 
 St. Chrysostom, St. Augustin, St. Gregory, &c. . . Pages 306 — 311 
 
 The same practice contemplated in king Edward Vlth's First Prayer- 
 Book, but discountenanced by his Second Book (composed under Zuin- 
 glian influence ;) — which divested the Communion ofiice of its sacrificial 
 character — and for the first time excluded communicants from the 
 sacrifice, when unprepared to partake of the sacrament. This last order 
 omitted, when the Prayer-Book was first revised and approved by the 
 representatives of the Church, A.D. 1662. Its mischievous effect 
 (which, however, still continues), regretted by Overall and Cosin. 
 Such intermission of the daily Eucharist {juge sacrificium) a disparage- 
 ment of the Intercession of Christ Pages 311 — 318 
 
 Objection, that to partake of the sacrifice without partaking at the same 
 time in the sacrament is, 1st, Opposed to the analogy of the Jewish 
 Law ; 2ndly, forbidden by the Primitive Church ; 3rdly, unprofitable. 
 But it may be answered ; that — 
 I. In the ordinary oS'erings of the Jewish Law, no one was required to 
 eat of the victim except the Officiating Priest. The Passover was 
 hardly a proper sacrifice. But even the Passover was not required to 
 be eaten by women, children, and other disqualified persons, who were 
 members of the sodality, for which it was oiiered . . Pages 318 — 322 
 
 II. The rule of the Primitive Church, shortly before the division of East 
 and West, was a daily Eucharist celebrated by the clergy — the laity 
 ordered to attend every Sunday, and to receive on great occasions. 
 
xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 The same rule may be traced fixim the eighth to the commencement of the 
 
 sixth century. 
 Bingliam's opinion that this custom was introduced during the fifth cen- 
 tury, is — 
 
 not required by the words of St. Chrysostom, on which he 
 
 grounds it : — 
 not accordant with St. Chrysostom's own practice : — 
 and inconsistent with the /ac< that no notice of the change occurs 
 
 Pages 322— 329 
 The Church's rule in St. Chrysostom's time seems to have been — 
 
 that all laymen in communion with the Church were permitfed to 
 attend the daily sacrifice, without partaking daily of the 
 sacrament — 
 that daily reception was recommended, and that none could be in 
 communion with the Church, who did not communicate oc- 
 rasionallj/. 
 Four considerations, which lead to this result : 
 
 1st, The Eucharistic Office was the only Public Ritual during the 
 
 first three centuries. 
 2ndly, All persons in full communion, who 'attended it, were ex- 
 pected to remain till the end of the office. 
 3rdly, Some who attended were not expected to communicate. 
 
 (Coiisistenteif, &c.) 
 4thly, No canon of general obligation ordered all to receive — The 
 canons quoted by Bingham either inapplicable or local 
 
 Pages 329—339 
 III. Those who exclude from communicating with the Eucharistic sacrifice 
 
 by prayer, ought to prove the practice uidawful. 
 The custom advantageous, as respects individuals, because — 
 it quickens devotion : — 
 it gives efficacy to their petitions. 
 Its advantage to the Collective Church — 
 
 in maintaining a helief in the efficacy of public worship ; — 
 
 and a practical sense of the Mediation of Christ Pages 339 — 342 
 
THE DOCTRINE 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The present work is the sequel of a Treatise on the Doctrine of 
 the Incarnation, which was published four years ago. It was 
 there asserted that ^'^ Sacraments are the extension of the Incar- 
 nation" and a chapter was devoted to their consideration. But 
 their relation to that great mystery was felt from the first to 
 require more detailed consideration. The Doctrine of the 
 Incarnation therefore was followed after a year by a work on 
 the Doctrine of Holy Baptism, and the present treatise com- 
 pletes my design. 
 
 In treating on Baptism, little reference was made to any 
 authorities exc^t Holy Scripture, and the formularies and 
 divines of our own Church. For not only are our formularies 
 singularly full upon this subject, but the language of our great 
 divines is singularly explicit. So that in writing to English 
 Churchmen it seemed hardly necessary to go deeper, or to enter 
 into any great inquiry respecting the teaching of the Primitive 
 Church. In the present instance a different course has been 
 adopted. The greater intricacy of the subject, and the confusion 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in which it has heen involved by an ambiguous phraseology, has 
 made it necessary to mount up to the fountain, and to inquire 
 what was that interpretation of Our Lord's words which was 
 received among His first followers. The method, therefore, 
 which has heen adopted in this work, is that which was pre- 
 scribed for the guidance of preachers by the Convocation which 
 imposed subscription to the Articles. They were not to pro- 
 pound anything except that which is consistent with the teaching 
 of the Old and New Testament, and that which the Catholic 
 Fathers and ancient Bishops have deduced from its teaching. 
 
 Such is the principle which is adopted in the present volume. 
 The authority of Holy Scripture is first referred to, and its 
 infallible decision set forth. "When its meaning is disputed, 
 reference is made to the Primitive Fathers, as providing the 
 best means of settling the dispute. So that those who maintain 
 that Scripture is the only authority, can find no fault with the 
 line here adopted. Scripture is referred to as the paramount 
 authority, but when its meaning is disputed, the judgment of 
 early ages has been taken, as being a safer exponent of its real 
 purpose than mere logical arguments. 
 
 And surely there is no point on which the judgment of 
 primitive Christians is of more value than this. For it was a 
 point on which their judgment was entirely unanimous. On 
 many subjects the Church was early rent into parties ; so that 
 at times it was difficult to say what doctrine was predominant. 
 But respecting the Holy Eucharist there existed no symptom of 
 disagreement for eight centuries and a half. No doubt the 
 received doctrine had been earlier disputed, but it was not by 
 dissentients within the Church, but by external opponents. The 
 Gnostics,^ who denied that the Holy Eucharist was the Flesh of 
 Our Lord, cut themselves off in the second century from the 
 Church; and the Messalian" heretics, who denied that this 
 sacred food was either beneficial or injurious, were cut off from 
 it by its public sentence in the fourth. These external assaults 
 
 ' S. Ignatius ad Smym. 6. The passage is quoted by Theodoret, Dial. iii. 
 - Theodor. Hist. iv. 11. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 throw greatei- light upon the unanimity which prevailed 
 within. So that Paschasius is the first author who has ever 
 been alleged to have introduced a;ny doctrine which did not 
 meet with universal approval ; and the statements of earlier 
 writers were admitted at the time to express the collective 
 judgment of the whole community. Now those who look to the 
 first Christians merely as witnesses, must allow that they were 
 so far competent judges of the system which was delivered to 
 them, that they could not all have been mistaken respecting its 
 chai'acteristic features. And those who take a higher view of 
 the Church's judgment, and admit it to possess "authority in 
 controversies of faith," cannot dispute its decision upon a point 
 on which there was no dissension. For the eight centuries and 
 a half which precede Paschasius, are those also which precede 
 Photius ; they are the period when the East and West were 
 yet undivided, and when the Church could appeal with the 
 fullest confidence to the promise of a supernatural guidance. 
 
 In the present work, then, the authorities cited are all 
 previous to the time of Photius, before which the East and the 
 West were not permanently divided ; as well as to the time of 
 Paschasius, when the Holy Eucharist first became a matter of 
 dispute. The opinions of later writers are referred to by way 
 of illustration, and not of authority. And in fact, it has hardly 
 been found necessarj' to go lower than those eminent divines, 
 who were contemporary with the four great Councils of the 
 ancient Church. The value of these writers is, not that they 
 speak a different language from the ante-Nicene Fathers, but 
 that the controversies of their times, and their own higher 
 intellectual culture, gave a scientific form to those truths which 
 had been believed from the beginning. And their authority 
 ought on every ground to be admitted by English Churchmen ; 
 for the reference of our law on heresy to the four first Councils 
 shows that the English Church supposes herself to accord in 
 principle entirely with the Nicene. The authors therefore 
 whose judgment is mainly appealed to in this work, besides the 
 ante-Nicene Fathers, are St. Athanasius, the Gregories, the 
 
 B 2 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Cyrils, St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Gaudentius, 
 St. Ambrose, St. Leo, and St. Augustin. These, and those who 
 lived at about the same period, express a distinct and accordant 
 view respecting the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, and supply 
 a sufficient commentary upon the authoritative statements of 
 Holy Writ. 
 
 It may be said, perhaps, that on so sacred a subject distinct 
 views are scarcely desirable ; and that it is better not to 
 dogmatize upon topics on which revelation is silent, and which 
 the mind is incompetent to discuss. No one is more sensible 
 than the writer, that to Theology, more than to any other 
 subject of human knowledge, applies the remark of Quintilian, 
 " inter virtutes habehitur aliqua nescire." But in this, as in every 
 other part of divine truth, our ignorance must be based upon 
 some fixed principle, and be bounded by some definite and 
 intelligible limits. What can be more mysterious than the 
 co-existence of the Three Persons in the glorious Godhead, or 
 than the union of Godhead and manhood in the Person of 
 Christ ? Yet to make the depth of these truths a reason for 
 refusing to accept them, would not be humility, but unbelief. 
 There must be some limit, then, to the feeling which leads 
 devout men to shrink from mysteries — some law which dis- 
 criminates between presumptuous inquiry and reverential 
 contemplation. And what can that limit be, save the very 
 principle which has been already laid down — a reference to the 
 declarations of Scripture, and to the teaching of the Church ? 
 
 The present inquiry, therefore, will not enter upon any^ topic 
 which there is not this sanction for considering. Whether 
 Christ is truly present or not in the Holy Eucharist ; whether 
 we are to behave as though He were really with us, and are 
 truly responsible for a divine gift ; and again, whether in that 
 holy ordinance there is a real sacrifice — these are in great 
 measure practical questions, on which it is possible to produce 
 distinct evidence from Scripture and the Primitive Church. 
 But the manner in which Christ's presence is bestowed, whether 
 it be by trausubstautiatiou, or according to any other law, is 
 
CONSECRATION THE CHARACTERISTIC, ETC. 5 
 
 a point which did not come under consideration during the 
 first eight centuries. On this subject therefore it will not be 
 
 I necessary to enter. But that Christ's presence in the Holy 
 Eucharist is a real presence ; that the blessings of the new life 
 are truly bestowed in it through communion with the New 
 Adam ; that consecration is a real act, whereby the inward part 
 or thing signified is joined to the outward and visible sign ; and 
 that the Eucharistic oblation is a real sacrifice — these points 
 it will be attempted to prove by the testimony of Scripture and 
 of the ancient Fathers. "Domine Deus une, Deus Trinitas, 
 quaecunque dixi in his libris de Tuo, ignoscant et Tui : si qua 
 de meo, et Tu ignosce et Tui." " Coram Te est scientia et igno- 
 rantia mea ; ubi mihi aperuisti, suscipe intrantem ; ubi clau- 
 sistij aperi pulsanti. Meminerim Tui, intelligam Te, diligam 
 Te." 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 CONSECKATION THE ESSENTIAL CHAEACTEKISTIC OF THE HOLY 
 EUCHARIST. 
 
 An inquiry into the nature of the Holy Eucharist must be 
 founded upon Scripture, and upon that passage of Scripture 
 by which this solemn rite was authorized as well as explained. 
 The authority of Him by whom they were spoken, the interest 
 of the occasion on which they were employed, the sententious 
 weight of the expressions themselves — all give to the words of 
 institution an importance which few other passages even of Holy 
 Scripture can claim. 
 
 " Jesus took bread and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to 
 the disciples, and said. Take, eat, this is My Body. And He 
 took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying. 
 Drink ye all of it ; for this is My Blood of the New Testament, 
 which is ghed for many, for the remission of sins." 
 
6 CONSECRATION THE CHAEACTERISTIC 
 
 The emphatic words of this declaration consist in each case 
 of three parts. "This is My Body." "This is My Blood." 
 We have here, to sjieak logically, a subject, a jyredicate, and a 
 copula ; there is something spoken of — " This," which was taken 
 by Our Lord : there is the affirmation itself — It is My Body : 
 there is "i/y Body" ^^ My Blood" which in each case is the 
 predicate, or thing affirmed respecting the subject. And this 
 gives us three topics, w hich must be considered in order ; first, 
 the subject which is here spoken of; secondly, the predicate, or 
 that which is affirmed respecting it — " ^ly Body," " ^ly Blood ;" 
 and thirdly, the nature of the relation which is affirmed to exist 
 between them — " This is My Body." 
 
 To begin with the first — the subject. Our Lord's words 
 respecting it involve this main truth — that Consecration is 
 the essential characteristic of the Holy Euchai'ist. For Our 
 Lord does not speak of bread at large, or wine in genei'al, but 
 of This, i.e. of that which was consecrated, or set apart. No 
 doubt His words had a fui'ther application ; their ultimate 
 reference was to " the inward part or thing signified," which 
 was the real object under consideration ; but they had also an 
 indirect relation to " the outward and visible sign." Now 
 viewing the thing in reference to this last, it was the bread 
 which He had blessed, over which He had given thanks, and 
 which He had broken ; and the cup over which He had given 
 thanks ; which were the subject-matter of His declaration. The 
 consecration, therefore, by which these elements were separated 
 from all co-ordinate specimens of the same material, is that 
 circumstance which gives them the peculiar character which 
 His words express. And so we may learn also from the only 
 otlier passage of Holy Scripture in which this subject is 
 formally treated. When St. Paul explains the nature of the 
 Holy Eucharist to the Corinthians, he refers to the consecration 
 of the elements as its distinguishing characteristic. " The cuj) 
 of blessing ivhich we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood 
 of Chrit<t? The bread which loe break, is it not the communion 
 of the Body of Christ V " We may infer, therefore, that the 
 
OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 7 
 
 elements as consecrated are the subject spoken of: Our Lord's 
 awful words do not refer to bread and wine at large, but to 
 that wbicb He held in His hands, and which He had blessed. 
 
 Such accordingly was the interpretation of Our Lord's words, 
 which was received from the first in the Christian Church. 
 This is apparent, not only from the direct statements of the 
 Fathers, but from those usages which were coeval with the 
 very existence of Christianity. It is " the food which is sancti- 
 fied by the word of prayer," which is " no longer common bread, 
 and common drink," but " the Flesh and Blood of the Incarnate 
 Jesus." ^ It is when "the bread from the earth receives the 
 invocation of God," that it is " no longer common bread, but 
 Eucharist, consisting of two things, an earthly and a heavenly."^ 
 This is the same doctrine which is more fully expressed by 
 St. Ambrose and St. Augustin. 
 
 "Our bread and our cup is not any one," i.e. any specimen of 
 the food partaken, " but it is a mystical one, which is produced 
 by a fixed consecration, and does not come by growth. That 
 which is not produced in this way, though it may be bread and 
 a cup, is a means of bodily refreshment, not a sacrament of 
 religion." ^ " Before the blessing of the sacred words another 
 species is named ; after consecration the Body is signified. 
 Before consecration it is called a difi'erent thing; after conse- 
 cration it is called Blood."* 
 
 These passages go to the exact point which it is necessary to 
 prove ; that the consecration of the elements was understood to 
 be the characteristic circumstance upon which the validity of 
 the sacrament was dependent. They show the understanding, 
 therefore, which the first Christians put upon Our Lord's words, 
 and that the consecrated gifts were supposed to be the subject- 
 matter of His declaration. And the same thing appears both 
 from the importance which from the first was attached to the act 
 
 1 Justin M. Apol. i. 66. - S. Iren. iv. 18. 5. 
 
 ^ S. Augustin, Contra Faustum, xx. 13. 
 
 * S. Amb. de Myst. ix. 54. And in his Treatise "De Fide," b. iv. 
 c. 10. 124. "Sacramenta . . . per sacrse orationis mysteriuin in camem 
 transfigurantur et sanguiuem." 
 
8 CONSECRATION THE CHARACTERISTIC 
 
 of consecration, and from tlie belief that It could not be effected, 
 save by those to whom a specific commission had been trans- 
 mitted. The first of these points is attested by the Liturgies of 
 tlie early Church, as will be seen when we proceed to consider 
 them ; the second is witnessed by Church history at large. It 
 may be said, perhaps, that this was a mere rule of decency ; and 
 that it contributed to the propriety of worship that public offices 
 should be discharged by public ministers. But such a suppo- 
 sition is negatived by the 18th Canon ^ of the Council of Nice, 
 which assumes it as an acknowledged fact that Deacons had no 
 authority to consecrate the Holy Eucharist, and that this 
 authority was confined to those who had been admitted to the 
 Priesthood. Now, unless there were some real efficacy in conse- 
 cration, whereby the consecrated elements became other than they 
 were before, why could it not be performed by the lower order 
 of ministers ? 
 
 That the Priesthood, then, was a specific commission, whereby 
 the power of consecrating the sacred elements was conferred, and 
 that on the validity of this commission depended the reality of 
 consecration, was the universal belief of the Fathers. " To make 
 the Divine Bread and to minister it, with the view to its being 
 the food of eternal life," ^ was the power which is said to have 
 been given by Our Lord to His Apostles, and which they trans- 
 mitted to their successors. 
 
 " Do you not know," asks St. Chrysostom, " what the priest is ? 
 He is the messenger of the Lord. His statements are not hia 
 own. If you despise him, it is not he whom you despise, but 
 God, who has ordained him. Does any one ask how it is known 
 
 ' Deacons, it would appear, had in some cases taken upon them to 
 deliver the consecrated elements to priests. The Council therefore ob- 
 serves, that it is irregular that those who have not the power to conse- 
 crate should deliver the elements to those who have, "toiis i^ovalav /i^ 
 ixovTas ■npoa<p(p(iv rois ■npoa(pipovai Zihovai ro auipia tov Xptarov." — Corn. 
 18. It must be remembered that to njfer and tn consecntte were at that 
 time equivalent tenna. — Waterland's Srcimd Letter to Kehall, Works, x. 
 113. Vide also Con. Carth. iv. Can. 4: "Diaconus .... non ad sacer- 
 dotium, sed ad miuisterium consecratur." 
 
 * "Ad vitae aternfe cibum, ccelestem panem perficere ac ministrare." — 
 (S. Hilar, in Matth. c. xiv. sec. 10, p. 681. 
 
OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 9 
 
 that God has ordained him ? If you deny this, your own hope 
 is made vain. For if God effects nothing through him, you have 
 neither the laver of Baptism, nor do you partake of the mysteries. 
 .... So that you are no Christian." ^ 
 
 From the first origin therefore of the Christian Church it was 
 laid down, that no valid Eucharist could be had, where there 
 was no priest to consecrate. In the earliest of all uninspired 
 Christian documents, the Epistle of St. Clement, the office of the 
 Priest is described as that of presenting the Eucharistic Offering. ^ 
 In the next writer, St. Ignatius, the validity of the Eucharist is 
 expressly limited to those who act by Episcopal commission.^ 
 Then comes the Apology of Justin,* stating that the " principal 
 minister offered the Eucharist." This is fully confirmed by 
 Tertullian, though some equivocal expressions ^ of his have been 
 cited as having a different sense. The Holy Eucharist, he says, 
 was not received except from the hands of the Church's public 
 
 ' In 2 Tim. i. ; Horn. ii. 2. 
 
 ^ " 01 Ttoiowm ras ■iipoa(j)opas." C. 40, and again C. 44. 
 
 ^ Ad Smyrnseos. 8. 
 
 * " evxapK^TtjaavTos rod irpoeara/TO^," &c. — Apol. i. 65. The passage 
 from the Dial, cum Tryplione, sec. 116, is not quoted, because not de- 
 cisive when considered in itself. 
 
 ^ Neander grounds his assertion that the sacraments may be ministered 
 by those who are not in Holy Orders on the authority of Tertullian. — 
 Eccles. Hint. vol. i. p. 302. (Hamburg, 1825.) He quotes two passages. 
 The first from TertuU. de Baptismo, sec. 17, refers only to Baptism, and 
 therefore can make only for the validity of lay-Baptism. The second 
 passage, De exhort. Cast. sec. 7, is explained in Waterland's second letter 
 to Kelsall, Works, x. 110 (1823), and in a still more satisfactory manner 
 in Bollinger's Church History, vol. i. p. 223 (London, 1840). Dr. Dol- 
 linger shows that Tertullian recognizes the sacred character conferred in 
 Ordination, "honor per Ordinis consessum sanctificatus a Deo:" and he 
 argues with great probability that the usage to which Tertullian is here 
 referring was consequent upon the custom which then prevailed, of pre- 
 serving the consecrated Elements and receiving them at home. In this 
 case Tertullian maintains that the father of the family, who distributed 
 them, was administering a priestly office, and ought therefore to live 
 vnth priestly sacredness. It would seem probable, besides, that this 
 work was composed by Tertullian after he had become a Montanist, and 
 its uncertain expressions ought not to weigh against the direct testimony 
 of his orthodox works. — Vide also De Marcd de Discrimine Clericorum et 
 Laicorurn, vol. iv. p. 311. 
 
10 CONSECRATION THE CHARACTERISTIC 
 
 ministers.^ And he speaks of it as characteristic of heretics, that 
 they assigned priestly offices to laymen.^ 
 
 As we advance into a period when Christian writers become 
 more numerous, the proofs that the consecration of the Holy 
 Eucharist was the specific office of the priesthood, and was 
 confined to them alone, are so numerous, that selection becomes 
 the only difficulty. St. Cyprian speaks of the offering of the 
 Eucharistic sacrifice as the appointed act by which the ministers 
 of Christ were to imitate ^ their Lord. He describes the clergy 
 as men who should be " given to the service of the Altar and to 
 sacrifices," * and who were chosen to the post of " offering " ^ to 
 God. In the Apostolical Constitutions, the thing demanded for 
 one who was called to the highest office in the ministry was that 
 he " might have authority to offer the pure and bloodless victim, 
 which Thou hast appointed through Christ as the mystery of the 
 new covenant ; " ^ and the ground on which the Priesthood is 
 entitled to the reverence of the people is said to be, " because 
 they honour you with the saving Body, and the precious Blood, 
 and release you from your sins, and make you partakers of the 
 sacred and Holy Eucharist." ^ 
 
 When we pass to post-Nicene times, we find St. Basil accounting 
 for the fact that the hermits in the wilderness were accustomed 
 to carry with them the consecrated elements, and administer them 
 to themselves, by saying that it was done, " when there was no 
 priest." * St. Hilary shows that the charge against St. Chrysostom, 
 of disturbing the ministration of the Holy Eucharist, could not 
 be true, because Scyrus, who was said to be ministering it, was 
 not a priest. And without a priest, he says, the Christian 
 Sacrifice could not be offered.* St. Jerome says that deacons 
 
 ' De Corona Mil. sec. 3. * De Praescriptione, sec. 41. 
 
 3 Ep. Ixiii. p. 104. (Kigali, Paris, 1666.) 
 
 ■• Clerici "non nisi altari et sacrificiis deservire . . . debeant." — Ep. 
 Ixvi. p. 109. 
 
 * "Sacrificia Deo ofiferentes," &c. — Ep. bcviii. p. 113. Vide also 
 Ep. Ixiii. 
 
 « Ap. Con. viii. 5. ' Id. ii. 33. * Epistle 93. 
 
 ^ "Porro sacrificii opus sine presbytero esse non potuit." — Ex. Op. 
 But. Frag. ii. 16, p. 1294. 
 
OF THE HOLY EUCHAEIST. 11 
 
 ought not to rank with priests, " ad quorum preces Christi 
 corpus sanguisque conficitur ; " ^ and he tells the Luciferians that 
 their leader, Hilary, " could not consecrate the Eucharist, having 
 with him neither priests nor bishops." ^ 
 
 It is obvious, then, both from the practices of the first Chris- 
 tians, and from their doctrines, that they supposed consecration 
 to be the essential characteristic of the Holy Eucharist. They 
 considered the validity of the ordinance to turn upon the setting 
 apart of the sacred elements ; they supposed Our Lord to speak 
 not of bread and wine at large, but of This, which He held in 
 His hands, and which His ministers after His example are to 
 break and bless. They would not otherwise have supposed that 
 it was necessary that a peculiar class of men should be set apart 
 for the performance of this action, that it could not be efi'ected 
 without a special commission, and that on its validity depended 
 the perpetuation of Grospel blessings. 
 
 It will throw further light upon this subject, if we compare 
 the Holy Eucharist with that which in many respects pos- 
 sesses a corresponding character — the sacrament of Baptism. 
 Both of these ordinances were instituted by Christ Himself ; 
 and both have an immediate connexion with those blessings 
 which He bestows upon His mystical Body. In both there is 
 an inward grace and an outward sign. In both the union of 
 form and matter is necessary to the completeness of that which 
 is outward and visible. But in Baptism the inward part con- 
 sists only of the benefit bestowed, whereas in the Holy Eucharist, 
 as our Catechism reminds us, the thing signified is distinct from 
 the benefit by which it is attended. Baptism, that is, implies 
 two parts only, the outward symbol, and the inward gift ; but 
 the Holy Eucharist implies three — the outward sign, the inward 
 
 ^ Epistola 101. Ad Evangelum. 
 
 ^ Adv. Luciferianos, vol. iv. part ii. p. 302. Vide also S. Greg. Naz. 
 Or. 21, sec. iv. (Paris, 1630.) S. Chrysostom de Sacerdotio, iii. 4, 5, and 
 vi. 4. The Council of Neocassarea, Canon 9, and Council of Gangra, Can. 4, 
 refer to the consecrating power of the Priest, as a matter of course, and 
 the First Council of Aries, Can. 15, speaks of it as a monstrous abuse, that 
 deacons should presume to consecrate. 
 
12 CONSECRATION THE CHARACTERISTIC 
 
 part or thing signified, and the accompanying blessing. In 
 Baptism, therefore, the outward sign has no permanent relation 
 to the inward grace, since the rite has no existence save in the 
 act of administration ; but in the Holj' Eucharist the outward 
 sign has something more than a momentary connexion with the 
 thing signified. As respects Baptism, therefore, Our Lord used 
 no words which imply that any particular portion of the element 
 employed is invested with a sjoecific character : it was not this 
 water, but the element at large which was sanctified to be a 
 pledge of the " mystical washing away of sin." And the Church 
 has always acted upon this principle. It is orderly and decent 
 that the water should be set apart with prayer, and that the 
 ceremony should be performed by Christ's minister ; but the 
 absence of these conditions does not invalidate the act, either 
 according to the belief of the ancient Church, or according to 
 the existing law of the Church of England. For the setting 
 apart of the element confers only a relative holiness ; it is not 
 necessary to the validity of the sacrament ; the inward grace is 
 associated with the act, and not with the element ; and does not 
 require that the outward part should be bi'ought into an abiding 
 relation with any inward part or thing signified. And for the 
 same reason, the intervention of the minister, however desirable, 
 is not essential. A deacon, in the priest's absence, is as much 
 authorized to baptize as a priest. No doubt it might have 
 pleased God to assign the same limitations in the case of Baptism 
 which obtained in regard to the Holy Eucharist; but such 
 limitations are not expressed in Scripture, nor has the thing 
 been so understood by the Church. The priestly office, indeed, 
 is essential to the validity of Baptism, because without it there 
 can exist no living branch of Christ's Church, into which new 
 members may be engrafted ; but its relation to this sacrament is 
 general, and not specific, because Baptism depends upon an act 
 which all Christians may perform, and not upon any consecration 
 which requires a special commission. 
 
 Now the reverse of all these things is true of the Holy 
 Eucharist. Here it is not the element at large which is spoken 
 
OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 13 
 
 of, but this bread, and tliis cup. The intervention of the 
 minister is not matter of decent ceremonial ; it is essential to the t 
 validity of the ordinance. For valid Baptism is that which isl 
 ministered to a competent receiver, but a valid Eucharist is that\ 
 which is received, after consecration by an authorized priest. It is \ 
 obvious, then, that consecration is the essential characteristic of 
 this sacrament, since, but for it, the inward part and the outward 
 part cannot be brought together. And this fact is testified by 
 that law of our Church, which renders the services of the priest 
 indispensable in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, as it was 
 testified by the practice and assertions of antiquity. 
 
 Now, since the necessity of consecration is thus attested by the 
 very nature of our ritual, how comes it not to have been put 
 more prominently forward by our divines? For it can hardly 
 be disputed, that the importance of consecration has been little 
 dwelt upon by many English writers, and that its validity has 
 not been understood by our people to be the circumstance on 
 which the efficacy of this sacrament depends. The reason may 
 probably be found in the popular unwillingness to break alto- 
 gether with the foreign Protestants. For the Protestant bodies, 
 with the succession of the ministry, had lost all value for that 
 act of consecration, which is never found to be permanently 
 appreciated, when men have renounced the ministerial commis- 
 sion, which is essential to its reality. Hence it was felt that to 
 dwell upon this point as indispensable, would be to renounce all 
 connexion with those communities. This is obvious from the 
 words of Bishop Cosin, though the reverses which befell the 
 Church of England through the Great Rebellion, seem to have led 
 him at a later period to modify his opinions. After quoting St. 
 Augustin's statement, that if there were no consecration the ele- 
 ments would be no sacrament ; " I doubt," he says, " whether 
 the Puritans' sacrament at Geneva or elsewhere be not such an 
 one or no ; for they do boldly deny any words of mystical conse- 
 cration at all." ^ In those days men were not prepared to draw 
 such conclusions respecting the necessity of adhering at all 
 ^ NichoUs's Additional Notes on the Common Prayer, p. 48. 
 
14 THE BLESSING CONVEYED 
 
 hazards to the principles of the ancient Church, as the course of 
 events, and the progress of infidel opinions, have since forced 
 upon all Catholic Christians. So that in assigning to consecra- 
 tion the place awarded to it by the teaching of Scripture and the 
 testimony of Primitive antiquity, we are not forsaking the prin- 
 ciples of our own Church, but only bringing out those truths, 
 which the circumstances of a former generation withheld it 
 from expressing. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EFFECT OF CONSECRATION, THAT THE BLESSING IS 
 CONVEYED THROUGH THE ELEMENTS. 
 
 The Consecration of the elements, then, is the essential 
 characteristic of the Holy Eucharist. And from this follows 
 a second truth — that the inward blessing resulting from this 
 ordinance is bestowed through its outward form. Hereafter 
 it will be necessary to discriminate between the thing signified, 
 and the benefit by which it is accompanied (res sacramenti and 
 virtus sacramenti); at present we may speak of the two together, 
 and say that they are communicated through the outward and 
 visible sign. The consecrated elements, that is, are not only a 
 pledge assuring us of the inward gift, but they are the means 
 through which that gift is communicated. 
 
 And yet it is not meant that this sacrament is a physical, but 
 only a moral instrument in man's salvation. By a physical 
 instrument is meant one which acts of itself, by means of those 
 qualities which are inherent in it : by a moral ' instrument, one 
 which derives its eflficacy from the perpetual intervention of its 
 employer's will. "When a chemist would precipitate a salt 
 through the admixture of an acid, the acid employed is a 
 
 ' Vide EstiuB in 4 Sent. Dist. i. 5. 
 
THEOUGH THE ELEMENTS. 15 
 
 physical instrument — it acts by virtue of those properties which 
 belong to it, in a manner irrespective of his will. But the hand 
 by which he pours it into the mixture is a moral agent ; its 
 action is not for a moment independent of his causing will. 
 Now, when it is said that certain inward gifts are bestowed 
 through a sacrament, it is not meant that they are so physically 
 associated with its outward form, as to follow from it in the way 
 of natural consequence : the inward gifts are dependent alto- 
 gether upon the ordaining will of Almighty God, who appoints 
 a certain external form as the means whereby He bestows 
 His gifts. So that a sacrament is a moral instrument, which 
 derives its efficacy from the perpetual intervention of the Being ^ 
 by whom it has been appointed. 
 
 But it may be asked, is not this the case respecting creation 
 at large ? Do not all things which are, depend upon the 
 perpetual sustenance of Grod ; the which were He to withdraw, 
 " their instant annihilation could not choose but follow ? " Is not 
 this the necessary result, considering that the ultimate cause of 
 all things is an Infinite Mind? Must we not always come to 
 this, if we mount high enough in the chain of causation? 
 So that in one sense all created things may be said to be 
 moral instruments, seeing that their efficacy is never inde- 
 pendent of the will of their Creator. And what is meant, 
 therefore, when we ascribe this name to sacraments in particular : 
 why should they appropriate a title which belongs to all God's 
 works ? 
 
 The answer is, that when we speak of sacraments as moral 
 instruments, we are merely discriminating between the order 
 of grace and the order of nature ; we affirm that sacraments 
 pertain to the first, whereas those things which are called 
 physical instruments belong to the second. For it has pleased 
 God that the whole material creation should obey a certain set 
 of laws, which are called the laws of natui'e. Every individual 
 object, therefore, has its peculiar dimensions, bulk, and qualities ; 
 and by virtue of these does each act upon the others, in a certain 
 uniform and appreciable course. The only exception would 
 
16 THE BLESSING CONVEYED 
 
 seem to be those responsible beings, to whom their Great 
 Author has given that power of spontaneous action, which 
 renders them in this respect an image of Himself. Hence it is 
 that we are able to speak of the permanence of the laws of 
 nature, and can calculate upon the regularity of their effects. 
 And this we do, without implying that they are independent 
 of the will of God, or can produce their effects without His 
 co-operation. 
 
 But in sacraments the order followed is not that of nature, 
 but a higher one, ^hich is referrible to the immediate 
 interference of Almighty God. As a king might govern his 
 dominions by unalterable laws, without laying down such 
 general rules in his own familj^, so the gifts which the Most 
 High bestows through sacraments in the household of faith, 
 are regulated by a different law from those which are bestowed 
 in the kingdom of nature. In the last there is nothing which 
 to our observation betrays His interference ; He allows things 
 to move on according to the invariable law of physical causation : 
 but the means which are employed in the first, derive their 
 whole efficacy from his continual intervention. It is not meant, 
 then, that sacraments are less certain in their effects than 
 physical agents ; nor yet that their reality depends upon those 
 circumstances in their receivers, wliich are essential to their 
 utility. But they are called moral instruments, because they 
 derive their validity from the immediate appointment of 
 Him, who acts in common according to that law, which He 
 has imposed upon the material creation ; because they belong to 
 the order of grace, and not to the order of nature. 
 
 It is as a moral, and not a physical instrument then, that the 
 outward form in the Holy Eucharist is the means of conveying 
 the inward gift. And here a further distinction between 
 Baptism and the Holy Eucharist is suggested by the transient 
 nature of the one, as compared with the continuous nature 
 of the other. Since Baptism exists only in the act of its 
 administration, it is this act alone which can be the means 
 through which it conveys an inward gift. And therefore there 
 
THROUGH THE ELEMENTS. 17 
 
 is no sucli consecration, as invests the material employed with 
 any permanent efi&cacy. It is otherwise in the Holy Eucharist, 
 where the outward part is consecrated to be the instrument 
 through which there is a continuous ministration of the inward 
 blessing. In the last case, therefore, Our Lord's words indicated 
 that This, which He held in His hands, was the fixed medium 
 of conveying the hidden gift. So that in one case the medium 
 is an act, in the other an element : the act of baptizing is the 
 moral instrument in one instance, the consecrated element in the 
 other. 
 
 Such are the conclusions respecting the character and ofl&ce of 
 the subject spoken of, which follow from Our Lord's words. And 
 there are various means whereby these conclusions may be 
 further substantiated. They may be substantiated positively 
 by the language and practices of the ancient Church, and 
 negatively by a consideration of the results which follow from 
 their denial. Let us commence with the latter of these two 
 modes of argument, reserving the former for a separate chapter. 
 The proposition before us, then, is, that the inward gift 
 bestowed iu the Holy Eucharist is bestowed through the 
 consecrated elements. What inconveniences have followed 
 , from the denial of this truth ! The first person by whom 
 lit was formally denied was Zuinglius. It formed a step in his 
 progress towards a denial of the validity of consecration, and of 
 the necessity of orders. We know by his own confession,^ that 
 long before he renounced the office of a Roman priest he 
 disbelieved the reality of those sacred rites which he adminis- 
 tered. In this respect he was a remarkable contrast to Luther, 
 a man of less acuteness, but of greater honesty of character. 
 
 ' The proofs of this, from Zuinglius's correspondence, are given by 
 Plank, " Entstehung des Protestantischen Lehrbegriffs," Book v. note 
 97, vol. ii. p. 257. He also quotes Luther's contrary assertion, " Ich bin 
 gefangen : kann nicht heraus," &c. — Id. p. 232. Luther refers to the 
 circumstance in his "Defens. Verb. Csense." "Zuinglius confitetur, quod 
 id in vita sua nunquam crediderit." — Works, x. vol. vii. f. 390. He may 
 allude to the words of Zuinglius : " Nemo nostrlim (sub Papatu) unquam 
 vere credidit, se in isto pane tale quiddam edere, quod somniavimus." — 
 Hospinian, vol. ii. p. 46. 
 
 C 
 
18 THE BLESSING CONVEYED 
 
 From this covert unbelief Zuinglius gradually mounted up to an 
 open denial of the reality of the work effected by consecration, 
 and of the commission of the priesthood. Thus he did not begin, 
 like Luther, by assailing manifest abuses, but attacked that 
 which is common to Christianity at large. His course, however, 
 was acceptable enough to his democratic countrjinen, who were 
 well pleased to be taught that the ministerial office was not 
 a trust committed to men by Christ, but was derived from the 
 free choice of every congregation.' For it followed that the 
 clergy must be responsible to those from whom their authority 
 proceeded. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that Zuinglius denied the 
 weakness of man, or the necessity of grace. He differed from 
 the Socinian school, which followed in his steps, in that he 
 recognised the need of spiritual assistance, and attributed to it 
 the whole work of man's recovery. The point of contrast 
 between his doctrine and that of the ancient Church was, that he 
 failed to recognize Our Lord's Humanity, either as the means 
 whereby He intercedes for His brethren with the Father, or 
 whereby He communicates to them divine gifts. Now this, in 
 truth, was to deny the mediation of Christ. That Zuinglius 
 really fell into this error, appears from his saying that Our 
 Lord's Body and Blood are not introduced in this ordinance 
 by reason of any present influence which they exert, but only 
 because they were the media through which He wrought that 
 work of atonement, which He formerly ^ effected. And, in 
 
 ' Guerike's Kirclieu-Geschichte, p. 806. 
 
 * "Per manducationem ergo sui corporis, et bibitionem sui sanguinis, 
 nihil aliud intelligit, quain fidere morte sua, quam pro nobis pertulit." — 
 Zuinglias in Ilospinian., vol. ii. p. 48. And in his Siibtiidium <le Eiuha- 
 ridia, he says that believers "have no need of Christ, according to the 
 flesh, for they know that His flesh would not profit them if they eat it i 
 but it is of great profit to believe that Christ has been slain for you in 
 the flesh," &c. — ZaiiKjliass Worhs, vol. ii. f. 245. And he speaks of him- 
 self as having advanced so far " ut carneni illam externam et corpoream 
 ad salutis summam nihil conducere intelligeremus." — Id. ii. f. "273. On 
 St. John, vi. p. 51, he says: "Camem hie pro morte et passione Christi 
 accipi, (jiiod ha-c in came facta sit." And again : " Corpus pro morte 
 ponitur, quouiam mors in corpore." — Work», Id. iii. f. 308. 
 
THROUGH THE ELEMENTS. 19 
 
 consequence, he was at a loss to explain why Our Lord's Body 
 and Blood should be spoken of as occupying any place in His 
 present dealings with mankind, and why they should have been 
 introduced in that peculiar and emphatic manner which Our 
 Lord was pleased to adopt at the Last Supper. For according 
 to his system, the Holy Eucharist does not depend upon 
 Christ's acts towards us, but upon our acts towards Him ; it is 
 not the presence of Christ living, but the remembrance of 
 Christ dead} 
 
 In this way it was that Zuinglius arrived at the theory 
 which he declared to be characteristic of the Holy Eucharist, 
 and which he substituted for that belief in the efficacy of conse- 
 cration which had previously been received. Having denied 
 that the benefit bestowed was bestowed through the elements, he 
 defended his system by asserting that the characteristic of the 
 ordinance was not the consecration of the elements, but the 
 disposition of the receiver. The Holy Eucharist, he said, was 
 not the communication of any objective gift, but merely a mode 
 of giving expression to our own subjective feelings. Its advantage 
 was only that it was a means of obtaining those spiritual gifts 
 which God bestows equally upon all occasions. So that the 
 sole circumstance which leads to the employment of those 
 particular emblems which are used in this ordinance, is merely 
 that the feelings of men are thereby associated with the past 
 actions of Our Saviour. 
 
 Such was the first theory which was substituted for the 
 ancient belief in the reality of consecration. It affirmed the 
 
 ' In a letter to Luther, Zuinglius denied altogether that Our Lord's 
 Body was " vivificans in mysterio virtute Spiritus Divini." — Eljiri.rd's Dog- 
 ma vom Ileil. Ahe.mhnahl, ii. 258. This appears to be what is meant 
 by Claude, when he says that Our Lord's Body and Blood act " en quality 
 de causes mtlritoires qui agissent moralement, ou de causes motives, qui 
 non seulement produisent leurs efiets etant absentes, mais meme lors- 
 qu'elles ne sont pas encore." — Secoiule Reponse, 321. And therefore Zuin- 
 glius says, " Quid caro manducata super his omnibus faceret, non invenie- 
 bamus in divinis oraculis." — Hospiiiian, vol. ii. p. 47. "Carnem hanc 
 nihil morantur, contenti credidisse eam pro nobis mactatam esse." — 
 Zuiuglitis, vol. ii. fol. 245. 
 
 C 2 
 
 \J 
 
20 THE BLESSING CONVEYED 
 
 Holy Eucharist to derive its efficacy merely from the intention 
 of the receiver. And hence it hannonized well enough with the 
 system which a denial of the ministerial commission involves, 
 that every individual is designed to gain salvation for himself, 
 by applying the general truths of Scripture to his own ])enefit. 
 For whatever prominence is assigned to the Holy Eucharist 
 among the means of grace, its main condition, according to this 
 view of things, may be secured thi'ough the secret action of the 
 individual mind. Such a notion was diametrically opposed to 
 the belief that in this ordinance the outward elements are the 
 means of conveying any inward gift. This belief results from 
 the conviction that our glorified Head is still bestowing gifts 
 upon His people, through the communication of His exalted 
 Humanity. But Zuinglius maintained that the Holy Eucharist 
 has reference only to Christ as He was once a Mediator upon 
 earth, and not to Christ as He is still a Mediator in heaven. The 
 Church-system implies that the Holy Eucharist has been 
 ordained as the appointed medium through which the benefits 
 of Our Lord's humanity may be communicated to men. But 
 Zuinglius, though allowing that all things may be occasions of 
 obtaining grace, because they may incite the mind to seek it, 
 yet denied absolutely that grace was conveyed ^ or communicated 
 by any sacrament. According to the Church-system, the words 
 of institution possess a living power ; but Zuinglius supposed 
 them to be a mere dead history. So that if there was any sacred- 
 ness at all in the Holy Eucharist, he supposed it to lie, not in the 
 elements, but in the transaction at large ; and tlie faith of each 
 receiver was the sole consecrating principle which he admitted. 
 Now there are two main errors with which this theory is 
 chargeable ; one relating more immediately to the Holy 
 Eucharist itself, the other to the nature of Him who thus 
 vouclisafcs to communicate Himself. If the Holy Eucharist be 
 nothing but the eating a specified kind of food in remembrance 
 
 * " Credo, imo scio, omnia sacramenta tarn abesse, ut gratiam conferant, 
 ut ne adferant quidem aut dispensent." — A'l Car. Imp. Fidei Ratio. 
 Nicmeyer Collectio Con/ess. p. 24. 
 
THROUGH THE ELEMENTS, 21 
 
 of Christ, what is to distinguish this act from any ordinary- 
 meal which is partaken by Christians ? For ought not devout 
 men to do every thing in the name of Christ, and with 
 reference to Him '? At any rate, if this ordinance turn exclusively 
 upon the intention of the receiver, it is obvious that men's 
 common food might at any moment be converted, by a secret act 
 of their will, into the Eucharistic symbols. Now such a system 
 is not only at variance with those feelings of reverence towards 
 the Holy Eucharist which have prevailed universally among 
 Christians, but it fails to account for various emphatic passages 
 of Holy Scripture, in which the Humanity of the Second Adam 
 is set forth as communicated in some mysterious manner in this 
 sacrament. 
 ^ But a further evil results from that denial of Our Lord's 
 j mediation, which the theory of Zuinglius involves. His system 
 ■ turns upon the notion that the action of the Divine Spirit has 
 superseded that of the God-man ; and consequently, that Our 
 Lord exercises no present influence through that ordinance, 
 whereby He communicates Himself. Now this principle, when 
 carried out into its results, is a form of Sabellianism : ^ it 
 supposes the Second and Third Persons in the Ever-Blessed 
 Trinity to be merely successive modifications of the One Divine 
 Power ; and that the functions of the one supersede those of the 
 other. Otherwise, why should not the Second Person in the 
 Blessed Grodhead continue to bestow those gracious gifts which 
 He once made His humanity the instrument of conveying ? If 
 this is no longer possible, it must be because the action of God 
 the Holy Ghost has done away in some measure with that of the 
 Incarnate Son. And hence it will follow that the distinction 
 between these Blessed Persons does not lie in their own eternal 
 nature, but only in their relation to the created Universe. 
 
 The Zuinglian theory, then, is untenable, not only on account 
 
 of its irreverent dealing with this holy sacrament, but also because 
 
 it fails to do justice to the nature and operations of the Incarnate 
 
 Son. This was felt by Calvin, when the death of Zuinglius 
 
 ' This subject will be treated more at length in the 10th chapter. 
 
22 THE BLESSING CONVEYED 
 
 threw into his hands the guidance of the new opinions in 
 Switzerland. No one spoke with greater force or fuhiess on the 
 office of Our Lord's Humanity,' and he was ohviously disposed to 
 assign to it an influence which had not been attributed to it by 
 Zuinglius. It followed tluit he could not suppose the force and 
 efficacy of the Holy Eucharist to depend merely upon the 
 disposition of the receiver,^ because the necessary consequence of 
 such a supposition is to destroy all belief in the objective reality 
 of the gift. And yet he was not less indisposed than Zuinglius 
 to admit the validity^ of consecration, or the necessity of 
 orders. Against this he was pledged, not only hj his party and 
 principles, but by the fact that he himself exercised ministerial 
 functions without ordination. So that it was necessary to his 
 position to find some third alternative, which, without involving 
 the validity of consecration, might yet put this sacrament upon 
 a higher ground than had been taken by his predecessors. 
 
 Now it is obvious that a gift bestowed by one party upon 
 another, may be important either in consequence of the value of 
 the gift itself, or by reason of considerations derived from the 
 parties concerned in the giving and receiving. The ordinary 
 food, which sustains us, is an instance of the first kind : it has 
 its value in itself ; it is the physical instrument of our support. 
 We may find examples of the other sort in the Old Testament. 
 The " ribbon of blue," which the Israelites received as an 
 article of dress by God's appointment, was of no value in 
 itself : its effect was derived solely from the associations to 
 which it gave rise in the minds of the wearers. Here then was 
 a gift, which was only rendered important by the state of the 
 receivei'. Again, when it pleased God to put His Bow in the 
 cloud, here was a thing which neither was of value in itself, nor 
 yet derived it from the disposition of the spectator. The Bow 
 had no tendency to prevent a deluge ; it only expressed the 
 
 ' Vide a striking passage in Calvin's Institutes, Lib. iv. 17. 7, 8, 9. 
 
 * " Kespondeo non sic intelligendinn quod dixi, quasi ab ejus qui recipit 
 conditione aut arbitrio vis et Veritas sacramenti pendeat." — Iitstit. iv. 14. 16. 
 
 •' He objects to rest upon " consecratio " as being " uiagica iucantatio." 
 — bust. iv. 17. 15. 
 
THEOTJGH THE ELEMENTS. 23 
 
 Intention of Him who put it there. So that we have three 
 different ways in which a gift may be important ; first, from its 
 own value ; secondly, from the state of the receiver ; thirdly, as 
 expressive of the intention of the giver. 
 
 Let us apply, then, these principles to that sacred gift which 
 was bestowed by Our Lord when He employed the words of 
 Institution. On which of these three grounds are we to rest 
 the importance of the gift which He conferred, when He said, 
 " This is My Body ? " Those who maintain the validity of con- 
 secration, of course adopt the first : they suppose His blessing to 
 have bestowed its value upon the gift which He communicated. 
 Zuinglius took the second alternative : he maintained that the 
 significance of the gift was derived entirely from the receiver. 
 Calvin adopted the third hypothesis, as enabling him to do 
 justice to the importance of this sacrament, without admitting 
 the necessity of consecration. He said that its effect did not 
 arise out of the state of the receiver, nor yet depend upon the 
 value of that which was conveyed in the elements, but that 
 respect must be had exclusively to the intention of the Giver. 
 
 This threefold view of things shows itself in the various 
 definitions which have been given of the word sacrament. Those 
 who retain their belief in consecration, will readily accept that 
 of Peter Lombard, which Bishop Overall has amplified, " invisi- 
 bilis gratise visibilis causa." ^ According to Zuiuglius, the 
 definition of a sacrament grows entirely out of a consideration of 
 the receiver ; it is a public testimony of that grace which each 
 individual possesses,^ or " a means by which a man displays him- 
 self to the Church." ^ But Calvin states it to be the main end 
 of sacraments " that God may by them testify, represent, and 
 seal His favour to us." * The Divine intention, then, according 
 
 ^ Lib. Sentent. iv. Dist. 1, 2. 
 
 2 "Testimonium publicum ejus gratise, quae cuique private prius adest." 
 — Fidei Rat. ad Car. Imp. in Niemeijers Collectio Confess, p. 25. 
 
 ^ " Sunt sacramenta signa .... quibus se homo ecclesiae probat," &c. — 
 Be Vera et Falsa Eeligione. 
 
 * "Ut per ea nobis gratiam suam testetur Deus, representet, atque 
 obsignet." — Consens. Tigur. vii. Niemeyer, p. 193. This confession ex- 
 
24 THE BLESSING CONVEYED 
 
 to him, is the thing to be considered in the Holy Eucharist. 
 The elements are not to be looked upon as an instrument of 
 effecting any thing, but merely as indications of tlie purpose of 
 God. For at the same moment when these pledges are exhibited 
 to the lips, it pleases God to produce a supernatural relation 
 between Our Lord's Humanity and the renewed soul. Respect- 
 ing the means by which this relation is effected, Calvin spoke 
 uncertainly ; whether it was by the raising of the soul to heaven, 
 or by some spiritual but undefined presence of Our Lord's 
 Humanity upon earth. A recent writer,' who has undertaken 
 to perfect and extend his theory, sees in it the germ of the 
 opinion, that the essence of matter is spiritual, and maintains 
 that when Calvin affirmed Our Lord to be spiritually present, 
 he meant that according to the essential part of His human 
 nature. Our Lord was really present to the receiver. Calvin 
 certainly uses ambiguous phrases, on which such a construction 
 might be put ; though his real meaning appears to have been 
 that the soul was lifted up into heaven : '" but the point upon 
 which he insists is merely that the inward benefit of the Holy 
 Euchai-ist is the union which takes place between Christ and the 
 receiver's soul. 
 
 By this theory Calvin designed at once to leave room for 
 those strong expressions which Holy Scrijiture and the ancient 
 writers used respecting the Holy Eucharist, and yet to obviate 
 
 hibited Calvin'b matured views. And his shorter definition of a sacra- 
 ment in his Institutes is, " Diviiuv in /uw gratix teMimonium, externo 
 nvjno ainjirmatum cum mutua nostrse erga ipsum pietatis testihcatione." 
 — iv. 14. 1. 
 
 * Vide Ebrard's Dogma vom Heiligen Abendmahl, vol. ii. pp. 556, 658. 
 
 ^ "Quasi vero si ad se nos evehat, non seque potiamur pniisentia." — 
 IiDitit. iv. 17. 81. And so the thing is expresseil in the several confessions. 
 The first Scotch says, "Nos vera fide super omnia qu;c videntur . . . vehit, 
 et ut vescamur corpore et sanguine Jesu Christi, semel pro nobis eflfusi et 
 fracti, efficit, (iuod(iue nunc est in coelo," &c. — Xiemcijer, p. 353. It will 
 be shown in the se([uel how nearly this passes into the theory of Zuinglius, 
 that Our Lord is merely an object to the intellect of men. — Vide Imtf. iv. 
 17. 18. For our relation to Christ is affirmed by Calvin to be like that 
 of St. Stephen, whose eyes, he says, were miraculously strengthened, so 
 that he aaw into heaven. — Vide Answer to JJeshiu. Works, viii. 728. 
 
THROUGH THE ELEMENTS. 25 
 
 the necessity of admitting the sacredness of the elements, and of 
 letting in the validity of consecration and of orders. For no 
 words could be too strong to employ respecting the benefit of 
 this sacrament, supposing it was allowed to be the actual enjoy- 
 ment of that union with Christ, the possession of which is the 
 life of the soul. For to be " in Christ," is to be " a new 
 creature." But this involved no kind of sacredness in the 
 elements. They were merely signs, or pledges, with which 
 the Supreme Giver vouchsafed to accompany the inward work 
 which He was performing. A seal, or pledge, does not in any 
 way partake of the character of that which it certifies : it is only 
 an assurance of the intention of the party by whom it is given, 
 and its validity is guaranteed by his ability and his truth. Such, 
 maintained Calvin, was the sole purpose of the elements ; they 
 neither require consecration, nor are they the means of com- 
 municating any gift : they are merely like " the seals of a 
 deed," ^ and convey to us an assurance of God's inward 
 action. 
 
 But can it be intended that all who receive the elements with 
 their lips, are spirituallj'^ united to Christ Our Lord ? Do all 
 such persons receive that gift of oneness with Our Lord's 
 Humanity, which implies the life of the soul ? This cannot be 
 intended. Yet it would seem to be required by the terms of 
 Calvin's argument. For the elements, according to his theory, 
 are like the chain and purple with \\hich Daniel was clothed, 
 and which implied that he already enjoyed the favour of the 
 Babylonish monarch. Calvin's statement is, that the elements 
 are the seal of a charter, or title-deed, whereby Our Lord, gives 
 expression to the relation which, at the moment of delivery. He 
 establishes between His own Humanity and the receiver's soul. 
 Now, since the very principle of a bond or charter is that it 
 pledges the party who executes it, why does not this inward 
 result always go along with the delivery of the external sign ? 
 
 ' "Diplomatum Sigilla." — Imt. iv. 14. 5. He compares ttem to the 
 Bow in the Cloud. — Ind. iv. 14. 18. 
 
26 THE BLESSING CONVEYED 
 
 Yet this cannot be ; for the inward result, according to Calvin, 
 is the union of the soul with Christ, and the soul cannot be 
 united to Christ except it lives. 
 
 It is no sufficient answer to this difficulty to reply that such 
 a result is put within the reach of all, although none but devout 
 communicants avail themselves of their opportunities. It may 
 be said that though this answer would be inconsistent with the 
 principles of a Calvinist, yet that it ought to satisfy those who 
 suppose that all men receive such grace as is sufficient for their 
 salvation. But to make such a reply is to give up the very 
 merit of Calvin's system. His superiority to Zuinglius was, 
 that he did not suppose the Holy Eucharist to be merely an 
 occasion on which God bestowed the general succours of grace, 
 but that he asserted it to carry along with it a specific and 
 peculiar blessing, namely, that relation to Christ which results 
 from oneness with His glorified Humanity. Thus did he at 
 once account for the title assigned to the elements, by reference 
 to the real character of that with which they were connected, 
 and afford an opening also for all those statements, whether in 
 Scripture or the Fathers, whereby the mysterious sacredness of 
 this ordinance is expressed. He was able, consequently, to 
 accept St. Cyril's language respecting the efficacy of Our Lord's 
 Flesh, and his followers have always boasted that the highest 
 conceptions on this subject find a place in their creed. 
 
 Now, with such a view of things, it was essential for Calvin 
 to point out why the outward pledges, by which the Divine 
 Giver of the Holy Eucharist expressed His intention, were not 
 always attended by the desired result. It would not do for him 
 to fall back upon the notion, that the thing bestowed in the 
 Holy Eucharist was merely the preliminary assistance of God's 
 grace, for that would have been to abandon the capital truth, 
 that the inward part in this sacrament was the actual Humanity 
 of the Son of God. So that the difficulty recurs, does this 
 relation of the soul to Christ take place whenever the elements 
 are received by the lips ; and since it jilainly cannot take effect 
 except in those who are in a state of spiritual life, how can we 
 
THEOUGH THE ELEMENTS. 27 
 
 speak with truth of the outward elements as being the pledge of 
 an inward blessing ? 
 
 Calvin's answer to this must be sought in that which was 
 laid down as the foundation of his system, that the importance of 
 the Holy Eucharist arose neither out of the value of the gift 
 which it conferred, nor yet from a consideration of the receiver, 
 but from its expressing the intention of Almighty God. The 
 outward elements therefore are, as it were, a deed or charter, by 
 which the Supreme Being binds Himself to bestow the gift of 
 Christ's Presence simultaneously upon the soul of the receiver. 
 But this charter is limited by a secret article^ by which 
 Almighty God has assigned some of His creatures to bliss, and 
 others to misery. To the former only are the elements really 
 the seal of an inward gift : to the latter they are but the empty 
 eating of bread and wine. So that the objection against Calvin's 
 theory of the Holy Eucharist is, that it involves that dogma of 
 reprobation, which is the opprobrium of his system. And as the 
 theory of Zuinglius has been shown to be inconsistent with the 
 first principles of Christian piety, so is Calvin's with any due 
 respect for the declarations of Scripture and the character of 
 God. And thus are we thrown back upon the reality of con- 
 secration, and upon a belief that the inward gift in the Holy 
 Eucharist is bestowed through the outward form. 
 
 Such is the negative argument in favour of the Church- 
 
 ' "Ait quidem Calvinus et recte, prodesse nullis sacramenta, nisi prse- 
 destinatis." — Whitaker, Preelect. i. 3. So in the Consensus Tigurinus, in 
 which Calvin joined with the divines of Zurich, A.D. 1549, "Sedulo doce- 
 mus, Deuin non promiscue vim suam exercere in omnibus, qui sacra- 
 menta recipiunt, sed tantum electis." — sec. 16. "Eeprobis perseque ut 
 electis signa administrantur ; Veritas autem signorum ad hos solos per- 
 venit." — sec. 17. Niemeyer, p. 195. So in the Confess. Belgica, sec. 35, 
 Niemeyer, p. 385. And so in the Institutes, speaking of the reception of 
 Christ, he says, "reprobos ab ejus participatione arceri." — iv. 17. 34; 
 and vide iv. 14. 17. And in his Tract " De vera Participatione," he 
 points out that his doctrine of Decrees is a substitute for the efficacy of 
 consecration. He says, "Non esse inclusam Spiritus gratiam aut virtu- 
 tem extemis signis : quia nee aequaliter nee promiscue omnibus prosunt, 
 .... sed Deum libere, prout visum est, Sacramentis uti, ut electis admi- 
 nicula sint in salutem, aliis nihil conferant adeoque cedant in exitium." — 
 Works, vol. viii. p. 743. 
 
28 THE BLESSING CONVEYED 
 
 system of the Holy Eucharist, which is derived from a con- 
 siderution of the opposing theories. It has been shown that the 
 importance of that which Our Lord gave to His disciples, must 
 either have arisen from the value of the gift itself, or from a 
 consideration of the parties concerned in the giving and receiving. 
 Thus arose the three systems, of which alone the case admits ; 
 the benefit of the Holy Eucharist is either conveyed through 
 the elements, or else it deiDends merely ujion the disposition of 
 the receiver, or upon the intention of the Giver. So that to 
 show the untenable nature of the two latter hypotheses, is to 
 ' establish the first. 
 
 Neither is it any answer to this mode of argument to say that 
 these three systems may possibly coalesc e, so that the efficacy 
 6i the Holy Eucharist may depend upon their combined efiect. 
 For it is not denied either that it is the intention of the 
 Supreme Being to give effect to His ordinance ; or that the 
 Holy Eucharist is inefficacious, unless there be a devout receiver. 
 The thing objected to in the theories of Calvin and Zuinglius 
 is, not that they insist upon these conditions, but that they sub - 
 stitute them for the validity of consecration. These conditions are 
 fully recogmzed in the Church-system, but they are not allowed 
 such e xclusive weig ht, as may render consecration unnecessary. 
 
 (Whereas, to admit the theories of Calvin and Zuinglius, is to 
 attribute everything either to the disposition of the receiver, or 
 to the intention of the Giver. It has been shown how untenable 
 is each of these two hypotheses ; but before we proceed to 
 produce positive evidence in behalf of that system which remains, 
 there are two important conclusions which require to be noticed. 
 Eirst — It has been seen that there are two counter theories, 
 which oppose the belief that the inward gift in the Holy 
 Eucharist is bestowed through the elements. Now it is 
 important to remember that both these theories might be 
 adduced as proofs of the statement with which the present 
 chai)ter commenced. For though both contain a denial that the 
 gift is bestowed through the elements, yet both im])ly that this 
 truth could not be denied, if the validity of consecration were 
 
THROUGH THE ELEMENTS, 29 
 
 admitted. It was the object both of Zuinglius and Calvin 
 to deny the reality of consecration, inasmuch as it brought along 
 with it that whole system of the Priesthood to which they were 
 opposed. It was with a view to exclude this belief that they 
 denied that the ijg.ward gift in the Holy Eucharist is bes towed 
 t hrough the element s. Their opposition to this conclusion was 
 founded on their hostility to the principle out of which it arose. 
 We have seen the groundlessness of their objections ; they produce 
 no good reasons for denying that the inward gift in the Holy 
 Eucharist is communicated through the outward form. But we 
 have no reason to question their authority, when they affirm this 
 belief to be the necessary result of admitting consecration : they 
 are witnesses that none, who allow consecration, ought to deny that 
 the gift in the Holy Eucharist is bestowed through the elements. 
 
 Secondly — The considerations w^hich have been adduced, show 
 that the dogma of an Absolute Decree is the corner-stone of 
 Calvin's system of the Holy Eucharist, and that its removal 
 must be fatal to the whole superstructure. For it is through 
 this dogma alone that he is enabled at once to dispense with a 
 belief in consecration, and yet to do justice to the solemn and 
 mysterious nature of the inward ordinance. Let this dogma 
 be taken away, and his system falls down at once into Zuin- 
 glianism. For if the inward gift in the Holy Eucharist be not 
 the very Presence of Christ's Humanity, but merely that general 
 assistance of God's grace which belongs equally to all ordinances, 
 there is then no ground for those lofty expressions which were 
 used respecting this sacrament in early times, nor anything 
 unreasonable in the statements of Zuinglius, that its peculiarity 
 lay only in its signal fitness to affect the heart. It is only 
 therefore by his notion of an Absolute Decree, whereby he limits 
 its communication to the elect, that Calvin is able to lift this 
 ordinance to the level assigned to it by Scripture and Antiquity. 
 
 We may understand, then, what has been the result, when 
 the natural repulsiveness of the dogma of an Absolute Decree 
 has led Calvin's followers to drop it from their system. The 
 necessary effect has been, that their belief respecting the Holy 
 
so THE BLESSING CONVEYED 
 
 Eucharist has settled down unconsciously to the level of 
 Zuinglianism. And hence have arisen those consequences — a 
 total irreverence as regards this sacrament, and a practical 
 disbelief in the pennanent action of Our Lord's Humanity — 
 which have been shown to be the result of the latter system. 
 Nor has this process been confined to those countries in which 
 Calvin's system professedly bore sway. It would be idle to 
 deny that his theory on the sacraments has exercised a large 
 influence upon our own writers. It could liardly be otherwise, 
 considering that his Institutes were a Text-book for nearly 
 a century ; and considering the attractions of a system which 
 promised a security against the abuses of a carnal intei-pretation, 
 without detracting from that mysterious reverence with which 
 this sacrament had always been regarded. Hence, many of his 
 expressions passed unconsciously into the circulation of the 
 English Church. The notion that the elements are mere seals 
 or title-deeds, and not the instruments through which Christ's 
 Presence is dispensed — that is, that they are pledges only of an 
 absent, and not media of a present gift — was adopted, in igno- 
 rance that this theory was inconsistent with that principle of 
 consecration which still retained its place in our formularies ; 
 and that to be a substitute for a belief in consecration had been 
 the very purpose of its inti'oduction. 
 
 The consequences of the system developed themselves in time 
 in England, as they had done in those countries where Calvinism 
 was formally established. No sooner did the dogma of an 
 Absolute Decree sink, through its inherent unpojiularity, than 
 Zuiuglius was found to have entered through the door which 
 had been opened by Calvin. We may see this by comparing 
 two such great writers as Hooker and Waterland. It must 
 not be forgotten, of course, that each had derived the larger 
 part of his opinions from the teaching of antiquity.' and that, 
 unlike Calvin, they were members of a Church which retained 
 
 * When these, therefore, or othei modem writers, are quoted in the 
 present work, the author does not intend to assert that he agrees with 
 them entirely : his agreement with them is limited by their agreement 
 with the Primitive Church. 
 
T*HROUGH THE ELEMENTS. 31 
 
 the ministerial succession, and the rite of consecration. It is to 
 those expressions, therefore, which imply them to have been 
 infected by the influence of foreign Protestantism, that the 
 present comparison is confined. Such statements as that Our 
 Lord's Presence is to be looked for in the receiver, and not in 
 the sacrament ; and that the gift bestowed is bestowed through 
 the ordinance, and not through the elements, are essential parts 
 of those very theories which were invented as substitutes for 
 the reality of consecration. Now, the contrast between these 
 two writers depends upon the consideration, that the one lived 
 in the sixteenth, the other in the eighteenth century ; • the 
 first, therefore, while the doctrine of Absolute Decrees was 
 still predominant, the second when it was completely abandoned. 
 A¥e should expect, therefore, that Hooker would take a far 
 higher view of the gift bestowed in this sacrament than "Water- 
 land : and that the two would illustrate the diversity between 
 the Calvinistic and Zuinglian theories. And such is found to 
 be the case. AVith Hooker, the efficacy of the Holy Eucharist 
 is built entirely upon its relation to the Humanity of Christ ; 
 his statements respecting Our Loi'd's Manhood are more full 
 and weighty than those of any of our writers ; and he does 
 ample justice to its present effect upon this sacrament. In 
 "Waterland's time, on the contrary, belief in the efficacy of the 
 Holy Eucharist had gone down entirely to the level of Zuin- 
 glianism. He thinks it sufficient if he can maintain against 
 the Socinians, that the inward part in this sacrament is the 
 communication of some spiritual grace. The peculiar efficacy 
 of Our Lord's Humanity, and the signal medium of its influence 
 which is supplied by the Holy Eucharist, are altogether lost. 
 He censures Calvin for having attempted the vindication of this 
 mysterious truth ; not perceiving that it was this very circum- 
 stance which had enabled Calvin to do some justice to the 
 teaching of Antiquity and to the declai'ations of Holy Writ. 
 
 But we must now pass to another subject, and show what 
 positive proofs can be adduced, that the gift bestowed in the 
 Holy Eucharist is bestowed through the elements. 
 
82 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH TO THE EFFECT OF 
 CONSECEATION. 
 
 CoNSECBATiON has been affirmed to be the essential characteristic 
 of the Holy Eucharist ; and from this fact it has been inferred 
 that the gift bestowed in that ordinance is bestowed through 
 the elements. Such is the statement which has been shown to 
 have been implied in Our Lord's words of Institution. We 
 have seen what objections attach to the two systems of Zuinglius 
 and Calvin, by which this truth is opposed. AVe must now 
 see the direct evidence which is borne by the ancient Church 
 in its favour. The Church's testimony will complete the proof, 
 that we have given a right interpretation to the first of Our 
 Lord's words of Institution, that the subject of which He spoke 
 is such as has been represented. 
 
 The evidence of the Ancient Church may be most conveniently 
 divided into three parts. 
 
 I. The ancient Liturgies turn upon three main points — 
 Consecration, Oblation. Communion. All these acts make that 
 which is done to and through the elements the prominent con- 
 sideration ; and contemplate them as the medium through which 
 the blessing is communicated. 
 
 II. There are distinct statements in the ancient writers, that 
 the elements themselves are subjected to a change in consecra- 
 tion, on which their efficacy is dependent. 
 
 III. The conduct observed respecting the elements in the 
 early Church, implied them to be the medium through which 
 a gift is transmitted. 
 
 These subjects must be taken in their order. 
 
 I. The Liturgies. In considering this kind of evidence, it 
 
ANCIENT LITURGIES WITNESS TO CONSECRATION. 33 
 
 will be necessary to inquire, first, what is the antiquity of the 
 ancient Liturgies ; secondly, what is their number ; before we 
 come to the third question, what is it which they teach. One 
 preliminary statement however it is necessary to make ; that 
 in considering the Liturgies we shall have no occasion to 
 examine the authority of single expressions, because they are 
 here appealed to as witnesses to that general mode of action 
 which pervaded the primitive worship, rather than as supplying 
 a dogmatic interpretation of individual statements. The object 
 is to inquire what was that mode of consecrating the Eucharistic 
 Elements which prevailed throughout all parts of the ancient 
 Church, from Spain to the Euphrates, and from Gaul to Africa ; 
 and what the elements themselves were supposed to acquire by 
 consecration. 
 
 Little attention was given to this subject in the sixteenth 
 century, because the Liturgies were supposed to express nothing 
 but the existing opinions of the Church, and it was thought 
 impossible to discriminate their original constitution from the 
 accretions of later times. But subsequent inquiry, and the 
 discovery of new documents, have supplied such decisive tests 
 that it is now possible, first, to show conclusively what was that 
 Liturgical Order which existed during the Nicene age, and 
 secondly, to show by probable evidence what was the mode of 
 worship in the generation which immediately followed the 
 Apostles. These are the two points which must first be 
 demonstrated. 
 
 Now, by what means are we to ascertain the mode of worship 
 which existed in the Nicene age ; that is, during the latter part 
 of the fourth and the commencement of the fifth centuries? 
 The first inquiry must plainly be, what are the oldest docu- 
 ments which exhibit the service of the Ancient Church. Here 
 it must be admitted, that with the exception of some Palim- 
 psests, very recently made public, we have nothing which can 
 carry us up to the Nicene age. The earliest Liturgical docu- 
 ments previously known, belong to the end of the seventh 
 century. Such is the manuscript of the Liturgies of St. Basil 
 
 D 
 
34 ANCIENT LITURGIES 
 
 and St. Chrysostom, formerly in the Barberini ' Library at 
 Rome, which Montfaucon dates about a.d. 691.- Of nearly 
 equal date are the manuscripts from which the Gallic Liturgy 
 and the Gelasian recension of the Roman Liturgy were pub- 
 lished by Thomasius ; * the Leonian Sacramentary by Blanchi- 
 uius, and the Gregorian by IMuratori. These, together with n 
 Gallic Sacramentary of about the same age, from a monastery 
 at Bobbio,* which was printed by Mabillon, have all been 
 republished in the valuable work of Muratori.'' 
 
 A great step, however, has been lately made, by the discovery 
 of various Palimpsests, which profess to carry up our manuscript 
 authority to a much higher period. Bunsen has published one, 
 from the Library of St. Gall,'' which he dates a.d. 350, and 
 Mone has published a collection, which from their larger number 
 is of far greater value, from Palimpsests at Carlsruhe. The 
 new writing which had superseded them, was itself of the 
 beginning of the eighth century, and Mone would refer some 
 of the Liturgical documents which preceded them, and which 
 a chemical process has enabled him to detect, to the time of 
 St. Ireuaeus. That which seems not improbable, however, from 
 the allusions to persecution, and from other circumstances, is 
 that they were of the age of Diocletian.'' 
 
 It cannot be said, then, that these manuscripts (for the 
 
 ' Proemium to Goar's Euchologion. Bunsen has given a list of its con- 
 tents. — llijipdhjtns and his Times, iv. 382. 
 
 - Palmer's Uridines, i. 49. 
 
 ^ "Codices Sacramentorum nongentis annis vetustiores," Romae, 1680. 
 For the authenticity of these documents, vide Valniers Or'xj. Liturgicx, 
 i. 116, 143. Cuvts Hid. Littraria, i. 464. Morinus, by whom the larger 
 part of these appear to have been first noticed, when in the possession of 
 Petavius, a Senator of the Parliament of Paris, from whom they passed to 
 Queen Christina, supposed the Codex which contained the Missale Fran- 
 corum to have been written before the year 560. — I'a'iiitditiury App. 
 p. fi'l. The "Missale Vaticanum Vetus " was from the Vatican Library, 
 but of as old a date as the rest. — Muratori, ii. 515. 
 
 '' Muratori, ii. 767. 
 
 ' Liturgia Romana Vetus, edente L. A. Muratori. Venetiis, 1748. 
 
 '' Hippolytus and his Times, iv. 470. 
 
 " Messen aus dem zweiten bis sechsten Jahrhundert. Von F. J. Mone, 
 1850, vide pp. 10, 55. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECEATION. 35 
 
 Palimpsests are too recently discovered to have taken their 
 place as decisive authorities) can carry us back to the Nicene 
 age. They are important, as showing demonstrably what kind 
 of service was used a hundred years before the time of 
 Paschasius Radbert, and therefore before a carnal interpretation 
 is alleged to have been given to the doctrine of the Real 
 Presence. But if we would ascertain what was the mode of 
 worship in the Nicene age, we must discover what usages 
 were employed anterior to the composition of the oldest surviv- 
 ing manuscripts. Now this we are enabled to do, through those 
 divisions which followed the great Councils of 431 and 451. 
 The different bodies which then left the Catholic Church were so 
 completely separated from the orthodox, that no intercourse has 
 since existed between them. So that when there is an identity 
 between the Liturgies which ai'e still retained by the Catholics 
 and those which these bodies carried with them into their 
 separation, it will show what was that mode of worship which 
 was in use previous to the division. This species of inquiry 
 was suggested by Penaudot, and it enabled him to fix the text 
 of the two great Liturgies of St. James and St. Mark, which 
 form a basis for all the other Liturgies of the East. 
 
 The most important of early Liturgies is that which goes 
 by the name of St. James, because it was the Liturgy originally 
 employed in the Church of Jerusalem, and thence in other parts 
 of the ancient Patriarchate of Antioch. It is still read on 
 the festival of that Apostle at " Jerusalem, and in some of 
 the islands of the Archipelago ; " ^ and has been printed from 
 various early manuscripts.^ Moreover, it is referred to by vai-ious 
 writers, who lived within the Patriarchate of Antioch, in which 
 it was employed, such as St. Jerome, St. Chrysostom, Ephrem 
 Syrus, and St. Cyril of Jerusalem. The last, in particular, gives 
 a description of it in his Mystagogical Catechisms, by which 
 alone it might be sufficiently identified. It seems to have been 
 imitated also by the writer of the Apostolical Constitutions, 
 
 ^ Neale's History of the Eastern Cliurch, i. 318. 
 ^ Palmer's Origines Liturgicse, i. 21. 
 
 D 2 
 
86 ANCIENT LITURGIES 
 
 who lived in that part of the world about the Nicene age, 
 and who borrowed what he called the Clementine Liturgy from 
 the usages of the Church. This work, however, being only that 
 of a literary individual, is not of the same imjoortance ' as any 
 of the public Liturgies, sujiposing their form to be ascertainable. 
 And we can determine what was the form of St. James's 
 Liturgy, as it was used during the Nicene age, because its 
 basis'^ turns out to be identical with that of the Syriac 
 Liturgy,^ which goes by the same name, and which has been 
 preserved among the Monophysites, or Syrian Jacobites, who 
 have held no kind of communion with the Catholics since they 
 separated at the time of the Council of Chalcedon, a.d. 451. 
 And this Syriac Liturgy is the parent of thirty-nine others, 
 which are preserved among the Jacobites, and in wliich its 
 features are more or less repeated. Thus then we can determine 
 what was used as the Liturgy of St. James during the Nicene 
 age, because it is preserved for us among the Liturgical offices of 
 two parties, whom the strongest mutual hostility has prevented 
 from acting in concert during fourteen centuries. 
 
 A similar mode of argument enabled Eenaudot to determine 
 what was the ancient Liturgy of St. Mark, or that which was 
 employed in the Church of Alexandria. A Liturgy, purporting 
 to be that of " the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark," and 
 proved to be of Egyptian origin, by the prayers which it 
 contains for the rising of the Nile, has been printed from a 
 
 ' Tlie Chevalier Bunsen (nippoli/fiis and his A{je, vol. iv. p. 161) 
 attaches great importance to some Liturgical fragiuents, which were taken 
 by Liulolplius from an ^-Ethiopic version of the Apostolical Constitutions. 
 But besides the objections stated in the text, it is to be observed, first, 
 that the ^thiopic Church was not founded till the fourth century ; and, 
 secondly, that the manuscript from which Ludolphus's extracts were 
 taken (as lie himself says, " mendosissime et corruptissime ") was evi- 
 dently of late date. — Vide Ludolphi Commentarius ad Hist. JEthiopi- 
 carn, p. 304, &c. 
 
 '^ Vide I'almer's Orig. Litur. i. 24. 
 
 ^ The Liturgy of St. James is printed in "Neale's Tetralogia." The 
 Syriac Liturgy of St. James is translated by Kenaudot, ii. 29. (Paris, 
 1716.) 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECEATION. 37 
 
 manuscript^ of the tenth or eleventh century, discovered in 
 a Greek convent in Calabria. Now this Liturgy is found to tally 
 exactly with that which is at present used at festivals by the 
 Egyptian Monophysites, and which Renaudot translates from 
 the Coptic ; and the correspondence between them is found 
 to extend even to those slight questions of arrangement in 
 which different families of Liturgies differ from one another. 
 The Coptic service indeed bears the name of St. Cyril, whom 
 the Monophysites (though unjustly) were accustomed to claim 
 as authorizing their opinions ; but that it presents the form 
 in which the Alexandrian service was formerly solemnized, 
 is shown by its reproduction in the ^thiopic Canon,^ and its 
 nine derivative Liturgies. So that here again we can tell with 
 certainty what was the Liturgy which was used in Egypt before 
 the year 451 ; for the several parties by whom the documents 
 have been preserved have been separated, not only by religious 
 antipathy, but by difference of speech. 
 
 These two Liturgies then, of St. James and St. Mai-k, 
 form the basis of our inquiry, because their form can be 
 fixed in a positive manner. The Liturgy of St. James affords 
 the means by which we may ascertain the genuineness of 
 the ofiice attributed to St. Basil, which was introduced into 
 the Church of Csesarea about a.d. 370 or 380. For St. Basil's 
 Liturgy is a sort of recension of that of St. James, as the 
 Liturgy of St. Chrysostom again is of that of St. Basil. These 
 last are the two Liturgies at present used in the Orthodox 
 Greek Church ; St. Basil's on his own feast, and during the 
 greater part of Lent ; St. Chrysostom's during the rest of 
 the year. Their general authenticity is shown, not only by their 
 agreeing in arrangement with the Liturgy of St. James, from 
 which they are derived, but from the relation borne to them 
 by the Armenian Liturgy, which is historically connected with 
 that of St. Basil, and by the Nestorian, which has the same 
 
 ' Compare Renaudot, i. 40, 144, &c., and Palmer's Orig. i. 85. 
 " Renaudot, i. 496. Neale's History of the Eastern Church, i. 324. 
 Palmer, i. 97. 
 
38 ANCIENT LITURGIES 
 
 connexion with that of St. Chrysostom,' And besides these 
 general grounds of acceptance, Mr. Palmer ^ maintains that 
 their text may be determined by the ordinary proofs resorted to 
 in respect to other ancient documents. 
 
 There are two main families of Eastern Liturgies then, that 
 of Jerusalem, and that of Alexandria, and it is known what was 
 the exact form of each in the Nicene age. It is unnecessary to 
 exj ress an opinion respecting the assertion of Neale and 
 Renaudot, that the Nestorian Liturgy of St. Adseus and 
 St. Maris is to be added as a third family, and as the ancient 
 Liturgy of Mesopotamia.^ For even if its antiquity should be 
 admitted, its fragmentary form would render it of little 
 practical importance. AVe may turn, therefore, to the Western 
 Church, and observe that we can determine what was the 
 form of St. Peter's Liturgy, or that which was used in the 
 Church of Rome in the time of Leo the Great. For the 
 Sacramentary of St. Grregory is of unquestioned authority, 
 and two earlier recensions of the same Liturgy, copied from 
 manuscripts of the eighth century, are published by Muratori. 
 One of these is that which was originally printed from the 
 manuscript of Christina, by Thomasius, the other from a still 
 older manuscript at Verona, by Blanchiuius. The only preceding 
 Bishops of Rome, to whom these recensions of the Liturgy 
 can with any plausibility be attributed, are Gelasius and 
 St. Leo.* So that here again we are led to the year 451, as 
 a date at which the Liturgical practice of the Western Church 
 also can be ascertained. And this is confirmed by the resem- 
 blance which exists between the Leoniau Sacramentary and the 
 Ambrosian Liturgy employed at Milan.' So that we may add 
 
 ' Vide Renaudot Diss, de Lit. Orig. i. 34. Neale's History of the 
 Eastern Churcli, i. 3'20. 
 
 * Palmer's Origines, i. 66, 75. 
 
 ^ Neale's Hist, of tlie Eastern Chnrch, i. 320, 483. Renaudot, ii. 568, 
 599. Mr. Palmer maintains the contrary ; Orig. i. 195. 
 
 * Vide Palmer's Origines, i. 117, and Muratori, Dissert, de Rebus 
 Liturgicis, cap. iii. 
 
 ^ This is given, Muratori, Lit. Rom. Vetus, i. 131. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECEATION. 39 
 
 the Liturgy of Rome to that of Alexandria and Jerusalem, 
 as well as to those of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom, as affording 
 a positive basis from which to reason respecting the Liturgical 
 usage of the Church in the Nicene age. 
 
 The conclusions thus attained supply a key to the formularies 
 of two other Churches, those of France and of Spain ; respecting 
 which the evidence, when viewed in itself, is less decisive. 
 We know, indeed, that the ancient Liturgy of Gaul cannot 
 be referred to a later date than the eighth century, because the 
 Homan Liturgy was introduced in its stead in the time of 
 Charlemagne : and also that the Spanish Liturgy was in 
 existence as an independent rite before the Mahometan invasion, 
 A.D. 714. The last (called Mosarabic, from its employment while 
 Spain was under the Moors) was originally printed, though not 
 in a very correct form,^ by the celebrated Ximenes, A.D. 1500. 
 The ancient Liturgy of Gaul is preserved under various forms, 
 three of which were published originally by Thomasius, as the 
 Gothic, Francic, and Galilean Missals.^ These names indicate 
 the localities in which Liturgies, which bear them, were 
 severally employed. " The old Liturgy in the South of France 
 was called Gothic," says Mone,^ " because the West Goths 
 possessed the country for a long time, and gave it the name 
 
 ' " Lesleus Prsef. Miss. Mosarab. sec. vii. shows what portions of the 
 Mosarabic Liturgy and Missal were added in the time of Ximenes, and 
 during the Middle Ages." — Palmers Orig. Lit. i. 172. The Mosarabic 
 Liturgy occurs in Mr. Neale's Tetralogia, and a translation of it in his 
 Introduction to the History of the Eastern Church. 
 
 ^ It is a peculiarity of the Gallic and Spanish Liturgies, that the sub- 
 sidiary parts of the Service, which admit of variation, are repeated under 
 a great variety of forms, while those which are essential, and therefore 
 unvaried, are rarely written at leng-th, but are commonly referred to by 
 their headings, as though the Priest was designed to repeat them from 
 memory. In the Missale Gothicum, the Canon, or Order of Consecration, 
 as it is called, nowhere occurs at leng-th, though its separate jjarts are 
 referred to perpetually. But we may learn what the whole Canon was 
 both from the Missale Francorum, in which it occurs (No. xxiii.), and also 
 from an account of the Service by Germanus, Bishop of Paris, written 
 probably in the sixth century (Mabillon's Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum, 
 vol. V. p. 90). Both of them show the Gallic Liturgy to have agreed in all 
 essential points with the forms which prevailed in other countries. 
 
 ^ Mone's Messen, p. 1. 
 
40 ANCIENT LITURGIES 
 
 of Gotliia : the Liturgy of Central Gaul was called Gallic ; 
 that of its northern portion Fraucic, because used in the 
 time of the Francic ascendancy. But all these are Gallic 
 Liturgies. The title ' Gothic ' is not a correct one, because there 
 is nothing Gothic in the Liturgy ; it would more properly be 
 called Celtic, for the south and centre of Fz'ance were known, 
 even in the fifth century, by the names of Celtica and 
 
 Gallia The Mosarabic Liturgy, too, would be more 
 
 correctly designated as the Spanish." 
 
 It is a ground for attributing high antiquity both to the 
 Spanish and Gothic Liturgies, that they show no signs of having 
 been either influenced by the doctrinal ^ errors of the Arian 
 Goths, nor yet by those ritual arrangements which their 
 coiniexion with Constantinople ^ might have suggested. Hence it 
 is probable that these formularies must have been of earlier date 
 than the Gothic invasion at the beginning of the fifth century. 
 It has been seen how much higher antiquity Mone claims for the 
 Rituals which he jDublishes. So much can be said \' ith certainty, 
 that the early Liturgies of Gaul and Sj^ain may be discriminated 
 fi'om those of other countries, not only by their language,^ but 
 by various most mai'ked peculiarities of arrangement ; so that 
 their agreement in fundamentals with other ancient Liturgies, 
 the date of which can be jirecisely fixed, swells the amount 
 of their common authority. For it contributes to prove that the 
 " original forms from which all the Liturgies in the world have 
 been taken, resemble one another too much to have grown 
 up independently, and too little to have been copied from one 
 another." * 
 
 We have proof, then, what was the mode of worship in the 
 Nicene age. Even if the Palimpsests should not possess the full 
 antiquity assigned to them, yet historical evidence determines 
 what was the Liturgy by which St. Leo consecrated, and which 
 
 ' Mone's Messen, p. 2. 
 
 - Palmer's Uriyjines, vol. i. 170. Neale's Tetralogia, Pr;cf. p. xxvii. 
 ■'' On the Provincial Forms of Latin, vide Mone, p. 49. 
 * See the excellent paper on "The Antiquity of the Existinj^' Liturgies." 
 — Tracts fur (lie Tiineg, No. (53. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECEATION. 41 
 
 was commented upon by St. Cyril. And the accordance of the 
 Fathers of the Nicene age in such a ritual enables us to ascend 
 a step higher, and to ascribe it with great probability to the 
 Apostles themselves, or to their immediate successors. For how 
 came the Liturgies of various Churches to present that admixture 
 of vai'iety and accordance by which they are characterized ? 
 How came the Bishops of such distant countries, when they met 
 at the first great Christian assembly at Nice, to display such 
 unanimity in their modes of worship? "We know from history^ 
 that when they met on such public occasions, their custom was 
 to solemnize the sacred mysteries ; yet there is not an indication 
 that any of them exjoressed surprise or dissatisfaction at the 
 usage of their brethren. This could hardly have been the case 
 unless their services had been derived from a common origin. 
 Yet in whom can that origin be found, save in the Holy Apo- 
 stles, or in those their immediate successors, by whom the great 
 Churches of Christendom had been founded ? So that the union 
 of accordance and variety which is apparent in the Liturgies of 
 the Nicene age — accordance in all fundamental features ; variety 
 in minor details — enables us to determine what \\ ere the general 
 features of the Church's worship in the age which immediately 
 followed the AjDostles. 
 
 Secondly — So much for the antiquity of the ancient Liturgies : 
 the next question is their number. And this likewise is a point 
 of considerable importance. For it must be remembered that 
 (with the exception of a few baptismal offices) there exist no 
 traces of any other public formularies. A few prayers remain 
 as the composition of individuals, but the consecration of the 
 Holy Eucharist was the only thing (so far as we know) for which 
 the early Church thought it necessary to provide a formal ritual 
 by public authority. Hence we may infer the great weight which 
 it attached to this action. And it is not immaterial to observe 
 the variety of forms into which each Liturgical Type speedily 
 multiplied itself — a variety which, without being incompatible 
 
 ^ Vide Eusebius's account of the Council held on occasion of the Dedi- 
 cation of a Church at Jerusalem. — Life of Comtantine, iv. 45. 
 
42 ANCIENT LITURGIES 
 
 with their common origin, shows the amount of thought and 
 attention wliich they early received. For, first, we have the 
 Liturgy of Jerusalem, with its forty derivative Syriac forms, to- 
 gether with those of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom, which bear 
 a certain relation to it, and are themselves illustrated by the 
 Armenian and the three Nestorian Liturgies. Next, we have the 
 Liturgy of Alexandria, the authenticity of which is witnessed by 
 the three Coptic and the ten Ethiopic Liturgies. Then comes 
 that of Rome and its related Ambrosian Liturgy. Finally, we 
 have the Spanish Liturgy ; and the Gallic, published in four 
 shapes by Muratori and in another by ^lone. Thus we have 
 sixty-two Eastern, and at least eight "Western Liturgies. Indeed, 
 were the different forms under which the Gallic recensions occur 
 to be counted as different Liturgies, the number of the whole 
 would exceed one hundred. 
 
 Thirdly — Now this leads to the third subject of inquiry, what 
 is the conclusion to which these various Liturgies conduct. For 
 no doubt their number is a most material consideration in any 
 argument which is based upon their consent. It may be readily 
 admitted, not only that single expressions, but that important 
 usages and [ rayers, may have been subsequently introduced into 
 them. Thus we can refer the wide employment of the word 
 6/ioovo-iof to the first, that of 6(ot6kos to the third general 
 Council. In like manner we have an account of the introduction 
 of the Cherubic ^ hymn into the Church of Constantinople in the 
 time of Justin. But it is not possible, considering this vast 
 number of independent offices, that the same expressions should 
 have been accidentally introduced into all ; and still less that 
 they could all have agreed in attaching to the same usages that 
 peculiar importance which we see to have been assigned to them. 
 For that which is found to be the essential characteristic of all 
 ancient Lituigies — the very purpose, which not only speaks in 
 their individual expressions, but gives shape and consistency to 
 their whole arrangements — is, that they represent a certain trans- 
 action, a certain course of events, of which the crisis and con- 
 ' Vide Gear's Eucliologion, p. 131, and Palmer's Origin, i. 21. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECRATION. 43 
 
 summation is that which is done in respect to the sacred elements 
 themselves, with a view of giving to them their character and 
 importance. 
 
 "VVe have every variety, therefore, in the initiatory parts of the 
 service, but as soon as we come to the repetition of the words of 
 Institution, we find the most striking sameness of expression. 
 The multiplied introductions of the Spanish and Gallic forms fall 
 back into the appointed canon or order, so soon as the solemn 
 words recur, " who in the same night in which He suffered " [Qui 
 pridie quam pateretur, &c.]. Throughout all Churches founded 
 by the Apostles, the exact repetition of those words which Our 
 Lord had originally uttered were supposed essential to the con- 
 secration of the Eucharist. In all Liturgies, with the smallest 
 possible exception, they are found to be identical. This proceeds 
 upon the principle which is explained in the Liturgy of St. 
 Chrysostom, that the real minister in the consecration of the Holy 
 Eucharist is Christ Himself \ The victim is identical with the 
 priest. " Thou art the thing offered and the offerer." ^ Such is 
 
 ' Considering the general character of Luther's doctrine, it might have 
 been expected that he would have admitted the reality of consecration, 
 and probably he would have done so, if to recognize the priestly com- 
 mission had not been its necessary result. The high Lutheran party, 
 who drew up the Formula Concordite in 1580, ordered the repetition of 
 Our Lord's words of consecration, "ut elementa panis et vini ad hunc 
 sacrum usum .... sanctificentur seu benedicantur." — Art. 7, p. 749. 
 The effect of the omission may be seen in the gradual dying out of high 
 views respecting the Holy Eucharist among the Lutherans. But that 
 Luther's own feelings on this subject harmonized with the ancient system, 
 was shovra when he was brought into collision with Zuinglius in the con- 
 ference at Marburg. " He did not teach, he said, that men by their word 
 could bring Christ's Body into the bread. Verba non nostra, sed Christi 
 sunt: Facite, &c. Per hoc verbum facit, ut manus sacerdotis sit manus 
 Christi. Os non est meum, lingua non est mea, sed Christi, though I be 
 knave or cheat." — Collin in Ilospiiiian, pt. ii. p. 124, as cited by Ebrard, 
 vol. ii. p. 322. Ebrard would understand the last words, "ich sey ein 
 bub oder schalk," as though Luther meant "'otherwise I am a knave." 
 But they have surely a similar force to the statement in our 26th Article. 
 The consecration is effectual, because wrought by Christ, though the mi- 
 nister may be an unbeliever. Luther repeats the same statement, Hos- 
 pinian, vol. ii. p. 127 : " Wenn die wort iiber das Brot gesprochen werden, 
 so ist der leib da, wie boss der sey der sie spricht." 
 
 2 " ai) yap (t 6 irpoafpfpcuv Hal npoa(pfp6ixtvos." — Goar, p. 72. 
 
44 ANCIENT LITURGIES 
 
 the doctrine which is written no less clearly in the whole ritual, 
 than in the individual expressions of the ancient writers. For 
 why this scrupulous care to repeat ^ the exact words of Our Lord, 
 unless some peculiar effect was dependent upon the action V It 
 
 proceeds upon the notion, which St. Paul authorizes, tha t the 
 
 Holy Eucharist is a perp etuation of Our Lord's Passion, wherein 
 that great event, on which the salvation of mankind wholly de- 
 pends, is continually pleaded before God. " As often as ye eat 
 this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till 
 He come." 
 
 Now this crowning mystery of the Gospel was commenced by 
 Our Lord Himself, when He gave Himself, as their spiritual 
 sustenance, to His Apostles. His words, if taken literally, imply 
 that the oblation which He had assumed our nature to present, . 
 was already commenced. " This is My Body, which is given for ^ 
 you." " This cup is the New Testament in My Blood, which is 
 shed for you." And if from the literal force of the words them- 
 selves we turn to the Church's comprehension of them, we find 
 that it afiii'med both that Christ on that occasion ^ instituted the 
 Priesthood of Melchisedec, and that He then bestowed Himself 
 as the sustenance of His brethren. " Who is carried," says St. 
 Austin, " in His own hands '? Li the hands of others a man 
 can be carried, but not in his own. How this could be under- 
 stood literally of David we do not find : but how it can be under- 
 stood of Christ we do find. For Christ was carried in His own 
 hands, when commending His own body He Siiid, this is My 
 Body. For He bore that body in His own hands." ^ The holy 
 words of Our Lord then had begun that work which was to b e 
 accomplished by the unholy hands of others. It was_co mmence d 
 in the u|>|ii.r eliaiulici', but consummated on the cross. Audthat 
 
 ' li(-iif(', in llio J'.nglish cauon, as Renaudot observes, the words of In- 
 stitution are ordered to be repeated, if the consecrated elements are found 
 not to be sufficient for the coinmuuicants.— DiV.ser/. vol. i. p. xiii. 
 
 ^ "Christus .... obtulit hoc idem, quod Melchisedech obtulerat, id est 
 panem et vinum, suum scilicet corpus et sanguiuem." And he goes on to 
 say, "Christum otferre oportebat circa vesperam diei," &c. — Cyprian 
 E},id. 03. 4, 10, pp. 101, 1U4. (Paris, 1060.) 
 
 ^ In Fsalmum x.vsiii. Enarratio, i. sec. 10. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECEATION. 45 
 
 which O ur Lord bega n_tcL4g hy His own_word3 when He was » 
 upon earth, He still continues to do, through the ministry of 
 His~servants, now that He has ascended into heaven. The 
 commission given to His Apostles was to represent Himself. 
 This commission they delivered to their successors, the bishops 
 throughout the world. From them have all priests received like 
 authority. So that the action which they severally perform is 
 not their own action, but the perpetuation of that priesthood of 
 Melchisedec, which their Great Head was pleased to undertake. 
 This is well expressed by an Eastern writer quoted by Renaudot : 
 " The priest says the same words which Our Lord spoke in the 
 Upper Chamber when He framed that mystery ; that it might 
 be known that it is Christ Himself who through the Father's 
 will, and the operation of the Holy Ghost, sanctifies the offering 
 which is placed upon the altar. Christ does so through the 
 agency of the priest who pronounces the words. For not he 
 who ministers, but He who is invoked, is Himself the conse- 
 crator." ^ 
 
 To this principle, then, the ancient Church bore witness, not 
 only by its words, but still more by its actions. The care with 
 which the words of consecration were repeated, implied a belief 
 that they were essential to the validity of some great action. 
 And if so, it must have been this action itself, and that with 
 which it was conversant, on which the value of the ordinance 
 depended. Its importance must have rested, not merely on a 
 consideration of the Giver or receiver, but likewise on the worth 
 of the thing received. The gift conferred in and through the 
 elements themselves must have been the thing regarded. No- 
 thing renders this more apparent than a comparison of the 
 ancient forms with any of those which were introduced under 
 the influence of Zuinglius or Calvin. In the ancient Liturgies 
 the words of consecration were quoted literally, and not in the 
 way of narration : they were made part of a prayer, and the 
 people were enjoined to answer. Amen. But in the Calvinistic 
 formularies this prayer is changed into a sermon ; and instead of 
 ^ Dionysius Barsalibi in Eenaudot, vol. ii. p. 84. 
 
46 ANCIENT LITURGIES 
 
 a mystical action addressed to God, we have a narration for the 
 instruction of tlie congregation. Thus in the service employed 
 in the Palatinate,' after a discourse on the subject of the Holy 
 Eucharist, in which the hearers are informed what Our Lord 
 said and did at tlie Paschal Sujiper, the minister is directed to 
 conclude, " From this institution of the Holy Supper of Our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, we see that He directs our belief and confi- 
 dence to His perfect offering once made on the cross," &c. 
 
 Here is an example of that which Eljrard affirms to be true of 
 all Protestant formularies, that " the consecration has only a de- 
 claratory, and no ojierative meaning." ^ And the belief of the 
 ancient Church, namely, that the Avords of consecration were effec- 
 tive and not exegetical, is rendered more striking by the contrast. 
 They were not lecited to the people for their information, but 
 pleaded before God for the attainment of the promise. The 
 people were not to listen to them only because they were words 
 of instruction ; but to say Amen to them, because they were 
 words of power. So that here lies the wide difference between 
 the systems which we have been comparing. According to the 
 modern notion, nothing was really transacted in the Holy 
 Eucharist, but the people were taught what God might please 
 to do through some other channel, or what they might attain 
 through their own faith. The benefit of the ordinance was sup- 
 posed to turn on considerations drawn either from the Giver or 
 the receiver, not from the thing itself. But because the ancient 
 Church believed that a gift was bestowed in the Holy Eucharist 
 itself, therefore those acts, on which the conseci'atiou was depen- 
 dent, received the whole weight of its attention. 
 
 It was stated that all ancient Liturgies, with the very smallest 
 exception, repeat the precise words of consecration, supposing 
 that their exact repetition is essential, because they are effective 
 and not merely declaratory. Tlie only exception would seem to 
 
 ' This 18 taken from the " Clmr-Pfalzidie Kirchen-Onlnung in anno 
 IGll puLlicirt." Vide Samuilung Evaugelisch-Lutlierisch und Refor- 
 mirter Kirchen-Ordnuiigeu. — ZidUihm, 1738, vol. ii. p. y2b. 
 
 ^ Dogma vom H. Abeudmahl, sec. xliv. vol. ii. p. ~i\ii. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECKATION. 47 
 
 be found in some copies of certain Syriac Monopliysite Liturgies. 
 It can hardly be supposed, as Renaudot ^ conceives, that the 
 omission which is observable in these Liturgies has arisen from 
 negligence, or because those well-known words whfch were 
 always employed were repeated from memory, inasmuch as the 
 Institution appears to be really narrated, but in an imperfect and 
 abbreviated " form. Of the three Liturgies to which this remark 
 applies, that of Xystus, the second of St. Peter, and that of 
 Barsalibi,^ the two first are given by Kenaudot from other 
 authorities, in a more perfect * form ; that of Barsalibi ^ he seems 
 to have found incurable. But however singular and censurable 
 may be these deviations from the usual rule, they rest upon a 
 principle which tends to coi'roborate the present argument. For 
 it can scarcely be doubted that the peculiarity which distinguishes 
 these few (and comparatively modern) Monophysite Liturgies, 
 results from the great stress which they lay on another part of 
 the liturgic office, the invocation of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 This rite is made so prominent in the Syrian Liturgies, that 
 they have been supposed " to imjoly that it is the sole principle 
 of consecration, independently of the repetition of the words of 
 Institution. It will be shown in the tenth ' chapter that the 
 
 ^ Eenaudot, vol. ii. pp. 83, 84. 
 
 ^ This is the distinction between tliese Liturgies and that of St. Adaeus 
 and St. Maris {Eenaudot, ii. 593) ; in which the words of Institution are 
 altogether omitted. Renaudot supposed this to arise from a defect in the 
 ancient manuscript from which he printed. Mr. Neale refers to another 
 manuscript in the British Museum. {Neale s Hist, of Eastern Church, i. 
 483.) But this is not only of very modern date, but it contains a mark, 
 implying that the words of consecration should be supplied verbally. 
 A more important jDoint which he mentions, is that the INestorians were 
 charged with the omission. {Ih. p. 485.) Yet if this omission had ex- 
 isted anciently in the Liturgy of St. Adaeus, how could the words of In- 
 stitution appear in the two later Nestorian Liturgies, those of Theodore 
 and of Nestorius ? For the doctrinal peculiarities of the Nestorians would 
 account for the omission of these words in the one case, but not for their 
 insertion in the other ; since the tendency of their heresy was to diminish 
 the reverence felt towards Our Lord's Human body. 
 
 3 Renaudot, ii. p. 82. * Vol. ii. p. 135, and p. 156. 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 450. 
 
 •> By Richard Simon, in his notes to the "Itinerarium Montis Libani." 
 — Vide Eenaudot, vol. ii. p. 83. 
 
48 ANCIENT LITURGIES 
 
 invocation of the Holy Ghost is not incompatible with the 
 ancient view of the importance of the words of Institution : but 
 it is sufficient to say that the weiglit attached to the elements 
 themselves, and consequently the reality of the gift which is 
 bestowed in them, is more clearly brought out by this part of 
 the form of consecration than even by the other. For the Invo- 
 cation of the Holy Ghost, which occurs in express terms in all 
 ancient Liturgies except the Roman, particularizes commonly the 
 elements themselves as the object for which it asks a blessing, 
 and in numerous cases specifies the change of the elements as 
 the especial blessing solicited. Thus, in the Liturgy of St. 
 Chrysostom we read, "Send down Thy Holy Ghost upon us, and 
 on these piepared gifts, . . . and make this bread the precious 
 Body of Thy Christ, . . . and that which is in this cup the pre- 
 cious Blood of Thy Christ, . . . changing them by Thy Holy 
 Ghost." In like manner the Armenian Liturgy : " We beseech 
 Thee, good God, that Thou wouldest send down upon us, and 
 upon the offering which is before us, Thy Holy consubstantial 
 Spirit. Bless this bread, so as to make it the Body of Our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Bless that which is in this 
 cup, so as to make it truly the Blood of Our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. Bless this bread and wine, so as to make them 
 truly the Body and Blood of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ, changing them by Thy Holy Ghost." ^ 
 
 The most ancient of all Liturgies, that of St. James, prays in 
 like manner : " Send upon us, and upon these proposed gifts, 
 Thy most Holy Ghost, . . . that coming upon them with His holy, 
 and good, and glorious presence, He may hallow and may make 
 this bread the holy Body of Thy Christ, and this cup the precious 
 Blood of Thy Christ." "^ Just similar is the language of the Gallic 
 Liturgies: "We pray Thee, Omnipotent Father, that Thou 
 wouldest pour the Spirit of sanctification upon these elements, 
 placed upon Thy altar, that by the transfusion of the celestial 
 and invisible sacrament, this bread may be changed into flesh, 
 
 ^ Neale's Hist, of Eastern Church, vol. i. p. 578. 
 * Neale, p. 575. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECRATION. 49 
 
 and this cup translated into blood, that it may be wholly grace, 
 and may be a medicine to those who receive it." ^ Now all these 
 passages refer to the elements themselves, as the especial object 
 of the Spirit's influence, and therefore contemplate the gift 
 actually bestowed as the thing of value in the transaction. 
 Here, again, the full force of the ancient expressions will be best 
 appreciated by comparing them with those of the Calvinistic 
 school. The following passage in the Kirclien-Ordnung of the 
 Palatinate appears to be designed to correspond with the prayer 
 for the descent of the Holy Ghost in the ancient Liturgies. 
 
 " In order that we now, beloved in the Lord, may be fed by 
 Christ with the true bread from heaven, let us not fix our hearts 
 on the outward bread and wine, but raise up our hearts and faith 
 above themselves to the heaven where Christ Jesus is an inter- 
 cessor at the right hand of His heavenly Father ; there let us 
 exhibit for ourselves the articles of our Christian faith, and not 
 doubt that as truly as we receive the holy bread and drink in 
 His remembrance. He will feed our souls through the working 
 of the Holy Ghost with His Body, and make them drink of His 
 Blood." ^ 
 
 Here then we see the exact contrast between the ancient and 
 modern services. The first suppose Christ to descend through 
 the agency of His Spirit upon earth : the last suppose men to 
 ascend through the action of their spirits into heaven. In the 
 first, Christ is suj^posed to bestow an actual gift, which men may 
 either accept or reject, and which is equally bestowed upon all. 
 According to the last, no gift at all is bestowed through the 
 ordinance itself; it is only an emblem of the general good- will 
 of the great Spiritual Being. 
 
 Thus the Strasburg Kirchen-Ordnung, a.d. 1598 (p. 167), 
 after the words of Institution have been read to the people, 
 proceeds : " This is our Hedeemer's and Saviour's own word, 
 which will fitly be believed by us, whom He has now thought 
 worthy and sanctified, so as to be able to come to Him with 
 fruit." Here are both parts of the Calvinistic system — the 
 
 ^ Mone's Messen, p. 21. 
 
 ^ Sammlung Kirchen-Ordnungen, vol, ii. p. 930. 
 
 £ 
 
50 ANCIENT UTIITERS 
 
 Holy Eucharist is not supposed to communicate a gift, but to 
 bear witness to the general purpose of the Supreme Being : 
 a purpose which, according to Calvin, is founded upon the 
 arbitrary appointment by which His favouiites have previously 
 been selected. But the ancient Church supposed a positive 
 gift to be bestowed tlirough the consecrated elements — a gift 
 by which all receivers might profit, though its benefit would be 
 lost by those who received it unworthily. It supposed this gift 
 to possess a value irrespective of the receiver, and which, there- 
 fore, was alike to all. And it showed its belief in the reality 
 of this gift, as well by affirming that the right to consecrate 
 was a specific trust, committed by Our Lord to His appointed 
 representatives, as by that solemn ritual which it was wont to 
 employ in the service of consecration. 
 
 II. So much respecting the ancient Liturgies, and the proofs 
 which they afford that the gift bestowed in the Holy Eucharist 
 is bestowed through the elements. We now come to the next 
 head of arguments — the direct statements of ancient writers, that 
 the efficacy of the Holy Eucharist depends upon th e chan ge 
 which consecration eff'ects in the elements. From \\ hich it would 
 seem to be a~necessary inference, that^t is through the elements 
 themselves that the benefit conveyed in this ordinance is com- 
 municated. 
 
 The language of ancient writers on this subject is less uniformly 
 explicit seemingly than it would be, because their habitual 
 unwillingness to expose sacred subjects to the profaneness of 
 the heathen restricted the express mention of that to which they 
 allude. Hence the continual recurrence of such expressions as 
 those used by St. Augustin ' and St. Chrysostom — " the faithful 
 will know what I mean," " the initiated will comprehend what 
 is intended" — when they have occasion to refer to the Holy 
 Eucharist. Expressions of this kind are found in Origen," whose 
 Homilies are the earliest which have been preserved. There 
 
 ' "Neaciunt Catechumeni quid accipiant Christiani." — In Joan. Trac. 
 xi. 4. 
 
 * Vide Horn, in Levit. ix. 10 ; vol. ii. p. 2^4, and xiii. 3, p. 255. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECRATION. 51 
 
 were four writers however in the early Church, who were led 
 into further detail, by the circumstance of their addressing 
 Catechetical Lectures to those who were recently baptized. In 
 this case those grounds for reserve did not exist which inter- 
 fered with the freedom ^ of more public addresses. In the Cate- 
 chetical Lectures, therefore, of St. Ambrose, St. Cyril, St. Gre- 
 gory Nyssen, and St. Gaudentius, we find express statements of 
 the change which consecration was supposed to make in the Holy 
 Elements. So forcible are their expressions, that it is necessary y/ 
 to add, by way of caution, that they must not be supposed to 
 have admitted any carnal presence of Christ, i. e. any such 
 jjresence as that He could be an object to the senses. 
 
 Let us begin with St. Ambrose, who in his lectures, " De 
 Mysteriisj" professes to explain those things to the baptized,^ 
 A\ Inch before baptism it would have been a profanation to have 
 disclosed to them. Now such a mode of speaking is wholly 
 inconsistent with that view of things which would strip the Holy 
 Eucharist of its mystery. It would have been strange language 
 to have been adopted needlessly by the Fathers, since they had 
 to justify themselves against the charge of Thyestian banquets 
 on the flesh of children — a charge which this reserve on their 
 part had a tendency to encourage. St;_AmbrQse, then, after 
 speaking of the regenerating force of Baptism, goes on to atfirm 
 that in the Holy Eucharist is vouchsafed the real presence of 
 Christ's Body and Blood. 
 
 " You may perhaps say, That which I see is something 
 different : how do you prove to me that I receive the Body of 
 
 ^ The reality of this feeling is shown by the caution prefixed to St. 
 Cyril's Lectures. "These Catechetical Lectures thou mayest put into 
 the hands of candidates for baptism, and of baptized believers, but by 
 no means of Catechumens, nor of any others, who are not Christians ; as 
 thou shalt answer to the Lord." — Oxford Traiisl. p. 9. Of course the 
 full Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist is to be found in such works as the 
 Homilies which St. Chrysostom addressed to Christians. 
 
 - "Nunc de mysteriis dicere tempus admonet, atque ipsam sacramen- 
 torum rationem edere : quam ante baptismum si putassemus insinuandam 
 nondum initiatis, prodidisse, potius quam edidisse sestimaremur." — lit 
 Mysteriis, i. 2. 
 
S2 ANCIENT WRITERS 
 
 Christ? This is wliat it remains for me to prove. "What 
 examples, therefore, am I to use ? Let me prove that this 
 is not that which nature has made it, but tliat which the 
 benediction has consecrated it to be : and that the force of the 
 benediction is greater than that of nature, because by the bene- 
 diction nature herself is changed." ' 
 
 And then, after citing various instances from the Old Testament, 
 in which an external element had been made the means of con- 
 ferring an inward gift, and of the influence exercised by the one 
 upon the other, ending with the mystery of the Incarnation, he 
 concludes : 
 
 " Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself proclaims, this is My Body. 
 Before the sacred words of benediction another species is named, 
 after consecration the Body is implied. He Himself speaks of 
 His Blood. Before consecration it is spoken of as another thing. 
 After consecration it is named Blood. And you " {i. e. the 
 receiver) " say Amen — that is, it is true. What 3-our mouth 
 expresses, let your inner mind confess — feel what you say." ^ 
 
 The Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem continue, as in ancient 
 days, to be regarded by the Eastern Church as a text-book for 
 the instruction of the young. In his third Mystagogical Cate- 
 chism he says : 
 
 " The bread in the Eucharist, after the invocation of the Holy 
 Grhost, is mere bread no longer, but the Body of Christ." ^ 
 
 ' De Mysteriis, ix. 50. 
 
 * " Ante benedictionein verbonim ccelestium alia species nominatur, 
 post consecrationem corpus significatur." "Ante consecrationem aliud 
 dicitur, post consecrationem sanguis nuncupatur." — De ]\li/>'lerils, ix. 5-1. 
 There is a passage in the " De .Sacranientis," iv. 5, 23, which expresses 
 the same truth in still more concise words. But it is not quoted in the 
 text, because though admitted to be of great antiquity, it has been dis- 
 puted whether this treatise is by St. Ambro.^e : "Antequam conseeretur, 
 panis est: ubi autem verba C'hristi accesserint, corpus est C'hristi." With 
 this may be compared the words of St. CiL'sarius of Aries ; " (Juando bene- 
 dicendae verbis ciclestibus creatura; sacris altaribus imponuntur, antequam 
 invocatione sancti nominis consecrentur, substantia illic est panis et vini ; 
 post verba autem Christi corpus et sanguis Christi. Quid autem niirum 
 est, si ea, qu;o verbo potuit creare, possit verbo creata convertere?" — 
 Ilovnlid vii. De I'asrhate. liih. Pat. viii. p. 820. 
 
 * Oxford Translation, p. 268. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECEATION. 53 
 
 And in the fourth : 
 
 "Contemplate therefore the bread and wine not as bare elements, 
 for they are, according to the Lord's declaration, the Body and 
 Blood of Christ ; for though sense suggests this to thee, let faith 
 stablish thee. Judge not the matter from taste, but from faith 
 be fully assured without misgiving, that thou hast been vouch- 
 safed the Body and Blood of Christ. " ^ 
 
 Therefore he tells persons to be 
 
 " Fully persuaded, that what seems bread is not bread, 
 though bread by taste, but the body of Christ ; and that 
 what seems wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, 
 but the Blood of Christ." ^ 
 
 St. Gregory Nyssen, in his Catechetical Discourse, speaks of the 
 Human Body of Our Lord as exalted by Personal union with 
 Deity, and brings this forward as illustrative of the change 
 which befalls the sacred elements : 
 
 " With reason therefore do we believe that the bread, which 
 is now sanctified by the Avord of God, is transformed into the 
 Body of God the Word. For that " (natural) " Body " (of Our 
 Lord's) " was in effect bread " [i. e. as he has explained before, 
 bread had been the food by which it had been nourished]. " But 
 it was sanctified by the indwelling of the Word, which tabernacled 
 in our flesh." 
 
 This process, then, he compares with the Holy Eucharist : 
 
 " For there too the bread, as the Apostle says, is sanctified 
 by the word of God, and by prayer, so that it does not pass into 
 the Body of the Word by the process of eating and drinking, 
 but is transformed at once into Body by a word, as the Word 
 expressed it, saying, ' This is My Body.' ' ^ 
 
 In this manner, he says, 
 
 " Humanity is made partaker of the Divine Nature through 
 communion with Deity." 
 
 And he sums up with the statement, that God 
 
 " Bestows these gifts, by changing the nature of the apparent 
 
 ' Oxford Translation, p. 271. - Oxford Translation, p. 272. 
 
 3 8. Greg. Nyss. Cat. Orat. 39, vol. iii. p. 104. The true text of this 
 passage, as cited by Theorian, is given, Maio, Nova CoUectio, vi. '670. 
 
54 ANCIENT USAGES 
 
 elements into that " [i. e. the immortal] " by the power of the 
 benediction." ' 
 
 St. Gaudentius, Bishop of Brescia, speaks no less distinctly 
 than his metropolitan, St. Ambrose : 
 
 " The Creator and Lord of Nature, who produces bread from 
 the earth, of bread again (because it is within His power, and 
 His promise) makes His own body : and He who made wine 
 of water, of wine makes His blood." '^ 
 
 And again : 
 
 " The hereditaiy gift of the New Testament, is that sacrifice 
 which on the night that He was betrayed to be crucified He 
 left as the pledge of His presence. This is that viaticum for 
 our way, by which we are nourished in this journey of life, 
 until departing from this world we come to Him ; by reason 
 of which the same Lord said, ' Unless ye eat My flesh, and 
 drink My blood, ye have no life in you.' For He wished that 
 His benefits should continue among us ; He wished that through 
 the image of His own Passion our souls should be always 
 sanctified by His precious blood. He orders, therefore, His 
 faithful disciples, whom He appointed also the fii-st priests 
 of His Church, to solemnize perpetually those mysteries of 
 eternal life, which it is necessary that all priests, through- 
 out every Church of the Avhole world, should celebrate till 
 Christ comes again from heaven. This was done, that we, 
 the priests, and the whole body of the faithful, having the 
 representation of Christ's Passion daily before our eyes, 
 carrying it in our hands, and receiving it in our mouths, 
 and bosoms, might be jwssessed with an indelible memo- 
 rial of our redemption, and might obtain a sweet medicine 
 and perpetual defence against the venom of the devil. As 
 the Holy Spirit exhorts, ' taste and see how sweet the 
 Lord is.' " ' 
 
 III. These passages, from four distinguished bishops of the 
 
 ' " Tavra S( SiScuct t^ t^j (vKoyiai Swiftd, irpus (Ktivo fi(Ta(TTOi\(iwaas 
 rujv (jyatvofifvojv ttjv (pvaiv." — Id. p. 105. 
 
 * "Ipse naturarum Creator et dominus, qui producit de temi panem, 
 de pane riirsus (quia et potest et promisit), etHcit proprium corpus : et qui 
 de aqua vinum fecit, et de vino Siinguiuem auimi." — ilaudiiitius ad Neo- 
 phytos, Jlih. Pet. Max. v. 946. 
 
 ■' Caudentius ubi supra, p. 947. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECKATION. 55 
 
 fourth century, show us the instruction which the Primitive 
 Church gave to the young, when she brought them to the 
 Holy Eucharist. It was clearly supposed that the elements 
 themselves underwent some change, by virtue of Our Lord's 
 words, and of the power of the Holy Grhost ; and that through 
 the consecration thus conferred upon them, they became the 
 media of a certain mysterious benefit. And the same thing 
 is manifest, in the third place, from the usages of the Church. 
 It appears to have been a custom from the very first for bishops 
 to send the consecrated elements to one another, as a sign of 
 intercommunion. This is mentioned as an ancient usage by 
 St. Irenseus ^ (in his letter to Victor), towards the end of the 
 second century. Here we see the same purpose, which 
 is explained by Pope Innocent, ^ in the fourth century ; the 
 consecrated elements, he says, were sent from the Cathedral to 
 the dependent churches of the city, in order that all might 
 feel themselves bound together in one communion. But what 
 would have been the meaning of this, unless the elements had 
 been supposed to gain some especial sanctity by consecration? 
 Again, we know that, so early as the middle of the second 
 century, it was customary for the deacons to carry the con- 
 secrated elements ^ to those who were debarred from attending 
 public worsliip. This clearly supposes tl iat the elements tli em- 
 selj£S__conyeyed _some_^ especial gift. Neither did anything 
 exercise a larger influence upon the practice of the Church, 
 than the notion that the elements were not only beneficial, if 
 they were received at the time of consecration, but that by 
 virtue of their consecration they continued to be the medium 
 of conveying all those benefits which were to be obtained by 
 the devout participant. Thus was there a means provided, 
 whereby those who were precluded from taking part in the 
 public ritual, might yet partake in that communion with Christ 
 which it was appointed to convey. Whether such a custom 
 
 ' Eusebius, v. 24. 
 
 - Letter to Decentius, sec. v. Harduin, i. 997. 
 
 ^ Justin Martyr, Apol. i. sec. Ixv. p. 83. 
 
56 ANCIENT USAGES 
 
 was ganctioned by the Apostles themselves, or whether it was 
 only the result which the Church had drawn from their prin- 
 ciples, it is clear that before the end of the second century 
 it was usual for the faithful to carry home with them a 
 portion of the sacred elements, the partaking of which, before 
 other food, was to be the consecrating principle of their daily 
 life. This custom, subsequently abolished, when altered cir- 
 cumstances rendered it liable to abuse, is noticed by Tertullian, ' 
 as universally prevalent in the second, and by St. Cyprian '^ 
 in the third centuries. Thus were persons who were debarred 
 from joining in Church offices in times of persecution, or who 
 lived as hermits in the wilderness, enabled to partake of the 
 daily communion. All the solitaries in the desert, St. Basil ' 
 tells us, were accustomed in his time to retain the consecrated 
 elements in their cells ; and the same, he says, was the usage in 
 Egypt, where the elements, having been once consecrated by a 
 priest, were afterwards administered to themselves by the 
 faithful. In the next age we find St. Cyril of Alexandria 
 speaking in strong terms of censure respecting those who 
 doubted the permanent sacredness with which the consecrated 
 elements were invested. " I hear that some persons say that 
 the mystical Eucharist is inefficacious, if a part of it be left 
 to another day. They must be mad to say so. For Christ is 
 not altered, neither will His sacred Body be changed ; but the 
 power of the blessing, and the life-giving grace, is permanent 
 in it." * That the same was the case in other localities we 
 learn from St. Jerome ^, as well as from St. Gregory ® Nazianzen, 
 who describes the domestic altar, where the Holy Eucharist 
 was reserved by his sister Gorgonia. 
 
 ' "Non sciet maritus quid secreto ante oinnem cibum gustes." — Ter- 
 ftilUau ad Urorem, ii. 5. Vide also l)e Oratinne, 14. Tertullian's men- 
 tion of this custom, as a sufficient reason why a Christian woman should 
 not marry a lieathen, shows that it must have been generally practised by 
 Christian women. 
 
 - S. Cyprian De Lapsia, p. 176. ^ S. Basil, Ep. 93. 
 
 ' Kpistola ad Cu'losyrium, vol. vi. p. 30.5. 
 
 ■'' Ei)i.ttola, 30. Ad rammachium, vol. iv. part ii. p. 239. 
 
 ^ Oratio Undecima, vol. i. ISO. (Taris 1(330.) 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECRATION. 57 
 
 This practice allied itself with the usage of retaining the 
 consecrated elements in the Church/ either that the Holy- 
 Eucharist might be in readiness to carry to the sick, or for 
 the purpose of administering it on the next occasion to the 
 people. The latter was esj)ecially the case in Lent, when it 
 was not usual, at least in the Eastern Church, to consecrate 
 the elements on any days but Saturday and Sunday. Such 
 was the direction given by the 49th canon of the Council of 
 Laodicaea,^ which was followed up by the order of the Council 
 in Trullo,^ still observed in the Greek Church,* that in Lent 
 the " Mass of the Pre-sanctified," as it was called, should be 
 solemnized excejDt on Saturday, Sunday, and the Feast of the 
 Annunciation. In the Church of E,ome, the two days pre- 
 ceding Easter Sunday were the only ones on which the Holy 
 Eucharist was not consecrated, and on which, therefoi-e, it was 
 necessary to administer that which had been reserved from a 
 previous service. A custom prevailed in the "West, in the sixth 
 century, which shows another purpose which the reservation 
 of the elements was designed to answer. When the elements 
 were to be consecrated, it was usual, it seems, to join with them 
 a portion of that which had been consecrated on a previous 
 day, as though by way of asserting the oneness and perpetuity 
 of the oblation. This custom is noticed in the description of 
 the ancient Gallic Service, by Germanus,^ Bishop of Paris, 
 composed apparently during the sixth century, as well as by 
 his contemporary, Gregory*^ of Tours. Both of them call the 
 vessel in which the sacred elements were preserved a "Tower : " 
 a name for which Germanus accounts, by supposing that it 
 was designed to represent the rock in which Our Lord's Body 
 
 ' Apost. Const, viii. 13. 
 
 2 Harduin, i. 790. ^ j^id. m iqs2. 
 
 * The Office of tlie Pre-sanctified, as at present used in the Greek 
 Church, is given by Mr. Neale, Introduction, p. 713. 
 
 ^ " Expositio Brevis Antiques Liturgiae Gallicanae." — Mahillons Tliesau- 
 rus Nvvus Anecdotorum, vol. v. 95. 
 
 ^ Gregoni Turonensis De Gloria Martyrum, i. 86. "Accepta turre, iu 
 qua ministerium Dominici corporis habebatur." — Bib. Fat. Max. xi. 854. 
 
58 ANCIENT USAGES 
 
 was entombed. A description * of the Roman Service, of some- 
 what similar date, refers to the same custom. 
 
 All these circumstances imply that the eleme nts themselv es 
 were supposed to gain a sanctity, which made them the means 
 oT~communicating that gift which was sought for in the Holy 
 Eucharist; and therefore that the blessing was believed to be 
 bound up with the thing itself, and not to depend merely 
 upon the coincident action of the parties. A further proof is 
 supplied by the manner in which Christ was asserted to com- 
 municate Himself, as a whole, in every portion of the conse- 
 crated elements. For though the Holy Eucharist v as ad- 
 ministered in all Churches under both kinds, until the twelfth 
 century — and the contrary practice was forbidden by Pope 
 Gelasius,^ when the Manichseans, who thought the use of wine 
 unlawful, refused to partake of it — yet both kinds were held 
 to communicate one gift, which was supposed to be imparted 
 perfectly through every portion of either element.^ It is 
 obvious, then, that the intervention of the elements themselves 
 was looked to as the appointed means of conveying the blessing. 
 The ancient notion was identical with that which was laid down 
 by the Greek Chuixh at the Council of Jerusalem, a.d. 1672: 
 " We believe that in every portion, even to the minutest sub- 
 division, of the bread and wine after they have been changed, 
 are contained not any separate part of the Body and Blood 
 
 ' ISIuratorii Liturgia Rouiana Vetus, ii. p. 979. (It had been originally 
 published by Mabillon.) 
 
 ^ Pope Gelasius's Command is preserved in the Canon Law. De Con- 
 secratione Dist. ii. 1"2. That it must have had reference to the case 
 of the Manichosans appears from the explanation given by Pope Leo 
 a few years before. He complains that these heretics, "in sacramen- 
 torum communione ita se teniperant, ut iuterdum, ue penitus latere uon 
 possint, ore indigno Christi corpus accipiant, sauguinem autem redemtionis 
 nostrie haurire omuino declinent," &c. — :Senno sli. De QuadrtKji'sima, 5. 
 Manichseans are said by Anastasius to have been expelled from Rome in 
 the time of Gelasius. 
 
 ^ "For as St. Paul says, 'a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump,' so 
 the very smallest portion of the Eucharist [vXiyiOTTj fv\o-fia] transfuses 
 our whole body into itself, and fills us with its own energy ; and thus 
 Christ comes to exist in us, and we in Him." — S- Cyril Alex, in Joan. 
 vi. 57, vol. iv. p. 365. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECRATION. 59 
 
 of the Lord ; but the Body of Christ is always whole, and 
 one in all its parts ; and the Lord Jesus is present in His 
 substance, that is, with His Soul and Divinity, as perfect God, 
 and perfect man." ^ 
 
 This doctrine discovers itself in some striking expressions 
 which are found both in the Ambrosian and other ancient 
 Liturgies : 
 
 " Singuli accipiunt Christum Dominum, et in singulis portioni- 
 bus totus est ; nee per singulos minuitur, sed integrum se prsebet 
 in singulis," ^ 
 
 It is dwelt upon likewise by St. Csesarius, Bishop of Ailes, in 
 the fifth century, in the course of a comparison between the 
 Holy Eucharist and the distribution of manna : 
 
 " The sacred perception of the Eucharist does not depend upon 
 its quantity, but its ef&cacy. This Body, when the j)riest dis- 
 tributes it, is as much in the smallest portion as in the whole. 
 When the congregation of the faithful receives it, as it is fully 
 in all of them, so it is perfectly in each. We may apj)ly to it 
 the Apostle's words, ' he that hath much shall have nothing 
 over, he that hath little shall have no lack.' If we gave the 
 hungry bread to eat, individuals would not receive that which 
 was bestowed upon the whole, but each one must take his in- 
 dividual portion for himself. But, when this bread is taken, 
 individuals receive not less than the collective body. One 
 receives the whole, two receive it, many receive it, without its 
 being diminished ; because the blessing of this sacrament is 
 susceptible of being distributed, but it is not susceptible of being 
 exhausted by distribution." ^ 
 
 It was a consequence of this doctrine, that when circumstances 
 debarred men from the regular reception of the elements in 
 both kinds, they were yet believed to receive the whole blessing 
 through that medium which remained to them. The mention 
 of bread only when the Holy Eucharist was received in private 
 
 ' This is translated from the Russ version. — Neales Iiitrod. p. 1175. 
 The Greek is in Harduin, xi. p. 254. 
 
 ^ Muratorii de Rebus Liturgicis Dissertatio, i. p. 126. Vide Pamelius, 
 Liturgicon, vol. i. p. 319. 
 
 3 Caesarii Homilia, vii. Bib. Pat. Max. viii. p. 825. 
 
60 ANCIENT USAGES 
 
 houses, leads to the conclusion that it was partaken in that 
 kind * alone. The story of Serapion,^ as related by Eusebius, 
 shows that this was supposed sufi&cient in the case of the sick, 
 and from a circumstance recorded by St. Cyprian,^ we learn 
 that infants were communicated under the other kind only. 
 
 There remains but one thing further to notice respecting 
 the conseci'ated elements, as evincing tlie belief that they 
 possessed some positive sacredness ; the conduct, namely, which 
 was expected in their recipients. They were everywhere re- 
 ceived fasting; and the custom of rendering them this mark 
 of respect, which had prevailed at least as early as the second 
 century,* was so universal in the time of St. Augustin (universa 
 per orbem servat Ecclesia ^), that he ascribes it to A\ ostolic 
 authority. The necessity of administering the Holy Eucharist 
 to the sick, renders it impossible to observe this rule where 
 the consecrated elements are not reserved, and hence, perhaps, 
 as well as from the length of the morning service, the com- 
 parative disuse of this primitive usage among ourselves. Another 
 pious usage of an analogous kind, was to receive the sacred 
 elements with the hands crossed : and this, likewise, grew to 
 be a rule in the Eastern Chuixh. " !Make thy left hand," says 
 
 ' Such is the conclusion of Neander, himself an opponent to the prac- 
 tice. — Kirchcn-Gescliiclde, vol. ii. part ii. p. 705. (Hamburg, 1829.) 
 This appears to have been the case also when the office of the Fre-sancti- 
 fied was celebrated. The Council of Laodicica speaks only of bread, when 
 it directs the days on which the Holy Eucharist shall be ministered of 
 that which had been previously consecrated. (Canon 49.) The custom of 
 the Greek Church is to minister it with unconsecrated wine. — Neales In- 
 troduclion to History of Greek Church, p. 718. Leofric's Missal, in the 
 Bodleian, directs, in respect to the service for Good-Friday, " Feria sexta 
 . . . ingrediuutur diaconi in sacrario, et procedunt cum corpore Domini 
 sine vino consecrato, quod altera die remansit et ponunt super altare," 
 &C.—F0I. 110, Boil. 579. 
 
 - Eusebius, vi. 44. ^ S. Cyprian de Lapsis, p. 175. 
 
 * TertulHan ad Uxorem, ii. 5. De Cortina, iii. S. Cyprian, Ep. 63, 16. 
 
 * " riacuit Spiritui Sancto, ut in honorem tauti sacramenti in os Chris- 
 tiani prius Dominioum corpus intraret, quam ceteri cibi. Nam ideo per 
 universum orbem mos iste servatur." — EpMoln, liv. 8. The practice is 
 recommended by Jeremy Taylor, " Do this honour to it, that it be the 
 first food we eat, and the first beverage we drink that day, unless it be 
 in case of sickness, or other great necessity." — llohj Liiiitj. 
 
WITNESS TO CONSECEATION. 61 
 
 St. Cyril/ " as if a throne for thy right, which is on the eve 
 of receiving the King. And having hollowed thy palm, receive 
 the Body of Christ, saying after it, Amen." This practice is 
 referred to by Damascenus,^ and was enjoined by the 101st 
 canon of the Council in Trullo.^ The communicants were also 
 enjoined to guard lest any portion of the consecrated elements 
 should fall to the ground. This is mentioned as early as by 
 Tertullian ; * and St. Cyprian ^ speaks of the elements which were 
 taken home, as kept with care in some closed repository. " Tell 
 me," says St. Cyril, " if any one gave thee gold dust, wouldest 
 thou not with all precaution keep it fast, being on thy guard 
 against losing any of it, and suffering loss. How much more 
 cautiously then wilt thou observe, that not a crumb falls from 
 thee of what is more precious than gold and precious stones ! " ® 
 
 In this manner, then, did the ancient Church bear witness to 
 the fact, that in the Holy Eucharist the gift is bestowed through 
 the elements. Such is its commentary on Our Lord's words 
 of Institution, wherein He stated that This, which He held 
 in His hands, and on which He had bestowed His blessing, was 
 the medium through which He communicated His gift. The 
 Church bears witness to the effects, and consequently to the 
 reality of consecration, both by its public offices, by the voice 
 of its doctors, and by the usages of its peoj)le. The truth of 
 this system was exhibited in the last chapter, by the untenable- 
 ness of the two rival theories : here we have the voice of autho- 
 rity in behalf of itself. 
 
 1 S. Cyril's fifth Mystagogical Catechism, 21. Ox. Trans, p. 279. 
 
 ^ De Fide Orthod. iv. 13, p. 271. The custom prevailed also in the 
 West. "Conjunctis manibus accipiebant." — S. Awj. c. Epist. Parmen. 
 ii. 13. And as early as the second century. Vide S. Perpetua. — Ruinart, 
 p. 95. 3 Harduin, iii. 1697. 
 
 * "Calicis aut panis etiam nostri aliquid decuti in terram anxie pati- 
 mur." — Tertull. de Corona, iii. 
 
 * "Cum qusedam arcam suam, in qua Domini sanctum fuit, manibus 
 indignis tentasset aperire ; igne inde surgente deterrita est, ne auderet 
 attingere." — De La2)sis, p. 176. S. Cyprian's statement illustrates those 
 of S. Zeno of Verona, I. Trac. 14. 4. " Panis cum lig-no datur." — 
 Gallandi, vol. v. 128, and also Trac. 5, 8, p. 118. 
 
 6 Fifth Myst. Cat. 21. Ox. Trans, p. 279. 
 
62 ANCIENT USAGES WITNESS TO CONSECRATION. 
 
 One word more before we leave this first portion of Our Lord's 
 declaration, and pass from the Subject to the Predicate, in His 
 sentence of Institution. 
 
 How is it possible that those who admit the reality of con- 
 secration should deny the efficacy of the elements ? For is it 
 not for this very purpose that they are set apart? "With what 
 intention can they be consecrated, except that they should be 
 effectual ? Why is this especial portion separated from the 
 element at large, excejit to be the medium of a blessing ? AVhat 
 other conclusion can reason dictate ; for why should they be 
 subjected to this ordinance, unless they are the recipients of 
 its effect? 
 
 And as this conclusion has the sanction of reason, so does the 
 authority of all ages witness in its behalf. In this particular do 
 the Fathers of the first centuries agree with the innovators of 
 the last. The former ascribed efficacy to the elements, because 
 they believed the validity of consecration : the latter deny it, 
 because the validity of consecration is the very conclusion from 
 which they wish to escape. Both allow, then, that consecration 
 and the efficacy of the elements must stand together. Neither is 
 it possible to supjiose that those who reject one, can seriously 
 intend to uphold the other. Those who deny that a gift is 
 communicated through the elements, ca nnot really bel ieve th e 
 validity of consecration. They may be willing to retain the 
 rite, as a harmless tribute to ancient usage, but it is impossible 
 that they should believe in the reality of consecration, unless 
 they believe in its results. If they are content to retain the 
 pregnant expressions of the early Church, it is with the under- 
 standing that they mean nothing. Yet what a mockery is a 
 Priestly commission which confers no powei-s, and a form of 
 consecration whereby nothing is made holy ! If these things 
 are real, their consequences should be admitted : if unreal, 
 they had better be discarded. Legem credendi lex statuat 
 supplicandi. But if a certain ritual was ordained by Christ, 
 and handed down by His Apostles, can it be indifferent 
 whether or not it is observed ? As it would be pi'esumptuous 
 
THE GIFT BESTOWED, ETC. 63 
 
 to invent, so to abandon it would be impious. And yet either, 
 perhaps, were less heinous guilt, than to retain holy and sublime 
 usages, pregnant with great truths, and associated with the love 
 and devotion of all saints, yet to regard them with the cold 
 contempt with which men treat the unmeaning and obsolete 
 fashions of a barbarous age. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE GIFT BESTOWED IN THE HOLY EUCHAKIST IS THE 
 PEESENCE OP CHBIST. 
 
 We have seen what was the Subject spoken of in Our Lord's 
 words of Institution. He was referring not to bread and wine 
 at large, but to the consecrated elements. " This is My Body." 
 We come now to the Predicate in His discourse ; to that which He 
 afl&rmed to be present. "J/^/ Body; My Blood." These it 
 was which He asserted, or jDredicated of the Subject, in the 
 sentence before us. In the present chaj.ter, then, we must 
 inquire what was meant by this Predicate, and we shall thus 
 be prepared to pass, in the last place, to the connexion between 
 it and the Subject. 
 
 Now, it is obvious that when Our Lord speaks of " His 
 Body," and " His Blood," He refers to that which depends upon 
 His man's nature. " God is a Spirit," and " a spirit hath not 
 flesh and bones, as ye see Me have." If these things can be 
 attributed to Our Lord, it must be because " God was manifest in 
 the flesh." It was that He might make " peace through the 
 Blood of His cross," and reconcile us " in the Body of His flesh," 
 that He vouchsafed to clothe Himself in the humble garb of 
 mortality. He took the manhood into God. And by reason of 
 this circumstance He was able to speak of Himself as possessing 
 those characteristics of man's nature to which the words of 
 Institution refer. " A Body hast thou prepared for Me." 
 
64 THE GIFT BESTOWED 
 
 The ancient writers are exjiress in pointing out that this 
 reference of Our Lord to His Body, and His Blood, is a reference 
 to His Human nature. " What is it," asks St. Cyi'il, which we 
 eat, "His Godhead, or His Flesh ?"^ And St. Athanasius: 
 " it was His Body, through which He delivered to us the 
 mystery, when He said, this is My Body, which is for your 
 sakes ; and this is the Blood of the New. and not the Old 
 Covenant, which is shed for you. Now Deity has neither body 
 nor_ ^lQod." " 
 
 But though the mention of Our Lord's Body and Blood 
 implies the presence of His man's nature, yet by virtue of that 
 personal union, whereby the manhood was taken into God, it 
 involves the presence of His Godhead also. For since these two 
 natures have been perfectly joined together, never to be divided, 
 in the Person of Christ, it follows that His Godhead must needs 
 participate in some measure in all acts and sufferings in which 
 His Manhood is concerned. For though it is the law of His 
 nature, that His ]\Ianhood is not everywhere present, as is His 
 Godhead — since the first does not partake in that attribute of 
 omnipresence which belongs to the last — yet His Godhead is 
 everywhere present with His Manhood, and has part in all its 
 actings. AVhat soever was meant therefore by the giving the 
 Body and the Blood of Christ, as by the force of the terms it 
 implied the gift of His Manhood, so by virtue of the Hypostatic 
 Union it involved that of His Godhead also. AVhatsoever was 
 done by the Man Christ Jesus, was done by one who consisted 
 not only of soul and body, but of Godhead also : and that which 
 implied the action of His lower, imjilied likewise that of His 
 higher nature. 
 
 When Our Lord, then, si)oke of His Body and Blood as 
 bestowed upon His disciples in this sacrament, He must have 
 been understood to imply tliat He Himself, Godhead. Soul, and 
 Body, was the gift communicated. His ^Manhood was the 
 medium through which His whole Person was disjieused. 
 
 ' S. tVil, Apol. ad Orientes, vi. 193. (Paris, 1638.) 
 * Apud Theodor. Dial. ii. ; vide Albertinus, p. 287. 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 65 
 
 " Christ is in that sacrament," says St. Ambrose, " because it is 
 the Body of Christ."^ It is "inquired," says Bishop Taylor, 
 " whether when we say we beheve Christ's Body to be really in 
 the sacrament, we mean that Body, that Flesh, that was horn of 
 the Virgin Mary, that was crucified, dead, and buried. I 
 answer, that I know none else that he had or hath ; there is but 
 one Body of Christ, natural and glorified ; but he that says that 
 Body is glorified which was crucified, says it is the same Body, 
 but not after the same manner : and so it is in the sacrament ; 
 we eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ that was broken 
 and poured forth ; for there is no other Body, no other Blood of 
 Christ ; but though it is the same which we eat and drink, yet 
 it is in another manner." ^ 
 
 That such was the gift bestowed in the Holy Eucharist, and 
 that Our Lord's words of Institution were to be taken in their 
 simple and natural sense, was the belief of all ancient writers. 
 "The DocetEe abstain from the Eucharist," says St. Ignatius, 
 " because they do not confess it to be the Flesh of Our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ, which sufi'ered for our sins, which the Father 
 raised up through His mercy." ^ "As Jesus Christ, Our 
 Saviour, was made flesh through the word of God, and took 
 flesh and blood for our salvation, so we have been instructed 
 that the food which has been consecrated by His word of 
 prayer .... is the Flesh and Blood of that Incarnate Jesus."* 
 " Our flesh," says Tertullian, " is fed with the Body and Blood 
 of Christ, that our soul, too, may be enriched of Ood."^ So 
 that the statements of the second century, tally exactly with the 
 language of those Liturgic Offices, which (as was shown in the 
 last chapter) exhibit to us the belief of the fourth. "Deliver 
 us from evil, Lord Jesus Christ. We eat Thy Body, 
 which was crucified for us, and drink Thy sacred Blood, 
 which was shed for us : may Thy saci'ed Body be made our 
 salvation ; and Thy sacred Blood be for the remission of our 
 
 ^ De Mysteriis, ix. 58. 
 
 2 The Real Presence of Christ, sec. i. 11. ^ Ad Smyrnseos, 6. 
 
 * Apolog. i. 66. * De Resurrec. 8. 
 
66 THE GIFT BESTOWED 
 
 sins, here and for evermore."^ And these general declarations 
 respecting the Holy Eucharist are associated l)y St. Cyprian 
 with tlie original act of Christ, and with His words of Institution. 
 For He it is who is still the agent in this work, through the 
 intervention of His ministers. And " if Jesus Christ Our Lord 
 and God is Himself the High Priest of God the Father, and 
 has offered Himself first as a sacrifice to the Father, and com- 
 manded this to be done in commemoration of Him, surely that 
 priest truly discharges the office of Christ who imitates what 
 Christ did ; and he then offers in the Church a true and full 
 sacrifice to God the Father, if he begins to offer as he sees that 
 Christ Himself has offered."^ 
 
 That which Our Lord affirmed to be present then, by the 
 words of Institution, was His own Body and Blood. These 
 were the Predicates which He connected with those elements of 
 bread and wine, which He took into His hands and blessed. 
 The nature of the connexion we shall consider presently : that 
 though real it Avas not carnal : as yet we are concerned with the 
 Predicates themselves, that is, with the Body and Blood which 
 He bestowed. "We have seen that it was that self-same Body 
 and Blood which He had taken of the blessed Virgin, of her 
 substance ; and which so shortly afterwards He offered ujion the 
 cross. This it is which forms the link between Him and man's 
 nature ; it was bound by the unaltei-able tie of personality to 
 Himself; and as He then gave it Himself to His twelve 
 apostles, so He still communicates it by the ministration of 
 their successors to the faithful, in the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Now this truth has given rise to two objections. The words 
 of Our Lord are no doubt express, and if Scripture is to be taken 
 literally, they admit of no equivocation : but the Rationalist 
 objects, first, that such a thing is impossible ; and secondly, that 
 if not actually imjiossible, it is yet burthened by such an 
 amount of improbability as no evidence is able to overcome. 
 
 ^ Missale Gothicuin. Missa Dominicalis, 80. Mabillon, p. 300. 
 (Paris, 1729.) 
 
 « S. Cyprian, ad Caecil. Ep. 63. 14. 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 67 
 
 Each of these objections requires to be met ; for although 
 nothing short of its impossibility would justify men in departing 
 from the natural meaning of the words of Revelation, yet strong 
 antecedent improbability is found in practice to present an equal 
 obstacle to belief. And it will turn out that the statement of 
 Our Lord in the words of Institution refers to a fact which is 
 not only possible, but which is in such perfect analogy with all 
 other parts of the Christian scheme, that it presents no greater 
 difficulties than any other mystery of the Gospel. 
 
 It is said then, first, that it was impossible that Our Lord 
 could impart to His Disciples that Body and Blood which 
 pertained to Himself. Such was not, as we have seen, the 
 notion of St. Augustin -j^ he affirms, on the contrary, that Christ 
 was carried in His own hands, and by this fact does he interpret 
 the words of David. And how can the possibility of such 
 a thing be denied, considering the imperfect state of our know- 
 ledge respecting physical substance ? How can we tell that the 
 very nature of Him whom they saw before them might not in 
 some unknown manner be communicated to the disciples through 
 that medium which their Master had aj)pointed ? " We have 
 no means of knowing," says a writer, who had no wish to vindicate 
 the Primitive Church, "whether the distinction between the 
 material and spiritual world, which is derived from our 
 impressions, has any objective truth ; and whether matter and 
 spirit may not be discerned to be of the same nature by higher 
 intelKgences. Hecent discoveries in physics exhibit to us 
 changes and conditions of bodies, such as the chemical com- 
 binations of water, air, and fire, of acids and alkalies, which 
 furnish ground for conjecturing that our ordinary conceptions of 
 matter are defective ; and they tell us of powers, like that of 
 magnetism, about which it is uncertain whether they have any 
 material groundwork — any substratum by which they are 
 supported."^ 
 
 If such are the thoughts which ought naturally to suggest 
 
 ■* Supra, p. 44. 
 
 ^ Selbstbiograpliie von K. G. Bretsclineider, p. 350. 
 
 P 2 
 
68 THE GIFT BESTOWED 
 
 thempelvcs to the minds of men, when tliey meet with any fact 
 which deviates from the usual order of the universe, how much 
 more might such thoughts be present to the holy apostles, when 
 they considered what that Body was, which was offered to them 
 at the Last Supper ? For was it not the self-same Body which 
 they knew to have walked on the sea, and to have been trans- 
 figured in the mountain V Was it not that Body which was 
 about to emerge from the unopened tomb, and to enter, the 
 doors being shut, into their assembly? "Was it not, in short, 
 the Body of God, which must needs receive new qualities from 
 its relation to that Deity with which it was personally united ? 
 " That the glorified Body of Christ can possess powers and 
 properties beyond those which other bodies are known to 
 possess, was shown," says Kahnis, " before His resun-ection, by 
 its walking on the sea ; and afterwards, by its entering through 
 closed doors." ^ For must it not have made a wide difference in 
 the capacities of that mortal frame which the apostles saw before 
 them, that as St. Chrysostom says, it was "the Body of the 
 Supreme Grod, the spotless, the pure, which had held intercourse 
 with that divine nature ; the Body through which we are, and 
 live ; by which the gates of death have been destroyed, and the 
 bars of heaven been opened ? " ^ As it would be rash, then, 
 considei'ing our imperfect knowledge of those subtile agents by 
 which our own bodies are perpetually affected, to deny that 
 there may be other modes of presence than those which are 
 usual and natural, so still more would it have been presumptuous 
 to deny such capacities to the Body of Christ. " For His very 
 human body received great accessions from the fellowship and 
 oneness which it had with the AVord. For instead of being 
 mortal, it became immortal, and instead of being carnal, it 
 became spiritual ; and whereas it was born of the earth, it 
 passed through the gates of heaven." ' 
 
 ^ Lehre vom Abendmahle ; von K. F. A. Kahnis, p. 373. (Leipzig, 
 1851.) 
 
 * "rb Trj 6(ia (Keivri <pvaei o/JuKijaav." — In Epist. i. ad Cor. Horn. 24, 
 vol. X. p. 216. 
 
 " y. AtUauasiu3 ad Epictetum, sec. ix. vol. ii. p. 908. 
 
THE PEESENCE OF CHRIST. 69 
 
 These are sufficient reasons for saying that it was not im- 
 possible, that while Our Lord was present naturally before the 
 eyes of His disciples, He should bestow upon them His Body 
 and Blood in some new and unknown manner, which was above 
 nature. But we must go further, and show that such a thing 
 was not only possible, but probable; not merely that there 
 was nothing in it which their reason was bound to reject, but 
 much by which their religious sympathies ought to have been 
 conciliated. 
 
 We must suppose, then, that the Apostles were already 
 partially enlightened respecting that truth, which St. Augustin 
 observes to be the great mystery of the Gospel : " The Christian 
 faith depends, properly speaking, upon a considei'ation of those 
 two men, through one of whom w e were sold under sin, while 
 we are redeemed from sin through the other." This is nothing 
 more than St. Paul declared : " The first man Adam was made 
 a living soul ; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." 
 Hence it follows, that those gifts, which have their native home 
 in God, are bestowed upon man, so far as he possesses them, 
 through a Mediator. They were the original endowment of 
 man's race, when he was created in God's image, to be his 
 Maker's representative in this lower world. They were for- 
 feited when he lost this high commission, till they were again 
 enshrined in the Second Adam, that more perfect pattern of 
 humanity, in whom the likeness of God was fully set forth. 
 Thus did Christ become the new " beginning of the creation of 
 God." All those treasures which were needed by the whole 
 generation of His brethren, were gathered together as in a 
 fountain in His manhood. For "of His fulness have all we 
 received, and grace for grace." This is involved in the truth 
 of Our Lord's Mediation, which not only implies that He 
 condescended to be a sacrifice and intercessor on man's behalf 
 towards God, but likewise that He made His Manhood the 
 channel through which the perfections of the Creator extended 
 themselves to the creature. There is "one Mediator between 
 God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." "Unless the only- 
 
70 THE GIFT BESTOWED 
 
 begotten had become such as we are (and such as we are He 
 could not have betome, save by being born in the flesh of a 
 woman), we could not have been eni-iched by His wealth." 
 For, as St. Paul writes, "the Second Adam was not born 
 from the earth like the first, but out of heaven appeared 
 Emmanuel." ' 
 
 That such is the manner in which heavenly gifts have been 
 bestowed upon men, is evident from the statements of Scripture 
 resjiecting grace. Little, comparatively, is said of it in the 
 Old Testament ; and that little is associated with general state- 
 ments of the influence of the Supi'eme Being. As we advance 
 to the New Testament, we find that grace is never spoken of 
 in the Gospels, except as associated with the Humanity of 
 God the Son, The Apostles "beheld His glory, the glory as 
 pf the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." 
 As yet it was gathered together as in a fountain, from w hich 
 in after time it was to ovei-flow into the whole body of 
 the Church. At length came the Day of Pentecost, when the 
 Son of Man had received gifts for His brethren. And then 
 we read that the blessing which had dwelt in the natui-al 
 Body of the Mediator was extended to His Body Mystical, 
 and went down to the skirts of its clothing — " great grace was 
 upon them all." 
 
 Now hence it may be seen why the Holy Eucharist is so 
 important, and how it is (as St. Augustin observes) that " no 
 one may say that the road of safety lies in a good life, and the 
 worship of one God, without participation in the Body and 
 Blood of Christ." "For the statement that God 'will have 
 all men to be saved,' is not to be understood as taking effect 
 without a Mediator ; and that Mediator is not God, .... but 
 the Man Christ Jesus." '^ There must be some means, then, by 
 which we must be put into relation with the New Man, even 
 as we have a natural relation to the flesh of the old one ; we 
 must be united by grace to Christ, as we were united to Adam 
 
 ' S. Cyril adversus Nestorium, i. 1, vol. vi. p. 9. 
 « Epistola 149. 17. vol. ii. p. 510. 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 71 
 
 by nature. Neither should it surprise us that the processes 
 should pi'esent some analogy ; that if the poison of the one is 
 transmitted through his flesh, so His Flesh should be the 
 medium through which is transmitted the virtue of the other. 
 For that which constitutes our earthly being is not only 
 a separate personality (however derived, and in whatever con- 
 sisting), but likewise that common nature which we inherit 
 from our original parent. This nature is transmitted, according 
 to the most mysterious of all eai'thly laws, through the conti- 
 nuity of the flesh. It was not inconsistent, therefore, with the 
 order of the Divine Economy, that Our Lord's Flesh and Blood, 
 mysteriously and supernaturally communicated, should be the 
 principle of a higher life to His brethren. 
 
 This, then, was the truth which Our Lord declared in the 
 institution of the Holy Eucharist — a truth which, whether or 
 not fully understood by His Apostles at the moment, was 
 certainly explained in those statements, which the Holy Ghost 
 afterwards recalled to their memory, as it was confirmed by the 
 practice and belief of the Church which they established. 
 •' Take, eat, this is My Body." "What was this but the ex- 
 planation of that mysterious prediction, " I am the living bread, 
 which came down from heaven ; and the bread which I will 
 ^ive is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world ?" 
 The Holy Eucharist, therefore, is the carrying out of that 
 act which took effect in the Incarnation of the Son of God. 
 So that when the one is thought strange, we shall always find 
 that the other is imperfectly appreciated. It was by the In- 
 carnation that God and man, the finite and the Infinite, were 
 brought into relation ; and that the graces which were inherent 
 in the one, were communicated as a gift to the other. Now the 
 medium through which these gifts are extended is not the 
 Deity, but the Manhood of Christ. " The bread which I will 
 give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 
 
 " If there were any one," says St. Cyril, " who ventured to say 
 that the Word, who is from God, was transformed into a bodily 
 nature, he might justly complain that Our Lord did not ra'ther 
 
72 THE GIFT BESTOWED 
 
 say, when He gave His Body, ' Take, eat, this is My Godliead, 
 which is broken for you, and this is not ^ly Blood, but My 
 Godhead, whicli is slied for you.' But since the AVord, being 
 God, has made that Body His own, which was taken from 
 a woman, without suffering change or alteration, how could 
 He but say to us, and that truly, ' Take, eat, this is My Body ? ' 
 For being life, as God, He has made it life, and life-giving."^ 
 
 The ancient writers uniformly asserted the efficacy of the 
 Holy Eucharist to depend upon the fact, that it was the means 
 through which Our Lord's Humanity was communicated. They 
 maintained it to be the appointed medium through which that 
 re-creation of man's nature, which began in Christ, was extended 
 to His brethren. Thus did they understand St. Paul's words, 
 " We are members of His Body, of His flesh, and of His bones." 
 Hence St. Ignatius calls the " one bread " " the medicine of 
 immortality." " In the same century St. Ireuaeus asks : " How 
 can they say that the flesh passes into corruption, and does not 
 partake of life, since it is fed by the Body of the Lord, and by 
 His Blood ? " ^ " For as a little leaven, as the Ajiostle says, 
 leavens the whole lump, so that Body, which has been rendered 
 immortal by God, having become present in ours, transforms 
 and changes the whole of it to itself." * St. Augustin tells us 
 that it was the ancient custom of the African Christians to call 
 the Holy Eucharist by the name of life, by which usage, he says, 
 they referred to Our Lord's declaration, " I am the hving bread 
 which came down from heaven." ° 
 
 St. Chrysostom, in like manner, says that Our Lord's 
 Humanity has been communicated, as a consecrating principle, 
 for the renewal of all mankind. " He gave not simply His own 
 
 ' S. Cyril adv. Nest. iv. 7, vol. vi. . 119. 
 
 ^ Ad Epliesios, 20. ^ S. Irenaeus, iv. 18. 5. 
 
 ■• S. Greg. Nyssen. Cat. Orat. 37, vol. iii. p. 102. Morell (Paris, 1638) 
 reads BavaTiaOiv, but the Greek and the context require aOavartadlv, which 
 is found in the Vatican codex of Theorian (Maio, Nova CoUec. vol. vi. 
 p. 366), as well as in three manuscripts of S. Gregory in the Bodleian. 
 Baroc. 27 and 108. Cromw. 9. 
 
 ^ "Sacramentum Corporis Christi nihil aliud quam vitam vocant." — 
 Be Pecc. Mentis, i. 34. 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 73 
 
 Body ; but because the former nature of tbe flesh, which was 
 framed out of the earth, had fii'st become deadened by sin, and 
 destitute of life, He brought in, as one may say, another sort of 
 dough and leaven. His own Flesh, by nature indeed the same, 
 but free from sin, and full of life ; and gave to all to partake 
 thereof, that being nourished by this, and laying aside the old 
 dead material, we might be blended together unto eternal life, 
 by means of this table." ^ Such was supposed by the primi- 
 tive Church to be the doctrine revealed in the sixth chapter of 
 St. John's Gospel ; and St. Cyril, after quoting ten of its most 
 important verses (verse 47 to 57), adds this comment : 
 
 " See then, how He abides in us, and renders us superior to 
 corruption, by introducing Himself, as I said, into our bodies 
 through His own Flesh, which is real food ; whereas that 
 shadow, which was under the law" [i.e. manna], "and the 
 service which was connected with it, had no reality. And the 
 principle of this mystery is siniple and true, not curiously de- 
 vised for the service of impiety, but a simple truth. For we 
 believe that the "Word, the Son of the Father, having united 
 Himself to the Body born of the Holy Virgin, with a reasonable 
 soul (the union of course being ineffable and mystical), rendered 
 His Body life-giving ; being Himself, as God, the principle of 
 life by nature ; that by making us partakers of Himself, not 
 only in spirit, but in body. He might render us superior to cor- 
 ruption ; and do away, through Himself, the law of sin, which 
 was in our fleshly members, and thus, as it is written, ' condemn 
 sin in the flesh.' " ^ 
 
 Here I pause to observe that the language of these writers re- 
 specting the Holy Eucharist accounts for the diversity which 
 has been observed to exist between this Sacrament and Holy 
 Baptism. It was shown that the validity of Baptism does not 
 depend upon the consecration of the elements, or the character of 
 the administrator. These considerations affect the decency, but 
 not the reality, of the ordinance. For though Christ is allowed 
 to be present in Baptism by spiritual power, yet His presence is 
 
 ' S. Clirysost. on 1 Cor. x. 17. Horn. xxiv. 4. 
 ^ Adversus Nestorium, iv. 5, vol. vi. p. 113. 
 
74 THE GIFT BESTOWED 
 
 to be sought in the ordinance at la rge, and not in the elements. 
 So that the symbol employed is never spoken of as gaining, in 
 itself, any relation to the sacred object of which it is fitted to re- 
 mind men. The washing of water is the means whereby the 
 baptized partake in that purification which was efi'ected by 
 Christ's blood ; but the water is n ever s poken of as^ changedjnto 
 blood, either in Scripture or ancient authors. On the contrary, 
 the whole element of water is described as consecrated to the 
 mystical washmg away of sin. 
 
 Now the different rule, which has been shown to prevail in the 
 case of the Holy Eucharist, may be accounted for by the different 
 principle on which that Sacrament is dependent. In it, consecra- 
 tion is necessary, and the services of the priesthood are indispens- 
 able. In it, the_elements, and not the ordinance at large, are 
 the medium of the gift. And the reason is, that Our Lord is 
 not^present in this ordinance by s^^iritual power only, but He 
 has consecrated His Body to be the peculiar medium of a super- 
 natural effect. It has been set forth as an antithesis, or con- 
 trast, to that of the old Adam ; and, as a consequence of the 
 Incarnation, He bestows it as a renewing principle in the Holy 
 Eucharist, So that in Baptism He is present only by power 
 and grace ; but in the Holy Eucharist He is present likewise by 
 His Body and Blood. There is not only, therefore, that pre- 
 sence of Godhead which attends upon His gifts, but also that 
 presence of His Flesh and Blood which is bestowed through the 
 consecrated elements. 
 
 " For as the Body of the "Word is life-giving, since He has 
 made it His own by a real union, which is beyond thought and 
 expression, so we, who are partakers of His saci'ed Flesh and 
 Blood, are by all means endued with life ; since the Word abides 
 in us in the way of Deity by tlie Holy Ghost, and in the way of 
 Humanity by His sacred Flesli and jirecious Blood. To the 
 truth of that which I have stated the holy Paul bears witness, 
 when he writes to those \\\\o had believed on Our Lord Jesus 
 Christ at Corinth ; ' I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say. 
 The cup of blessing, which we bless, is it not the communion of 
 the Blood of Christ '? The breivd which we break, is it not the 
 
THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 75 
 
 communion of the Body of Christ ? For we being many are one 
 bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.' 
 For by having been made partakers of the Holy Ghost, we are 
 united to our common Saviour Christ, and to one another. But 
 one Body we are in this way — because we being many, are one 
 bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one 
 bread." ' 
 
 It must be observed that several passages, which have been 
 quoted in the present chapter from the ancient authors, have 
 been employed in an inverted order ; they have been adduced 
 rather in consequence of the principle out of which they arise, 
 than of the conclusion in which they terminate. The reason of 
 this is obvious from the history of opinions. The leading princi- 
 ples of the early Church were its worship of the God-man, its 
 belief in His real presence in the Holy Eucharist, in the 
 powers of the priesthood, and in the efficacy of consecration. 
 These, and similar facts, were built up into that intellectual l^ 
 system of doctrines which we call the Creeds. The work was 
 one which it cost nearly five centuries to complete, and its last 
 act was to guard agaihst those two opposing heresies of Nestorius 
 and Eutyches, by which Our Lord's Incarnation was dii'ectly 
 attacked. Hence it became necessary for the defendei^s of the 
 faith to direct their especial attention to this doctrine ; to show 
 the relation which Our Lord's Manhood bore to His divine 
 nature, and that He had vouchsafed to make it the very instru- 
 ment of that great work which He is pleased to effect in the 
 Holy Eucharist. This was the line of argument adopted by 
 St. Cyril ; and in consequence, he was led to dwell upon the 
 relation between the Holy Euchai'ist and the doctrine of the Incar- 
 nation more fully than any other Father. The best answer to the 
 Nestorians, who denied that Our Lord's Body was the Body of 
 God, was the admitted fact that it was the principle of life as 
 bestowed in the Holy Eucharist. And St. Cyril's arguments on 
 this subject were so completely built uj)on the practice of the 
 four preceding centuries, and were so heartily adopted by the 
 
 ^ S. Cyril adv. Nestorium, iv. 5, vol. vi. p. 111. 
 
76 THE GIFT BESTOWED 
 
 Church in lier most numerous Councils, that to reject them 
 would be to tcake up arms agamst all Catholic antiquity. 
 
 Now, it is obvious that the Church's usages may be justified 
 by the doctrine to which they lead, just as the doctrine was 
 formerly jiroved from the usages out of which it originated. The 
 doctrine of Our Lord's Incarnation, now that it has taken its 
 place in the dogmatic formularies of the Church, may be adduced 
 in illustration of the fact, that it is His Body, through which He 
 bestows His blessings. If this doctrine was formerly proved by 
 men's belief in the efficacy of the Holy Eucharist, it may now be 
 adduced with equal justice as a reason for supposing this sacra- 
 ment to be efficacious. And thus it meets the real difficulty by 
 which men's belief is obstructed. The strong antipathy which 
 our reason entertains against the notion of an unnecessary 
 miracle, vanishes so soon as we see that the agency introduced 
 only occupies its natural place in that chain of causes, by which 
 the acts of God above are linked to those of His earthly servants. 
 No theist feels repugnance at admitting a spiritual influence of 
 God upon the minds of His creatures, because the mind of man 
 appears to be an instrument which is naturally adai:)ted for the 
 reception and perpetuation of intellectual and spiritual impulses. 
 The knowledge, therefore, that we possess this door, whereby 
 we can hold intercourse with spiritual beings, inclines men to 
 allow the reality of their influence. And in like manner, when 
 it is discovered that Our Lord's Humanity is the appointed 
 channel througli which we participate in heavenly blessings, and 
 that the Holy Eucharist is the medium through which it is im- 
 parted. His real presence in that ordinance is discovered to have 
 its fitting place in God's dealings towards mankind. 
 
 The remarks of Erasmus,^ when the subject came into con- 
 ti'oversy in the sixteenth century, sliow that the want of this 
 perception has given rise to the apj^arent improbability with 
 
 ' "Mibi non displiceret CEcolampailii sententia, nisi obstaret consen- 
 sus ecclesije. Nee enim video quid agat corpus iuseusibile, nee utilitatem 
 allaturuui, si sentiretur, modo adsit iu symbolis gratia spiritualis. Et 
 tamen ab Ecolesiic consensu non possum discedere, uec unquam discessi." — 
 Eravindg Bilihaldo, June G, A.U. 152(), Lib. 30. Ep. 44. 
 
THE PEESENCE OF CHRIST. 77 
 
 which the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist has been supposed to 
 be chargeable. Erasmus could discern no use which was to 
 follow from the presence of Our Lord's Body, which he supposed 
 to be merely a portion of inoperative matter. Unless he had 
 been withheld, therefoi'e, by the tradition of the Church, he 
 would have adopted the Zuinglian theory (as advocated by 
 (Ecolampadius), that nothing was to be looked for in this sacra- 
 ment but the ordinary operations of God's Spirit. The same 
 feeling is expressed by Johnson, in his learned work on the Un- 
 bloody Sacrifice. He tells us, that except with a view to its 
 sacrificial use, he is " very much at a loss, why Our Saviour 
 should make the eating His Body and drinking His Blood so 
 important a duty." ^ And therefore, instead of supposing that 
 the Gospel was the centi-al point in the world's history, and that 
 the great events which it unfolded were the real relations between 
 God and man, he assigns the same origin to the Holy Eucharist 
 as Tillotson did both to the Priesthood and to the system of 
 expiatory sacrifice, and supposes it to be merely a compliance 
 with the prejudices of men. He thinks that the Holy Eucharist 
 was to be eaten, " because it was the universal practice of the 
 ancient people to feast on those things which they had first 
 offered in sacrifice." ^ 
 
 Now all such objections vanish, when it is shown that Our 
 Lord's real Presence in the Holy Eucharist is a natural sequel 
 to the doctrine of the Incarnation ; that it immediately connects 
 itself with those truths which are revealed to us respecting God, 
 Chi'ist, and mankind ; and that it supplies the medium, through 
 which the merciful actions of the Mediator are brought home to 
 His creatures. But it has been proved that these facts are wit- 
 nessed both by the testimony of Scripture, and by the belief of 
 the Church. Otherwise, why should St. Cyprian have thought 
 it necessary to admit men to the Holy Eucharist in a season of 
 persecution, " that we may not leave those unarmed whom we 
 encourage to the conflict ; but may fortify them by the protection 
 
 ^ Unbloody Sacrifice, vol. i. p. 264. (Anglo-Catholic Library.) 
 - Idem, vol. ii. p. 5. 
 
78 THE GIFT BESTOWED, ETC. 
 
 of Christ's Body . and Blood ? " ' How could St. Cyril have 
 adduced it as a decisive proof of the erroneous teaching of 
 Nestorious, that he was ignorant " that the thing set forth on 
 the hallowed tables of the Church is not the nature of Deity, but 
 the very Body of the Word, who was born from the Father ? " ^ 
 Why should St. Leo have considered that it was a sufficient 
 answer to the partizans of Eutyches, that it was so notorious, " as 
 to be witnessed by the very tongues of children, that m the 
 sacrament of the Holy Communion there is the truth of Christ's 
 Body and Blood ? " ^ These statements proceed upon the sup- 
 position which St. Cyril has explained more at length in his 
 Commentary upon St. John. 
 
 " That we are united to Christ by a perfect love, a right foith, 
 and a sound reason, I am far," he says, " from denying. All this 
 is clear enough. But to venture to affirm that there is no rela- 
 tion between our flesh and His, may be shown to be wholly dis- 
 sonant from the Scriptures. For how can it be disputed, how 
 can auj right-minded man doubt, that in this relation Christ is 
 the vine, and we the branches, who receive life from Him into 
 ourselves ? For St. Paul says, ' we are all one body in Christ, 
 because we being many are one bread, for we are all i:)ai-takers of 
 that one bread.' For let any man explain to us the cause, and 
 go on to teach us what is the efficacy of the mystical Eucharist. 
 Why is it that we receive it ? Does it not cause Christ to dwell 
 in us even bodily, by the partaking and communion with His 
 sacred Flesh '? No doubt of it. For St. Paul writes, that ' the 
 Gentiles had become of one body and partakers and fellow-heirs 
 with Christ.' Now in what way wore they set foi-th as one body ? 
 Because thej^ were thought worthy to be partakers of the mys- 
 tical Eucharist, they became one body with Him, even as did 
 each one of the Holy Apostles." * 
 
 Let the doctrine, tlien, of Our Lord's Incarnation be ad- 
 mitted, and there will be no imjirobability in the idea that 
 His sacred Body should be the medium through which He 
 communicates those gifts which have their origin in His 
 
 ^ Epis. liv. ad Comelium. - Adv. Nest. iv. 6, vol. vi. p. 116. 
 
 3 S. Leo, Ep. 46, ii. p. 260. (Lyons, 1700.) 
 * In Joan, xv. 1, Lib. x. 2, vqI. iv. p. 862. 
 
KELATION BETWEEN THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 79 
 
 Godhead. That such a thing is not impossible, has been shown 
 ah'eady, both from our ignorance of the operation of natural 
 agents, and because the body which is communicated is the 
 Body of God. Add the further thought, that this Body is 
 the appointed instrument by which the New Adam counteracts 
 those effects, which the old Adam produced upon the race of 
 man, and its intervention will be shown to be neither un- 
 meaning nor paradoxical. So that there was no reason why 
 its operations should be deemed improbable by the Apostles, 
 to whom it was originally given, nor yet by the Church in 
 which it has been since bestowed. For that which Our Lord 
 did in person at His last Supper, He has done ever since by 
 the medium of His ministers. Through them does He still 
 bestow that gift of His Body and His Blood, which He gave 
 to His twelve Apostles. He still speaks the words of Insti- 
 tution, and thereby affirms the presence of Himself, of His 
 Body, Soul, and Godhead. Neither is His Body any other 
 than that Human Body, which, by the mystery of the Incar- 
 nation, He made His own ; that Body which was once humbled, 
 but now is exalted, the self-same Body which He took of the 
 Virgin, and which suffered on the Cross. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BELATION BETWEEN THE GIFT BESTOWED IN THE HOLY 
 EUCHARIST AND THE ELEMENTS. 
 
 "We come now to the third question which arises out of the 
 words of Institution — the connexion, namely, between the 
 Subject and Predicate. "What was meant by Our Lord, when 
 He said, " This is My Body ? " 
 
 There are two main interpretations which the copula is 
 might receive. It might express representation, or it might 
 
80 THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 express identity. These are the two relations which the 
 Predicate, in such a case, might bear to the Subject ; and the 
 same Copula might be employed, whichever relation were 
 intended, " This is Pompey," was said to Csesar when his 
 rival's head was offered to him at Alexandria : and he might 
 have used the same words himself with equal propriety re- 
 specting the statue, at the feet of which he fell, in the 
 Senate-house. In the first case, however, there was the 
 identical person ; in the last there was only a representation. 
 Now, it is difficult to understand how the Holy Eucharist 
 can depend upon the principle of representation, because why 
 should bread and wine represent Our Lord's Body and Blood, 
 except there were some real connexion between them ? The 
 elements have no natural likeness to flesh and blood, nor, unless 
 the sacramental principle be admitted, have they any especial 
 I fitness to represent such objects. Except it had pleased God, 
 therefore, to produce that real relation which is expressed by 
 identity, there is no basis on wliich to rest the principle of 
 representation. 
 
 But again, it must be observed that the force of the word 
 is, as expressing representation, is derived from two sources ; 
 for one thing may represent another, either on account of their 
 natural resemblance, or because the first is authorized and in- 
 tended to represent the second. An ancient statue would be 
 called by the name of Caesar or Pompey, either because it was 
 supposed to present their well-known lineaments, or because 
 the sculptor had inscribed it with their names. So that we 
 get two principles on which a thing may be said to represent 
 another, either that of likeness, which derives its force from the 
 judgment of the sjiectator, or that of authority, which depends 
 upon the intention of the authoi". A picture represents a man, 
 because it is like him : but a bank note represents, or is, five or 
 ten pounds, because it contains the undertaking of some responsible 
 party that he will pay so many pounds upon its delivery. 
 
 Thus, then, we have three senses in which the expression 
 "This is" might be employed. Eirst, it may imply identity; 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 81 
 
 secondly, it may imply that kind of representation which derives [ 
 its force merely from the effect produced upon the spectator 
 or receiver ; thirdly, it may imply that kind of representation 
 which is dependent only upon the intention of the author or } 
 giver. Now, when we proceed to apply this to the case before 
 us, and ask which of these three relations was intended by Our 
 Lord when He said, " This is My Body" we are met at once 
 by the fact that these are the three alternatives, which we have 
 already had before us in the second chapter (p. 23), as the 
 theories, respectively, of the ancient Church, of Zuinglius, and 
 Calvin. The principle of identity is coincident with that of the 
 ancient Church, which supposed that the Holy Eucharist de- 
 rived its value from the reality of the gift bestowed : that 
 principle of representation which depends upon the opinion of 
 the spectator, is plainly the theory of Zuinglius, who maintained 
 that the Holy Eucharist derived its efficacy solely from the 
 disposition of the receiver : lastly, that principle of representa- 
 tion which depends upon the intention of the author, agrees 
 exactly with the system of Calvin, by whom the decree of 
 Almighty God was affirmed to be its sole consecrating 
 principle. 
 
 Two, then, of the systems under consideration have already 
 been dismissed as partial and unsatisfactory ; that of Zuinglius, 
 as incompatible with the first instincts of Christian piety ; that 
 of Calvin, as involving the monstrous theory of an arbitrary 
 fate. They are partial, because implied in the system of the 
 ancient Church ; they are unsatisfactory, because untenable in 
 themselves. And, therefore, though both will be further noticed 
 in the sequel, and shown neither to accord with Holy Scripture, 
 nor with the teaching of the ancient Church, yet we may leave 
 them for the present, and turn to that principle of identity 
 which alone remains to claim our attention. 
 
 When it is said, therefore, "This is My Body," the word 
 is expresses the identity of the Subject and Predicate. For 
 there is nothing else which it could express, except that 
 principle of representation, which would lead us to those 
 
 G 
 
^ THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 theories of Zuinglius and Calvin which we have discarded. 
 But identity is of various kinds, and what is the nature of 
 the identity here intended ? It is something distinct from that 
 personal identity which is unaffected hy the pei'petual change 
 which takes place in the materials of the body. Still less is it 
 a common case of physical identity, as when we handle portions 
 of the visible creation, and say " this is iron," or " this is earth," 
 For this sacrament, as was shown in the second chapter (p. 14), 
 is to be dealt with as being wholly a moral, and not a physical 
 instrument. This is no detraction from the truth of Our Lord's 
 Presence, nor from the reality of that identity which is aflSirmed 
 by the words of consecration ; it implies only that Christ's 
 Presence is not bestowed according to the ordinary laws of 
 the material creation, but is specific and supernatural. Wherein, 
 then, does the identity consist? It is plainly a peculiar prin- 
 ciple — sui generis; which, being without parallel in the world 
 around, is entitled to a specific appellation. For it depends 
 upon that mystex'ious law of consecration, of which we have 
 no other example ; and by virtue of this act, the Subject and 
 Predicate make up together a real, but heterogeneous whole. 
 And therefore the ancient writers speak of the union as mystical 
 or secret, because its nature and laws are entirely hidden from 
 investigation. So that since the relation between the Subject 
 and Predicate in Our Lord's words of Institution cannot be 
 resolved into any more general idea, it can derive its name 
 only from itself, and tlie union can be described as nothing else 
 than a sacramental identity. 
 
 Such is the result of that principle of consecration, which 
 has been shown to be characteristic of the Holy Eucharist. 
 Hence it comes to pass that this sacrament consists of two 
 things, a Subject and a Predicate, which are united into one 
 by a law of identity which is without parallel. So the matter 
 is stated in our Catechism : the Holy Eucharist consists, not 
 only of an " outward part or sign," but also of an " inward part 
 or thing signified." This agrees with the definition of Peter 
 Lombard, " invisibilis gratise visibilis causa." And the same 
 
iflE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 88 
 
 idea may be traced up to the first followers of the Apostles. 
 We find it in St. Irenaeus, who says that the consecrated element 
 " is no longer common bread, but Eucharist, consisting of two 
 parts, an earthly and a heavenly." ^ St. Basil applies the same 
 principle to Baptism, though here it is the ordinance at large, 
 not that which is administered in it, which consists of two 
 parts. One of these he describes to be immersion in water, 
 the other the presence of the Spirit ; ^ in exact accordance with 
 St. Paul's words, that this sacrament consists of " the washing 
 of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 But the writer who suggested that phraseology, which has 
 continued to be prevalent, at least in Western Christendom, 
 was St. Augustin. By sacraments, he says, are meant, in 
 general, those signs which are used with a sacred purpose.^ 
 But when he proceeds to define them more exactly, he says 
 that a sacrament consists of two parts, one of which is an 
 object to the senses, the other to the mind. The first, there- 
 fore, has a visible and corporeal nature ; the second is that 
 spiritual gift which it is the object of the ordinance to convey.* 
 This is illustrated by the language of an early Eastern writer, 
 quoted by Photius : " The Body of Christ, which is received by 
 the faithful, undergoes no alteration, so far as it is an object 
 to the senses, and yet can never be detached from that inward 
 gift, which is an object to the mind." ^ The writer of these 
 words belonged to a school hereafter to be noticed, the object 
 of which was to oppose the Eutychians ; his design, therefore, 
 is to illustrate the co-existence of two natures in Christ, by 
 reference to the existence of an outward and inward part in 
 the Holy Eucharist. So that he is led to observe that " the 
 tangible and intangible, the visible and invisible," though 
 entirely distinct in character, are yet joined together in this 
 sacrament. 
 
 The thing received in the Holy Eucharist being admitted, 
 
 ^ S. Irenseus, iv. 18. 5. ^ De Spiritu Sancto, xv. 35, p. 29. 
 
 ^ Epist. cxxxviii. 7, vol. ii. p. 412. * Sermo 271, vol. v. p. 1104. 
 
 * Ephraim, Patriarcli of Theopolis {i.e. Antioch), in Photius, No. 229. . 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 then, to consist of two parts, different in character, yet united 
 the one to the other ; the one an object to the senses, the other 
 made known to us only hy revelation and faith ; St. Augustin 
 proceeded to assign names respectively to each. The outward 
 part he called " sacramentum," the inward part " res sacramenti" 
 or "virtus sacramenti." The last two expressions, which he 
 used somewhat vaguely,^ were more accurately discriminated 
 by later writers ; they appropriated the words res sacramenti, 
 or thing signified, to the inward part, while they reserved the 
 expression, virtus sacramenti, for " the benefits, whereof we are 
 partakers thereby." Such was the course taken by Bishop 
 Overall, conformably to the more exact phraseology of the 
 schoolmen, when he compiled our Catechism. 
 
 "When it is said, then, that the relation between the Subject 
 and the Predicate in Our Lord's words of Institution is that 
 of sacramental identity, it is meant that the outward and inward 
 parts, the sacramentum and res sacramenti, are united by the 
 act of consecration into a compound whole. '^ The two therefore 
 are so imited, that they must needs go together ; and whoso 
 receives the one, receives the other. So long as we remain in 
 the region of the senses, and take account only of that which 
 is visible to the outward world, the sacramentum is all which 
 we know of; but judge of the matter by faith and revelation, 
 and we are sure that the res sacramenti is present also. Such 
 was the efl&cacy of Our Lord's original benediction ; such con- 
 tinues to be the force of the same words, when pronounced by 
 Him through the mouth of His ministers. For they are creative 
 
 ^ "Aliud est sacramentum, aliud res sacramenti." — In Joan. Tract, 
 xxvi. 11. "Hujus rei sacramentum .... quibusdam ad vitam, quibus- 
 dam ad exitium : res vero ipsa, cujus sacramentum est, omni homini ad 
 vitam, nuUi ad exitium." — hi. xxvi. 15. Here he probably uses res sacra- 
 menti for virtus sacramenti ; for that his belief was that the inward part, 
 or Body of Christ, is received by all communicants, is obvious from other 
 passages. Vide Epis. cxl. 66 ; l)e Baptismo contra Don. v. 9 ; Sermo bm. 
 17 ; In Joan, xxvii. 11. 
 
 ^ Hence we have an answer to the question, ^^^lat does the word Hoc 
 express in Our Lord's words of Institution? It refers directly to the res 
 sacramenti, indirectly to the sacramentum also. 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 85 
 
 words ; like those which called the world into existence : they / 
 effect that which they declare. 
 
 Since the principle, then, of the Holy Eucharist is that two 
 dissimilar things, the outward and the inward, retaining each 
 their own character, are united into a heterogeneous whole, it 
 follows that the complete idea of this sacrament implies, not 
 only the maintenance of the two portions of which this whale 
 is composed, but the law of their combination. 
 
 Hence there will be four errors against which it is necessary 
 to guard. Since that which is participated in the Holy Eu- 
 charist consists of an outward part and an inward part, and 
 since these two must be duly joined together, the nature of 
 a sacrament would be overthrown if either the one part or the 
 other were omitted : or if the two were either unduly confused, 
 or unduly separated. And these will be found, in fact, to be 
 the characteristic circumstances in the four erroneous systems 
 which have prevailed respecting the Holy Eucharist. Since 
 it consists both of a sacramentum and a res sacramenti, it must 
 be fatal to it to omit either the one or the other. Yet such was 
 the error of the Capernaites on the one side, and of Zuinglius 
 on the other. The sacramentum had no place in their thoughts, 
 nor the res sacramenti in his. Again, since the Holy Eucharist 
 implies that these parts, though continuing distinct, are mys- 
 tically joined together, it must be equally fatal to its nature 
 either to confuse or dissociate them. But the first was done 
 by Luther, the last by Calvin. Let us review these several 
 systems, and we shall thus gain a clearer apprehension of the 
 nature of that sacramental identity which binds the sacra- 
 mentum, to the res sacramenti ; the consecrated elements, that 
 is, to the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 First — To omit the res sacramenti, or thing communicated, is 
 plainly the greatest possible misconception of the Holy Eu- 
 charist. For it destroys the very purpose for which this ordinance 
 was appointed, and renders it an unmeaning and useless for- 
 mality. So that it would be more reasonable to explain away 
 the command to celebrate the Eucharist, than to retain the 
 
80 THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 ordinance but destroy its significance. Such, however, was the 
 course adopted by Zuiiiglius, and openly advocated in this 
 country by Hoadley. It may be fitly described as the notion 
 of a Symbolical * Presence, since it represented the elements 
 to be nothing but a sign or symbol of the presence of Christ. 
 It had its origin, as we have seen, in a desire to dispense with 
 the necessity of consecration, and with the authority of the 
 Priesthood. Its immediate result was, that instead of any 
 recognition of the present action of our glorified Redeemer, 
 the Holy Eucharist was supposed to be a mere memorial of 
 His season of humiliation. It was merely the recollection of 
 Christ dead, not the intervention of Christ living. Its benefit 
 was supposed to depend not ujDon any gift bestowed by God, 
 but solely upon the disposition of the receiver. The elements 
 wei'e alleged to be merely ordinary bread and wine. In the 
 minds of faithful and devout persons, Zuinglius said, such 
 emblems would excite a remembrance of Him by whom they 
 were originally employed, and thus would draw down those 
 succours of grace with which Almighty God is always ready 
 to meet any pious aspiration. But he admitted of no res sacra- 
 inenli ^ at all — no inward part, contained in, and communicated 
 through, that which was outward. So that his system deprived 
 the Sacrament of its most important portion, and resolved it 
 into a mere outside, alike destitute of sacredness and reality. 
 
 Secondly — The notion of Our Lord's hearers at Capernaum 
 was the exact converse. Not comprehending the mysterious 
 character of that gift which it was His merciful purpose to 
 bestow upon His people, they could put no other meaning upon 
 Our Saviour's words than that His Flesh was to be divided into 
 
 ' Zuinglius asserted, " quod Christi corpus, quum in coena, quum in 
 inentibua piorum, non aliter sit, quam sola coutemplatione." — EbranVs 
 Dogma vain lltil. Ahendmahle vol. ii. p. "259. 
 
 • " Cuin sacramentum corporis Christi nomino, non quicquam aliud 
 quani panem, qui corporis Christi pro nobis mortui figura et typus est, 
 intelligo." — JDe Coena Jhnnini plana et hreinx Imtitutio ; Zuimjlims Works, 
 vol. ii. fol. 273. "Si ergo signum tantuni rei est, res ipsa non est." — Ad 
 Principes Germanise Eputola. Id. fol. 645. 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 87 
 
 portions, and distributed as natural food to men. Their own 
 words show that they understood neither the meaning nor 
 advantage of the process contemplated. Without believing the 
 mystery of the Incarnation, they could see no purpose in that 
 communication of Himself whereby it was Our Lord's gracious 
 intention to impart spiritual grace. And even if they had 
 more fully apprehended Our Lord's nature, they could hardly 
 have divined the exact character of that blessing which He 
 was about to bestow, till He Himself was pleased to put an 
 interpretation upon His prophetic words, by the institution 
 of the Holy Eucharist. For the outward and inward parts 
 in this ordinance are so entirely relevant to one another, that 
 the nature of the one part cannot be understood without 
 reference to the other. It is the very principle of a sacrament 
 that the inward part cannot in any way be an object to the 
 senses ; so that to exclude all consideration of an outward part, 
 is to overthrow the purpose of a sacrament altogether. For 
 since this ordinance is a mean whex'eby God is pleased to bestow 
 inward gifts through external agents, to leave out one link 
 destroys the coherence of the whole transaction. The same 
 Fathers who tell us that the consecrated elements consist of 
 two parts, and that the inward part, wherein lies their whole 
 value, is nothing less than the Body and Blood of Cln-ist, look 
 upon it as monstrous to imagine that this hidden gift can in 
 any way come into contact with our external senses. St. 
 Augustin, who speaks of the Holy Eucharist as a mean whereby 
 men may eat angels' food, tells us that the discourse of Our 
 Lord at Capernaum must have seemed as though he was 
 recommending a monstrous crime ; ^ that " to eat a man's flesh 
 would seem more horrible than to kill ; to drink human blood 
 than to shed it." ^ St. Irenseus, who speaks of the reception of 
 Our Lord's Body in the Holy Eucharist as the renewing 
 principle of our flesh, refers to the charge that they devoured 
 human victims, as a horrible imputation brought upon Chris- 
 
 * De Doctrina Christiana, iii. sec. 16. 
 
 ^ Contra Adver. Legis, lib. ii. sec. 33, vol. viii. p. 599. 
 
88 THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 tians through the evidence of slaves, who either misunderstood 
 or misrepresented what they had heard from their masters re- 
 specting the Holy Eucharist. ^ 
 
 There is one ancient writer alone whose words at all sanction 
 the error of the Capernaites, and he would be scarcely important 
 enough to desei've attention did he not exhibit exactly that 
 carnal view of the Holy Eucharist which is censured in the 
 Articles of the Church of England. This is Anastasius Sinaita,'^ 
 who wrote against the Gaianitse, a sect of Eutychians, who 
 denied that Our Lord's human Body had ever been corruptible. 
 His arguments against them show how little tendency there 
 was in those days towards the error of a figurative presence, 
 but they lie open to the opposite charge of implying a carnal 
 particii^ation. For he excludes the idea of a sacramentum, as 
 much as Zuinglius did that of a res sacramenti. No doubt he 
 must have supjiosed that the senses of men were withheld by 
 some supernatural power from discerning the real character 
 of that which they handled, and of which they partook ; but 
 his argument would certainly seem to imply that Our Lord's 
 Body is present in the Holy Eucharist under the same natural 
 conditions which attached to it when it was upon earth. He 
 begins by asking his Eutychian opponent whether he allowed 
 that Our Lord's Body and Blood were truly present in the 
 Holy Eucharist. The answer he sujiposes to be that "the 
 Holy Communion is not merely a figure of Christ's Body, or 
 simple bread, but that very Body and Blood of Christ, which 
 was Incarnate and born of the Virgin Mary." To this Anasta- 
 sius replies, under the title of Orthodox : 
 
 " Such is our belief : we confess this, in accordance with 
 Christ's words to His disciples, in the mystic supper, when He 
 gave them the life-giving bread : ' Take, eat, this is My Body.' 
 
 Since Christ then confesses that this is truly His Body 
 
 and Blood, whicli we faithful take, come, bring us a portion 
 
 * Frajjinenta Ireusei, p. 843. Maasuet. 
 
 "^ Probably in the seventh century, and somewhat later than his name- 
 sake, the Patriarch of Antioch. — Vide Fabricius, Bib. Grxca, lib. v. 
 (J. 35. 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 89 
 
 from the communion of your Church as professing to be the 
 most orthodox among Churches, and let us keep this Body and 
 Blood of Christ with all honour and reverence in a vessel. And 
 if within a few days it is not corrupted, changed, or altered, it 
 will be obvious that you are right in asserting that the Body 
 of Christ was free from corruption from the very moment of 
 the Incarnation ; but if it be corrupted or changed, you must 
 necessarily confess one of two things, either that the thing 
 which you receive is not the true Body of Christ, but only 
 a figure or sign of it ; or that on account of your corrupted faith 
 the Holy Spirit has not descended upon it ; or that Christ's 
 Body before its resurrection was subject to corruption, as being 
 a Body, which was slain, wounded, divided, and eaten." ^ 
 
 This passage not only refers to Our Lord's Body as though it 
 still retained the same conditions which had belonged to it before 
 the Resurrection, but it also loses sight of the essential charac- 
 teristic of a sacrament, by supposing that its inward part can be 
 an object to the senses of men. So that it involves the very 
 supposition which is censured in the 28th Article ; such " change 
 of the substance of bread and wine," as " overthroweth the nature 
 of a sacrament." The opinion here objected to must be some- 
 thing which runs counter to the sacramental principle, that is, to 
 the idea that an inward pai't and an outward part are coupled 
 together ; the last an object to the senses, the former to the 
 mind. Such a notion would have been rejected by Aquinas and 
 the other schoolmen, although the different meaning which they 
 attach to the word substance produces a verbal contradiction 
 between them and the Church of England. The word substance, 
 in the 28th Article, seems intended to express that which is 
 material in the consecrated elements ; the sacramentum namely, 
 or outward and visible sign. To suppose that this passes wholly 
 away, would be the error of Anastasius, and would overthrow 
 the nature of a sacrament, because it would exclude one of those 
 parts which is characteristic of such ordinances. But the meaning 
 of the word substance, as understood by the schoolmen, was wholly 
 
 ^ Anast. Sin. Vise Dux, 23. Bib. Pat. ix. p. 855. Something similar 
 is implied in the Epist. ad Epis. Doar. But the letter is not Damascene's. 
 
90 THE EELATION BETWEEN 
 
 different. ' The Aristotelian philosophy, on which their expres- 
 sions were moulded, divided all objects into the accidental part, 
 which was an object to the senses, and the substantial, which was 
 an object only to the mind. By substance, therefore, in the Holy 
 Eucharist, they understood not the Sacr amentum, but the Res 
 Sacramenti. This more subtile sense of the word substance, 
 which had become familiar in Theology, was employed by the 
 Council of Trent, when it declared its mind in opposition to the 
 Lutheran doctrine of Consubstantiation. So that when the 
 Church of England denies that the substance of bread and wine 
 is changed in the Holy Eucharist, she refers to the sacramentum, 
 or that which is an object to the senses. But when the Church 
 of Home speaks of change of substance, there is no reason why 
 she may not be understood to refer to the res sacramenti, or 
 that which is not an object to the senses. If the question were 
 understood in this way, the contradiction would be verbal, rather 
 than real ; in language and not in thought. The carnal or 
 Capei'naite notion is that which the words of the Article really 
 censure ; for to exclude the idea of a sacramentum,, or external 
 part, would overthrow the very nature of a sacrament. 
 
 Such are the theories which have resulted from regarding one 
 part only of the Holy Eucharist to the exclusion of the other : 
 
 ' According to this philosophy, all objects were referable to ten heads. 
 Substance, Quantity, Quality, and seven kinds of relation. These ten 
 heads, or categories, were a metaphysical classification, according to which 
 every conceivable object was supposed to be divisible. The first. Sub- 
 stance, expressed the Quulditi/ of an object, i. e. what it is, (jitid est : 
 the other nine categories expressed its accidents. Now it was held that 
 there were two sources of knowledge, senge and intellect (IS. Thorn. Opusc. 
 c. 29, p. 400). Of these, sense was exclusively conversant with the acci- 
 ilents of things. For " sensus est cognoscitivus accidentinm." (iSumma 
 Theol. i. 78. a.) But the Sitl'sfnnce, or Quiddity, was an object to intellect 
 alone. "Quidditas rei sensibilis e.it objectum intellectus proprium, ut 
 dicitur in 3 de Anima." (Opusc. x.xix. p. 400.) And again, "Quidditas 
 rei particularis in particular! non spectat ut per se objectum ad illos sen- 
 sus exteriorea, cum quiddita.s ista substantia sit, et non accidens." (Id. 
 p. 401.) Hence it was held that "Substantia de se, in quantum sub- 
 stantia, locum non occupet." (OfHisc. lix. 3, p. 677.) The genuineness 
 of some of S. Thomas's Opuscula ia doubtful ; but at any rate they ex- 
 press the opinions of his school. 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. &I 
 
 from denying, as Zuinglius did, the inward grace ; or like 
 Anastasius Sinaita, the outward form. But since the due union 
 of these two parts of a sacrament is not less essential than the 
 admission of each, there are two other errors into which it is 
 possible to fall : the outward and inward part may be confused 
 with one another, as was done by Luther, or separated, as was 
 done by Calvin. The peculiar theory of Luther on this subject 
 resulted from the contending influence of two opposite principles. 
 The associations of his youth, reinforced by his antipathy to the 
 revolutionary spirit of the Swiss reformers, inclined him to look 
 with reverence on the Holy Eucharist. On the other hand, he 
 was resolved to maintain inviolate his favourite principle of 
 justification exclusively by faith. Now the Lutheran ^ doctrine 
 of justification by faith is incompatible with any real belief in 
 the validity of sacraments. If a man can place himseK in a state i 
 of safety and acceptance, by the mere conviction of his own mind, 
 what need has he of external ordinances ? A person who pos- 
 sessed the secret which was sought for by the Alchymists, could 
 hardly be expected to earn his daily bread by the toilsome 
 processes of oi'dinary labour ; and those who imagined that 
 man's salvation was wrought out by_ his own assurance of its 
 attainment, could never attach any real value to the means of 
 grace. That the importance of sacraments was an excrescence 
 in Luther's system, and had no root in its real life, is shown by 
 the history of his followers. Symptoms of this might be discerned 
 even in his own lifetime : Melanchthon gradually omitted the 
 
 ^ The Lutheran doctrine was expressed with the utmost distinctness 
 in the Confession of Augsburg, as it was presented by the Protestants 
 to the Emperor A.D. 1530, and printed 1531. The Confessio Variata, 
 which modifies it greatly, was substituted by Melanchthon, "privato ausu," 
 A.D. 1540. — Pfaff, Introd. Hist, in Lihros Symholicos, iii. 6. The original 
 Confession asserts judifying faith to be the faith of the man who believes 
 himself to he justified. The faith which God imputes for righteousness 
 is said to be "cum credunt se in gratiam recipi, et peccata remitti prop- 
 ter Christum." — Art. 4. In Art. 5 it is said that God " justificat hos, qui 
 credunt, se propter Christum in gratiam recipi." In the 12th, faith is 
 defined to be that which " credit propter Christum remitti peccata, et 
 consolatur conscientiam j " and so in the 13th, faith " quae credat remitti 
 peccata." 
 
92 THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 stronger statements which had at first been introduced into the 
 Confession of Augsburg ; ' Avhile CEcolampadius,^ his opponent 
 at Marburg, did not fail to press upon him that his notion 
 respecting the Holy Eucharist was incompatible with his own 
 view of the sole importance of faith.^ 
 
 In what way, then, was Luther to reconcile tendencies which 
 led him to attach sacredness to the Holy Eucharist, while they 
 forbad him to allow real efi&cacy to the means of grace ? Such 
 was the problem before him ; and his doctrine on this sacrament 
 resulted from the combination of these different influences. He 
 avowed plainly his belief in the real presence of Our Lord's 
 natural body ; and expressed himself on this subject with a 
 distinctness which seemed almost to imply a carnal participation. 
 
 ^ In the original copy of the Confession of Augsburg (in German), 
 A.D. 1530, the 10th Article stands as follows : "About the Supper of the 
 Lord it is taught that the true Body and Blood of Christ is truly present 
 in the Supper under the form of bread and loine, and is there distributed 
 and taken. And the contrary doctrine is rejected." [This resembles the 
 statement of our first book of Homilies, " of the due receiving of His 
 blessed Body and Blood under the form of bread and wine."] But in the 
 first Latin version, A.D. 1531, some of the most important words are 
 omitted. " About the Supper of the Lord, they teach that the Body and 
 Blood of Christ are truly present, and are distributed to them who eat 
 in the Supper of the Lord, and they condemn those who teach otherwise." 
 Melanchthon's revised Confession, called the Variata, A.D. 1540, exhibits 
 a further alteration. "About the Supper of the Lord they teach that 
 with the bread and wine there are truly set forth [exhibeantur] the Body 
 and Blood of Christ to those who eat in the Lord's Supper." This waa 
 an earnest of the change which has since been witnessed. "Since the 
 middle of the eighteenth century," says Liicke, "the generality, whether 
 of dogmatic or exegetical writers among the Lutherans, have at first 
 silently, and then avowedly, adopted the Calvinistic or Zuinglian theory 
 of the Lord's Supper." — Commentary on St. John, vol. ii. p. 732. 
 
 * Vide Ebrard, vol. ii. p. 319. 
 
 ' Bretschneider observes, in reference to Luther's system, "Inasmuch 
 as the force and benefit of reception depends solely on faith in Jesus as 
 Atoner (fides salvifica), and this faith by no means includes a belief in 
 the real presence of the Body and Blood in the Lord's Supper, it follows 
 from the system itself that a man enjoys all th6' benefits of the Lord's 
 Supper by faith in Jesus, as Atoner, although he doubts about the real 
 presence. Even according to the system of the Symbolical Books, the 
 subtile theory about the real presence has no connexion with the purpose 
 of the Lord's Supper." — Dogmatik der Lutherischen Kirche, sec. 202, vol. 
 ii. p. 687. (Leipsic, 1838.)" 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 93 
 
 "When Melanchthon was about to meet Bucer at Cassel,he received 
 the following instructions from Luther : " This, in short, is our 
 opinion ; that the Body of Christ is truly eaten in and with the 
 bread, so that every thing which the bread does and suffers, the 
 Body of Christ does and suffers ; it is divided, eaten, and chewed 
 with the teeth." ^ 
 
 It might be supposed that such views as these respecting the 
 reality of Our Lord's presence, would lead Luther to adopt the 
 opinions of the ancient Church respecting its efficacy. But here 
 came in the other side of his opinions. To attribute the same 
 weight as had formerly been done to the restoration of mankind 
 in the New Adam ; to suppose that those supernatural gifts 
 which had been lost in our first father, are given back in our 
 Second ; to believe in a true re-creation of man's nature, by 
 which it is regenerated, reformed, and corroborated, so that those 
 who were alienated in Adam are reinstated through a real union 
 with Christ — all this would have been to attribute a value to 
 external ordinances which was inconsistent with Luther's whole 
 system. It was necessary, therefore, to find some other reason 
 by which to account for so peculiar an institution as the Holy 
 Eucharist. Hence the perplexity in which he found himself in 
 his discussion with ZuingUus and Q^colampadius at Marburg. 
 He is said to have written the words of Institution with chalk 
 upon the table before him, and when called upon to explain them 
 in a manner less inconsistent and unmeaning, his only reply 
 consisted of coarse illustrations ^ and violent reiteration. " I 
 don't ask," he said, " what is the use of this bodily eating, but 
 whether it is not so written ? It is enough that God has said it : 
 man has no choice but to do it. God has in this case attached 
 acceptance with Him to the bodily eating. If God told me to 
 eat dung I should do it too." * 
 
 ^ Planck (Gesch. des Prot. LehrbegrifFs, vol. iii. part i. p. 369) adds 
 the words, " propter unionem sacramentalem : " but they do not occur in 
 the letter of Dec. 17, 1534. — Luther s Letters. Be Wette, vol. iv. p. 572. 
 
 2 " Wenn Gott etwas sage, miisse man 's glauben, selbst wenn Gott sage, 
 dass ein Hufeisen sein Leib sei." — Ebrard, vol. ii. p. 318. 
 
 3 Ebrard, vol. ii. p. 320. 
 
94 THE Ivi-i^ATlUN iiKl vv jit-iN 
 
 In thus admitting that acceptance with God was in any way 
 attached to the reception of Our Lord's Humanity, Luther was 
 far from meaning that this gift followed from our incorporation 
 into Him. The effect of the Holy Eucharist, he maintained, was 
 purely arbitrary and technical. " If it were mere bread and 
 wine, as you say it is," he told Carolstad, " and yet if those 
 words were there, ' Take, eat, this is My Body which is given for 
 you,' it would be just as profitable for the forgiveness of sins, 
 by virtue of this expression.'" In his answer to Carolstad,'' 
 therefore, as well as on other occasions,^ he studiously abstained 
 from dwelling on what he supposed to be the advantage of the 
 ordinance. His real opinion, however, appears to have been 
 that Our Lord's Presence is given both as a striking proof of 
 God's favour* towards mankind, and as peculiarly fitted to 
 produce an inipression upon the receiver. He was accustomed, 
 therefore, to speak of the Sacrament as a sign ; not, as Planck * 
 observes, because he considered bread to be the sign of Our 
 Lord's Body ; the sign which he thought of consisted at once of 
 bread and of the Body of Our Lord. So that though he 
 recognised the existence of a res sacramenti, yet he dealt with it 
 as though it had been an emblem only, and not a reality. The 
 Body of Our Lord was not, as the Church had always 
 
 ' Planck, vol. ii. p. 245. 2 j(j ^^i jj p 241. 
 
 8 Id. vol. ii. p. 328. 
 
 ■* The notion that Christ's Presence in the Holy Eucharist is a sign of 
 God's general purposes, but not an especial means through which He 
 bestows His gifts, may be found also in Melanchthon. "The .Supper of 
 the Lord," he says, "signifies that Christ has made satisfaction for our 
 eins, and promised us forgiveness ; and yet it does luit foUow that Christ's 
 Body is not present ." — Eltrard, ii. 334. Again he says: "The words of 
 the Sacrament .... are a witness that Christ is with us ; He says He 
 gives us His Body to show that He is not only exalted above us as our 
 Creator, but was and is really with us." — Id. ii. 439. Calvin frequently 
 observes upon the little stress which the Lutherans lay on the hent'jits of 
 the Holy Eucharist. " Quorsum instituta sit Cana, et quem fructum 
 afl'erat fidelibus, altum apud eos silentiuni fuit." — ir(u7.-*f, vol. viii. 734. 
 
 ■'' Planck, ii. 212. 80 in his Sermon, " De Eicommunicatione" he says: 
 "Altera et posterior communio est externa, corporalis, et visibilis, quae 
 fit ipsa participatione sacramenti, eaque est signum prioris illius, intemae 
 et spiritualis commuuicationis." — llospinian, vol. ii. p. 10. 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 95 
 
 supposed, a life-giving principle, which was actually com- 
 municated through the instrumentality of certain sensible 
 media ; it was only intended to give greater impressiveness to 
 the ordinance, and its office terminated in the ordinance itself. 
 Its purpose was like that of a picture or a crucifix, which, though 
 wholly inoperative in themselves, may be productive of effect 
 upon the beholder. But what rendered it infinitely more 
 sacred than any such emblem, was that it was the real Body 
 and Blood of the Saviour of the world. What is this, in fact, 
 but the notion attributed by Nicetas the Paphlagonian to those 
 who deposed Photius ? To give greater solemnity to their act, 
 he says, the members of the Council infused a drop of Our 
 Lord's Blood into the ink with which they signed the sentence 
 of deposition. It would seem to be exactly an analogous effect 
 which Luther attributed to Our Lord's Presence in the Holy 
 Eucharist. He neither allowed that it rendered the Sacrament 
 really more valid, nor that it was calculated in itself to produce 
 any beneficial results ;^ but he supposed that it would impart an 
 additional solemnity to the action. 
 
 ^ When Luther speaks, therefore, of the Holy Eucharist, as assuring us 
 of the forgiveness of sins, he does not mean that this benefit is conveyed 
 to us through Our Lord — the res sacramenti, or thing signified ; he con- 
 siders the Sacrament to be merely a confirmation of God's general promises 
 of forgiveness. "Is sacramenti est usus, ut dicere hoc vere possis : habeo 
 hie apertum verbum, remissa mihi esse peccata. Signum quoque accepi, 
 manducavi etbibi, id quod certo comprobare possum." — Concio ad Sacram. 
 Altaris, vol. i. fol. 80. (Ed. 1582.) He has no idea, therefore, that the 
 thing given in the Holy Eucharist is more valuable than any promise. 
 On the contrary, he speaks of the "verba benedictionis " as being the 
 "panis vitae." — Formula Commun. pro Eccl. Wittemhurg. vol. ii. fol. 385. 
 He contrasts the two together, and prefers the promise : De Capf. Babyl. 
 vol. ii. fol. 70. And he says, " sacramentalis " [manducatio] "non vivi- 
 ficat." — Id. fol. 64. And again, "Non in aliud pane aut sacramento 
 utitur, quam fidei confirmandse gratia." — Sermo de Eucliar. vol. vii. fol. 
 337. And even when writing against the Sacramentarians, when the 
 passages which he quotes compel him to maintain that Christ's Body is 
 a seed of resurrection to the bodies of men, he never gets free from his 
 capital error — that the res sacramenti itself is only a jjledge or token of 
 something which is effected independently of it. " Proprium suum corpus 
 nobis dat ad comedendum, ut nos eo ^ignore ohsignet, et in certissimam 
 spem adducat," &c. — Befens. Verb. Coenie. Works, vol. vii. fol. 3y5. 
 
96 THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 Now it is obvious that such a view of Our Lord's Presence is 
 incompatible with the very purpose of a sacrament, because it 
 confuses the functions of the outward sign and the inward grace. 
 If Our Lord's Body be present in the Holy Eucharist, it is 
 because that ordinance has been appointed as the medium 
 whereby its salutary influence is communicated to men. The 
 very object of uniting it with certain sensible elements, is to 
 communicate that secret gift, of which human senses cannot take 
 cognizance. To suppose, therefore, that Our Lord's Body is 
 really present, but that it is only a sign, whereby we are assured 
 of God's goodness, and whereby the feelings are impressed, is to 
 mix together things in their nature heterogeneous — the outward 
 sign and the thing signified. It somewhat resembles the 
 superstitious use of the consecrated elements which St. Augustin ^ 
 tells us was made by the mother of Acatius, when she employed 
 it as a cataplasm for the opening of his eyes. It might please 
 God to bless such a step ; but it seems to imply a misapprehension 
 of the real nature of Christ's Presence. In like manner did 
 Luther lose sight of the real benefit of Our Lord's Body, Tjjhich 
 can only be appreciated by those mIio discern it to be the 
 res sacramenti, when he assigned to it an object and an use, 
 which it could only discharge if it were the sacramentum, or 
 external emblem. 
 
 These views of Luther's exposed him to the charge which 
 was brought against him by his opponents, of holding a 
 theory which they described as Consttbstantiation. The 
 term, it must be remembered, was not his, but that of his 
 opponents;^ but it arose naturally enough out of some of 
 his assertions. Among his various and inconsistent state- 
 ments respecting the Holy Eucharist, he referred with 
 approbation^ to an assertion of Peter D'Ailly,^ that the 
 
 ' S. Aug. Opus. Imperf. contra Julian, iii. sec. 162. 
 
 * Gerhard speaks of the term as applied to Lutherans by their oppo- 
 nents. — Loci Theal. No. 69 and 98, with Ootta's note. 
 
 ^ De Captiv. Babyl. vol. ii. fol. 67. 
 
 * D'Ailly begins by saying, "Sciendum e.^t, quod Catholici concorda- 
 verint in hoc, quod corpus Christi vere et priucipaliter est in sacramento 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 97 
 
 co-existence of two substances was not in itself more inconceivable 
 than the co-existence of two qualities, though it was less con- 
 formable to the established phraseology of the Church. This 
 was thrown out by D'Ailly, merely as an account which might 
 be given of the manner in which Our Lord's Body comes to be 
 present in the Holy Eucharist; it was not D'Ailly 's intention to 
 confound the purposes of the outward part and the inward part 
 in this sacrament, or to derogate from that harmonious order, 
 whereby a divine gift is communicated through external means. 
 Hence, however, arose the term Consubstantiation, which has 
 ever since been regarded as characteristic of Lutheranisra, be- 
 cause Luther's whole system led to his confounding the purposes 
 of the sacramentum and res sacramenti ; while this term had 
 a tendency to confound their natures. So that it accorded well 
 enough with a theory, the purpose of which was to vindicate 
 the sacredness of the Holy Eucharist without admitting its 
 efficacy. For to do justice to this ordinance as a means of grace, 
 it was essential to recognize both its outward form and its 
 inward life ; and thus to consider the former to be the divinely 
 appointed medium through which it was the will of God to 
 communicate the lattei". All this was incompatible with 
 Luther's princi^Dles, who was ready indeed to admit the reality 
 of Our Lord's Presence, but not to recognize the greatness of 
 those gifts which are communicated through the Humanity of 
 the Second Adam, So that his system could not be maintained 
 except by mixing together the outward sign and the inward 
 reality ; by attributing to Our Lord's Body a mere carnal office, 
 instead of regarding it as the life-giving principle of grace. And 
 thus he was at once a zealot for Our Lord's bodily Presence, 
 
 sub speciebus panis et vini. Circa modum ponendi fuerint diversse opini- 
 ones." The third opinion which he states is, " quod substantia panis 
 remanet ; " of which he says "valde possibile est substantiam panis co- 
 existere substantia corporis, nee est magis impossibile duas substantias 
 coexistere, quam duas qualitates." And he concludes by observing, 
 "nullum inconveniens sequitur ex priore modo ponendi, si tarn concor- 
 daret cum determinatione Ecclesise." — Qumstiones Magidri Petri de Al- 
 liaco Cardinalis Canieracensis, fol. 265. On the Fourth Book of Sen- 
 tences. 
 
 H 
 
98 THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 while he made the belief of it impossible, by rendering it 
 supei-fluous. 
 
 Fourthly — There remains one further theory, more subtile 
 and plausible than the preceding ones, by which the notion of a 
 sacrament is not less completely overthrown than l)y those which 
 have been described. Though it be admitted that a sacrament 
 consists of two parts, one outward and the other inward, and 
 that each must retain its due office, without confusion or inter- 
 mixture, yet it is possible so to separate them as to destroy 
 their sacramental coherence, and thus to overthrow the purpose 
 of the ordinance. And this was done by the theory of Calvin. 
 No one professed to go further than he did in asserting the 
 importance of the inward gift which is bestowed in the Holy 
 Eucharist. It might be supposed that he entered into the 
 relation between this sacrament and the reconstruction of man- 
 kind through Christ; and that he accepted St. Cyril's state- 
 ments that the Humanity of Our Lord is the appointed medium 
 through which spiritual blessings are conferred upon His 
 brethren. A far deeper man than Zuinglius,' he saw that the 
 re-creation of mankind must be based upon that supernatural 
 system of events which had its commencement in the Incarnation 
 of the Second Adam ; more clear-sighted than Luther, he 
 discriminated accurately between the inward gift and the out- 
 ward sign. But it was to no purpose that he recognised each 
 part of the ordinance, and assigned to either its appropriate 
 weight, so long as he detached the one from the other. For 
 since it is the very conception of a sacrament, that the outward 
 sign is the medium through which it pleases God to bestow the 
 inward reality, it was equally fatal to deny the coherence, as the 
 distinctness or integrity of its parts. 
 
 To appreciate fully the system of Calvin, it "is necessary to 
 bear in mind the twofold object which he proposed to himself. 
 On the one hand, he wished to get rid of consecration, and 
 therefore could not admit that the sacramentum and res sacra- 
 
 ' He observes, "quam j)rofana sit (Zuinglii) de sacramentis doctrina." 
 — Calv. litene iiteditx {Bretschntidtr), p. 10. Vide Kahuin, p. 31)4. 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 99 
 
 menti were bound to one another. On the other hand, he 
 desired to assign its full value to the virtus sacramenti, in which 
 their action results. How was this to be effected? Since 
 the virtus sacramenti follows from the res sacramenti, it would 
 seem that the second was necessary to the existence of the first. 
 Again, the consecration of the elements is the act by which 
 the outward and inward parts receive that mystic coherence 
 wliich unites them into a whole ; so that to reject the principle 
 of coherence would involve the rejection also of its effects. 
 These difficulties Calvin attempted to overcome by saying, first, 
 that a res sacramenti really exists, though it be not present in 
 the sacrament : it is the Body of Christ, which is present only in 
 heaven, and has no connexion with the sacramentum, which is 
 exhibited upon earth. Next, he stated that the virtus sacra- 
 menti followed from the res sacramenti by God's appointment, 
 either through the lifting of the receiver's soul into heaven, or 
 through the diffusion of the influence of Christ's Body upon 
 earth. 
 
 Now it appears strange that so acute a reasoner as Calvin 
 should put these two last suggestions together as if they were 
 only two ways of stating the same hypothesis.^ For they are 
 entii'ely distinct ideas ; the second implies that some force, or 
 virtue, issues from Our Lord's Flesh, as the means whereby its 
 sphere of operations is extended ; the first, that though Our 
 Lord's Body is not really present upon earth, yet that it may be 
 said to be present nominally or virtually, because the approach 
 of the soul to Christ produces the same results as if it were 
 present. So that in the one case Christ's Body is supposed to be 
 the agent ; in the other the souls of men. Yet the ambiguity 
 of the words virtue and virtual renders it possible to represent 
 these ideas as almost identical. And this was not an incon- 
 venient circumstance, if it was Calvin's intention, as it certainly 
 
 * Calvin constantly associates the two, as if they were identical. Thus, 
 in his remarks on the Consensus Tigur., the statement that " Christus . . . 
 in coelum ad se . . . nos attollit," is directly followed by "ad nos sua 
 virtute descendit." — Niemeyer, p. 215. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 was his practice, to introduce Our Lord's Body as though it 
 were the agent in the Holy Eucharist, and yet not to assign to 
 it any real part in the transaction. For since it was to be 
 nominally put forward, witliout really exercising any influence, 
 the only course which could be adopted was to leave its mode of 
 action ambiguous. If Our Lord's Body were really an agent in 
 this sacrament, it must be supposed that the capacity to be 
 present as the res sacramenti, or thing signified, was an especial 
 power bestowed upon it tlirough its oneness with Godhead. But 
 since this would have involved the validity of consecration, 
 Calvin substituted the intervention of the Spirit,^ instead of the 
 efi&cacy of Our Lord's Body, as the time res sacramenti by which 
 a relation is brought about between God and man. This en- 
 abled him to rest the value of the sacrament, not upon any gift 
 which had actually been bestowed through the Humanity of 
 Christ, but solely upon the Divine intention. So that he could 
 speak of the sacramentum, or external part, as nothing more 
 than a seal, charter, or title-deed, by which the Supreme Being 
 bore witness to the process which He was carrying on at the 
 same moment within the receiver's soul [vide supra, cap. ii.]. 
 And the only connexion between the sacramentum and virtus 
 sacramenti was that their reception was simultaneous, and 
 that they were bestowed by the same Giver upon the same 
 receiver. 
 
 It is justly complained by Kahnis that " it is difficult to 
 enter into this system, not on account of its depth, but by 
 reason of its artificial, indefinite, and cloudy nature. For 
 Calvin treats those with the deepest contemjjt who connect 
 the Body and Blood with the elements, while yet he esteems 
 it a gross misrepresentation if any one denies that he considers 
 the elements to be the vehicles of the true Body and Blood." ^ 
 By this double system he was able, certainly, to dispense with 
 consecration, and yet to reiirosent the gift bestowed as real 
 
 ' " Facit arcana Spiritus virtus, ut <iufe loconiin spatio distant, inter 
 se uniantur." — Dr lew J'diticip. Works, viii. 744. 
 - Lelire vom Abeudiuahle, p. 413. 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 101 
 
 and important. But then there was a practical dishonesty 
 in professing to accord with the strong expressions of the early 
 Church, while he discarded the only principle on which they 
 could really be justified. For what was the meaning of the 
 virtus sacramenti which he professed to retain ? The Chiiroh 
 had supposed that it was that relation between the soul of 
 the devout i-eceiver and the Humanity of Christ, which was 
 consequent upon the reception of Our Lord's Body and Blood 
 through the consecrated elements. Now, if Calvin meant less 
 than this, he did not recognize the influence of Our Lord's 
 Humanity, and thus fell down into the system of Zuinglius, 
 which he had censured. For he must suj)pose the benefit to 
 be nothing but that general influence of Cod's grace, which is 
 present in all ordinances. But if he meant as much as this, 
 he was compelled to fall back vipon that monstrous system of 
 arbitrary reprobation which was previously noticed (cap. ii. 
 p. 27). For, according to the last supposition, the virtus sacra- 
 menti is that relation which binds the soul to the Humanity 
 of Our Lord, and which can be experienced by none but the 
 devout communicant.^ The res sacramenti (according to the 
 Church system) is partaken by all, because Christ's Presence 
 depends merely upon the validity of consecration ; but the 
 virtus sacramenti is that effect which follows from Christ's 
 Presence, where there is a living relation between Him and 
 the soul. It is by this living i-elation only that the branches 
 hold to the I'oot ; for the branch cannot partake the life of the 
 tree except by living. If it be afiirmed, then, that the virtus 
 
 ^ This is expressly affirmed by Calvin. "Si pateret in eos Christo in- 
 gressus, omni ipsos reatu exiineret." — Niemeyer, p. 211. No doubt he 
 attempts to escape from the results of his system, by alleging the fault 
 to be on man's side — but they are results which follow inevitably from 
 his principle that sacraments are " organa quibus efficaciter agit Deus hi, 
 suis electis." — Id. p. 204. For he denies that Christ's sacramental pre- 
 sence is bestowed except upon those who have faith : " Christum absque 
 fide recipi." — Niemeyer, p. 211. And faith, he says, is not given, ex- 
 cept to the elect. "Fidei nostrse origo et causa est divina electio." — 
 Be Priedesti nation e. Works, viii. 61i. "Speciale donum est fides, quo 
 rata fit Dei electio." — Id. 608. 
 
102 THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 sacramenti does not follow in the way of effect from the res 
 sacramenti, but is a result produced immediately by Almighty 
 God in the soul, why is not the sacramentum, or external 
 pledge, always accompanied by this consequence? For what 
 is meant by a seal, or pledge, which does not secure the con- 
 veyance of the thing promised ? Now, on Calvin's system, the 
 immediate agency of Almighty God becomes the sole inter- 
 vening link between the sacramentum, or external sign, by 
 which He pledges Himself to confer a blessing, and the virtus 
 sacramenti, or spiritual effect. Yet it is admitted on all 
 hands, that men may partake of the outward elements, who 
 do not share in the spiritual blessing. Now to put the in- 
 tention of Almighty God in place of the res sacramenti, or 
 actual gift, is to make Him responsible for the failure. For 
 why is not His jiromise always performed ? There can be no 
 reason assigned except that secret decree, whereby He assigns 
 some of His creatures to mercy, and others to destruction. 
 
 It may be alleged, perhaps, as an objection to the preceding 
 statements, that they sujipose Calvin's system not to provide 
 for the case of those who are predeteimined by inevitable 
 sentence to eternal life, but who approach the Holy Eucharist 
 before their conversion.^ It might be enough to answer, that 
 this is only one fonn of a difficulty which attaches to the Cal- 
 vinistic system at large. For what happens if such persons 
 die before their conversion ? If it be answered that He who 
 has predestined them to life can ensure them against a pre- 
 mature removal. He can ensure them also against profaning 
 His Holy Altar. But perhaps the better reply would be 
 that such questions need not be answered : because all which 
 is essential in any system is to explain its natural and nonnal 
 action, to which difficult and provisional cases must adjust 
 
 * The suggestion in Article XX. of the Consensus Tigurinus is manifestly 
 only a way of escaping the difticulty- " Fieri iuterdum potest, ut Sacne 
 CoensB iisus, qui in actu ipso j>ropter incogitantiani, vel tiirditatem nostram 
 paruiii prodest, fructum deiude suum proferat." ISIr. Scott says that to 
 receive the Holy Eucliarist is "no duty" "to a man who himself has 
 not reason to conclude that he is a believer." — MiiceU. Ldters, p. 292. 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 103 
 
 themselves by a general analogy. Such is the case in regard 
 to the difficult question of adult Baptism. "We know that 
 in Baptism, Christ chooses men to be members of His Body, 
 and bestows that gift of grace whereby this union is effected. 
 As infants by birth become members of the old man, so is it 
 His gracious purpose to incorporate them at the same tender 
 age into the New Adam. And as infants, being innocent of 
 actual sin, can oppose no bar to His grace, we are sure that 
 His merciful purpose takes effect, and that they become at 
 once living members of His Body. But the case becomes 
 more intricate when we pass to the adult candidate for Bap- 
 tism. What is the exact effect of the gift of grace, supposing 
 that his impenitence puts a bar to its reception, and how 
 far, and in what manner, the blessing remains suspended,* 
 till its efficacy is brought out by his repentance, are points 
 on which it is impossible probably to speak decisively. All 
 of which we can be sure is, that the failure does not arise 
 from the deficiency of God's grace, but from the impenitence 
 of the receiver. For the sacrament, regarded in itself, has 
 the same character as when it is ministered to infants who 
 cannot oppose its efficacy. So that the nature of Baptism 
 cannot be duly appreciated except by considering it under 
 those normal conditions where it acts without impediment. 
 And the same limitation is aj)plicable in the case of the Holy 
 Eucharist. 
 
 The system of Calvin, then, was built upon a denial of 
 the coherence between the sacramentum and the res sacra- 
 menti. And hence he was compelled to rest the presence of 
 the virtus sacramenti upon the absolute decree of Almighty 
 God, because he was unable to ground it upon the actual 
 presence of Our Lord's Humanity. So that as Zuinglius 
 allowed only a Symbolical Presence, because he admitted of 
 
 ^ De Lugo says, "De Baptismo videtur omnino concedendum, ablata 
 fictione, seu obice, conferre suum eS'ectum." — De Sacramentis, Dis. ix. 
 sec. iii. He quotes S. Aug. de Baptismo con. Donatistas, i. 12, iii. 13, 
 vi. 5. 
 
104 THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 nothing but a sacramentum, or external symbol, f=o Calvin 
 may be said to have held only a Virttial Presence, because 
 he detached the virtus sacramenti, or effect, from the res 
 sacramenti, or cause. Whereas, of course, the Jieal Presence 
 is that which gives its due place to the res sacramenti, or 
 thing signified. It was stated how incompatible was Calvin's 
 system with the very purpose of a Sacrament, which requires 
 not only the existence of an outward and an inward part, 
 but also that they should be truly joined together. It has 
 been shown furthex', that it cannot be maintained without 
 involving that dogma of a b^lute reprobatio n, which is incon- 
 sistent with the character of God, and which renders the 
 y^ statements of Scripture a nullity and a fiction. To represent 
 r the Almighty as pubHcly granting a charter to mankind at 
 tA^ l^ig^j which He privately annuls by a secret article, is to 
 ^^ *| attribute conduct to the God of truth, which would be dis- 
 I O-*^ creditable to an earthly sovereign. And such a supposition 
 is utterly overthrown by the manner in which the Church 
 has always administered the Holy Eucharist. Her immemorial 
 custom has been to testify to each receiver of the consecrated 
 elements, that the thing delivered to him is truly that life- 
 giving Body, which Calvin supposed to be restricted to the 
 elect ; and to call upon the receiver to witness his belief by 
 saying Amen to her words. 
 
 Whatever variety there may have been at different times 
 in the words employed at the distribution of the elements, 
 the gi'eatest care was always used to secure that which the 
 Bishops at the Savoy Conference speak of as the jDroperty 
 of Sacraments, " to make i^articular obsignation to each be- 
 liever." A specific direction on the subject occurs in the 
 Apostolical Constitutions: "Let the Bishop deliver the obla- 
 tion, saying, The Bodij of Christ, and let the worshipper say, 
 Am,en. Let the Deacon hold the cup, and when he gives it, 
 let him say, Tlve Blood of Christ, the Cup of life ; and let him 
 who drinks say, Amen." ' The response is referred to as early 
 ^ Constit. Apost. lib. viii. c. 13. 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 105 
 
 as the time of Tertullian/ and is thus explained in the work 
 on Sacraments ascribed to St. Ambrose : " The Priest says 
 to you The Body of Christ, and you say Amen, it is true."^ 
 To the same custom does St. Leo witness: "You ought so 
 to partake of the sacred table as not to doubt about the 
 truth of Our Lord's Body and Blood. For that which is an 
 object of our faith is the thing which our mouths receive ; 
 and it would be vain for those to answer Amen, who dispute 
 against that which they receive." ^ The practice is further 
 attested by all the Eastern* Liturgies, in which the response 
 of the worshippers assumes often a most striking and emphatic 
 foiTQ. 
 
 The system of Calvin agrees as little with these forms as it 
 does with Holy Scripture. Their purpose is to assure each indi- 
 vidual, that the general blessing which God bestows in the Holy 
 Eucharist is offei'ed to his separate acceptance. His theory was, 
 that nothing is really communicated in the act of administration, 
 and that the consecrated elements are only a pledge or token of 
 that which it is God's pleasure to do irrespectively of them in the 
 souls of His elect. Indeed, the radical diversity between this 
 system and the ritual of the Church is shown by the antipathy 
 ever manifested to it by the partizans of Calvin. The service 
 for the Palatinate, previously quoted, contemplates no special 
 application of the gift of Christ to every individual. " The 
 minister," it is said, " shall break the bread of the Lord for each 
 person, and when he gives it him shall say. The bread which we 
 break is the communion of the Body of Christ." ^ This text is 
 merely the expression of a general truth, but not the consignation 
 of it to individual participants. And the same tendency is 
 shown by the demand of the Nonconformists at the Savoy Con- 
 
 ^ De Spectaculis, sec. xxv. 
 
 2 De Sacramentis, iv. 5. Vide S. Aug. Serin. 272, and S. Perpetua. 
 Ruinart, p. 95. 
 
 3 S. Leo, Sermo 89, sec. iii. p. 175. 
 
 * Vide Coptic Liturgy of S. Basil. — Eenaudot, vol. i. p. 23. And the 
 Greek, Id. vol. i. p. 83. 
 
 ■^ Chur-Pfalzische Kirchen-Ordnung, A.D. 1611. 
 
106 THE RELATION BETWEEN 
 
 ference, " that the minister be not required to deliver the 1)read 
 and wine into every particular communicant's hand, and to repeat 
 the Avords to each one in the singular number, but that it may- 
 suffice to speak them to divers jointly, according to Our Saviour's 
 example." ' It is clear that the efifect of this change, which was 
 happily resisted by the Bishops, would have been to countenance 
 the system of Calvin ; for it would have abandoned that distinct 
 protest against any separation of the outward and inward por- 
 tions of the Sacrament which the Church lias embodied in 
 her ancient form of distribution. And the wish of those who 
 adopted Calvin's theory, to avoid the repetition of these emphatic 
 words to each individual, shows their instinctive consciousness of 
 the tendency of sucli an innovation. 
 
 We have seen, then, what are the four perversions to which 
 the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist is especially liable. They all 
 arise out of inadequate conceptions respecting the relation 
 between the sacramentnm, and res sacramenti — the Subject, that 
 is, and the Predicate in Our Lord's words of Institution. For 
 when the nature of these two terms is not appreciated, or when 
 men deny the sacramental identity which obtains between them, 
 the idea of a sacrament is nullified. To supjiose with Zuinglius 
 that Christ is not really jiresent, is to exclude the inward part or 
 tiling signified. To suppose, as the Capernaites did, that Our 
 Lord's Body is designed to be present as an object to the senses, 
 is to omit the notion of an outward form ; even though it should 
 be believed, as it was apparently by Aiiastasius Sinaita, that the 
 operation of men's senses is supernaturally obstructed. But 
 again, it is not more necessary that the two portions should exist 
 than that they should really be joined together, yet discriminated 
 from one another. So that to confound their office as Luther 
 did, or separate their action with Calvin, is to overthrow the 
 idea of their sacramental union. For this union implies that 
 the inward pai't should truly act through the outward ; and thus 
 that their presence and influence should be that of one real 
 though heterogeneous whole. 
 
 ' Cardwell's Hist, of Conferences, p. 321. 
 
THE GIFT AND THE ELEMENTS. 107 
 
 Such, then, is the relation between the outward part and the 
 inward part, the Body of Christ and the consecrated elements, 
 which has been described as sacramental identity. It implies 
 that the res sacramenti, or inward reality, is so united to the 
 sacramentum, or outward sign, that the last is the medium 
 through which the first is communicated. This is the same 
 thing as to aflfirm that the Real Presence of Christ is bestowed 
 through the consecrated -elements. And it may be observed in 
 conclusion, that this term of a Real Presence embraces, in fact, 
 every kind of Presence except those two — Symbolical and Virtual 
 — which have been shown to belong to the theories of Zuinglius 
 and Calvin. For the notion of Luther, and even that of the 
 Capernaites, were partial or perverted forms under which the 
 doctrine of a Peal Presence was expressed. And the notion of 
 the Capernaites is so alien to the very nature of a sacrament that 
 it falls to the ground as soon as it is stated ; while that of Luther 
 is so partial and self-contradictory that it has found few genuine 
 supporters. In proceeding further therefore into the subject, it 
 will be the notions of a mere Symbolical, or of a mere Virttial 
 Presence, which it will be needful to refute : that of a Eeal Pre- 
 sence which it will be needful to establish. This shall be done 
 by appealing to the testimony of Scripture and Antiquity 
 against the two first, and in favour of the latter. But it will be 
 necessary previously to inquire somewhat further into the 
 nature of that Presence of Christ which it is proposed to 
 maintain. 
 
108 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 OUR lord's presence in the holy EUCHARIST IS REA.L, AND 
 NOT MERELY SYMBOLICAL OR VIRTUAL. 
 
 It was affirmed at the close of the last Chapter that Our Lord's 
 px'esence in the Holy Eucharist was not symbolical merely, or 
 virtual, but real. I proceed to inquire fuither into the meaning 
 of this assertion : but, before douig so, it Avill be necessary to 
 notice some other conditions of this sacred presence, by which its 
 reality is at once defined and substantiated. Such are the state- 
 ments that Our Lord's presence in the Holy Eucharist is super- 
 natural, and not natural; that it is sacramental, and not sensible. 
 These lead to the further assertion that it is real, and not merely 
 symbolical or virtual. 
 
 Eirst — To say that Our Lord's presence in the Holy Eucharist 
 is supernatural is to affirm that while His Humanity has a pre- 
 sence which, except when He wills it otherwise, is accordant to 
 the laws of material existence, it has also a presence of another 
 sort, which is independent of those laws. The word material is 
 used hei'e as apjilicable to those things of which the senses are 
 able, or fitted, to take cognizance. Some material objects, 
 indeed, may be of so subtile a nature as more or less to elude our 
 senses, as is the case with various chemical agents, till they are 
 detected by experiment ; but we mean by material, those things 
 which the senses either discern, or might discern, consistently 
 with their present character.^ Now Our Lord's Human Body 
 is not subject to the laws of material existence, because His Body 
 is a glorified Body, and therefore not an object to our senses, un- 
 less such be His own will. That we do not commonly discern it 
 is not owing, surely, to distance of place, but to the fact that 
 glorified beings camiot be discerned by those who are in our pre- 
 
 ' Vide Doct. of the Incarnation, cap. x. 2, and additional note. 
 
CHRIST'S PRESENCE SUPERNATURAL. 109 
 
 sent state, except at their own pleasure, "When Our Lord was 
 upon earth, after His resurrection. He was not always visible to 
 His disciples. But that His presence, when He was pleased to 
 vouchsafe it, was according to the laws of material existence we 
 know fi'om His own declaration : " Handle Me and see, for a 
 spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have." And with 
 this Body did He enter into that heavenly state in which He will 
 continue till the end of all things. 
 
 Now the natural conditions even of a glorified body — the con- 
 ditions, that is, which pertain to it by reason of its material cha- 
 racter and human existence — are, that it is present under a 
 definite form, and in a definite place. So we learn from the 
 statements of Scripture and of the Church. Our Lord " shall so 
 come, as ye have seen Him go into heaven." "The heavens must 
 receive " Him, " until the restitution of all things." " He as- 
 cended into heaven," says the Apostles' Creed. And this truth 
 is recognized in various places by the Fathers. So distinct are 
 the statements of St. Augustin, especially in His Epistle to 
 Dardanus,^ as well of his countryman Pulgentius,^ that when 
 they were brought forward by (Ecolampadius, at the conference 
 at Marburg, as arguments against the ubiquity of Our Lord's 
 Human Body, Luther could only reply, " You have Augustin 
 and Fulgentius on your side ; but we have all the other Fathers 
 on ours." ^ But these statements, though more pointed, are not 
 really more conclusive than those of other writers, both in the 
 Western and Eastern Church. * 
 
 Now, if Our Lord were a mere ° man, and had no mode of 
 presence, except that wliich is accordant to the laws of material 
 existence, it follows that He could not be present excejDt in the 
 
 1 Epis. 187. 10. Vide S. Aug. in Joan. Trac. 50. 13. 
 
 ~ Ad Tras. 17, Bib. Pat. ix. 55. ^ jjosp. vol. ii. p. 126. 
 
 " Vide Doct. of the Inc. p. 548, Ed. 3rd ; p. 449, Ed. 4tli. 
 
 '' Vide S. Cyril in Joan. cap. vi. verse 64, vol. iv. p. 377. To this dis- 
 tinction S. Jerome refers, when he says, " dupliciter Christi caro intelligi- 
 tur ; vel spiritualis ilia atque divina .... vel caro quae crucifixa est," &c. 
 He is discriminating Christ's suj^ernatuml from His natural presence. Ad 
 Eph. cap. i. vol. iv. part i. p. 328. 
 
110 CHRIST'S PRESENCE 
 
 place wliich He possesses in lieaven. Any other mode of pre- 
 sence, which can be attributed to His human nature, must 
 belong to it by reason of some peculiar privilege with which 
 it is invested. And that His Humanity was likely to be in- 
 vested with some peculiar privileges of this sort, we should 
 gather from His own words both before and after His resurrec- 
 tion. This is surely the fullest sense of those expressions in 
 which He speaks of Himself as about to come again, and of the 
 perpetual presence which He pledged to His disciples.^ These 
 things could not refer to His Godhead, which must always 
 have j)ervaded both time and place by its unalterable presence. 
 
 We know, then, that after His resurrection (to say nothing 
 of its previous capacities) Our Lord's Body existed under condi- 
 tions very different from those which are usual to men. " That 
 was brought to pass respecting Our Lord's Body which is impos- 
 sible even to the glance of our sight — He conveyed it through a 
 closed barrier. For after His resurrection, when His disciples 
 were gathered together in one place. He suddenly appeared, the 
 doors being shut. Where our sight could not penetrate. His 
 Body entered." '^ Now, it is by virtue of those new qualities 
 which Our Lord's Humanity has gained by oneness with Deity 
 that it exists under those conditions in which it is given to men 
 in the Holy Eucharist. "He is the living bread," says St. 
 Augustin, referring to St. John vi. 51, "because," as He says, 
 " I came down from heaven." ' And so St. Hilary: " that Flesh, 
 i.e. that bread, is from heaven; and that Man is from God."* 
 And St. Ambrose in like manner rests the efficacy of the 
 Eucharist on the truth of the Incaraation : " Why do you ask 
 for the order of nature in Christ's Body ; inasmuch as Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ Himself was born of a virgin, contrary to nature ? 
 
 1 Vide St. John xiv. 18, 28. St. Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 
 * S. August. Senno '277, sec. xii. vol. v. p. 1119. "Palpandam camem 
 praebuit, (juam clausis januis introduxit . . . . ut profecto esse post resur- 
 rectionein ostenderet corpus suum et ejuxdem iiatiir.r, et ultiriiis glorix." 
 — <S. Greg. Mag. in Ev. L. ii. Houi. 2(5, vol. i. p. 1553. 
 
 ^ S. August, in Joan. Tract, xxvi. 13. 
 
 ■» De Trinitate, x. 23, p. 1051. 
 
SUPEENATURAL, NOT NATURAL. Ill 
 
 It was truly the Flesh of Christ which was crucified and buried ; 
 and therefore it is truly the sacrament of His Flesh." ^ This 
 is a main part of St. Cyril's arguments against Nestorius. Our 
 Lord's Humanity, he says, could not be that of a mere man, as 
 Nestorius asserted, because if so, how could it be given to man- 
 kind as the principle of life, in the Holy Eucharist ? Now this 
 assumes as its basis, that thei-e is a peculiar presence of Our 
 Lord's Humanity in the Holy Eucharist, the possibility and 
 fruitfulness of which depend upon those new qualities, with 
 which manhood is invested by its union with Deity. " If 
 Nestorius," he says, " affirms that He who has appeared is 
 some other Son and Christ, and not God the Word, . . . does he 
 not render our mystery to be the mere eating of a man's flesh ?"^ 
 Again, he asks, " Who was He that saith, He that eateth My 
 Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him ? If 
 He had been some mere man, and had it not been the very Word 
 of Grod, which had been manifest in our nature, such an act 
 would be the mere eating of a man's flesh, and the participation 
 would be wholly unprofitable. For Christ Himself says, ' The 
 flesh profiteth nothing. It is the Spirit which profiteth.' For 
 as regards its own nature, flesh is corruptible. It cannot 
 quicken others, being corruptible itself." ^ So that he infers that 
 the Being from whom flesh draws such quickening qualities 
 must be "the very Word of God." For tliis it is which has 
 bestowed new gifts upon humanity, through the operation of the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 All these, and numberless other passages which might be 
 quoted, proceed on the supposition, that by virtue of that union 
 with Godhead, to wliich manhood was exalted by the agency of 
 the Holy Ghost, Our Lord's Humanity possesses a character 
 peculiar to itself, and that this circumstance renders it " the Bread 
 of life." 
 
 ^ S. Ambros. de Mysteriis, ix. 53. 
 
 ^ S. Cyril. Apol. adv. Orient, vol. vi. p. 193. The same argument is 
 used against the Nestorians by Leontius. " Qui htee sentiunt, cujus corpus 
 et sanguinem se putant in communione sumere ? " — Bih. Fatr. ix. 704. 
 
 ^ Adv. Nestorium, iv. 5, vol. vi. p. 109. 
 
112 CHRIST'S PRESENCE 
 
 It is true that the majority of these statements refer directly 
 to those life-fjiving qualities of which Our Lord's Body is pos- 
 sessed ; but indirectly tliey witness also to that supernatural 
 presence through which His influence is exerted. And both of 
 these circumstances they attribute to that fact of the Incarnation, 
 whereby " in Christ's Person, Godhead and ^Manhood were com- 
 mingled." ^ For even before Our Lord's Bod}' was bestowed in 
 the Holy Eucharist, it was that present temjile of God's Spirit, 
 by means of wliich it could be said to the disciples, " He dwelleth 
 with you, and shall be in you." And it was "through the 
 Holy Ghost " that Our Lord before the Day of Pentecost " gave 
 commandments unto the Apostles." This was the prerogative 
 which attached to His human nature, because " in Him dwelt 
 all the Godhead bodily;" and with it came those other marvel- 
 lous endowments which the Gospel history records. 
 
 AVe find many statements, therefore, that Our Lord's Human 
 Body was, in various respects, e xempted f ro m those laws b y 
 w hich h umanity is_commonly restricted. This was true both 
 before and after His resurrection ; ijie difference was that before 
 His resurrection it was the exception when He was exempted 
 from the laws of nature ; that He should not be exempted from 
 them is the exception since His resurrection. And the reason 
 is, that " the Flesh of Our Lord is a life-giving Spirit, because it 
 was conceived of the life-giving Spirit. For that which is bom 
 of the Spirit is Spirit." '" " He had a Body," says St. Hilary, 
 " but one peculiar to its origin ; ^ not owing its existence to the 
 faults of human conception, but subsisting, m the form of our 
 bodies, through the power of His own virtue." And St. Cyril : 
 " If the meat be Christ's Body, and the drink be Christ's Blood, 
 and yet, as the Nestorians say, He is a mere man, how can He 
 
 1 S. Aug. Ep. 137. 11. 
 
 * S. Athanafiius de Incam. et contra Arian. xvi. p. 888. "The word 
 ' Spirit,' in the new birth is not opposed to all flesli, but is identical with 
 the Flesh of Christ." — Palmer's Dissertations on the Eastern Cath. Com- 
 ntuiiiou, p. '219. 
 
 ^ Or perhaps, " which contained in itself the principle of its origin." — 
 De Trinitate, x. 25, p. 1053. 
 
SUPERNATURAL, NOT NATURAL. 113 
 
 be proclaimed to be for eternal life to those who come to the 
 sacred board ; how can He be divided there and everywhere, 
 and yet never diminished ? For a mere body can never be the 
 fountain of life to those who partake it." ^ 
 
 Now it cannot be justly objected to such statements, that they 
 attribute powers to Our Lord's Body which detract from the 
 truth of His Manhood, and assign to it conditions which belong 
 to Deity alone. That which is characteristic of Deity is not 
 merely the capacity of evincing its power simultaneously in 
 various places, for this belongs even to the human soul, which 
 acts at once in all members of the body,^ but that attribute of 
 necessary omnipresence, which is inseparable from the omnipo- 
 tence of God, As it belongs to the idea of the Supreme Being, 
 that it is impossible to restrict a dominion which knows no condi- 
 tions except those which are inherent in itself, so is it involved 
 in the same conception, that He can neither be limited by dura- 
 tion, nor bounded by space. It is thus that we must discriminate 
 the Infinite from the finite, the Creator from His works. It is 
 . no interference therefore with the inalienable prerogatives of 
 ; Deity, to sujopose that capacities of presence, far exceeding the 
 j ordinary conditions of nature, as well as other unusual gifts, 
 ■ should be bestowed upon a created substance. And on what of 
 all created substances should they be bestowed so suitably, as on 
 that Humanity which by personal union was one with God ? 
 Was it not the very principle of the Incarnation that the Infinite 
 and the finite were brought face to face in the Person of Christ ? 
 It must be remembered only that whereas such capacities belong 
 to Godhead by the necessity of its nature, they belong to man- 
 hood accidentally only, and by gift. 
 
 In this consideration lies the safeguard against that error 
 of ubiquity which at times was advocated by Luther. Our 
 Lord's Manhood neither did, nor could, participate in that 
 
 ^ Lege /xepi^fTai iravTaxov. — Horn, in Myst. Ccenam, vol. v. part ii. 
 p. 378. 
 
 ^ Or even beyond it perhaps; for, "anima magis est ubi amat, quam 
 ubi animat." 
 
[/ 
 
 114 CHRIST'S PRESENCE 
 
 Omnipresence, which is characteristic of Godhead ; but He 
 has been jileased to bestow upon it a certain capacity of 
 presence beyond that which other bodies possess, that it may 
 be the instrument of His own gracious will. Some of Luther's' 
 expressions would lead to the notion that Our Lord's two 
 natures were confused together, just as Luther confounded 
 the offices of the outward and inward parts in the Holy 
 Eucharist ; whereas it has been truly observed that " the 
 nature of the Word became Incarnate through His Person, 
 not His Person through His nature."^ He did not enter 
 into relation with humanity by mingling Deitj^ with it, but 
 He brought it into relation to Godhead by uniting it per- 
 sonally to Himself. And therefore whatever gifts have been 
 bestowed ujion His man's nature, though they have been 
 bestowed upon it as a result of that exaltation which accrued 
 to it through the being taken into God, yet they have come 
 as a special endowment, and by peculiar favour. 
 
 Although we meet therefore with statements that " the 
 Body or Flesh of Our Lord has by jiersoual oneness become 
 God, without losing its original nature," ^ and that Our Lord 
 consisted of two contraries, flesh and spirit, of which the one 
 conferred, the other received deification," * yet they are always 
 qualified by the statement that it is the Divine nature which 
 gives the flesh its efficacy, and that whatever of power or 
 special presence the flesh possesses, is derived from the im- 
 mediate appointment of Him who has taken it into Himself. 
 
 ^ As when he approves the words, " es ist alles fol leib Cliristi." — Uos- 
 pinian, ii. 126. Luther's first work, which asserted the doctrine of Ubi- 
 quity, was his Treatise against the Sacramentaries, A.D. 1527. Vide 
 JIdiipiman, ii. p. 79. He repeated his statements the next year in his 
 Confessio Major. He affirmed that "nullibi sit, vel esse possit Divinitas, 
 ubi etiam non simul realiter adsit, sive coexistat, assumpta Humanitas." 
 — JIospitiidH, ii. p. 86. 
 
 * " Non Deus Verbum [per] divinam naturam ; sed divina natura per 
 Dei Verbi personam, unita dioitur carni." — Itusticus contra Acephalos. 
 Bih. rat. Mux. x. 366 ; and vide p. 359. 
 
 ^ Damascenus de Imaginibus, i. 16, 19. 
 
 " S. Greg. Naz. Or. 42, vol. i. p. 682. (Par. 1630.) Vide also S. Greg, 
 Nyssen. Cat. Orat. 37, vol. iii. p. 105. 
 
SACEAMENTAL, NOT SENSIBLE. 115 
 
 " The nature of the flesh, considered in itself, could not confer 
 life. Since otherwise what would be the superiority of the 
 Divine nature ? So that even in Christ the flesh is not to 
 be thought of alone, and by itself. Eor it has that "Word, 
 who is naturally life, united to it. When Christ calls it 
 life-giving, therefore, it is not to it that He ascribes this 
 power, but rather to Himself, or to His own Spirit. For 
 it is through Himself that His own Body is life-giving." ^ 
 And on this account it is that Our Lord's life-giving presence 
 in the Holy Eucharist is properly described as supernatural. 
 If it were His Godhead only which was bestowed in this 
 sacrament, such presence and such mode of action would be 
 exactly consonant to the laws of its nature. But since it is 
 His Manhood to which these acts are ascribed, since they 
 are attributed to a nature which is common to ourselves, and 
 to which such powers are foreign, it is plain that they can 
 belong to it only in a manner which is supernatural. So 
 that the natural presence of Our Lord's Humanity is in 
 heaven, subject to the conditions of place and form which 
 are characteristic of other human bodies. But the presence 
 of His Humanity in the Holy Eucharist is not accordant 
 with the ordinary conditions which belong to man's nature. 
 He brings it about through that union which has taken 
 place in His person between manhood and Deity — it is peculiar 
 and supernatural. 
 
 II. The second assertion was, that Our Lord's Presence 
 in the Holy Eucharist is sacramental, and not sensible. This 
 is a consequence from the fact stated in the last Chapter, 
 that the Subject and Predicate in Our Lord's words of In- 
 stitution were united together by a sacramental identity. For 
 this was shown to imply that the Holy Eucharist consisted 
 of two parts, a sacramentum and a res sacramenti — the first an 
 object to the senses, the second an object only to faith and 
 to the mind. And further, it was shown to be the purpose 
 of consecration to unite these two together, so that they 
 ^ S. Cyril in Joan. lib. iv. 3, vol. iv. p. 377. 
 I 2 
 
116 CHRIST'S PRESENCE REAL, 
 
 might have that peculiar relation to one another which be- 
 longs to this sacrament. Now, if these truths are admitted, 
 it would be a contradiction to suppose either that the res 
 sacramenti, or Body of Christ, coukl be an object to the 
 senses, or that it could fail to maintain that relation to the 
 sacramentum, or external part, through which the purpose 
 of the Holy Eucharist is effected. So that Christ's Presence 
 in this ordinance cannot be sensible, and must be sacramental. 
 
 And this fact supplies an easy solution of some difficulties 
 which may arise in respect to the Holy Eucliarist. It is 
 asked, for instance, whether Our Lord is present in this 
 ordinance under a definite form, and in any particular place : 
 the answer is found at once, by remembering that He is 
 pi'esent saeramentalhj. It was shown under the last head 
 that Our Lord is present in heaven, in a particular place, 
 and under an especial form ; that form, namely, under which 
 His Apostles beheld Him, and that place to which they saw 
 Him dej^art, at the right hand of God. This is Our Lord's 
 natural presence ; in which He is a fitting object, when it 
 pleases Him, to the senses of men. In this form He showed 
 himself to St. Stephen at his death, to St. Paul at his con- 
 version, and to St. John in his exile. But Our Lord's pre- 
 sence in the Holy Eucharist is not natural, but supernatural ; 
 it is a sacramental presence — the presence, that is, of a res 
 sacramenti, which is not, in itself, an object to the senses of 
 men. We have no reason therefore to suppose that form 
 and outline belong to it ; because these are the conditions 
 through which tilings become an object to the senses of men. 
 
 And yet there is one way in wliich Our Lord's Body may 
 be said to be present with form and place in the Holy 
 Eucharist. For there is a connexion between the sacramentum 
 and res sacramenti, and form and place belong to the first, 
 though they do not belong to the second. So that though the 
 res sacramenti, in itself, has neither place nor form, yet it 
 has them in a manner through the sacramentum, with which 
 it iij united. Christ's Body therefore may be said to have 
 
NOT MERELY SYMBOLICAL OE VIRTUAL. 117 
 
 a form in this Sacrament, namely, the form of the elements, 
 and to occupy that place through which the elements extend. 
 As the spirit may be said to be present in tJiat place where 
 the body is situated, and as light may be said to assume the 
 shape of the orifice through which it passes, so it may be 
 said that the res sacramenti borrows place and shape from 
 the sacramentum, with which it is united by consecration. 
 AVhether the constituent portions of light liave any shape 
 in themselves, and what is meant by the place of a spirit, 
 are questions which philosophers can scarcely settle ; and 
 in like manner there are secrets respecting the r-es sacramenti, 
 which must remain hidden from divines. But the effect of 
 consecration, as we learn from revelation, is to join that which 
 is outward and that which is inward ; so that Our Lord's 
 " blessed Body and Blood " is communicated, as the first Book 
 of Homilies expresses it, " under the form of bread and wine." 
 
 III. And now, then, we may come to the third assertion, 
 that Our Lord's Presence in the Holy Eucharist is real, and not 
 merely symbolical or virtual. Such is the necessary consequence 
 of believing not only in a sacramentum .and a virtus sacramenti, 
 but in a res sacramenti also. If the Holy Eucharist were nothing 
 but a sacramentum or symbol, as .Zuinglius maintained, the 
 utmost which could be affirmed would be, that Our Lord's 
 Presence was symbolical. If, as Calvin taught, the virtus 
 sacramenti was all which was to be added, it would be natural 
 to say that it was nothing more than a virtual presence. But if 
 a res sacramenti be adjnitted, and that res sacramenti the Body 
 of Christ, it is impossible to deny that He is really present. And 
 hence it must be supjDosed that such was the truth, which oui' 
 Catechism was designed to inculcate, since it affirms that the 
 inward part, or thing signified, is the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 And as this circumstance has dictated the name, so does it 
 explain the nature of the Real Presence. The thing designed is 
 to affirm that Our Lord's Body, which is the res sacramenti, is 
 tliejugtium ent th rough which those purposes are effected which 
 the Holy Eucharist is intended to perform. Not that a spiritual 
 
118 CHRIST'S PRESENCE REAL, 
 
 action is meant to be excluded : it will be shown, in a subsequent 
 Chapter, liow the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity co-oi^erates 
 at present in all acts of mercy with God the Son, in whose 
 Incarnation He was fonnerly an agent. But besides this spiritual 
 action, and independently of it, the agency of Our Lord's Body 
 is mercifully employed, as being the res sacramenti in the Holy 
 \ Eucharist. 
 M, This is a truth which neither Calvinists nor Zuinglians can 
 1 recognize. For their systems not only do away with the res 
 sacramenti, but they do not admit that supernatural presence of 
 Christ by which only it is rendered jiossible. For if Our Lord's 
 Manhood possessed only that natural presence which is common 
 to Him with other men. His Body would be confined to that 
 single form, and that individual place, which He occupies in 
 heaven. And therefore, those who adopt the Calvinistic or 
 Zuiuglian theories, speak of Our Lord's manifold j^resence as a 
 contradiction in terms, and imiDossible. No doubt it would be 
 impossible on their principles ; but not on the principles of the 
 ancient Church. It is no contradiction in terms, to suppose that 
 though Our Lord's natural presence is limited to one place, yet 
 that such limitation does not apjily to a presence which is super- 
 natural. Neither is it reasonable in the Calvinists and Zuinglians 
 to expect that the consequences of their definition should be 
 accepted, where the definition itself is not received. 
 
 But it may be said, why is not the belief in Our Lord's spiritual 
 presence as God sufficient ? what necessity is there for admitting 
 also the real jDresence of His Body ? Now it is true that such a 
 supernatural presence of Our Lord's Body is alien from the 
 common laws of material action, and may seem almost to imply 
 that the essence of a body is identical with its power. So that 
 probably it would not be wrong to P2)eak of Our Lord's presence 
 in the Holy Eucharist as resembling a dynamic, rather than a 
 natural presence. Yet we must be careful, as St. Augustin ' 
 
 ' It may Le thought, he said, tliat those who rise from the dead, " hoc 
 ipsuin (juod corjius est per ghiriam resurrectiouis amittere, et spiritum 
 fieri." i3ut iu this case, "metuendum est ne nihil aliud dici videatur, 
 
NOT MERELY SYMBOLICAL OR VIRTUAL. 119 
 
 observes, not so completely to identify body and spirit as to deny 
 the reality of either. For though the ultimate cause of all 
 things be an Infinite Mind, yet body as well as spirit bears some 
 true and mysterious part in the economy of creation. And the 
 words of Scripture respecting Our Lord's Body must not be so 
 explained as to be rendered nugatory. " This is My Body," not 
 the power or efficacy of My Body, were Our Lord's own words. 
 They were accepted in their literal sense by the holy Apostle. 
 " The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the 
 Body of Christ ? " And he speaks of " not discerning the Lord's 
 Body." And in the same manner were they understood by 
 ancient writers. " "We ask," says St. Cyprian, " that our Bread, 
 that is, Christ, may be given to us daily, that we who abide and 
 live in Christ may not depart from His sanctification and His 
 Body." ^ St. Cyril, in a passage already quoted, speaks of the 
 effect of the Holy Eucharist to be that Our Lord " rendered His 
 Body life-giving, being Himself, as God, the principle of life by 
 nature, that by making us partakers of Himself, not only in 
 spirit, but in body. He might render us superior to corruption." ^ 
 And again : 
 
 " The Son cometh to be in us, bodily as man, being mingled 
 and united with us by the mystical Eucharist, and again 
 spiritually as God, re-creating our s|iix'its to newness of life, 
 by the energy and grace of His own Spirit ; and making 
 us partakers of His own divine nature. Christ thus appears 
 to be the bond of union between us and God the Father, joining 
 us to Himself as man, and as God being naturally inherent in 
 the Father. For there was no other way in which the nature, 
 which was subject to corruption, could be raised to incorruption, 
 than by the coming down into it of that nature which was 
 superior to all corruption and mutability ; so as to raise up to 
 its own good that which always lay depressed, and by communion 
 
 quam corpora non ilia mutatione immortalia mansura, sed nulla potius 
 futura et omnino peritura." — Ep. cxlvii. 51, vol. ii. p. 494. And so S. 
 Gregory the Great: "post resurrectionem corpus suum et ejusdem naturae 
 et alterius glorice." — In Evan. II. Horn. xxvi. 1 ; vol. i. p. 1553. 
 
 ^ De Oratione Dominica, p. 192. 
 
 * Adversus Nestorium, iv. 5, vol. vi. p. 113 ; vide sup. cap. iv. p. 88. 
 
120 CHKISrs PRESENCE REAL, 
 
 and intermixture with itself, almost to lift it out of those limits 
 which pertain to created nature, by transforming to itself that 
 which has no such native power. We are perfectly changed 
 therefore into oneness with God and the Father, because Christ 
 becomes the Mediator between us. For receiving into ourselves, 
 both by the way of body and by the way of spirit, as I said just 
 now. Him who is natuially and tiuly the Son, consubstantially 
 united to the Father, we have the glory of jjartaking of that 
 nature which is above all things." ' 
 
 As this passage discriminates between the action of Our 
 Lord's Humanity and that of His Godhead, so does the same 
 writer, in an adjoining passage, explain the principle upon 
 which His Humanity acts. " That we might attain to oneness 
 with God, and with one another, and might be joined together, 
 though each of us individualized by his body and his soul, the 
 Only-Begotten Son contrived a certain scheme, devised by His 
 own wisdom, and by the counsel of the Father, For by 
 bestowing a blessing uj^on all those who believe, through one 
 Body, namely. His own, by means of the mystical reception. He 
 renders them concorporate with one another, and with Himself."'^ 
 Nor is this language confined to St, Cyril. St. Chrysostom 
 speaks of it as the effect of the Holy Eucharist, " that we may not 
 only be joined in Christ by love, but maj be united in reality to 
 His Flesh. And this is brought about through the food which 
 He has given us ; for wishing to show the desire which He has 
 for us, He has by this means mixed Himself with us, and united 
 His Body to us, that we might be one, as a body united to its 
 head."^ Now these passages cannot mean that Our Lord is only 
 an object to men's thoughts, nor yet that He exercises a power 
 which can be detached from Himself; they imply that He 
 is present through His own essence. And since essence and 
 substance are terms which in their derivation are nearly 
 identical, therefore various ancient writers have expressed this 
 
 ' In Joan. lib. xi. 12, vol. iv. p. 1002. 
 - S. Cyril in Joan. lib. xi. 11, vol iv. p. 998. 
 
 ^ S. Chrysostom in Joan. Horn. xlvi. 3, vol. viii. p. 272. Vide also 
 Horn, xlvii. i. p. 275. 
 
NOT MERELY SYMBOLICAL OE VIRTUAL. 121 
 
 truth by saying, that Our Lord is Substantially present. " That 
 living bread, which descends from heaven," says St. Ambrose, 
 " ministers to us the substance of eternal life ; and whosoever 
 eats of this bread shall not die eternally, and it is the Body of 
 Christ." ^ And again, St. Caesarius : " The invisible priest con- 
 verts visible creatures into the substance of His own Body and 
 Blood, by the secret power of His own word, saying, ' Take, eat, 
 this is My Body.'"'^ 
 
 But then it is said this doctrine of a Real Presence is so 
 strange and unnatural that its acceptance is impossible. This 
 objection was answered in the fourth Chapter, where it was 
 shown that the Real Presence is not only possible, but that it is 
 in harmony with the general system of the Gospel. No doubt 
 it is a mystery that God should become man — that two natures, 
 so distinct as the Infinite and the finite, should be united in one 
 Person without the destruction of either. This is a truth, the 
 more marvellous the more it is contemplated ; and which 
 nothing but faith in God's power and wisdom can enable us to 
 accept. But let this truth be admitted, and why should we be 
 surprised that the Manhood, which has been so mysteriously 
 assumed, should be the instrument in God's works of mercy? 
 For otherwise, so far as regards that great part of His work 
 of Mediation, which depends upon His agency towards His 
 brethren of mankind. Our Lord's Manhood would have become 
 an inoperative mystery. And when it is remembered what is 
 that mysterious relation which we bear to the first man, and 
 that Our Lord has taken the title of the " Second man," or the 
 " Last Adam," what can be more accordant with the whole 
 principle of the Gospel, than that as death is propagated through 
 the flesh of one, so life should be disseminated through the Flesh 
 of the other ? 
 
 And it should never be forgotten, that all the theories which 
 can be adduced respecting Christ's Presence, finally resolve 
 themselves into the three which have been described : His 
 
 ' S. Ambrose de Myst. viii. 47. 
 
 2 Horn. vii. de Pasch. Bib. Patr. viii. 825. 
 
122 CHRIST'S PRESENCE REAL, 
 
 Presence is either Symholical, Virtual, or Real. A Sjinbolical 
 Presence contains no difficulties, certainly, in itself, but neither 
 does it contain any sacredue&s ; it is in truth no Presence at all ; 
 and, therefore, to reconcile it with Scripture, with antiquity, or 
 with the analogy of the faith, presents insuperable difficulties. 
 But a Virtual Presence presents exactly the same difficulties as 
 a Real Presence, while its advocates cannot appeal to the 
 testimony of Scripture and of the Fathers. That an influence 
 should emanate from Our Lord's Human Body, which can take 
 up its dwelling in the consecrated elements, is just as strange as 
 that Our Lord's Body should possess a supernatural as well as 
 a natural mode of Presence. Tliis difficulty Calvin's system has 
 no tendency to mitigate ; its real peculiarity, supposing the 
 principle of a Virtual Presence to be honestly maintained, is 
 only that it provides a new account of the manner in which this 
 supernatural gift is distributed. The ancient Church supposed 
 that the gift depended upon the act of consecration, and the 
 commission of the priesthood — Calvin affirmed that it was 
 assigned to His favourites by the arbit rary decree of Almighty 
 God. This theory enabled him, no doubt, to leave the elements 
 out of account, but it brought in a greater difficulty — the dogma 
 of absolute_j;eprobatiou. So that if the system of a Virtual 
 Presence is to be made to harmonize with the teaching of 
 Scripture, and of the Church, it must still be a Virtual Presence 
 through the elements. And this presents the same difficulties as 
 the doctrine of the Real Presence, without possessing the same 
 authority. Neitlier should we overlook another advantage of a 
 jjractical kind, which i'ollows from the peculiar character of the 
 mystery of the Eeal Presence. The Holy Eucharist, like the 
 Incarnation itself, is thus rendered an objective fact, which has 
 an cxii^tence independently of our conceptions and feelings. This 
 circumstance is rendered far more manifest by its relation to the 
 external world, than it would be if its operations were wholly of 
 a spiritual nature, and lay entirely within the region of our 
 thoughts. And thus we arc likely to betake ourselves to it with 
 greater humility, as feeling that it is a gift, to which we can 
 
NOT MERELY SYMBOLICAL OR VIRTUAL. 123 
 
 contribute notliiug. For though our unbelief may rob us of its 
 advantages, yet in itself it is independent, not of our co-operation 
 only, but even of our concurrence. This has been observed to 
 have been a peculiarity of the Incarnation also ; in which man- 
 hood was purely passive, and the Godhead the sole actor, " The 
 union of the two natures was brought about, not by both, but by 
 the Deity alone." So that we may apply, in a measure, to the 
 Holy Eucharist, that which the same author goes on to observe 
 of the Incarnation. " The union between us and God is not 
 like that which takes place in the Prophets, and in some others, 
 where we labour and co-operate, while divine grace holds out 
 the hand ; it is inexpressibly different." ^ 
 
 Such, then, is the doctrine of the Eeal Presence ; or that 
 Christ's Body is a medium through which He bestows spiritual 
 blessings. Its characteristic truth is that Christ's Presence is 
 owing to the presence of His Body. And here, therefore, we 
 may see a distinction between Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, 
 arising out of the fact that the last depends, while the first does 
 not depend, upon consecration. For it may be said that the 
 God-man is j^resent in Baptism also, seeing that in that sacra- 
 ment He not only exerts His spiritual power, but that men are 
 thereby joined to His mystical Body. The difference between t 
 them is that Christ's Body is present in Baptism, only because 
 He is present with whom it is personally united ; but in the 
 Holy Eucharist the presence of Christ's Body is the reason why 
 He Himself is present. " In illo sacramento Christus est, quia 
 corpus est Christi." ^ So that in the one sacrament there is a 
 res sacramenti, but not in the other : Christ may be said to be 
 present in Baptism, He is really present in the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 This diversity between Baptism and the Holy Eucharist is 
 further illustrated by the different manner in which the benefits, 
 which accrue from them, are expressed in Scripture. It has 
 been already observed that the gift in Baptism is bestowed 
 through the ordinance at large ; but that in the Holy Eucharist 
 
 ^ Rusticus contra Acephalos. Bib. Pat. x. p. 366. 
 ^ S. Ambros. de Myst. ix. 58. 
 
124 CHRIST'S PRESENCE REAL, 
 
 it is bestowed through the elements. For the Holy Eucharist 
 consists of a sacramentum or outward sign, a res sacramenti or 
 thing signified, and a virtus sacramenti or consequent result ; 
 while in Baj^tism, the grace bestowed is the whole inward por- 
 tion. Now the Scriptural promises that a spiritual benefit shall 
 attend Bajitism, are associated with the ordinance at large ; 
 whei'eas, instead of any Scri2:)tural promise that a spiritual 
 benefit sliall attend the reception of the Holy Eucharist, we 
 have, first, an assurance that the ree sacramenti, or thing sig- 
 nified, shall be bestowed ; and, secondly, an assertion of the 
 effects, which the due rece^jtion of this inward gift is fitted to. 
 produce. 
 
 The slightest reference to the Scriptural statements on the 
 subject V ill make this manifest. " Baptism " is said, in express 
 words, " to save us." " By one Spirit we are all baptized into 
 one body." " The washing of regeneration " is coupled with 
 " the renewing of the Holy Ghost." On the other hand, there 
 is not a single passage which expressly ' connects the reception 
 of the Holy Eucharist at large with the gift of the Holy Spirit. 
 But Our Loi'd's words of Institution, and St. Paul's state- 
 ments to the Corinthians, assure us that the outward sign is 
 the means of conveying the res sacramenti, or thing signified. 
 And the blessings which result from the due reception of this 
 res sacramenti — i. e. Christ's Body — are stated in various places 
 by St. Paul : and by Our Lord Himself, in the sixth chapter of 
 St. John's Gosjiel. 
 
 One consequence of the manner in which this subject is men- 
 tioned in Scripture, is, that on the principles of Zuinglius, who 
 did not admit the existence of a r^es sacramenti, we could have 
 no assurance that the Holy Eucharist is beneficial. His follow- 
 ers, therefore, are driven to rest its observance either ujiou the 
 fact that it is a positive command, or upon the effect which it is 
 calculated to produce upon the mind of the receiver. Thus the 
 most prominent ordinance of the Gospel is represented either to 
 
 ' I say cxpresifhj, for 1 Cor. xii. 13 no tloubt contains an allusion to 
 the Eucliarist. 
 
NOT MERELY SYMBOLICAL OR VIRTUAL. 125 
 
 be purely a ceremonial observance, like the ordinances of the 
 law, or to be a mere acted sermon. Perhaps it may be said that 
 St. Paul's words — " we being many, are one bread and one body, 
 for we are all partakers of that one bread " — are equivalent to a 
 promise of spiritual benefit. They certainly are so, if inherence 
 in the mystical Body of Christ implies the reception of spiritual 
 blessings. But how can this be believed by those who suppose 
 that Church-membership is merely an admission into the list of 
 Christians ? If to be a member of the mystical Body of Christ 
 implies the reception of spiritual blessings, it must be because 
 the mystical arises out of the natural Body of Christ. This 
 cannot be believed by those who, like the followers of Zuinglius, 
 deny that any pi'esent influence is exerted by Christ's glorified 
 Body. To them, therefore, the words of St. Paul can convey no 
 particular promise : his assertion would imply, merely, that a 
 certain ceremonial act is the badge by which men are known to 
 be members of the Christian society.^ So that nothing has more 
 perplexed the Zuinglian writers than to prove, against their 
 Socinian opponents, that the Holy Eucharist is attended by any 
 spiritual blessing. Neither can they give any real answer, ex- 
 cept that the reception of this sacrament is a duty ; and that 
 thqse who attempt to discharge a duty, may always expect to 
 receive grace. 
 
 And here, therefore, we may sum up the result of our com- 
 parison between the three kinds of presence — Symbolical, Vir- 
 tual, and Real. The Emperor Charlemagne might be said to be 
 -present Jiguratively, or symbolically, throughout his vast emj^ire, 
 because justice was everywhere administered in his name : he 
 was present throughout it virtually, for such was the energy of 
 his character, that his influence was everywhere felt : but really, 
 he was only present in his palace at Aix-la-Chapelle. If Our 
 Blessed Lord's Humanity had no other than that natural pre- 
 sence which belongs to common men, His Jieal Presence would 
 in like manner be confined to that one place which He occupies 
 
 ^ Sacramentsi, according to Zuinglius, were only sig-ns by which a man 
 proves himself to the Church to be a Christian. — Vide cap. ii. p. 28. 
 
126 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 in heaven. But by reason of those attributes wliich His Man- 
 hood possesses through its oneness with God, He has hkewise a 
 supernatural presence ; the operations of which are restricted 
 only by His own will. And His will is to be present in the 
 Holy Eucharist ; not indeed as an object to the senses of the 
 receiver, but through the intervention of consecrated elements. 
 So that His presence does not depend upon the thought and 
 imaginations of men, 'but upon His o\va supernatural power, and 
 upon the agency of the Holy Ghost. He is present Himself, 
 and not merely by His influence, effects, and operation ; by that 
 essence, and in that substance, which belongs to Him as the true 
 Head of mankind. And therefore He is really present ; and 
 gives His Body to be the res sacramenti, or thing signified. 
 
 CHAPTEE YII. 
 
 OUR LOEDS PRESENCE IN THE HOLY EUCHARIST SHOWN* TO BE 
 REAL, AND NOT MERELY SYMBOLICAL OR VIRTUAL, BY REFER- 
 ENCE TO THE SIXTH CHAPTER OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 Hitherto the inquiry has been built upon our Lord's words 
 of Institution, as explained by the belief and practice of the 
 ancient Church. Hence followed the validity of consecration, 
 and as a further consequence, that the gift was bestowed through 
 the conse crated eleme nts. The next step was to show that this 
 gift was the presence of Christ. Again, it resulted from the 
 same premises that the relation between the Gift bestowed and 
 the consecrated elements, that is, between the res sacramenti and 
 the sacramentum, or between the Predicate and the Subject in 
 Our Lord's sentence of Listitution, was that of sa cramental iden- 
 tity. And hence it has been shown finally, first, that Our Lord's 
 presence in the Holy Eucharist is not symbolical merely, or vir- 
 tual, l)ut real ; and secondly, that this Ecal Presence of Our 
 Lord is not bestowed naturally, or under the same form and 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 127 
 
 character which belongs to Our Lord's Body in heaven, but 
 supernaturally, or under the form of bread and wine. 
 
 It is now time to take a wider range, and to authenticate 
 these statements by reference, as well to other passages of Holy 
 Scripture, as to the general judgment of the ancient Church. 
 The first of these authorities shall be considered in the present 
 Chapter ; the two following Chapters will be given to the 
 second. 
 
 There are three main passages of Holy Scrij)ture, in which 
 the nature of this sacrament is explained — the words of Insti- 
 tution in the Gospels — the tenth and eleventh chapters of the 
 first Epistle to the Corinthians — and the sixth chapter of 
 St. John's Gospel. The two first of these have already been 
 referred to, though it may be observed, further, that several 
 expressions occur in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, besides 
 the words of Institution, from which the truth of the Real 
 Presence might be deduced. The statement, " he that eateth 
 and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to 
 himself, not discerning the Lord's Body," is incompatible with 
 the denial that Christ's Presence is really vouchsafed. The 
 especial judgments which followed (sickness and death), implied 
 that this was more heinous than other acts of profaneness : yet 
 what would have been its peculiar enormity, unless the thing 
 profaned had been really the Body of Christ ? Again, St. Paul's 
 mode of speaking accords perfectly with that belief in the co- 
 existence of a sacramentum and a res sacramenti, which has 
 been shown to be intimately allied with the doctrine of the Peal 
 Presence of Christ. For he speaks of that which is received, 
 sometimes as " this bread," — " this cup ; " sometimes as " the 
 Body and Blood of the Lord," which is the inward part, or thing 
 signified. 
 
 But the portion of Holy Scripture in which this subject is 
 most largely treated, is no doubt the sixth chapter of St. John's 
 Gospel ; and it will be by comparison with the expressions which 
 there occur that we shall best appreciate the scriptural charac- 
 ter of the preceding statements. Yet, as it has often been de- 
 
128 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 nied, strange as it may seem, that Our Lord's discourse in the 
 sixth of St. John was intended to refer to the Holy Eucharist, 
 it is necessary first to substantiate this point, and then to show 
 that our Lord's words sanction the doctrine of the Eeal Presence. 
 The ground upon which this passage of .Scripture lias often 
 been denied to refer to the Holy Eucharist, is that the words 
 were spoken by Our Lord before the institution of this sacrament. 
 This appears indeed to ])e the only ground for disputing that 
 which otherwise could hardly be questioned. And a singular 
 ground it is, when taken by parties who allow Our Lord's abso- 
 lute foreknowledge ; and therefore admit His perfect familiarity 
 with the institutions and fortunes of His coming kingdom. 
 Moreover, it proceeds on an entire forgetfulness of the peculiar 
 character and purpose oi' St. John's Gospel. "When the beloved 
 Apostle addressed himself to gather up the fragments which re- 
 mained, after his brethren had fallen asleep, it is obvious that 
 his design was to illustrate those great doctrines which he per- 
 ceived to be the characteristic features of the Christian Faith. 
 These doctrines are especially three : the doctrine of the Blessed 
 Trinity — the beginning and basis of all knowledge ; the doctrine 
 of Our Blessed Lord's Incarnation — the medium whereby divine 
 gifts were imparted to man's natui'e ; the doctrine of the Church 
 and the Sacraments — the instruments, that is, whereby those 
 treasures which have been stored up in the Humanity of the 
 Son of God are to be communicated to His brethren. The 
 slightest study of St. John's Gospel shows that his purpose was 
 not merely to add some few facts to the narrative of Our Lord's 
 Life, nor yet to arrange that which was known in a more 
 methodical order, l)ut to bring out those statements of Our Lord 
 on which the mysteries of the Faith were dependent. " This 
 most wise Evangelist, when instructing us in these wonderful 
 mysteries, fitly introduces Our Saviour Christ as the first source 
 of that which is to be taught respecting them, that Our Lord's 
 authority might silence opponents." ' For the discourses of the 
 Son of Man were full of pregnant expressions, which were 
 ^ S. Cyril in Joan. lib. iv. 3, vol. iv. p. 372. 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 129 
 
 dropped as seed into the soil of men's hearts, to flourish and 
 ripen at a distant day. 
 
 How many things are recorded even by the three earlier 
 Evangelists respecting which we read, " they understood none of 
 these things ; and this saying was hid from them, neither knew 
 they the things which were spoken ! " How little did the 
 Apostles themselves enter into the nature of that kingdom, in 
 which the mother of the two disciples entreated for them the 
 foremost place ! How imperfect must have been their apprecia- 
 tion of the manner in which, like leaven, it would influence the 
 whole mass of man's nature, and grow like the mustard seed, till 
 it overshadowed the earth ! Yet Our Lord was pleased to 
 communicate such truths in abundance, and St. John's Grospel 
 is comjDosed of little else. There is not a chapter in it, which 
 would not be unintelhgible to those who supposed that they 
 were only listening to a Jewish peasant of extraordinary depth 
 and thoughtfulness, and were ignorant of the wonderful mystery 
 that in His Person " (xod was manifest in the flesh." What 
 could such men understand by Our Lord's declaration, that He 
 was " the light of the world ; " that their " Father Abraham re- 
 joiced to see " His " day ; " that He " came down from heaven," 
 that He and His Father were one ? Even to the Apostles, 
 though partially acquainted with the mystery of Our Lord's 
 nature, these things, as we are assured, were dark and uncer- 
 tain ; although they " trusted that it should have been He which 
 should have redeemed Israel." " These things understood not 
 His disciples at the first, but when Jesus was glorified then re- 
 membered they that these things were written of Him." But 
 to the people at large, who supposed Him to be " the carpenter's 
 son," whose father and mother they knew, such expressions must 
 have been wholly unintelligible. They were not like those 
 general statements in the Sermon on the Mount, which appeal 
 to the common principles of man's moral nature ; they had their 
 basis in that fact of Our Lord's Incarnation, which was a secret 
 to the multitudes. Yet Our Lord continually referred to truths 
 which depended upon this deep mystery, as well as to its con- 
 
 K 
 
130 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 hexion with His future suiferings. And such statements St. 
 John gathered togetlicr, many years afterwards, for the edifica- 
 tion of the Church. Why should we be surprised, then, to find 
 allusion to that doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, which was the 
 central point in the worship of Christians V And was it not 
 rather to be expected that St. John would have added a caution 
 that this custom was not referred to, if Our Lord's words had 
 no reference to a practice which from the first occupied so large 
 a part in the thoughts and attention of Christians V 
 
 These grounds for supposing that Our Lord was referring to 
 the Holy Eucharist, are greatly strengthened ])y reference to 
 His prediction respecting the efl&cacy of Christian Baptism. 
 One difference of course existed between the cases — for whereas 
 the Holy Eucharist was an ordinance wholly without precedent, 
 Baptism, on the other hand, had been usual among the Jews. 
 Nicodemus, therefore, expresses no wonder at the mention of 
 water, though he was at a loss to understand how he could be 
 born again : whereas Our Lord's statement that He would give 
 them His Elesh to eat and His Blood to drink, surprised the 
 Jews even more than His declaration that He was Himself the 
 channel through which they were to receive heavenly graces. 
 But as to the full nature and import of these holy rites, it is 
 manifest that one was as little understood antecedently to the 
 institution of Christian Baj^tism, as the other was before the 
 Last Supper. " There can therefore be no presumption dra\vn 
 agaiust the application of this Chapter to the institution of the 
 Lord's Supper, from the time when the doctrine was delivered, 
 which would not equally militate against the application of the 
 third Chapter to the Sacrament of Baptism : an application 
 which is, notwithstanding, universally allowed." 
 
 Bishop Cleaver goes on to point out the singular coincidence 
 in manner and arrangement which runs through the Chapters Ln 
 which these two Sacraments are predicted : ' 
 
 " Our Saviour had told Nicodemus that he must be born again. 
 
 * "Three Sermons on the Sacrament of the Ijord's Supper," by William 
 (Cleaver), Lord Bishop of Chester (Oxford, ISOl, p. 25). 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 131 
 
 Nicodemus replies to the impossibility of the thing in the 
 obvious and literal sense of the words. Jesus in answer, with 
 peculiar solemnity and claim to attention, points out the possi- 
 bility and the means of being born again : as well as the neces- 
 sity of such regeneration. ' Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except 
 a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into 
 the kingdom of God.' To which, still I'emarking wpon the want 
 of apprehension in Nicodemus, He adds, ' if I have told you 
 earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell 
 you of heavenly things ? ' 
 
 " In the sixth chapter, Jesus had said, 'the bread that I will give 
 is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.' The Jews 
 again answering, as Nicodemus had before done to the impossibility 
 of the tiling in its literal sense, said, ' How can this man give us 
 His flesh to eat ? ' To which Our Lord returns an answer, corres- 
 ponding to that given to Nicodemus, even to the very turn of the 
 sentence : ' Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh 
 of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you ; ' 
 the purport of which words is repeated and confirmed in the three 
 next verses, to which He adds, still remarking upon their want 
 of apprehension, ' Doth this offend you ? What and if ye shall 
 see the Son of Man ascend uj) where He was before ? ' A reply 
 so exactly parallel to that with which He had concluded His 
 conversation with this master in Israel, that the bare juxta- 
 position of these sentences will render each the comment upon 
 the other. From which analogy I cannot but think that who- 
 ever will observe the style, manner, and connexion of these two 
 discourses, will be of opinion that St. John took pains indus- 
 triously to show that the two institutions, which were to distin- 
 guish this religion, made part of Our Saviour's plan, long before 
 they were actually enjoined." ^ 
 
 ^ THs relation between the third and sixth chapters of St. John, and 
 their connexion with the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, 
 is pointed out by S. Gregory Nyssen. "We who have been instructed 
 by the sacred voice, ' that unless a man has been born again of water, and 
 of the Holy Ghost, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God ; ' and that 
 he that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, he shall live for ever — 
 we have been persuaded that by the confession of the sacred names, I 
 mean the Father, the Sou, and the Holy Ghost, the mystery of Godliness 
 is accomplished ; and that by communion in the mystical customs and 
 symbols our salvation is secured." — Coiit. Eunom. Or. xi. vol. ii. p. 704. 
 On this subject, vide Fahntrs Dmedutiuns on the Eastern Catholic 
 
 K 2 
 
182 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 The above considerations render it not unnatural, at all 
 events, that Our Lord should have taken this occasion of 
 instructing His disciples respecting one of the mysteries of His 
 future kingdom. They show that there is no antecedent im- 
 probability in givLiig such an interpretation to His words. But 
 what positive evidence is to be had on the subject ? It is plain 
 that the question must Ije decided by two considerations — either 
 by the natural force of the words, as understood by any one, or 
 by the sense put upon them by the Church. The first will be 
 to appeal to each man's private judgment ; the second, either to 
 listen to the Church as an authorised teacher, or to admit that at 
 all events the stream was likely to be clearest when it was near 
 its source. But before inquiring to what conclusions these princi- 
 ples would conduct, let us consider what are the exact statements 
 in this chapter which it is proposed to interpret. 
 
 The disputed part of this chapter begins with the thii*tieth 
 verse, in which the Jews applied to Our Lord for some 
 sign on which to rest their faith in Him. But having already 
 given them a sufficient sign in the miracle of the loaves, Our 
 Lord, instead of complying with their demand, laid before them 
 some deep truths, which it required an earnest personal affection, 
 and a firm conviction of the authority of His teaching, to enable 
 men to accept. In the twenty verses, therefore, which follow 
 (vv. 30-35), Our Lord affirms the great truth of His Media- 
 tion, and tells the Jews that this was the reality, of wliich the 
 gift of manna was a sign. He states to them that the relation 
 between man and God, on which depended man's happiness, was- 
 only to be maintained through Himself as Mediator : that into 
 His man's nature the Godhead had poured its gifts, and thus 
 had constituted Him the real food and sustenance of men's souls. 
 This was tlie fact wliicli it had pleased God to exhibit by way of 
 type, when He fed His people with manna in the wilderness. 
 And He Himself, by coming into tlie world, had brought down 
 among them the true principle of si)iritual existence. 
 
 Communio7i, Diss. xiv. p. 212 ; and iS. John Damascene, De Fule Orthod. 
 iv. 13, vol. i. p. 267. 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 133 
 
 It seems to have been Our Lord's intention by this statement 
 to sift the faith of His hearers, and to lay open to themselves 
 those who had followed Him merely from curiosity, or the hope 
 of worldly benefit. That such persons were present is obvious 
 from the result ; and that they understood well enough the 
 general tenor of His statement appears from their remarks. 
 They perceived Him to say that in His person the Godhead in 
 some way or other had come down among men : nor did they 
 complain that the assertion was unintelligible, though they 
 withheld their belief. " They said, is not this Jesus, the son of 
 Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then 
 that He saith I came down from heaven?" The statement, 
 then, which is contained in these verses, is that of Our Lord's 
 Mediation ; a statement which the Jews found no difficulty in 
 understanding, but which their ignorance of the wonderful mys- 
 tery of His Incarnation, and their indifference to the wisdom and 
 power of His words and actions, led them to disbelieve. But in 
 the fifty-first verse Our Lord passes to another subject. " The 
 clause, 'the bread that I will give is My flesh,' if it is not a 
 decided transition to another topic," says Olshausen, "is yet 
 23laiuly an advance to some further point in the discourse."^ So 
 that whereas from the 30th to the 50th verse, Our Lord had 
 declared nothing but the general truth that He was the 
 Mediator, through whom all divine gifts were bestowed 
 upon men, He adds a further truth in the following verses 
 (51-58), and declares that the eating of His Flesh and the 
 drinking His Blood is the method by which these gifts are 
 to be received. 
 
 The point in dispute then is, whether these last eight verses refer 
 to the Holy Communion or no. Those who suppose them to do 
 so will naturally understand Our Lord to have made a prophetic 
 statement respecting a truth (universally admitted by the ancient 
 Church), which St. Cyril thus expresses : " Our Lord's very 
 Body was sanctified by the power of the Word which had been 
 united to it; and it is thus rendered effective for us for the 
 ^ Olshausen in loco. 
 
134 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 purpose of the Mystical Eucharist, so as to be able to implant in 
 us its own sanctification."' Those who deny tliat Our Lord's 
 words refer to tlie Holy Eucharist, have commonly asserted that 
 to eat His Flesh was a parabolical exjiression, by which was 
 meant either to profit by the benefits of His death, or to receive 
 His doctrines. 
 
 The one of these intei'pretations (that to eat Our Lord's 
 Flesh was to profit by His death) has been thought plausible, 
 because the Jews were familiar with the idea of eating that 
 which had been offered in sacrifice. Since Our Lord, therefore, 
 had said He would give His Flesh for the life of the world, 
 they might l)e supposed, it is said, to gather that He would give 
 it as a sacrifice. But this is merely to adduce one unknown 
 thing as the explanation of another. So that this interjiretation 
 cannot be consistently maintained by those who make it an 
 objection against referring this passage to the Holy Eucharist, 
 that the Jews would have been unable to understand it. For 
 Our Lord had said not a syllable about His death, and what 
 should the Jews know of His efficacy as a victim '? When He 
 predicted that as Jonah was three days in the whale's belly, so 
 would He be tlu'ee days in the heart of the earth, what idea 
 would his words have conveyed to persons who were unacquainted 
 with Jonah's history? And how was it possible, in like 
 manner, for the Jews to draw conclusions from facts respecting 
 Himself, of which they were ignorant ? Besides, even if the 
 Jews had been so far informed respecting Our Lord's coming 
 sufferings, as to attach the meaning suggested to the eating His 
 Flesh, what could they understand by the command to drink 
 His Blood ? " Though we have some obscure hints of the blood 
 of sacrifices drunk in the necromantic rites of the Pagans, the 
 Jewish law particularly forbids the use of blood. The injunction, 
 therefore, to drink His Blood, would with a Jew have its 
 peculiar difficulties. Nay, the prohibition of blood in the 
 
 ' S. C'yr. in Joan. lili. xi. 9, vol. iv. p. 979. So S. Atlianasius, "^fjifts 
 Kai dv6f>0JiTOi rrapa tov Avyov OfoirotoiinfOa, irpoaKrjtpOivTts Sid r^s aapKos 
 ouTou." — Oiutio iii. 84, vol. i. p. 554. 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 135 
 
 Mosaic law, either generally in the way of sustenance, or as a 
 part of their sacrificial feasts, is grounded upon its being the 
 means of atonement."^ So that even if the Jews could have 
 understood Our Lord's declaration respecting the eating His 
 flesh, without knowing the fact of His atoning death, they could 
 not have understood His statement that they were to drink His 
 Blood, without contradicting the very principle to which He is 
 asserted to have made reference. 
 
 These considerations supply unanswerable proof that Our 
 Lord could not have addressed these words to the Jews, with 
 the intention that they should understand Him to refer to the 
 benefits which were to be conferred by His atoning death. 
 Indeed, this interpretation must have been first suggested by 
 the institution of the Holy Eucharist. For the only reason why 
 to eat Our Lord's Flesh and drink His Blood can be supposed to 
 be identical with the profiting by His Sacrifice, is because the 
 sacramental act is an ordained means of participating in the 
 value of His sufferings. So that this interpretation, instead of 
 implying that Our Lord did not refer to the Holy Eucharist, 
 implies that this was the very thing to which He was referring. 
 It is an inadequate explanation of Our Lord's words, and does not 
 express the whole truth which they communicate, nor account 
 for the prominence given to a mode of expression which must 
 seem singularly forced and unnatural unless the reality of the 
 Holy Eucharist be admitted ; but it would be wholly inad- 
 missible, had not Our Lord referred to that fact of the Holy 
 Eucharist, by which alone it could be justified. 
 
 The other interpretation, however, that by the eating of His 
 Flesh Our Lord meant the receiving His doctrines, has been 
 more commonly maintained by those who deny His words to 
 refer to the Holy Eucharist. It has been said that this was the 
 meaning which a Jewish audience would naturally attach to the 
 expression ; and such passages have been referi-ed to as Ecclesias- 
 ticus xxiv. 21, "They that eat Me shall yet be hungry, and 
 
 ' Bishop Cleaver's Sermons, p. 29. 
 
136 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 they that diiiik Me sliall yet be thirsty." So that, as "Whitby 
 expresses it, " to eat of the bread which came down from 
 heaven " is " to believe in Christ breakuig the bread of life to us 
 by His doctrine." For, the same writer maintains, " among the 
 Oriental and Jewish writers, to eat is used as a symbol of the 
 food of the soul." Here, then, is a notion which would exclude 
 all reference to the Holy Eucharist, and which is rested on the 
 idea which Our Lord's words must have conveyed to His 
 original hearers. 
 
 The first objection wl)ich suggests itself to this interpretation 
 is, that the words appear not to have been understood by the 
 Jews. If this was all which they were calculated to convey to 
 an Oriental hearer, why did the Jews strive " among themselves, 
 saying, how can this man give us His flesh to eat ? " And 
 if their error did not arise from want of faith, but because they 
 did not appreciate the force of an ordinary image, why did not 
 their gracious instructor set them right by altering His 
 metaphor ? The statement of Our Lord's Mediation, w. 30-50, 
 they understood, but rejected; they did not complain that it was 
 unintelligible, but asserted it to be unfounded. But when this 
 statement was added, they could attach to it no meaning, " This 
 ' is an hard saying, who can hear it ? " It is plain, therefore, by 
 the judgment of the Jews themselves, that this was not the 
 ordinary way of expressing the familiar ti'uth, that Our Lord 
 would instruct them hy His doctrine. 
 
 Neither is there a shadow of evidence for saying that any 
 such meanuig could naturally have been deduced from such 
 expressions. To eat wisdom may be taken as a metaiihorical 
 expression for receiving it, but there is no single instance in 
 which to (lit any iiian's llcsh is usid as equivalent to the receiving 
 his doctriiiu. i'aiabolical us was the language of some of tlie 
 PropTiets, they never employed such a metaphor ^ as this ; nor is 
 a single example of a like kind to be found among the writings of 
 the Apostles. " I am confident," says Bishop Cleaver, " there 
 
 ' " oTi adpxa Tis ((pa-yfv, ovSenoTf oiiSds uiriv (Kfivaii'." — <;^. Chrysostom 
 III Joan. JJoin. 4G. 2, p. 272. 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 137 
 
 is no fact, no custom, no rite, no doctrine, and no expression in 
 Scripture, prior to the institution itself, which will give any 
 explication of this Our Saviour's assertion : ' My Flesh is meat 
 indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed.' " ^ In every instance in 
 which to eat a person's flesh is spoken of in Scripture, to injure 
 or destroy the party referred to is the idea conveyed. So it is 
 in Psalm xxvii. 2 : " "When the wicked came upon me to 
 eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell." And so does St. 
 James use it : " the rust of them shall eat your flesh as it were 
 fire." No single instance can be produced either from Classical 
 or Oriental sources, in which this phrase is used in any other 
 sense than that of consuming or preying upon the person spoken 
 of. Gresenius^ gives these as the sole interpretations of the 
 phrase, ' to eat any ones Jlesh,' which his great acquaintance 
 with the Semitic languages supplied. Nor is this extraordinary ; 
 for metaphorical language is the language of nature, and must 
 have a counterpart in those realities of which it is the 
 expression. Now, " to ruminate upon and digest the instructions 
 of another, is as easy and obvious a language as the subject 
 admits, . . . but to eat the body, and drink the blood of your 
 teacher, as such, bears no conceivable analogy to any benefit to 
 be received from thence, and is in truth a saying, not only hard 
 
 in point of doctrine, but in point of interpretation also 
 
 As much in vain is it to say, that to eat the flesh and drink the 
 blood of a benefactor, has for its object only a more solemn and 
 awful remembrance of him. Until the patrons of the one or the 
 other hypothesis can produce some matter or some allusion, in 
 sacred, or at least profane writ, which will better warrant their 
 suppositions, the assertions will find as little credit as they have 
 foundation." ^ 
 
 But it has been affirmed that this interpretation is not so 
 
 ^ Bishop Cleaver's Sermons, p. 29. 
 
 ^ " Das Fleisch jemandes essen fiir : gierig seyn nach seinem Blute, von 
 wilden grausamen Feinden. Ps. 27. 2. (vgl. Hiob. 19. 22.) Sein Fleisch 
 verzehren, fiir : sich abharmen, vom Neidischen. Koh. 4. 5." — Hehrdisches 
 und Clialddisches Handworterbuch, p. 101, A.D. 1834. 
 
 ^ Bishop Cleaver, pp. 27, 28. 
 
REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 restitute of authority as it is of reason ; and Whitby and others 
 have represented it to liave liad various sujjporters in the early 
 Churcli. It is essential to examine the grounds of this assertion. 
 For if it can be shown that the contrary was the fact, there will 
 remain no kind of reason for doubting that Our Lord's words 
 had reference to the Holy Eucharist. Now it must be remem- 
 bered that He speaks of two things in tliis Chapter ; first, of the 
 general fact of His Mediation, and that His Humanity was the 
 medium through which divine graces found their way to mankind; 
 secondly, tliat the eating His Body and the drinking His Blood 
 was the method in which this gift was to be participated by 
 individuals. It is necessary to bear this distinction in mind, 
 when we interpret the statements of the ancient writers. Those 
 who refer merely to the former of these two doctrines, and observe 
 that all graces are derived from Our Lord's ^lediation, were 
 not bound to make any allusion to the latter, or to decide whether 
 Our Lord's statements respecting His Body and Blood had 
 reference to the Holy Eucharist. Now, of the writers who are 
 alleged to have been unconscious that the Holy Eucharist is 
 referred to in this jilace, not one has given a detailed exjilanation 
 of it ; the most which can be said is, that they have made casual 
 or incidental allusions to some part of Our Lord's words, leaving 
 their estimate of the rest uncertain. But the earliest ancient 
 writers who profess to give a detailed ex^iosition of the whole 
 Chapter — St. Chrysostom, St. Augustin, and St. Cyril — while 
 they refer the former part, vv. 30-50, to Our Lord's Mediation 
 at large, avowedly refer the latter part, vv. 51-58, to that peculiar 
 institution of the Holy Eucharist by which He communicates 
 Himself to His members. 
 
 The two earliest writers who are referred to by Johnson, as 
 identifying this passage with a prediction of the Holy Eucharist, 
 are St. Ignatius and St. Irenteus.' Both of them dwell on the 
 truth that Our Lord's Body, as communicated in the Holy 
 Eucharist, is the renewing principle by which His people are to 
 be quickened, both in body and soul. The Holy Eucharist, says 
 
 ' Unbloody Sacrifice, cap. ii. sec. v. vol. i. p. 496. Anglo-Catli. Lib. 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 139 
 
 St. Ignatius, is " the medicine of immortality," ^ and St. Irengeus 
 speaks of it as the cause of the resurrection.^ It is usual with 
 these writers, especially with the former, to refer to Scriptural 
 statements, without quoting their exact words ; and such is the 
 course adopted in the present instance ; but, as Johnson observes, 
 this line of thought could be suggested only by the 6th of 
 St. John. "Waterland, however, objects that such an idea might 
 be drawn from the statement of St. Paul, 1 Cor, x. 16. But 
 the expressions of both these writers are directly founded upon 
 the words of St. John, whei'eas their connexion with those of 
 St. Paul is extremely remote. And were it otherwise, the 
 suggestion of "Waterland implies everything which Johnson is 
 interested to establish. For if St. Ignatius and St. Irengeus 
 allow Our Lord's Humanity to be the medium through which 
 His spiritual blessings are communicated, and that the Holy 
 Eucharist is the occasion on which this gift is imparted, they 
 adopt the system which those who deny that Our Lord was 
 speaking in this place of the Holy Eucharist are designing to 
 refute. For there are two main systems, according to which it 
 is supposed that spiritual gifts are communicated. The one 
 imj)lies that blessings are bestowed by God upon men by indivi- 
 dual gift, as a consequence indeed of Christ's death, but through \ 
 that separate process whereby the Almighty holds communion 
 with each man's spirit. The other supposes all blessings to be 
 embodied in the Humanity of the "Word, and from Him to be 
 extended to His members. It is from an unwillingness to admit 
 this last truth, that the application of the 6th of St. John to the 
 Holy Eucharist has been disputed. For here the process is 
 more clearly laid down than in any other part of Holy Scripture. 
 We have first the grand truth that the "Word is the medium 
 through which the Deity communicates Himself to His creatures, 
 and that this communication takes jAs^ce through His coming 
 down upon earth, and manifesting Himself among men. And 
 then it is added, vv. 51-58, that to partake of His sacred Flesh 
 
 ■■ Ad Ephes. sec. 20 ; vide also Ad Smyrnseos, sec. 7. 
 ° Book V. sec. ii. 2, 3. 
 
140 EEAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 is the method by which men enter into relation with Him, just 
 as by birth men partake of that old nature which has been 
 transmitted to us by Adam. Now those who accept the fact 
 which is here laid down, will feel little interest in denying that 
 it is revealed in St. John's Gospeh If men seek another inter- 
 pretation of these words, it is because they dispute the doctrine 
 conveyed in them. For this doctrine is so momentous, and lies 
 so completely at the root of the whole Christian system, that if 
 it be real, nothing can be more pi'obable than that it should 
 have been announced by Our Lord. So that since St. Ignatius 
 and St. Irenaeus certainly tauglit this doctrine, how could they 
 fail to connect it with St. John's words ? 
 
 As we advance further, we find hardly a single ^vriter of con- 
 sequence, by whom this chapter is not connected with the Holy 
 Eucharist. It is so by Tertullian, who establishes the relation 
 of " our daily bread " with this Sacrament, by referring to Our 
 Lord's words, " I am the bread of life." ' St. Clement of Alex- 
 andria quotes some of Our Lord's memorable expressions, as in- 
 troductory to a mention of the Holy Eucharist : " The Lord 
 provides for us food from Himself. He offers flesh, and pours 
 forth blood, and nothing is wanting to the children's growth." '^ 
 St. Cyprian founds his remarks on the Holy Eucharist upon the 
 fact that " Our Lord Himself preached and warned, ' I am the 
 bread of life which came down from heaven.' " ^ St. Cyril of 
 Jerusalem in like manner rests his intei-pretation of this sacra- 
 ment upon what was " said by Christ on a certain occasion dis- 
 coursing with the Jews." * St. Hilary says, when treating of 
 the Holy Eucharist, " thei'e is no room for doubting about the 
 truth of His Flesh and Blood," because Christ " Himself says, 
 ' My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed.' " '' 
 
 The only thing which can be set against these decisive state- 
 ments is, that some ancient writers speak of the Body and Blood 
 of Christ in connexion with that spiritual communion with 
 
 ' De Oratione, 6. * Paedagogus, i. vi. p. 123. (Potter.) 
 
 ^ De Oratione Dominica, p. 192. ' Myst. Cat. iv. 4. 
 
 ^ De Trinitate, viii. 14. p. 955. 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 141 
 
 Himself, as the source of truth and knowledge, which is not 
 limited to those occasions on which the Holy Eucharist is ad- 
 ministered. The most explicit passages which Whitby can cite 
 are four, which he refers respectively to St. Jerome, St. Athana- 
 sius, Eusebius, and Origen. The first passage may be dismissed 
 as being sj)urious : and the two last could not be of great weight, 
 because derived from authors of dubious authority. But more 
 may be said than this. For it must be remembered that the 
 sixth chapter of St. John speaks of two things : one, that Me- 
 diatorial function, whereby Our Lord reveals Himself as the 
 principle of life to men ; the other, the communication of His 
 Elesh and Blood, as the means whereby His gifts are imparted. 
 Now it has never been disputed that Our Lord may communi- 1 
 cate Himself when and how He will, and that where men are \ 
 devout members of Him by saci-amental communion, He renders I 
 their whole life a continual union with Himself. As to partake 1 
 Christ sacramentally, without faith, would not be profitable, so 
 faithful men, who are debai'red the Holy Eucharist, are perpe- 
 tually partakers of Him. " Quidam non manducantes mandu- 
 cant : quidam manducantes non manducant." This circumstance 
 supplies a reason why Our Lord's Flesh and Blood are spoken 
 of, without making it necessary to resort to the strange notion, 
 that these terms are fit metaphors for expressing His doctrines, 
 His grace, or His favour. Between Christ and His members 
 there is a personal relation ; from Him flows all grace, which 
 is received by them with all thankfulness. The Holy Eucharist 
 is the appointed mean by which this union is maintained ; and 
 therefore when men are unavoidably debarred the jirivilege of 
 sacramental communion, the Eucharist may very naturally be 
 referred to, as indicating the nature and course of that benefit 
 which it pleases God to bestow through extraordinary channels. 
 This is only to say that though the res sacramenti is the ap- 
 pointed mean of conveying the virtus sacramenti, yet virtue 
 issues from Our Lord as the fountain of grace, in any manner 
 which pleases Him. When the Body and Blood of Christ are 
 spoken of, as imparted to those who in this extraordinary man- 
 
142 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 ner are brought into relation to Christ, it is not because Flesh 
 and Blood are employed as metaphorical terms for expressing 
 grace or doctrines, but because the Holy Eucharist, being the 
 Sacrament of Christ's Flesh and Blood, suggests the order in 
 which other gifts are communicated. So that such expressions, 
 instead of excluding the Holy Eucharist, imj^ly that it is refer- 
 red to, since it supplies the gi'oundwork out of which they are 
 constructed. 
 
 These I'emarks are applicable in a great measure to the pas- 
 sages quoted by Whitby. When Origen says, referring to St. 
 John vi. 64, that " we are stated to di-ink the Blood of Christ, 
 not merely in the use of sacraments, but also when we receive 
 His words, m which our life consists," ^ he is referring plainly 
 to the Holy Eucharist, though he supposes the chapter to speak 
 also of that personal relation to Christ which the Divine Medi- 
 ator can bring about without the use of instruments. And this 
 is all which he or the other two writers can be intending, be- 
 cause all three of them contain express statements that the Holy 
 Eucbarist is referred to in this Chai:)ter. The passage which 
 Whitby cites from Eusebius ^ is neutralized by another from the 
 commentary of the same writer on Isaiah,' in which he quotes 
 Our Lord's words in direct connexion with the Holy Eucharist. 
 And so Origen, in another part of his commentary on Numbers : 
 " then the Manna was a typical food, but now the Flesh of the 
 Word of God is exhibited as true food, as He Himself also says, 
 for ' My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed.' " * 
 So likewise the passage which is quoted by Whitby ' from St. 
 Athanasius, is interpreted by another statement of that Father: 
 " Our Lord has taught us in His prayer to seek while we are in 
 this world for the siiper-subsiafitial bread, that is, for the bread 
 which shall be hereafter; of which we have the first-fruit in this 
 
 ' In Numeros, Horn. xvi. 9, vol. ii. p. 334. 
 '■^ De Ecclesiastica Tlieolog-ia, iii. 1'2, j). 180. 
 •' Montfaucoii's CoUectio Nova, vol. ii. p. 586. 
 ■• Horn. vii. iu Num. 2, vol. ii. p. '2S)(). 
 * Ep. ad. Scrap, iv. IK, vol. ii. p. 710. 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 143 
 
 present life, when we partake the Flesh of Our Lord, as He 
 Himself said, ' the bread which I will give is My Flesh, which 
 I will give for the life of the world.' " ^ 
 
 Another author may be referred to, as a proof that the ex- 
 pressions of ancient writers are to be understood according to 
 their general sentiments. St. Basil, in one passage ^ of his works, 
 goes further almost than anyone in identifying Our Lord's Flesh 
 and Blood rather with His benefits in general, than with that 
 particular communication of Himself which is bestowed in the 
 Holy Eucharist. Yet elsewhere no one is more distinct in as- 
 serting that Our Lord's words refer to the Holy Eucharist. " It 
 is good and profitable to communicate daily, and to be a partaker 
 of the sacred Body and Blood of Christ, inasmuch as He Him- 
 self says distinctly, ' he who eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My 
 Blood, hath eternal life. ' " ^ And he quotes * the fifty-third and 
 fifty-fourth verses, as supplying a rule for those who come to the 
 Holy Eucharist. 
 
 There is no ground at all, then, for Whitby's assertion, that 
 his theory had supporters in the ancient Church. The great 
 mass of authors connect the mention of Our Lord's Flesh and 
 Blood with the Holy Eucharist exclusively, and those who oc- 
 casionally apply them more loosely, have been shown not to 
 exclude this primary interpretation. Hence Waterland has in- 
 troduced another theory, by way of neutralizing testimonies too 
 direct and numerous to be disputed. He maintains that the 
 thing referred to in this chapter is not the Holy Eucharist, but 
 the general benefits which are bestowed by Christ, of which this 
 sacrament is only a particular channel. Now it has been shown 
 that the sixth chapter of St. John consists of two parts — first, 
 we have a general statement of Our Lord's Mediation, vv. 30-50, 
 and then a declaration that the Holy Eucharist is the medium 
 through which its benefits are communicated, vv. 51-58. But 
 Waterland's theory makes no account of the latter set of ex- 
 
 ^ De Incam. et contra Arian., xvi. vol. ii. p. 883. 
 
 ^ Epis. viii. 4, vol. iii. p. 84. ^ Epis. xciii. vol. iii. p. 186. 
 
 ■• Initium Moralium, Eegula 21. 1, vol. ii. p. 253. 
 
144 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 pressions, and therefore is less satisfactory even than that of 
 Whitby, wliich attempts, however inadequately, to grapple 
 with the difficulties of the case ; whereas "Waterland gives 
 no reason why the ancient writers ' should have considered 
 these words to be so plainly relevant to the Holy Eucharist 
 that they almost invai-iably quote them in this relation. How 
 came they thus to employ them, unless they supposed that this 
 was the natural force of the words : or how could they venture 
 to give this meaning to Our Lord's words, unless such had been 
 their received interpretation ? Indeed, Waterland himself does 
 not absolutely deny that Our Lord may have referred to the 
 Holy Eucharist ; and it is obvious that the terms employed 
 would not have been a natural mode of expressing the general 
 benefits which He bestows, unless the Holy Eucharist had been 
 the appointed medium of conveying them, 
 
 Waterland's theory, however, could never have been in- 
 troduced, were it not that in the earliest ages we have no 
 direct commentary upon this Chapter, and consequently have 
 no detailed explanation of the purpose with which Our Lord 
 spoke. And therefore his theory falls to the gi'ound at once, 
 when we come to those writers who have occasion to explain 
 at length what was believed to be Our Lord's intention. The 
 first of these is St. Chrysostom ; whose commentary is most 
 distinct in its statements, that from the 51st verse, where 
 Our Lord introduces the subject of His Body and Blood, 
 He is referring immediately to the Holy Eucharist. The 
 earlier part of the Chapter, St. Chrysostom says, may be ex- 
 jilained in general of those blessings which were bestowed 
 
 ^ In addition to tliose already quoted, vide S. Gregory Nyssen contra 
 Eiinoin. Or. xi. vol. ii. p. 704. lb. in Ecclesias. Horn. viii. vol. i. 457. 
 Julius Finnicus de Errore Prof. Ixel. 19. Bib. Pat. iv. 171. S. Ambros. 
 de Fide, iv. 124, vol. ii. 543. lb. de Benedict. Patriar. ix. 39, vol. i. 525. 
 lb. in Psalm 118, Seruio 18. 28, vol. i. 1203. S. Gaudentius, Trac. 2, ad 
 Neopli. P.ib. Pat. v. 946. Maximns Taurin. Horn. xlv. p. 138. S. Jerome 
 on Ephes. cap. i. vol. iv. part i. p. 828. Theophilus Lib. Pascbalis II. in 
 S. Jerome, vol. iv. part ii. p. 714. S. Epiphanius ad Haer. ii. 1, 6. S. 
 Macarius, Horn. iv. 12, Gallandi, vol. vii. 10. TLeodoret Hist. Eccles. 
 iv. 11. 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 145 
 
 by the Mediator. "The bread of life is Our Lord's salutary 
 doctrine, and faith in Himself, or His own Body." ^ These 
 things are all involved in the system of the Gospel when 
 viewed at large. But when he comes to the 51st verse,^ 
 he thinks it necessary to account for the fact, that Our Lord 
 should have spoken of a topic which at the time it was not 
 possible for His hearers to understand. And the purpose of 
 that Holy Sacrament, to which he says Our Lord is here 
 referring, is explained thus : " I have become a partaker of 
 Flesh and Blood for your sakes ; again that very Flesh and 
 Blood by which I have become akin to you I give back .to 
 you." ^ To show the full force of his comment it would be 
 necessary to transcribe it all. A few words from the con- 
 clusion of it may suffice : — 
 
 " What, then ; is not His Flesh flesh ? Certainly it is. "What 
 does He mean then by saying, that flesh profiteth nothing ? 
 He does not speak about His own Flesh. God forbid. But 
 He speaks about those who receive what is sj)oken in a fleshly 
 manner. Now what is it to understand the thing in a fleshly 
 manner ? It is to look simply at that which lies before us, 
 and not to conceive of anything beyond. This is to look at 
 things in a fleshly manner. For we ought not to judge only 
 by what is visible, but to discern all mysteries with our inner 
 eyes, that is to say, sjDiritually. Is it not so, that unless a 
 man eats His Flesh, and drinks His Blood, he hath no life 
 in him? How, then, can it be said that the flesh profiteth 
 nothing, without which we cannot live ? You see that the 
 words, the flesh pi'ofiteth nothing, are not spoken of His Flesh, 
 but of the hearing Him in a fleshly manner." * 
 
 The next commentator, St. Augustin, assumes, as St. Chry- 
 sostom did, that this Chapter refers to the Holy Eucharist. 
 There are expressions in his Commentary, respecting which 
 something shall be said presently, which are capable of being 
 understood in a Calvinistic sense, but not a word occurs which 
 implies him to have doubted that Our Lord designed to speak 
 
 ^ S. Chrys. in Joan. Horn. xlvi. 1, vol. viii. p. 270. 
 2 Id. p. 271. 3 Id. p. 273. 
 
 * Id. Horn, xlvii. sec. 2, p. 278. 
 L 
 
146 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 respecting the Holy Eucharist. When he comes to the 51st 
 verse, he notices and accounts for the fact that Our Lord 
 left the Jews in ignorance respecting the nature of that spiri- 
 tual food which His Church was to receive through this 
 sacrament : 
 
 " ' If any man eat of this hread he shall live for ever ; and 
 the bread which I will give is My Flesh, which I will give 
 for the life of the world.' How should fleshly people under- 
 stand this, in that He calls bread by the name of flesh ? That 
 is called flesh, which the flesh cannot receive ; and the reason 
 why the flesh cannot receive it, is because it is called flesh. 
 For they were horrified at this ; they thought it a hard say- 
 ing ; they supposed it impossible. The faithful know what 
 is meant by the Body of Christ, if so be that to Christ's Body 
 they neglect not to pertain." Whereas the Jews, he goes 
 on to say, were ignorant " how He was to be eaten, and what 
 was to be the manner of eating that bread." ^ 
 
 Another Father who has left a lengthened commentary on 
 this Chapter, is St. Cyril of Alexandria. His statements are 
 not only important, from the full and distinct manner in which 
 they express his own opinion, but also because his explanation 
 of this Chapter was sanctioned by the authority of the Third 
 General Council. He seems, like other ancient Avriters, to 
 liave taken entirely for granted that Our Lord was referring 
 to the Holy Eucharist. " What is it which Christ promises ? 
 Nothing corruptible, but rather that Eucharist which Ues in 
 the reception of His sacred Flesh and Blood, whereby man 
 
 obtains the gift of immortality The sacred Body of 
 
 Christ gives life to those in whom it is, and preserves them 
 for immortality, by being mixed with our bodies. For it is 
 understood not to be the Body of any one else than of Him, 
 who is naturally life, having in itself the whole power of the 
 Word who has been made one with it." '^ 
 
 Again, after referring to various ancient miracles, and ob- 
 
 > S. August, in Joan. Tract, xxvi. 13, 15, pp. 499, 500. 
 
 * b. Cyri in Joan. lib. iii. 6, vol. iv. p. 324. (On verse 35.) 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 147 
 
 serving that these events ought to have taught the Jews that 
 God's dealings are above our comprehension, he remarks upon 
 the 54th verse : 
 
 " These statements may show us Our Lord's long-suffering, 
 and the abundance of His mercy. For without taking offence 
 at the narrow-mindedness of the unbelievers, He gives them 
 again in full measure the life-giving knowledge of His mystery. 
 
 In what way He will give them His flesh to eat, 
 
 He does not yet teach, for He knew them to be as yet in 
 darkness, and not yet strong enough for the mystery. But 
 very seasonably He shows them what blessings will arise 
 to them from eating, that perhaps He might teach them how 
 to believe, by infusing into them a desire to live, through a 
 sense of its unbounded happiness. For if they only beheved, 
 to understand would soon follow. For so says the Prophet 
 Isaias, ' if you will not believe, you shall not understand.' 
 Faith, therefore, must first be rooted in them, and then would 
 come an understanding of the things of which they are igno- 
 rant ; and inquiry must not precede faith. Therefore I suppose 
 Our Lord omits to tell them in what manner He will give 
 them His Flesh to eat, and calls upon them to believe pre- 
 viously to investigation. For when He spoke to those who 
 already believed, He took bread and brake, and gave it to 
 them, saying. Take, eat, this is My Body. In like manner 
 giving the cup to all of them, He said. Take, and drink ye 
 all of this, for this is My Blood of the testament, which is 
 shed for many for the remission of sins. You see that He 
 does not explain the nature of the mystery to those who were 
 without thought, and had no searchings after faith ; but to 
 those who already believed He is found to have given a 
 clear explanation. Let those hear then, who from want of 
 wisdom have not yet received the faith of Christ. Except 
 ye shall eat the flesh of Christ, and drink His blood, ye have 
 no life in you. For those persons are wholly without share 
 or taste of the life of holiness and happiness, who have not 
 received the Son through the mystical Eucharist. For He 
 is life by nature, inasmuch as He has been born from the 
 living Father. And His sacred Body is not less life-giving, 
 smce it has been in some unsjoeakable manner made one with 
 that Word which gives hfe to all things." ^ 
 
 ^ Comment, in Joan. lib. iv. 2, vol. iv. p. 361. 
 
148 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 The preceding quotations show that the only Fathers who 
 have left full explanations of the sixth Chapter of St. John, 
 puppoped Our Lord to have referred directly to the Holy 
 Eucharist. It has been previously shown, that the casual 
 allusions of other ancient writers, are no ground for supposing 
 them to have entertained a different opinion, though the different 
 nature of their sulyects did not lead them to such precise 
 explanations. For since Our Lord spoke both of His ^lediation 
 at large, and also of this particular mean of profiting by it, to 
 accept the first truth did not imply that the second was 
 disbelieved. But when we come to these three commentators 
 we are left in no doubt respecting the prevalent interpretation 
 of Our Lord's words. The importance, however, of St. Cyril's 
 testimony does not stop here. For these, it may be said, were 
 but the statements of individuals, and may have failed to 
 represent the judgment of the whole Church. But St. Cyril's 
 interpretation of this Chapter was introduced into the letter, 
 which as President of a Synod at Alexandria, he addressed to 
 Nestorius, and which was read with approbation at the Council 
 of Ephesus. So that in referring Our Lord's words to the Holy 
 Eucharist, we are not only boi-ne out by the private testimony of 
 ancient writers, but have the highest sanction which can be 
 given to any interpretation of Scripture, in the approval of one 
 of those General Councils, which express the mind of the Spirit 
 and the authority of the Church. 
 
 " "We celebrate the unbloody sacrifice in our Churches ; we 
 approach the mystical Eucharist and are sanctified, being made 
 partakers of the sacred Flesh and the precious Blood of our 
 common Saviour Jesus Christ. Now this we do, not as though 
 we received common flesh. God forbid. Nor as though His 
 Flesh were that of a man who was sanctified, and united to the 
 Word by oneness of desert, or in whom God abode by indwelling ; 
 but as supposing it to be truly life-giving, and really the Hesh 
 of the Word Himself. For being naturally life as God, since 
 He has become one with His own P^lesh, He has rendered it also 
 life-giving. So that when He says to us, Verily, verily, I say 
 uuto you, ' except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. Ud 
 
 His Blood,' — we cannot suppose this to be like the flesh of a 
 man such as ourselves. For how should a man's flesh be 
 naturally life-giving?"^ 
 
 The considerations which have been alleged are so decisive, 
 that it may well be asked how it can have been doubted that the 
 sixth Chapter of St. John was designed to refer to the Holy 
 Eucharist. Those whom the words themselves do not satisfy 
 of their mysterious import, might be expected to be struck at 
 the manner in which the Jews received them : those who are 
 less attentive to the natural force of expressions than to their 
 traditional import, must be influenced by the concurrent 
 testimony of the Primitive Church. For while Our Lord's 
 words are interpi^eted of the Holy Eucharist by well-nigh every 
 ancient writer, there is not a single ancient writer by whom this 
 interpretation is denied. And the ancient is shown to be the 
 natural interpretation, because the various explanations which 
 have since become prevalent, may be accounted for by reference 
 to the peculiar circumstances of those by whom they have been 
 introduced. They have originated with persons who had a 
 theory to support, which the natural and received meaning of 
 this passage was thought to oppose. " In the middle ages we 
 find no other interpretation than that of St. Chrysostom. It is 
 observable that the Bohemians, following the traditional apj)lica- 
 tion of the passage to the Lord's Supper, deduced from it the 
 necessity of administering the communion in both kinds." ^ Hence 
 the received interpretation was called in question by Caietan, and 
 others after him, because this Chapter was used as an argument 
 against them by the disciples of Huss. " The Cardinal supposed," 
 says Johnson, " that if John vi. were understood of the Eucharist, 
 it would imply a necessity of communicating children, which I 
 have shown to be a groundless supposition ; but that which I 
 believe weighed most with the Cardinal was, that if this text 
 be understood of the Eucharist, it will follow that there is a 
 
 1 Harduin, vol. i. p. 1289. 
 
 ^ Vide Liickes Gescliichte der Auslegung der Stelle, vi. 51, in his 
 Commentary on St. John, vol. ii. p. 730. 
 
150 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 necessity of the Cup as well as the Host.'" Later writers in 
 tlie Roman Obedience have defended their practice by reference 
 to the doctrine of concomitance, whicli implies Our Lord's Blood 
 to be present wherever His Body is ; and also by the example 
 of the early Christians, whose habit was to receive the Holy 
 Eucharist in their houses, under one kind only ; but for a time 
 Caietan's interpretation was popular with writers of his com- 
 munion. But since it was obviously an expedient which was 
 only introduced for a polemical purpose, it cannot pretend to 
 express the original intention of Our Lord's words. 
 
 The same may be said of Luther's opposition to the primitive 
 interpretation. It was shoAvn (cap. v.) that Luther's theory 
 united two incomiJatible principles — it asserted the sacredness 
 of the Holy Eucharist, but denied its efficacy. It is manifest, 
 therefore, how little he was likely to sympathize with a passage,^ 
 the very jiurpose of which is to point out the efficacy of this 
 Holy Eeast, and to show its relation to Our Lord's Mediation. 
 It supplied the quotations, therefore, which were mainly brought 
 against him by his opponents at Marburg : they took for 
 granted that a person who admitted the reality of Our Lord's 
 Presence, could not doubt that it must be alluded to in a chapter 
 in which it appears to be so directly taught. Luther seems to 
 have given some surprise to his own partizans by the manner in 
 which he parried this attack. " In his contest %\dth Carolstad, 
 Zuinglius, and (Ecolampadius, he boldly denied tliat this 
 passage had any relation to the Lord's Supper, and maintained 
 that it had reference only to the spiritual participation of Christ 
 by faith and love." "' Here, then, as in the case of Caietan, the 
 received interpretation was abandoned for the sake of a theory. 
 Such foi'ced exjilanations do- but set off the simplicity of that 
 more natural ajiplication, which has on its side as well the 
 obvious force of the words, as the testimony of antiquity. Cer- 
 
 ' Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice, cap. ii. sec. Z, vol. i. p. 525. 
 * "This passage breaks your neck," said Zuinglius to Luther in the 
 Conference at Marburg. — Ehrard, vol. ii. 323. 
 ■' Liicke, ubi sup. p. 730. 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 151 
 
 talnly, if St. John did not design to refer to the Holy Eucharist 
 when he recorded this discourse of Our Lord, his Gospel must 
 be unintelligible to simple readers, since they could not fail to 
 attribute this sense to his words. So that this is an instance in 
 which the first and plainest interpretation can make its appeal 
 to present reason as confidently as to the authority of the past. 
 
 So much respecting a subject which required to be considered 
 at large, not so much on account of its ambiguity as of its 
 importance. For though other passages of Holy Scripture speak 
 plainly respecting the truth of Our Lord's Presence, there is none 
 which dwells with equal fulness on its efficacy. "We must- now 
 proceed to show that, allowing this chapter to contain a 
 prophetical allusion to the Holy Eucharist, it will follow that 
 Our Lord's Presence is real, and not merely symbolical or 
 virtual. And this will be rendered more manifest, by observing 
 the consistency of this passage with those other statements that 
 Our Lord is present sujpernaturally, and sacramentally, of which 
 His Real Presence has been shown to be the result. 
 
 Now, that Our Lord's Presence is supernatural, is the truth 
 affirmed by Himself in the sixty-third verse of the sixth 
 chapter of St. John. " It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the 
 flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I speak unto you, they 
 are spii-it, and they are life." He affirms, that the instruction 
 which He communicated to His hearers was something 
 borrowed from that principle of spiritual life, which in His 
 Manhood had come personally into the world. For " in Him 
 was life, and the life was the light of men." The meaning of 
 this verse is not, as some have imagined, that Our Lord has 
 really no share in man's sanctification — that great work belonging 
 exclusively to the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity — for, as 
 will be shown in a subsequent chapter, the functions of these 
 Blessed Persons are coincident, and not successive ; so that the 
 one mercifully co-operates, according to the order of His office, 
 in that which is performed by the other. By spirit, then, in 
 this place, is meant Our Lord's Divine, as opposed to His 
 human nature : He explains to His wondering disciples that 
 
162 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 those miraculous effects wlilcli were to attend the reception of 
 His Flesh and Blood, would not arit^e from their natural 
 iufluence, hut from that supernatui'al efficacy with which they 
 were endowed, by means of their Personal oneness with His 
 Godhead. "The word *9pm7 in Our Lord," says Bishop Bull, 
 " is uniformly employed in Holy Scripture and in the writers of 
 the first age, to exjDress that Divine nature in Himself, to which 
 it jiroperly pertained to give life to mortals."' So that the 
 truth here revealed is, that Our Lord's Manhood was to be the 
 principle of life, by reason of that Godhead with which it was 
 united. This statement was not intended, then, to detract from 
 the reality of those functions which were to be discharged by 
 His Flesh and Blood, but only to explain the principle and 
 cause of their efficacy. And therefore Our Lord refers to the 
 exaltation of His glorified Body into heaven, as a sign of those 
 new qualities with wliich it was to be invested. " If you 
 suppose that My Flesh cannot give you life, how can it ascend 
 like a winged thing into heaven ? For if it is not able to give 
 life, because it has no natural tendency to do so, how can it 
 tread upon the air, and ascend into heaven ? For this is equally 
 imjjossible to flesh. But if it ascends, contrary to the law of 
 nature, what is to hinder it from giving life, though it has no 
 tendency to do so by its own nature? For He who has made 
 tluit heavenly, which belongs to the earth, can enable it also to 
 give life, though by its own nature it tends to corruption."'^ 
 
 These words, then, exjiress distinctly that Our Lord's 
 Presence is supenuitural ; that His Body and Blood are not 
 present in the Holy Eucharist according to that law or in that 
 manner under which flesh and blood usually exist, and in which 
 we suppose His glorified form to exist in heaven. And other 
 portions of the same passage tell us that Our Lord's Presence is 
 Real, as well as supernatural. Such is the fifty-fifth verse — 
 " My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed." " A 
 
 ' De Necessitate Credendi, v. 5, p. 38. And so " irvtvua (prjaly iavrov.'^ 
 —S. Cyril, iv. 376. 
 
 - y. Cyril in Joan. lib. iv. 8 (on verse 62), vol. iv. p. 375. 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 153 
 
 true exposition," says Olshausen, "which gives the meaning of 
 the text before us, must confess, however alien may be the 
 result from its own views, that Our Lord is unquestionably 
 speaking here about the participation of His Humanity." Our 
 Lord's Presence cannot therefore be supposed to be merely 
 symbolical or figurative : something more must be designed 
 than that He is an object for the thoughts of mankind. But a 
 still more important verse is the fifty-seventh, in which Our 
 Lord is pleased to express the reality of that gift which He 
 bestows upon His people, by a measure drawn from the highest 
 of all rules — the blessed Trinity itself. " As the living Father 
 hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, 
 even he shall live by Me." 
 
 The relation of Our Lord to the Father is here expressed in 
 two ways : first, by that temporal mission into the world, which 
 took place in the moment of His Incarnation ; secondly, by re- 
 ference to that eternal relation whereby the perfections of the 
 eternal Father are perpetually communicated to His co-equal 
 Son. For the name of Only-begotten Son belongs to Our Lord, 
 because He is the express image and effulgence of the eternal 
 Father ; because as the Father is God, so the Son by natural 
 right is God also. Our Lord is pleased to declare, then, that as 
 life is inherent in His Godhead, because it flows into Him ac- 
 cording to that eternal law whereby He is naturally the Son of 
 the Father : so does He impart it in like mysterious manner to 
 those who, by the communication of His Manhood, are one with 
 Himself. " If I," He says, " have become flesh (for this, He 
 means, by His being sent), and as I live through the living 
 Father (that is, by retaining the nature of Him who begot Me 
 in Myself), even so he, who through the reception of My Flesh 
 receives Me, shall live in himself ; being altogether transformed 
 into Me, who am able to engender, because I spring from a life- 
 giving root, that is, from God the Father." ^ So that the gift 
 
 ^ S. Cyril in Joan. lib. iv. 3, vol. iv. p. 366. S. Ambrose says, in 
 reference to the same passage, " Similitudo etiam nostra ad Filium, et 
 qusedam secundmn carnem unitas declaratur; quoniam quemadmodum 
 
154 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 "which Our Lord, as man, imparts to His people, is in some sort 
 a measure of tliat which, as God, He hath eternally from tlie 
 Father. And hence, doubtless, arose the statements of the 
 ancient Churcli, that Our Lord bestows Himself substantially in 
 the Holy Eucharist, inasmuch as to be of one substance with 
 the Father, is the characteristic of His Godhead. So that no 
 exjDressions whicli refer only to the actions of a 'power which 
 emanates from Him, or which represent Him as only virtually 
 present, can come up to the full force of His own merciful de- 
 claration. It is possible indeed that the Power and Substance 
 of the Supreme Being may in some unknown manner be identi- 
 cal, so that His dynamic may be equivalent to His substantial 
 presence. But when Our Lord's virtual is opposed to His real 
 presence, it must be imagined that there is some diversity be- 
 tween them ; so that the analogy must be supposed to be drawn 
 from those material bodies, the effect of wliich can be discrimi- 
 nated from themselves. Now no illusti'utions drawn from material 
 objects can express the full truth whicli Our Lord has been 
 pleased to reveal. The sun, to speak popularly, is present 
 throughout sjiace by the power of its rays; yet its rays are 
 something different from the orb itself. They are, it may be, 
 the effect of its heat and lustre : but so soon as they are shot 
 forth they are detached and distinct from the body whence they 
 proceed. But if Our Lord's Presence is dynamic, it is because 
 it is substantial: it is nothing which can be detached fi'om Him- 
 self; it is the Presence of a Person, not the effect of a power. 
 As His Godhead flows into Him by necessary derivation from 
 His eternal Father, so does He assure us that He communicates 
 His Manhood by merciful gift to His earthly brethren.' Thus 
 are there three stages in this great work. Tlie Godhead im- 
 parts Itself to the co-equal Son. This is His eternal generation. 
 The Son unites Himself to man's nature. This is His lucarna- 
 
 Dei Filius a Patre, sic homo est vivificatus in came." — Pe Fide, b. iv. 
 cap. 10, 128. 
 
 ' " Vivit per Patrem, et quo modo per Patreui vivit, eodeui inodo noa 
 per camein ejus vivimus." — 6'. Ililary de Triidt. viii. 16, p. 957. 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 155 
 
 tion. He communicates His Manhood to His brethren. This 
 is His real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. As the first, then, 
 is the communication of that substance which is common to the 
 Three Persons in the blessed Godhead, so is the last the sub- 
 stantial communication of that manhood which has been hal- 
 lowed by the taking it into God. 
 
 The doctrine of the Real Presence was said to involve one 
 further point — that Our Lord's Presence is Sacramental. Now 
 it will be found that this expression not only accords with the 
 statements of the Chapter before us, but that it supplies the key 
 to difficulties, by which it would otherwise be perplexed. A 
 difficulty presents itself in the fifty-first and following verses, 
 from the very high importance which Our Lord ascribes to the 
 eating His sacred Flesh. He speaks of it as if its participation 
 were not only a signal blessing, but as if those who partook of 
 it were sure of their salvation. " Whoso eateth My Flesh, and 
 drinketh My Blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at 
 the last day." And yet we know from St. Paul that those who 
 receive the same unworthily, " eat and drink their own damna- 
 tion." To avoid this difficulty, Waterland supposes that Our 
 Lord was speaking, not of the gift of the res sacramenti, but only 
 of the virtus sacramenti. This he expresses by saying that the 
 passage refers to spiritual, and not to sacramental eating. He 
 considers, that is, that Our Lord is speaking of the benefits 
 which will finally be obtained by good men, but not of any gift 
 which is peculiar to the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 This introduction of the receiver j)erplexes the inquiry, since 
 it ought first to be determined what is the gift bestowed by 
 Almighty God in this sacrament. Is it meant that the virtus I 
 sacramenti is merely that general assistance of divine grace 
 which accompanies all ordinances ? This is Waterland's theory, 
 which, though clothed in pious expressions, is identical with 
 that of Zuinglius. But it fails to do justice, not only to the 
 interpretation put upon this passage by ancient writers, but to 
 the mysterious and emphatic words of the passage itself. Why 
 should Our Lord's Body be spoken of as the principle of life to 
 
156 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT 
 
 the soul, unless something more were intended, than that it liad 
 once l)cen offered on the ci'oss for the sins of men ? Such expres- 
 sions cannot be rested merely upon the analogy of the Jewish 
 Law, first, because that Law supplies no analogy for the drink- 
 ing of Our Lord's Blood ; and secondly, because such a course 
 would be to make the Law the reality, instead of the Gospel. 
 It is only because there is a real communication of Our Lord in 
 the Holy Eucharist, that the relation which takes effect between 
 Him and the devout soul can be expressed by phrases so singu- 
 lar as eating His Body and drinking His Blood. The reality 
 of the res sacramenti, that is, gives significance to the otherwise 
 unmeaning phrases employed respecting the virtus sacramenti. 
 So that to imagine the general assistance of God's Sjiirit to be 
 all which is intended, fails to account for the expressions em- 
 ployed by Our Lord and His Apostles. 
 
 Now, if to avoid this difficulty we raise the virtus sacramenti 
 into something specific and peculiar, and suppose it to be that 
 relation to Our Lord's Humanity, which results from His office 
 as the Second Adam ; if we ascend, that is, from a dead to a 
 living Christ ; from the mere fact that mankind were benefited 
 by His foi'mer sufferings, to the truth that they are pai'takers of 
 His present glory : — then we must either admit the existence of 
 a res sacramenti, or we must fall back upon the Calvinistic hy- 
 pothesis, previously explained (p. 102), and make the Divine 
 decree the link between the external sign and the inward bene- 
 fit. This hypothesis was shown to have been introduced in 
 order to do justice to the language of Scripture, without ad- 
 mitting that principle of consecration which implied that a gift 
 was always bestowed, but that it was improved onlj'^ by the 
 devout receiver. So that unless men are i)re2iared to accept 
 the unscriptural dogma of reprobation, they must of necessity 
 admit the presence of a res sacramenti, and the reality of con- 
 secration. 
 
 Now to accept these two jirinciples is the same thing as to 
 affirm that Our Loid is present in the Holy Eucharist sacra- 
 mcutally. And the admission of a sacramental i^resence will be 
 
BY ST. JOHN VI. 157 
 
 found to explain all the difficulties of the Chapter before us, and 
 especially that which is grounded upon the greatness of Our 
 Lord's promise. It supposes that two things, dissimilar in 
 kind, are mystically joined together by consecration. The out- 
 ward part consists of the sensible creatures of bread and wine ; 
 the inward part is that Body and Blood of Christ, which by 
 union with His Godhead has been made the principle of spiri- 
 tual vitality. But though all who receive one receive the other, 
 yet no benefit follows from this reception, except there be living 
 faith in the receiver. For it is one thing to receive Christ's 
 Body and Blood sacramentally, and another that the soul should 
 be brought into relation to Christ. The first depends upon the 
 consecration of the elements : the second requires in addition 
 the spiritual life of the receiver. Our Lord speaks in general 
 terms of the value of the Holy Eucharist, just as in the third 
 chapter of St. John He uses general terms respecting the bless- 
 ings of Baptism, but without intending that its benefits are 
 gained unless the ordinance is improved as well as partaken. 
 He speaks of the importance of the gift, without entering upon 
 the further consideration how it is employed. 
 
 So much is meant by the assertion that Our Lord is sacra- 
 mentally present : the idea depends upon the prominence given 
 to that act of consecration on which the validity of the sacra- 
 ment is dependent. If it be believed that a real Presence of 
 Christ takes effect by virtue of that mystical blessing which it 
 pleases Him to pronounce through the ministration of His ser- 
 vants, then we have an explanation of His words, which renders 
 it unnecessary either to lower down the reality of the Eucharis- 
 tic gift with Zuinglius, or to Jjj ^it its efficacy with C alvin. So 
 that we may accept the statements of the sixth chaj)ter of 
 St. John in their simple force, and yet not believe that every one 
 will be saved to whom the Holy Eucharist is administered. 
 AVhat Our Lord declares is, that the res sacramenti, or thing 
 imparted in that sacrament, is the principle of life, inasmuch as 
 it is His Presence in whom life has entered into the world. 
 The whole context of Scripture implies, that in speaking thus 
 
158 REAL PRESENCE TAUGHT BY ST. JOHN VI. 
 
 Our Lord was addressing responsible beings, whose state de- 
 pends upon tlie use of their advantages. But the importance 
 which He attaclies to the rite is exphiined by the effect which 
 attaches to its consecration. By virtue of that act the sacra- 
 mentum and the res sacramenti go together ; every one who 
 receives one receives the other ; the true principle of life is re- 
 ceived sacramentalhj : but no benefit ensues unless the soul of 
 the receiver is brought into relation with Christ, and He im- 
 proves the blessing which has been communicated. Christ be- 
 stows Himself ujjon man sacramentallt/, by virtue of the efficacy 
 of consecration : but it is only by faith and love that man can 
 be spiritually united to Christ. 
 
 It is the reality of consecration, then, which gives meaning 
 to the term sacramental Presence, as well as efficacy to the 
 ordinance in which it is dispensed. And this circumstance 
 enables us to discriminate between the teaching of St. Augustin 
 and that of Calvin. St. Augustin certainly uses exj^ressiona 
 on which it is possible to put a Calvinistic meaning. He 
 does not distinguish between the res sacramenti and the virtus 
 sacramenti ; whereas it would be more consistent to identify 
 the first with the inward pai't or thing signified, the second 
 with its effect on the devout soul. In one or two places he 
 might be imagined to intend that the inward gift in the Holy 
 Eucharist was never bestowed except upon those who had 
 the gift of final perseverance.^ But these equivocal expressions 
 are neutralized by the fact, which entirely separates him 
 from Calvin, that he admitted the validity of the Holy Eu- 
 charist to depend upon its consecration, and that he supposed 
 the Body of Christ to be received by all, whenever the out- 
 ward and inward parts had been joined together by the 
 mystical benediction. He speaks, therefore, even of the wicked, 
 
 ' "Signum quia manducavit et bibit, hoc est, si manet, et manetur, si 
 habitat et inhabitatur, si hwret ut non rirscratur." — In Joan. Trac. 27, 
 i. p. .002. On account of such expressions, Calvin chiinis S. Augustin as 
 his supporter. — Ailv. llci^hus. Works, viii. 738. But tlie wonls would 
 admit of being translated, "if he cleaves, in ordtr that he may not be 
 deserted." 
 
OUR LORD'S PRESENCE IN THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 159 
 
 as receiving the Body ^ of Christ, though they receive it with- 
 out benefit. He declares the validity of the sacrament to 
 depend on the combination of the elements, which Our Lord 
 has enjoined, and of His own mystical benediction. " Accedit 
 verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum." So that in con- 
 formity with the perpetual belief of the Church, he admitted 
 the necessity of consecration and the authority of orders ; and 
 he joined in those Liturgic services, in which the testimony 
 of the original truth was transmitted to succeeding generations. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITT, THAT OUB LORD S PEESENCE IN THE 
 HOLY EUCHARIST IS NOT MERELY SYMBOLICAL OR VIRTUAL. 
 
 The Scriptural grounds for maintaining Our Lord's Real 
 Presence in the Holy Eucharist have been stated in the last 
 chapter. There are three main portions of Holy Scripture — 
 namely, Our Lord's prediction in the sixth chapter of St. John 
 — the words of Institution as recorded by the other three 
 Evangelists — and St. Paul's exhortations to the Corinthians — 
 from all of which it may be gathered that Our Lord's Presence 
 in the Holy Eucharist is real, sacramental, and supernatural. 
 Yet the argument turns so completely upon the meaning of 
 expressions which in themselves are familiar to all, that it 
 is of moment to find some authoritative comment, by which 
 we may ascertain the intention of the sacred writers, I go 
 on, then, to inquire how this doctrine was understood in those 
 earher ages while the heritage of doctrine was fresh, and 
 
 ^ " Adducti sunt ad mensam Christi, et accipiunt de corpore et sanguine 
 ejus, sed adorant tantum, non etiam saturantur, quia non imitantur." — 
 Epist. cxl. sec. 66. Vide also In Joan, xxvii. 11. De Baptinmo contra 
 Don. V. 9. Sermo Izxi. 17 ; and cclxvi. 7. 
 
160 NOT A MERE 
 
 before divisions could he supposed to have impaired the Church's 
 authority. In the present chapter it will be sho^\^l that the 
 early Church did not suppose Our Lord's Presence to be 
 merely Symbolical or Virtvul ; in the next, that the notion 
 which it accepted was that of a Beal Pi'esence. 
 
 Here, however, we are met by one difl&culty, to which the 
 very richness of the field gives occasion. The Holy Eucharist 
 was so constantly present to the thoughts of the early Chris- 
 tians, that the references to it in their writings are almost 
 innumerable. In an abundance of cases their notices respecting 
 it are so detailed and distinct, as to supply a competent basis 
 for doctrinal arguments. But there occur also many general 
 and passing allusions, from which no certain conclusion can 
 be deduced. This could hardly fail to be the case, considering 
 that the subject was continually referred to, while those dis- 
 putes respecting its nature, by which the Church has since 
 been agitated, were as yet unknown. But it has led to many 
 misrepresentations ; since vague and general statements may 
 readily be bent according to the caprice of the interj^reter. 
 
 It will be useless, therefore, to refer to the language of the 
 Fathers, unless we first fix upon some tests, by which the 
 various theories which have been adduced may be discrimi- 
 nated. Let us take the systems, then, between which the 
 dispute really lies, and see what are those characteristic 
 features in each, respecting which we can appeal to the judg- 
 ment of antiquity. 
 
 I. Now, when Our Lord is said to be present symhoUcally 
 only, or fiij^iratively, in the Holy Eucliarist, it is meant that 
 He is present merely as an object to the minds of men, just 
 as Abraham is present to our thoughts when we hear of the 
 father of the faithful, or Adam, when we hear of the father 
 of mankind. And therefore His presence would not depend 
 upon Himself, and His own acts, but ujwn the conceptions 
 of men. So that according to this system. Our Lord is absent, 
 rather than present ; His Flesh and Blood may be thought 
 of, but they are thought of as present in heaven, and not 
 
SYMBOLICAL PRESENCE. 161 
 
 Aipon earth — not as being really present in the elements, but 
 jreally absent from them. The only difference between the 
 iHoly Eucharist and any other circumstance which puts us 
 tin mind of Christ, is that Almighty God has authorized its 
 /employment as a memorial ; so that we have a divine sanction 
 J for considering the bread to represent the Body, and the wine 
 'the Blood of Christ. 
 
 Such are the characteristic circumstances, which grow out 
 of that which was observed to be the fundamental principle 
 of Zuinglius, namely, that the benefit conveyed in the Holy 
 Eucharist does not depend upon the efficacy of consecration, 
 or upon any gift bestowed by Almighty God through the 
 consecrated elements, but solely upon the disposition of the 
 receiver. If we would determine, therefore, whether the 
 ancient writers agreed with him, we must see whether they 
 believed in a real presence, or a real absence. Did they be- 
 lieve that Christ's jiresence depended upon Himself, and His 
 own acts, or upon the imagination of the receiver ? And this 
 will be found to be so clear a point as scarcely to require a 
 protracted inquiry. For the question is settled at once, by 
 those passages in which the Fathers not only assert Our 
 Lord's presence to be real, but answer the objections which 
 are made against such a presence on the ground of its im- 
 possibility. Their statements show that they did not suppose 
 Our Lord's Body to be merely present to men's imagination, 
 or that His words were designed to have only a figurative 
 and parabolical meaning. For what difficulty or mystery 
 would there have been in supposing that Our Lord was an 
 object to the thoughts of men ; or how could the employment 
 of any particular sign or emblem, as a representation of His 
 Body and Blood, be alleged to be impossible ? Nothing is 
 more usual than the employment of emblems, and why should 
 not an emblem be employed in a case in which Almighty God 
 has expressly sanctioned its use ? Nothing would have been 
 easier, therefore, for the Fathers, than to have met all ob- 
 jections against the possibility of the Holy Eucharist, by 
 
162 NOT A MERE 
 
 observing that Oui* Lord's Body was not really present, but 
 really absent ; and that the presence spoken of was only that 
 presence in figure and to the thoughts, which was equally 
 possible in all other cases. But how wholly different is the 
 language used by St. Cyril of JeiTisalem ! "Contemplate, 
 therefore, the bread and wine, not as bare elements, for they 
 are, according to the Lord's declaration, the Body and Blood 
 of Christ ; for though sense suggests the fonner to thee " 
 (t. e. that they are bare elements), " let faith stablish thee. 
 Judge not the matter from taste, but from faith be fully 
 assured without misgiving, that thou hast been vouchsafed 
 the Body and Blood of Christ." ^ Now it is plain from this 
 passage, that St. Cyril supposed the thing contemplated to 
 be mysterious and difficult ; so that his words are incompatible 
 with the idea that the Holy Eucharist is merely a figure of 
 that which is I'eally absent, for this would neither be difficult 
 nor mysterious. 
 
 The same may be said respecting the following passage of 
 St. Ambrosej 
 
 " Perhaps you may tell me, that which I see is something 
 different : how can you assert to me that I receive the Body 
 of Christ? This is the j^oint which it I'emains for me to 
 pi'ove. What examples therefore do I use '? Let me prove 
 that this is not that wliicli nature has formed, but that which 
 the blessing has consecrated : and that the force of the blessing 
 is greater than that of nature, because nature herself is changed 
 by the blessing." Then after quoting instances of the exercise 
 of miraculous power, from the histories of ]Moses and Elisha, 
 he concludes : "but if human blessing was of such avail as 
 to change nature, what are we to say of the Divine consecra- 
 tion itself, where the very words of Our Lord and Saviour 
 are operative V For that sacrament which you receive is pro- 
 duced by the word of Chi-ist. But if the word of Elias was 
 of such avail as to bring down fire from heaven, shall not 
 Christ's word avail to change the form of the elements? For 
 'He spake and they were made, He commanded and they 
 
 ' Myst. Cat. iv. G, p. 321. 
 
SYMBOLICAL PRESENCE. 163 
 
 were created.' Therefore, if the word of Christ could bring 
 out of nothing things which did not exist, cannot He change 
 things which exist into that which they were not before V For 
 it is not a less achievement to give a new nature to things 
 than to change their nature." ^ 
 
 Here, again, is a passage which plainly affirms Our Lord's 
 Presence to be a mystery and a wonder ; and which is in- 
 compatible with the Zuinglian notion of His real absence, 
 because this would be no mystery and no wonder. The same 
 remark would apply in innu.merable instances. 
 
 " In every thing believe God," says St. Chrysostom. and 
 " gainsay Him in nothing, though what is said seem to be 
 contrary to our thoughts and senses, but let His Word be 
 of higher authority than both reasonings and sight. Thus 
 let us do in the mysteries also, not looking at the things set 
 before us, but keeping in mind His sayings. For His Word 
 cannot deceive, but our senses are easily beguiled. That hath 
 never failed, but this in most things goeth wrong. Since, 
 then, the Word saith. This is My Body, let us both be per- 
 suaded and believe, and look at it with the eyes of the mind." ^ 
 
 Great part of one of the Homilies attributed to Eusebius 
 Emissenus is taken uj) in the application of this principle 
 to the Holy Eucharist. " Let the uncertainty therefore, of 
 Infidelity give way, since He who is the author of the gift 
 is the witness to its truth." ^ All these passages show that 
 the ancient writers did not suppose Our Lord's Body to be 
 really absent, or that bread and wine were mere figures or 
 emblems of His Presence. 
 
 And yet it cannot be expected that in a series of writers, 
 so voluminous as the ancient Fathers, there should not occur 
 expressions which either im2>ly, or may be construed to imply, 
 a different result. Those on which the greatest stress has 
 
 ^ S. Ambrose de Mysteriis, ix. 50, 52. 
 
 - S. Chrys. Horn. 82. 4, on St. Matt. cap. xxvi. 34. Vide also S. Clirys. 
 in 1 Cor. Horn. 24. 4, vol. x. p. 216.. 
 
 ^ Homilia v. de Pascha. Bib. Pat. Max. vi. 636. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 NOT A MEKE 
 
 been laid by the advocates of a mere symbolical presence, are 
 several passages in which the bread and wine in the Holy 
 Eucharist are described as antitypes of the Body and Blood 
 of Christ. Such expressions occur in the Liturgy of St. Basil, 
 in St. Gregory Naziauzen'§ Orations,^ in the Catechetical 
 Lectures of St. Cyril" of Jerusalem, and in the Apostolical 
 Constitutions.^ " We draw near to Thy sacred altar, and 
 having placed upon it the aijtitypes of the sacred Body and 
 Blood of Thy Christ, we make our petitions." ■• From these, 
 and a few similar passages, it is inferred that Our Lord is 
 not really present in the Holy Eucharist, but that His Body 
 and Blood are merely repi'esented by these visible sj'mbols. 
 
 It must be remembered, however, that the Holy Eucharist 
 has been shown to consist of two parts, an outward sign and 
 an inward reality — the first alone accessible to the senses, the 
 second an object only to faith and to the mind. Now, since 
 these two jiarts, the sacramentv/m and res sacramenti, are 
 present together, and since the first is the sign or token, 
 which announces to us the presence of the other, what can 
 be more natural than that it should sometimes be spoken of 
 as the counterpart of that by which it is accompanied? And 
 this is the meaning which the expressions before us are in- 
 tended to bear. The word antitype, considered etjTnologically,'^ 
 means a reality, of which something has been appointed to be 
 the type. But when bread and wine are spoken of as antitypes 
 of the Body and Blood of Christ, this original meaning is not 
 presei"ved. Nothing is meant, but that the one set of tenns 
 answers to or corresi)onds with the other. So that the word 
 
 1 Oratio xi. p. 187. ^ Mystag. Cat. v. 20. 
 
 •'' Apost. Constit. v. 14. 
 
 '' Liturgy of S. Basil, Gear's Euchol. p. 169. 
 
 * The word is used in this correct sense by S. Cyril of Alexandria, as 
 expressing the inward re.ality of which the outward part was typical. 
 St. Paul, he says, uses the words, "as often as ye shall eat this bread." 
 He says not as often as ye shall eat this Deity, but as often as ye shall 
 eat this bread. Observe that it is about the Body of Our Lord that his 
 statement is. As often as ye shall eat this bread, of which His Body 
 is the antitype. — Advers. Nest. iv. 5 and 6, vol. vi. pp. 114 and 115. 
 
SYMBOLICAL PRESENCE. 165 
 
 antitype proves nothing in behalf of the doctrine of a Symboli- 
 cal Presence, unless it can be shown that it is applied to the 
 ordinance as a whole, and that it excludes the presence of the 
 res sacramenti, or thing signified. We must refer, therefore, 
 to other passages, and see whether the writers who have used 
 this expression, mean that the Holy Eucharist, regarded as a 
 whole, is a figure, or whether they mean merely that the bread 
 and wine are a figure of an inward reality. 
 
 Now it would seem from the strong censure of Magnes, 
 that there must have existed persons who applied such ex- 
 pressions to the Holy Eucharist with a heretical intention ; 
 " for it is not," he says, " a type of the Body, or a tyjje of 
 the Blood, as some hardened persons have fabled, but in truth 
 the Body and Blood of Christ." ^ But the persons referred 
 to were j^robably Gnostic heretics, since no trace is found of 
 them among the Church's members. For there is not one 
 of the ancient writers, by whom bread and wine are spoken 
 of as antitypes, who has not expressed himself with the utmost 
 distinctness respecting the reality of that inward gift, of which 
 these form the external counterpart. The passage i-eferred 
 to in St. Basil's Liturgy is immediately followed by a prayer 
 that God would " make this bread the precious body of Our 
 Saviour Christ." ^ In the Apostolical Constitutions, where the 
 word antitype also occurs, we find a similar prayer ; and the 
 delivery of the elements is accompanied with the statement 
 that the thing given is the " Body of Chiist." ^ If St. Gregory 
 Nazianzen speaks of those things which could be taken in the 
 hands and consumed, as antitypes of the Body and Blood of 
 Christ, yet he elsewhere exhorts men to " eat the Body and 
 drink the Blood, if they desire life:"* and he describes it as 
 the privilege of the priesthood " to handle the mighty Body 
 of Christ," and "to approach to the approaching God."^ 
 Finally, St. Cyril's" statements as to the awe with which 
 
 ^ Gallandi, vol. iii. p. 541. ^ Gear's Eucholog. p. 169. 
 
 3 Lib. viii. 12, 13. * Oratio, xlii. p. 690. 
 
 ''' Oratio, xxi. p. 376. ^ Mystag. Cat. iv. 6, 9, v. 21. 
 
166 NOT A MERE 
 
 men should approacli and handle that sacred food ; and his 
 caution not to consider it to be merely that which it appears 
 to be, and to trust to faith rather than to sense, show that 
 he could not possibly have imagined the Holy Eucharist to 
 be a mere sign, but must have imagined the outward part to 
 be an antityjie or symbol of an inward reality. 
 
 Again, no one speaks of the Holy Eucharist as an antitype 
 of Christ's Body and Blood, in terms more likely to raise a 
 doubt whether he did not conceive it to be merely a figure, 
 than Germanus, who was Patriarch of Constantinoi:)le in the 
 beginning of the eighth centuiy. But then he clears up his 
 meaning by stating that the priest is to entreat God " that 
 He would accomplish the mystery of His Son, and that the 
 bread itself, and the wine, may be made or transmuted into 
 the Body and Blood of Christ;" and again, that "Christ 
 has given us His divine Flesh, and His sacred Blood to eat 
 and to drink for the remission of sius."^ There is no occasion, 
 therefore, for the erroneous explanation of Damascene,'^ that 
 the elements are only sj)oken of as antitypes befoi'e their con- 
 secration ; for the use of such a term is rendered singularly 
 appropriate by the relation between the outward and inward 
 parts in this sacrament. So the thing is applied by St. Ma- 
 carius : " in the Church there is offered bread and wine, the 
 antitype of His Flesh and Blood ; and those who partake 
 of the apparent bread, spiritually eat the Flesh of the Lord." ^ 
 
 This twofold character of the Holy Eucharist accounts for 
 the occurrence of several other passages in the ancient writers, 
 which have been alleged to imply it to be merely symbolical. 
 Such are some expressions in Tertullian's treatise against 
 Marcion,'' which speak of bread as a figure of Our Lord's 
 
 ' Tvenim Eccles. Cimtemplatio Gallaiuli, vol. xiii. pp. 'lH, 218, 223. 
 
 ■^ I)e Fide Orthotl. iv. 13, p. 273. 
 
 ^ Homilia xxvii. 17. Gallandi, vol. vii. p. 108. 
 
 ^ Till. nilr. Marcii»i, iii. 19, iv. 40. The same explanation might be 
 given of the phrase, "panem, quo ipsum corpus suum reprtvseutat." — Id. 
 i. 14; did not tliat passage mean rather "the bread V)v wliich He makes 
 His own Body present." For the words rt^*rtT4e«/o/e and reprxsentatio 
 
SYMBOLICAL PEESENCE. 167 
 
 body. Tertulllan did not imagine the Holy Eucliarist to be 
 a figure only, as we know from liis own statements in other 
 places. " Our flesh," he says, " is fed by the Body and Blood 
 of Christ, that our souls may be satisfied by God."^ And 
 again, of the returning Prodigal : " he is fed with the richness 
 of Our Lord's Body, that is, with the Eucharist." ^ These 
 passages show that Tertullian believed there was a reality, 
 as well as a figure, in the Holy Eucharist. But it was 
 natural, that when writing against Marcion, he should not 
 only refer to the outward sign, but should dwell upon that 
 side of the ordinance almost exclusively. For Marcion's special 
 heresy was that he denied the reality of Our Lord's Body. 
 This was the natural result of his Gnostic notion — that matter 
 was produced by an evil principle. It would have been idle 
 therefore to refer to the Church's belief that Our Lord was 
 really present in the Holy Eucharist, when Marcion rejected 
 its assertion that His Body had been truly present even in 
 the garden, or on the cross. The only use therefore which 
 Tertullian could make of the Holy Eucharist against such an 
 ojiponent, was to refer to its outward part, and to ask, first, 
 whether this did not imply a corresponding inward reality ; 
 and secondly, whether it did not disprove the assertion, that 
 all material things were necessarily unholy. And such is his 
 mode of arguing in this treatise : he appeals to the notorious 
 fact, that earthly elements had been selected as the emblems 
 of Our Lord's presence — first, as a proof that matter is not 
 necessarily impure ; and secondly, as implying that the hidden 
 reality, which it has been chosen to represent, is likely to have 
 an actual existence. 
 
 in Tertullian, are used for tlie mnJdng present in general, wliether the 
 thing spoken of is to he made present to the spectator's body or mind — ob- 
 jectively, or subjectively. The context, that is, decides whether the thing 
 is to be presenfeil or represented . And in this case TertuUian's other 
 statements show that he considered Our Lord's Body to be presented under 
 the form of bread. 
 
 ^ De Resurrect. 8. 
 
 ^ " Opimitate Dominici corporis vescitur, eucharistia scilicet." — Be 
 Fiidieitia, 9. 
 
168 NOT A MEEE 
 
 The .same consideration of the double nature of the Holy 
 Eucharist, supplies the explanation of a passage which has often 
 been quoted from a Father of the sixth century, St. Facundus/ 
 It was the object of St. Facundus to excuse some questionable 
 statements of earlier writers — among others, that Our Lord 
 might be said to have been adopted. He considers the assertion 
 ^to have arisen out of Our Lord's Baptism ; because " the 
 ^ sacrament of adoption may be called adoption." For this he 
 accounts, by saying that so intimate a relation takes place in a 
 sacrament between the outward sign and the inward reality, 
 that the one may borrow the title and description of the other. 
 And he illustrates his meaning (in a somewhat vague manner) 
 by reference to the Holy Eucharist, in which he says, " we call 
 the sacrament of His Body and Blood, which is in bread and a 
 consecrated cup, His Body and Blood, not because bread is 
 properly His Body, and a cup His Blood, but because they 
 contain within themselves the mystery of His Body and Blood. 
 Hence also Our Lord Himself called the bread and cup which 
 He had blessed, and which He gave to the disciples, His Body 
 and Blood." Now this is perfectly consistent with a belief that 
 though the elements, or sacramentum, regarded as objects of 
 sense, retain their relation to the external world, j-et that they 
 contain within them that hidden reality, which at times may 
 borrow their names, but is different from themselves in nature, 
 St. Facundus, however, M'as not explaining the nature of the 
 Holy Eucharist, but only referring to it by way of illustration. 
 So that his object was attained, provided his illustration held 
 good ; and it holds good, whether Our Lord's Presence is 
 believed to be real, or to be merely symbolical. For it only 
 implies that two things, so intimately related as a sign, and a 
 thing signified, may borrow one another's names without being 
 in all respects identical. 
 
 This illustration, then, regarded in itself, might leave it 
 doubtful whether St. Facundus believed the Holy Eucharist to 
 
 ^ Pro defensione Trium Capit. ix. 5. Bib. Pat. Max. x. 79. 
 
SYMBOLICAL PRESENCE. 169 
 
 be merely a sign, or whether he believed it to consist both of a 
 sign and of a Reality. Yet his statement that the bread and 
 wine "contain the mystery of Our Lord's Body and Blood," 
 leads to the latter conclusion. For it shows that he recognized 
 the existence, not of a sacranientum only, but of a res sacramenti 
 also. And it is obvious from history that such was his belief. 
 For there is no trace that he rejected the general creed of his 
 contemporaries. So that he must have agreed with St. Csesarius 
 of Aries, who held that " the Invisible High Priest changes 
 visible creatures into the substance of His Body and Blood, by 
 the secret power of His word :"^ and with Cassiodorus, who says 
 that the sacrifice of Melchisedec had its consummation when 
 Our Lord " consecrated His own Body and Blood in the 
 distribution of bread and wine as the means of salvation :" ^ and 
 with Leontius, who argues against the Nestorians for the unity 
 of Our Lord's Person, by asking them, " whose Body and Blood 
 they received in the Holy Eucharist:"^ and with Anastasius 
 Sinaita, who accepts the statement ; " Grod forbid that we should 
 say that the sacred communion is only a figure of the Body of 
 Christ, or mere bread ; but we admit it to be the very Body and 
 Blood of Christ, the Incarnate Son of God."* There is no 
 evidence that St. Facundus disagreed with these contemporary 
 writers, and there is direct evidence that he agreed with_St. Cyril 
 of Alexandria, whose assertions of Our Lord's Peal Presence 
 have been shown to be numerous and distinct. For he purposely 
 takes all the exceptions which he can against St. Cyril,^ with a 
 view of showing that Father not to have been more infallible 
 than other writers ; but against St. Cyril's statements of the 
 Peal Presence he takes no exception. 
 
 It is clear, then, that St. Facundus did not suppose the Holy 
 Eucharist to consist merely of an outward sign, but that he 
 supposed it to consist both of a sign, and also of a reality. His 
 
 ^ Horn. vii. de Pascha. Bib. Pat. viii. 825. 
 
 2 In Psalm 110, vide Albertinus de Euch. p. 892. 
 
 3 Bib. Pat. ix. 704. 
 
 ■• Vise Dux, cap. xxiii. Bib. Pat. ix. 855. 
 
 ^ Pro defens. Trium Capit. xi. 7. Bib. Pat. x. 96. 
 
170 NOT A MERE 
 
 lanpfuage is only like that of St. August in, who accounts for the 
 foot that the names given to the outward and inward parts in a 
 sacrament are interchangeable, by saying that it is because the 
 two are in some sense identical, (We have already seen that 
 they are not jihysically, but only sacramentally identical.) This 
 is St. Augustin's statement, then, in his celebrated letter to 
 Boniface : " as the sacrament of the Body of Christ is in a 
 certain sense Christ's Body, and the sacrament of the Blood of 
 Christ, is Christ's Blood; so the sacrament of faith is faith."' 
 And hence he accounts for the fact that children are said by 
 their sponsors to believe. For faith, he says, is a condition in 
 the perfect idea of Baptism, and since the outward part of a 
 sacrament carries the inward part along with it, the presence of 
 this inward part may be assumed, unless something interferes 
 with the comjjleteness of the action. And in proof of the just- 
 ness of his inference, he appeals to the fact that children are 
 called "Jideles." 
 
 Now this argument may be thought to be defective ; for the 
 inward part in Baptism is not faith, but grace, as St. Augustin^ 
 himself observes in various other places ; and he may be alleged 
 to employ a forced analogy when he says of faith, as is commonly 
 and truly said of grace, that it is sufficient that childi'en " can 
 oppose no bar to it." But at all events there is nothing in his 
 words which tells against the doctrine of the Real Presence ; 
 on the contrary, he implies that both an outward and an inward 
 part are to be found in the Holy Eucharist. And when he 
 affinns that " sacraments would not l)e sacraments if they had 
 not some likeness to the things of which thej'' were sacraments" 
 — this is merely an assertion that Almighty God would not 
 have selected the outward signs which He has been pleased to 
 associate with inward gifts, unless there had been a congruity 
 between the sign, and the thing signified. So that these 
 statements imply nothing at variance with his usual senti- 
 ments : the outward and inward parts are respectively, as 
 
 ' Epist. xcviii. 9. 
 
 2 Epist. clxxxviii. 26. xcviii. 2. De Pecc. Mer. i. 10. 
 
SYMBOLICAL PEESENCE. 171 
 
 he elsewhere explains, the sacramentum and res sacramenti ; 
 both are necessary to the completeness of this sacrament ; since it 
 is through the combination of both that " we receive," as he tells 
 us, " with faithful heart and mouth, the ]\Iediator between Grod 
 and man, the man Christ Jesus ; who gives us His Flesh to eat, 
 and His Blood to drink — though to eat human flesh seems 
 more horrible than to kill, to drink human blood than to shed 
 it."^ And the presence of this gift depends, according to his 
 teaching, on that peculiar act of consecration, whereby the 
 outward and inward parts of this sacrament are mystically 
 associated ; so that the dedicated bread which was given to the 
 Catechumens, though " it be sacred — more sacred than our other 
 food;" yet "it is not," he says, "the Body of Christ."^ 
 
 The passages, then, which have been alleged, are insufficient 
 to prove that Our Lord's Presence in the Holy Eucharist was 
 considered by any of the Fathers to be merely symbolical. If 
 any perplexity exists, it arises mainly from the fact that the an- 
 cient writers have been dealt with as though they were exj^lain- 
 ing the nature of the Holy Eucharist, when they were merely 
 citing it in illustration of things, to which it had only a partial 
 resemblance. Such passages, however, will, seldom present much 
 difficulty, if we bear in mind the twofold character of this sacra- 
 ment — its visible sign, and its imoard reality. So that it may 
 be described either by its outward or its inward portion, as 
 St. Paul speaks sometimes of bread and wine, and sometimes of 
 the Body and Blood of Christ ; and the one part may borrow 
 the attributes of the other, as the Fathers speak of touching or 
 breaking the Body of Christ, though it is the sacramentum, or 
 sensible part only, which can be touched or broken. Such a 
 distinction is observable when St. Chrysostom, in his private 
 letter to Pope Innocent, respecting the violence perpetrated in 
 the Church at Constantinople, says that " the sacred Blood of 
 
 ■* S. August, contra Adversarium Legis et Proph. ii. 83. 
 
 ^ De Peccat. 3Ieri(is, ii. 42. Beveridge on 2nd Canon of Council of 
 Antioch says, that S. Augustin refers to a custom like the dvTiSwpov, or 
 gift of bread which had been blessed, in the Greek Church. 
 
172 NOT MEEELY 
 
 Christ was spilt : " ' wliile Palladius, in tlie life of St. Chrysos- 
 tom wliich he intended for the public, speaks of the intruders as 
 having " spilt the symbols." ^ The assertion, therefore, that in 
 this sacrament there is a sign or antitype of Christ's Body and 
 Blood, is so far from opposing, that it is a necessary part of the 
 doctrine of the Eeal Presence. For to assert the Real Presence is 
 to say that in the Holy Eucharist there is a sign, together with the 
 thing signified. So tbat what objectors ought to show is, not only 
 that the Holy Eucharist is a sign, but that it is a sign only. 
 Unless this can be made good, there is nothing to bear out the 
 theory of Zuinglius,tliat Our Lord's Body is not really present, but 
 really absent. For there is nothing to set against the distinct 
 assertions which abound in all the Fathers, that this sacrament 
 is a reality. Their usual, or rather theit nearly invariable, cus- 
 tom of sjieaking of the thing bestowed as Christ's Body and 
 Blood, shows that this was the portion of it which occupied their 
 thoughts, and touched their affections. So that there is no pre- 
 tence for alleging that they supposed it to be merely the sign 
 or symbol of an absent object, since their direct assertions, as 
 well as their expressions of awe and love, show that they be- 
 lieved themselves to be communing with a jpresent reality. 
 
 II. It was the impossibility, apjmrently, of making head 
 against this feeling, which led Calvin to substitute the theory 
 of a Virtual for that of a Symbolical Presence. He found that 
 it was in vain to oppose the doctrine of the Real Presence, unless 
 he could represent the Holy Eucharist as something more mys- 
 terious than a mere sign. With this purpose did he introduce 
 the theory of a Virtual Presence ; which he represents to be 
 something entirely distinct ^ from a mere Symbolical Presence, 
 
 ' S. Chrys. Opera, vol. iii. p. 519. ^ Id. vol. xiii. p. 34. 
 
 ^ Calvin says, " quum . . . legerem apud Lutherum nihil in sacramentia 
 ab CEcolampadio et Zuinglio reliquum Heri jirseter nudas et inanes figuras ; 
 ita me ab ipsorum liliris alienatum fuisse fiiteor, ut diu a lectione absti- 
 nuerim." — tSecnuda ])efeiii<i(t (idc. Wtftphttl. Works, viii. 661. And when 
 charged by Heshus with holding oidy a symbi>lieal presence, he says, 
 "quod de syuibolico corpore gamt, impuri scnrne maledictum est." — 
 Warkii, viii. 732. And he states it to be an "iniprobum convicium," to 
 say that his notion of "eating Christ's Flesh" is only the same thing as 
 
A VIRTUAL PRESENCE. 173 
 
 and to be calculated to engender not less awe and wonder than 
 the doctrine of the Real Presence. 
 
 Since it was the first principle, then, of a Symbolical Presence 
 that it depends upon the thoughts of men, not the action of 
 Christ, so the converse ought to be the first principle of a Vir- 
 tual Pi'esence. But if the connexion which takes place in this 
 sacrament dejjends not upon the receiver, but upon Christ, the » 
 question arises, on which of Our Lord's natures is it dependent ? 
 Does His Presence mean merely the Presence of that Godhead ■, 
 which is everywhere, or the presence of the Man Christ Jesus ? 1 
 
 The mention of Our Lord's Body leads of necessity to the 
 latter supposition. And it may be argued, that since we know 
 nothing of the hidden nature of substances, the presence of a 
 body by virtue is in truth identical with the presence of its 
 essence. So that it has been maintained, as was stated above 
 (p. 24), that Calvin's theory was that Our Lord's Body is really 
 present, though not in a carnal and sensible manner. No doubt 
 this is one sense in which the notion of a Virtual Presence might 
 be taken. But such an idea as this is wholly alien from Calvin's 
 pi'inciples. For if it comes to the same thing with the Real i|^ »t 
 Presence, why should that term itself be i-ejected '? If the mean- r^,^^",; 
 ing of a Virtual Presence were that the virtue which proceeds 
 from Our Lord's Body is identical with its essence, then would 
 this theory be identical with the doctrine that besides that 
 natural Presence which He has in heaven, Our Lord has like- 
 wise a su pernatura l Presence, which is bestowed in the Holy 
 Eucharist. That a virtue should issue from the Body of Our 
 Lord, by which the souls of men are influenced, is plainly a 
 supernatural process. Those who admit it, have no right to 
 complain that the doctrine of the Real Presence passes belief, 
 for the diffusion of such a virtue from Our Lord's Flesh is as 
 little consonant ^ to the ordinary laws of material existence, as 
 
 "fide amplecti ejus beneficia." — Works, viii. 738. Dr. Nevin {Mystical 
 Presence) shows that Calvin maintained principles, which the Presby- 
 terians have entirely abandoned. 
 
 ^ Calvin himself asserts this in his answer to Heshus. — Works, viii. 
 728. 
 
174 NOT MERELY 
 
 f 
 
 that the capacity to be present supernaturally should have been 
 
 hestowed upon tliat manhood which lias been taken into God. 
 And to suppose that this virtue is bestowed through hallowed 
 elements, would lead as directly as the doctrine of the Real 
 Presence, to a belief in consecration, and to the validity of 
 { Orders. 
 
 Now, since these were the very conclusions which Calvin was 
 desirous to avoid, he could not admit principles, from which 
 they inevitably followed. Hence it was his main position that 
 Our Lord's human Body ^ had no other mode of presence except 
 that which was natural. This position would have been aban- 
 doned, if he had allowed that Our Lord's Humanity had ac- 
 quired any qualities, by which it could exercise influence beyond 
 that place which it occupies in heaven. The influence, there- 
 fore, which is exercised in the Holy Eucharist, must depend, 
 not upon Our Lord's Humanity, but upon tliat Divine Nature 
 with which it is conjoined. Not only can Our Lord's Body 
 exert no peculiar efficacy, as all admit, through its natural 
 powers : it can exercise none through any supernatural powers 
 with which it is invested. So that the connexion which is 
 brought about between God and man in this sacrament is owing, 
 not to the presence of Our Lord's Humanity, but to that Pre- 
 sence which He possesses as God, and to the Holy Ghost, who 
 is pleased to co-operate in this service. By the influence which 
 they exercise upon the receiver's mind they raise it to heaven, 
 and thus put it into relation with Christ, the common Head of 
 the Christian Body. 
 
 So far, therefore, there is little which goes beyond the system 
 of Zuinglius. For the receiver s soul,- actuated by the influence 
 of God's Sjjirit, is the motive principle on which the connexion 
 between God and man is dependent. So that we do not get rid 
 of that which was characteristic of Zuinglianism, that this sacra- 
 
 ' "Christus, quatenus homo est, non alibi quam in ctelo." — Consens. 
 Tii/ur. xxi. Nieiiiei/er, p. l'J6. 
 
 * " Ntm aliter C'liristo conjungimur, quam si mentes nostrae mundum 
 transceudaut." — Culcin, De Vera rurticipativne. Works, viii. 744. 
 
A VIRTUAL PRESENCE. 175 
 
 meiit is only an occasion, on which Christ is a more immediate 
 object to the thoughts than at other seasons. For Zuinglius 
 admitted the efficacy of God's grace, which none but 8ocinians 
 deny. There is no rising higher, without assigning some place 
 in the transaction to Our Lord's Manhood. This was discerned 
 by Calvin,^ who taught '" that since Our Lord's Body is a part 
 of Himself, those persons who are united to Christ by the power 
 of His Godhead and the agency of the Holy Ghost, may be said 
 to be united to His Flesh ; and, moreover, that a virtue issues 
 from Our Lord's Flesh which influences the souls of those who 
 are united to Him. Thus did he account for the frequent and 
 emphatic mention of Our Lord's Flesh and Blood in Scripture, 
 and by the Fathers. 
 
 Now, in giving this explanation of the doctrine of a Virtual 
 Presence, Calvin was availing himself of the double sense in 
 which the words virtue, and virtual, may be employed {vide Cap. 
 V. p. 99). Those things which act by an inherent power, are 
 said to produce an effect by their own virtue : while other agents 
 depend upon extraneous support. Thus the sun shines by its 
 own virtue — a mirror by reflected light. In this sense, virtual 
 is opposed to borroived power. But in another sense, virtual is 
 opposed to actual ; as when it is said that a man has virtually 
 asserted something, which he has not actually affirmed. Each 
 of these significations has its j)lace in Calvin's system. When it 
 is said that a virtue proceeds from Our Lord's Flesh, the former 
 sense is implied ; the Virtual Presence of Our Lord is meant to 
 depend upon some power which is inherent in His Flesh. On 
 the other hand, when it is stated that men may be said to be 
 
 ^ Calvin takes credit to himself for opposing the system of Osiander, 
 which attributed the whole efficacy exerted in the Holy Eucharist to Our 
 Lord's Godhead, whereas he himself says it arises from Our Lord's flesh. — 
 Worhs, viii. 738, 722. 
 
 " Calvin gives a formal statement of his theory in the "Expositio," 
 which he added to the Consensus Tigurinus. "Hac modo ratione contenti 
 simus, ultra quam nemo nisi valde litigiosus insurget, vivificam nobis esse 
 Christi carnem, quia ex ea spiritualeni in animas nostras vitam Christus 
 instillat ; eam quoque a nobis manducari, dum in corpus unum fide cum 
 Christo coaleseimus, ut nuder /actus, nobkcum sua omnia co7nmunicet." — 
 Niemeyer, p. 215. 
 
176 NOT MERELY 
 
 united to Our Lord's Flesh, because they are united to Uim, 
 \ there is a reference to the latter sense. For it could not have 
 
 ibeen Calvin's intention to affirm, as Luther did, that there is an 
 actual Presence of Our Lord's Bodij, in all places in which He 
 . > Himself is present by spiritual power. So that His Flesh is 
 present only in a virtvxxl manner, or by implication. 
 
 These two notions are put together by Calvin, as if they were 
 part of the same idea ; when in fact they are not only uncon- 
 nected, but almost incompatible. For if Our Lord's Flesh were 
 present by inherent power, what would be the use of saying that 
 it was also nominalli/ present V Either notion indeed is a great 
 addition to the theory of Zuinglius. To say that Our Lord's 
 Flesh is present by inherent po ver, has been shown to be nearly 
 identical with an admission of the Real Presence. Even to say 
 that a peculiar relation is brought about between the receiver 
 , and the Humanity of Our Lord, is to assign a specific effect to 
 1 the Holy Eucharist. It is to make this ordinance the means of 
 union with the Mystical Body of Christ. But if these notions 
 I are examined more closely, it becomes obvious, independently of 
 their incoherence with one another, that neither of them has any 
 real place in the system of Calvin. 
 
 For first, the vii'tue Avhich is said to proceed from Our Lord's 
 Flesh, though continually referred to by Calvin as the cause, yet 
 according to his system is only the effect, of Our Lord's presence. 
 For he states that the union which takes place between. Our 
 Lord's Flesh and the souls of men, is brought about by the 
 action of that spiritual power, by which the minds of men are 
 lifted up into heaven. When this power has done away with 
 the interval which separates men from Christ s Body, they 
 profit, says Calvin, by a virtue which issues from His Flesh. 
 The power, then, which does away with distance, and so pro- 
 duces presence, is merely the general efficacy of spiritual 
 influence upon the minds of men ' — a thing which is common 
 ' "Net|ue eniin aliler t'liristnm in Cd'na statuo prajsentem, nisi quia 
 fidelium mentes . . . fide super muuduui evehuntur, et C'hristus Spiritus 
 8ui virtute oljstaculum, quod offerre poterat loci distautia, tolleus, se meui- 
 bris suis conjungit." — Sicanda Defcns. adv. Wmfiihal. Works, viii. 6t)8. 
 
A VIETUAL PEESENCE. 177 
 
 •to his system and to that of Zuinglius. So that it is a mere 
 artifice to refer, as he does, to the virtue of Christ's Flesh, 
 as though it were an account of the manner ^ of His pre- 
 sence. That which does away with distance, must be the thing 
 which produces presence. If Calvin, therefore, had really attri- 
 buted any efl&cacy in this work to Our Lord's Flesh, he must 
 have allowed that the Divine power overcomes the obstacle of dis- 
 tance, by bestowing some supernatural gift of presence upon Our 
 Lord's Body, and not merely by aiding the aspirations of the 
 souls of men. For it is a contradiction to say that Our Lord's 
 Body is the motive principle in this action, and yet to deny that 
 it possesses those pi'operties upon which the action is dependent. 
 This is the same incongruity, which has already been noticed 
 in Calvin's system — a virtus sacramenti, without the res sacra- 
 menti, upon which it must be dependent {vide p. 102). In thatj 
 case it was shown that Calvin affirmed a certain effect to I 
 follow from the gift of Our Lord's Body, while, in place of 1 
 that gift itself, he substituted God's decree and intention ' 
 in favour of His elect. And here in like manner he brings 
 forward the efficacy which he supposes to attend Christ's Body 
 when it is present, as though it were an explanation of the 
 manner in which His presence is brought about. 
 
 Again, when we turn to the second sense of the word virtual, 
 and consider the relation which is brought about by spiritual 
 power between the receivers of the Holy Eucharist, and Christ 
 as the Head of the mystical Body, we find that the truth 
 conveyed does not really form part of the system of Calvin. 
 
 ^ " Quum dico Christum ad nos sua virtu te descendere, nego me substi- 
 tuere aliquid diversum, quod donationem corporis aboleat, quia modiim 
 donationis simpliciter explico." — Secunda Defens. adv. Wedplud. Works, 
 viii. 668. And again: "Quia videtur obstare locorum distantia, ne ad 
 nos usque perveniat carnis Cbristi virtus, nodum hunc ita expedio, Chris- 
 tum licet locum non mutet, sua ad nos virtute descendere." — Idem. Vide 
 also his answer to Heshus, Works, viii. 726. And he resents the charge, 
 that he is merely supposing that men enter into such a relation to Christ, 
 as exists equally between distant objects — as, for instance, when a man 
 becomes possessed of a distant field. — Idem, p. 728. WTiereas he denies 
 that he "nihil relinquere in Ccena prseter jus rei absentis." — Idem, p. 729. 
 
 N 
 
178 NOT MERELY 
 
 For it is neutralized by other principles which Calvin intro- 
 duced, and which form in reality the wliole belief of his dis- 
 ciples. For since the Creeds and Liturgy of the Church are 
 the dam which keeps up the faith of its members, the popular 
 belief can never rise above the lowest point which is compatible 
 with the authorized formularies. And here lies the peculiar 
 evil of that ambiguity, which Calvin introduced into this part 
 of theology. For his theory has been the means of concealing 
 that insensible deterioration, which it has sanctioned. Now 
 it was universally admitted by Calvm and his followers, first, 
 that " this receiving Chi'ist's Body is not confined to the 
 Lord's Supper, but takes place whenever faith in Him is 
 exercised : " secondly, that " it was common to believers before 
 \ and after the coming of the Son of God in the Flesh." ' 
 
 These principles, which are recognized in all Calvinistic 
 confessions, make it nugatory to affirm that the Holy Eucharist 
 rises above the level of other means of grace, and therefore 
 that any peculiar relation to Our Lord's Humanity is con- 
 ferred in this sacrament. It is universally admitted that 
 Almighty God may make up by special favour for the defi- 
 ciency of means ; and also, that those blessings which He 
 usually gives through appointed channels, may be chosen to 
 be the measure of His extraordinary gifts. The Israelites 
 were not only fed mii-aculously by manna, but this heaveidy 
 food was probably equivalent in quantity to the bread which 
 
 ' These points are adduced by Dr. Hodge (in an article on the Mystical 
 Presence, Princetun liihlicul lleperfori/, for April, 1848), as proofs that it 
 is inconsistent with the system of Cahdn to suppose " that our union with 
 Christ involves a participation of His Human Body, nature, or life." 
 Dr. Hodge, though a follower of Calvin, admits that his approximation 
 to the doctrine of the Eeal Presence was dictated very much by political 
 considerations. It is, he says, "an uncongenial foreign element, derived 
 partly from the influence of previous modes of thought, partly from the 
 dominant influence of the Lutherans, and the desire of getting as near to 
 them as possible, and j)artly, no doubt, from a too literal interjiretation 
 of certain passages of Scripture." — Vide Daclriiie of the lieformed Church 
 on the Lonl'K Supper, by Dr. Nevin, pp. 20, 24. On this subject vide 
 Dr. Pusey on Baptism. — Tracts fur the Times, vol. ii. p. 223, notes K 
 and L. 
 
A VIRTUAL PEESENCE. 179 
 
 would have been needed for their ordinary nourishment. But 
 to affirm, not only that "man doth not live by bread only," 
 but that he eats every time he exercises faith ^ in the heavenly 
 Nourisher, would be to deny that God has ajipointed earthly 
 substances to be the media of His bounty. Again, it is clear 
 that the coming Mediator was an object of hope before His 
 appearance, and that there is no salvation for the children 
 of the fallen Adam, save through union with Him. But 
 this is a different thing from affirming that the gifts which 
 were bestowed by the Sun of Righteousness before His ap- 
 pearing, were the same ^ with those which He has since con- 
 ferred — that the sunshine of His Presence is not brighter than 
 its twilight anticipation. Such a statement is inconsistent with 
 the assertion that though John Baptist was the greatest of 
 those who have been born of women, yet that he, " which is 
 least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." And it 
 must necessarily involve the depreciation of those peculiar 
 blessings which result from the " taking of the manhood into 
 God." 
 
 Since the Holy Eucharist, then, was not allowed to confer 
 any specific gift, it was impossible that Calvin could suppose 
 it to be really the means of union with Our Lord's Body. 
 So that he could not suppose that there was even that Virtual. 
 Presence .of Our Lord's Plesh which results from union with 
 His Person ; and much less, that the presence of His Flesh 
 itself was bestowed by Power or Virtue. What led him, 
 then, to introduce terms, which were incompatible with his 
 system, as well as with one another? "Water land attributes 
 it to "an ambiguity which he was not aware of."^ But Cal- 
 vin himself seems to have suggested the principle on which 
 he acted, in the remarks which he appended to the Consensus 
 
 ^ Vide Catechismus Genevensis, 5. — Niemeyer, p. 165. Consensus 
 Tigurinus, Art. 19. — Niemeyer, p. 195. Conf. Helvet. Post. 21. — Nie- 
 meyer, p. 521. Confess. Scotica, 1. — Niemeyer, p. 353. 
 
 ° " Paria sunt utriusque populi sacramenta," &c. — Confessio Helv. Post. 
 19. Niemeyer, p. 513. 
 
 ^ Doctrine of the Eucharist, cap. vii. p. 183. 
 
180 NOT MERELY 
 
 Tigurinus, a.d. 1549. The purpose of tliat confession was 
 to unite all the old adherents of the Zuinglian party, yet to 
 diminish the hostility with which they were regarded by the 
 Lutherans. In his remarks, Calvin claims it as the merit of 
 his system, that there was " nothing which had been either 
 revealed by God, or taught by the Church about the sacra- 
 ments, which it did not briefly contain."^ This would seem 
 to imjily that his design was to construct a system which would 
 be wide enough for those who took the highest view of the 
 Holy Eucliarist, while its ambiguity afforded a shelter to 
 those whose view was lowest. He felt that the theory of a 
 mere Symbolical Presence did no justice to the expressions 
 either of Scripture or of the Fathers. Yet he was resolved 
 not to admit the doctrine of the Real Presence, which would 
 involve the validity of consecration and the authority of Orders. 
 The only remaining course was to introduce an equivocal 
 phraseology, which might account for the expressions of an- 
 tiquity, without rendering it necessary to accept its practice. 
 There was room, therefore, in his system, for those who re- 
 ceived the teaching of Our Lord and St. Paul respecting the 
 efl&cacy of Christ's Flesh : but there was room also for those who 
 held, like Zuinglius, that Our Lord's Body exercises no more 
 efi&cacy at present, than that of any other dead man. His object, 
 then, was to bring about a compromise, by which parties which 
 were really opposed, might be apparently united. The latitude 
 of his system was not calculated to embrace truth, but to 
 disguise error. 
 
 "Whether or not this was the design, it was certainly the 
 result of his measures. And it harmonized so well with the 
 circumstances of the times, that it gave a dix'ection to the 
 minds of his followers, which tended little either to the attain- 
 ment of truth, or to the honest expression of opinion. The 
 opponents of the ancient Church were at that time divided 
 into two camps, because the Lutherans sided with the Catholics 
 in admitting the Real Presence. Now the acceptance of Cal- 
 ' Niemeyer, p. 206. 
 
A VIRTUAL PRESENCE. 181 
 
 vin's theory of a Virtual Presence was the grand means, by 
 wliich the politicians on either side attempted to heal this 
 dissension. And his system is found to have been pliant 
 enough to have adopted a different shape and meaning, accord- 
 ing as it was convenient to his followers to express, or to 
 conceal their full opinions. When the French Huguenots were 
 anxious not to give offence to their political governors, and also 
 to conciliate the sympathy of the Germans, they went so far as 
 to affirm that Our Lord "nourishes and quickens us with the 
 substance of His Body and Blood. "^ Yet the residue of their 
 confession shows that they agreed entirely with the Swiss, by 
 whom the "transfusion of Our Lord's substance"^ is expressly 
 denied. The Second Helvetic Confession,^ in which the sacra- 
 mental theory of the Swiss is stated so as to give the least 
 umbrage to the Lutherans, was put into circulation by the 
 Elector Palatine, a.d. 1565, when he was afraid that the 
 hostility, which this subject excited, would lead to his exclusion 
 from the peace of the empire. 
 
 Independently of the general dishonesty which must have 
 resulted from this systematic employment of equivocal ex- 
 pressions, it has led to great unfairness in the treatment of 
 ancient writers. Of the three modes of Our Lord's Presence — 
 Symbolical merely, Virtual and Real — the first and last are 
 plainly incompatible. The Calvinistic writers, therefore, fre- 
 quently adduce passages in which the Fathers speak of Our 
 Lord's Presence as symbolical, as being an argument against 
 the Real Presence. It has been already shown that these 
 passages are wholly irrelevant, because they do not speak of 
 Our Lord's Presence as merely symbolical (vide p. 172). But 
 were it otherwise, they could be of no service to the Calvinists ; 
 since they would militate against a Virtual, not less, or even 
 more, than against a Real Presence. Yet this is the mode of 
 argument adopted throughout the voluminous work of Alber- 
 
 ^ Confess. Gallica, A.D. 1561. Art. 36. Niemeyer, p. 325. 
 2 Consensus Tigur. Art. 23. Niemeyer, p. 196. 
 ^ Niemeyer, Prjefatio, Ixiv. 
 
182 NOT MERELY 
 
 tinus. He is conscious tliat nothing lower than a Virtual Pre- 
 sence can harmonize with the strong expressions of the Fathers. 
 But he would be unable to make head against the doctrine of 
 the Real Presence, without the aid of passages, which, taken 
 as he employs them, would lead to Zuiiiglianism. As though 
 a man's own theory was, that a certain document was written 
 in Greek, while his only ground for maintaining that it could 
 not be written in Hebrew was, that its author knew no language 
 but English. 
 
 We must disregard such arguments, then, as lead to a mere 
 Symbolical Presence, when we compare the doctrine of a Vir- 
 tual, with that of a Real Presence. For between these two 
 alone lies the immediate question. But in what sense are we 
 to take the Virtual Presence, which is the object of compari- 
 son ? Does it mean the diffusion of such a virtue from Our 
 Lord's Body, as would be equivalent to the gift of His essence 
 to the receiver upon earth? Is He admitted to be present 
 under the forms of bread and wine ; and is the only thing ex- 
 cluded His natural presence? Such a supj)osition would be 
 identical with the doctrine of the Real Presence ; and there 
 would remain but two modes of Presence — Real and Symbolical. 
 Now, as this extreme must be avoided, so must that which 
 would identify the Virtual Presence with Zuinglianism. For 
 though this may have been the practical result of Calvin's 
 system, yet it would leave us nothing to compare, since it would 
 merge the Virtual in the Symbolical Presence. 
 
 We must take the Virtual Presence therefore in the only 
 sha[;e which will give it a substantive existence ; and enable 
 us to contrast it with the other two ideas into which it really 
 resolves itself. We must assume, that is, that Calvin's system 
 is genuine and consistent. The receiver's soul is supposed, then, 
 to be put into relation with Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, 
 through the influence of His Godhead, and the power of the 
 Holy Ghost. And since any one's body is a part of him, and 
 especially since a virtue proceeds from Our Lord's Flesh, 
 which affects the souls of those who have been united to Him, 
 
A VIRTUAL PEESENCE. 183 
 
 therefore the receiver may be said to be virtvMly united to Our 
 Lord's Body, because he is united to Our Lord Himself. The 
 doctrine of the Real Presence, on the other hand, assumes Our , 
 Lord to employ His Bod^as the medium whereby He bestows 
 Hi mself in thg_^Qlx E uchar jgt. In Calvin's system, therefore, 
 the relation between Our Lord and the receiver is supposed to 
 depend only upon the spiritual efficacy of a divine power ; the 
 opposing doctrine refers it to the supernatural efficacy of Christ's 
 Flesh. The Real Presence is that men are united to Christ, 
 because they are partakers of His Flesh; Calvin holds that 
 they may be said to be partakers of Christ's Body, because they 
 are united to Christ. 
 
 There will be found to be three several criteria, by which 
 the adoption of one or the other of these systems may be 
 ascertained. First — Is Our Lord's Body spoken of as a medium 
 through which we are put into relation with Himself? Second- 
 ly—Are the consecrated elements supposed to be entitled to any 
 peculiar reverence ? Thirdly — Are all by whom the elements 
 are received, supposed to receive Christ's Body ? 
 
 The two last of these questions will be noticed in the next 
 Chapter, where they will be shown to have been answered in 
 the affirmative by the ancient Church, as decidedly as they 
 were negatived by Calvin. Here it will be enough to consider 
 the first question, which will afford a sufficient criterion that 
 a Virtual Presence does not come up to the language of the 
 ancient Fathers. They everywhere affirm that Our Lord's 
 Body has been consecrated to be the medium through which a 
 relation is to be brought about between the God-man and His 
 brethren. And they suppose that the supernatural Presence 
 of Christ's Manhood in the Holy Eucharist, is the very thing 
 which is bestowed as the instrument of union by the power of 
 the Divine "Word, and by the efficacy of the Holy Ghost. Thus 
 St. Cyril says to Nestorius : 
 
 " You seem to me to forget that it is by no means the nature 
 of the Godhead which is set forth on the sacred tables of the 
 
184 NOT MERELY 
 
 Church, but the very Body of the Word, who sprunpf from God 
 the Father ; the which AVord is uaturally and truly God. Why 
 therefore do you confuse, and ignorant ly mix up everything, 
 almost ridiculing that bread which conieth down to us from 
 heaven, and giveth life unto the world, because it is not called 
 Deity by the voice of divines, but rather the Bod}' of Him who 
 was incarnate for our sakes."^ This circumstance he adduces 
 as a pi'oof that Our Lord's Flesh is really united to the God- 
 head : saying that " otherwise the bloodless sacrifice would be 
 of little benefit ; for it cannot be conceivable that the nature of 
 the Godhead should be consumed along with the flesh ; seeing 
 that we have not attained to that which is impossible, namely, 
 to feed on that which is simply incorporeal." '^ 
 
 St. Cyril repeatedly refers to Our Lord's Flesh, as an instru- 
 ment Mhich co-operates with His Sjjirit in bringing about an 
 union between Himself and mankind. He opposes Our Lord's 
 Bodily Presence in the Holy Eucharist to the presence and 
 influence of His Spirit, declaring them to be separate, though 
 concurring instruments. Some decisive passages on this subject 
 are elsewhere quoted at length.^ St. Cyril declares that Chris- 
 tians are not only spiritually united to Christ by faith, love, and 
 obedience, but likewise "by fleshly' contact." Otherwise, he 
 says, " let any one explain to us the cause and teach us the 
 efficacy of the mystical Eucharist. Why do we receive it? 
 Is it not that it may cause Christ to dwell in us even bodily, 
 by the participation and communion of His sacred Flesh?" 
 And then, after citing some passages from St. Paul and St. 
 John, he concludes : " it is especially observable that Christ 
 does not speak of dwelling in us through anything which de- 
 pends only upon our disposition or our affections, but by means 
 of a physical participation. If a jx-rson mixes one joiece of wax 
 with another, and melts them at the fire, he makes one thing of 
 both ; and so by the participation of the Body of Christ, and 
 of His precious Blood, He is made one with us, and we agaiu 
 
 ' Adversus Nestorium, iv. 6, vol. vi. p. IIG. - S. C'yril, ib. 
 
 ^ Supra, cap. iv. pp. 73, 78, ami cap. vi. p. 119. 
 
 * " awatpda Hard aapKa." — In Joan. i. "2, vol. iv. p. 862. 
 
A VIRTUAL PEESENCE. 185 
 
 are made one with Him. For there was no other way in which 
 that which is naturally corrujitible could be endued with life, 
 save by bodily union with the Body of that which is naturally 
 life, that is, of the Only-begotten One." 
 
 Similar statements are to be found in all parts of St. Cyril's 
 writings. In his dialogue on the Incarnation, he says, 
 
 " "We may see that He bestowed upon His own Flesh the 
 glory of the Divine energy, and again, that by the union of 
 the Incarnation He appropriated, as it were, to Himself the 
 properties of the Flesh, and arrayed with them His own nature. 
 B. What do you mean by this? A. Do you not suppose that it 
 belongs especially to the Word, who proceeds by nature from 
 God the Father, to come from above, out of heaven ; and to be 
 able to quicken those into whom His will is to infuse life ? 
 B. I allow it. A. And to create, like God, you would not 
 allow to be a human action ? B. By no means. A . Well, then, 
 He quickens us indeed as God, but not only by our partaking 
 the Holy Spirit, but also by giving us to eat of the Flesh, which 
 He has assumed. For His woixls are, 'Verily, verily, I say 
 unto you, except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink 
 His Blood, ye have no life in you.'"' 
 
 Passages might be adduced from other Fathers, in proof that 
 Our Lord's Human Body is the medium, through which His 
 relation to mankind is brought about. Such is St. Augustin's 
 statement when he compares Our Lord's gift of His Body in 
 the Holy Eucharist to the manner in which the food ^\hich 
 an infant is unable to digest is prepared for it, by becoming 
 "incarnate" in its mother's milk (ipsurn panem mater incarnat'^). 
 Thus St. Chrysostom says, " I willed to become your brother. 
 
 ' " ov novov Tw ixeraKaxeif ayiov irvevfiaTos, dW' eSfCTTfjV napaOeh Kal t^j/ 
 avaXr](p6uaav ffdpKa." — Be Incarmdione, vol. v. part i. p. 707. 
 
 ^ In Psalm xxxiii. Enar. i. 6. Vide also S. Hilary, " Non enim qiiis 
 in eo erit, nisi in quo ipse fuerit, ejus tantum in se assumtam habens 
 carnem, qui suam sumserit." — De Triii. viii. 16, p. 957. And again, "De 
 veritate carnis et sanguinis non relictus est ambigendi locus. Nunc enim 
 et ipsius Domini professione, et fide nostra vere caro est, et vere sanguis 
 est. Et haBC accepta atque hausta id efficiunt, ut et nos in Chi'isto, et 
 Christus in nobis sit." — Id. 14. Vide also S. John Damascene de Fide 
 Orthod. iv. 13, vol. i. p. 267. 
 
186 NOT MERELY 
 
 For your sakes I shared in Flesh and Blood. Again I give 
 to you the very Flesh and the Blood, through which I became 
 your kinsman."' "In the economy of grace," says St. Gregory 
 Nyssen, " He infuses Himself through His Flesh'lxT'all men 
 ■vvho believe."^ "We drink the immortal Blood of Christ," says 
 Julius Firmicus; "Christ's Blood is joined to our Blood. This 
 is the salutary remedy for your offences, which excludes the 
 mortal plague from God's people."^ And again: "seek the 
 bread of Christ, the cup of Christ, that the frailness of earth 
 may be despised, and man's substance enriched with immortal 
 food.'"'' And again St. Chrysostom's successor, St. Germanus, 
 A.D. 715 : " Our Lord has not only sent the Holy Ghost to 
 remain with us, but He Himself also hath promised to remain 
 with us to the end of the world. Yet the Comforter is present 
 invisibly, because He has not taken our body. But Our Lord 
 is not only an object of sight, but He may be touched through 
 the awful and sacred mysteries, because He has taken our 
 nature, and bears it for ever."^ But the most decisive state- 
 ments are those of St. Cyril, because nothing was more fitted 
 than this truth to counteract the Nestorian heresy. For to 
 show that Our Lord's Manhood possessed a supernatural mode 
 of presence, was a forcible argument for su2^posing that it was 
 personally united to God. And St. Cyril's judgment is equi- 
 valent to that of the whole ancient Church, because on this 
 topic he was its most approved exjiositor. This is put beyond 
 doubt by the sanction bestowed upon him by the Third General 
 Council. So that if we consider his testimony decisive against 
 that new view of Our Lord's nature which was introduced by 
 Nestorius, we must allow it to be conclusive also against that 
 theory of a mere Virtual Presence in the Holy Eucharist, 
 
 ' " Trd\tv avT^v vfuv rfjv aapica Kai rb aifia, S<' wv (jvyyfu^? f'y(v6/Jtr]v, 
 fKSidcufii." — Jn Joan. Horn. xlvi. 3, vol. viii. p. 273. Vide also Horn, 
 xxiv. 4, on 1 Cor. vol. x. 216. 
 
 - Catechet. Orat. sec. 37. Vide also, In Eccles. Horn. viii. vol. i. 
 p. 457. A. 
 
 3 De Errore Profan. Relig. xxii. Bib. Pat. iv. 173. 
 
 ■' Id. c. xix. p. 171. 
 
 ^ Gallandi, Thes. xiii. p. 222. 
 
A VIRTUAL PRESENCE. 187 
 
 which it was reserved for Calvin, so many centuries later, to 
 originate. 
 
 The preceding passages are sufficient to show that the theory 
 of a Virtual Presence does not come up to the language which 
 the Fathers employ respecting the Holy Eucharist. But one 
 proof further may be adduced — the different language which 
 they use concerning the ordinance of Baptism. Since the gift 
 of union with Christ is on God's part bestowed upon all in 
 Baptism, however its actual reception may be obstructed by 
 the wilfulness of man, the operation of this sacrament is wholly 
 at variance with the system of Calvin, which supposes the 
 gifts of Grod to be limited by His own absolute decree. And 
 yet the doctrine of Baptism presents some features which accord 
 with Calvin's theory of a Virtual Presence. The union with 
 Christ which it bestows is not brought about by the efficacy 
 of His Manhood, but by the power of His Grodhead, and the 
 operation of the Holy Ghost. It is not to be attributed, 
 therefore, to any virtue which proceeds from Our Lord's Flesh; 
 yet it may be called a virtual union with His Body, because it 
 is a real union with Himself. For in Baptism there is a real 
 union with Christ, as the Mystical Head of the Christian Body ; 
 and it is this fact, which renders the benefits of Baptism specific 
 and permanent. Thej' are specific, for this ordinance is the 
 act whereby men "are delivered from the power of darkness 
 and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son." They are 
 permanent, because the relation which is then commenced, 
 produces effects upon the whole life. Now these circumstances 
 depend upon that union with Christ, which He bestows upon 
 His Mystical Body. But because the gift is bestowed purely 
 by the spiritual operation of Our Lord's Godhead, and not 
 through the intervention of His Flesh, therefore it is bestowed 
 through the ordinance at large ; the outward part is not de- 
 scribed as a Sacramentum, nor the inward part as a res sacra- 
 menti, or thing signified. And for the same reason, consecration 
 is not essential to its validity. 
 
 There is one sense, then, in which Christ's Body is virtually 
 
188 NOT MERELY 
 
 present in Baptism ; because since men are thereby joined to 
 Ilim, tliey are virtually or by implication joined to His Flesh. 
 And hence it has followed that those gi'aces, which before the 
 Day of Pentecost dwelt in the temple of Our Lord's Body, have 
 since extended themselves to His members also. But His Body 
 has no real Presence in Baptism : His Flesh is not the medium 
 through which His gifts are bestowed, in the same maimer as 
 in the Holy Eucharist. Is this diversity, then, manifest in the 
 expressions of the Fathers? Do they speak of Baptism as 
 connected with Our Lord's Manhood, as might be expected, con- 
 sidering that it is the means whereby men are engrafted into 
 their Head ; and yet abstain from those direct assertions of the 
 Real Presence which occur respecting the Holy Eucharist ? ' 
 
 Now it is an obvious and Scriptural analogy, to compare that, 
 by which sins are washed away, with the true purification — 
 the Blood of Christ. We find, therefore, the continual use of 
 such expressions as those of St. Csesarius : " When men's sins 
 expii'e in the sacred font, they are, as it were, dijiped in the 
 red water of Egypt. The waters are red, that is, they are 
 consecrated with the Blood of Christ." ^ And so St. Jerome 
 (on Isaiah i. 16) represents Our Lord as saying, "Be ye bap- 
 tized in ^ly Blood, by the laver of regeneration." Men are 
 stated to be " dyed in Baptism with the Blood of Christ ; " ' 
 and " Baptism is red with the Blood of Christ." * 
 
 Such passages, however, which occur in abundance, may be 
 discriminated from the language used respecting the Holy 
 Eucharist by two circumstances. First — The effect spoken 
 of was not consequent upon consecration ; so that though 
 consecration, where it was possible, was always employed, it 
 was as a matter of order, and not of necessity. And therefore 
 the thing, of which Our Lord's Blood is said to be the antitype, 
 
 ' Tliis distinction between Baptism and the Holy Eucharist is not 
 considered in the "Doctrine of the Incarnation," though it is alluded to 
 in cap. xiii. p. 288, note 1, and p. 290, note. 
 
 2 Horn. vi. I)e I'aschat. Bib. I'at. viii. 824. 
 
 •■' Prosper de I'rouiiss. ii. 2. Bib. Pat. viii. 18. 
 
 '' S. Aug. in Joan. Trac. xi. 4. 
 
A VIRTUAL PRESENCE. 189 
 
 is not that portion of the element, which is specially employed, 
 but the element at large. Secondly — The employment of such 
 language respecting Baptism, is limited to the use made of the 
 element by the parties : water bears the same relation to the 
 pixrifying of the body, which the Blood of Christ bears to the 
 soul : there is not a word which implies that water in itself 
 may take the name of blood, or that the two are in any sense 
 identical. Yet since the Fathei's had the analogy between the 
 two objects in their minds, why did they not speak of the water 
 in Baptism as being really blood, as they constantly identified 
 the element in the Holy Eucharist with Our Lord's Body ? In 
 reference to Baptism, however, we have nothing like the words 
 of St. Ambrose or St. Cyril. " Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself 
 exclaims. This is My Body. Before the heavenly words of 
 blessing, another species is named ; after consecration the Body 
 is imjDlied. He Himself calls it His Blood. Before consecration 
 it is called another thing. After consecration it is called Blood. 
 And you say Amen, that is, it is true." ' 
 
 These are expressions to which there is no kind of parallel in 
 the case of Baptism. And the difference is founded upon the 
 fact, that the expressions of Our Lord and His Apostles re- 
 specting the one, are wholly different from those which they 
 employ respecting the other. In the case of Baptism, we have 
 nothing in Scripture which resembles Our Lord's words of Insti- 
 tution, or St. Paul's state ment that the thing received is " the 
 Lord's Body." And the words of the Fathers, accordingly, 
 show that there was a belief respecting the Holy Eucharist 
 which did not exist respecting Baptism. "What seems bread 
 is not bread, though bread by taste, but the Body of Christ ; 
 and that which seems wine is not wine, though the taste will 
 have it so, but the Blood of Christ." "^ 
 
 The same distinction is observable in a dispute which arose 
 among the followers of St. Augustin ; and which was called forth 
 by the question, whether Our Lord's promises in the sixth chapter 
 of St. John could be applicable to children, till they had re- 
 
 1 De Mysteriis, ix. - S. Cyril, Myst. Cat. iv. 9. 
 
190 NOT MERELY A VIRTUAL PRESENCE. 
 
 ceived the Holy Eucharist. The j)oint is treated })y St. Fulgentius, 
 who maintains on the authority of St. Augustin, that the bap- 
 tized may be said to be partakers of Our Lord's Body and Blood. 
 This he establishes, not by saying that Our Lord is present in 
 Baptism in the same manner as in the Holy Eucharist, nor by 
 asserting that the water in which men are baptized is Christ's 
 Blood, but by reference to the fact that in this ordinance men 
 are joined to the Person of Christ. He asserts a virtual 
 presence ; in that lower sense of the word, in which Christ's 
 Body may be said to be virtualli/, though it is not really 
 present. His argument is, not that Christ's Body is really 
 present in Baptism, but that since His Body is part of Himself, 
 those who are united to His Person^ may be said to be united 
 to His Flesh. This distinction between the real Presence of 
 Christ, and a mere presence by implication, coiTesponds with 
 the diversity which has been observed to exist between the 
 Holy Eucharist and Baptism. For St. Augustin, whom St. Ful- 
 gentius is quoting, asserts Our Lord's Presence in the Holy 
 Eucharist to depend, not merely upon union with His Person, 
 but upon the presence of His Body? 
 
 The relation between these two ordinances is further manifest 
 from St. Cyril's explanation of the manner in which the one is 
 a preparation for the other. He refers to the Church's custom * 
 of excluding catechumens from the Holy Eucharist, though they 
 had made profession of the Christian faith ; and says they are 
 not prepared for such a sacred gift till they have been sanctified 
 by the Holy Ghost, by becoming members of Christ's Mystical 
 Body. To this rule, he says, the Chuicli has been led by Our 
 Lord's words to Mary Magdalen. " He sends away Mary, as 
 not having yet received the Spirit, saying, ' Touch Me not, for I 
 
 ^ "Qui ergo membrum corporis Christi fit, quomodo non accipit quod 
 ipse fit, quando utique illius fit veruin corjioris membrum, eujus corporis 
 est in sacrificio sacrainentum." — l)e liapihiao J-^hiopis, cap. xi. ; Bih. Pat. 
 Mar. ix. 177, 178. He refers to S. August. Sermo ■272. 
 
 - " Cor]ius Christi . . . illud, quod ex fructibus terrie acceptum, et prece 
 mystica consecratnm .... non sanctificatur ut sit tam magnum sacramen- 
 tum, nisi operante invisibiliter Spiritu Dei." — De Trinitate, iii. 10. 
 
DOCTEINE OF THE REAL PRESENCE. 191 
 
 am not yet ascended to My Father,' that is, I have not yet sent 
 the Spirit unto you. This saying has been a guide to the 
 Church."^ Thus does he discriminate between the gifts be- 
 stowed in these two ordinances, and affirms that the spiritual 
 relation to Christ which is gained by union with His Person, is 
 a preparation for the reception of His Body. So that after 
 Baptism "nothing hinders them," as he expresses it, "from 
 touching Our Saviour Christ." And elsewhere he sums up the 
 contrast in a few words, observing that in Baptism men are 
 made members of Christ through the gift of His Spirit, but 
 that His Presence in the Holy Eucharist is brought about 
 through the Presence of His Body. " Baptism is truly Christ's 
 and from Christ, and the force of the Mystical Eucharist arises 
 to us from His sacred Flesh." '^ 
 
 The contrast, then, which is afforded by their expressions 
 respecting Baptism, adds force to the assertions of the Fathers 
 respecting the Holy Eucharist. Thus on both sides are we led 
 to the conclusion, that neither the statements of Scripture nor 
 the belief of the Church are satisfied by the theory of a Virtual, 
 any more than by tha^; of a Symbolical Presence. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY TO THE DOCTEINE OE THE 
 EEAL PRESENCE. 
 
 In the last chapter it was shown that neither a merely Sym- 
 bolical nor a Virtual Presence was sufficient to satisfy the 
 
 ^ In Joau. lib. xii. vol. iv. p. 1086. Firmilian, when complaining that 
 persons were admitted to Conxmunion, as he imagined, without Baptism, 
 objects that "non ablutis per ecclesiae lavacrum sordibus .... contin- 
 gant corpus et sanguinem Domini." — 8. Cyprian, Ep. Ixxv. 21, p. 149. 
 
 - In Joan. xii. vol. iv. p. 1074. So Germanus, "6V hia tov ^anria fiaros 
 hi^&jxtvov, Tovrov \al3eiv ndvTOTe «at ex*"' ''"' (o6Utv ahoviJiida." — Gallan. 
 xiii. p. 226. 
 
192 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 language of the Fathers : it remains to show that their doctrine 
 was that of tlie Real Presence. 
 
 Now, in turning in this manner from a negative to a positive 
 inquiry, from the considei'ation what they did not, to what they 
 did hold, it will he well to observe what is that kind of evidence 
 which we have a right to expect, and which alone will satisfy 
 the conditions of the argument. If the Real Presence was truly 
 believed in the Ancient Church, like the fact that Our Lord 
 is an object of worship, or that every Person in the Ever-blessed 
 Trinity is truly God, it will show itself, like each of these 
 truths, in various forms, and under different modifications, A 
 shadow can be cast only on one spot, and in one form, but 
 a substance has several sides, and may be viewed, therefore, 
 under several aspects. If this doctrine, then, was a constituent 
 part of the belief of the Ancient Church, we may expect that it 
 would come out in various ways, according to the different 
 character and circumstances of those by whom it was expressed. 
 Still this variety must consist with such accordance, as to show 
 that the thing spoken of was a single object — the diversities of 
 Antiquity must throw light upon its consent. 
 
 The best method of discovering how far this was reallj' the 
 case, will be to take a brief survey of the history of the first 
 seven centuries ; to consider what were the several systems of 
 thought which prevailed respecting the Holy Eucharist, and 
 what the expressions which they severally suggested. It will 
 be found that there were five different ways in which their 
 positions, or their characters, led as many different parties to 
 speak of this sacrament. Their real accordance amidst such 
 apparent diversity, affords the surest proof that their funda- 
 mental idea was the same. And this will be confirmed when 
 we apply the two criteria proposed in the last chapter (p. 183) 
 to these several parties. For it will be found that they all 
 agreed, first, that the consecrated elements were entitled to 
 especial reverence, and secondly, that all who received the 
 consecrated elements received the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 We begin of course with the ante-Niceue jicriod. During 
 
TO THE REAL PRESENCE. 193 
 
 the first two centuries, it would seem that the doctrine of the 
 Real Presence was received with the same unreasoning acqui- 
 escence as the cardinal truths respecting Our Lord's nature. 
 The constituent parts of the Holy Eucharist were not as yet 
 explained in a formal manner, nor were speculative conclusions 
 deduced from it in the same degree as in a later age. The 
 notices which occur, are simple statements of a fact, about which 
 it seems to have been supposed that all Christians were agreed. 
 Such is St. Ignatius's observation that the Docetae " abstain 
 from the Holy Eucharist, because they do not admit it to be 
 the Flesh of Our Saviour Christ, which suffered for our sins."^ 
 Such is Justin's statement that the Eucharist is "not common 
 bread, or common drink," but that " we have been taught that 
 tiie food which receives the eucharistic blessing through His 
 words of prayer, which by way of nutriment is changed into 
 our blood and flesh, is the Flesh and Blood of the Incarnate 
 Jesus." ^ "Being both flesh and bread," says St. Clement of 
 Alexandria, "He giveth Himself, being both, to us to eat."^ 
 " When the mingled cup, and the bread, which is the produce 
 of growth, receives the Word of God" [i.e. the blessing), "and 
 the Eucharist becomes the Body of Christ, and of these the 
 substance of our flesh has its increase and consistency, how can 
 they say that the flesh, which is nourished by the Body and 
 Blood of the Lord, and becomes a member of Him, is not 
 capable of the gift of Grod, which is eternal life."* Such is 
 St. Irenseus's mode of speaking; for he held that "when the 
 bread which is taken from the earth receives the invocation 
 of God, it is no longer common bread, but Eucharist, consisting 
 of two things, an earthly and a heavenly." ^ 
 
 Such was the manner in which the Fathers of the second 
 century understood St. Paul's assertion : " the bread which we 
 break" is "the communion of the Body of Christ;" "the cup 
 of blessing, which we bless," "the communion of the Blood 
 
 ^ Ad Smyrnseos, sec. 6. ^ Apol. i. 66. 
 
 3 Fragment, vol. ii. 1018. (Pott.) 
 
 * S. Iren£eua, v. 2, 3. * Ibid. iv. 18. 5. 
 
194 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 of Christ." Neither was there any opposition to these state- 
 ments, although Tertullian uses expressions on this subject, 
 as he does likewise respecting the Persons in the Blessed 
 Trinity, which require explanation. But he agrees with the 
 other writers of his age in calling the Holy Eucharist "the 
 Body of the Lord ;"^ it is "His Body," which those who pro- 
 fane the Holy Eucharist "assail '""^ and he speaks of the Gen- 
 tile converts as " fed with the richness of the Lord's Body, that 
 is, with the Eucharist."^ He adds, also, various particulars 
 respecting its daily reception,* and respecting the reverence 
 with which it was partaken. And the same mode of speak- 
 ing may be found in the next century. Christ " has prepared 
 His table," says St. Hippolytus ; " that is, the promised know- 
 ledge of the sacred Trinity, and also His precious and pure 
 Body and Blood, which are daily prepared in His mystical 
 and divine table." " Come, eat My bread, and drink the wine 
 which I have mingled for you. His own divine Flesh, and 
 His precious Blood He hath given us, He says, to eat and 
 drink for the remission of sins." ® 
 
 A somewhat different view of things begins to open upon us 
 when we pass the time of the Nicene Council, and when the 
 Church had become in an increasing measure a home to the 
 thought and intellect of the age. We find the Liturgies com- 
 mented upon, not only, as probably was always the case, in 
 popular addresses, but in a literary work (St. Cyril's Cateche- 
 tical Lectures), which continues to this day to be the standard 
 of instruction in the Eastern Church, And now, then, we meet 
 with something more like an explanation of that which in the 
 preceding age had simply been asserted, namely, that after 
 consecration the thing present upon the altar is truly the Body 
 and Blood of Christ. St. Cyril introduces the further idea, that 
 this is owing to a cJiange in the elements, which is brought 
 about by the power of the Holy Ghost. '""We call upon the 
 
 ' De Idololatria, 7. ^ Ibid. 
 
 3 De Pudicitia, 9. ■• De Oratione, 14, 
 
 ^ Gallandi, ii, 4tt8. 
 
TO THE EEAL PRESENCE." 195 
 
 merciful God to send forth His Holy Spirit upon the gifts 
 lying before Him ; that He may make the bread the Body 
 of Christ, and the wine the Blood of Christ ; for whatsoever 
 the Holy Ghost has touched, is sanctified and changed."^ 
 
 The reality of this change was no doubt admitted by all 
 Christians during the three first centuries ; for they believed 
 that what the j^riest presented previously to consecration was 
 mere bread and wine, whereas that which he took in his hands 
 after consecration, was the Body and Blood of Christ, under 
 the forms of bread and wine. But there was an absence of 
 those distinct assertions of a change, which appear after the 
 Liturgies had been commented upon by St. Cyril, and which 
 occur especially in the Eastern Church. And with this is con- 
 nected the further fact, that this idea of a change is put more 
 prominently forward in Eastern than in Western Liturgies. 
 " Make this bread the very precious Body of Our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ, .... and this cup the very precious 
 Blood of Our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, .... 
 changing them by Thine Holy Ghost." ^ Whereas the Liturgy 
 of Gelasius says only ; " ut nobis Corpus et Sanguis fiat dilec- 
 tissimi Filii tui Domini Dei nostri Jesu Christi." ^ This was 
 not owing to any difference in doctrine : it was shown (caj). iii.) 
 that the reality of the change was asserted by St. Ambrose and 
 St. Gaudentius in Italy, as directly as by St. Cyril and St. Gre- 
 gory Nyssen in the east : and probably the diversity between 
 the liturgies arose chiefly from the absence of a direct invocation 
 of the Holy Ghost in the Roman Liturgy. But however the 
 difference arose, it will be found that the terms of the Eastern 
 writers are far more express than those of the Latins, and imply 
 a change in the ingredients, or constituent parts of the con- 
 secrated elements. Thus we have such words as that the ele- 
 
 1 Fifth Myst. Cat. 7. 
 
 ^ S. Basil's Liturgy. The words of S. Chrysostom are nearly identical. 
 — Neale, Introd. p. 579. 
 
 ^ Muratori, Lit. Vet. i. 696. Nearly the same expression occurs in the 
 Ambrosian Liturgy, lb. 133, and in the Missale Francorum, lb. ii. 693. 
 
 2 
 
196 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 meuts fitraTTOiovvTai, ^ neTappvdfxiCovTai, ' neraaroixeiovvrai, which 
 (especially the last) are far more emphatic than transjigurare* 
 or transformare,^ which we find in Latin writers. 
 
 The tendency, then, of that which perhajDS may not im- 
 properly be called the Eastern School, was to dwell simply 
 upon the cJiange effected in the elements by means of conse- 
 cration. The example set by St, Cyril was followed by St. 
 Gregory Nyssen, St. Chrysostom, St. John Damascene, and 
 other Fathers. Now, though their statements do not in reality 
 go beyond that which was received by the whole Church, yet 
 it is obvious that such expressive phrases, if looked at by them- 
 selves, might be perverted so as to interfere with the analogy 
 of the faith. For it might be supposed that the change was not 
 only real, which it doubtless is, but that it was a common change, 
 and accordant with the usual order of things. Now such a mis- 
 take would lead to erroneous opinions, both as to the sacred gift, 
 which is bestowed in the Holy Eucharist, and as to the objects of 
 sense, through which that gift is communicated. In relation to 
 each, there are two errors against which it is necessary to guard. 
 
 First — If this change were conformable to the ordinary order 
 of things, as when water is changed into ice by crystallization, 
 it might be supposed that Christ's Body was not that very Body 
 which suifered on the cross, but a new or additional one, formed 
 out of bread and wine. So that Christ's Presence in the Holy 
 Eucharist would not be the carrying out the purposes of the 
 Incarnation, but the actual repetition of that great event. Such 
 is the notion attributed (though very unjustly) by various 
 German" critics to Justin Martyr. When Gi'abe^ maintains 
 
 ' Damascen. de Fid. Orth. iv. ] 3, p. 269. Theophylact. in Matt. 25. 
 
 2 S. Chrys. de Prod. Juda3. i. 6, vol. ii. p. 384, and lb. ii. 6, p. 394. 
 
 ^ S. Greg. Nyss. Cat. Or. Tbeophylact. in Marc. 14. 
 
 * S. Anibros. de Fide, iv. 10, n. 124. 
 
 •'' Mone's Messen. p. 24. So "panem mutatum in carne," i.e. camem. 
 —Muhilhni Lit. Call. p. 300. 
 
 •' "Justin" 8a<^ Seinische "acbtet das Abendmable gleicbsam fur eine 
 wiederbolte Incarnation." " Der giittlicbe Logos mit Brot und Wein als 
 aeinem Leibe und Bhite in Verbinduug tritt." — Kahnifi, u. s. p. ISl. 
 
 ' Grabe describes this school of writers as teacliing that the consecrated 
 
TO THE REAL PRESENCE. 197 
 
 that the school of writers who followed St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 
 supposed that Our Lord's Body was in this way something 
 su2)eradded to that in which He suffered, he fails to do justice 
 to the exjiressious by which these writers guard against such 
 misconstruction. " The bread and the wine, and water," says 
 Damascene, " which by eating and drinking are changed into 
 the body and blood of him who eats and drinks them, do not 
 become another body besides his former one."^ And St. Gregory 
 Nyssen speaks of " that Body which was endowed with immor- 
 tality by God," ^ as the thing which is present in us by the 
 Holy Eucharist. Yet the language of this school led in some 
 instances to such an error ; for the mistake occurs ^ in a work 
 which, though the composition apparently of an imitator of 
 Damascene, has yet sufficient resemblance to his style to have 
 been attributed formerly to himself. 
 
 Secondly — If bread and wine were changed in a common 
 manner into Our Lord's Body and Blood, these sacred objects 
 must be supposed to be subjected to conditions and circum- 
 stances, from which they are plainly exempt. Hence Anastasius 
 Sinaita {supra, chap. v. p. 88), in whom the tendency to regard 
 the change as a common one reached its extreme point, speaks 
 of Our Lord's Body, when present in the Holy Eucharist, as 
 though it were corruptible ; whereas corruption, * as well as 
 any other polluting circumstance, can extend no further than 
 to the objects of sense, which are the ordained channels for 
 
 bread "ipsam ejus substantiam in carnem transformare, qu£e Christi caro 
 sit, et cum ilia, quse ex B. Virginis utero prodiit, et cruci suffixa, inque 
 coelum sublata fuit, eadem fiat per knav^-qaiv, quodque eundem Spiritum 
 vitas in se habeat ; sicuti panis quern Servator in terris comedit, vi na- 
 turalise caloris in carnem ejus vertebatur," &c. He refers to S. Cyril of 
 Jerusalem, B. Gregory Nyssen, and S. John Damascene. — Grahe on 
 tS. Irenieus, v. 2. 
 
 1 Damasc. de Fide Orthod. iv. 13, p. 270. 
 
 2 Orat. Catech. vide supra, p. 72. 
 
 ^ " ds itrav^rjaiv tov awnaros rov XpiffTOv.^^ — Epis. ad Zach. Episc. 
 Doar. In Damasc. vol. i. p. 656. 
 
 ■* " Caro Salvatoris manducata non corrumpitur, nee sanguis hie potatus 
 consumitur." — Magnetis Fragmentum, Gall. iii. 542. Vide Summa Tlieol. 
 1.77. 7. 
 
198 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 its communication. And the same error appears in the imi- 
 tator ^ of Damascene ah-eady quoted, who affirms also that Our 
 Lord's Body may be broken in this sacrament ; whereas that 
 which is broken can be only the object of sense, through which 
 His Presence is conveyed. 
 
 These misconceptions respecting the inward part in the Holy 
 Eucharist, are connected with the errors respecting the outvmrd 
 part, against which it is necessary to guard. For if the change 
 be looked at as if it were a common one, the outward part will 
 be entirely lost sight of, and those offices will be forgotten, 
 which it still performs. This tendency shows itself in two ways 
 in the writers before us. For, first, we find some of them to 
 have denied to the outward part the titles by which it is 
 properly designated ; and, secondly, we find a forgetfulness of 
 the functions which it actually discharges. 
 
 First — It has been shown how fitly the outward part may be 
 called a type, or antitype, of that inward reality with which it 
 is combined. So it is by St. Cyril of Jerusalem himself. {Sup. 
 cap. viii. p. 164.) But by other writers of this school the fact 
 is either forgotten or denied. It is forgotten, apparently, by 
 Anastasius Sinaita, who cannot be censured, of course, for saying 
 that the Holy Eucharist is not merely a figure ^ of Christ, but 
 who fails to add that it is truly a figure, though not a figure 
 only. But Damascene not only denies the outward part to 
 be a figure ^ of the Body and Blood of Christ, but affirms that if 
 any writers " have called the bread and wine antitypes of the 
 Body and Blood of Christ," * they must have referred only to 
 its state previously to consecration. And the same assertion 
 was made at the Second Council of Nice. ' The statement has 
 been observed to be erroneous i^sup. p. 166); but it shows that 
 a due weight was not assigned to the elements, through a 
 too exclusive attention to the fact of their change. And later 
 Greek writers show the same forgetfulness that a sacrament 
 
 ' De Corp. et Sang. Christi. In Damasc. vol. i. p. 658. 
 
 - IJib. Pat. ix. 855. ^ De Fide Ortliod. iv. 13, p. 271. 
 
 ' De Fide Orthod. iv. 13, p. 273. ^ Actio vi. Harduin, iv. 370. 
 
TO THE EEAL PRESENCE. 199 
 
 by its very nature is twofold ; and that its outward sign is 
 intended to be emblematic of its inward reality. Thus 
 Nicephorus ^ objects to the application of such expressions 
 to the Holy Eucharist, on the ground that the same thing 
 cannot be both an image and a reality ; and the same objection 
 was made at the Second Council of Nice. ^ And on the same 
 principle Theophylact ^ appears to object to the use of the word 
 figure in relation to this sacrament. 
 
 Secondly — These writers fail to do justice to another con- 
 sideration, which must enter into the idea of the Holy 
 Eucharist, if it be supposed to consist of an outward part, 
 which is an object to the senses, as well as of an inward part, 
 which is an object to faith and to the mind. Since the process 
 of nutrition is open to sensible experiment, the property of 
 nourishing the body of the receiver must be one of those 
 qualities in the consecrated elements, which must be left 
 unchanged. Otherwise, the alteration will extend not merely 
 to that inward part, which cannot fall within the region of 
 the senses, but to that outward part also, of which they can 
 take cognizance. But an exclusive attention to the notion 
 of a change, was not unlikely to lead to expressions, if not to 
 thoughts, incompatible with this fundamental characteristic 
 of a sacrament. " This holy bread," says St. Cyril of Jerusa- 
 lem, " is supersubstantial, that is, appointed for the substance 
 of the soul. For this bread goeth not into the belly, and is 
 cast out into the draught, but is diffused through all thou art, 
 for the benefit of body and soul." * St. Cyril probably designed 
 to express nothing but the obvious truth, that the inward part 
 in the Holy Eucharist, i.e. the Body and Blood of Christ, is 
 not subject to bodily digestion. But the absence of any state- 
 ment that the outward part, or that which is an object of sense, 
 
 ' " Quod enim est alicujus imago, hoc corpus ejus esse non potest : et 
 rursus quod est corpus, non potest esse ejus imago." — jS. Niceph. de Cheru- 
 hinis, Bib. Pat. xiv. 94. 
 
 ^ Actio vi. Harduin, iv. 371. 
 
 3 In Matt. XXV. p. 162. In Marc. xiv. p. 272. 
 
 * Myst. Cat. V. 15. 
 
200 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 continues to discharge the functions of animal nutriment, would 
 seem as if this truth were discouraged, if not denied. 
 
 A still stronger statement occurs in a Homily attributed to 
 St. Chrysostom. " Behold not that it is bread, nor think that 
 it is wine. For it does not, like other food, pass into the 
 draught. God forbid that you should think so. But as wax, 
 when it is brought into contact with fire, suffers no diminution 
 nor increase of its substance, so imagine that the mysteries are 
 absorbed in the substance of the body." ' The writer may have 
 meant nothing, but that the Body and Blood of Christ are not 
 received by the body as corporeal food, but his statement, like a 
 parallel one in St. John Damascene,'^ countenances the idea that 
 this cannot be affirmed of either part in the Holy Eucharist. 
 Such assertions were certainly made by later writers in the 
 West, as may be seen from the works of Guitmund,^ Algerus,^ 
 and William of Paris. '^ 
 
 Such were the errors which resulted from too exclusive an 
 attention to the undoubted truth, that the elements in the Holy 
 Eucharist are changed by consecration. The School of St. Cyril 
 of Jerusalem, St. Gregory Nj^ssen, and St. John Damascene, in 
 which this truth was put so prominently forward, has been here 
 called the Eastern School, both because its leading members 
 
 ' De Pcenit. Horn. ix. vol. ii. p. 350. 
 
 - De Fide Orth. iv. 13, p. 272. 
 
 3 De Veritate Euch. ii. Bib. Pat. xviii. 450. 
 
 ■* De Sacramento, ii. 1. Bib. Pat. xxi. 276. 
 
 ^ " Manifestiim est post benedictionem sacerdotalem rite factam in 
 altaris meusa, nee panem esse* corporis, hoc est materialem, nee vinum. 
 Ex tunc enim mensa est animarum : Totum aiitem quod ante in ea est, 
 vel fit, est pneparatio, sive preparatorium ad spiritualem refectionem, 
 et mensam animarum. Placuit autem clementissimo miseratori omnium 
 Deo declarare istud congruenti et deeenti miraculo. Cum enim quidam 
 formis illis panis et vini eubesse crederet veras panis materialis et vini 
 substantias, aliis cibis uti nolebat ; et propter hoc in multa quantitate 
 conficiebat, juxta quod ad sustentationem corporis sibi sutticere ?estimabat. 
 Hinc est quod iufi-a j>aucos dies deficiens absque alterius morbi oceasione, 
 ipso experimento doctus dicere potuit non subesse formis illis, quod corpus 
 ejus nutrire, vel sustentare valeret, cum substantiam impossibile sit nu- 
 triri accidentibus." — Gulielmus Parmeiisis de Sacramento EucJiaristuv, 
 cap. i. p. 415. 
 
TO THE REAL PRESENCE. 201 
 
 were Orientals, and Ijecause it has a peculiar relation to Greek 
 Liturgies. But there were two other schools, diffused through- 
 out the whole Church, though their chief writers were also 
 Oriental, which served to qualify this tendency. These Schools 
 consisted, resj)ectively, of the opponents of the Eutychian and 
 the Nestorian heresies : the one of which was led to guard 
 especially against errors respecting the outward part, and 
 the other against, an erroneous estimate of the inward part, 
 of the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 The Holy Eucharist is so intimately related to the doctrine 
 of Our Lord's Person, that it is not surprising that those who 
 defended the reality and union of His two natures, should have 
 bethought themselves of it as a fitting illustration of their 
 meaning. At the same time nothing can show more clearly 
 how general was the belief in that sacramental oneness, by 
 which the inward and outward parts are united in the Holy 
 Eucharist, than that it should have been assumed to offer the 
 nearest analogy to that personal union, whereby Godhead and 
 Manhood are united in Christ. Of course the Personal bond is 
 one thing, the Sacramental another : each is peculiar and with- 
 out parallel ; but they are analogous as regards the mystery of 
 their operation, and the reality of their effects. Of this circum- 
 stance the opponents of the Eutychian heresy availed themselves. 
 Their object was to maintain that though Godhead and Man- 
 hood were truly united in the one Person of Christ, yet that 
 the human was not so absorbed in the Divine nature as to 
 be altogether lost. They referred, then, to the Holy Eucharist, 
 in which the inward part was allowed to be the real Body 
 of Christ, while yet, they said, the outward elements of bread 
 and wine had still their function to discharge, and were not 
 wholly lost. The chief writer of this school is Theodoret, who 
 dwells upon the truth that the bread and wine, regarded as 
 objects of sense, are unaltered by consecration, and who argues 
 thence that Our Lord's Body and Blood are not lost in that 
 nature of Deity, with which they are united. The orthodox 
 and Eutychian are introduced in Dialogue. 
 
202 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 "Eutychian. After the consecration what do you call these 
 things V Orthodox. The Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ. 
 U. And do you believe that you partake of the Body of 
 Christ, and of His Blood? 0. Yes, I believe it. £J. As 
 therefore the Body and Blood of the Lord are one thing before 
 the priestly invocation, but after the priestly invocation they 
 are changed, and become another, so Our Lord's Body, since 
 His taking up, has been changed into the Divine essence. 
 0. You are taken in your own net. For after the consecra- 
 tion the mystical symbols are not transferred from their own 
 nature. For they remain in their former essence (oia-las), and 
 shape and appearance, and are objects of sight and touch, as 
 they were before. But they are understood to be that which 
 they have become, and are believed to be so, and are worshipped, 
 as being those things which they are believed to be." * 
 
 Similar statements occur in Gelasius's work against Eutyches 
 and Nestorius, in the letter to Csesarius, which is attributed to 
 St. Chrysostom, and in Ephraim of Antioch, whose words were 
 quoted (p. 83). "The sacraments of the Body and Blood of 
 Christ which we take," says St. Gelasius, " are a divine thing, 
 because by the same we are made partakers of the divine nature. 
 And yet there does not cease to be the substance or nature of 
 bread and wine.'"^ To the same effect is the letter to Csesarius: 
 " Christ is Grod and man. God, because He was impassible, 
 
 man because He suffered Just as before the bread is 
 
 sanctified, we call it bread, but when divine grace sanctifies it 
 through the medium of the priest, it is freed from the title of 
 bread, and thought worthy of the title of Our Lord's Body, 
 even though the nature of bread has remained in it ; and we do 
 not speak of two bodies, but the one Body of the Son."' 
 
 The opponents of Eutyches, then, were led to make such 
 assertions respecting the outward part in the Holy Eucharist, 
 as qualified any tendency to forget its existence, to which the 
 
 ' Dialogus Secundus. ^ Bib. Pat. Max. viii. 703. 
 
 ^ S. Chrysostom, vol. iii. p. 744. If this be really the work of S. Chry- 
 sostom, wliich is very imcertain, it must be supposed that in writing 
 against the Apollinariatis he employed the same language which was 
 afterwards used against the Eutychiaus. 
 
TO THE REAL PRESENCE. 203 
 
 language of the Eastern School might have given rise. But 
 it is obvious that mistakes respecting the inward part, or thing 
 signified, would have been far more important. And these 
 were in like manner corrected, through that line of thought 
 which was naturally taken by the opponents of Nestorius. 
 Since their object was to prove that He who discharges the 
 functions of Mediation in His fleshly nature, is personally 
 identical with the Eternal Word, nothing was more directly 
 to the purpose than to show how this truth is exhibited in 
 the Holy Eucharist. Hence those many passages already 
 quoted in this work, in which St. Cyril affirms the effect of 
 the Holy Eucharist to depend upon the properties, which Our 
 Lord's Manhood has acquired through its personal oneness with 
 Godhead. All these passages are summed up, as it were, in 
 his 11th Anathema, directed against those who do not allow 
 that the " Flesh of Our Lord is life-giving," " because it 
 has by personal propriety become identified with the Woi"d, 
 who is able to give life to all things."^ So that not only 
 has Our Lord consecrated His Body and Blood to be the 
 medium of His own Presence in the Holy Eucharist, but the 
 value of this ordinance is asserted to depend upon the fact, 
 that the Humanity thus present is the vei-y same which, by 
 the Incarnation, was taken into God. And therefore the 
 writings of St. Cyril of Alexandria, and of other opponents 
 of Nestorius, bring out the truth, that the inward part in 
 the Holy Eucharist is not any fresh Body of Christ, but the 
 very same Body which He took of the Virgin, and which He 
 offered on the Cross. To quote the words of St. Leo, the 
 final defender of the truth of Our Lord's Person against both 
 its assailants ; " although He be placed on the Father's right 
 hand, yet in the same Flesh which He took of the Virgin, does 
 He carry out the sacrament of our propitiation." ^ 
 
 These different schools, then, qualify the language of one 
 
 ^ "7€70f6i/ iSt'a ToC A070V." — Hard. i. 1294. And vide the defence of 
 this Anathema against the Orientals, 8. Cyril, vi. 193. 
 - Epistola Ix. 2. Ad Anatolium. 
 
204 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 another: the Eastern attests the fact tliat the elements are 
 changed by consecration, while the opponents of Eutyches wit- 
 ness that the existence of an outward jiart must not be forgotten, 
 and St. Cyril of Alexandria that the inward part is the very 
 Body of tlie Incarnate Son. These several ideas, taken con- 
 jointly, explain what was meant by the simpler statements of 
 the ante-Nicene age, that the thing present in the Holy 
 Eucharist is the Body of Christ. Meantime, however, there 
 had arisen a school in the Western Church, which had treated 
 this sul)ject in a more accurate and scientific manner, so that 
 the trutli of the Holy Eucharist could be brought out, not 
 only by opposite negations, but in a direct and positive manner. 
 Its leadhig writers were St. Ambrose and St. Augustin ; and 
 as the teaching of the Eastern School has been paralleled with 
 the statements of Justin Martyr, so the Western may be con- 
 sidered perhaps to be built upon the words of Irenoeus, that 
 the Holy Eucharist consists of two parts, the one earthly, and 
 the other heavenly [supra, p. 193). For the cardinal principle 
 of this school was that the existence both of an outward and of 
 an inward part in the Holy Eucharist was to be admitted. 
 
 By the reality of the outward part is meant not only that 
 it is an object to the sight and the touch, but that it retains 
 that power of nourishment, which is our other sign of its 
 sensible existence. This had been maintained by Origen, by 
 whom St. Ambrose was often influenced, though the extrava- 
 gances of the great Alexandrian teacher have prevented him 
 from being quoted as an authority in the Church. In par- 
 ticular, Origen's addiction to the Platonic philosophy would 
 naturally lead him to undervalue any facts opposed to its 
 spiritualizing tendency ; so that he is a jwculiarly unsafe wit- 
 ness respecting the Holy Eucharist. This circumstance destroys 
 his authority, when he seems, though but uncertainly, to indi- 
 cate, in opposition to the common judgment of antiquity, that 
 none but devout receivers partake of the Real Body of Christ. 
 But when referring to the outward jiart or visible elements, 
 he makes statements which accord with the system of the great 
 
TO THE EEAL PRESENCE. 205 
 
 teachers of the Western Church. " That food which is conse- 
 crated by the AVord of Grod and by prayer, so far as its mate- 
 rial part is concerned, goes into the belly, and is cast out into 
 the draught ; but as regards the prayer which is added to it, 
 it becomes useful, according to the analogy of faith, and be- 
 comes the cause of discernment to the mind which looks to 
 that which is edifying. And it is not the matter of the bread, 
 but the word which is spoken over it, which benefits him who 
 eats it, not unworthily of the Lord." ^ 
 
 Here, then, we have a recognition of the existence of the 
 outward, as well as of the inward part in the Holy Eucharist — 
 the first being not only an object to the senses, but being the 
 means of nutrition to the body, while the inward part, of 
 which it is a type or figure, is the nourishment of the soul. 
 This is the theory which we see more scientifically represented 
 in St. Ambrose and St. Augustin. St. Ambrose opposes the 
 "ordo naturge" to the "excellentia gratise" — that "quod natura 
 formavit" to that "quod benedictio consecravit," and implies 
 the presence of both in that which he calls " carnis illius sacra- 
 uientum."^ But it is in the wi-itings of St. Augustin that 
 these expressions assume a mox'e definite shape. The outward 
 part is called sacra7rientum, the inward res or virtus sacramenti. 
 St. Augustin dwells upon the distinction with great variety 
 of expression. It is " one thing which is seen, and another 
 
 ' Comment, in Matth. Tom. xi. 14, vol. iii. p. 500. In the sequel, 
 (3rigen speaks of Our Lord's Body as the true food which no bad man is 
 able to eat. His authority is not of great weight, yet he may have de- 
 signed to say nothing but that the wicked cannot feed spiritually upon 
 Christ, i.e. cannot enter into a spiritual relation to Him. This is nothing 
 more than is taught in St. John vi., to which he refers, and is not the 
 same thing as to deny that Christ's Body and Blood are really received 
 by all who receive the outward part in the Holy Eucharist. This last 
 he could not mean to deny, if he is to be supposed consistent with himself, 
 since in his work against Celsus he says, " We eat the bread, which is 
 made a certain sacred Body by prayer, and which sanctifies those who 
 with good intent use it." — Cont. Celsuni. viii. 33, vol. i. p. 766. Here he 
 discriminates the benefit of the sacrament, which is reaped by the devout 
 alone, from its reality, which, he says, is dependent on the prayer of con- 
 secration. 
 
 ■^ De My^teriis, ix. 59. 50, 53. Vide also De Fide, iv. 10. 124. 
 
206 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 which is understood;"^ "the sacrament is one thing, and the 
 virtue of the sacrament another;"^ for there is "that which 
 is taken visibly in the sacrament, and that which is spiritually- 
 eaten and drunk."^ Hence there is such a thing as "carnally 
 and visibly pressing with the teeth the sacrament of the Body 
 and Blood of Christ," and there is such a thing as "spiritually 
 eating the Flesh of Christ and drinking His Blood ;" the 
 ^^ sacramentum" that is, is one thing, the "Body and Blood"* 
 another. 
 
 Thus did St. August in discriminate the signum, and the 
 res stgnificans, vis or siynijicatio.^ Yet as the authority of 
 Origen is destroyed by his spiritualizing tendency, so that of 
 this great teacher of the Western Church is somewhat impaired 
 by the exaggerated statements, into which he was led during 
 his later years in his opposition to the Pelagians. His asser- 
 tions respecting the divine decrees betrayed him into expres- 
 sions, which have been affinned to militate against the very 
 truths which his own phraseology had contributed to establish. 
 When he says, indeed, that Judas eat "the bread of the Lord," 
 while the other discijiles "eat the Lord who was bread,"* he 
 was only expressing the truth, that a personal relation to Our 
 Lord, who gives His Body for our food in this sacrament, is 
 not dependent on the mere partaking of that food, but is re- 
 served for its devout participants. And the same may have 
 been his purpose, when he says that the sacramentum is given 
 " to some to life, to others to destruction, " but that " the thing 
 
 ' Senno 272, vol. v. 1104. 
 
 2 In Joan. xxvi. 11, vol. iii. part 2, p. 498. 
 
 ^ Sermo 131, vol. v. p. 641. 
 
 * In Joan. xxvi. 18, vol. iii. part 2, p. 501. Several words of this last 
 passage are an insertion, and are to be traced to the time of Bede, when 
 the phraseology which 8. Augustin had introduced had been more ac- 
 curately determined. But they exactly accord with his system ; the 
 sacramentum, or outward part, is all which the senses can reach to ; the 
 inward part is bestowed upon all by means of sacramental union, but 
 none, except the devout, enter into spiritual relation to Christ, or feed on 
 Him spiritually. 
 
 ^ De Doctrina Christ, iii. 9, vol. iii. 1, 49. 
 
 '' In Joan. lix. 1, p. 663. 
 
TO THE EEAL PEESENCE. 207 
 
 itself, of which it is the sacr amentum, is given to every man 
 to life, who is a partaker of it. " ' He could not mean to deny 
 that the inward part is present by virtue of consecration, 
 and that all communicants receive it, because he says in ex- 
 press words that the Body^ and Blood of Christ are received 
 even by those who do not profit by them. On one occasion, 
 indeed, his words seem to imply that the final perseverance 
 of the communicant is a criterion ^ whether he receives any 
 real gift in the Holy Eucharist. But the passage is open 
 to another interpretation ; and we are justified in explaining 
 St. Augustin's lax and general assertions by his more syste- 
 matic statements. (Vide supra, p. 158.) For we have distinct 
 affirmations in his works* that a real gift is bestowed both in 
 Baptism and the Holy Eucharist ; and that this gift is con- 
 ferred both on those who receive, and on those who reject it. 
 And the gift in the Holy Eucharist he afiirms to be the gift 
 of Christ's Body ; and this gift he states to be the result of 
 that "mystical consecration,"^ which endows the outward sign 
 with the iuM ard reality. 
 
 But it was by the systematic statements which gave shape 
 to the ancient belief, not through his novel assertions respecting 
 the divine decrees, that St. Augustin formed the mind of the 
 Western Church. His followers at once adopted and matured 
 his views ; the virtus was more perfectly discriminated from 
 the res sacramenti : the first was understood to be the effect 
 
 ^ In Joan. xxvi. 15, p. 500. 
 
 2 Epis. 140, sec. 66. 
 
 ^ " Signum quia manducavit et bibit, hoc est, si manet et manetur, si 
 habitat et inhabitatur, si lixret ut nan deseratur." — In Joan, xxvii. 1, 
 p. 502. But this passage may mean, "if he cleaves in order that he may 
 not be deserted." It would then express nothing, but that the henefit of 
 the sacramental gift is only obtained by the faithful. This is S. Augus- 
 tin's own explanation, Sermo 71. 17, vol. v. p. 392. 
 
 ^ Epis. cxl. 66. In Joan, xxvii. 11. De Baptismo contra Don, v. 9, 
 Sermo Ixxi. 17. 
 
 ^ " Noster autem panis et calix .... certa consecratione mysticus fit 
 nobis, non nascitur. Proinde quod non ita fit, quamvis sit panis et calix, 
 alimentum est refectionis, non sacramentum religionis." — Cont. Faustum, 
 XX. 13, vol. viii. p. 342. 
 
208 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 attending the Holy Eucharist, the second the reality to which 
 that effect was to be attributed : and thus it was upon his 
 system that the chief writers of the West — Bede among the 
 principal — based their phraseology. So that his teaching appears 
 in the pages of Lombard/ professedly in his own words, but 
 really, it would seem, in the words of his aunotators. And thus 
 arose a far more scientific mode of speaking than that which 
 prevailed in the East : each part in the Holy Eucharist was 
 more distinctly recognized ; and there was room for assigning 
 its due place to the outward sign, without sacrificing the inward 
 reality. 
 
 The brief sketch which has been given, shows the various 
 modes of expression which were employed in the early Church 
 lespecting the Holy Eucharist, and what v ere the several 
 circumstances which gave their impress to its phraseology. 
 And it is obvious, that if it were made a question, in what 
 manner Our Lord's Presence in the Holy Eucharist was sup- 
 posed to be brought about, and still more if it were requisite 
 to explain this process, in terms which all parties in the ancient 
 Church would have been prepared to accept, the inquiry would 
 involve considerable difficulty. It would be necessary to find 
 some mode of adjustment between the tendency of the Eastern 
 School, as it has been called, on one side, and that of the 
 opponents of Eutychiauism on the other. The former tendency 
 went so far in some instances as to imply that the outward 
 part retained no real existence at all : the latter led to lan- 
 guage, which might be represented to mean that it was wholly 
 unaltered. The more scientific statements of the school of St. 
 Augustiu did not harmonize exactly with either. And conse- 
 
 ' " Ait enim Aug. in lib. Sententiarum Prosperi : hoc est quod dici- 
 mus, quod modis omnibus approbare contendimus, sacrificium Ecclesise 
 duobus confici, duobus constare ; visibili elementorum specie, et invisibili 
 Domiiii nostri Jesu Cliristi came et sanguine; sacramento et re sacra- 
 nienti, id est, corpore Cliristi."— Li?(. bent. \v. x. 2. The words are 
 quoted in Grutiim, De Consecrat. ii. 48, as though S. Augustiu's, but 
 they appear to be Lanfranc's cont. Bereng. 10. 
 
TO THE REAL PRESENCE. 209 
 
 quently, the theory subsequently maintained by Aquinas, that 
 the substance of Our Lord's Body and Blood supersedes that 
 of the bread and wine, while, so far as the senses go, the latter 
 remain wholly unaltered, was an explanation of the mode in 
 which Our Lord's presence is brought about, which did not 
 exactly accord with the statements of any early party. It gave 
 greater reality to the elements than the followers of St. Cyril 
 of Jerusalem appeared to approve, because it maintained them 
 to retain the power of corporal nourishment : ^ it assigned to 
 them less reality than was done by the opponents of Eutyches, 
 whose language seemed to imply that their substance remained 
 
 ' It has been disputed whether the system of Aquinas really implies 
 that the elements retain the power of nourishment; and therefore whether 
 the elements, considered as objects of sense, can still be said to be pre- 
 sent. For the process by 'which the digestive organs supply the body 
 with nourishment, is one of which the senses can take note. Now Aris- 
 totle, and the Schoolmen after him, taught that food nourishes through 
 the transference of its substance to the party nourished. And Aquinas 
 supposes the substance to be the thing changed. But then Aquinas and 
 his followers maintained, first, that Christ's Body does not nourish our 
 bodies in the Holy Eucharist. [' ' Corpus Christi est cibus mentis, non 
 ventris ; animae non corporis." — Opiisc. lix. 6, and vide Summa, iii. 77. 6. 
 Catechis. Trident., Pars. ii. De. Euch. Sac. 50.] Secondly, that our bodies 
 are nourished by the sensible elements. [Vide Stiarez de Sacram. Disp. 
 Ivii. 3. Cat. Trid. ib. 39.] And for this Aquinas accounted, by saying 
 that after consecration the Bulk [quantitas] took the place of the Sub- 
 stance, or in other words, that when the substance was said to be changed, 
 the term substance was not to be understood in so wide a sense as that 
 in which it was employed by Aristotle. Vide Opusc. lix. 4 ; Summa, iii. 
 77. 6. The Aristotelian philosophy afforded no doubt a convenient, 
 medium for expressing the doctrine of the Sacraments, because, accord- 
 ing to its phraseology, every object might be spoken of as consisting of an 
 external signum, and an inward res signi, the first only being an object 
 to the senses, the second to the mind. The analogy which this system 
 bore to the truths respecting the Sacraments, which had been taught in 
 the early Church, naturally led the Schoolmen to employ it in their ex- 
 planation. They were not bound, however, to adhere rigidly to the 
 Peripatetic system ; and the qualifications introduced by Aquinas show 
 him to have maintained the same doctrine which had been taught by the 
 Roman Council under Gregory VII. long before the Scholastic age. It is 
 thus stated by De Marca : " The substance was supposed to exist as some- 
 thing separate from the bulk of the bread, so that this bulk might exist 
 naturally by itself, without any new miracle, whatever Aristotle may 
 say." — Traite de V Eacliavistie. Works, vol. v, p. 125, 
 
210 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 wholly unaltered. There can be no necessity therefore for 
 admitting this expression of the manner in which Our Lord's 
 Presence is brought about, unless it is commended to us by 
 some later authority, to which we are bound to submit. And 
 therefore, while it is accepted by those who admit the authority 
 of the Council of Trent^ it is not accepted by English Church- 
 men, by whom that Council is not recognized. They withhold 
 their assent from this account of the manner in which Our 
 Lord's Presence is brought about in the Holy Eucharist, and 
 allow nothing but that in which all parties in the ancient 
 Church were accordant. They hold, of course, as our Article 
 declares, and as Aquinas would not have denied, that according 
 to that popular sense of the word substance, which implies it 
 to be an object of the senses of men, the substance of the ele- 
 ments remains unchanged. But in reference to that more 
 Bubtile explanation, which was designed by Aquinas, they simply 
 withhold their judgment, and affirm nothing respecting the 
 Holy Eucharist but that which was affirmed by the whole 
 Church, both in the East and West, during the first seven 
 centuries of its existence. 
 
 For the accordance of antiquity respecting the Real Presence 
 is rendered more striking by its dissonance respecting the man- 
 ner in which the Presence is brought about, and the terms 
 in which it is to be stated. This doctrine is shown not to have 
 been the result of a theory which everywhere suggested the 
 game conclusions, but to have been a practical conviction, rooted 
 in the deep and wide-spread belief of a whole community. In 
 the East and "West, whether men were opposing Nestorius or 
 Eutyches, however they might express themselves respecting 
 the outward elements which were the medium of conveying 
 an inward blessing, there prevailed the same full conviction, 
 that the Body and Blood of Christ were really communicated, 
 under the forms of broad and wine in the Holy Eucharist. 
 There might be a difference, therefore, as to the phrases 
 employed, but there was none as to the foct which they were 
 designed to attest. And how should there be such concert 
 
TO THE REAL PRESENCE. 211 
 
 respecting the thing conveyed, while about the scientific state- 
 ment of the mode of conveying it there was such diversity, 
 except because this was a constituent part of the Church's 
 original deposit ? What can be meant by her authority as the 
 appointed witness to Our Lord's declarations, if the consentient 
 affirmation of undivided Christendom was fundamentally erroneous? 
 
 We may now turn, by way of confirmation, to the two criteria 
 which it was proposed to apply to this subject, and inquire 
 what was the opinion of the various schools which have been 
 described, respecting the reverence due to the consecrated ele- 
 ments, and respecting the invariable connexion between the 
 outward form and the inward gift. These were stated to be 
 indications that the systems of Zuinglius and of Calvin were 
 held to be insufficient, and that the doctrine of the Real Pre- 
 sence was accepted. If we find, then, the same oj)inions and 
 usages to have prevailed among parties who were divergent in 
 their objects and modes of thought, it will be a further proof 
 that their belief was fundamentally identical. 
 
 First — The plainest proof which men can give that they sup- 
 pose Christ to be really pi'esent in the Holy Eucharist, is to 
 render Him Divine honour. So much seems to be allowed 
 both by those who admit the Real Presence and by those who 
 reject it. Luther, as being of the former number, retained the 
 elevation of the Host when he drew up a service for Witten- 
 berg.^ Calvin^ rests his assertion that Our Lord ought not to 
 
 ^ " Elevatur panis et calix, ritu hactenus servato." — Form. Commun. 
 pro Eccles. Witfen. Luther, vol. ii. fol. 38i. Cotta, in his notes on Ger- 
 hard (vol. X. p. 469), says that Luther "retinuit elevatioiiis ritum tan- 
 quam liberum et indifE'erentem, propter infirmos, non adorationis ergo ; 
 abrogavit autem postea eundem, reddiditque abolitionis rationem." But 
 Luther's own words to the Waldenses, A.D. 1523, go much further. " Qui 
 non credit Christum suo corpore et sanguine in sacramento prapsentem 
 esse, ille recte facit, quod neque spiritual iter, neque carnaliter adorat. 
 Qui vero hoc credit, ut credi debere satis superque demonstratum est, ille 
 profecto carni et sanguini Christi venerationem denegare sine peccato 
 nullo modo potest." — Hospinian, vol. ii. 19. And it would seem that 
 the custom of Elevation was in reality done away at the instance of the 
 Landgrave, A.D. 1544, to satisfy the Swiss. — Hospinian, ii. 328. 
 
 - Sic enim semper ratiocinati sumus, si Christus est in pane, esse sub 
 pane adorandum." — Calvin adv. Heshus. Works, viii. 727. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 be worshipped in the Holy Eucharist, on the ground of His 
 absence; and afl&rms distinctly, that if Our Lord were really 
 present there, He ought to be adored. Bishop Andrewes ' 
 employs the same argument : but since he admits the Real 
 Presence he draws a contrary conclusion. " Christus ipse 
 Sacrameuti res, in et cum sacramento ; extra et sine sacramento, 
 ubiubi est, adorandus est." On this principle it was that the 
 posture of kneeling for the reception of the elements was so 
 warmly objected to by the Zuinglo-Calvinistic party. And 
 its retention by the Church of England, in opposition to the 
 repeated demands of the Puritans at home, as well as to the 
 example of foreign Protestants, is a fact of great moment, by 
 which she is allied to the ancient faith. This fact is not neu- 
 ti-alized by the somewhat ambiguous rubric which was affixed 
 to the Communion Office in 1662. For if this rubric be com- 
 pared with that of King Edward's Second Book, from which it 
 was borrowed, it will be seen that the compilers in 1662 omit- 
 ted the distinctive words of Calvin's system. He denied that 
 Our Lord's Body possesses any other than a natural mode of 
 presence, and his common mode of arguing against those who 
 believed the Real Presence, was to attribute to them all the 
 inconveniences which would result from the supposition that 
 Christ's natural Presence was vouchsafed in the consecrated 
 elements. This opinion of his was shared by the advisers of 
 King Edward VI., who, without any sanction from the Church 
 of England, imposed upon her the Prayer-Book of 1552, and 
 the Articles which were published in the same year. They 
 affirmed in one of their articles that, " forasmuch as the truth 
 of man's nature requireth that the body of one and • the self- 
 same man cannot be at one time in 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 
 
 ' Andrewes^ Resp. ad. BcUarminum, viii. p. 266 (Anglo-Cath. Lib.). 
 So Gerh<ard, De Sacra Conna, c.ip. xix. 208. "Quia negat carnem Christi 
 adoranilaiu ? Adoramue earn in sacramento, sed externa sacramenti sym- 
 bola uou aduramus." 
 
TO THE REAL PRESENCE. 213 
 
 because, as Holy Scripture doth teach, Christ was taken up 
 into heaven, .... a faithful man ought not to believe .... the 
 real and bodily presence of Christ's Flesh and Blood in the 
 Sacrament of the Lord's Supper." And at the same time they 
 declared in the Rubric, which they affixed to their Communion 
 Office, " that it is not meant that any adoration is done, or 
 ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and wine 
 there bodily received, or unto any real and essential presence, 
 there being, of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood." This was 
 to assert that Christ's Body possesses no other than that natural 
 mode of presence, which it is allowed that He exercises only in 
 heaven, and to affirm that He ought not to be worshipped in 
 the Holy Eucharist, because He is really absent. 
 
 Now, the characteristic words of the Calvinistic system were 
 omitted, both from the 28th Article, as accepted by the Convo- 
 cation of Canterbury in 1562, and from the B,ubric which was 
 inserted after the Restoration. This Rubric only affirms that 
 Christ's natural Body and Blood are in heaven and not here, 
 and that no adoration is intended "either unto the sacramental 
 bread and wine there bodily received, or unto any corporal pre- 
 sence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood." The Rubric certainly 
 does not go on to state, as it might have done, that though 
 Christ's Body and Blood are not naturally present, except in 
 heaven, yet that their supernatural Presence is bestowed in 
 the Holy Eucharist ; and that though no adoration be due to 
 the bread and wine, or to any such corporal Presence as the 
 senses can take cognizance of, yet that Christ's Body and Blood, 
 really present under the forms of bread and wine, as the inward 
 part or res sacramenti, are entitled to, and receive adoration. 
 Yet since the words which denied these truths have been 
 omitted, while the practice of kneeling for the reception of the 
 elements continues to be enfoi'ced, there is nothing in this 
 Rubric which excludes the ancient belief, that Christ is present 
 in the Holy Eucharist, by reason of the presence of His Body 
 and Blood ; and that the presence of His Body and Blood is 
 witnessed by the adoration to which they are entitled. 
 
214 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 That such was the opinion of the ancient Church is testified 
 by its writers of all schools and sentiments. That it should be 
 found in those who, like St. Cyril and his followers, fixed their 
 attention almost exclusively upon the inward reality, can sur- 
 prise no one. Anastasius Sinaita, in whom this tendency 
 reached its height, speaks of a direct act of elevation, as 
 practised in his day. " Post sacrificii illius incruenti conse- 
 crationem, Pauem vitae in altum elevat, ipsumque omnibus 
 ostendit." ' But St. Cyril directs men " to approach to the 
 Cup of His Blood ; not stretching forth their hands, but 
 bending and saying in the way of worshiji and reverence, 
 Amen." ^ St. Chrysostom also, who in many places accords 
 with the language of St. Cyril, speaks of Christ's Presence 
 in the Holy Eucharist as a " fearful and wondrous sight." 
 " For if we come with faith, we shall assuredly see Him 
 lying in the manger. For this table stands in the place of 
 the manger. And there will lie the Body of the Lord ; 
 not wrapped as then in swaddling clothes, but on every side 
 clothed with the Holy Ghost. The initiated understand what 
 I say." ' And he states in various ways, that Our Lord, as 
 present in the elements, is entitled to the same reverence 
 which was paid Him when He was visibly manifest in the 
 flesh. He speaks of the Energumeni * as introduced into 
 Church to pay bodily reverence to Christ, by " bowing the 
 head" when His Pz-esence is bestowed in the Holy* Eucharist, 
 because they may not join in the Church's woi'ds of prayer. 
 And again he describes them as brought in like prisoners, 
 and placed as criminals would be at the time the judge was 
 going to take his place, " when Christ is about, as it were, 
 to seat Himself on a lofty tribunal, and to appear in the 
 mysteries themselves." '' He speaks of angels as " trembling 
 
 ' De Sacra Synaxi. Bib. Pat. Max. ix. 945. 
 
 2 Fifth Myst. Cat. 22. 
 
 ' Horn, de B. Philogon. iii. vol. i. p. 498. 
 
 * Horn, de Incomprehens. Dei Nat. iii. 7, vol. i. p. 470. 
 
 * Horn, de Incomprehena. Dei Nat. iv. 4. Bingham objects that the 
 reverence thus paid would be to the elements before they were conse- 
 
TO THE REAL PRESENCE. 215 
 
 at the Church's sacrifice," and as " ministering at that table." * 
 And he describes them as seen in a vision standing round 
 the altar, with eyes fixed on the ground, like soldiers before 
 their king. ^ 
 
 But it is not only in St. Chrysostom and St. Cyril, but 
 among the opponents of the Eutychians, who in expression 
 were most removed from that which has been called the 
 Eastern School, that we find direct statements that Our 
 Lord's Body as present in the Holy Eucharist, is a fit object 
 of worship. " The mystical symbols," says Theodoret, " are 
 thought of as that which they have become, and are believed 
 to be so, and are worshipped, as being those things which 
 they are believed to be." ^ Theodoret speaks as though the 
 elements themselves might partake of that worship which is 
 due to the "res sacramenti" which they contain. But this 
 cannot have been his intention. He speaks of the sacrament 
 at large as an object of worship, because Our Lord is con- 
 tained in it, just as St. Matthew tells us that St. John saw 
 the Holy Ghost descending, when he saw the dove which ac- 
 companied the Divine approach. This is explained by St. 
 Augustin, who tells us that " the symbols of divine things are 
 visible, but it is the invisible things themselves which are 
 honoured in them." * And the same thing is obvious from 
 the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, where, after the consecrated 
 elements have been the object of various acts of reverence, the 
 
 crated. For the Energumeni were ordered by the Apo8. Cons. viii. 7, 
 to go out before Consecration. But there are two passages in S. Chrysos- 
 tom. When he speaks (p. 477) of the Energumeni as taking their place 
 like criminals when the judge is about to mount the tribunal, because 
 Christ is about to appear in the mysteries, he expresses the reverence 
 which is due even to the anticipated mystery : but at p. 470, he speaks 
 of their postures of reverence at the moment of the sacrifice itself. And 
 the entire exclusion of the Energumeni was not the universal rule, as is 
 shown by Concil. Araus. i. Canon 14, Concil. Arelat. ii. Canon 39, Cassian 
 Collat. vii. 30. S. Chrysostom's words are founded obviously on this last 
 custom. The Apost. Constit. also introduce a second prayer for the Ener- 
 gumeni after the Oblation, viii. 12. 
 
 ' Hom. iii. in Ep. ad Ephes. iv. 4, 5. ^ De Sacerdotio, vi. 4. 
 
 ^ Dialogus Secund. * De Catechis. Rud. sec. 50. 
 
216 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 Priest says, " look clown, Lord, from heaven upon those who 
 have bowed tlieir heads unto Thee, for they have not bowed 
 them to flesh and blood, but to Thee the fearful God." ^ It 
 is the " res sacramenti " alone, that is, which is a proper object 
 of worship, and even this not by reason of Christ's Manhood, 
 but by reason of thaf Godhead with which it is personally 
 united. " I fear to touch charcoal," says Damascene, " on 
 account of the fire, which is joined to the wood. In like 
 manner I adore both natures in Christ, on account of the God- 
 head which is joined to the Flesh." "^ 
 
 This is more exactly explained if we look to another school 
 of writers — those who opposed Nestorius. For, as Leontius 
 expresses it, when writing against the Nestorians, who denied 
 that God the Word and the Man Christ Jesus were personally 
 united ; " if men hold this opinion, whose Body and Blood do 
 they suppose that they partake in the Communion ? Is it His 
 who has conferred a gift" {i.e. God the Word), "or His who 
 has received one" (i.e. the Man Christ)? "If they say that 
 they partake the Body of God the Word who confers the gift, 
 how can they make this good, since they do not confess Him to 
 be incarnate ? But if they say they partake Him, who receives 
 the gift, their hope is vain ; since they profess themselves to be 
 man-worshippers. For cursed are they who put their trust in 
 man, who worship and serve the creature more than the 
 Creator." ' Here it is obvious that the worship which was 
 due to Christ's Body, and which especially connected itself 
 with His Presence in the Holy Eucharist, was due to Him 
 indeed as Man, but not by reason of His Manhood. 
 
 We have seen that expressions indicative that Christ was 
 present as an object of worship in the Holy Eucharist, were 
 used by writers of the School of St. Cyril in the East, as 
 well as by the opponents of Nestorius and of Eutyches. They 
 
 ' Goar, p. 81. 
 
 * K. J oh. Damasc. de Fide Orthod. iii. 8, p. 216. Vide also Rusticue 
 cont. Acephalos. Bib. Pat. x. p. 373. 
 
 ^ Leontius cont. Nestor, et Eutych. iii. Bib. Tat. ix. 704. 
 
TO THE REAL PRESENCE. 217 
 
 occur with no less distinctness in the two leaders of the 
 Western School, St. Ambrose and St. Augustin. Both refer 
 to the same passage, " earth is My footstool ; " which they in- 
 terpret of the Humanity of Our Lord. " By the footstool," 
 says St. Ambrose, " is understood earth, but by earth the Flesh 
 of Christ, which even at this day we adore in the mysteries, 
 and which the Apostles adored in Our Lord Jesus Christ : 
 for Christ is not divided, but one ; nor when He is adored as 
 the Son of God, is He denied as born of the Virgin." ^ In 
 like manner, St. Augustin : Christ " walked on earth in His 
 Flesh, and gave His Flesh itself to us to be eaten for our 
 salvation ; but no one eats that Flesh who has not first wor- 
 shipped." ^ And he says that the wicked come to Christ's 
 Table and worship,^ though they are not profited by the gift 
 of His Body. It only remains to observe further, that the 
 same view of things is sanctioned also by the language of the 
 ante-Nicene age. The Apostolical Constitutions, which appa- 
 rently express the usages of the period when the Church was 
 not yet established, order the Deacons to " minister to the Body 
 of the Lord with fear ; " and the people to " receive the Body 
 of the Lord, and His precious Blood, in an orderly manner, 
 with fear and reverence, as if they. approached the Body of the 
 King." * And Origen, who expresses what he calls " the common 
 apprehension of simple people," ^ as well as his own spiritualizing 
 conception, reminds his readers how persons were accustomed to 
 take part in " the divine mysteries." " You know, when you 
 receive the Lord's Body, that you preserve it with all caution 
 and reverence, lest the least portion of it should fall ; lest any 
 • of the consecrated gift should be lost. For you think yourself 
 guilty, and think so rightly, if any of it falls through 
 
 ' De Spiritu Sancto, iii. 11. 79. 
 
 ^ "Nemo autem illam camem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit." " Non 
 solum non peccemus adorando, sed peccemus non adorando." — In Psalm. 
 xcviii. sec. 9. 
 
 3 Epist. cxl. sec. 66. ■• Lib. ii. 57. 
 
 ^ In Joan. Tom. xxxii. 16, vol. iv. p. 444. 
 
218 TESTIMONY OF ANTIQUITY 
 
 your negligence." ^ And Tertullian '^ witnesses to the same 
 feeling. 
 
 Secondly — Thus early did those habits prevail to which later 
 writers gave more exact expression, by which the presence of 
 Our Lord's Body in the Holy Eucharist was clearly recognized. 
 For the reverence which was shown to the inward part, or res 
 sacramenii, in this ordinance, is not referrible to any express 
 command : ^ it was the instinctive expression of those feelings, 
 which the Christian mind naturally entertained upon the reve- 
 lation of its Lord's Presence. It witnesses, therefore, to the 
 nature of that union which was understood to take place 
 between the outward part and the inward part in the Holy 
 Eucharist. No less significant is the fact, that the Body and 
 Blood of Christ were believed to be orally received even by 
 unworthy communicants. This likewise will be found to have 
 been the opinion of all those ancient schools, which have been 
 described. It was the opinion of St. Cyprian, who speaks to 
 the lapsed of the evil which they incurred by receiving the 
 Lord's Body unworthily. It is " the Lord's Body," he says? 
 " which they attack : " " they do violence to the Body and 
 Blood of the Lord." * And his cox'respondent, Firmilian, speaks 
 of the greatness of the crime committed, when men who are 
 rashly admitted to communion are allowed, in spite of the 
 Apostle's warning, to " touch the Body and Blood of the 
 Lord." ^ To such persons Origen says, " you do not fear to 
 approach to the Eucharist, and to partake of the Body of Christ, 
 as if you were pure and clean." " " Tyi-ants," says St. Atha- 
 
 ' In Exodurn. Horn. xiii. 3, vol. ii. p. 176. - De Corona, 3. 
 
 •'' The practice of reservation, and the worship due to Christ, as present 
 " under the form of bread and wine," were not part of Our Lord's original 
 appointment (as the '28th article observes), but were deductions from the 
 truths revealed respecting this sacrament, into which the Church was 
 guided by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 * l)e Lapsix, p. 173. And again, "Quod non statim Domini corpus in- 
 (juinatis mauibus accipiat, aut ore polluto Domini sanguinem bibat, sacer- 
 dotibus sacrilegus iraseitur." — Ibidem, p. 175. S. Pacian speaks of such 
 a person as "l3ominici Corporis violator." — Parcen. ad Pcenit. Bib. Pat. 
 iv. 316. 
 
 ^ S. Cypr. Ep. Ixxv. 21. ^ In Psalmos. Horn. ii. 6, vol. ii. p. 688. 
 
TO THE EEAL PRESENCE. 219 
 
 nasius, " seek after the royal purple : but its guardians, sus- 
 pecting danger, do not grant it. Do you see, Deacon, that 
 you do not give the purple of the spotless Body to the un- 
 worthy." ^ So St. Chrysostom : " how shalt thou present thyself 
 before the Judgment-seat of Christ, thou who presumest upon 
 His Body with polluted hands and lips." ^ And again, " I will 
 rather lose my life than give Our Lord's Blood to the unwor- 
 thy." ^ So does Victor of Antioch speak of it as a punishment 
 for the impiety of Judas, that Satan was not repelled by " the 
 Body of Christ, which he had received,"* Theodoret tells us 
 that " Christ did not give His Body and Blood to His eleven 
 Apostles only, but to him also who had betrayed Him." ^ And 
 St. Cyi'il of Alexandria says that " Christ comes and appears to 
 all of us, both invisibly and visibly ; invisibly indeed as God, 
 but visibly by His Body, For He permits and allows us to 
 touch His sacred Flesh. For by the favour of God we approach 
 to the participation of the mystic Eucharist, receiving Christ in 
 our hands." ^ 
 
 Here, then, are authorities in proof of our position, from four 
 out of the five schools, the existence of which has been traced. 
 And not less decisive are the assertions of St. Augustin, some of 
 whose words have been already cited in the present chapter. 
 Thus when he observes that some who receive Christ's Body and 
 Blood do not abide in Him, he expresses himself as follows : 
 " Those many persons who either eat that Flesh or drink that 
 Blood with a false heart, or when they have eaten and drunk 
 become apostates — do they abide in Christ or Christ in them ? " '' 
 And again : " The Body of the Lord and the Blood of the Lord 
 were not the less received even by those to whom the Apostle 
 said. He that eateth unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation 
 
 ^ Montfaucon's Coll. Nov. vol. ii. p. 35. 
 
 ^ Horn. iii. 4, ad Eplies. 
 
 3 In Matth. Horn. 82. 6, vol. vii. p. 790. 
 
 •• Bib. Pat. iv. 407. 
 
 ^ In Epis. i. ad Corin. cap. xi. 
 
 ^ In Joan. xii. vol, iv. p. 1104. 
 
 ^ Sermo Ixxi. 17. Vide also Sermo cclxvi. 7. 
 
220 CHRIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 to himself." ' And of tlie rich he says, " they are brought to 
 tlie table of Christ, and receive of His Body and Blood, but 
 they only worship, they are not refreshed, because they do not 
 imitate."^ 
 
 And now, then, we are in a condition to affirm, that the 
 language of the ancient Church was not only incompatible with 
 the theories of Zuinglius and Calvin, but that we can trace its 
 accordance in a different doctrine. It has been seen how the 
 verbal discrej ancies of its various schools illustrate their sub- 
 stantial consent. It has been shown what was the opinion in 
 all of them respecting the reverence due to Our Lord's Body 
 and Blood, as present under the form of the consecrated elements. 
 Again, they all believed the outward form to be uniformly 
 accompanied by the inward reality. So that they not only 
 negative the idea that Christ's Presence in the Holy Eucharist 
 is merely Symbolical or Virtual, but they may be adduced as 
 witnesses to the truth of the Real Presence. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST S EEAI. PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 "WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 It was shown in the first six chapters, by reference to the 
 words of Institution, that the Being whose Presence is especi- 
 ally bestowed in the Holy Eucharist, is Our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 And this statement has been confirmed in the three last chap- 
 
 ' De Baptismo c. Don. v. 9. Cont. Litt. Petilian. ii. 47, p. 253. 
 
 ^ Ep. cxl. sec. 66. Cont. Crescon. i. 25, p. 404. " Pollnimus panem, 
 i.e. Corpus Christi, quando indiirni aceedimus ad altare." — iS. Jerome on 
 Malac.hi i. 7, vol. iii. p. iSll. Vide also S. Leo, Sermo xli. 5, De Quad. 
 and Hi. 3. 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 221 
 
 ters, by the testimony both of Scripture and Antiquity. But 
 an objection may be made to this system, which it is the more 
 necessary to meet, because it may be entertained by earnest and 
 devout persons. It may be thought that to represent Our Lord 
 as communicating those blessings which this sacrament conveys, 
 through the gift of His Humanity, is an interference with the 
 office of the Holy Ghost, as the sanctifier of Christians. This 
 objection will be considered in the present chapter ; and it will 
 be shown that the Sacramental system, and the efficacy attri- 
 buted to Our Lord's Humanity, do not trench upon the office of 
 God the Holy Ghost " as the Lord and Giver of life." 
 
 The objection referred to assumes a singular form in John- 
 son's learned work on the Unbloody Sacrifice. He admits the 
 existence of a res sacramenii, but instead of supposing it to be 
 that Body of Christ which was born of the Virgin, and which 
 suffered on the Cross, he imagines that a new Body is fonned 
 for Our Lord out of bread and wine by the power of the Holy 
 Ghost. So that, as Waterland expresses it, he does not believe 
 that " the elements " are " in any just sense Our Lord's Body," 
 but " a kind of impanation of the Sj)irit." ^ And this he thinks 
 a sufficient account of the gift bestowed in the Holy Eucharist, 
 because this " Sacramental Body and Blood are made as power- 
 ful and effectual for the ends of religion, as the Natural Body 
 Itself could be, if It was present." ^ 
 
 Johnson cannot have perceived how subversive is this notion 
 of the whole economy of the Gospel. For it cuts off the rela- 
 tion of the Holy Eucharist to the Incarnation of Christ ; and 
 transfers from the Mediator a part of that work which has been 
 performed through the taking our flesh. Now nothing can be 
 more certain than that it is God the Son alone who became 
 
 ' Doctrine of the Eucharist, cap. vii. Johnson's idea has an obvious 
 relation to that which was shown {supra, cap. ix. p. 196) to be character- 
 istic of the school of S. Cyril and S. John Damascene : and it may have 
 resulted therefore from his wish to symbolize with the Eastern, rather 
 than with the Western Church. 
 
 - Unbloody Sacrifice, vol. i. pp. 266 and 272. Vol. ii. Pref. 4, 5. Anglo- 
 Cath. Lib. 
 
222 CHRIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 Incaniato, and not God the Father, or God the Holy Ghost. 
 But without entering further upon the theory of Johnson, I 
 shall proceed to show that Our Lord's Presence in the Holy 
 Eucharist in no respect derogates from the office of the Holy 
 Ghost. This shall he shown, first, by that which is revealed 
 to us in Scripture respecting the relation of these blessed Per- 
 sons to one another; and secondly, by the testimony of the 
 Church. 
 
 I. Now, on what does this notion depend? It assumes that 
 it has belonged to God the Holy Ghost to direct and execute all 
 the purjwses of the Divine mercy since the day of Pentecost, 
 while before Our Lord's Ascension the like function belonged 
 to God the Son : and further, that the functions of these two 
 Divine Persons in some way interfere with one another, so that 
 whatsoever is done by the one cannot also be done by the other. 
 Their action is supposed to be successive, and not coincident. It 
 would seem to be believed that to attribute results to one which 
 are acknowledged to be effected by the other, is to derogate in 
 some way from the truth of their personal distinctness. But if 
 this be so, their personal distinctness must be determined by 
 their external actions. So that their relations towards mankind 
 must be the circumstance whereby the Three Persons in the 
 Blessed Trinity are discriminated from one another. From 
 which it would follow, that if man and the external world had 
 never been called into existence, the distinction between the 
 Three Blessed Persons had never been. Now this is exactly the 
 heresy of Sabellius. 
 
 "We may not seek tlie distinction, then, between the Three 
 Blessed Persons, in anything less enduring than themselves. 
 Since nothing is co-eval with Godhead, in Godhead itself must 
 lie the conditions which determine its own nature. The relation 
 of the Three Persons towards one another must supply the prin- 
 ciple of their discrimination. Tliat which is characteristic of 
 the Father, is to be the self-originating source of Godhead. The 
 Word is the Only-begotten Son of the Father. The Holy Ghost 
 proceeds from the Father and the Son. These are the condi- 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 223 
 
 tions whicli discriminate the Blessed Persons from one another, 
 and nothing which does not derogate from these conditions, has 
 any tendency to interfere with their distinctness. For it must 
 be remembered, as St. Augustin says, that " the Holy Ghost 
 does not alone in the Trinity claim the attribute of being a 
 Spirit, or being Holy, since the Father is a Spirit, and the Son 
 a Spirit; the Father is Holy, and the Son Holy."^ So that it 
 is an admitted rule, that whatsoever things the Deity does 
 externally towards created objects, are done by the Three Per- 
 sons in common, and not by one more than another, or by one 
 without another. The act of Incarnation itself, though it was 
 God the Son alone who became man. is yet spoken of as effected 
 by the whole Trinity. ^ 
 
 From these considerations it follows, that we have no reason 
 for excluding the action of one Person in the Blessed Godhead, 
 because another Person is revealed to us as having taken part 
 in the same work, unless there be something in the act, which 
 interferes with those primary relations to one another, which 
 constitute the law of their adorable nature. Thus the Father* 
 could not be said to proceed from the Son or the Holy Ghost ; 
 nor yet the Holy Ghost to be Father * to the Word ; inasmuch 
 as even that mission to the world of Creation, whereby these 
 Blessed Persons exercise their functions of mercy towai'ds man- 
 kind, has a just reference to those original relations out of which 
 it springs, and is the temporal effect of eternal realities. But 
 these eternal relations supply the only principle, whereby we 
 can limit those temporal relations in the world of time, through 
 which they are made known to us. 
 
 1 De Trinitate, xv. 37. 
 
 ^ " Incamationem Verbi Trinitas fecit ; et tamen non pertinet Incar- 
 natio nisi ad Verbum." — De Triii. Tract. 9, Append, to S. Ambrose, vol. 
 ii. p. 326. Vide S. Augus. Sermo Ixxi. 26, 27. Petavius de Trinitate, 
 viii. 1, 13 ; and de Incarnatione, ii. 4. 2. 
 
 ^ "Pater nusquam dicitur missus." — S. Augus. de Trinit. ii. 8. Vide 
 Petayius de Trinitate, viii. 1, 14. 
 
 * " De Spiritu Sancto natus est Filiua Dei Patris, non Spiritus Sancti." 
 — S. Augus. Enchiridion, cap. 39. Vide Eleventh Council of Toledo. 
 Mard. iii. 1022. 
 
224 CHRIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 It is the more necessary to bear this principle in mind, 
 because it has been made an objection, as well to the teaching 
 of Holy Scripture, as to the language of the Church, that names 
 and offices, which at times are distinctive of one Person in the 
 Blessed Trinity, are elsewhere applied to Godhead at large, 
 or to each Person^ indiscriminately. Thus it has been argued 
 by the German Neologists, that the very same office, which 
 in the three first Gospels (the Syuopticers, as they term them) 
 is assigned to the Spirit, is attributed in St. John's Gospel to 
 the Logos. In the former they say Christ is represented as a 
 man actuated by the Spirit ; while St. John introduces a new 
 idea, and attributes the same functions to the Word. So far 
 as there is any justice in the remark, its cause is not only that 
 truths, which are stated in more general terms in earlier books 
 of Scripture, are more explicitly revealed in later, but also that 
 the action of God the Word by no means excludes the agency 
 of God the Holy .Ghost. This might be gathered from St. 
 Matthew, as well as from St. John : the former states Our 
 Lord's declaration that all power was given unto Him in Hea- 
 ven and in earth, and recoids the threefold I'orm of Bajitism ; 
 while the latter relates the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Our 
 Lord at His Baptism. 
 
 The very same difficulty, again, which has been supposed 
 to attach to the statements of Holy Scripture, may be raised 
 in regard to the teaching of the Primitive Church. " No one 
 who is acquainted with the writings of the earlier Fathers, 
 can deny that the words 'Spirit,' or 'Holy Spirit,' were not 
 used by them as a name peculiar to one Person, but were 
 supposed to be common to the whole Godhead, and were attri- 
 buted indifferently to the Father, the Sou, and the Holy 
 Ghost," "^ This uncertainty of expression continued till the 
 language of theology received that more exact shape, which 
 
 ' This is observed as respects the Son and the Holy Ghost, by S. Cyril 
 on St. John vi. 64, vol. iv. p. 377. 
 
 - Benedictine Preface to S. Hilary, where various instances are cited 
 iu support of the statement here made ; sec. 62. 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 225 
 
 was given to it by the great Divines of the fourth century. 
 But if the offices of these Divine Persons had been wholly 
 distinct, there would have been nothing to lead to such am- 
 biguity. When the growth of heresy made it necessary to 
 introduce more rigorous precision, it was observed that the 
 temporal Mission of God the Word and of God the Holy Ghost, 
 arose oat of the principles of their external existence ; that 
 their nature was fixed by their relations to the eternal Father, 
 and to one another, (the only relations which were co-eval 
 with themselves) ; and therefore that the true test by which 
 their operations were to be discriminated, must be found in 
 themselves. Hence arose the statement that the Holy Ghost 
 proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father — a statement 
 which, though not denied by earlier writers, yet had never 
 received that full and elaborate treatment which led to its 
 insertion as an Article of the Creed, till it came into discussion 
 in St. Augustin's great work on the Trinity. It fully accords 
 indeed with the language of all earlier writers both in the 
 East and West, for all speak of God the Holy Ghost as sent 
 by the Son, and recognize His actings in the woi'ld of time 
 as growing out of His eternal relations : but in this, as in 
 every other particular, there was a lack of that dogmatic pre- 
 cision which was found to be necessary, when " by reason of 
 use " the Church had her senses exercised to discern good and 
 evil. From St. Augustin's time this truth was never disputed 
 by any Western writers, and it was admitted by the most 
 distinguished divine ^ who succeeded him in the East. It 
 
 ^ Whatever may be said of the other Greek Divines who preceded the 
 Great Schism, I think it clear that S. Cyril held the Double Procession. 
 His declaration that "the Spirit is from the Substance of the Father and 
 the Son," coupled with the passage immediately following, that the Holy 
 Ghost "proceeds from the Father and the Son " [in the 34th Book of his 
 Thesaurus, p. 345] ; and again, the statement that the "Spirit is God," 
 "because He is of the Substance of the Son" [J(L p. 346], are surely de- 
 cisive. For that the Holy Ghost proceeds /ro?)i the Substance of the Son, 
 is all which is required by the advocates of the Double Procession. 
 Numerous other passages from S. Cyril's works are collected by Petavius 
 de Trinitate, vii. 3, 6 — 11. The other divines, whose language was less 
 distinct, may have designed merely to deny the heretical assertion that 
 
226 CHKIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 seems to have been put upon its right basis by the council 
 
 of Toledo, when it was affirmed to be essential to the full 
 
 the Holy Ghost waa a creation of the Son ; and this they supposed was 
 to be best done by representing Him as the natural efflux of Deity, that 
 is, as proceeding from the Father. This was by no means equivalent to 
 the assertion that He does not proceed from the Son also — as being one 
 jirinciple and of one substance with the Father. Indeed, as the Son was 
 supposed to inherit all the Father's attributes, except self-e.xistence. He 
 must have inherited that of being the Source whence the Holy Ghost 
 proceeded. But the same argument is not applicable to the Holy Ghost, 
 because as the Son is antecedent (in the order of relations), the Holy 
 Ghost inherits only those attributes of Godhead, besides self-existence, 
 which are compatible with the relations of the Father to the Son. " The 
 Holy Ghost has this characteristic sign of His hypostatic individuality, 
 that He is taken note of after the Son, and with the Son, and that He 
 has His existence from the Father." S. Basil, Ep. 38, sec. 4, vol. iii. 
 p. 117. So that the Holy Ghost cannot be the source of the Son, as the 
 Son is the source of the Holy Ghost. The statements of the early Greek 
 writers that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father throii'jli the Sou, 
 are virtually equivalent to the more exact expressions introduced by 
 S. Augustin. And it must be observed that no primitive \vriter of ap- 
 proved reputation has written against the Double Procession, while 
 S. Augustin, whose authority was universally admitted both in the East 
 and West, has avowedly written in its favour. [Theodoret is no excep- 
 tion, because his objections to S. Cyril's Anathemas were %\Tittsn under 
 the idea that S. Cyi-il had adopted the Arian hypothesis, and moreover 
 they were not approved even by the Eastern Church.] Indeed, S. Augus- 
 tin's statements are so decisive, that Mr. Neale, who has evidently 
 written on this subject with a bias in favour of the Eastern Church, 
 can find nothing to say against them, but that they maij be spurious. 
 But of this there is no proof: the Benedictine Edition of the J)e Trinitaie 
 is founded on a c dlation of above sixty manuscripts ; and the passages 
 objected to by Mr. Neale are found in all of them. Several early manu- 
 scripts of the Be Trinitntr, exhibiting tlie common text, are preserved at 
 Oxf ird, and an Uncial manuscript (No 1556), in the Bodleian, would be 
 sufficient in itself to decide the question. Its date in the seventh or 
 eighth century (a hundred years probably before the time of Photius), 
 proves that it could not have been falsified to meet his statements ; and 
 the slightest inspection shows that the passages in question have not been 
 tampered witli. Moreover, the statements of S. Augustin are so inter- 
 twined with the whole thread of his reasoning, that it would be impossi- 
 ble to dissever them, llie same may be said of S. Augustin's imitator, 
 S. Fulgentius, in whom the statement of the Double Procession recurs 
 constantly. [Vide IW,. Pat. vol. ix. pp. 31', 40, lb3, 190, 193, 289, 295.] 
 Dots not this whole controversy respecting the Double Procession arise 
 from the immethodical manner in wliich the writers of the first three 
 centuries spoke of the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity; and might 
 not objections of the same sort be made to His Godhead, His Personality, 
 and to the propriety of making Him the object of prayer ? 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 227 
 
 discrimination of those Blessed Persons, the law of whose 
 existence must be found within themselves. " The Holy Ghost 
 is neither the Father nor the Son, because He proceeds from 
 the Father and the Son." ^ And thus does it confirm that 
 principle which had been laid down at an earlier period, that 
 the names and offices of the Persons in the Blessed Trinity 
 are dependent upon their relations towards one another. ^ 
 
 We may conclude, then, with certainty, that there is no 
 reason for excluding the operation of God the Word from 
 the Holy Eucharist, because the consecration of the sacred 
 Elements is attributed to God the Holy Ghost, unless there 
 be something in the relations of these Blessed Persons towards 
 one another, by which their co-operation in this action is 
 rendered inadmissible. But so far is this from being the 
 case, that their relations towards one another would lead us 
 to expect the exact contrary : they render it antecedently 
 probable that God the Son and God the Holy Ghost would 
 co-operate in any great work of mercy ; and more especially 
 in that ordinance which has been appointed as the means of 
 giving effect to the Incarnation, by building up the mystical 
 Body of Christ. 
 
 That these Divine Persons co-operate in all works of mercy, 
 is apparent from the benediction of the Apostle ; " The grace 
 of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion 
 of the Holy Ghost be with you all." Hereby we learn how all 
 Three Persons in the Blessed Godhead take part in the salva- 
 tion of mankind. But this is more esjaecially the case in the 
 Holy Eucharist, wherein that gift, which is bestowed by the 
 mercy of the Father, is conveyed to us through the unbounded 
 goodness of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. For the revealed 
 law, according to which these adorable Persons are declared to 
 
 ^ Witassius de Trinitate, Quaes, ix. Art. iii. cap. iii. as explanatory of 
 the Creed of the Eleventh Council of Toledo. 
 
 ^ " TO . . , TTJs trpos aWr]\a (XXfCfois Siacpopov, Sid(popov avru/v Kal rtjv 
 K\rjariv TreTTOiTjKe." — j8'. Greg. Nazian. Oratio 37, vol. i. p. 597. (Paris, 
 1630.) Vide also S. Gregory Nyssen. lib. i. contra Eunom. and Epistola 
 ad Ablavium. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 CHRIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 exist, tends directly to their co-operation in this work. The 
 characteristic of the second Person in the Blessed Trinity is to 
 exist according to that law of Sonship whereby He is a repre- 
 sentative of the Eternal Father — " the express image of His 
 Person." And since the Source of all things is an Eternal 
 Mind, and since mind images itself in its thoughts, therefore 
 He, who is ever with God, is called His Word, or wisdom. ^ 
 "Whosoever," says St. Augustin, "can conceive of a word 
 not only before it is uttered, but even before the sounds which 
 express it receive a being in our thoughts, he may see a sort 
 of lilieness of that AVord of which it was said, ' in the beginning 
 was the Word.' " "^ Again, the characteristic of the Holy Ghost, 
 is to proceed from the Father and the Son. In Him we have 
 no law of Sonship, no representation of that from which He 
 originates, but He is the Eternal Sijirit, who is common to 
 those Divine Persons who are bound together by that un- 
 utterable oneness, which unites the Father and the Only- 
 Begotten Son. " The Holy Ghost, according to the sacred 
 Scriptures, is not the Siairit of the Father alone, nor of the 
 Son alone, but of both ; and therefore He suggests to us that 
 common Love, wherewith the Father and the Son mutually 
 love one another." ' 
 
 Of these two Divine Persons, then, it M'as God the Son, " by 
 whom " * the worlds were made. By that j^ower which flowed 
 into Him from the source of all by necessary derivation, did He 
 produce those effects of which, in another sense, the whole 
 Blessed Trinity may be said to be the cause. And since by 
 i-easou of His Sonship He was Himself the image and effulgence 
 of His Eternal Father, therefore man, whom He created in His 
 own image, was created " in the image of God." And hence did 
 the Primitive Church discern a wonderful example of the 
 wisdom as well as the love of God, in that merciful economy 
 whereby He who created man was pleased to redeem him. 
 " It seemeth a thing unconsonant," says Hooker, " that the 
 
 ' St. John i. 1. Proverbs viii. 30. - De Trin. xv. 19. 
 
 ^ S. Aug. de Trin. xv. 27. '' Hebrews i. 2. 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 229 
 
 world should honour any other as the Saviour but Him whom 
 it honoureth as the Creator of the world." ^ " Now what 
 is that image of God," says Origen, " in whose likeness man 
 
 was made, except our Saviour ? In His likeness man was 
 
 created, and therefore our Saviour, who is the image of God, 
 moved with compassion for man's state, when He saw him 
 strij)ped of that likeness, and clothed with the likeness of 
 the Fiend, took man's form and came to him." ^ Thus did 
 the Everlasting Son enter into the world of time, and He 
 who was the Father's representative by Eternal Generation, 
 became His repi^esentative also by temporal birth. For He 
 " is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every 
 creature." " For it was fitting," says St. Ambrose, " that 
 He should ransom who created us." ^ " God sent His Son, 
 that He who was the Creator of the world should be also 
 its Redeemer." * Thus, because Christ made man, was He 
 pleased to remake him ; and that He might remake him 
 did He Himself become Incarnate ; and because He took 
 our nature in the Virgin's womb, it is He who communicates 
 Himself in the Holy Eucharist to His earthly brethren. For 
 this Sacrament is built upon the truth of Our Lord's Incar- 
 nation, and is the medium whereby that gift, which was 
 bestowed therein upon the body at large, is distributed to 
 its individual members. Such is the statement of Holy Scrip- 
 ture, as exjDlained by the concurrent testimony of antiquity. 
 " I am the living bread which came down from heaven ; if 
 any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever: and the 
 bread which I will give is My Flesh, which I will give for 
 the life of the world." The ultimate principle of life is Deity 
 alone, by which the spiritual inhabitants of heaven are per- 
 petually replenished. But God became Flesh that "man" 
 might " eat angels' food," and that the children of earth might 
 
 » Eccl. Polity, V. 51. 3. 
 
 ^ Homil. i. in Genesim, vol. ii. p. 57. (Delarue.) ^ De Fide. 
 
 * S. Aug. in Petavius de Incam. ii. 15. 3 ; vide also S. Athan. contra 
 ApoUin. ii. 10. 
 
230 CHRIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 be enabled to participate with the children of heaven. " I am 
 that bread of life." " For man," says St. Augustin, " does not 
 live on one food and angels on another. He Himself is the 
 truth, the wisdom, the virtue of God. But angels partake of 
 it as you cannot do. For how do angels partake of it? As 
 that statement teaches, 'in the beginning was the Word, and 
 the Word was with God, and the Word was God,' by which 
 all things were made. But how do you come in contact with 
 it? Because 'the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us.' 
 For, that man might eat the bread of angels, the Creator of 
 angels was made man." ' 
 
 To connect the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist with the fact 
 of the Incarnation, was the universal practice of the ancient 
 Church. We see it as early as St. Ignatius and Justin Mai-tyr, 
 in the age which directly followed the Apostles. St. Ignatius 
 complains that the Docetse " kept aloof from the Holy Eucha- 
 rist, because they would not confess the Eucharist to be the 
 Flesh of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suifered for our 
 sins." ^ Justin Martyr '' founds the belief that the food which 
 we receive in the Holy Eucharist is " not common bread and 
 common drink," but " the Flesh and Blood of the Incarnate 
 Jesus," on the fact that He "has taken Flesh and Blood for 
 our salvation." To pass to a later, but a high authority, 
 St. Cyril says, in the celebrated letter which introduced his 
 ;)iiathemas, and which was sanctioned by the Council of 
 Ephesus : " We approach the Holy Eucharist and are sancti- 
 fied, by becoming partakers of the sacred Flesh, and the 
 precious Blood of Christ, our common Saviour. Now we do 
 this, not as though we received common flesh, God forbid. 
 Nor yet as though that which we received belonged to a man 
 who was sanctified, and who came in contact with the AVord 
 by oneness of excellence, or who received the Word as a divine 
 
 ' S. August, in Ps. cxxxiv. sec. 5. 
 
 - Ad SuiymiKos, vi. The relation between the Incarnation and the 
 Holy Eucharist is strikinj^ly drawn out by S. John Danias. — De Fide 
 Urthixl. iv. 13, vol. i. pp. 267, 2(38. ^ Apol. i. sec. 66. 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 231 
 
 indweller. But we receive it as truly life-giving, and as per- 
 taining properly to the "Word Himself. For as God He was 
 naturally the principle of life, and since He has become one 
 with His own Flesh, He has rendered it also life-giving." * 
 
 Whether we regard, then, the revealed law of His nature, or 
 the scriptural record of His acts, we see reason for supposing 
 that the immediate oj)eration of the Incarnate Son cannot be 
 excluded from the Holy Eucharist. But the very same process 
 of inquiry shows that this sacrament depends likewise upon the 
 operation of God the Holy Ghost. So much may be deduced 
 both from His acts and from His nature. The characteristic 
 law of His nature has been stated to be, that He jproceeds and 
 
 ' Harduin, i. 1289. This truth is expressed in a very striking manner 
 by Calvin, Institutes, iv. xvii. 7, 8, 9. "I interpret," he says, "as S. Cyril 
 does, the words of Christ, 'as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath 
 He given to the Son to have life in Himself.' In this passage Our Lord 
 does not speak so much of those gifts v^rhieh He had from the beginning 
 with the Father, as of those with which He was endowed in that Flesh 
 in which He appeared : He showed therefore that the fulness of life dwelt 
 in His Humanity also, so that whosoever should communicate in His 
 Flesh and Blood, would at the same time enjoy the participation of life. 
 This may be illustrated by a familiar example. A fountain may supply 
 water to those who drink, or those who draw, or those who would irrigate 
 their fields ; but it is not from itself that it derives such exuberance as 
 may answer their several wants, but because the spring is furnishing a 
 perpetual stream whereby it is ever replenished. In like manner Christ's 
 Flesh is as it were a wealthy and exhaustless fountain, whereby that life 
 which dwells in Deity as its source is transfused into us. Who does not 
 see, then, that the communion of the Flesh and Blood of Christ is neces- 
 sary to all who aspire to the heavenly life ? To this refer those dicta of 
 the Apostle, that the Church is ' Christ's Body,' ' the fulness of Him that 
 filleth all in all ; ' that ' He is the Head from whom the whole body by 
 joints and bands maketh increase, having nourisliment ministered ;' that 
 our bodies are the ' members of Christ.' Now all these cannot take effect 
 unless He is wholly united to us, both in spirit and body. Yet the Apo- 
 stle goes on to draw more closely the bonds by which we are united to 
 His Flesh, and to illustrate this truth in still more splendid terms, when 
 He says, that ' we are members of His Body, of His Flesh, and of His 
 Bones.' In fine, that he might declare the thing to be beyond expression, 
 he breaks forth into an exclamation : ' this is a great mystery ! ' It would 
 be madness therefore to deny that the faithful have communion with the 
 Body and Blood of Christ, when the Apostle declares it to be so intimate 
 a communion, that he can rather wonder at than explain it." 
 
232 CHRIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 is not begotten. He proceeds primarily ' from the Father as 
 the source of all ; but inasmuch as the son inherits from the 
 Father all attributes of Godhead except to be self-originated, 
 therefore He proceeds equally from the Son likewise. And 
 being thus, as Scripture expresses it, both " the Spirit of the 
 Father," and " the Spirit of the Son," He is the " consubstantial 
 and co-eternal communion of them both ; Avhich, if it may be 
 termed their friendship," says St. Augustin, " let it be so de- 
 nominated ; but surely it is more fitly called their love." "^ And 
 by reason of this common derivation from the Father and the 
 Son, which is the revealed law of His nature, it is characteristic 
 of the Holy Ghost to be Himself the principle of unity and 
 fellowshij). His name is love, because " He naturally unites 
 those from whom He proceeds."^ As the Son is the wisdom 
 of the Eternal Father, because thought is the progeny or 
 reproduction of mind, ^ so is Love the nature of Him, the 
 law of whose Being is to be the principle of alliance. And 
 since love, when it shows itself in acts, goes by the name of 
 goodness, therefore is He spoken of in Scripture, as well by 
 reference to His original nature, as to His gracious operations. 
 In reference to the first, we read that " the love of God is shed 
 abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto 
 us:" in regard to the second we know that "according to His 
 mercy He saved us by the .... renewing of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Now it is because the Holy Ghost thus proceeds as the 
 principle of love, that He does not share that name of Son, 
 
 ^ "Non dicitur verburn Dei nisi Filiua, nee donum Dei nisi Spiritus 
 Sanctus, nee de quo genitum est verbum et de quo principaliter procedit 
 Spiritus Saactus, nisi Deus Pater. Ideo autem addidi principaliter, quia 
 et de Filio Spiritus Sanctus procedere reperitur. Sed hoc quoque illi 
 Pater dedit non jam existenti, et nondum habenti, sed quicquid Unigenito 
 Verbo dedit, gignendo dedit." — 8. Aug. de Triii. xv. 29. [This passage 
 is found in the MSS. of J>e Tnnitafe of the seventh or eighth century, 
 Bodleian, No. 1556, as well as in all the MSS. collated by the Benedic- 
 tines.] Vide iS. Au(j. Serm. Ixxi. 26. 
 
 * De Triu. vi. 5. 
 
 ^ " Quia naturaliter eos, a quibus procedit, conjungit." — Isklonu- ///*•- 
 paletmx. OrUj. lib. 7. 
 
 ' Vide S. Basil, Homil. xvi. 3, vol. ii. p. 136. 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 233 
 
 which pertains to the Only-begotten of the Father. " Why- 
 is not the Holy Spirit called a Son," asks St. Augustin, " since 
 He also proceeds from the Father? Because He proceeds, 
 not as one who is born, but as one who is given." ^ From 
 which circumstance arises this difference, that while the Eternal 
 Son is the resemblance or image of the Father, as thought is 
 of mind, the Holy Ghost, on the other hand, may be rather 
 assimilated to an effect, which terminates in action. His nature 
 leads us to think not of a work but of an energy.'^ " The Word, 
 so soon as it is thought of, shows that it is the Son of that 
 from which it is derived, by presenting its Father's image. 
 But Love shows that it is not a Son, because, though it is 
 known to proceed from the Father and the Son, yet it does 
 not present to our view this clear likeness of that from which 
 it has its origin." ^ And when we follow its course from heaven 
 to earth, we find its merciful operations towards mankind to be 
 diverse from those of the eternal Son. Man was fashioned by 
 the Son after His own image ; but the Holy Ghost moved as 
 an informing Spirit through the shapeless chaos. It was the 
 Son alone who took man's nature by Incarnation, and thus 
 restored the perfect type of humanity, by becoming the new 
 Head of mankind. But in this work did the Holy Ghost co- 
 operate, seeing that it is His nature, as various Fathers express 
 it, to be a " sanctifying power." * So that He gave effect to the 
 will of the Father and the Sou, and was the active instrument 
 through whose intervention that crowning act of mercy was 
 eifected. " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the 
 power of the Highest shall overshadow thee ; therefore also 
 that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called 
 the Son of God." But in this great work He acted according 
 to the eternal law of His nature ; as an agent, not a Parent ; 
 He did not interfere with the functions of the Father or the 
 
 ^ De Trin. v. 14. ^ Vide Summa Tlieologise. i. xxvii. 4. 
 
 ^ S. Anselm, Monologion, cap. 55. 
 
 * " Ativafjus dyiaffTmr)." — S. Cyril. Thesaurus, No. 34, Damasc. de Fide 
 Orth. i. 13. 
 
234 CHKIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 Son ; He was neither incarnate like the one, nor did He share 
 the office of paternity with the other. The Man Christ Jesus 
 was created ' by tlie Holy Ghost in the Virgin's womb. And 
 as it was His office to co-operate in the work of the Incarna- 
 tion, so likewise in that consequence of it, which is exhibited 
 in the Holy Eucharist. For Our Lord referred to Him as 
 the principle by whom His own merciful presence with mankind 
 would be iierpetuated. "When about to bestow the gift of the 
 Holy Ghost, as that which was to supply the place of His 
 sensible presence, He says, " I will not leave you comfortless, I 
 will come to you." And therefore it would seem that the gift 
 of the Comforter on the day of Pentecost was a necessary con- 
 dition of Our Lord's approach. Till that event the Disciples 
 continued in pi*ayer and supplication : afterwards, the " Break- 
 ing of Bread " is put forward as the chief feature of their wor- 
 ship. This would be unintelligible, if the Holy Eucharist were 
 only a commemoration of Christ ; for when should He be so 
 naturally remembered as just after His departure ? But it 
 follows by necessary consequence, if the act be that mysterious 
 participation in Our Incarnate Lord, which is effected through 
 the agency of the Holy Ghost. Thus are these two Divine 
 Persons spoken of as coinciding in the result, though differing 
 in the manner of their operation. " For as the virtue of Our 
 Lord's sacred Flesh," says St. Cyril, " makes those, in whom He 
 is, to be one body ; so does the one indivisible Spirit who dwells 
 in all, bring all to one spiritual unity." "^ Such statements do 
 not derogate from the office of the Incarnate Son, or supersede 
 the truth of His Presence, any moie than the Spirit's agency in 
 the miraculous conception interferes with the truth of the 
 Incarnation. As it was the Spirit's power by whom that 
 work was effected, and yet it was the Etenial Son who became 
 
 ' " Homo assnmptus ex Maria operatio Spiritus Sancti fuit, non portio ; 
 nee ab eo geiiitus, sed creatus ; conceptus est potentia non substantia : 
 operatione non participatione ; virtute non genere." — jS. Paschasii de 
 Spiritu i<ancio, lib. i. cap. ii. Bih. Put. viii. 808. 
 
 '^ S. Cyril in Joan. xvii. 22, lib. xi. 11, vol. iv. p. 1000. 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 235 
 
 Incarnate, so is it God the "Word who is present in the Holy 
 Eucharist through the power of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The truth appears to be, that as the theory which would 
 represent the gift which is bestowed in the Holy Eucharist 
 to be communicated in some manner irrespective of the con- 
 secrated elements, is unconnected and incompatible with the 
 system of the Church, so the notion that the actions of the 
 Three Blessed Persons are successive and not coincident, is 
 at variance with its highest mystery — the Trinity in Unity. 
 For it is formed in reality on a Heathen, not a Christian 
 model ; and is a relic of that system of Polytheism which fell 
 before the Economy of Grace. It was the principle of Heathen- 
 ism to represent its gods as a series of successive Despots, who 
 followed one another according to the resistless law of a sove- 
 reign fate. Not being supposed to be self-existent, nor them- 
 selves the source of all things, that plastic principle of nature 
 which had been their cradle, might be expected to be their 
 grave, 
 
 " ovK eK rwv^' eyu 
 Sicraovs rvpdvvovs fKireaovTas yaOof^ijv ; 
 TpiToy Se Tuv vvv KoipavovvT eiroif/of^ai 
 aicrx^^'''^ ''°' TaxiCTa," 
 
 Over this system the ancient Church gained its first victories. 
 But the evil soon reappeared under the form of Gnosticism, 
 within the sacred walls : the theories, against which the 
 Fathers of the first three centuries were continually disputing, 
 were only adaptations of the old Heathen principle, that the 
 Heavenly Hierarchy was a reflexion of earthly incidents, and 
 that a Cosmogony, founded on a series of material influences, 
 would explain the various actions of its successive powers. 
 "When these mists had somewhat cleared away, the same ten- 
 dency reappeared under the more subtile but not less dangerous 
 form of Sabellianism. For it supposed that the characteristics 
 of the Supreme Being were derived only from His actings 
 towards mankind, and thus denied the primary law of the 
 Christian sj^stem, that the principle of all things lies in God ; 
 
236 CHRIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 that the relations of His infinite nature are independent of 
 all created existence, and have their deep and awful origin 
 in Himself. And this follows at once from the thought that 
 the Ultimate Cause is a person, not a law — God, and not 
 Fate — so that whatever belongs to the personal completeness 
 of His nature, must arise out of the original constitution of 
 His Being, and like it, be self-dependent and archetj^pal. 
 
 When it is revealed to us, then, that the Wisdom and Love 
 of the Supreme Being are identical with His Existence,^ or, 
 in other words, that God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — 
 the Father eternally self-existent — His Word the eternal Image 
 of Himself — the Holy Ghost the Sjiirit which proceeds eternally 
 from both — this is not a circumstance which arises from their 
 relations to mankind ; it is dependent upon those eternal laws 
 of their mysterious nature, which admit of no alteration. We 
 must not dream of it merely as a transaction which took place 
 so early as to be antecedent to memory : it Avas not only before 
 all time but independent of it. It was not that Deity once 
 existed alone, and that the Son and the Holy Ghost afterwards 
 came into being — the Three Persons in the Blessed Ti'inity 
 
 ^ "In us," says S. Thomas, "existence and intelligence are not identi- 
 cal. So that tliose ideas which exist in us through our intelligence, are 
 no part of our nature. But God's intelligence is identical with His ex- 
 istence. And therefore His Word is no accident arising from Him, or 
 effect produced by Him, but belongs to His nature, and has a subsistence 
 of its own : for whatever belongs to the nature of God exists in itself." — 
 Summa Tlieol. i. xxxiv. 2. This accords with a statement of S. Augustin : 
 Deo "non est alia substantia ut sit, et alia potestas ut possit, sed amsuh- 
 xtantiaJe iUi ext qnicijiu'd ejaii e!<t." — Li Joan. Tract, xx. 4. If it should 
 be objected that this might be a ground for personifying other Divine 
 attributes as well as Wisdom and Love, it may be answered that we have 
 no authority for doing so in Scripture, neither has it been so understood 
 by the Church. S. Thomas adds the profound thouglit ; " in the Deity 
 tliere is no procession, except in respect to those actions which do not 
 tend to anything external, but rest in the actor Himself. And this sort 
 of action in an intellectual being is of two kinds, the action of the under- 
 standing, and the action of the will." — Sumiiia, i. xxvii. 3. And again, 
 " Processiones in divinis accipi non possunt nisi secundum actiones, quae 
 in agente uianent. Hujusmodi autem actiones in natuni intellectuali et 
 divinA non sunt nisi duie, scilicet intelligere et velle." — /(/. i. xxvii. 5. 
 Vide also Extiu^ in Libros iSenteiUiarum. In Lib. i. Dis. x. 2. 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 237 
 
 are " co-eternal together and co-equal." To exist in Three Per- 
 sons in the eternal law of Deity ; a law as characteristic of 
 its nature as to be wise and good. So that the Father is ever 
 Father, the Son ever Son, the Holy Ghost ever proceeding 
 from both. The present moment has the same relation to this 
 wonderful mystery, as any moment which can be fixed upon 
 in the abyss of eternity. So that it were an impious thought, 
 says St. Cyril, to suppose "that the Father has ever ceased 
 from generation,"^ for this would be to ascribe change to a 
 nature which is unchangeable, to suppose that it generates at 
 one time and does not generate at another. And in like man- 
 ner the Procession of the Holy Ghost is not a passing event, 
 which took place at some particular moment, but expresses 
 that abiding relation which He bears to the Father and the 
 Son. This relation has its effect in those acts whereby the 
 Holy Ghost co-operates with the Son in the work of man's 
 redemption. " He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of 
 Mine, and shall show it unto you." So that the Mission of 
 the Holy Ghost, whereby He co-operates in the economy of 
 grace, is not any peculiar and detached exercise of His divine 
 functions : it is a part of that general ministration in the 
 world of time, whereby He gives effect to the will of the whole 
 Blessed Trinity. He co-operates in the actions of the Son, 
 because He perpetually proceeds from Him. For " the Holy 
 Ghost is manifestly shown not to be of different nature from 
 the Son, but is in Him and of Him, and, as it were, His natural 
 efl&cacy, which is able to perform all He desires."^ And again, 
 " the Holy Ghost is a sort of natural and living efficacy, and, 
 as it were, a quality of the Godhead of the Son."^ So that 
 the acts and presence of the one imply, and do not exclude, 
 those of the other. And thus does the whole Blessed Trinity 
 
 ^ Thesaurus, sec. 5, vol. v. part. i. pp. 35, 37. 
 
 ^ S. Cyril in Petavius de Trin. vii. 5, 12. 
 
 ^ Id. Thesaurus, sec. 34, vol. v. part i. p. 355, and vide 346. "His 
 Spirit is inseparable from the Son by reason of the unity of nature, al- 
 though He exists as a separate Person." — Id. on St. John vi. 64, vol. iv. 
 p. 378. 
 
238 CHRIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 combine in the merciful work of man's salvation. Its ultimate 
 principle is the love of the Everlasting Father. It is carried 
 into efl'ect through the merciful condescension of the Eternal 
 Son, who has exalted manhood by taking it into God. In this 
 process is the Holy Gliost the quickening Agent. So He was 
 when the Son took the nature of man ; so He is when men 
 particijjate in that new nature, which the Son has bestowed 
 upon manhood. " In the sacrament of our Incarnation," says 
 St. Fulgentius, " the Son is said to have been sent not only 
 by the Father, but also by the Holy Ghost, because the Man 
 Christ Jesus, the Mediator between God and men, was formed 
 by the operation of the whole Trinity. But in another sense 
 the Holy Ghost is sent from the Father and the Son, because 
 by nature He proceeds from the Father and the Son. For the 
 Holy Ghost is sent from the Father and the Son, when the 
 spiritual efficacy of grace is given by the One God in Trinity." ' 
 Thus does this wondrous work of love imply the action of the 
 whole Godhead, and of every Person, without contrariety or 
 interference.^ And as the functions of the Incarnate Son were 
 not excluded, when the Holy Ghost was the medium of His 
 material birth, so neither when the same Spirit is the author 
 of His Sacramental presence. 
 
 II. It remains to show, in the second place, that the general 
 principles which have been laid down, are confirmed by the 
 testimony of the ancient Church. Now, whether we look to 
 the public services, or to individual writers, it will be found 
 that they all agree in attributing this consentient action to the 
 Second and Third Persons in the glorious Trinity. For the 
 two following principles were universally accepted : first, that 
 whatever was the mode of presence in the Holy Eucharist, the 
 Body present was that glorified Body of Christ, which had been 
 born of the Virgin and had suffered on the cross ; and that it 
 
 ^ Fragment of Eighth Book agaiust Fabianus. 
 
 ^ " Non tantum Patris et Filii, seel Spiritus Sancti, sicut aequalitas et 
 inseparabilitas personarum, ita etiam opera iuseparabilia sunt." — /S. Aug. 
 in Joan. Tract, xx. 3. 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 239 
 
 was present as a consequence of the Incarnation, and by virtue 
 of His own gracious will : secondly, that the Holy Ghost was 
 an agent in the effecting of this presence. The first is witnessed 
 by the importance attached in all ancient Liturgies to the exact 
 repetition of the words of Institution. Thus was Our Lord 
 Himself supposed to be the real actor in the celebration of this 
 Sacrament, and the officiating Priest only to sjpeak in His name. 
 And repeated allusions may be found to the belief, that the 
 Body bestowed was the real Body of Christ. Indeed, whether 
 Our Lord be conceived to be present really, or only in figure, we 
 have no authority for supposing that His Body can mean any- 
 thing except His Body natural, which was crucified, and His 
 Body mystical the Church. St. Ignatius's assertion that the 
 Docetae would not confess that the Holy Eucharist was the 
 " Flesh of Our Saviour Christ which suffered for our sins," ' 
 plainly looks to the former. So does St. Ambrose's statement : 
 " this Body which we form was born of the Virgin : " '^ and St. 
 Chrysostom's on the Ephesians, "we taste of that Body that 
 sitteth above, that is adored by angels, that is next to the 
 Power that is incorruptible." ^ And again : " He who sits on 
 high with the Father is held at that moment in the hands of all 
 men." * 
 
 In no way, however, is this truth more strongly brought out, 
 than when the reality of the Eucharistic blessing is grounded 
 upon the truth of Our Lord's participation in our nature, so 
 that the gift in this Sacrament is connected with that of the 
 Incarnation. " If the "Word was truly made Flesh," says St. 
 Hilary, " and we truly receive the Word, who is made Flesh, in 
 the food of Our Lord's Body {ciho dominico), how can men say 
 that He does not naturally remain in us, who by being born as 
 a man, has now assumed the nature of a man, as inseparable 
 from Himself? That which we affirm about the natural 
 
 1 Vide supra, p. 230. 
 
 - "Et hoc quod conficimus corpus ex Virgine est." — De Mysteriiis, 
 ix. 53. 
 
 ^ Horn. iii. on Ephes.'^i. 15 — 20. Oxford Trans, vol. vi. p. 130. 
 •• De Sacerdotio, iii. 4. Vide also on 1 Cor. Horn. xxiv. 4. 
 
240 CHRIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 verity of Christ in us, unless we had learnt it from Him, would 
 be a foolish and impious assertion. For He Himself says, ' My 
 Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed. He who 
 eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me and I 
 in him.' There is no room left to doubt the truth of His Body 
 and Blood." ^ And so St. Cyril : " Because the Word which 
 proceeds from the Father is naturally life. He hath made His 
 own Flesh life-giving. In this way has the Eucharist become 
 life-giving. Therefore Christ said, 'Verily, verily, I say unto 
 you, I am the bread of life, which came down from heaven, and 
 giveth life to the world.' And again: 'the bread which I will 
 give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.' 
 And again : ' He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, 
 dwelleth in Me and I in him.' Observe, then, that He every- 
 whei'e speaks of that Body of His, which was born of a woman, 
 on account of His perfect oneness." ^ 
 
 These passages, like the Liturgic usages of the Church, show 
 a full belief that the blessing of the Holy Eucharist is to be 
 attributed to Our Lord's own power and presence. But not 
 less distinct are the statements that the Holy Ghost is an agent 
 in this mysterious transaction. St. Cyril couples the action of 
 the Word and of the Holy Ghost together in a passage a little 
 subsequent to that last cited. " Because we cannot eat the 
 nature of Deity, we ought not therefore to suppose that the 
 sacred Body of Christ is common food. We ought to know 
 that it is the very Body of the Word which quickeneth all 
 things, and since it is the Body of that which is Life, it is 
 itself life-giving. And therefore does it give life to our mortal 
 bodies, and destroys the power of death. And in like manner 
 does the Holy Spirit of Christ also quicken us. For it is the 
 Spirit that quickeneth, according to Our Saviour's own words." * 
 
 But nowhere is the action of the Blessed Spirit in the Holy 
 
 ' S. Hilarii de Trinitate, viii. 13, 14. 
 
 - S. Cyril, Apolog. adv. Orientales, vol. vi. p. 192. Vide also S. Aug. 
 on Pealin xx.xiii. Euar. i. 6. 
 ^ Id. p. iy4. 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 241 
 
 Eucharist so plainly declared, as in the Liturgies of the Church. 
 All ancient Liturgies, with the single exception of the Roman, 
 invoke His merciful intervention, and represent Him as an 
 agent in the consecration of the elements. " Send upon us, 
 and upon these proposed gifts. Thy Most Holy Ghost, the Lord 
 and life-giving ; . . . . that coming upon them with His holy, 
 and good, and glorious Presence, He may hallow and may make 
 this bread the holy Body of Thy Christ, and this Cup the 
 precious Blood of Thy Christ, that they may be to those who 
 partake of them for remission of sins, and for eternal life, for 
 sanctification of soul and body, for bringing forth good works." ^ 
 This is a sample of the expressions which are to be found in 
 every ancient Liturgy, except that of Rome. Their absence in 
 this single instance is remarkable ; but the earliest forms, under 
 which the Roman Missal appears, present exactly the same 
 phenomenon. It cannot be doubted, however, that the early 
 Roman Church had the same belief which everywhere existed 
 respecting the agency of God the Holy Ghost in this transaction ; 
 and in one of the collects of St. Leo's Ofl&ce, " The virtue of the 
 Holy Ghost " ^ is especially referred to, as the sanctifying 
 principle of the Holy Eucharist. And in the ancient canon, 
 used in the time of Gelasius, there occurs a prayer entreating 
 God to look favoiu'ably upon the offering, and to accept^ it, 
 which is equivalent in effect to the direct invocations of the Holy 
 Ghost in the other Liturgies. For it is through the agency of 
 the Holy Ghost, that the Eternal Father especially bestows His 
 blessings. It is possible that the circumstance which led to the 
 omission of all explicit mention of the Holy Ghost, may have 
 been the same which accounts for the conciseness of the ancient 
 Roman Creed. The absence of prevalent heresies, says Ruffinus 
 
 ^ S. James's Liturgy, Neale's Introd. p. 571. 
 
 ^ "Sancti Spiritus operante virtute, sacrificium jam nostrum Corpus et 
 Sanguis est ipsius sacerdotis." — Murcdoii Lit. Rom. Vet. vol. i. p. 469. 
 And the prayer "Veni Sanctificator " in the present Service is no doubt 
 an implicit recognition of the same principle. 
 
 * " Supra quae propitio ac sereno vultu respicere digneris, et accepta 
 referre," &c. — Muratori, Id. p. 697. 
 
 B 
 
242 CHEISrS REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 in the fourtli century, had enabled it to dispense with various 
 statements which were found necessary in other Churches.^ 
 The disposition to deny the Deity of the Holy Ghost, which 
 prevailed so largely in the East, may in like manner have 
 suggested those direct invocations which occur in the Eastena 
 Liturgies, or in such as are derived from them. The prevalent 
 heresy on this subject was to assert that as the Father had 
 created the Son, so did the Son in his turn create the Holy 
 Ghost. "^ He was looked upon, therefore, as the Agent of the 
 Son by arbitrary commission, not as proceeding from Him by 
 natural right. This heresy was immediately confronted by the 
 statement, that the Holy Ghost proceeded from, and was consub- 
 stantial with, the Eternal Father. It did not follow from this 
 assertion that the Holy Ghost did not proceed from the Son 
 also ; but only that His Procession from the Son must likewise 
 be by necessary derivation, and not by arbitrary appointment. 
 And yet their anxiety to maintain, that the Third Person in 
 the Blessed Trinity was truly consubstantial with the Eternal 
 Father, may have rendered the Eastern Churches at once less 
 full in their exjiression of the Double Procession, and more 
 explicit in asserting the intervention of the Holy Ghost in the 
 Holy Euchai'ist. 
 
 This difference between the Roman and Eastern Liturgies 
 was little noticed till the Council of Florence. Nor was it the 
 Greeks who complained of any deficiency in the Roman Ritual ; 
 but the Latins, who objected that to introduce a subsequent 
 invocation for the sanctification of the elements, implied that 
 the repetition of the words of Institution was not an adequate 
 consecration. Such was the objection made by Turrecremata at 
 
 ^ After mentioning that additions had been made to the Creed in other 
 Churches, he says, " In ecclesia tamen Urbis Komie hoc non deprehen- 
 ditur factum. Quod ego propterea esse arbitror, quod neque ha;resis ulla 
 illic suiupsit exordium, &c. ... In ca'teris auteui h)cis, quantum iutelligi 
 datur, propter nonuullos hitreticos addita quidem videutur per quae no- 
 vellnc doctrinee sensus crederetur excludi." 
 
 " This was varied by the statement mentioned by S. Athanasius : "Si 
 Spiritua Sanctus non sit creatura — avus est Pater et nepos ejus est Spiri- 
 tua." — ijx's. iv. ad iSerapion., sec. i. vol. i. part ii. p. (i07. 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 213 
 
 Florence, but to which Pope Eugenius and the Council refused 
 to pay attention. The Grreeks stood upon the ground that such 
 had been always their usage, without denying the validity of the 
 Latin custom. But various theories have been since advanced 
 by the Latin writers, who, admitting the undoubted antiquity 
 of the Greek usage, have thought it essential to show that the 
 Invocation was not a substantive part of the consecration, inas- 
 much as consecration must have been previously effected by the 
 words of Institution. Some have maintained that the Invocation 
 should precede the words of Institution, and that it has only a 
 prospective force : but in point of fact it is found to occur 
 subsequently in ancient Liturgies. Others have affirmed the 
 Invocation not to refer to the elements, but to the receiver, ^ 
 and to be equivalent to a prayer that he may receive profitably. 
 But this is inconsistent with the expressions employed, which 
 refer directly to the consecration, and in several cases to the 
 change of the elements themselves. "Send down Thy Holy 
 Ghost upon us, and on these proposed gifts ; . . . make this 
 bread the precious Body of Thy Christ, . . . and that which is 
 in this cup the jDrecious Blood of Thy Christ, . . . changing 
 them by Thy Holy Ghost." ' 
 
 The difficulty before us, then, arises out of the fact that our 
 conceptions on this subject are derived in great measure from 
 the practices of the early Church ; and that in this case the 
 usages of the two great branches of the Church were different. 
 It may somewhat abate, perhaps, if it does not altogether re- 
 move, our perplexity, to consider that we have to do with the 
 operations of the Eternal Persons of the Ever-blessed Trinity, 
 whose actions, therefore, are in themselves independent of time ; 
 though in time only can we think and speak of them. So that 
 this is a case to which we can apply the rule of Aquinas, " plus 
 Deus valet operari, quam homo intelligere potest." The succes- 
 sion, which attaches to our view of their actions, has no place 
 
 ^ This is argued by De Lugo de Eucharistia. — Disp. xi. sec. 1. 
 "^ S. Chrysostom's Liturgy : Gear's Eucliologion, p. 77. Neale's Intro- 
 duction, p. 578. 
 
 £ 2 
 
 k 
 
•244 CHRIST'S REAL PRESENCE NO INTERFERENCE 
 
 in reference to those actions themselves. And so completely 
 does each co-operate in that which either performs, that we 
 cannot exclude the Holy Ghost from that action which is per- 
 formed by the Son through the medium of His Priests, nor yet 
 the Son from that which is effected by the Holy Ghost who pro- 
 ceeds from Him. So that it would be rash perhaps to define at 
 what moment the act of consecration is effected, while yet it 
 is reverent to treat it as effected when the first essential 
 portion of it is perfoi'med. Again, it may be said that since 
 Our Lord's Presence in this Holy oi'dinance is not of a natural 
 or carnal character, the continual agency of the Spirit is no 
 doubt requii'ed to perpetuate that operation, on which Christ's 
 Presence is dejDendent. As we daily ask God, therefore, to send 
 do\\Ti His " mercy and truth," without meaning that similar 
 prayers may not have been already heard, so we may invoke 
 the power of the Spirit for the maintenance of that presence, 
 which is already bestowed. So that the Invocation of the Holy 
 Ghost may be designed to imply, that the continuance of Our 
 Lord's Presence is a sujjernatural action momentarily renewed. 
 
 That which is clear, however, is, that the use of these two 
 separate conditions in the consecration of the Holy Eucharist, 
 is founded upon a reference to the intervention of the Second, 
 as well as of the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity, m this 
 mysterious work ; and that the work is attributed to their joint 
 operation. Each is supposed to act according to His peculiar 
 function in the great Economy of man's redemption : the Holy 
 Ghost as having been the Agent in the work of the Incarnation ; 
 the Son as having Himself become Incarnate. The same autho- 
 rities, therefore, who refer the consecration to the Holy Ghost, 
 consider it to be effected by Our Lord's words of Institution. 
 St. Clirysostom,' whose Liturgy so plainly expresses the one, 
 
 ' S. Clirys. In Matth. Horn. Ixxxii. sec. 5, vol. vii. p. 789. Id iu II. Epist. 
 ad Tim. cap. i. Horn. ii. sec. 4, vol. xi. p. 671. Vide also Horn. i. de Pro- 
 ditione Juda;. (i, vol. ii. p. 384, and lb. ii. 6, p. 394. Nilu.s, a disciple 
 of S. C'lirysostoni, refers the consecration in a remarkable passage to the 
 .Invocation and the Descent of the Holy Ghost. — E^. xliv. 
 
WITH THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY GHOST. 245 
 
 speaks as distinctly in his homilies respecting the other. St. Au- 
 gustine ^ attributes it with equal distinctness to the one and to 
 the other. And for this diversity the ancient writers found a pa- 
 rallel in that great work on which it was dependent. For the In- 
 carnation itself is attributed in Holy Scripture to the one of these 
 Divine Persons as directly as to the other.^ God the Son " made 
 Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant." 
 Thus did " wisdom build itself a house " out of the materials of 
 man's nature. And yet the angel declared, " the Holy Ghost 
 shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall over- 
 shadow thee." " When," says St. Fulgentius, " can the Holy 
 Church more fitly entreat the advent of the Holy Ghost, than 
 when she invokes it to consecrate the sacrifice of Christ's Body, 
 seeing she knows that it was from the Holy Ghost that her 
 Head Himself received His Incarnate nature." ' For thus is it 
 revealed to us as part of the mystery of the Ever-blessed Tri- 
 nity, that by reason of the coiuherence of the Divine Three, no 
 function can be discharged by one Person in the glorious God- 
 head, in which each does not take part according to His ap- 
 pointed order and law. And hence results no confusion nor 
 interference in their merciful offices : neither can succession 
 have place in essences which perjietually co-operate ; nor can 
 the conditions of time restrict the operations of the Eternal. 
 
 ^ "Panis ille, quem videtis in altari, sanctificatus per verbum Dei, cor- 
 pus est Christi ; Calix ille, immo quod habet calix, sanctificatum per ver- 
 hum Dei, sanguis est Christi." — Sermo ccxxvii. So in Sermo iii. and vi. 
 oi Sermones S. Aug. inediti, ed. Denis. 1792 : "Hoc quod videtis in mensa 
 domini, panis est et vinum, sed iste panis et hoc vinum accedente verbo fit 
 corpus et sanguis Verbi." But in his work De Trinitate, S. Augustin 
 refers the consecration of the elements to the Holy Ghost. "Non sancti- 
 ficatur ut sit tarn magnum sacramentum, nisi operante invisibiliter spiritu 
 Dei." — De Trinitate, iii. 10. Vide also S. Ansehn. Oiatio. 29. 
 
 ^ Vide S. Cyril in Joan. lib. iv. 3, vol. iv. p. 366. 
 
 3 Ad Monimum, lib. ii. cap. 10. Bib. Pat. vol. ix. p. 29. 
 
246 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST REGARDED AS A SACRIFICE. 
 
 It has been stated, firbt, that the characteristic circumstance 
 in the Holy Eucharist is the consecration of the elements; 
 secondly, that the gift bestowed in the Holy Eucharist is Christ 
 Himself; thirdly, in what manner Christ is present. Again, 
 that He is not only supernaturally and sacramentally, but really 
 present, has been proved by the authority of Holy Scripture, 
 and by the testimony of the early Church. It remains to notice 
 a particular of great importance, which grows out of the truth 
 of Christ's real Presence, i.e., that the Holy Eucharist is a sacri- 
 fice as well as a sacrament. This fact is a corroboration of the 
 reality of Christ's Presence, as showing one purpose which His 
 Presence is ordained to answer in the economy of grace ; while 
 it will be found to have its own origin in the principle which it 
 illustrates. 
 
 It was laid down as the characteristic of sacraments, that 
 they consist of an external sign, and of an inward reality. In 
 the Holy Eucharist this inward reality is the Body and Blood 
 of Christ. Let the Presence of this inward part be admitted, 
 and it is obvious that there is something in the sacrament which 
 we can present to God. Whereas, if the Zuiuglian hypothesis 
 be adopted, there is nothing to offer in the Holy Eucharist ; 
 since it consists of nothing but an empty sign, which cannot 
 seriously be looked upon as a becoming oifering under the Chris- 
 tian Dispensation. And the same may be said of the Calvinistic 
 system also, since it detaches the inward reality from the out- 
 ward sign, and supposes that the last only is really present in 
 the Holy Eucharist. So that neither of these systems afford a 
 substratum for the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice: it can 
 
THE HOLY EUCHAEIST EEGAEDED AS A SACRIFICE. 2i7 
 
 only ally itself with a system which supposes that the Holy 
 Eucharist consists of a res sacramenti as well as a sacramenhim ; 
 it needs the doctrine of the Beal Presence as the basis on which 
 it is to be built ; while, again, nothing more strongly illustrates 
 the reality of this Presence, than the importance which has 
 uniformly been ascribed to the Eucharistic Sacrifice by the 
 Church. 
 
 But why has so much importance been attached to the Eu- 
 charistic Sacrifice, and what right have we to speak of it under 
 this name ? These tyvo points shall be considered in their oi^der. 
 
 The importance of the Eucharistic Sacrifice depends upon the 
 fact that our acceptance is owing exclusively to the merits of 
 Christ, and that His Mediation extends to all the relations 
 between the Almighty and His redeemed creatures. Being the 
 " One Mediator between God and men," He not only merits par- 
 don, but applies it. The acceptance which He has purchased, 
 has sometimes been spoken of as though it were a store, out of 
 which men might help themselves by their voluntary efforts : 
 but this is to pervert His work, and to undervalue His office : 
 He must Himself become " our peace ; " the purpose of the 
 Almighty is "to gather together in one all things in Christ." 
 And for this purpose He must act on man's behalf towards God, 
 as well as on God's part towards His creatures ; it is through 
 Him alone that " we have access with confidence " to God ; He 
 is our " great High Priest," and we have " boldness to enter 
 into the holiest," through that "new and living way which He 
 hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is, His Flesh." 
 Now it is in the ordinances of His Church that this right of 
 access has been bestowed upon mankind ; " He is the Saviour of 
 the Body;" all private addresses are rendered acceptable through 
 those public relations which bind men to the Body of Christ : 
 thus do they become " fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the 
 household of God." So that the acceptance which Christ has 
 purchased by His death, is rendered available through all those 
 acts of public service, whereby He puts men into relation with 
 God ; and of these acts the Holy Eucharist is the chief — because 
 
248 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 it is the crown of public worship ; the bond, whereby men are 
 attached to Christ ; the focus, in which all Church ordinances 
 culminate. 
 
 But allowing that the Eucharistic service is important, be- 
 cause admitted to be the chief act of Christian worship, yet why 
 is it called the Christian sacrifice V If the term is only applied 
 in a general and metaphorical manner, every act of worship may 
 be styled a sacrifice. If it be used with more reality and exact- 
 ness, how does its emplopnent consist with those statements of 
 Scripture, wliich exclude all true sacrifices, except the offering 
 of Christ ? Now what is meant in Scripture by an ofi'ering or 
 sacrifice ? In a strict sense it is something brought before God, 
 and presented to Him with a view of obtaining His favour. 
 Tliis is the etymological sense of the word offering ; and sacri- 
 fice, which is often used as its equivalent, involves, in common, 
 the further idea of the slaughter of that which is offered. Now, 
 in this full sense, there is no other sacrifice or offering which 
 can be brought before God, except that Body ^ of Jesus Christ 
 Our Lord, with which He paid the price of our salvation. This 
 true victim complied with eveiy condition by which a sacrifice 
 is characterized, that it might be presented before God as the 
 perpetual ground of man's acceptance. " Christ is not entered 
 into the lioly places made with hands, which are the figures of 
 the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence 
 Df God for us." For it was not only in the moment of His 
 death that Our Lord's Body was the sacrifice for man : the 
 shedding of His Blood was the consecration of the victim : but 
 the victim itself was set apart as the undying, propitiation for 
 sinners. So is it described by St. Jolui, who beheld a " Lamb 
 as it had been slain," in the heavenly courts : so is it explained 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews, whore we read that Christ has 
 " off'ered one 2>er])etiuil sacrifice for sins." ^ 
 
 ^ " Manus sacerdotum nostronim vacure essent, si non illas veneranda 
 ilia, et sancta oblatio vivifici corporis et sanguinis impleret." — Guliel- 
 Paris. J)e Sac. Each. cap. v. p. 427. 
 
 * Hebrews x. 12. Ova'iav fU ru diTjvdtis. Hebrews ix. 12, andx. 10, 26, 
 have been alleged, singularly enough, to be unfavourable to the doctrine 
 
EEGAEDED AS A SACRIFICE. 249 
 
 If the Holy Eucharist, therefore, is to be called in any 
 peculiar manner the Christian Sacrifice, it can only be by 
 reference to that one perfect propitiation upon the cross, by 
 virtue of which we have in heaven an abiding sacrifice. And 
 hence it is, that the Holy Eucharist is discriminated from all 
 other acts of common worship. For it is by this service only 
 that the real intercession which is transacted in the Church's 
 higher courts, is identified with the worship of its earthly 
 members. If it w^ere the sacramentwm only, or external sign, 
 which was presented before God in this service, it could have no 
 greater value than pertains to the corruptible productions of 
 this lower world : but since it is also the res sacramenti., or 
 thing signified, it is that very sacrifice which Our Lord has 
 rendered perfect by the taking it into Grodhead, and available 
 by offering it upon the cross. And again, if this oblation were 
 presented merely by an earthly priest, we might doubt whether 
 his own sins did not impede his actions, but it is the peculiarity 
 of this service, that those wdio minister it here below are only 
 representatives of Him by whom it is truly offered : He speaks 
 through their voice ; they act by His power : so that the 
 Church's offering finds a fitting minister in that Great High 
 Priest, who sacrifices in heaven. The Holy Eucharist, therefore, 
 is fitly called the Christian Sacrifice, not only because it is the 
 chief rite of common worship, but because it is the peculiar act, 
 wherein the effectual intercession which is exercised in heaven 
 by the Church's Head, reaches down to this lower sphere of our 
 earthly service. It is no repetition of the sacrifice of the cross, 
 nor any substitution of another victim, " for although once for 
 all offered, that sacrifice, be it remembered, is ever living and 
 continuous — made to be continuous by the resurrection of Our 
 Lord.^" When those who have been admitted to the fruition 
 
 of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Their object, however, is to assert, against 
 the Jews, that there can be no real sacrifice except that of Christ ; so that 
 they accord entirely with the assertion, that the Sacrifice which is per- 
 petually presented upon the Altar, is identical with that which was once 
 offered upon the Cross. 
 
 ^ A Pastoral Letter, by Henry, Bishop of Exeter, 1851, p. 54. 
 
250 THE HOLY ETJCHAEIST 
 
 of tlie Divine Presence fall down before Him that sitteth upon 
 the throne, it is still " the Lamb that was slain," to whose virtue 
 they ascribe their acceptance ; and " to Him His Church on 
 eartli in the Eucharlstic service, in like manner, continually 
 cries, ' Lord God, Lamb of ""od, Son of the Father, that 
 takest away the sins of the world. Not that tookest away, but 
 still takest ; 'Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi.'"^ "Let us 
 weigh well," says St. Gregory, " how valuable to us is this 
 sacrifice, whereby the passion of the onlj--bcgottcn Son is 
 perpetually imitated for our acquittal. For what faithful man 
 can doubt that, at the very moment when it is offered, at the 
 priest's voice the heavens are opened — that the angelic choirs are 
 attendant on that mystery of Jesus Christ — that things above 
 and things below, things in heaven and things on earth, are 
 united, and that the visible is identified with the invisible."'^ 
 
 Such is the principle upon which the Holy Eucharist is called 
 a sacrifice. It rests upon the necessity of Our Lord's Inter- 
 cession : upon the truth that the Church's services cannot be 
 effectual, unless they are presented by its Head : that His 
 intervention is essential, not only because He communicates 
 grace to His members, but because His members cannot be 
 accepted save through the sacrifice of Himself. Now that accept- 
 ance, which He purchased through the sacrifice of the cross. He 
 applies through the sacrifice of the Altar. " Therefore this is no 
 new sacrifice," says Bishop Cosin, " but the same which v as 
 once offered, and which is every day offered to God by Christ 
 in heaven, and continueth here still on earth, by a mystical 
 repi'esentation of it in the Eucharist. And the Church uiteuds 
 not to have any new propitiation, or new remission of sins 
 obtained ; but tp make that effectual, and in act applied unto 
 us, which was once obtained by the sacrifice of Christ upon the 
 cross. Neither is the sacrifice of the cross, as it was once 
 offered up thei*e, modo cruento, so much remembered in the 
 Eucharist, though it be commemorated, as regard is had to the 
 
 ' A Pastoral Letter, by Henry, Bisliop of Exeter, 1851, p. 54. 
 - Gregorii Magui Dialog, lib. iv. c. 5b. 
 
EEGARDED AS A SACRIFICE. 251 
 
 perpetual and daily offering of it by Christ now in heaven in 
 His everlasting Priesthood ; and thereupon was, and should be 
 still, the juge sacrificium observed here on earth, as it is in 
 heaven, the reason which the ancient Fathers had for their daily 
 sacrifice." — St. Chry. in 10 Heh. . . St. Aug. de Civ. Dei, x. 20.^ 
 
 For this view of Our Lord's office towards His Church, we 
 have the authority of Holy Scripture. For we read that Our 
 Lord is " a minister of the sanctuary," because He is " consecrated 
 for evermore " to " an unchangeable priesthood." Now a priest- 
 hood implies a sacrifice. Unless there be a sacrifice to offer up, 
 how can there be a minister to offer it ? AVhat, then, is the 
 nature of Our Lord's Priesthood ? He is a Priest for ever after 
 the order of Melchisedec. Now we learn from Holy Scripture 
 what was the nature of Melchisedec's sacrifice.^ He " brought 
 forth bread and wine, and he was the priest of the Most High 
 Grod." And we know when Our Lord was consecrated to the 
 like office : in that momentous night when the last Passover 
 marked the close of the ancient Dispensation. Then did 
 the true Melchisedec bring forth bread and wine : but 
 we may not suppose that these were the realities which He 
 offered : they were but the sacramentum or external sign — the 
 real offering was the thing signified. He had Himself predicted 
 the nature of the sacrifice : " the bread that I will give is My 
 Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." And there- 
 fore when the moment was come, at which the course of Aaron 
 was to give place to the course of Melchisedec ; " He took bread 
 and gave thanks, and brake it and gave unto them, saying. 
 This is My Body which is given for you : this do in remembrance 
 of Me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is 
 the New Testament in My Blood, which is shed for you." 
 
 It was thus that Our Lord initiated that Priesthood of 
 Melchisedec, which His Apostles were ordained to perpetuate. 
 
 ^ Nicholls's Add. Notes to the Common Prayer, p. 46. He refers to 
 Bishop Overall, but the original is in the handwriting of Bishop Cosin, 
 and appears to be a quotation in part fi-om Cassander's Cohsultatio. 
 
 - " Ibi primum apparuit sacrificium, quod nunc a Christianis offertur 
 Deo toto orbe terrarum." — S. Aug. de Civ. Dei, xvi. 22. 
 
252 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 For "as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup, ye 
 do sliow the Lord's death till He come." The offering of 
 Himself in the chamber had been a step in that sacrificial 
 M'ork, which was consummated upon the Cross by the hands 
 of others : the offering in the Holy Eucharist is performed 
 by the hands of His ministers, but its mystical efficacy is per- 
 petually consummated by Himself. Thus is that sacrifice ef- 
 fected which was predicted as the service of the Gentile Church: 
 " in every place incense shall be offered unto My Name, and 
 a pure offering." Incense, as we read in the Book of B,evela- 
 tion, is the type of Praj'^er, and the parity of expression com- 
 pels us to suppose that the pure offering must have its antitype 
 also. Now what can this be, but that res sacramenti, or reality, 
 of which the bread in the Holy Eucharist is the channel and 
 type? The "Breaking of Bread," therefore, was joined with 
 prayer in the daily ritual of the first disciples, and this pro- 
 bably was the Liturgy which was celebrated at Antioch, when 
 St. Paul was called to the office of an Apostle. Now, wherein 
 would this service have been superior to the Jewish meat- 
 offerings, unless it had been the reality, of which the ancient 
 sacrifices were a typical representation ? Yet such is the view 
 always taken by the Apostles respecting the relation between 
 the Jewish law and the Christian ritual : they represent the 
 law as the shadow, which had its reality in that "perpetual 
 sacrifice for sins," " the offering of the body of Jesus Christ 
 once for all."^ And in this comparison the Eucharistic sacri- 
 fice is rejiresented as bearing its part. St. Paul contrasts the 
 Christian Eucharist as well with the sacrifices of the Jewish 
 Law, as with the sacrificial rites of the heathen. He not only 
 says, " ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the 
 table of devils;" but "behold Israel after the flesh: are not 
 they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar ?" So 
 that he parallels the daily offerings of the Law with the 
 Church's perpetual celebration of the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 Yet the arrangements of the Jewish Law have sometimes 
 1 Heb. X. 10, 12. 
 
EEGAEDED AS A SACEIFICE. 25'c 
 
 been adduced as furnishing an argument against the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice. In the Law there were two main offerings ; the 
 offering of fine flour, and that of animals. The former of 
 these, it is said, was a simple expression of thanks : the work 
 of expiation was confined to the latter. Now, since the Holy 
 Eucharist has been formed out of the meat-offering, or offering 
 of flour, it can be nothing but a testimony of thanks ; the 
 sin-offering can find its antitype only in that oblation of Him- 
 self upon the cross, whereby Our Lord paid the price of 
 our redemption. Such is the objection : it shall be shown 
 in reply, first, that it is incorrect to say that the offering 
 of flour was limited to the expression of thanks ; secondly, 
 that there is direct Scriptural authority for asserting the 
 Holy Eucharist to correspond to the Jewish sin-offering. 
 
 First— The offering of flour was so far from being limited 
 to the expression of thanks, that in all probability it was 
 the most common form in which the sin-offering was pre- 
 sented. For the poor always outnumber the rich ; now it 
 was ordered that when a man's means did not enable him 
 to provide an animal, " then he that sinned shall bring for 
 his offering the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a 
 sin-offering."^ It is incorrect, then, to say that the sacri- 
 fice of Melchisedec must, from its very constitution, have 
 shown the Jews that it was not a sin-offering. 
 ' Secondly — But is there any Scriptm'al testimony that it 
 was a sin-offering? Such a statement we should expect, if 
 anywhere, in that portion of Holy Scripture, in which the 
 Christian Jews, upon their exclusion from the Temple, were 
 taught that all its rites had their accomplishment in Christ. 
 Such was the purpose of the Epistle to the Hebrews — a 
 purpose which distinguishes it from the Epistles to Heathen 
 converts at Rome or in Galatia. To these last St. Paul 
 wished to prove that it was needless to conform to the Jewish 
 Law, because the sole means of acceptance with God lay 
 through the Faith of Christ. He had no occasion, there- 
 ' Leviticus v. 11. 
 
254 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 fore, to enter into the details of the Jewish Law, because 
 his object was to show that the death of Christ rendered 
 the whole of it superfluous. 
 
 And yet St. Paul himself, as well as his Christian country- 
 men, coutiiiued to observe their ancient customs ; and we read 
 that they were "all zealous of the law." Neither was its 
 abandonment their own act, but was forced upon them by 
 their unconverted countrjTuen. To console them for this de- 
 pi'ivation was the purpose of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 Its whole tenor shows that it was addressed to those who 
 were just excluded from the home, which had hitherto been 
 provided for them by their national ritual ; and were thus 
 compelled either to abandon Christ, or to " go forth unto 
 Him without the camp, bearing His reproach." And now, 
 therefore, we find a special enumeration of the i articulars 
 of Jewish service, and a proof that all of them had their 
 accomplishment in the Christian Covenant. And we find them 
 summed up by reference to that new communion, which was 
 to compensate for exclusion from the continual sacrifices of 
 the ancient Temple. " We have an altar, whereof they have 
 no right to eat which serve the Tabernacle." Though this 
 passage was supposed in early times, as its terms would natu- 
 rally imply, to refer to the Holy Eucharist, j'et it has since 
 received other interjiretations. The altar has been supposed 
 to mean exclusively Our Lord's Cross, or His intercession m 
 heaven, and not to include that earthly service, whereby men 
 participate in the offering which was consummated by Our 
 Lord's death, and which is perpetuated by His continual intei'- 
 cession. But this ex]>lanation is inconsistent with the jmssage 
 itself, as well as with the ancient intei-preters. Those " who 
 serve the Tabernacle" may be thought to mean all Jews ; though 
 the words express more properly all Jewish priests. Now 
 it would have been inconsistent with the principles of this 
 Epistle to say abstractedly of all such persons that they 
 could not profit by the death of Christ. Till that very period 
 Christians had continued to participate in Jewish rites, and 
 
EEGAKDED AS A SACRIFICE. 255 
 
 even to act as priests; neither was there as yet any law of 
 the Church, ^ which precluded them from reassuming such 
 functions, supposing opportunity should be afforded them. How, 
 then, could it be affirmed in general that those who were Jews 
 could have no hope in Christ, without tliS addition of some 
 reason for the sentence, or without some limitation of -it to 
 those who abandoned the Gosj)el ? 
 
 Instead, however, of the introduction of any such limitation, 
 we find a reason assigned, which is not based upon the neces- 
 sity, so recently imposed, of choosing between the Old and 
 the New Covenant, but upon certain peculiarities in the 
 ancient Jewish worship. " We have an altar, whereof they 
 have no right to eat, which serve the Tabernacle. For the 
 bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the Sanc- 
 tuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp." 
 If this passage had meant nothing more than the obvious truth, 
 that men could not claim to profit by Christ's actions, unless 
 they were members of His Church, why should the ground 
 of exclusion be sought among the specialties of the elder 
 Covenant ? The argument plainly is that the sacrifice, by 
 which the Christian altar was foreshadowed, was one which 
 might not be eaten, according to Jewish usage, by those who 
 served the Tabernacle. So that the case referred to cannot 
 be determined without reference to Jewish observances. And 
 it will be found to depend upon a distinction which has 
 often been overlooked, between the two kinds of sin-ofi"ering. 
 
 The Jewish sacrifices resolve themselves into two main 
 divisions : ^ on the one hand, the Burnt-offerings, which were 
 the expression of piety at large, and were borrowed from 
 Patriarchal usage ; on the other, those sj^ecific rites, which 
 were first enjoined through Moses. hese last were of two 
 kinds, Peace-Offerings and Sin-Offerings. Under the first of 
 
 ^ At a later period the Church adjudged such conformity to the Jewish 
 Law not only to be superfluous, but criminal : " paulatim fervente sana 
 prxdicatioHe graiiee Christi." — S. Aug. Ep. Ixxxii. 15. 
 
 ^ The Legal Sacrifices, considered according to their material, con- 
 
256 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 them may be classed thauk-offerings, vows, and freewill-offer- 
 ings. The other — Sin-offeruigs — have commonly been dealt 
 with as if they were homogeneous: but they may be divided 
 into two classes, of \yl\[i:n the first was thai in which the 
 priest acted as .2, -proper intercessor,' and in which the blood 
 ^^ J.i're victim was smeared or sprinkled upon the altar of 
 '■ournt-offerings. The Sin-Offerings of this first sort were almost 
 identical with the Trespass-Offerings — perhaps the Sin-Offeririg 
 may have referred rather to the religious, the Trespass-Offer- 
 ing - to the civil, aspect of offences. The other class of sin-of- 
 ferings^ was that in which the priest could not act as a proper 
 
 sisted of animals, meat, wine, and incense : considered according to their 
 form, they may be an-anged in the following manner : — 
 
 
 Pecu 
 
 
 Sacrifices. 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 liar to Law. 
 1 
 
 Not 
 
 pec 
 imt 
 
 uliar to Law. 
 1 
 
 Peace-Ofierings. 
 1 
 
 
 1 Bi 
 
 Sin-Offerings. 
 
 -Offerings. 
 
 1 
 Thanks- 
 giving. 
 
 1 
 Vow. 
 
 Lessi 
 com) 
 
 1 
 Freewill- 
 Offerings. 
 
 When Priest 
 
 a proper 
 
 Intercessor. 
 
 1 
 
 
 \Mien Priest 
 
 not a proper 
 
 Intercessor. 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 1 
 er Sin-Offering, Trespass- 
 nonly so called. Offering. 
 
 Greater 
 Sin-Offering. 
 
 ' Lev. iv. 22-35 ; v. 9. 
 
 - One condition of the Trespass-Offering, noticed by Josephus (Jeicish 
 Anfiqniiies, lib. iii. 9), is its reference to cases in which persons were self- 
 accused. (Vide Lev. v. 5.) But this principle is not confined to it ex- 
 clusively (vide Lev. iv. 23), nor does it seem to have any characteristic 
 application in every instance. (Lev. xix. 21.) It would appear, there- 
 fore, tliat the characteristic circumstance in the Trespass-Otteriugs was 
 that amends were to be made, either to God or man (vide Numbers, v. 
 7, 8), while in the Sin-Offering nothing was contemplated but the restora- 
 tion of the Offerer to the privileges of worship. 
 
 ■' These two classes of Sin-offerings were distinguished by the Rabbins 
 as the iiiiter and iinur Sin-offerings, in allusion to the two altars on which 
 the blood was sprinkled. — Tkoluck on Uebreics xiii. 11. 
 
EEGAEDED AS A SACEIFlCE. 257 
 
 intercessor/ because he participated himself in the gnilt for 
 which it was offered. This might either be because the offer- 
 ing was for the whole nation, ^ or because it was specifically 
 for himself.^ In this case the blood was brought into the 
 sanctuary, and smeared* upon the horns of the altar of in- 
 cense, or sprinkled^ towards the mercy-seat, either within or 
 without the veil ; while the bodies of the victims were not, 
 as in the other case, to be eaten by the priest, but to be 
 burnt without the camp. The ground of this distinction is 
 to be found in the fact, that it was the eating of the victim 
 which testified to the mediatorial character of the priest who 
 offered it : the law of the inferior sin-offering was, " the priest 
 that offereth it for sin shall eat it;"" "God hath given it you 
 to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement 
 for them before the Lord."^ When, therefore, a victim was 
 offered, of which the priest might not eat, and still more, 
 when the body of this victim was to be burnt without the 
 Jewish camp, it was implied that the plenaiy blessing was 
 to be looked for through a higher intercessor, and beyond 
 the limits of the Jewish system. Those moral offences, whereby 
 the conscience was really burthened, could find no full for- 
 giveness through the sanctions of the Jewish ritual, for "it 
 is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should 
 take away sins." 
 
 The meaning of these typical observances was not apparent, 
 probably, till their accomplishment in Christ. Then it was 
 
 ^ Leviticus iv. 3 — 12 ; ix. 7. 
 
 ^ Leviticus xvi. 15, 16. Hebrews vii. 27. 
 
 ^ Leviticus xvi. 6. 
 
 * Leviticus iv. 7, 18 ; xvi. 18. But Leviticus ix. 9 seems to be a case 
 in which the blood was not taken into the sanctuary. The reason may be 
 that Aaron had not yet entered upon his office ; he was now to make 
 atonement for himself before he began to make atonement for the people ; 
 ix. 7. So that it was preliminary to his entrance into the sanctuary ; 
 ix. 23. This case, therefore, resembles the sacrifice of Consecration offered 
 by Moses, in which no mention is made that the blood was brought within 
 the sanctuary. Exodus xxix. 12. Leviticus viii. 15. 
 
 ^ Leviticus xvi. 14; iv. 6, 17; xvi. 19. 
 
 « Leviticus vi. 26. ^ Id. i. 17. 
 
 S 
 
258 THE HOLY EUCHAEIST 
 
 Been that " Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people 
 with His own Blood, suffered without the gate." He was cast 
 forth beyond the walls of Jerusalem, like those sacrifices which 
 polluted all who touched them ;^ just as the death He died was 
 an accursed one, for "cursed is every one that hangeth upon 
 a tree." But these circumstances changed their nature by 
 coming into contact with Him who was the principle of holi- 
 ness ; the Cross was made the badge of glory ; and His death 
 outside the city gates showed that the true source of purity 
 was to be sought beyond the limits of the eai-thly Jerusalem. 
 
 Such were the circumstances which are alluded to in the 
 last Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Reference is made 
 to that higher class of Sin-Offerings, of which Aaron and his 
 sons might not eat, and which had their fulfilment only in 
 the sacrifice of Our Lord. The Jewish believers are reminded 
 of that singular privilege which attended the sacrificial feast 
 of the new Covenant, whereby all Christians are allowed to 
 partake of a victim, which according to the ancient usage was 
 forbidden even to the officiating priests. The Holy Commu- 
 nion, that is, lays those things open, even to the private Chris- 
 tian, which under the law were forbidden even to the anointed 
 priest who served the Tabernacle. So that not only is the 
 passage shown to refer to the Holy Eucharist, but we have the 
 authority of an inspired expositor of the Mosaic Law, when we 
 affirm that this service answers to the Jewish Sin-Offering, 
 and even to that highest class of vSin-Offerings which derived 
 their validity from the sacrifice of Christ. So that this service 
 must partake of that efficacy which appertains to the perfect 
 sacrifice of Jesus Christ, once for all ; and the sacrifice of Mel- 
 chisedec must be an application of the sacrifice on the Cross. 
 
 The doctrine, then, of the Eucbaristic Sacrifice, has its foun- 
 dation in the truth of the Real Presence. It is grounded upon 
 the same circumstance which has been shown to be characteristic 
 of the Real Presence itself, namely, that Christ is really present 
 because of the presence of His Body. For "although Christ 
 ^ Leviticus xvi. 28. 
 
EEGAEDED AS A SACEIFICE. 259 
 
 does not appear to offer now," says St. Ambrose, " yet Christ 
 Himself is offered on earth, when His Body is offered." ^ So 
 that the Eucharistic sacrifice rests upon the fact that all access 
 to God is through the intercession of Christ ; it implies that His 
 intercession depends upon the merit of that slain Humanity 
 which He presents before God ; and that the same Himianity 
 which is present naturally in Heaven, is the medium of His 
 supernatural Presence in His Church's ordinances ; so that 
 there is one sacrifice but many altars. "Neither do we call 
 this sacrifice of the Eucharist an eficient sacrifice, as if that 
 upon the Cross wanted efficacy ; but because the force and vir- 
 tue of that Sacrifice would not be profitable unto us, unless it 
 were applied and brought into effect by this Eucharistical Sa- 
 crifice, and other the holy Sacraments and means appointed by 
 God for that end ; but we call it propitiatory both this and 
 that, because they have both force and virtue in them to appease 
 God's wrath against this sinful world." ^ 
 
 And hence it may be seen why Luther rejected the doctrine 
 of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, though admitting the Real Pre- 
 sence, from which it seems to be a necessary deduction. The 
 reason is the same which induced him to depreciate the impor- 
 tance of the Holy Eucharist, at the very moment when he ad- 
 mitted its reality [vide p. 91]. Luther's doctrine of Justifica- 
 tion did not allow him to give its full weight to the work of 
 Christ in the economy of man's salvation. The efficacy of Our 
 Lord's death he fully admitted, and that it supplied the only 
 meritorious cause for man's acceptance. But this merit he sup- 
 posed to be applied, not by the act of Christ, but by the act of 
 the individual. He maintained, not only that faith is needed on 
 our part for the acceptance of God's gifts (which is undeniable), 
 but that it supersedes the necessity of those Gospel ordinances, 
 whereby the Church's members partake the merits of their Head 
 and Advocate. To be saved by faith, on this system, was a sub- 
 stitution of the powers of the individual, iu place of the perpe- 
 
 ^ In Psalm xxxviii. 25 ; vol. i. p. 853. 
 2 Bishop Cosin. Ubi supra. 
 
 S 2 
 
260 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 tual work of the Great Intercessor. It professed to rest exclu- 
 sively upon the merits of Our Lord, but to have sufficient re- 
 sources iu itself to wield and apply them. If it be said that the 
 faith, on which so much dependence was placed, was the result 
 of grace, and the gift of God ; yet still it was a gift of which the 
 individual had become possessed ; a gift, " which if heaven gave 
 it, might be termed his own." So that any how it dispensed with 
 the office of the Church's Head, and supposed acceptance to be 
 obtained through a private effort of the mind, and not through 
 participation in His public actions. And thus did it exclude 
 the necessity of that Eucharistic sacrifice, whereby the Church 
 has part in the Intercession of its Head. 
 
 The whole system of the Church, on the other hand, has been 
 designed to bring out the efficacy of Our Lord's Intercession, 
 and to show that He still continites to be the sole agent " which 
 taketh away the sin of the world." Thus does the particular 
 doctrine of the Eucharistic sacrifice grow out of the general 
 truth of the Mediation of Christ. It is nothing more than the 
 admission of this truth, taken in connexion with the fact of the 
 Real Presence. This must have been peculiarly felt by those 
 to whom the system of sacrifices was familiar, and who were 
 accustomed therefore to gain access to God through the public 
 act of some ordained intercessor. And to this circumstance it 
 is, probably, that we must attribute the comparatively little 
 notice which the Eucharistic service receives in Holy Scripture. 
 Not a word is said which militates against its efficacy ; and we 
 see it foreshadowed in the law, predicted by Malachi, instituted 
 by Our Lord, and referred to in the Epistles to the Corinthians 
 and the Hebrews. But it is not dwelt upon like those new 
 truths, which were for the first time impressed upon the Chris- 
 tian Church. That Our Lord's sacrifice was complete in itself, 
 that it did not need to be repeated, that it superseded all the 
 offerings of the ancient covenant — these were points which it 
 was essential to demonstrate to those to whom they were novel- 
 ties, just as our thirty-first Article thinks it necessary to insist 
 upon the truth, that besides " the ofi"eriiig of Christ once made," i 
 
REGARDED AS A SACRIFICE. 261 
 
 " there is none other satisfaction for sin." But that the Priest- 
 hood of Melchisedec was exercised like other priesthoods, through 
 the offering which it presented, and consequently, that its opera- 
 tion embraced all those means by which Our Lord's perpetual 
 Presence was bestowed upon His people, was too obvious to 
 require enforcement. 
 
 But what proof have we that the statements of Scripture are 
 to be thus interpreted ? Por the very obviousness which made 
 it needless to insist upon this truth, lays it open to contradic- 
 tion. What proof could we have, except the manner in which 
 the statements of Scripture were understood by those to whom 
 they were delivered ? Did the ancient Church look upon the 
 Eucharistic service as a Sacrifice, and speak of it as the means 
 whereby men participated in the one atonement ? 
 
 This question will be best answered by adopting the course 
 which was taken previously, and considering what are the alter- 
 natives of which the case admits. One of these is to deny that 
 the Holy Eucharist is a Sacrifice at all. Another is to admit 
 that it is a Sacrifice, but to afiirm that the thing presented is 
 not the offering of Christ, but the devotion of the communicants. 
 A third is to suppose that the sacramentum only, that is, the 
 bread and wine, and not the res sacramenti, is the thing offered. 
 Each of these notions has been entertained, but the second, which 
 af&rms the Holy Eucharist to be a sacrifice, but states that the 
 thing offered is only the devotion of the worshippers, is merely a 
 nominal answer, and resolves itself in reality into the first. Por 
 why should this ordinance be called the Eucharistic Sacrifice, 
 except because its sacramental character bears some part in the 
 offering ? Otherwise it has no more title to the name of sacrifice 
 than every act of prayer or praise. Whether the sacramentum 
 were offered, or the res sacramenti, we might fitly call it a sacra- 
 mental offering ; but the name is inapplicable if nothing is in- 
 tended but that which is common to all religious offices. Why 
 else do we not speak of a Baptismal sacrifice, since the devotion 
 of the worshippers may equally be looked for in that sacrament 
 also ? Such a mode of speaking of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is to 
 
262 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 defend it, as an acute opponent has recently observed respecting 
 Waterland, by explaining it away. 
 
 There remain, therefore, in reality, but three systems, which 
 it is possible to entertain. Either the Holy Eucharist is not a 
 sacrifice at all, or if it be, the thing offered is either merely the 
 sacramentum, or it includes the res sacramenti also. Those who 
 entertain the notions of Zuinglius and Calvin cannot adopt the 
 last oj^inion, because they either deny that there exists any res 
 sacramenti at all, or deny, at all events, its presence in the ordi- 
 nance. Their common and most consistent course, has been to 
 deny that the Holy Eucharist is a Sacrifice at all ; but there 
 have not been wanting parties who have professed to attach 
 great importance to the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and yet have 
 maintained that bread and wine is all which is offered. Now 
 what is the judgment of the ancient Chui'ch respecting these 
 three opinions ? Is the Holy Eucharist a sacrifice, and is the 
 thing offered the sacramentum only, or the res sacramenti 
 also? 
 
 In reference to the first opinion, it may be asserted, without 
 fear of contradiction, that no doctrine of the Christian religion is 
 affirmed with more unanimity ^ by all ancient writers, than the 
 truth of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. St. Clement, the very earliest 
 of all ecclesiastical authorities, writing in the lifetime of Apo- 
 stles, mentions the " performing offerings and liturgies " ^ as the 
 sei*vice which Our Lord had appointed, and speaks of it as the 
 peculiar function of the ministry " to offer the gifts." ' St. Ig- 
 natius, but little later, uses the word Altar* as the habitual 
 name of the Lord's Table. Justin Martj^r, almost the next 
 Christian writer, besides describing the sacrifice of the Eucharist 
 in his first apology, twice quotes the prediction of Malachi re- 
 
 * "Apud veteres Patres, ut quod res est libere fateamur, de Sacrificio 
 Corporis Cliristi in Eucharistia iucruento frequens est mentio, qute dici 
 vix potest quantopere quorundam alioqiii doctorum hominum ingenia 
 exercuerit, torserit, vexaverit." — Bii>hiip Miirton in Mede. Ep. Ixxi. 
 
 * " rds irpoa<popas koI Xtirovp-^ias (irireKtiaOai." — Ad Coiiuthios, i. 40. 
 ^ " TTpofffyeyKoi'Tas ra buipay — lb- 44. 
 
 * Ad. Eph. V. Ad Magn. vii. Ad Pliilad. iv. 
 
REGARDED AS A SACRIFICE. 263 
 
 specting the Christian service, and says that the sacrifice, which 
 was designed to he offered by the Christian Church, was " the 
 bread of the Eucharist, and the cup of the Eucharist." ^ St. 
 Irenseus interprets the same prediction, by saying that it refers 
 to " the oblation of the Church, which Our Lord taught to be 
 offered in the whole world." ^ And this he explains to be the 
 bread and the cup which is taken from the creation, and which 
 constitute that " new oblation of the New Testament which the 
 Church, receiving from the Apostles, offers throughout the whole 
 world to God." ^ This passage leads us on to the statement of 
 St. Augustin : " The Church, from the age of the Apostles, 
 through the sure successions of Bishops, goes on even to our 
 own time, and offers [immolat) to God the sacrifice of praise in 
 the Body of Christ. . . . This Church is the spiritual Israel, from 
 which that carnal Israel is discriminated which used to serve in 
 the shadows of sacrifices, by which was typified that singular 
 sacrifice which the spiritual Israel now offers. . . . This last sa- 
 crifices to God the sacrifice of praise, not according to the course 
 of Aaron, but according to the course of Melchisedec. . . . Those 
 who read know what Melchisedec brought forth when he blessed 
 Abraham, and if they are now partakers in him, they see such a 
 sacrifice to be offered at present to God throughout the whole 
 world." * 
 
 It can hardly be disputed that there is no ancient writer, 
 whose subject leads him to speak of the Holy Eucharist, who 
 does not declare it to be a sacrifice, who does not call the place 
 an altar at which it is offered, and the person by whom it is 
 presented a priest. " The clergy," says St. Cyprian, " ought to 
 be employed in nothing else but the service of the Altar and in 
 sacrifices."^ "And the work of the sacrifice," says St. Hilary, 
 "cannot take place without a Presbyter,"" But while it is 
 needless to multiply quotations in proof of that which is indis- 
 
 ^ Contra Tryphonem, xli. and cxvii. 
 
 2 Lib. iv. 18. 1. 3 Lib. jy. 17. 5. 
 
 * Contra Advers. Leg. i. 39. ^ Ep. Ixvi. 109. 
 
 ® Oper. Hist. Frag. ii. 16. 
 
264 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 putable, It would be wrong to omit all mention of the ancient 
 Liturgies. For the primitive estimate respecting the Holy 
 Eucharist is %\atnessed by their existence, as well as by their 
 construction. It has been already stated, that we have demon- 
 sti'ative proof what expressions were used in the Liturgies of 
 the Churches of Jerusalem and Alexandria, prior to the year 
 451, while by probable evidence we can show that the general 
 framework of these and other early Liturgies must have come 
 down from the age of the Apostles. Now it is unnecessary to 
 insist on the authenticity of particular phrases, though even 
 these cannot be supposed to have been interpolated, when they 
 are found in the same identical form in the Litui'gies of different 
 countries. But there is one thing which chai'acterizes these 
 Liturgies as a whole, and which so completely interpenetrates 
 their whole construction, as to be inseparable from their 
 existence, namely, that they consist of three distinct actions — 
 Consecration, Sacrifice, and Communion. And the second of 
 these is so prominently put forward, as to be a more marked 
 feature in the Liturgies even than Communion : while Conse- 
 cration is in all cases introduced as conducive to the other two 
 actions. 
 
 Now there cannot be a more convincing proof of the opinion 
 of the Ancient Church, than that this should be the character of 
 its common worship. The Christians met for other purposes — 
 for the singing of Psalms, and the receiving instruction — but the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice, with its attendant Communion, was the 
 thing which was especially dignified by the name of Service 
 [the sacred Liturgy'] : this part alone of their worship was 
 thought deserving of being fixed by the composition of a public 
 Ritual ; it was the daily worship of the united congregation ; 
 the feature which has left its trace in the records of the times. 
 So that even if doubt could be thrown on individual expressions, 
 we could not doubt that the Holy Eucharist was supposed to be 
 a sacrifice by the early Christians ; that they agreed with the 
 sentiment expressed by Bishop Cosin, " we offer and present the 
 death of Christ to God, that for His death's sake we may find 
 
EEGAEDED AS A SACEIFICE. 265 
 
 mercy, in which respect we deny not this commemorative 
 Sacrifice to be propitiatory."^ 
 
 There can be no question, then, that the Holy Eucharist was 
 understood to be a sacrifice by the Ancient Church ; and those 
 who look to that Church to inform them what written documents 
 contain the revealed will of God, may be expected to admit that 
 it was a competent witness respecting so material a feature of 
 the new Revelation. But then comes the second question : 
 allowing the Holy Eucharist to be a sacrifice, what is the thing 
 offered — is it the sacramentum only, or the res sacramenti also ; 
 is it mere bread and wine, or the Body of Christ ? Now it may 
 readily be admitted that the sacramentum is offered : the bread 
 and wine, as a sort of first-fruits of creation, are brought as an 
 offering to Grod, with a view of being employed in this solemn 
 service, and are thus devoted with various preliminary rites, as 
 being the means which are reqtiired by the priest according to 
 the order of Melchisedec, for the celebration of His ritual. And 
 on this account the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist may be fitly 
 spoken of as a memorial of Christ. For as the external part of 
 this ordinance is described by the Fathers as a type or figure of 
 the inward reality, by which it is accompanied [cap. viii. p. 164] ; 
 so the oblation of the sacramentum serves as a memorial of Him 
 who is really offered as the res sacramenti, or thing signified. 
 So much is allowed by all who believe that any sacrifice is offered 
 in the Holy Eucharist. The point in dispute is, whether this is 
 all which is offered ; whether there be no further view in the 
 service, no deeper meaning ; whether this service is a memorial 
 only, or a reality also. It cannot be expected that those who 
 take the Zuinglian or Calvinistic view of this ordinance should 
 see anything more in it, because they suppose that they are 
 dealing only with a sacramentum, or external form, and deny 
 the existence of the res sacramenti, or thing signified. But it 
 would be surprising to find this notion shared by persons who 
 believe in the Real Presence of Christ. If the effect of conse- 
 cration be to join together the sacramentum and res sacramenti, 
 ^ NichoUs's Additional Notes, p. 46. 
 
266 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 why should persons exclude the one and offer up the other? 
 "Why should they exclude the reality or thing signified, and 
 offer up the mere form and shell of the victim ? Is not this to 
 be deluded by a system of shadows? There is a consistency 
 in denying that this service is a sacrifice at all : it is to 
 reject the concurrent sentence of all antiquity ; to divest 
 the worship of the Christian Church of its reality, and to 
 detract from the present efficacy of the Intercession of Christ : 
 yet though a false system, it is hannouious with itself. 
 But to allow the Holy Eucharist to be a sacrifice, yet sup- 
 pose that nothing is offered but its external shell and cover- 
 ing — that the Church honours God by presenting to Him 
 the empty husk of its victim — is little consonant with the 
 truth and actuality of the Christian dispensation. It is to 
 substitute the shadows of the Law for the realities of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 Hei'e again, however, we need that test which is supplied by 
 the judgment of the ancient Church. Did it suppose that it 
 was offering to God the sacr amentum only, or the res sacramenti 
 aJso? It has been maintained that the former was the idea in 
 the second century, because the general expressions, used at that 
 period, do not specify that the oblation of the external form in- 
 volved the offering of the inward reality. Waterland, who 
 attempts to sustain this theory, is obliged to admit that 
 St. Cyprian, who has occasion to explain the nature of the Holy 
 Eucharist more fully, affiims the twofold character of that 
 which is offered. " Who is more the Priest of the Most High 
 God," says St. Cyprian, " than Our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 offered a sacrifice to God the Father, and offered that self-same 
 thing which Melchisedec had offered, that is bread and wine, 
 namely, His own Body and Blood ? " And he adds : " if Jesus 
 Christ, Our Lord and God, is Himself the High-Priest of God 
 the Father, and after offering Himself up to the Father, ordered 
 this to be done in commemoration of Him, that priest surely is 
 a true vicegerent of Christ, who imitates that which Christ 
 did ; and he offers a true and full sacrifice to God the 
 
REGARDED AS A SACRIFICE. 267 
 
 Father, if he begins to offer, as he sees that Christ Himself 
 offered." ' 
 
 St. Cyprian was far from intending that the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice should supersede, or be added to, that of the Cross — 
 " We make mention," he says, " of Christ's passion in all sacri- 
 fices, for the sacrifice which we offer is the passion of Our Lord"^ 
 — but he is distinct in his assertion, that it is through the Eu- 
 charistic service that we participate in the oblation which is 
 perpetually presented in heaven by our Great High-Priest, and 
 that the thing offered is not only bread and wine, but the res 
 sacramenti, or thing signified. He speaks of one who presumed 
 to solemnize this service * without the Church's authority, as 
 " an enemy to the altar, a rebel against the sacrifice of Christ ; " 
 and as " profaning by false sacrifices the truth of the divine 
 victim." These statements of St. Cyprian, Waterland would set 
 aside, by asserting that there was a " change of language intro- 
 duced in his time." But for this he has no kind of ground, ex- 
 cept that St. Cyprian's statements are more definite than those 
 of an earlier period. For what ancient writer ever hinted that 
 St. Cyprian employed language on this subject which had not 
 prevailed in the century before him ? Why did not Eusebius 
 observe this discrepancy, when he reviewed the period which 
 preceded him, while all its monuments were still in existence ?. 
 What weight has an argument like this, which professes to 
 stand merely on negative evidence, when it is first heard of 
 at the distance of fifteen centuries ? And considering that 
 St. Cyprian was born within about a hundred years after the 
 death of St. John, when as yet the theological language of the 
 Church was far from matured, such a mode of reasoning is not 
 only fatal to the evidence for Episcopacy, but it might be used 
 as an argument against those fundamental statements respecting 
 the Blessed Trinity, and respecting the Person and Offices of 
 the Son and of the Holy Ghost, which the Church was subse- 
 quently guided to elicit from Holy Scripture. Besides, if we 
 
 ^ Epistola, Ixiii. sec. 4 and 14. ^ lb. Ixiii. sec. 17. 
 
 3 "Audet aliud altare facere," &c. — De Unitate, p. 185, Rig. [1666]. 
 
268 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 look at the writers before St. Cyprian, we find that their views 
 exactly accord with his, though they are less explicit in unfold- 
 ing them. St. Ignatius not only speaks of the Altar, but says 
 that " the Eucharist is the Flesh of Our Saviour Jesus Christ 
 which suffered for our sins." ^ Justin Mart}T tells us that the 
 bread and wine, which in other places he speaks of as offered 
 up in sacrifice, are " the Flesh and Blood of the Incarnate 
 Jesus." ^ St. Irenseus says that " the cup and the bread which 
 the creation supplies," and which are the oblation which the 
 Church offers throughout the world, are affirmed by Our Lord 
 to be " His own Blood," and " His Body." ' And he speaks of 
 " the Word " * (he must mean of course according to its human 
 nature), as the Church's Eucharistic sacrifice. Finally, the 
 objective efficacy of such services is attested by St. Cyprian's 
 master, Tertullian, when he declares the " ohlationes irro de- 
 functis " '' to be a stated part of Christian woi'ship. Let these 
 statements be brought together, and wherein do they fall short 
 of the more detailed expositions of the truth of the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice, which we have from St. Cyprian and St. Hippolytus in 
 the following century ? The latter, speaking of Our Lord as 
 predicted under the name of Wisdom, says, " She has prepared 
 her table, the revealed knowledge of the Sacred Trinity ; and 
 His precious and spotless Body and Blood, which are daily 
 celebrated at the mystical and divine table, and sacrificed in 
 memorial of that first memorable table of the mystical divine 
 supper." " 
 
 The brevity of the earliest writers, then, is not to be esteemed 
 an argument against the more systematic declarations respecting 
 the Holy Eucharist, which we meet with in the third century, 
 any more than their imperfect expressions respecting Our Lord's 
 nature are oj)posed to the full truth of the Nicene formulary. 
 
 ^ Ad Smyr. vi. ^ Apol. i. 66. » Lib. v. ii. 2. 
 
 * S. Iren. iv. xviii. 4. Massuet's readinjr is supported by the best 
 manuscripts. Hiifliing's sole ground of objection to it appears to be his 
 dislike to tlie doctrine which it illustrates. 
 
 ^ De Corona, iii. _ '' Gallandi, vol. ii. p. 488. 
 
EEGAEDED AS A SACEIFICE. 269 
 
 There Is no historical ground for supposing that the opinion of 
 the third and fourth centuries on this subject, was different from 
 that of the first and second. Not the slightest trace exists of 
 any dispute or difference of opinion, such as must needs have 
 arisen, if innovations had been introduced in a fundamental 
 doctrine. The judgment of the whole Church, diffused through 
 many countries, and employing various languages, was entirely 
 coincident. On many subjects there were warm and lasting dis- 
 putes ; respecting this, not an expression of dissonance. This 
 circumstance would fully justify an appeal to that larger period 
 in which Christian authors became more numerous, and their 
 statements more complete, even if men refused to recognise that 
 authority in the Church, which is assigned to her in our 20th 
 article. For those who allow the Church to have " authority 
 in controversies of faith," must of course acknowledge its preten- 
 sions in that age, when the four first Councils expressed the 
 opinion of the undivided body ; while those who suppose it to 
 be nothing but a witness, ought to respect its testimony to the 
 institutions, if they appeal to its judgment respecting the docu- 
 ments of the Christian faith. Now the judgment of the Church 
 to the time of the Council of Chalcedon may be expressed in the 
 following assertions : — 
 
 First — The thing offered in the Holy Eucharist is affirmed in 
 express terms to be the Body of Christ. St. Cyril's account of 
 " that holy and most awful sacrifice " is, that " we offer up 
 Christ sacrificed for our sins." ^ St. Augustin's way of stating 
 that the Holy Eucharist had been celebrated in the house of 
 Hesperius, is that a priest " offered up there the sacrifice of the 
 Body of Christ." ^ He affirms that Our Lord has made " the 
 sacrifice of His own Body " to be " the sacrament of the faith- 
 ful ; " ^ and he discriminates between the Christian and the 
 Jewish covenant, by saying, tliat " instead of all those sacrifices 
 and oblations. His Body is offered and is ministered to the par- 
 ticipants." * St. Maximus justifies the custom of burying the 
 
 1 Mys. Cat. v. 9, 10. ^ De Civ. Dei, xxii. 8. 6. 
 
 ^ Epis. cxl. 61. * De Civ. Dei, xvii. xx. 2. 
 
270 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 bodies of saints under the altar, by observing that "Christ is 
 placed upon the altar." ' St. Cyril of Alexandria's description 
 of the Holy Eucharist is, that " the Lamb of God which taketh 
 away the sin of thQ world is slain. . . . The Son is voluntarily 
 sacrificed, not to-day by the hands of God's enemies, but by 
 Himself." ■-' 
 
 But no one is more full in his assertions on this subject than 
 St. Chrysostom. His Liturgy, like every other ancient liturgy, 
 is express in declaring that the thing given in the Holy Eucharist 
 is the Body and Blood of Christ. The prayer of the priest in his 
 ritual is, " make this bread the precious Body of Thy Christ ;" 
 "and that which is in this cup the jorecious Blood of Thy 
 Christ;"' and the usual words of administration involved the 
 same assertion ; " after consecration," says St. Ambrose, " it is 
 called Blood. And you say, Amen, that is, it is true."* And 
 these statements of St. Chrysostom's Liturgy are borne out by 
 expressions in his other works. He describes the spectators of 
 the Holy Eucharist as " beholding Our Lord slain, and lying 
 there, and the priest standing over the Sacrifice and praying:"^ 
 he speaks of the priest as " performing that most awful sacrifice, 
 and continually touching the common Lord of all;"* the com- 
 munion table, he says, is like the manger at Bethlehem, " for 
 there, too, will lie the Body of the Lord;"^ the purpose of 
 coming to Church he describes to be " to perform the sacrifice of 
 the Son of God ;"^ and to the communicant he says, "consider 
 what kind of victim you are about to handle, what table to 
 approach. Bethink you that being earth and ashes you take the 
 Body and Blood of Christ."^ And in like manner in his Homilies 
 on Holy Scripture, he speaks of it as the privilege of the New 
 Covenant, that Our Lord had " changed the very sacrifice itself, 
 and instead of the slaughter of irrational animals, had commanded 
 
 ' De Natal. Sanct. Serm. 78. 
 
 - Vol. V. part ii. p. 371, in Mys. Caen. ^ Goar, p. 77. 
 
 ■» De Mysteriis, ix. 54 ; vid. 8. Aug. Sermo 272. 
 
 '' De Sacerdotio, iii. 4. * De Sacerdotio, vi. 4. 
 
 " De Philogonio, 3. * De non Anathematizandis, 4. 
 
 ^ In Diem Nat. Christ. 7. 
 
 I 
 
EEGAEDED AS A SACRIFICE. 271 
 
 us to offer up Himself." And " that which He suffered not on 
 the cross, this He suffers in the oblation for thy sake, and 
 submits to be broken, that He may fill all men." ^ And so on the 
 Epistle to the Ephesians, he speaks of the angels as descend- 
 ing to witness the Holy Eucharist, because then " the sacrifice is 
 brought forth, and Christ, the Lord's sheep, is slaughtered." "^ 
 
 Secondly — The sacrifice offered in the Holy Eucharist is 
 affirmed not to be anything superadded to that on the Cross, nor 
 yet a repetition of it. For it was maintained that the Sacrifice 
 on the Cross was a perpetual Sacrifice, which had been consum- 
 mated in Our Lord's death, in order that it might be continually 
 brought before Grod in the Holy Eucharist. " "Was not Christ 
 slain once in Himself," says St. Austin, " and yet in the sacrament 
 He is slain for the people not only every Passover, but every 
 day."^ And St. Chrysostom : — 
 
 " "What, then, do we not offer every day ? Certainly we do : 
 but to make a memorial of His death. And this memorial is 
 one, and not many. How can it be one, and not many? 
 Because it has been brought once for all, like that sacrifice 
 which was carried into the Holy of holies. For that Jewish 
 sacrifice had a relation to that on the Cross, and the Eucharist 
 has a relation to it. For we offer always the same ; we do not 
 offer one sheep to-day and another to-morrow ; we offer always 
 the same : so that it is one sacrifice. Otherwise, since the 
 sacrifice is offered in many places, there must be many Christs. 
 But this is not the case, but there is one Christ everywhere, 
 whole Christ here, and whole Chi'ist there — one Body. As 
 therefore He is one Body, though offered in many places, and 
 not many bodies ; so likewise is there one Sacrifice. It is that 
 High-Pi'iest of ours who has offered the Sacrifice which cleanses 
 us. And we offer even now that Sacrifice which was then too 
 offered — the inexhaustible Sacrifice. This happens in memory 
 of that w hich then took place. For ' do this,' He says, ' in 
 memory of Me.' It is not a different sacrifice, as the High- 
 Priest presented in former times ; but we offer always the same : 
 or rather w e perform a memorial of that sacrifice." * 
 
 ■• Horn. xxiv. on 1 Corinth, sec. 3, 4. ^ Horn. iii. 5. 
 
 ^ Epist. xcviii. 9. Vide also Contra Faustum, xx. 18. 
 * In Epist. ad Hebr. Horn. xvii. 3. 
 
272 
 
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 I add a passage from the fifth Paschal Homily, which is 
 attributed to Eusebius Emissenus, but which was probably the 
 work of 8t. Caesarius, who was born shoi"tly after the Council of 
 Chalcedou. " It was necessary that He who was about to with- 
 draw the Body which He had assumed from our sight, and to 
 transfer it to heaven, should this day consecrate for us the 
 sacrament of His Body and Blood ; that the same object which 
 was once offered as the price of our ransom, might be continually 
 worshipped in a mystery ; that as a daily and exhaustless 
 redemption was provided for man's salvation, so there might 
 be the perpetual offering up also of their redemjition ; and that 
 that Victim might live continually in memory, and be always 
 present by grace.'" 
 
 Thirdly — The victim offered in the Holy Eucharist was said 
 to be identical with Ilim who offered it. Such was the constant 
 language of the Liturgies : " Thou art He that offerest and art 
 offered, Christ, our God." ^ A set of expressions to which St. 
 Ambrose apparently makes allusion. " We have seen the Prince 
 of high-priests coming to us : we have seen and heard Him 
 offering His Blood for us : we who are priests follow as we can, 
 that we may offer a sacrifice for the people ; though weak in our 
 own deserts, yet to be honoured for our sacrifice ; because though 
 Christ is not now seen to offer, yet He Himself is offered upon 
 earth when the Body of Christ is offered ; yea. He Himself is 
 discovered to offer in our persons, whose word hallows the 
 sacrifice which is offered," ^ And again : " He gave bread to 
 His Apostles, that they might divide it to the mass of believers ; 
 to-day He gives to us that bread which He Himself as High- 
 Priest, consecrates daily with His own words."* And so St. 
 Cyril on the Mystical Supper: " He who is mystically eaten in 
 Egypt, here voluntarily sacrifices Himself:" and again we are 
 
 1 Bib. Pat. Mai. vi. 636. 
 
 ' Goar, p. 72. So in the Sacramentary of S. Leo: "Sancti Spiritus 
 operaute virtute pacrificium jam nostrum. Corpus et Sanguis est ipsius 
 bacerdotis." — JUuraturi, LUunjia liomuna Vitas, vol. i. p. 469. 
 
 •* In Psalm, xxxviii. Euar. 25, vol. i. p. b53. 
 
 * De Beuedictioud Patriarcli. ix. 38, vol. i. p. 524. 
 
EEGAEDED AS A SACEIFICE. 273 
 
 bidden to " believe that He Himself continues both Priest and 
 Victim ; Himself the offerer and the offered " ^ • — passages which 
 we must interpret in consistency with St. Cyril's own statement 
 respecting Our Lord : " we assign to no man, except Him, the 
 name and substance of the priesthood." ^ 
 
 Fourthly — It was the habitual custom of ancient writers to 
 speak of the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist as awful, august, 
 and terrible. The Liturgy of St. James calls it " the tremendous 
 and unbloody sacrifice ;" St. Basil speaks of " Thy tremendous 
 and heavenly mysteries ;" St. Chrysostom describes it as " that 
 fearful and most tremendous cup," and he perpetually uses such 
 expressions as the " awful mysteries " ' — " that tremendous and 
 divine Table."* 
 
 Fifthly — They speak of the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist as 
 truly efficacious for the obtaining of all those things, which are 
 the subject-matter of prayer and of intercession. This is 
 manifest on the slightest inspection of the ancient Liturgies ; 
 and their evidence to it would not be affected, even if it were 
 admitted that some or all of them had suffered verbal inter- 
 polation. For it rests upon their structure and general tenor. 
 Their common purpose is to solicit benefits for the worshippers, 
 and for the whole body of Christ ; and the petitions to this end 
 either grow out of the sacrifice, and are founded upon it, as is 
 usually the case, or at all events have a direct relation to it. 
 This practice is repeatedly observed upon by ancient writers, 
 and is referred to in a canon of the very early Council of 
 Elvira.^ Eusebius speaks of the Bishops whom Constantine 
 collected at Jerusalem, as "appeasing the Divine Power with 
 bloodless sacrifices and mystical solenmizations." "^ "After the 
 spiritual sacrifice is perfected," says St. Cyril, "the bloodless 
 
 1 S. Cyril, A. v. 2, pp. 375, 378. 
 
 * Harduin, i. 1289. (Letter to Nestorius.) 
 ^ On 1 Cor. Horn. xxiv. 3. 
 
 •* In diem Nat. Christi, 7. 
 
 * "Hujus nomen neque ad altare cum oblatione recitandum," &c. — ■ 
 Can. 29, Hard. i. 253. 
 
 6 De Vita Const, iv. 45. 
 
274 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 service upon that Sacrifice of Propitiation, we entreat God for 
 the common peace of the Church, for the tranquillity of the 
 world ; for kings ; for soldiers and allies ; for the sick ; for the 
 afflicted ; and in a word, for all who stand in need of succour, 
 we all supplicate and offer tliis sacrifice. Then we commemorate 
 also those who have fallen asleep before us, first Patriarchs, 
 Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, that at their prayers and inter- 
 vention God would receive our jietition. Afterwards also on 
 behalf of the holy Fathers and Bishops who have fallen asleep 
 before us, and in a word, of all who in past years have fallen 
 asleep among us, believing that it will be a great advantage to 
 the souls for whom the supplication is put up, while that Holy 
 and most Awful Sacrifice is presented." ^ To the same effect 
 speaks St. Chrysostom, observing that "our service is not mere 
 scenery, God forbid," but that prayers may be put up with 
 confidence before the altar, because " there lies there the common 
 expiation of the world." ^ 
 
 Sixthly — The Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist is declared to 
 have been that which the Jewish ordinances were intended to 
 typify. Eusebius^ contrasts it with the ancient sacrifices, and 
 states them to be superseded by it ; and the Apostolical 
 Constitutions give a detailed account of the relation of the two 
 Covenants. " Baptism, the sacrifice, the priesthood, . . . Our 
 Lord altered. Instead of daily He gave one Baptism, that into 
 His death : instead of one tribe. He appointed that the best of 
 every nation should be ordained to the priesthood ; . . . instead of 
 bloody sacrifices He ai^pointed the one reasonable, bloodless, and 
 mystical sacrifice, that of His own Flesh and Blood, which is per- 
 formed by symbols (into, t.e.) in reference to the death of the 
 Lord."* St.Chrj'sostom therefore says," our Passover is the offering 
 and sacrifice wliich is made on every occasion of public worship." ^ 
 
 1 S. Cyril's Fifth Myst. Cat. 8, 9. 
 ^ On 1 Cor. XV. 46, Horn. xli. 5. 
 ^ Demonatratio Evang. Lib. ii. cap. s. p. 37. 
 "* Apost. Const, vi. 23. 
 
 * "^ Ka6' (KiaTT]v yivofihr] avva^iv." — Hum. adv. Judxos, iii. 4, vol. i. 
 p. 611. 
 
REGARDED AS A SACRIFICE. 275 
 
 And St. Augustin speaks of " the sacrifice of the Church, of 
 which all kinds of former sacrifices were shadows."^ And 
 referring to the man cured of leprosy, he says that Our Lord 
 ordered a sacrifice to be offered according to the Jewish 
 ordinances, " because their place was not yet taken by that 
 sacrifice which afterwards he would have celebrated in the 
 Church in the place of all of them, seeing that by all of them He 
 was Himself predicted."^ And when he has occasion to speak 
 of " that table which our High Priest Himself, the Mediator of 
 the New Testament, exhibits, according to the order of Melchise- 
 dec, in His own Flesh and Blood," he adds ; " for that sacrifice 
 has succeeded to all those sacrifices of the Old Testament which 
 were slain as a shadow of Him who was to come. . . . For instead 
 of all these sacrifices and oblations His Body is offered, and is 
 ministered to the communicants."^ 
 
 Seventhly — But the Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist is said 
 to differ from those of the law, in that the latter were only a 
 shadow, while the former is a reality. St. Augustin discrimi- 
 nates the Christian from the Jewish covenant, by observing re- 
 specting the latter, that in their temple " the Body and Blood of 
 Christ was not yet accustomed to be offered." * "When St. Je- 
 rome contrasts David's act in taking the Shew Bread, with the 
 particiimtion of the Holy Eucharist, " there is as much differ- 
 ence," he says, "between the Shew Bread and the Body of 
 Christ, as between a shadow and bodies, between an image and 
 the truth, between the types of future things, and the things 
 which those types prefigured." ^ St. Cyril says, respecting the 
 Holy Eucharist, " it is obvious that this is a divine mystery, and 
 that its participation is life-giving, and that the force of this 
 bloodless sacrifice is far superior to that of the services of the 
 law ; and this follows because the injunctions given by Moses to 
 
 ^ Contra Adversar. Legis i. 37. ^ De Baptismo, iii. 27. 
 
 ^ De Civitate Dei, xvii. 20. 2. Vide also Enar. in Psalm xsxix. 12, 
 p. 334. S. Leo, Serm. Ivii. de Passione, sec. 7. Theodoret on Heb. xiii. 
 10, vol. iii. p. 460. 
 
 * Epis. xxix. 4. 
 
 * In Ep. ad Titum, i. vol. iv. part i. p. 418. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THE HOLY EUCHARIST 
 
 the ancients were said to be shadows, but Christ, and what be- 
 longs to Him, to be the truth." * And again, a few lines fur- 
 ther, when contrasting the Christian with the Jewish covenant ; 
 " how much is their system inferior to ours, on whom Christ, 
 that is, the truth, hath shone forth, having given us His own 
 life-giving Flesh for our participation." 
 
 Eighthly — To offer the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist, is 
 declared to be an especial office committed to the Apostles and 
 their successors. For as Eusebius describes it in the passage 
 recently quoted, the bishops who were not occupied in other 
 services, were employed to " propitiate the Divine power with 
 unbloody sacrifices ; " and " the work of sacrifice," says St. 
 Hilaiy, " could not happen without a presbyter." ^ " No one 
 doubts, I suppose," says Victor of Antioch, " that by the words 
 ' take, this is Afy Body^ &c.. Our Lord gave His Apostles the 
 power of celebrating, and of performing the mysteries of the 
 New Testament : " ^ whereas previously, " it was not committed 
 to tlie AjDostles to make and minister the celestial Bread for the 
 food of eternal life." * And this was the function which they 
 transmitted to tlieir successors ; so that St. Gregory Nazianzen 
 speaks of St. Athanasius as having been admitted into the order 
 of those " who approached to their ajoproachiug God ; " and says 
 he was educated as befitted those who were " to handle the 
 mighty Body of Christ." '' 
 
 These several statements supply decisive proof, that the 
 ancient Church supposed the offering presented in the Holy 
 Eucharist to consist not of the sacramentum only, but of the 
 res sacramenti also. For not only did the ancient writers speak 
 of the offering as the Body of Christ, and identify the sacrifice 
 with the sacrificer, but they speak of it in terms of awe and 
 reverence, to which a mere external sign could not possibly be 
 
 ' Advers. Nest. iv. 5, vol. vi. p. 112. 
 
 2 Ex. Op. Hist. ii. 16, p. 1294. 
 
 3 Bib. Pat. Max. iv. p. 407. 
 
 * S. Hilar, iu jNIatth. cap. xiv. sec. 10, p. 681. 
 
 * Oratiu, xxi. 4, p. 376. 
 
REGARDED AS A SACRIFICE. 277 
 
 entitled. Neither could the sacramentum, in itself, be the reality 
 which availed for man's acceptance ; it could not be the antitype 
 to the services of the Jewish law ; nor could its presentation 
 accord well with so solemn a commission as that of the Apostles. 
 So that if we are to understand the statements of Scinpture, as 
 they were understood by those to whom they were uttered, we 
 must suppose not only that the Holy Eucharist is a sacrifice, but 
 that the thing sacrificed is the reality, or res sacramenti, that 
 is, the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 And hence it may be seen on what principle, and in what 
 degree, the devotion of Christians makes part of the sacrifice of 
 the Holy Eucharist. I have already shown, that considered in 
 itself, it does not answer to those conditions which are to be 
 looked for in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. For there is nothing 
 sacramental in its character ; there is no sacramentum or res 
 sacramenti ; the prayers which are offered at the Holy Com- 
 munion do not differ from those which accompany any other act 
 of worship. But there is one view in which the worshippers 
 may be regarded, which connects them with that wliich has 
 been shown to be the true oblation in the Holy Eucharist ; 
 and this circumstance it is which enables them to " present 
 themselves, their souls and bodies, a reasonable, holy, and lively 
 sacrifice." For "the Christian sacrifice," says St. Augustin, is 
 " the many who make up one body in Christ." So that " the 
 whole congregation and society of the saints is offered to God 
 as an universal sacrifice by its great High Priest, who also 
 offered up Himself in His Passion for us, that we might be 
 the Body of so great a Head." ^ On this principle did the 
 Apostle speak of the oblation, of which he was the minister, 
 as " the offering up of the Gentiles ; " inasmuch as in this sense 
 the Christian Church itself constitutes the sacrifice which is 
 presented to God. Thus it is in some sort the res sacramenti, 
 which is aptly symbolized by the many grains, which have been 
 kneaded together into its outward part or earthly emblem. For 
 " we being many, are one bread and one body." So that, re- 
 ^ De Civitate Dei, x. 6. 
 
278 THE HOLY EUCHARIST REGARDED AS A SACRIFICE. 
 
 garded in this manner in its collective character, the Christian 
 Church fulfils the conditions of a sacramental offering. But 
 nothing can show more clearly than this very circumstance, that 
 the true res sacramenti, Christ's Body in its Real Presence, is 
 not excluded from the sacrifice. For what is it which gives its 
 sanctity to the mystical Body of Christ, and qualifies it to be 
 presented to the Holy God V Is it not that it is His Body from 
 whom all gifts of grace extend themselves to His members ? 
 " He has mingled Himself with us, and has infused His Body 
 into us, that we might be rendered one entity as a body united 
 to its head." ^ For is it not the perfection of His Body natural, 
 by which His Body mystical is sanctified ? The ointment which 
 has been poured forth upon the Church's Head, has reached 
 down to the skirts of its clotliing. If the Body mystical there- 
 fore of Christ be a fit sacrifice to off'er to God, it is by reason of 
 the influence and presence of that Body natui-al by which it is 
 ennobled. So that when she is herself offered up " a living sa- 
 crifice, holy, acceptable unto God," we may not exclude that, by 
 which alone this is rendered a grateful sacrifice to the Father. 
 The Church, Avliich is the mystical Body of Christ, is accepted 
 through the perpetual pleading of His Body " natural. 
 
 To conclude. The Eucharistic Sacrifice is not the offering of 
 the sacramentum only, the first-fruits of nature, but much more 
 that of the res sacramenti, the reality, or thing signified. It is 
 the offering up of the collective Church, Christ's mystical Body, 
 but it is also the offering up of Christ Himself, by whom that 
 Body is sanctified. Yet He is not offered up as though any- 
 thing could be added to the sacrifice of the Cross, or as though 
 that sacrifice required renewal. The blood-stained sacrifice 
 which the One Great High Priest for ever pleads before the 
 Father's throne, admits neither of increase nor repetition. " For 
 in the Church of God, which is the Body of Christ, neither is 
 
 1 S. Chrys. in Joan. Horn. xlvi. sec. 3, p. 272. Vide S. Isidor, Pelus. 
 Epis. lib. iii. Ep. 75 ; Bib. Pat. vii. 642. 
 
 2 Hence the ancient Canon (Hard. i. 963), that the Euchariatic Sacrifice 
 should be addressed exclusively to the Father. 
 
THE BENEFITS OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 279 
 
 the priesthood valid, nor the sacrifices real, unless the true High 
 Priest in our very nature reconciles us ; unless we are washed 
 in the true Blood of the spotless Lamb. "Who although He 
 be placed at the Father's right hand, yet, in the same Flesh 
 which He took of the Virgin, carries out the sacrament of our 
 propitiation ; as the Apostle says, Jesus Christ, who is dead, 
 yea, rather who is risen from the dead, who is even at the right 
 hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." ^ He who 
 has been consecrated a Priest for ever after the order of Melchi- 
 sedec, chooses this medium for giving effect to His perpetual 
 intercession. That acceptance which He purchased by the sa- 
 crifice of the cross. He applies through the sacrifice of the altar. 
 He Himself it is, who through the voice of His ministers con- 
 secrates these earthly gifts, and thus bestows the mystery of His 
 Real Presence. By Himself, again, is the precious Victim pre- 
 sented before the Father's throne ; and the intervention of their 
 Heavenly Head gives reality to the actions of His earthly mi- 
 nisters. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE BENEFITS WHICH KESULT FEOM THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 
 
 The nature of the Holy Eucharist has been considered. It 
 remains to say something respecting its results. They will be 
 found to be determined by the character of the ordinance, so 
 that its benefits must be ascertained by reference to its nature. 
 This is the course adopted in Holy Scripture, and followed, 
 as was observed, in the Catechism of our Church. Whereas 
 the benefits of Baptism are directly stated, and great promises 
 are annexed to its observance, the celebration of the Holy 
 
 1 S. Leo, Epist. Ix. 2. 
 
280 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 Eucharist is not commended to us with any promise, nor is it 
 directly asserted to be attended by any spiritual benefit. 
 
 The reason of this difference apparently, is that Baptism 
 has no res sacramenti, which can be tlistinguished from the 
 virtus sacramenti; so that in Bajitism the inward part cannot 
 be spoken of, without the enumeration of those benefits which 
 it contains. Therefore we hear of " the washing of regenera- 
 tion," and that " Baptism doth even now save us." And so 
 in the Catechism, the inward part of this ordinance is " a death 
 unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness." But in the 
 Holy Eucharist the benefits which accrue, and the promises 
 which pertain to it, are something distinct from the inward 
 l^art, of which they are a consequence. So that they are not 
 associated with the ordinance at large, but with the inward 
 part or thing signified. The only tiling which is told us re- 
 sjjecting the ordinance at large is, that the inward and outward 
 parts are so joined together by the mystical tie of consecration, 
 that to receive the one is to receive the other. We learn its 
 benefits, therefore, from what is told us respecting the res 
 sacramenti or thing signified ; and thence gather what must 
 be the advantages of an ordinance, which else would come down 
 to us a mere arbitrary appointment. 
 
 I. Regarding the Holy Eucharist then in tliis manner, let 
 us first ask what are its benefits, considered as a sacrifice. 
 They follow from the fact, that it is through this service that 
 the Great High Piiest, who has been consecrated according 
 to the order of Melchisedec, performs His perpetual functions. 
 So that here we have a fulfilment of that which Our Lord pre- 
 dicted respecting the Holy Eucharist ; " the bread which I will 
 give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." 
 Thus does this ordinance resolve the highest act of earthly 
 worship, into a function of Our Mediator's heavenly office. It 
 represents Him not only as having paid once for all, the price 
 of man's deliverance, but likewise as perpetually applying it 
 through His prevailuig intercession. To regard tlie Holy 
 Eucharist, therefore, as the main sacrifice of the Christian 
 
THE HOLY EUCHAEIST. 281 
 
 Church, is to suppose that human worship is only acceptable, 
 so far as it is identified with the offering of Christ. So that 
 we approach God in this service with peculiar confidence, be- 
 cause " the common expiation of the world lies before us. There- 
 fore with boldness do we then entreat for the whole world." ^ 
 "In the oblation following," says Bishop Cosin respecting our 
 own form of consecration, " we pray that it may prevail so 
 with God, as that we and all the whole Church of Christ 
 (which consists of more than those that are upon the earth) 
 may receive the benefit of it." ^ For " not in vain," says 
 St. Chrysostom, "did the Apostles order that remembrance 
 should be made of the dead in the dreadful mysteries. They 
 know that great gain resulteth to them, and great assistance ; 
 for when the whole people stand with uplifted hands, a priestly 
 assembly, and that awful Sacrifice lies displayed, how shall we 
 not prevail with God by our entreaties for them." ^ 
 
 The benefit of the Holy Eucharist, then, as a sacrifice, 
 depends on the peculiar grounds of acceptance with which in 
 that ordinance we are enabled to draw near to God. We 
 can approach boldly, because our offering is consecrated by 
 His own Presence. And this circumstance gives a reality to 
 the worship of the universal Church, which nothing else can 
 bestow upon it. It is seen to have but one worship and one 
 ritual, one central altar, with which all altars thi'oughout the 
 whole world are identified. He who pleads there, presents the 
 prayers of all saints before the throne of God. But it is not 
 their own merit which gains them acceptance, but the in- 
 estimable value of that spotless Humanity, which was slain 
 once that it might be offered for ever. " This is the power 
 of the priesthood, this is the High Priest. For He did not 
 offer a sacrifice Himself once, and then cease from His 
 
 1 S. Chrys. on 1 Cor. Horn. xli. 5, vol. x. 393. 
 
 ^ NichoUs's add. Notes, p. 46. 
 
 ^ Horn. iii. 4, in Philipp. vol. xi. p. 217. " Neque negandum est de- 
 functorum animas pietate suorum viventium relevari, cum pro illis sacri- 
 ficium Mediatoris ofFertur." — S. Aug. de Dulc Ques. ii. 4, vol. vi. p. 130. 
 Vide also De Cum pro Mortuis, 22, vol. vi. p. 530. 
 
282 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 Priesthood ; but in this manner does He for ever discharge 
 that service, wherehy He is our perpetual advocate with God : 
 for which reason it was said of Him, ' Thou art a Priest for 
 ever.' Therefore it is that the faithful need have no doubt 
 concerning the sanctification of the gifts, nor yet respecting 
 the other ordinances, and whether the purpose and prayers of 
 the priesthood are fulfilled.'" 
 
 II. I turn to the benefits of the Holy Eucharist regarded 
 as a sacrament. In order to appreciate them, it is necessary 
 to recall to our thoughts the principle upon which sacraments 
 are dependent. They are the application of the Incarnation ; 
 the means of bringing home to each individual, that benefit 
 which was bestowed by Christ upon our collective race. The 
 intercourse which originally existed between the Supreme Mind, 
 and the minds which He had created, had been cut off by sin, 
 so that it was essential that a channel of connexion should be 
 re-opened between them. For all good is in God, and has its 
 source in His adorable nature. So that to the creature it can 
 come only by transmission from that its native habitation. In 
 order, then, that it might be transmitted to our fallen race, 
 did God the Word condescend to become the Mediator between 
 God and man, by taking that nature in which He offered Him- 
 self as a victim. Thus did He jirovide a new road of intercourse 
 for humanity at large, seeing that in His Person the Infinite 
 and the finite, God and man, the Blessed Trinity and the 
 children of Adam, were brought into relation. 
 
 Out of this relation to humanity at large, flow those two 
 ordinances of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, whereby this 
 gift is communicated to individuals. These ordinances differ 
 from one another, in that Baptism is the act whereby God 
 the Holy Ghost puts each separate child of the old Adam 
 into relation with that Humanity of the New Adam, which 
 is the medium of life to the soul ; whereas the Holy Eucharist 
 is the act whereby through the efficacy of the same Blessed 
 Spirit, the Incarnate "Word bestows the Real Presence of His 
 ' "Germani lleruui Eccl. Conteiuplatio." — Gallamli, xiii. "222. 
 
THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 283 
 
 very Flesh and Blood, for the food of His people. So that 
 Christ's Body may be said to be present even in Baptism, 
 because in that ordinance the Incarnate Saviour is Himself 
 present by Spiritual power, but the Man Christ Jesus is really 
 present in the Holy Eucharist, by reason of the presence of 
 His Body and Blood. Baptism, therefore, is the first means 
 of putting men into connexion with the Blessed Trinity, through 
 their relation to the Humanity of Christ ; and consequently 
 the form of Baptism is a consecration into the Name of the 
 Three Persons in the glorious Godhead ; but the Holy Eucharist 
 is the perpetual communication of that rene\\ed type of 
 Humanity, which Our Lord consecrated in Himself by the 
 taking of the manhood into Grod. So that both ordinances 
 illustrate St. Cyril's statement : " that which produces in us 
 the Divine likeness must be our sanctification, that is, the par- 
 taking of the Son through the Spirit." ^ 
 
 The difference which has been pointed out between these 
 two sacraments, is the reason why Baptism does not require 
 that consecration of the elements, which is essential to the 
 Holy Eucharist. For Baptism is the combination of a visible, 
 and an invisible action, whereby the Holy Gfhost works effectually 
 upon the receiver's mind. But in the Holy Eucharist, the 
 inward part, or thing signified, is not the efiicacy of the Holy 
 Ghost, though that Gracious Spirit condescends to be the 
 agent who bestows it, but the very Body and Blood of the 
 Incarnate Son. These, therefore, are not united to the outward 
 part merely as an act is connected with the sign which is 
 simultaneous with it ; but the outward and inward parts are 
 truly joined together, so that they can be dealt with as if they 
 were identical. Such is the work which is effected by con- 
 secration, whereby the inward and oi;tward parts in the Holy 
 Eucharist are bound together by the operation of the Holy 
 Gbost. For " our mystical bread and cup are produced by a 
 certain consecration. That which is not so produced is only 
 
 ^ De Sancta Trinitate Dial. vi. vol. v. part i. p. 595. 
 
284 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 an earthly aliment, not a sacrament of religion." ^ And such 
 a process is not required in Baptism, because, though in that 
 Siicrameut men are joined to the " Last Adam," and thus made 
 members of their ^lystical Head, yet the union is not brought 
 about through any actual communication of Our Lord's Body 
 and Blood, but only through the efficacy of the Holy Ghost. 
 For "Baptism is truly Christ's and fii-om Christ," but "the 
 power of the m3'stical Eucharist is derived fi-om His sacred 
 Flesh."'' 
 
 If it be asked, then, what is the exact benefit which we 
 derive from the Holy Eucharist, the answer must be found 
 by considering what Our Lord has revealed respecting the 
 efficacy of that Flesh and Blood, which it has pleased Him to 
 make the medium of His Presence. And here it must be 
 remembered that we are not speaking of the efficacy of His 
 Flesh and Blood according to a natural order, or as though 
 it were the nourishment of the body, but of its efficacy according 
 to that divine law of a sacramental Presence, whereby He 
 bestows it as the nourishment of the soul. So that we are not 
 supposing a ceiiain portion of matter to be endued with the 
 power of producing magical effects : the Flesh and Blood of Our 
 Lord are life-giving, because they are united to His Person, 
 and are the means whereby His Presence is dispensed. And 
 therefore the Holy Eucharist may be called a moral ^ and not 
 a physical agent, i.e. an agent which is not independent of 
 the will of Him by whom it is employed. This distinction 
 Our Lord points out when He says, " it is the Spirit that 
 quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth notliing." He does not say that 
 under no circumstances does the flesh profit : indeed. He had 
 just before asserted the contrary ; but it profiteth nothing in 
 itself, and as detached from that spiritual principle of which it 
 is the agent. 
 
 "Even in Christ the flesh must not be thought of alone, 
 and in itself, for it has united to it that "Word, who is natu- 
 
 ' S. Aug. contra Faustum, xx. 13. - S. Cyril A. iv. p. 1074. 
 
 ^ Vide Estius in lib. iv. Sent. Dist. i. 5, and supra, cap. ii. p. 14. 
 
THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 285 
 
 rally life. When, therefore, Christ calls it life-giving, it is 
 not to it, so much as to Himself, or to His own Si^irit, that 
 He testifies that the life-giving power belongs. For it is 
 through Himself that His own Body is life-giving, since He 
 reconstituted the elements of His nature through His own 
 power. How He did so, neither can mind conceive, nor tongue 
 express, but we must admire with silence, and a faith which 
 passes understanding."^ 
 
 It is as the instrument, then, of Our Lord Himself, as 
 the medium through which He bestows His Presence, and 
 not because a certain portion of matter is competent of itself 
 to produce miraculous effects, that the Holy Eucharist is bene- 
 ficial. Our Lord has been pleased to make the Flesh and 
 Blood which He took, the chamiel of His blessings. " The 
 bread that I will give is My Flesh." And for this He had 
 made preparation, by sanctifying that nature which He had 
 assumed. "For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also 
 might be sanctified through the truth." It is for the carry- 
 ing out of this work that the Holy Eucharist was appointed, 
 wherein, says St, Cyril, Our Lord declares to us, " I become 
 such as you for your sakes, without departing from My own 
 nature, that you might be partakers of the Divine nature 
 through Me."^ "For the manna was not the bread of life, 
 but rather I who came down from heaven, who quicken all 
 things, and infuse Myself into those who eat Me, even through 
 the Flesh which has been united to Myself"^ And so speaks 
 St. Augustin, when he compares the manner in which the 
 Divine gifts are bestowed upon mankind, to the provision 
 which is made for the support of an infant through its mother's 
 milk. After saying that " ipsum panem mater incarnat," he 
 applies the analogy to the case of Our Incarnate Lord, who 
 being as God " the food of angels," bestows Himself as the 
 tood of men in the Holy Eucharist.* 
 
 ' S. Cyril A. iv. p. 377 ; vide supra, cap. vi. p. 115. 
 2 S. Cyril in Myst. Ccenam, vol. v. pt. 2, p. 374. 
 =' Id. Adv. Nest. iv. 5, vol. vi. 113. 
 
 * " Saginantur illo angeli : sad semetipsum exinanivit, ut manducaret 
 panem Angelorum homo." — hi Psalm, xxxiii. Enar. i. 6. "Cum vita 
 
286 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 And hence follow two consequences — first, the quickening of 
 our mortal nature by the seed of a higher life ; and secondly, 
 the privilege of a more intimate relation to the Divine nature. 
 The former has its ground in that statement of St. Paul, " the 
 first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was 
 made a quickening Spirit." For " how can they say," exclaims 
 St. Ireuseus, " that the flesh passes into corruption, and does 
 not partake of life, which is fed with the Body of the Lord, 
 and with His Blood ?"^ "For though death having made in- 
 vasion through sin, has power over man's ])ody to destroy it, 
 yet since Christ becomes our inmate by His own Flesh, we 
 shall surely rise again. For that life should not quicken those 
 in whom it dwells, is incredible, or rather impossible."^ And 
 this connects itself with the other truth — the present exalta- 
 tion of our nature by union with God. For the union of Per- 
 sons with one another in the Blessed Trinity, is graciously set 
 forth as the principle and ground of that union, which the In- 
 carnate "Word maintains with His people. "As the living 
 Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, even so he 
 that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." As the eternal 
 and co-equal Son derives His Divine nature by ineffable gene- 
 ration from the self-existent Father, so does He communicate 
 His Human nature in the Holy Eucharist, as the spiritual 
 sustenance of His brethren. " Thus through the Mediator is 
 there a perfect unity, while we abide in Him and He in the 
 Father, and abiding in the Father He abides in us." For 
 " while He is in the Father by the nature of Deity, we, on the 
 contrary, are in Him by His corporal nativity, and He in us 
 by the mystery of the saci-aments."^ 
 
 We should launch out into a wide sea, were we to enume- 
 rate all the benefits which the ancient writers attribute to this 
 holy sacrament. In their estimate it was life, forgiveness, 
 
 ista transient . . . nee sacramentum altaris habemus accipere, quia ibi 
 erimus cum Christo, cujus corpus accipimus." — /8. Aiig. Serrn. lix. 6. 
 
 ' S. Iren. iv. 18. 5. - «. CjTil A. vol. iv. p. 363. 
 
 ^ S. Hilarius De Triuit. viii. 15. 
 
THE HOLY EUCHAEIST. 287 
 
 sanctificatlon, strength, nourishment, an entrance into the Holy 
 of Holies, the surest pledge of eternal bliss. " Corpus Christi 
 ecUmus, ut vitce ceternce possimus esse participes."^ These are 
 all included, however, in the two previous statements, first, 
 that our nature is purified by the entrance of the Body of 
 Christ ; secondly, that by oneness with the Body of the Medi- 
 ator, it is brought into near relation with the nature of God. 
 And therefore, without dwelling upon the words in which 
 devout men of old time gave vent to their feelings of love and 
 admiration, we may pass on to two cautions by which these 
 two considerations require respectively to be guarded. It must 
 be observed, first, that the process by which Christ's Body and 
 Blood act upon the receiver is spiritual and not physical : 
 secondly, that the relation which is thus brought about between 
 the receiver and Christ is, according to the law of love, not 
 the law oi personality. 
 
 First — It might be imagined from the words of St. Cyril, 
 that he supposed that some carnal commixture took place 
 between the Body of Christ, and the material substance of 
 ours. But this was not his belief, or that of the other Fathers ; 
 although their assertions, that the Body of Christ, which suf- 
 fered on the cross, is truly received into man's body in the 
 Holy Eucharist, might be thought to involve such a conse- 
 quence. For it must be remembered that they were not speak- 
 ing of a natural Presence of Christ's Body, but of a Presence 
 which was supernatural ; of a Presence which, if we define 
 matter to be that which is an object to the senses, may be 
 called immaterial. Such a Presence they asserted to be brought 
 about in a supernatural manner by the power of the Holy 
 Ghost. Hence the belief that while the sacramentum, or out- 
 ward part, is assimilated to the human body as natural food, 
 the res sacramenti, or Body of Christ, becomes the food of 
 the soul. " Our Lord feeds His Church with these sacra- 
 ments " (i. e. of the Body and Blood), " by which the substance 
 
 ^ S. Ambros. in Luc. lib. x. 49. 
 
288 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 of the soul is strengthened."^ And the same statement re- 
 appears in the treatise on sacraments, which, though it is not 
 quoted in this place as an authority, because its genuineness 
 is doubtful, was certainly modelled after the teaching of St. 
 Ambrose — "That bread of eternal life sustains the substance 
 of our soul." ^ This is equivalent to the mediaeval statement, 
 " the Body of Christ is the food not of the belly, but of the 
 mind : of the soul and not the body." ^ And therefore the 
 benefit of this sacrament cannot be obtained without faith ; 
 seeing that it is only through faith that the inward part, or 
 res sacramenti, can be apprehended by the mind. So St. Am- 
 brose : " Christ is touched by faith, Christ is seen by faith : 
 He is not touched with the body, He is not taken in by the 
 eyes."^ To the same purpose is the well-known statement of 
 St. Augustin : " quid paras denies et ventrem ; crede et mandu- 
 casti."^ These words have sometimes been quoted as if they 
 were designed to oppose the doctrine of the Real Presence, 
 whereas they were intended against the Capernaites, who sup- 
 posed that Our Lord's Body was to be eaten in the way 
 of natural food ; but the truth which they express is of general 
 application, for faith is essential if the res sacramenti is to be 
 the siDiritual nourishment of the soul. So that though Our 
 Lord's Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist are the source 
 of benefit to our whole constitution, yet these benefits must 
 come to us through the intervention of the believing mind. 
 The Body of Christ, which we receive in this sacrament, is a 
 renewed and renewing example of our common humanity ; but 
 it does not, and cannot, act directly upon our material structure, 
 seeing that its Presence is not that natural Presence which could 
 
 1 S. Ambros. de Myst. ix. 5.5. 
 
 ^ S. Ambros. de Sacramentis, v. 24. ^ S. Thomae Opusc. lix. 6. 
 
 ■* S. Ambros. iu Lucaiu, lib. vi. 57. 
 
 * S. Aug. in Joan. Tract xxv. 12. So William of Paris: "Dentes 
 
 siquidem intellectus in ijisuui, quanto jirofundius possunt, tigendi sunt, 
 
 ut inde saporum e.xprimatur suavitas. Horum autem dentium tixiones 
 non sunt, nisi profund;e atque acutae de illo cogitationes." — De Sacram. 
 Euchur. cap. vii. p. 429. 
 
THE HOLY EUCHAEIST. 289 
 
 be an object to the senses, or supply nourishment to our bodily 
 frame.^ Although we may pray, therefore, " that our sinful 
 bodies may be made clean by His Body," as well as " our souls 
 washed by His most precious Blood," yet it is only through a 
 spiritual process that this work can be effected, and its medium 
 must be a believing heart. 
 
 Those among the ancient writers who have been observed to 
 be less exact than St. Augustin, in discriminating between the 
 external and internal parts in this sacrament (sup. cap. ix. p. 
 196), may be shown to have been entirely accordant with him 
 in their principles, since they taught that the object of the Holy 
 Eucharist is not to nourish the bodies of the receivers, but to 
 build up the Body of Christ. So St. Cyril of Jerusalem says 
 that the purpose of reception is, " that thou, by partaking of the 
 Body and Blood of Christ, mightest be made of the same body 
 and the same blood with Him." ■^ " It is called communion, and 
 is so truly," says St. John Damascene, " because by it we com- 
 municate with Christ ; we share by it in His Flesh and Deity, 
 and communicate and are made one with one another." ^ This 
 is to afiirm that the purjoose of the Holy Eucharist is to incor- 
 porate men more completely into the Body of Christ, and it 
 accords, therefore, with the statement which St. Augustin makes 
 of the effect of Grospel ordinances. " It is the will of Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, to be fed by the ministry of His servants, that is, 
 to transfer believers into His Body, as though they were things 
 which could be slain and eaten." * The idea is built upon that 
 
 ^ This is strikingly put by William of Paris, though he carried on the 
 notion, so as to deny to the sacramentum, as well as to the res sacramenti, 
 the power of nourishing the body. " Manifest um est mensam altaiis, 
 postquam mensa animarum efFecta est, nihil habere corporalis cibi, vel 
 potus : alioquin non solum supervacue illud haberet, sed etiam ad illu- 
 sionem, et ridiculum. Quemadmodiun enim si corporibus reficiendia 
 apponeretur cibus spiritualis, illuderetur eis ; sic in mensa animarum, 
 cibus corporalis ad illusionem animarum tantum esset et ridiculum." — 
 De Sacramento Eucharistise, cap. i. p. 415. (Venice, 1591.) 
 
 - Myst. Cat. iv. 3. 
 
 ^ Damascen. de Fide Orthod. iv. 13, p. 273. 
 
 ■• Qusest. Evangel, ii. 39. These strong expressions were derived, pro- 
 bably, from his having in his mind the words, "Arise, Peter, slay and 
 
290 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 fundamental law, on which depends the existence of organized 
 bodies, that their maintenance is through the assimilation of 
 external substances, by which their own structure is continually 
 increased. Now we have Our Lord's autliority for saying, that 
 His sacred Body is in some manner the nourishment of men. 
 *' My Flesh is meat indeed." So that St. Chrysostom illustrates 
 the state of the ungodly receiver, by that of a man whose dis- 
 ordered body is incapable of digesting food.' But this process 
 must, in every case, be dependent upon that principle of life, by 
 wliich the several portions of each organized structure are dis- 
 posed and harmonized. So that it must be the ruling power of 
 each body — the mind which animates it — by which the relation 
 of the parts to the whole must be determined. When we speak 
 of Christ, then, as giving His Body for our food, and of the 
 building up of the Body of Christ as the consequence, it is 
 obvious that the process is exactly the reverse of that which 
 happens in the case of ordinaiy nourishment. Since it is Christ's 
 Body which is built uj) ; in Ilim, and not in us, must be the 
 informing Spirit. It must be the life which has its source in 
 Him, from which "all the Body by joints and bands having 
 nourishment ministered, increaseth unto the increase of God." 
 " i\Iy body lives by my sjiirit ; yours by your spirit. The Body 
 of Christ cannot live save by the spirit of Christ." ^ So that 
 though Christ's Body is orally received, yet It does not become 
 part of us, but loe become part of Ilim ; lie is not resolved, as 
 it were, into the structure of our miiids, but we pass, on the con- 
 trary, into His divine organization. The sacramentuni indeed, 
 or outward part, is assimilated, like other food, to the body 
 which receives it : but the res sacramenti is an energizing prin- 
 cijile, which takes up and quickens that upon which it is be- 
 stowed. 
 
 eat." He says in his sermons, "Transeunt interfecti in corpus unum 
 EcclesifE : cujua Ecclesise figuram gerebat I'etrus, quando ei dictum est, 
 viactd et 7n(iii(hica." — ^V(•)n. iv. 19, and vide cxxv. 9. 
 
 ' S. C'hrys. in Ep. ad Hebrajos, cap. x. Horn. xvii. 4, p. 169. 
 
 ^ a. Aug. in Joan. Trac. xxvi. 13. 
 
THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 291 
 
 Now, such a mode of operation as this is spiritual, and not 
 carnal ; and addresses itself, not to the bodily organs, but to the 
 inner man. " Spiritual and corporal nourishment," says a strik- 
 ing writer, " follow contrary laws : in corporal nourishment the 
 nutriment is converted into the substance of the thing nourish- 
 ed : but in the nourishment of the spiritual Hfe, the thing nou- 
 rished is converted into the nature of the thing which nourishes 
 it, and of its nutriment ; and the nutriment is not changed, but 
 only the thing nourished." ^ That such should be the process, 
 therefore, in the Holy Eucharist, shows the thing received not 
 to be dead Tuatter, which is to acquire life by being taken into 
 the organization of the receiver, but a living principle, which 
 has power to absorb and organize those by whom it is partaken. 
 And this is the manner in which the Holy Eucharist is always 
 described by ancient writers : " the effect of participating of the 
 Body and Blood of Christ is nothing else than that we pass into 
 that which we receive : " ^ " as St. Paul says, a little leaven lea- 
 veneth the whole lump, so the very smallest portion of the 
 Eucharist resolves our whole body into itself, and fills us with 
 its own energy." ^ " The Body " {i. e. of Our Lord) " which has 
 been rendered immortal by Grod, having become present in ours, 
 transforms and changes the whole of it to itself." * Those who 
 thus regard it could not have suj)posed that it was the nourish- 
 ment of the body, but must have understood its real nature and 
 spiritual laws. And this they further showed by founding upon 
 this truth two other important doctrines ; namely, the Unity of 
 the Church ; and the title which the Church herself possessed 
 to be regarded as a portion of the Eucharistic sacrifice. The 
 Church's Unity depends upon the oneness of that Divine Head, 
 whose spiritual Body it becomes through the Holy Eucharist. 
 " The Church of the Saviour is one, because those who have 
 believed are resolved into one Body." ^ " And the unity of this 
 
 ^ Kaimundus de Sabunde, Theol. Naturalis, 285. 
 
 2 S. Leo, Serm. Ixiii. 7. ^ S. Cyril, A. iv. 365. 
 
 ^ S. Greg. Nyss. Catech. Orat. 37. Vide supra, cap. iv. p. 72. 
 
 ^ Theodoret. in Psalm, xcvi. 8. 
 
 U2 
 
292 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 Body," says St. Augustin, " is taught us by our sacrifice, which 
 the Apostle briefly signified, saying, ' we are all one bread and 
 one body.' " ^ And so St. Ignatius : " one Eucharist, because 
 one Flesh of Our Lord Jesus Christ." ' And in like manner, 
 because the mystical Body of the Lord is the extension of His 
 Body natural, does the Church itself become a part of the 
 Eucharistic sacrifice, "Since the Church is His owti Body, 
 she learns to offer up herself through Him." '' 
 
 Since it is allowed, then, that the Body and Blood of Christ 
 act in a spiritual, and not a physical manner, it may be asked 
 why it is essential to affirm their real Presence in the Holy 
 Eucharist, and why it is not enough to believe merely that 
 Christ Himself enters into personal relation with us by a sjiiri- 
 tual power, as is the case in Baptism ? It would be a sufficient 
 answer that we are taught otherwise in Scripture, and that a 
 different belief prevailed Ln the ancient Church. In Baptism 
 we are said to put on the New Man Christ Jesus, and by His 
 Spirit to be engrafted into His Body : but His Body and Blood 
 are affirmed to be really present in the Holy Eucharist. And 
 hence the Church's uniform distinction, that Christ's Body may 
 be said to be present in Baptism, but that He is reallij present 
 in the Holy Eucharist, by reason of the Presence of His Body 
 and Blood. But it may be observed further, that such a scheme 
 of doctrine is in perfect consonance with that which we know 
 respecting the fall and recovery of mankind. For is it not the 
 essential characteristic of the Christian system, that it dejiends 
 on those two men, in one of whom humanity fell, while it was 
 regenerated in the other? Does not this imply that the cure of 
 human ill must, in some measure, be correspondent to its cause ? 
 May we not anticipate the gifts of grace to be bestowed in a 
 manner which is analogous to the incursions of sin? Now, in 
 what manner is corruption propagated among men ? The souls 
 of men are believed to be each a separate creation* of the 
 
 ' Epis. clxxxvii. 20. ^ Ad Philad. 4. 
 
 3 S. Aug. de Civit. Dei, x. 20. 
 
 * Vide JJoctrine of the Incarnation, p. H, ed. 3rd ; p. 34, ed. 4th. 
 
THE HOLY EUCHAEIST. 293 
 
 Supreme Being ; and to become in some way infected with that 
 hereditary taint, which is perpetuated through the propagation 
 of their bodies. If it be affirmed, then, that the soul cannot be 
 a channel throvigh which the gift of Christ's Presence in the 
 Holy Eucharist can affect and modify the whole body, how 
 comes it that a man's own body can produce such effects uj)on 
 his soul? And that the sanctified Body of Christ should be 
 employed as the medium of benefit to the souls of men, is evi- 
 dently consistent with the analogy, which looks for a resem- 
 blance between the poison and the antidote. For are they not 
 tainted by their relation to that corrupted flesh, which they 
 inherit from Adam ? 
 
 " If the flesh of the first man, made poisonous and mortal, 
 communicates death to the soul, shall not the Flesh of Christ, 
 which is healthful and life-giving, bestow ujDon it life and safety? 
 Therefore, as the soul contracts all its ill by flesh, it ought by 
 flesh to receive all its benefit. If it is to be freed from the evil, 
 which came to it by the flesh of the first man, it must have 
 society and union with the Flesh of Christ, the Second Man. And 
 as by the single flesh of the first man all souls are infected and 
 destroyed, so are all souls washed, cleansed, and quickened, by 
 the Flesh of Christ. As the flesh of the first man is the store- 
 house of all vices, sins, and crimes, so all virtues, all spiritual 
 treasures, and all blessings, are stored uj) in the Flesh of Christ. 
 As the former flesh separates the soul from Grod, and unites it 
 with Satan ; so the Flesh of Christ separates it from Satan, and 
 unites it to God. For as Satan lurks in the flesh of the first 
 man, so the Godhead abides in the Flesh of the Second. There- 
 fore, when the soul is united and associated with the Flesh of 
 Christ, it is associated and united with the Godhead. And as 
 Satan takes possession of souls by the flesh of Adam, so by His 
 own Flesh are they taken possession of by Christ." ^ 
 
 The considerations which have been adduced, supply the 
 explanation of another point of great moment— what is re- 
 quisite on the part of the receiver, if he would profit by the 
 gift of the Holy Eucharist. It has been stated that this sa- 
 crament consists of two parts, an outward part, which supj^lies 
 
 ^ Eaimundus de Sabunde, Tit. 290. 
 
294 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 nourishment to the body, an inward part, which supplies nou- 
 rishment to the souh Now, between these there exists a certain 
 analocjy, so that as the bodily functions are necessary for the 
 profitable reception of the one, so those of the soul for the pro- 
 fitable reception of the other. And as life is that principle, 
 without which the body cannot profit by the aliment which it 
 receives, so neither can the soul profit by its nourishment except 
 it lives. If the body were dead, its organs would be unable to 
 assimilate to themselves the food which was administered to it ; 
 and in like manner would the soul's food be unprofitable, if it 
 were dead also. But it was observed that the law, according to 
 which the Body of Christ sustains the soul, was the converse of 
 that, according to which the outward elements sustain the body. 
 It does not jass into our spiritual structure, but we into His; 
 in Him lies the principle of life ; He is the Head of the Church, 
 the Saviour of the Body. So that from Him must come that 
 life, by which all members of His mystical Body are quickened. 
 And so we read in Holy Scripture. To the Eternal Father 
 belongs the origin of life, by the necessity of His nature. From 
 Him it passes co-eterually to the Eternal Son of His love by 
 necessary derivation ; and to the Son Incarnate by voluntary 
 gift. For, "as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He 
 given to the Son to have life in Himself." And one main pur- 
 pose of St. John's Gospel was to reveal how this gift is extended 
 from the Head to the members. " These are written that ye 
 might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that 
 believing, ye might have life through His name." Such is His 
 own merciful declaration, " I am come that they might have 
 life ; " "I am the resurrection and the life ; " "I am the way, 
 the truth, and the life ; " and the evil of those who rejected Him 
 He states to be, "ye will not come to Me, that ye might have 
 life." ' 
 
 Such is the manner in which the gift of life is communicated 
 to mankind ; it comes through the intervention of the one Me- 
 
 ' Vide St. John xx. 31 ; x. 10 ; xi. 25 ; xiv. 6 ; v. iO. 
 
THE HOLY EUCHAEIST. 295 
 
 diator, and the agency of His Spirit : for " if any man have not 
 the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ be in 
 you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because 
 of righteousness." So that when Cornelius and his friends had 
 been marked out as qualified subjects for Baptism by the super- 
 natural descent of the Holy Ghost, it was said, " then hath God 
 also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." If to possess 
 life, therefore, be the necessary qualification for the Holy Eu- 
 charist, the preparation must be to be united with Christ by 
 the Spirit. For thus, and thus only, does life enter into the 
 soul of man. " I live," says the Apostle, " yet not I, but Christ 
 liveth in me." And therefore the ordinance of Baptism, wherein 
 men are made members of the Body of Christ, makes them par- 
 takers also of His life. For " we are buried with Him by Bap- 
 tism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead 
 by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in new- 
 ness of lifey And " if we be dead with Christ, we believe that 
 we shall also live with Him." 
 
 On this circumstance was built the law of the ancient Church, 
 that the first requisite for profitable participation in the Holy 
 Eucharist was the sacrament of Baptism. It turns upon the 
 same principle, upon which we must account for the absence of 
 all mention of the Holy Eucharist between the time of the Last 
 Supper and the day of Pentecost. In that interval, when Our 
 Lord's death was most recent, and the mere natural acts of 
 memorial would have been most in place, we read of no Eu- 
 charist, because that spiritual relation, whereby Christians are 
 bound to the Body of Christ, was consequent upon the gift of 
 the Holy Ghost. It was requisite, therefore, that Our Lord's 
 Humanity should first occupy that new place which it took in 
 His Ascension; that it should " give " those Pentecostal " gifts," ^ 
 which the Incarnation had conferred in His person upon man- 
 hood ; and " instruct the world of righteousness," ^ through the 
 mission of the Comforter. It is thus that the effect of Our 
 Lord's Ascension is explained by St. Cyril in a passage already 
 ^ Ephes. iv. 8, with Psalm Ixviii. 18. - St. John xvi. 8. 
 
296 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 referred to. When speaking of Our Lord's words to Mary Mag- 
 dalen, "Toucli ^le not, for I am not yet ascended to My Fa- 
 ther : " he says, Our Lord 
 
 " forbids the approach of Mary, because she had not yet received 
 the Spirit," inasmuch as before His Ascension, " the Spirit had 
 not yet been given to mankind by the Father through Him." 
 And " hence," he says, " has the Church taken its pattern. 
 Therefore we exclude from the Holy Tal)le those who acknow- 
 _ ledge Our Lord's Divinity, and have already professed the faith, 
 that is, those who are catechumens, but have not yet been en- 
 riched with the gift of the Holy Ghost. For He does not dwell 
 in those who are not yet baptized. But when they have been 
 made partakers of the Holy Ghost, then nothing hinders them 
 from touching also Our Saviour Christ. Therefore to those who 
 desire to partake of the Mystical Eucharist, the ministers of the 
 Divine Mysteries proclaim, ^Iloly tilings for holi/ persons,^ teach- 
 ing that the participation of that which is sacred befits those 
 who are sanctified by the Spirit." ^ 
 
 To the same jiurpose is a statement of Pope Innocent, when 
 writing against the Pelagians. Those persons, he says, who 
 maintain that children " without regeneration " have that life 
 which is conferred by eating the Flesh of the Son of !Man and 
 drinking His Blood, "seem to me to wish to destroy Baptism, 
 since they proclaim them to possess that" {i.e. the Flesh of 
 Clirist) " which ought not to be conferred ujion them, as is 
 believed, except through Bajjtism."^ St. Augustin, among 
 whose letters this passage is preserved, explains it to mean, 
 that to eat the Flesh of the Son of INIan and drink His Blood, 
 is a thing " which none certainly except the baptized can do." ^ 
 And so he says to Julianus, "whether you will or no, you are 
 compelled to admit that it is to the regenerate that this food 
 and this cup belongs." * 
 
 Baptism, then, is the first qualification for the Holy Eu- 
 charist ; but it is the first only. Its ]mrpose is to establish a 
 spiritual connexion between the soul and the Humanity of the 
 
 ' S. Cyril, A. in Joan. lib. xii. vol. iv. p. 1086. 
 
 * S. Aug. Epis. clxxxii. 5. ^ lb. Epis. clxxxvi. 29. 
 
 * Operia Imp. c. Jul. iii. 88. 
 
THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 297 
 
 Second Adam, whereby we may be made members of His Mys- 
 tical Body, and thus be engrafted into the Divine nature. But 
 if we sin, as all men sin, after Ba^otism, this connexion is relaxed, 
 if it is not broken. It is relaxed even by those perpetual weak- 
 nesses to which the best ^ men are liable, and which are inse- 
 pai-able from our fallen nature, until the effects of concupiscence 
 are done away in death, as its guilt was done away by Baptism. 
 It is as a remedy against these daily incursions' of sin, that Our 
 Lord has given us His Prayer as a daily means of seeking for- 
 giveness. " On account of those sins of men, which are to be 
 borne with, and which the less they are, are so much the more 
 frequent, God has appointed that during the time when mercy 
 can be found, there shall be in His Church this daily medicine, 
 that we should say, ' forgive us our debts, as we forgive our 
 debtors.' With these words we may wash our faces and come 
 to the altar ; with these words we may wash our faces, and com- 
 municate in the Body and Blood of Christ."'^ St. Ambrose adds 
 the reading of Scripture ("the Apostolical food," as he calls it) 
 as a perpetual preparation: "You have the Apostolical food, .... 
 eat it first, that you may afterwards come to the food of Christ, 
 to the food of the Lord's Body, to the feast of the Sacrament, to 
 that cup by which the affections of the faithful are intoxicated."^ 
 But besides those habitual defects which continually require 
 to be remedied — for we are " washed once in Baptism ; we are 
 daily washed by prayer " * — there are also those positive acts of 
 transgression, against which we pray in the Litany, under the 
 title of " deadly sin." The effect of these, as their name implies, 
 is to break asunder that connexion with Christ on which the 
 life of the soul is dependent, and therefore to disqualify men for 
 the profitable receiving of the Holy Eucharist. For " no one," 
 says St. Ambrose, " receives the food of Christ until he has been 
 first healed." ° And since these evils separate men from Christ, 
 
 ^ " Non vobis dico, quia sine peccato hie vivetis ; sed sunt venialia, 
 sine quibus vita ista non est." — S. Aug. de Symbolo, see. 14. Vide in 
 Pnalm. cxviii. Serni. iii. sec. 2, 3. 
 
 '^ S. Aug. Sermo xvii. 5. ^ In Psalm, cxviii. Serm. xv. sec. 28. 
 
 •• S. Aug. de Symbolo, sec. 14. * Ex. Evang. Luc. lib. vi. 70. 
 
298 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 they put them out of a state of acceptance or justification. For 
 tliough the gift of foi'giveness was purchased hy the one sacrifice 
 of Christ, yet its application depends upon the imparting of the 
 Divine justice ; " not of that justice with which God is just, but 
 of that which God gives to men, that men may be just through 
 God." ^ Now, when the life of the soul has been forfeited through 
 sin, it cannot be recovered by our own efi'orts, but only through 
 His gift by whom it was originally bestowed. So that there 
 would be no such cure for this evil, as the analogy of the Chris- 
 tian Covenant requires, unless God had "left power to His 
 Church to absolve all sinners." ^ For by the Church's office, 
 bj' the ministry of absolution, and the power of the keys, the 
 relation of man to Christ is renewed, even as it was originally 
 bestowed in Holy Baptism. " Everywhere is the order of the 
 mystery preserved," says St. Ambrose, " that first the medicine 
 should be administered to men's wounds by the remission of 
 sins, and afterwards the food of the celestial table should abound 
 for them." ^ It was understood, of course, that repentance and 
 faith, as well as confession, ^\ere needed on the part of the 
 offender, but the idea that after the commission of deadly sin, 
 men might restore themselves to their position in the Body of 
 Christ by an act of their own minds, without the intervention 
 of the Chuixh's office, is wholly at variance with the belief of 
 the ancient Church. " Three ways there are," says St. Angus- 
 tin, " in which sins are remitted in the Church ; in Baptism, in 
 prayer, in the greater humiliation of penitence." And this 
 penitence was always imposed by the Church's sentence : " take 
 care," he writes to the Catechumens, "not to commit those 
 things for which it is necessary that you should be separated 
 iiom Christ's Body : from which event may God deliver you." * 
 
 ' S. August, in Joan. Tract, xxvi. 1. 
 
 - Office for Visitation of Sick. 
 
 ^ S. Ambrose Ex. Evang. Luc. lib. vi. 71. 
 
 ' De Symbolo, 15, 14. The Church of England supposes remitting grace 
 to be conferred tlirough the general Absolution in the Daily Prayers, and 
 in the Communion Ortice ; though she has provided a form of more au- 
 thoritative efficacy for the case of those who have made specific confes- 
 
THE HOLY EUCHAEIST. 299 
 
 Baptism, then, is that act by which Almighty God vouchsafes 
 to qualify men for the Holy Eucharist ; and their right is main- 
 tained by a life of habitual confession, meditation, and prayer. 
 Neither can this right be regained by those who fall into deadly 
 sin after Baptism, except through that authority which it has 
 pleased God to entrust to His Church, and which is exercised 
 through priestly absolution. Thus do men acquire and retain 
 that relation to Christ, on which depends the life of the soul. 
 Thus does every qualification for the Holy Eucharist resolve 
 itself finally into one, that the receiver must continue to hold 
 communion with God through the Spirit. And therefore there 
 can be no profitable Eucharist, unless men are members of that 
 true Church, which is cemented into one mystical Body by the 
 Spirit. So that the first disciples are described as men who 
 " continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, 
 and in breaking of bread and in prayers." For- " how can men 
 suppose that Christ is with their assemblies, if they are assem- 
 bled out of Christ's Church ? " ^ The elements, indeed, may be 
 truly consecrated, but how can men profit by the gift, unless 
 they are partakers of that heavenly life which flows forth from 
 the Head into all members of His Body ? The Divine food may 
 be administered, but where will be the capacity to be nourished '? 
 " There is nothing," therefore, " which a Christian ought so much 
 to fear as to be separated from the Body of Christ. For if he is 
 separated from the Body of Christ he is not a member of His ; 
 if he is not Christ's member he is not animated by His Spirit. 
 And ' if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of 
 His.' " ^ " The faith, therefore, of the Church must first be 
 inquired into, in which if Christ dwells, it must be accepted 
 undoubtingly." ^ And when it is thus accepted, all the indi- 
 vidual graces — faith, hope, and charity — find their appropriate 
 object in the Eucharist, which it is authorized to convey. " He, 
 
 sion. Vide an Art. on Maskell on Absolution, Christian Remembrancer, 
 A.D. 1849. 
 
 ' S. Cyprian de Unitate, p. 183. 
 
 ^ S. August, in Joan. Tract, xxvii. 6. 
 
 ^ S. Ambros. Expos. Evan. Luc. lib. vi. 68. 
 
800 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 who wislies to live, finds in it where he may live — he finds 
 whence he may live. Let him approach, let him believe, let 
 him be incorporated, that he may be quickened. Let him not 
 shrink from that which is the bond of the members ; let him 
 not be a corrupt member, which deserves to be cut off, or a 
 deformed member, of which men are ashamed ; let him be fair, 
 fit, healthful ; let him adhere to the Body ; let him live to God 
 by God's lielj^ ; let him labour now on earth, that hereafter he 
 may reign in heaven." ^ 
 
 Secondlj^ — So much respecting the first caution, that the 
 process by which Christ's Body and Blood act upon the receiver, 
 is spiritual and not physical. A second remains, that the union 
 which is thus effected between the receiver and Christ is ac- 
 cording to the law of love, not the law of personality. It has 
 been stated to be the ultimate purpose of the Holy Eucharist, 
 to bring about so intimate an union between Clu'ist and His 
 peojole, that they may be " members of His Body, of His Flesh, 
 and of His Bones." Now there may seem a danger, lest this 
 crowning truth of the Christian system should border too closely 
 upon the error of Pantheism. For let the individual responsi- 
 bility of man be forgotten, and his nature be supposed to be 
 altogether swallowed up in that of God, and what results but 
 a bewildering confusion of all substances ; and a belief either 
 that the Deity is everything, or that nothing is Divine? Against 
 this error therefore it is necessary to guard ; and to point out, 
 not only that the ancient belief of the Church has no tendency 
 towards Pantheism, but that it is the very antidote by which 
 that tendency is corrected. 
 
 Pantheism is that system of thought, which loses sight of the 
 wide gulf which separates God and man — the Creator and the 
 created — the finite and the Infinite. There are two sides, there- 
 fore, from which this error may arise ; either the Creator may be 
 brought down to the level of His works, or the creature lifted 
 up to the level of the Creator. The first has been the more be- 
 ^ S. August, in Joan. Tract, xxvi. 13. 
 
THE HOLY EUCHAEIST. 301 
 
 setting error of ancient, the last of modern days. Those philo- 
 sophers who supposed immensity alone to make up the nature of 
 God, had no ilieans whereby to discriminate Him from that 
 material creation, to which our thoughts can assign no limits. 
 This was the inherent error of those Cosmogonies, which were 
 invented by the philosophers of the Ionian school, and which 
 maintained their ground in a measure, even after Socrates had 
 laid a truer and deeper foundation for philosophy in the moral 
 consciousness of man. Now, as this was to bring down God to 
 the level of His works, so a corresponding effect has followed, 
 when men have assigned those conditions to the loorks of God, 
 which are characteristic of the Creator. When it is laid down 
 as a philosophical axiom, that 
 
 " Nature is but a name for an effect. 
 Whose cause is God," 
 
 it would seem to be implied, that the order of the world arises 
 
 as a necessary result from the energy of the Supreme Essence, 
 
 which must needs show itseK, according to the law of its 
 
 existence, in these material results. Now this is really the law, 
 
 according to which the Ever-blessed Trinity exists. No cause 
 
 can be assigned for the existence of the Eternal Father, save the 
 
 necessity of His nature ; the Only-Begotten Son is the Eternal 
 
 Son of the Father by necessary derivation ; the Holy Ghost of 
 
 necessity proceeds eternally from them both : this is the law of 
 
 their adorable nature, whereby the manner is inseparable from 
 
 the fact of their existence. To suppose, then, that the creation 
 
 exists by necessity likewise, that it is nothing more than the 
 
 effect of that creative energy which is inseparable from Godhead ; 
 
 that the Deity could not choose but exhibit Himself in the 
 
 beings which He has created — is to place the works of God too 
 
 near to their Maker, and to assign conditions to the finite, wliich 
 
 are characteristic of the Infinite. This has been the tendency of 
 
 various modern systems of philosophy, particularly in Germany, 
 
 and has been encouraged by that analogy which is observed to 
 
 exist between the Supreme Essence and the thinking principle 
 
802 THE BENEFITS OF 
 
 Now this system, under both its forms, has always found its 
 contradiction in the Chui'ch's belief, that the Infinite Essence 
 has the true character of a Personal Being. The creation, 
 therefore, does not exist by any law of necessity, but by the vnll 
 of God. It was when His unbounded love moved Him to 
 come forth from the abyss of His infinite nature, that He called 
 into existence Heaven and earth. And yet it is necessary to 
 provide for that relation between the Creator and His creatures, 
 for which nature f)erpetually yearned, and which revelation 
 positively asserts. So that it seems impossible to guard 
 effectually against that perverted notion, which would suppose 
 finite minds to be a necessary efflux from the Infinite original, 
 unless we can assign some other principle, according to which 
 this relation may exist. And such a principle it is, which is 
 exhibited in the Incarnation of Christ. The Second Person in 
 the Blessed Trinity, God the "Word, vouchsafed to enter into 
 relation with the beings whom He had created, through the 
 taking of the manhood into God. Through this act, the key to 
 all mysteries, God and man, the Creator and the creature, were 
 brought into relation. Thus did Eternal Goodness introduce a 
 new harmony into the world, which it had made ; and united 
 men by the law of love, without superseding the law of 
 personality. So that the Deity is not lowered to the level of 
 His works, nor the creature lifted up to the Creator ; but two 
 natures — the Infinite and the finite — have been joined together, 
 in order that the perfections of the one might correct the 
 deficiencies of the other. 
 
 The doctrine of the Incarnation, then, as being a perpetual 
 witness that by supernatural gift alone can God and man be 
 united, is the best safeguard against confounding the Creator 
 with His works. Neither does it interfere in any way with the 
 personality of those inferior beings, wliose common nature it has 
 purified and exalted. Eor the bond, by which the new Head of 
 man's race binds His members to one another and to Himself, is 
 that bond of love which has its origin in His own nature. It was 
 shown that the process by which the Humauity of Our Lord is 
 
THE HOLY EUCHAEIST. 803 
 
 communicated to men is spiiitual, and not physical. Now love 
 is the principle hy which spiritual essences act upon each other ; 
 and therefore love must supply the conditions on which the 
 Incarnate Head must be related to His members. And since 
 sacraments are the channels, by which those gifts which were 
 bestowed in the Incarnation upon humanity at large, are 
 extended to each individual, therefore their effect must be to 
 impart that principle of love, which the one Mediator com- 
 municates to His brethren. But since the sj^iritual essence of 
 man has suffered detriment, in some inscrutable manner, from 
 that corrupted nature which binds it to Adam, it must receive 
 some correspondent benefit from the presence of that new nature 
 which was purified in Christ. There is nothing in this sup- 
 position which supersedes the efficacy of that principle of love, 
 which has its dwelling in God, and rejDroduces itself in those 
 who are united to Him ; neither does it militate against that 
 individual responsibility, which is bound up in each man's 
 personal consciousness. It does but suggest the mean whereby 
 love is applied, and whereby conscience acquires increased 
 responsibility. For both these effects follow from that fact of 
 the Incarnation, whereby man's nature was purified by the 
 taking it into God. And both, therefore, are connected with 
 that sacramental Presence of Christ, of which the Incarnation is 
 the cause. For it is because Christ is very Man, and the acts of 
 His ministers are the actions of their Head, and consecration is 
 a real transaction, and His Flesh and Blood are truly present, 
 that the Holy Eucharist is so momentous a blessing. 
 
804 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 The preceding chajiters have been addressed to those who 
 recognize the interpretive office of the Primitive Church, and 
 suppose themselves to retain every fundamental principle which 
 she admitted. Such has always been the profession of the 
 (Jhurch of England, as avowed in her Canons and Formularies ; 
 and her most approved writers have constantly declared, that 
 they believed her to approach the nearest of any Christian 
 community upon earth, to the primitive model. If there should 
 be any point, therefore, of vital importance — anything which 
 goes beyond those variable questions of external regulation, 
 wliich may fairly be left to every age and nation — anything 
 affecting the foundation of her faith or practice, in which our 
 Church has departed from the maxims of Antiquity, her own 
 principles demand that it should be examined and amended. 
 
 Now surely such a case arises from the comj)arison of our 
 present practice with the usage of Antiquity. Not only was the 
 Holy Eucharist daily ministered in the Primitive Church, but 
 its staple worship was the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Congregations 
 wliich met from week to week without this act, and Churches in 
 which it was solemnized once a quarter, or even once a month, 
 were wholly unknown. The liberty of individual Churches was 
 vindicated by two great \vriters, St. Jerome and St. Augustin, 
 against those who demanded uniformity in indifferent matters, 
 but the precepts of Scripture, and tlie rules of the Universal 
 Church, were supposed by both of them to be binding upon all 
 Christians. And by the last, St. Augustin explains himself to 
 mean not merely those things which had been enacted by the 
 Apostles or their successors in Council, but those which were 
 
PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 805 
 
 fixed by the practice ' of the Church throughout the world. The 
 present, therefore, is plainly an instance of discrepancy, which 
 according to primitive rules admits of no justification, since it is at 
 variance in a most grave and momentous particular, not only 
 with the universal judgment of the ancient Church, but also 
 with the acknowledged practice of the Holy Apostles. 
 
 It will hardly be disputed that the example of the Apostles, 
 during that short time for which we have any detailed statement 
 of their actions, shows a daily ^ Eucharist to be the normal 
 condition of the Church's existence. In the less full account of 
 somewhat later transactions, it is manifest, likewise, that those 
 who were collected on the first day of the week, " came together 
 to break bread." Those, therefox'e, who reject the authority of 
 the ancient Church, might be expected to feel the more bound to 
 a rule, which, according to the models left us in Scripture, is 
 without exception. But what was the practice of the Primitive 
 Church ? It is commonly alleged that as the first fervour of 
 devotion passed away, the frequency with which the Holy 
 Eucharist was administered diminished also, so that since the 
 moral state of ancient times was not likely to be very different 
 from our own, it might be anticipated that the ancient and 
 modern rules respecting the use of this sacrament, would be nearly 
 coincident. And so much must be admitted, that since the 
 Christian communities consisted, in the first instance, principally 
 either of slaves, or of persons whose rank in life did not afford 
 unbroken leisure, such daily assemblies as those at Jerusalem 
 can hardly have been possible. It is not unlikely, therefore, that 
 while the Gospel was as yet emerging from the lowest ranks, the 
 ministration of the Holy Eucharist may have been almost con- 
 fined to the Lord's Day. Such would seem to have been the 
 case among those whom Pliny ^ interrogated in Asia JNIinor : 
 and though Justin Martyr may have been referring only to the 
 
 . 1 "Ex auctoritate divinarum Scripturarum et universse Ecclesise, quse 
 toto orbe ditfunclitur, consensione." — S. Aug. Ep. Iv. 27 ; vide Id. sec. 
 35, Epis. liv. 1 ; and S. Jerom. Ep. lii. ad Lucinium, vol. iv. pt. 2, 
 p. 579. 
 
 2 Acts ii. 46. 2 "Stato die." Ep. lib. x. 97. 
 
306 PKACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 more solemn assemblies, yet he makes no mention of worship, 
 except on the Lord's Day.^ Less than this, however, was never 
 tolerated ; neither does there seem to have been any ancient 
 Church, ho.vever circumstanced, which thought that its Sunday 
 solemnity could be complete, without the celebration of the 
 Christian mystery. 
 
 And no sooner had the first period of oppression past away — 
 no sooner did the Church include persons of leisure in her ranks, 
 and obtain such toleration as sufficed for the performance of 
 common worship — than she returned in great measure to the rule 
 of primitive observance. No doubt, as her numbers increased, 
 there must have been many who could not come together more 
 than once or twice a week, and it seems to have been in 
 reference to such parties that we hear of more solemn assemblies 
 on Saturday and Sunday,^ and on the festivals of the Martyrs ; 
 
 ^ Apol. i. 67. 
 
 ^ Vide Apost. Const, ii. 59. Socrates speaks of the Holy Eucharist on 
 Saturday as almost universal, Lib. v. 22, and again of Saturday and Sun- 
 day, as the days wherein assemblies were usually held in the Churches 
 of Constantinople, about the time of S. Chrysostom. But we learn from 
 S. Chrysostom's Homilies at Constantinople, that the Holy Eucharist was 
 offered there daily, and he speaks of men as daily entering where it was 
 celebrated. — In Epist. mJ Hehr. Horn. xvii. 3, 4. So that there must 
 evidently have been a daily Eucharist ; and the statement of Socrates 
 must refer only to the days of general attendance. This may account 
 for the circumstance, that Cassian, as well as the Apostolical Constitu- 
 tions, speak of tlie Holy Eucharist as solemnized especially on these 
 days, while they yet contain allusions, which imply it to have been 
 more frequently ministered. Cassian says that the monks in Egypt held 
 no meetings in the day, except on Saturday and Sunday, when the Holy 
 Eucharist was ministered at nine o'clock. — I list it. iii. 2 ; Bib. fat. vii. 
 24. Yet he alludes himself to the habit of communicating daily, Coll. 
 vii. 30 ; and he implies that in some cases the prayers before day were 
 followed by the " celehritas jl/^i.s.sa; ,• " Instit. ii. 7. (This agrees with 
 TertuUian's statement: "sacravientum antducanis cMihus sumimiis." — 
 T)e Cor. Mil. 3.) The Apostolical Constitutions order Saturday and Sun- 
 day to be kept, the one in memory of the Creation, the other of the 
 Kesurrection, vii. 23. On those days, therefore, the people are told to 
 come especially to Church, and it is said that on Sunday the sacrifice is 
 always oHered, ii. 59. But when the Eucharistic service is described in 
 the same work, there is nothing to intimate that it was confined to these 
 days. An .account is given of the manner in which the Church should 
 meet, but without anything which fixes it to one day more than another ; 
 and after the saying of prayers, comes the direction, "then let the sacri- 
 
PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 307 
 
 but the daily reception of the Holy Eucharist was a prevalent 
 custom among devout people, nor is there a single distinguished 
 man, by whom any other rule is recommended. It is probable 
 that it prevailed before the end of the second century, when 
 Tertullian's reference to those who scrupled to receive the Holy 
 Eucharist on Wednesday and Friday (the two station days), 
 proves that this ordinance was celebrated during the week;^ 
 and his own comparison of Our Lord's Body with daily bread, 
 would imply its daily celebration.^ Moreover, he states that it 
 was offered, as we know from St. Cypria n (Ep. 34, and 37) to 
 have been the case during the next century, on the festivals of 
 the martyrs.^ In the third century the testimony of St. 
 Cyprian is express, that the custom of the Christian priesthood 
 was "to celebrate sacrifices daily to God."* For "we daily 
 receive the Eucharist as our saving food."^ And St. Hippolytus 
 had spoken of it somewhat earlier in the century, as "daily 
 prepared on the mystical and divine Table."® 
 
 The more full information which we have respecting the 
 fourth century, shows how universal the usage had then become. 
 
 fice be offered," &c. — Ap. Con. ii. 57 ; and again, viii. 5. And there are 
 directions also to offer it in the cemeteries, and at funerals, vi. 30. And 
 we hear of S. Ambrose's visiting a private person of distinction, " to offer 
 the sacrifice in her house." — Life, by Paulinus, p. 3. Epiphanius, indeed, 
 speaks of "solemn assemblies" as instituted by the Apostles four days 
 a week (Adv. Hxr. iii. 2, 22), and there were places, S. Augustin tells 
 us (Epis. liv. 2), where the oblation was only offered once or twice a 
 week. The statement quoted from Cassian makes it not improbable that 
 he referred to places in Egypt ; and Socrates says the mysteries were not 
 celebrated on Wednesday or Friday at Alexandria — an omission, which 
 he attributes to the allegorizing tendencies of Origen, v. 22. But so long 
 as the practice of reservation continued, this was no hindrance to constant 
 participation ; and S. Basil speaks of the reservation of the elements, as 
 particularly prevalent in Egypt, Epis. 93. Nor did reservation afford 
 the means of reception only, but of celebration also. In the East, the 
 oblation was not made in Lent except on Saturday and Sunday (Council 
 of Laodicsea, Canon 49) ; but by the fifty-second Canon of the Council in 
 TruUo, the service was to be performed with the preconsecrated elements. 
 
 ■* De Oratione, 14. ^ De Oratione, 6. 
 
 3 De Corona Militum, 3. * Epis. liv. p. 77. 
 
 * De Oratione Domin. p. 192. Vide Ep. Ivi. p. 87. 
 
 « Gallandi, ii. 488. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 Eusebius seems to be speaking of the Church at large, when he 
 "says "tliat the Christians " celebrated a daily memorial of Our 
 Lord's Body and Blood."' St. Gaudentius," Bishop of Brescia 
 in Italy, speaks of " the representation of Christ's Passion " as 
 " daily " received ; and his metropolitan, St. Amb rose, writes — 
 "Christ is ministered to me every day."^ He is contrast- 
 ing the Holy Eucharist with the manna in the desert : 
 "Christ is my food, Christ is my drink; the Flesh of God 
 is my food, the Blood of God is my drink." "That true 
 Bread from heaven, the Father has reserved for me. For me 
 has that Bread of God descended from heaven, which gives life 
 to this world. It did not descend for the Jews, it did not 
 descend for the Synagogue ; but it has descended for the Church." 
 " Why do you ask Him, Jew, to give you that Bread which He 
 gives to all, which He gives daili/ i"'* 
 
 That such was the practice of the African Church, as well as 
 of the Donatists, may be inferred from the approving notice of 
 St. Optatus ^' respecting the latter : while in Bethlehem St. 
 Jeromg speaks of himself as " drinking Christ's Blood daily " 
 "in His Sacrifices."*' His statement, that daily participation 
 was the especial rule of the Roman and Spanish Churches,' 
 would seem to imply, indeed, that the custom was not equally 
 universal in the East. And this is confirmed by the censure 
 passed both by St.jyirysoiitom,'* and by the writer of the work 
 " De Sacramentis," ^ upon those who were accustomed to receive 
 only once a year. But this negligence, though frequent, was not 
 universal '° even in the East ; so that though many abstained 
 from daily participation, the public sacrifice of the Church may 
 
 ' Demonst. Evang. ii. 10, p. 37. 
 
 * "Quotidie et gerentes in manibus, ore etiam sumentes." — Bib. Pal. 
 Max. V. 947. 
 
 ■■< In Psalm, cxviii. Senn. xviii. 26. * S. Ambrose, U. S. 27, 28. 
 
 ^ S. Optatus de Schism. Don. ii. 12 : — "quotidie a vobis sacrificia con- 
 diuntur." 
 
 •• Hieron. Hedebiffi, Q. 2, vol. iv. part i. p. 172. 
 
 ' Epis. lii. Ad. Lucinium, vol. iv. part ii. p. 579. 
 
 " In Ephes. Horn. iii. 4. * S. Ambros. de Sac. v; 4, 25. 
 
 "* S. Aug. De Serm. in Monte, ii. 26, speaks of "plurimi." 
 
PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 309 
 
 have been daily offered. And St. Chrysostom repeatedly 
 affirms that it was. " Do we not offer every day ? Certainly we 
 do." ^ So that he calls the Holy Eucharist " the daily Sacrifice ;" '^ 
 and speaks of Christians as having a " daily memorial in these 
 mysteries." ^ The only Father of note who speaks of his own 
 practice as not coming up to the common rule is St. Basil, who 
 communicated four times a week, as well as on all Saints' days. 
 But it does not follow that even in Pontus the Holy Eucharist 
 was not celebrated daily, for Saints' days occurred every week, 
 and he says " to communicate every day, and be partaker of the 
 sacred Body and Blood of Christ, is good and profitable." * So 
 that he exhibits but a slight deviation from that rule, which the 
 leading teachers of the ancient Church recommended to others, 
 as well as practised themselves. And we find the same usage in 
 the next century. St. Maximus says that "the death of Our 
 Lord is celebrated every day, in obedience to His own com- 
 mand :" ^ and St. Augustin speaks of Christ as " slain daily for 
 the peoj)le in the sacrament." ^ He abstained, indeed, from 
 censuring the custom of those places where reception was less 
 frequent, and where the offering was only made once^ or twice 
 a week, but his own judgment is that men " ought to receive 
 daily ;" ^ for himself, he says, that " the Eucharist is our daily 
 bread :"^ and his daily ^'^ homilies aj)pear to have been preached 
 on the occasions of its celebration. 
 
 The history of the first four centuries, then, shows that the 
 Church adhered as closely as possible to the Apostolic usage 
 of the " daily " " breaking of bread." There were times when 
 persecution made daily assemblies impossible, there were places 
 which were wanting in the zeal which maintained them, but 
 
 ^ Horn, in Ep. ad Hebr. xvii. 3 ; and vide Horn. adv. Jud. iii. 4. 
 
 2 Horn. iii. 4, ad Ephes. 3 Horn. 1. 3, In Matth. 
 
 ^ Epis. xciii. There were "often one or two" Saints' Days "in the 
 same week." — Bingham, xiii. 9. 5. 
 
 ^ De Nat. Sanct. Serm. 78. ^ Epis. xcviii. 9. 
 
 ' Epis. liv. 2. s Sermo 227. 
 
 ^ Sermo Ivii. 7 ; Iviii. 5 ; lix. 6 ; and De Sermone Dom. in Monte, 
 ii. 25. 
 
 ^° Vide Sermo cxxviii. 6 ; cliv. 1 ; civ. 1. 
 
 ^. 
 
810 PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 the most distinguished Fathers speak of the Holy Eucharist 
 as daily offeied, and recommended daily reception to the faithful. 
 " The oblation which is made to-day, which was made yesterday, 
 which is made every day, is like the one which was made on 
 that sabbath " {i. e. of its institution) ; " that was not more sacred 
 than this is, nor is this less weighty than that was ; but it is 
 ever one and the same, alike awful and saving." ^ To trace the 
 custom lower is hardly necessary, for after this time its predomi- 
 nance will scarcely be disputed. It will be enough to quote 
 the words of the great Prelate, to whom England is so largely 
 indebted : " We ought to sacrifice the daily offerings of His 
 Flesh and Blood." '^ And he recommends the example of 
 Cassius, Bishop of Narni, " whose custom was to offer daily 
 sacrifices to God, so that scarce a day of his life passed away, 
 in which he did not offer to Almiglity God the appeasing 
 victim," * And this leads to the thought, how it comes that 
 the custom of our own Church should so little correspond to 
 the advice of its early benefactor. There have not been 
 wanting men in our history, who, as Sulpicius Severus says 
 of St. ]\Iartin, " might be compared with the very Apostles." 
 Certainly there have been those who, for singleness of heart 
 and largeness of comprehension, might have sat at the feet of 
 St. Ambrose and St. Augustin. How comes it, then, that 
 among the many generations which have flourished during the 
 three last centuries, there have been none to revive a rule, 
 which has the sanction, not only of Holy Sci'ipture, but of 
 Catholic Antiquity ? There have been men of thought among 
 us, and men of activity ; men endowed with ample means, and 
 raised to those high positions which qualify them to take the 
 lead, and give a tone to the opinion of their fellows. How 
 comes it, then, that with a professed intention of respecting 
 antiquity, there should be so fundamental a difference between 
 ancient and modern times, and that to return to the scriptural 
 
 ' S. Clirys. Horn. iii. con. Jiid. 4, vol. i. p. 611. 
 ^ S. Gregorii Magni Dialog, iv. 58. 
 ^ In Evan. lib. ii. Horn. xx.\vii. 9. 
 
PKACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 311 
 
 and primitive model should never have been thought of, not- 
 withstanding all the learning, leisure, and zeal, which has 
 existed in the Church of England ? 
 
 This is the more singular, because the abandonment of the 
 daily Eucharist was evidently not contemplated, when " The 
 Book of Common Prayer" was first promulgated. King 
 Edward's First Book, A. d. 1548, provided for "Daily Com- 
 munion" in the Cathedral Churches, and contemplated its 
 observance in other places. Directions are given for times 
 " when the Holy Communion is celebrated on the worke 
 day or in private houses ; " and the notice is not required 
 to be read above once a month, " where there is daily com- 
 munion." With a view, too, to insure its weekly ministration 
 at least, even in Parish Churches, it was ordered that " the 
 parishioners of every parish shall offer every Sunday," and that 
 of the families which are required to defray the charge of the 
 elements, " some one at the least of that house .... shall 
 receive the Communion with the priest." This order, with a 
 corresponding one respecting Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, 
 professes to have had in view that which had been enjoined 
 by various mediaeval canons,^ that the Holy Eucharist should 
 not be celebrated unless there be some person to respond to 
 the priest. " The minister having always some to communicate 
 with him, may accordingly solemnize so high and holy mysteries 
 with all the suffrages and due order appointed for the same." 
 The order, however, was only that some should communicate 
 with the minister, not that all present should be obliged to do 
 so ; it was provided only that persons who did not receive 
 should " depart out of the quire," in which those who designed 
 to communicate were to assemble. 
 
 ^ These canons, however, make no mention of communicating with the 
 priest. They order only that there shall be some one to be addressed, 
 and to respond. Vide Council of Mayence, A.D. 813, Can. 43, Earduin, 
 iv. 1015. The point is fully explained in the 48th Can. of the Sixth 
 Council of Paris, A.D. 829, quoted in the Capitularies (Baluzius), vol. i. 
 p. 1137. Vide Harduin, vol. iv. p. 1325. And vide the Synodical Letter 
 of Katherius, Bishop of Verona. D'Achery's Spicilegium, vol. i. p. 377. 
 
812 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 But about a year after the publication of King Edward's 
 First Book, Archbishop Cranmer abandoned his belief in the 
 Real Presence — a change which seems to have been very 
 acceptable to the young king and his favourites. By virtue 
 of the more than Papal power which he assumed, Edward soon 
 superseded the Book which he had formerly sanctioned, and 
 imposed his Second Book of 1552 upon the nation. By this 
 means, as well as by the forty-two Articles which were pub- 
 lished the same year, and in like manner \\'ithout any spiritual 
 sanction, the Zuinglo-Calvinistic system took possession of our 
 Churches. All mention of daily ^ communion immediately 
 disappeared ; and instead of a reference to " the suffrages and 
 due order," as the ground on which some were to communicate 
 with the priest, it is ordered that " there shall be no celebration 
 of the Lord's Supper, except there be a good number to com- 
 municate with the priest, according to his discretion." Nor 
 was this all. For whereas, according to the previous book, all 
 who were in fellowship with the Christian body might remain 
 in the nave, and communicate in the Church's offering, even 
 if any temporary hindrance prevented them from drawing 
 nearer to the altar, the Second Book of King Edward ordered 
 such persons to go away, and thus excluded them from the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice, unless they were prepared at the moment 
 to participate in the sacrament. " Bather than ye should so do, 
 depart you hence, and give place to them that be godly disposed." 
 This order, to " send the multitudes away," was the cause both 
 of the subsequent small attendance at the Holy Eucharist, and 
 of the infrequency of the rite. For it was soon found, that if 
 every one who was present was obliged to receive on every 
 occasion, it was necessary either to give up the daily Eucharist, 
 or to dispense with the attendance of " the great congi-egation." 
 Yet the order was natural enough, considering that the ruling 
 
 ' That Luther did not appreciate the Real Presence, though heretiiimd 
 it theoretically, may be gathered from his order: "Missre autem quoti- 
 dianiu in universum aboleantur." — De rUn Cccremoniis. Luther's Works, 
 vol. ii. fol. 899. 
 
PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 313 
 
 party had adopted the Zuinglian theory, and supposed the Holy 
 Eucharist to be merely a commemorative feast. For if Christ's 
 real Presence be denied, the jjrimitive doctrine of the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice must be abandoned also ; so that to have maintained a 
 spiritual participation in the Offering, would have been to keep 
 up a practice which had lost its meaning. It was only consis- 
 tent, therefore, to accommodate the usages of the Church to its 
 new doctrines. The service, consequently, was divested of its 
 sacrificial character ; and no longer bore witness, as in early 
 times, to the great event which is transacted at the altar. This 
 was done both by mutilating the prayer of oblation, which had 
 been retained in the Book of 1548, and by placing it after, 
 instead of before, the communion. These changes in the ritual 
 tallied but too truly with the order by which all who were un- 
 prepared to receive daily, were excluded from the Church. But 
 that the transition might not be too glaring, a new ritual was 
 provided, which bore some relation to the past — a ritual which 
 has been described by a recent writer as " the Missa Sicca, 
 neither consecration nor communion, but a mere sham rite, which, 
 most unfortunately, is retained in our own Church, whenever 
 actual celebration does not take place." ^ This would appear 
 less offensive to the Zuinglian party, because their very system 
 is to deprive the Holy Eucharist of its reality, and to resolve it 
 into a mere representation. But the Missa Sicca was allowed 
 to be an abuse even in mediaeval times, and it is wholly without 
 ancient authority. For what is the altar, without the gift by 
 which it is consecrated ? Why does the priest stand there, ex- 
 cept to minister Christ ? What ancient Church, or what early 
 Father, ever thought of solemnizing the Eucharistic rites, 
 unless He was present who was the soul of the service ? What 
 so signally distinguishes the Jewish from the Christian ritual, as 
 that in the first " the altar sanctifies the gift," whereas the true 
 gift is that which sanctifies the altar ? 
 
 This sentence of exclusion, which the Puritan party had 
 introduced in 1552, was withdrawn when the Prayer-Book was 
 ^ "Neale's History of the Eastern Church," Gen. Introd. p. 715. 
 
314 
 
 PKACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 first revised by the Church's representatives, A.D. 1662 ; and 
 thus it became possible for all who were in the Church's com- 
 munion, to take part again on all occasions in the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice. But the habit of attending, once lost, was not easily 
 recovered. The dislocation, too, of the Eucharistic office, was 
 allowed to continue ; so that the nature and real efficacy of the 
 Eucharistic Sacrifice was not brought out, as it might have been, 
 by the words of the service. And the very beauty and devout- 
 ness of the words, which had been left, rendered men less alive 
 to the importance of the acts, which had been omitted. Not 
 that there were wanting those who saw and regretted the 
 abandonment of the ancient usage. Such was Bishop Overall, 
 to whom we owe the conclusion of the Catechism — the most 
 important testimony which we possess to the reality of both 
 sacraments. His chaplain, Bishop Cosin, quotes the order of 
 the Council of Mayence, that the Holy Eucharist should not be 
 ministered unless persons were present who could respond and 
 be addressed : " Nullus Presbyter solus Missam cantare valet 
 recte, ut nobis videtur. Quomodo enim dicet, Dominus 
 vobiscum ? " &c. On which Cosin remarks, " They say yet, vi 
 nobis videtur : fain would they have had the abuse amended, 
 and yet the Communion not neglected for all that. They knew 
 not well whether they should forbid it absolutely and simply, if 
 there were no company ; as indeed better were it to endure the 
 absence of the people, than for the minister to neglect the usual 
 and daily sacrifice of the Church, by which all people, whether 
 they be there or no, reap so much benefit. And this was the 
 opinion of my lord and master. Dr. Overall." \ 
 
 An unwilhngness to be entirely separated from the various 
 Protestant communities, among whom the disuse of consecration 
 had involved the denial of the Peal Presence, and therefore of 
 the Eucharistic Sacrifice, may in those days have obstructed a 
 return to the primitive usage. But what prevents the attempt 
 
 ' Additional notes to NicholU, p. 53. Cosin refers to the Council of 
 Nice. But tlie words which he cites occur as the 43rd canon of the 
 Council of Mayence. — llard. iv. p. 1015. 
 
PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 315 
 
 at present, among those who believe that the claims of the 
 Church of England depend upon the maintenance of her Catholic 
 character ? Why should she not return to that custom of daily 
 Communion, which was authoi'ized both by the Apostles and 
 the Primitive Church, and which has on its side the judgment 
 of all other bodies which call themselves Catholic in Chris- 
 tendom ? Now here occurs the practical difficulty, that, ac- 
 cording to our present usage, all persons who are unprepared 
 for so frequent a reception of the sacrament of Christ's Body 
 and Blood, would be excluded from the daily service of the 
 Church. But why should this usage be perpetuated, now that 
 it has lost both its doctrinal significance, and its legislative 
 force? We are neither bound to the Zuinglian theory, by 
 which the validity of the Eucharistic Sacrifice was denied, nor 
 to that law of exclusion which was its practical result. The 
 tacit omission of this order from our Book of Common Prayer, 
 is equivalent to its direct repeal. So that any priest, who could 
 induce his people to give its due prominence to the Eucharistic 
 ofiice, might at once resume the ancient usage : ^ or if it were 
 thought presumptuous in a priest to take such a step on his 
 own authority, it might plainly be done by any Bishop. For 
 each diocese is an integral portion of the Universal Church ; 
 
 ^ Four places in different Dioceses may already be mentioned, where 
 the Christian Sacrifice is daily ofFered, according to Apostolic custom, by 
 priests of the Church of England. But it would be dangerous to invite 
 persons to communicate daily, or to be present daily at the offering of 
 the Sacrifice, unless they have such assured faith in the Real Presence, 
 as to come "discerning the Lord's Body." And the clergy should re- 
 member that in producing this belief their acts will be as effective as 
 their ivonh. For the laity will estimate things which are sacred, not 
 only by that which they are called, but by the manner in which they 
 are treated. The Apostolical Constitutions took the best means of in- 
 ducing the people to "come with reverence as to the body of the King," 
 when they bade the Deacons "to minister to the Lord's Body with fear." 
 [lib. ii. 57.] It has been shown (p. 217) that this feeling extended even 
 to the fragments which remained. May not the remarkable direction 
 (St. John vi. 12) have been designed as a lesson in regard to this par- 
 ticular ; or can we have a better example as to our general conduct 
 towards this Sacrament than was given by her, whom Our Lord com- 
 mended to the honour of all generations ? {St. Mark xiv. 8, 9.) 
 
316 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 and every Bishop, therefore, would possess full authority to re- 
 form an abuse, whicli does not depend upon law, but upon 
 custom. 
 
 It may be said, indeed, that the clergy are always as willing 
 to minister the Holy Eucharist as their jmrishioners to receive 
 it ; and therefore that the abuse, if such it be, is the fault of 
 individuals. And the weakness of individuals cannot be imputed 
 as a defect to the collective Church, because it is inseparable 
 from our common nature. But the obligations of the Church 
 of Christ are one thing ; the defects of its individual members 
 are another. That the people should be unprepared for that 
 daily reception of Christ's Body which would render earth most 
 like to heaven ; that the food of angels should be too sacred for 
 their daily meat — this is the fault of those, whose own infirmi- 
 ties exclude them from the full richness of the Gospel feast. 
 The Church does her part, when she daily spreads her board, 
 and invites men to partake of it. The manna is daily poured 
 forth around the camp ; it is the fault of individuals if it be not 
 gathered. But their negligence is no reason why she should 
 intermit that continual worship, which it is her ofl&ce, as a 
 collective body, to render to God. It is her commission, " that 
 supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be 
 made for all men." To omit this would be to neglect her proper 
 task ; just as the frailty of individuals is only her grief ; but 
 any voluntary neglect of public discipline must be her sin. 
 Perhaps it may be tliought that this last evil accounts for the 
 other ; that till Church discipline can be restored, it is impos- 
 sible to give its due prominence to the Eucharistic office. How 
 can j'^ou invite men, it may be said, to daily communion, till the 
 purity of the Christian body is maintained by a stricter disci- 
 pline V But on this princijile you must forbid a monthly as well 
 as a daily Eucharist ; you must omit prayer, as well as sacra- 
 ment. For the rules of ancient piety would have excluded 
 notorious offenders, not only from the Church's Eucharistic 
 otHce, but even from its more solemn prayers. AVliatever fault 
 and loss, therefore, may arise from lack of discipline, it can be 
 
PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 817 
 
 no reason why the Church should abandon that perpetual wor- 
 ship, which it is her duty and privilege to present. 
 
 Now it was the principle of the ancient Church, that this 
 perjDetual worship did not attain jDerfection except in the 
 Eucharistic office ; and nothing less, therefore, was supposed to 
 be the " daily sacrifice " spoken of in Holy Writ. The cessation 
 of "the sacrifice and the oblation," predicted by Daniel (ix. 27), 
 is explained by Primasius to be " the failure of the victim and 
 sacrifice, which is now offered with solemn order in the Church." ^ 
 St. Jerome assigns the same meaning to Daniel's words : on 
 Daniel, viii. 14, he says, "most of our interpreters apply this 
 passage," i.e. the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, " to Anti- 
 christ, and suppose that the event which happened under 
 Antiochus in type, will happen under him in reality." '^ And 
 again, he tells us that he translates the term which is employed 
 in Daniel xi. 31, and xii. 11, by "juge sacrijicutm" and that 
 he considers its intermission to mean, that " Antichrist, getting 
 possession of the world, will forbid the worship of God." ^ Now, 
 by the "juge sacrijtcium" he obviously intends " the victims, 
 which," he says, " are daily offered by the Bishop to God." * 
 St. Chrysostom, too, describes the Holy Eucharist as " the daily 
 sacrifice ;"^ and earlier still, St. Ireneeus says, that "the time of 
 Antichrist's tyranny," when " the sacrifice and libation shall be 
 taken away," is that " wherein the saints shall be put to flight, 
 who offer the pure sacrifice to the Lord." ^ These Fathers 
 believed that a time of persecution would arise, when the public 
 offices of the Christian Church would be everywhere interdicted. 
 For St. Irenseus explains the pure sacrifice to be that " new 
 oblation of the New Testament, which the Church receiving 
 from the Apostles, offers throughout the whole world to God." ^ 
 
 Such passages imply the Holy Eucharist to be that perpetual 
 
 1 Comment, in Apocalyp. lib. iii. Bib. Pat. x. 315. 
 
 2 St. Jerom. vol. iii. p. 1106. 
 
 ^ lb. on Dan. xii. 11, vol. iii. p. 1133, bis. 
 
 * lb. in Tit. i. vol. iv. part i. p. 418. 
 
 ^ Hom. in Ephes. iii. 4. 
 
 6 S. Iren. v. 25. 4. ' lb. iv. 17. 5. 
 
318 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 worship, which it is the Church's puhlic office to present. So 
 that no negligence in the attendance of the people can be a 
 legitimate ground for its disuse. For it is the Cli arch's function 
 to offer itself continually to God ; and this offering cannot be 
 acceptably presented, except through the merit of that perfect 
 victim, with whom in this service it is identified. This was the 
 reason why the Church's puhlic assembly {synams) was equiva- 
 lent, in the language of ancient times, to the Holy Eucharist. 
 " The mysteries," says St. Chrysostom, " which are celebrated at 
 every assemby [si/naxis), are called the Eucharist." ^ AVhether 
 they met on Sunday or week-day, as we have seen, the custom 
 of the first Christians was to stand at God's altar. ^ The ground 
 of supplication always was, " how shall we not jirevail with God, 
 when that awful Sacrifice lies displayed ? " ^ For except through 
 her union with that sacrifice, the Church felt herself altogether 
 unworthy to appear before God. So that those who jDroscribed 
 this daily service, and confined its celebration to the occasions, 
 when there were " a good number to communicate with the 
 priest," viewed the Holy Eucharist under an aspect entirely 
 different from that which prevailed in early ages. They must 
 have forgotten that the Eucharistic Sacrifice was a substantive 
 act, whereby the Intercession of the Great High Priest was per- 
 petually applied for the benefit of His brethren. They failed, 
 therefore, to do full justice to the work of that Ascended Head, 
 who not only was, but " is the Saviour of the body." For they 
 excluded His own availing participation from His people's wor- 
 ship, and perceived not that it was the merit which He had 
 acquired by the sacrifice of the Cross, which gives value to the 
 sacrifice of the Altar. 
 
 The subject before us is so important, that it seems necessary 
 to meet the objections which the previous statements are likely 
 to encounter. First — It is sometimes said, that to allow men to 
 take part in the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist, on occasions 
 
 ' In St. Matt. Horn. xxv. 3, vol. vii. p. 310. 
 
 ^ TertuUian de Oratione, 14. 
 
 ^ S. Chrysos. on Plulipp. Horn. iii. 4. 
 
PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 319 
 
 when they are prevented from taking part in the sacrament, is 
 contrary to the analogy suppHed by the sacrificial observances 
 of the Levitical Ritual, in which the custom was that those who 
 " partook of the altar," should " eat of the sacrifice." Secondly — 
 Such a permission is said not only to be destitute of primitive 
 sanction, but to be directly condemned by the early Fathers. 
 Thirdly — It is asked, what advantage could accrue from it, even 
 if it were permitted. 
 
 First — It is admitted on all hands, that in the Holy Eucha- 
 rist there is a feast upon a sacrifice. This was implied in its 
 original appointment, and St. Paul refers to it as a reason for 
 abstaining from the sacrificial banquets of the heathen. But it 
 has been shown that the Holy Eucharist consists not only of a 
 feast upon a sacrifice, but likewise of a sacrifice itself. Its full 
 and perfect participation, therefore, implies no doubt that men 
 should avail themselves of both its purposes. But it is a further 
 question, whether its purposes are so united, that it is impossible 
 to employ it in the one relation, unless it be employed simul- 
 taneously in the other. Is it contrary either to natural piety 
 or to an express command, to join in the sacrifice without going 
 on to the sacrament ; or to partake the sacrament without hav- 
 ing been present at its oblation ? It is clear that the last was 
 not objected to by the early Christians, for it was their esta- 
 blished usage, to send that which had been consecrated to those 
 who were debarred from attendance at the sacrifice.^ Neither 
 does there seem any reason in the nature of the case, why those 
 who are hindered from obtaining the full benefits which the 
 Church has to offer, should be prohibited from their partial 
 enjoyment. "We must see, then, whether such partial employ- 
 ment of the Holy Eucharist is forbidden by the laws of the 
 Church, or contradicts those piinciples which were foreshadowed 
 by the synagogue; whether it is at variance either with the 
 nature of Jewish types or Christian sacraments. 
 
 Now it would not, after all, be of any great moment, if the 
 rules of the Mosaic ritual had in this case been opposed to the 
 ^ Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 67. 
 
320 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 cufetom of the Church, because the sacrifices of the Law were 
 eaten as bodily food, and not for spiritual nourishment. Yet 
 some general analogy may be anticipated between the two dis- 
 pensations. And so far as the Law supplies any guidance on 
 the subject, it not only does not militate against the principles 
 which have been laid down, but altogether confirms them. The 
 analogy of the Jewish service would certainly require, as was 
 enjoined by the Twelfth Council of Toledo, that the Holy Eu- 
 charist should never be solemnized, without being partaken by 
 the consecrating priest. " Hi qui sacrijicantes non edunt, rei. 
 sunt dominici sacramenti" ^ For it has been shown that in 
 cases in which the Jewish priest acted as a proper mediator, he 
 was required to eat of the offering (p. 257); and that one cha- 
 racteristic of the Christian sacrifice is, that it supersedes those 
 provisions, by which the eating of the victim was prevented in 
 cases in which the Jewish priests were insufficient mediators. 
 But when we turn from the priest to the people, we find nothiug 
 which would indicate the same necessity. To all other parties, 
 except the sacrificing priest, the eating of the victim appears 
 to have been optional. The priestly family discharged a me- 
 diatorial office towaixls the nation at large, and therefore all 
 its males miyht eat of the inferior class of sin-offerings." But 
 there was no provision which compelled all of them to partake. 
 And as respects the peace-offerings, in which those who pre- 
 sented them might share, the eating them appears to have 
 been allowed, but not commanded. The characteristic act was 
 the presenting the victim before God : " He shall lay his hand 
 upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the 
 tabernacle of the congregation." ^ Supposing the offerer to have 
 become ceremonially unclean before the sacrificial feast could be 
 celebrated, he was disqualified from eating of it : ■* but there is 
 no indication that his prievous act of oblation was invalidated. 
 
 * " Quotiescunque sacrificans corpus et sanguinem Jesu Cliristi Domini 
 nostri in altario immolat, toties perceptionis corporis et sanguinis Christi 
 se participem pr.tbeat." — Con. Tolet. xii. Can. 5, Hanlaht, iii. p. 17'2'2. 
 
 - Leviticus \± 29. ^ Id. iii. 2, 8, 13. * Id. vii. 20. 
 
PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 321 
 
 " For the overplus," says Josephus, " they that oflPer the sacrifice 
 may eat of it during two days." ^ And all which the law en- 
 joined was, that the residue which remained uneaten on the 
 third day should be burned with fire.^ 
 
 There is nothing, then, in the analogies derivable from the 
 ordinary sacrifices of the Jewish law, whether we look at burnt- 
 ofi'erings, sin-offerings, or peace-ofi'erings, which would afford 
 any presumption that in the Holy Eucharist the sacrifice and 
 the sacrament cannot lawfully be dissociated. No doubt the 
 union of both is essential to the full efficacy of this ordinance ; 
 and yet each of them may in itself be a substantive action. But 
 there remains the case of the Passover, which, though not in- 
 cluded in any of the previous classes, is yet called a sacrifice in 
 Scripture,^ and was so considered by the Jews. Now, in this, 
 the eating of the victim was plainly the characteristic act, from 
 which it might be supposed that the benefit of the ordinance 
 could not be dissociated. Moreover, the Passover is the rite 
 which bears especial relation to the mysteries of the Gospel ; 
 for " Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." 
 
 It must be observed, however, as respects the Passover, that 
 
 it is only by a general analogy that it appears to have been 
 
 called a sacrifice, and that it does not strictly answer to the 
 
 conditions by which sacrifices were distinguished. That which 
 
 was directly commanded was that it should be eaten : there is 
 
 no direction respecting the offering it before God in the manner 
 
 commonly prescribed respecting sacrifices. So that though all 
 
 males were ordered to eat it, yet this was a specific appointment, 
 
 and not intended to give validity to the previous oblation. And 
 
 even as regards the Passover, considering it as a sacrifice, its 
 
 benefit was not confined to those by whom it was partaken. 
 
 For, taken under this aspect, it must be thought, like that first 
 
 Passover which was celebrated in Egypt, to have been a sort of 
 
 national sacrifice of thanksgiving. Now there is no injunction 
 
 in Scripture that women should eat it, and their doing so was 
 
 ^ Jewish Ant. iii. 9. ^ Leviticus vii. 17. 
 
 ^ Exodus xii. 27 ; xxxiv. 25. 
 
 T 
 
322 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 lield to be optional ' by the Jews. Moreover, it was the custom 
 of the Jews to form themselves into small sodalities, consisting 
 of ten or more persons, for whose common use a lamb was slain. 
 Now it was allowable for persons to be included in these sodali- 
 ties, who from extreme age, from sickness, or from youth,^ were 
 unable to partake of the lamb. It was held by the Jews to be 
 illegal ^ to offer the lamb for a sodality, in which none were able 
 to partake of it ; but the incapacity of some * members was no 
 reason why it should not be offered for the sodality at large. 
 Some of the Jewish authorities went so far as to say that if the 
 lamb fell short, so that none remained for a person who was 
 legally bound to eat the Passover, he was exempted from the 
 duty of repeating the rite,'' because the blood of the first victim 
 had been sprinkled in his name ; but it is clear on all hands that 
 the benefits of the ordinance, regarding it as a sacrifice for the 
 nation at large, were not suj)posed to be confined to those by 
 whom it was eaten. 
 
 Secondly — So far, then, as we can found an analogy on the 
 rules of the Synagogue, we should expect that the full blessing 
 of the Holy Eucharist is to be gained by participation both in 
 the feast and in the sacrifice, but that those who are debarred the 
 one, are not of necessity to be debarred the other. Let us see 
 next what is to be gathered from the practices of the Church. 
 We may first take our position towards the close of that period, 
 in which the Church's authority was as yet unimpaired by the 
 
 ^ Gemara Hieros. Kidduschin. "Pascha mulierum ex arbitrio." — Utjo- 
 lini, vol. XXX. p. 456 ; and I)e Paschafe, cap. viii. Ugolini, xvii. 892. 
 
 - Mischnah. Pesachim, cap. v. sec. 3. 
 
 ^ "Si fuerit societas centum, qui non possint comedere in quantitate 
 olivse, non mactant pro illis ; et non faciunt societatem mulierum, servo- 
 rum, et puerorum." — Gemara Hieros. de Faschute, cap. viii. Ugolini, 
 xvii. pp. 890, 902. 
 
 '' " Pro comedentibus suis, et pro non comedentibus suis ; pro annu- 
 meratis, et pro non annumeratis ; pro circumcisis, et prwputiatis ; pro 
 immundis et mundis, est legitimum." — Ih. cap. v. p. 790 ; vi. 824. "Quo- 
 modo pro non comedentibus? Si mactaverit nomine aegroti, senis, qui 
 non possint comedere in quantitate oliva-." — 77>. p. 806. 
 
 * "K. Nathan dicit ; non tenentur facere Pasclia secundum, quia jam 
 pro iis aspersua fuit sanguis." — Tosuphta, vii. 2. Ugolini, xvii. 662. 
 
PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 323 
 
 division between East and "West, and before the ancient doctrine 
 respecting the Holy Eucharist had ever been disputed. At 
 that time, the eighth century of the Christian era, we have full 
 information respecting the usual mode of public worship. 
 Independently of the Liturgical documents which are still in 
 existence, the decrees of Councils show us the three follow- 
 ing particulars. First — That the Holy Eucharist was at- 
 tended, or was meant to be attended, by the mass of the 
 laity, weekly at least, if not more frequently : Secondly — That 
 they were expected to remain till the end of the service: 
 Thirdly — That frequent reception was thought desirable, but 
 that they were not required to communicate except on special 
 occasions. 
 
 All these particulars may be gathered from the interesting 
 Capitularies issued to his clergy by Theodulphus, Bishop of 
 Orleans, towards the end of this century. Every Christian was 
 to come every Sunday with his oblations to the Eucharistic 
 service (canon 24) ; ^ he must hear the Eucharistic office and the 
 sermon (46), and the priest was not allowed to celebrate it unless 
 there were persons standing round, whom he could address, and by 
 whom he could be answered (7). But the laity were ordered to 
 receive on the Sundays in Lent, and on certain other great days, 
 when "penitus ah omnibus communicandum" (41) : '^ and they are 
 exhorted to prepare themselves for the occasion by special self- 
 denial and prayer (44). It is clear, then, that to take part in 
 the sacrifice without taking part in the sacrament, was a regular 
 custom in the eight century. And the fact is confirmed by the 
 canons of numerous Councils held under the patronage of 
 Charlemagne, at the end of the century, or soon afterwards. On 
 the Ember days, it is said, " Veniant onines ad Ecclesiam liora 
 nona cum Litaniis ad Missarum solemnia." ^ The presence of 
 those who were not expected to communicate is directly recog- 
 
 ^ Harduin, iv. p. 917. 
 
 ^ This canon appears verbatim in the directions given by Ardalarius to 
 his clergy in the next century. — D^Acherys Spic. vol. iii. p. 233. 
 ^ Coun. of Mayence, can. 34, Hard. iv. p. 1015. 
 
 Y 2 
 
824 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 nised ; ' and the benefits to be derived from the oblation 
 affirmed. '^ 
 
 As we ascend from this point towards the earliest age, we 
 find that the same laws reappear in the Excerpta of Egbert, 
 Archbishop of York, a.d. 732, and in the Penitentiary of 
 Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, a.d. 668. The first orders 
 the clergy to celebrate the Holy Eucharist daily (No. 55'), 
 while the laity are ordered to communicate at least thrice a year 
 (No. 38) : the second is express in directing men to stay till the 
 Eucharistic office is ended. * The same usage had been sanctioned 
 by the Council of Agde, and two Councils of Orange, a century 
 previously. The Eucharistic Service is ordered to be attended 
 by the laity evei-y Sunday ; ^ they are forbidden to go out till it 
 is over, or at least till the bishop had given the blessing, which 
 was not pronounced till after consecration ; " while the Council 
 of Agde directs (canon 18) that they shall communicate three 
 times a year. The intention with which these orders were given 
 is fully explained in the sermons of St. Csesarius of Aries, who 
 presided at the Council of Agde, a.d. 506. He exhorts his 
 people to attend eveiy Sunday and make their oblations for the 
 altar; "^ he bids them stay till after the consecration, and 
 explains the benefits of taking part in the oblation f while he 
 contemplates an especial preparation before they communicate.^ 
 
 A hundred years before the Council of Agde we come to the 
 age of the great Fathers of the Church. And this is the most 
 
 ^ "Presbyteri omnino admonendi sunt ut cum sacra Missarum solemnia 
 peregerint, atque commuiiicaveriut, pueris aut aliis quibuslibet per.souis 
 adstantibus Corjjus Domini indiscrete nou tribuant." — Tliinl Council of 
 Tours, Can. 19. Hard. iv. p. 1025. 
 
 ^ "Oblationem quoque et pacem in ecclesia facere jugiter admoneatur 
 populus Cliristianus, quia ipsa oblatio sibi et suis magnimi remedium est 
 animarum." — Council of Noyoice, C'anon 44, Jhiril. iv. p. 1016. 
 
 2 Thorpe's Ancient Laws of England, vol. ii. p. 105. Wilkins, i. 104. 
 
 ■» No. 48, Thorpe, ii. 58. 
 
 ■^ Cone. Agath. 47 ; Hard. ii. 1003. 
 
 " Cone. Agath. 47. Cone. Aurel. i. Can. 26; Hard. ii. 1011. Cone. 
 Aurel. iii. can. 29. Hard. ii. 1428. 
 
 " Appendix to S. August, vol. v. Serm. 265. 3 ; 266. 2. 
 
 8 lb. Serm. 281. 2; 173, 4; 174. 8. " lb. Serm. 142. 7. 
 
PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 325 
 
 important step in our ascent from the eighth century to primitive 
 times, because Bingham fixes upon it as the era of a change in 
 the practice of the Church. He seems to have considered, that 
 the custom of allowing men to partake in the Sacrifice when 
 they did not partake in the Sacrament, was introduced between 
 the Council of Agde and the time of St. Chrysostom. This 
 opinion is grounded upon a passage in St. Chrysostom's third 
 Homily on the Ephesians, in which he arraigns the conduct of 
 those who attended the Holy Eucharist at Easter, or some other 
 great feast, while they lived carelessly during the rest of the 
 year. " Observe," he says, " the vast inconsistency of the thing. 
 At the other times ye come not, no, not though often ye are 
 clean : but at Easter, however flagrant an act ye may have 
 committed, ye come." The fault appears to have been prevalent 
 in his day ; in an early Homily ^ at Antioch he complains, that 
 it was the custom of many to communicate on festivals, rather 
 than when they were themselves prepared. In his Homily on 
 the Ephesians, therefore, he puts the following dilemma : if men 
 are living in sin they ought to be excommunicated, and so in- 
 terdicted from taking part in the more solemn prayers; but if 
 they are not living in sin they ought to communicate. "Thou 
 hast declared thyself to be of the number of them that are 
 worthy, by not dej)arting with them that are unworthy. "Why 
 stay, and yet not partake of the table ?" 
 
 It is plain enough from this address, that the regular atten- 
 dance which had existed in the Primitive age had been generally 
 abandoned : the Church and the world had interpenetrated and 
 influenced one another ; so that the same Homily says : " in 
 vain is the daily sacrifice, in vain do we stand before the altar ; 
 there is no one to partake." But it is essential to Bingham's 
 argument to show, not only that St. Chrysostom complained of 
 the abuse, but what was the nature of the remedy which he 
 suggested. Though he could not have wished all the Christians 
 of Antioch or Constantinople to communicate daily in their 
 existing state, he doubtless wished and urged them to qualify 
 ^ De Baptismo Christi, vol. ii. p. 373. 
 
326 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 themselves for such a blessing. But what did he propose in the 
 meantime ? Did he only tell them that they ought all to com- 
 municate ; or did he exclude those from the sacrifice who 
 excluded themselves from the sacrament? "Was his complaint 
 that they took jiart in the one, or that they abstained from 
 taking part in the other ? No doubt some of his words might 
 be taken either way ; but his concluding remarks show that his 
 complaint was not for what men did, but for what they left 
 undone. " That I may not then be the means of increasing your 
 condemnation, I entreat you not to forbear coming, but to render 
 yourself worthy both of l)eing present and of approaching." ' 
 
 St. Chrysostom could hardly have used these words, if his 
 object had been not to induce all to communicate, but to exclude 
 those who were negligent in doing so, from the Chiistian sacri- 
 fice. If this last had been his intention, he would surely have 
 observed, that the one of these duties could not be performed 
 without the simultaneous performance of the other. For this 
 Avould have been the legitimate argument to emjDloy against 
 those who attempted to separate them. But on this point he 
 says not a syllable : his whole argument is addressed merely to 
 the duty of receiving, if men are in a state of grace. He is 
 reasoning against those, who were contented to come once or 
 twice a year to the Holy Eucharist. Such persons, he says, 
 cannot be living such lives as fit them to take part in the 
 Church's prayers. So that it by no means follows that lie would 
 have spoken so severely of those who commonly were com- 
 municants, if some temporary circumstances had rendered them 
 unprepared for daily participation. 
 
 But it may be said, St. Chrysostom's words represent prayer 
 and Eucharist to be so completely identical, that those who were 
 unprepared for the one must be unprepared for the other. 
 " Why stay, and yet not partake of the table ? I am unworthy, 
 thou wilt say. Then art thou also as unfit for that communion 
 thou hast had in the prayers." This miglit be true enougli of 
 those who attended only once a year, but that St. Chrysostom 
 ^ Horn. iii. 5, in Ephes. vol. xi. p. 24. 
 
PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 327 
 
 did not consider the two things to be entirely equal, is obvious 
 from his own conduct. For when some monks who had been 
 expelled* from Alexandria by Theophilus came to Constantinople, 
 " he would not give them communion in the mysteries," it is 
 said, " till their case had been judicially decided ; but he allowed 
 them to partake in the prayers.^ Clearly, then, he must have 
 supposed that some diifereuce existed between the one and the 
 other, though he might think that men were unfit to take part 
 in the prayers, who were habitual neglecters of the sacrament. 
 And such was the judgment of the contemporary Council of 
 Toledo (a.d. 400), which, while ordering the clergy to attend 
 the daily sacrifice, imposes penitence on " laymen who never 
 communicate." ^ 
 
 These considerations render it evident that St. Chrysostom's 
 words were not intended to exclude men from the sacrifice, but 
 to bring them to the sacrament. Neither does any other sup- 
 position accord with the fact, that a hundred years later it was 
 an universal custom to attend the one, when men were unpre- 
 pared to attend the other. How should such a custom have 
 arisen without leaving traces of its origin? The universal 
 tendency of human affairs is to fall back and decay ; and 
 nothing is more natural, therefore, than that the daily recep- 
 tion of the Christian mysteries, which had prevailed during the 
 fervour of the Apostolic age, should insensibly cease to be the 
 rule of ordinary Christians. Nor is it strange that when the 
 Church had enjoyed a hundred years more of worldly patronage, 
 this negligence should excite less indignation than it did in 
 " the glorious preacher," 
 
 "With soul of zeal and lips of flame." 
 
 It was probable, therefore, that the neglect of the sacrament, 
 which had been tolerated in the time of St. Chrysostom, would 
 
 ^ Socrates, vi. 9. The same may be inferred from S. Chrys. Hom. ix. 
 on the Statues. (Ox. Transl. p. 159.) He there speaks to persons as 
 present at the Sacrifice, who could not be designing to communicate, in- 
 asmuch as they were not fasting. 
 
 2 Cone. Tol. i. Canon 13, Hard. i. p. 991. 
 
828 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 become almost the established rule in the time of Caesarius. 
 (Though it should be observed that the Council of Agde re- 
 quired reception at least three times a year. Can. 18.) But 
 a new habit of attending the sacrifice could not have been 
 introduced in this manner without observation. How should it 
 have arisen unless it had been recommended by Bishops, and 
 enjoined by Councils? To impose a new duty to which men 
 have been imaccustomed, is not so easy as to allow an old one to 
 fall into neglect. How came this new rule not to be noticed in 
 those great Councils which were held during the middle of the 
 fifth centuiy, nor by those distinguished men, who had been 
 formed in the school of St. Augustin, and who lived to its close ? 
 The neglect of which St. Chrysostom comj)lained, may have be- 
 come more inveterate during another century ; but the interval 
 does not sufl&ce for the silent introduction of a custom, which 
 previously had been wholly unknown. 
 
 The conclusion is, then, that those careless members of the 
 Church, who were attracted by St. Chrysostom's preaching, 
 though they were sharply rebiiked for communicating only once 
 or twice a year, were not excluded from the daily offering of the 
 Christian sacrifice. Indeed, it has been shown that St. Chry- 
 sostom granted this permission as a privilege to those to whom 
 he was unable to grant full communion. And in one of his 
 homilies, where he comjilains of those who came to hear the 
 sermon, and departed before the celebration of the Holy 
 Eucharist, he dwells exclusively upon the fact that " Chi'ist 
 was about to exhibit Himself in the sacred mysteries," ^ and that 
 superior efficacy attended public prayer. So that his object 
 must have been to induce men to take part in the sacrament ; 
 but if this could not be effected, not to exclude them from the 
 sacrifice. And if such was the usage in the time of St. Chry- 
 sostom, it must have been the usage during the two centuries 
 which preceded his birth ; since it is admitted on all hands, 
 that whatever diminution there may have been in the earnest- 
 
 ^ De Incoinprehens. iii. 6, vol. i. p. 469. 
 
PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 329 
 
 ness of her members, yet that no alteration had as yet taken 
 place in the principle of the Church's ritual. 
 
 Now, before proceeding to trace the subject into this earlier 
 period, it is necessary to make two observations ; first, that the 
 Church's rule undoubtedly was, that all Christians should take 
 part both in the sacrament and the sacrifice ; secondly, that 
 none except members 'of her communion were allowed to be 
 present at either. The first is obvious, not only from such 
 statements as those which have been quoted from St. Chry- 
 sostom ; but likewise from the eighth Apostolical Canon, which 
 sentences a clerk to suspension if he does not communicate when 
 the oblation is offered, unless he can assign a sufiicient reason. 
 And, therefore, when a sort of model service is described in the 
 Apostolical Constitutions (ii. 57, viii. 13), the Church is sup- 
 posed to consist exclusively of devout persons, who would all 
 exert their full privilege of receiving Our Lord's Body and 
 Blood. But again, none who were out of the Church's com- 
 munion were allowed to be present. For all ancient Liturgies 
 were distinct in requiring, that those who were not communi- 
 cants should leave the Church before the celebration of the Holy 
 Eucharist. But to be communicants, it was not necessary to 
 receive every day : this may have been the custom in the age 
 of the Apostles ; but it was never enjoined. The only rules 
 imposed upon the laity were such as those of the Council of 
 Sardica (can. 11), that "men should be excluded from Church- 
 membership if they absented themselves from Church for three 
 weeks together ;" ^ or again if they came to Church, but " never 
 communicated." [Pii"st Council of Toledo, can. 13.] Hence, 
 says "Waterland, Infants were considered in one sense to be 
 
 ' The Council in Trullo, which re-enacted this order, can. 80, says 
 nothing of communicating, but only orders the laity to come together 
 once in three Sundays. So Balsamon understands it : he speaks of the 
 laity as ordered to meet and pray together. Beveriilge, vol. i. p. 250. 
 Theodore, in his Penitentiary (44), seems to suppose that they were 
 obliged to communicate (Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 51) ; though he may possibly 
 have used the word in that more general sense of conununicating in 
 prayers, in which it was employed by the Council of Nice. Canons, 11, 
 13, &c. 
 
330 PKACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 "communicants, though they lived not to partake of the 
 Eucharist." ' 
 
 Wlien it is maintained then, that in the ancient Church men 
 took part in the sacrifice who did not take part in the sacra- 
 ment, the assertion must be quahfied by the two preceding 
 considerations. The custom, that is, was permitted rather than 
 enjoined : this partial employment of tlie Church's ritual was 
 only a concession to the weakness of those, Avho fell short of the 
 full vigour of the Christian life. But it was a concession of 
 which none might avail themselves but those who were mem- 
 bers of the Church : it was an indulgence which was awarded 
 to those who continued to be her children. And Avith these 
 qualifications, there is every reason to suppose that the practice 
 had existed from the beginning. For it must be observed, First 
 — that the ministration of the Holy Eucharist appears to have 
 been the only public ritual coeval with the Church. Secondly — 
 that it was not contemplated that any one who was in com- 
 munion with the Church should go out before the conclusion of 
 the service. Thirdly — that we find rules to have been laid 
 down in some places which rendered it impossible that every 
 one should communicate daily, and that it is indisputable that 
 many who did not communicate were allowed to remain. 
 Fourthly — that there are no ancient canons of general obliga- 
 tion, which order either that every one should receive, or that 
 those who were unprepared to receive, should go away. 
 
 First — We hear of no public ritual - in the first ages, except 
 that which was connected with the Eucharistic Office. So it 
 certainly was in the Apostle's time. "The disciples came 
 together to break bread." And so does St, Paul speak of the 
 Holy Eucharist as that which men might be expected to solem- 
 nize, " when ye come together into one place." The case was 
 the same, according to Justin Martyr, in the next century. 
 
 ' Inquiry concerning Infant Communion, Works, vol. ix. p. 488. 
 
 - Tliis circumstance, together with the fact that the Holy Eucharist 
 was then ministered daily, is the ground for thinking that the word 
 XeiTovpyovi'Tojy ("as they ministered to the Lord"), Acts xiii. 2, must 
 refer to the Eucharistic Service. 
 
PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 331 
 
 The only public gathering which he^ describes, is that for the 
 celebration of the Holy Eucharist; and this service was 
 solemnized, according to Tertullian, both on the Station^ days 
 and in their nocturnal assemblies. * No doubt it must have 
 been the custom of Christians from the earliest ages, to meet 
 continually for the purpose of prayer and psalmody (as St. Basil 
 describes, Ep. 207), but no traces of anything resembling a 
 jpuhlic ritual, except the Eucharistic Liturgies, have come down 
 to us from the three first centuries. The only exception to 
 this statement is the daily morning and evening prayer, which 
 occurs in the eighth Book of the Apostolical Constitutions, cap. 
 XXXV. &c. It must be observed, however, that this form of 
 daily prayer is not stated, even in the Constitutions, to be 
 intended as a substitute for the Eucharistic office ; it seems 
 rather designed to be an additional form of devotion, for the 
 use of those who worshipped together several times a day. 
 Indeed, if it had been a substitute for the Euchai'istic office, by 
 whom could it have been emploj^ed ? Not by St. Cyprian 
 before the Council of Nice, nor after it by St. Chrysostom in the 
 East, or St. Ambrose in the West ; not by St. Augustin or 
 St. Jerome ; for it has been shown that the offering of the 
 Holy Eucharist was their daily employment. These prayers 
 may have been meant, then, to answer the same end with the 
 devotional offices, which assumed a definite shape, when monastic 
 institutions arose towards the middle of the fourth century, and 
 of which we have an account from St. Basil in the fourth,'' and 
 from Cassian in the fifth century. So that we must conclude, 
 that they were intended to afford employment to those who 
 could give their whole time to God's service, but that they 
 never took the place of the great act of social worship. 
 
 Besides, the Apostolical Constitutions are nothing but the 
 
 1 Apol. i. 65. ^ De Oratione, xiv. 
 
 3 De Corona Mit. iii. This seems to have been the case in Pliny's 
 time; for he associates the " sacramentum" with the early assembly of 
 the Christians, though evidently ignorant of its nature : while the Agape 
 was celebrated later in the day." — Epis. lib. x. 97. 
 
 * Ep, 207, and Epiphanius adv. Hser, iii. 2, 23, vol. i. p. 1106. 
 
382 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 literary exercise of some private person, who has presumed to 
 put liis own words into the mouths of the Apostles. The book 
 was rejected, therefore, by the second canon of the Council in 
 Trullo, and the prayers and usages which it contains, are merely 
 the suggestions of an individual. So that its liturgical services 
 have no claim to rank with those which express the usages and 
 faith of Apostolical Churches, although they are a valuable wit- 
 ness to the opinions of the age in which they were composed. 
 But if we would know what was the mode of worsliip in the 
 third or fourth centuries, we must look to the public Liturgies. 
 Now their very existence testifies to the truth of St. Chrysos- 
 tom's assertion, that " Our Passover is the offering and sacrifice 
 which is made at every assembling." ^ For the word Liturgy, 
 or service, when applied to a sacred or mystical j)urpose, gra- 
 dually became identified with the Eucharistic Office ; neither is 
 any other handed down from early times. So that it was im- 
 possible to join in common worship during the period which 
 preceded the birth of St. Chrysostom, without paiiiciimting in 
 the Eucharistic action, because no other soleuui and public ritual 
 existed in the Church. 
 
 Secondly — The preceding statement renders it evident, that 
 those who attended public worship must have joined in the 
 Eucharistic Office. " It is equally certain, that no one in com- 
 munion with the Church was allowed to depart till the service 
 was concluded. So much may certainly be gathered from the 
 9th Apostolical canon, and the 2ud canon of the Council of 
 Antioch, whatever else they may imply. The command may 
 not have been always regarded ; and St. Chi-ysostom comi^lains 
 both of those who went away directly after the sermon," and of 
 those who went out as soon as they had themselves communi- 
 cated.^ Yet the Rubrics of the ancient Liturgies prove that 
 
 ^ " KaO^ (KaaTTjv awa^iv." — llom. adv. Jud. iii. 4. 
 
 ^ Horn, de lucouiprehensibili, iii. 6, vol. i. p. 469. In the time of 
 Caesarius, the Bishop aj)pears to have pronounced a benediction after the 
 consecration, for those who did not receive. — Sermo 281. 2, Append, tu 
 S. Atii). vol. V. ; and vide Malnllon de Litnnj. Gull. i. 4, p. 35. 
 
 ^ Horn, de Baptismo Christi, iv. vol. ii. p. 374. 
 
PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 333 
 
 this must have been a local corruption ; for it appears that 
 those who went out were formally dismissed by the officers of 
 the Church, and none were thus dismissed except those who 
 had not yet been admitted, or who were excluded from the 
 Church's communion. First it was the catechumens, who were 
 not baptized ; then the various classes of penitents. In every 
 case the deacon proclaimed, " Depart catechumens ; " or " Depart 
 those who are in penance." " Let no one remain who is not in 
 communion." So that no room remains for the departure of 
 those who were not under some sentence. And the full provi- 
 sion which is made for what should happen, and the exact rules 
 by which it was defined, show that if any omitted to remain, 
 it must have been an irregular and unlicensed proceeding. 
 
 Thirdly — It is clear that some members of the Church, who 
 were present at her j)ublic prayers, and who must have been 
 expected therefore to remain till the conclusion of the service, 
 neither did, nor, according to her canons, could communicate 
 daily. An instance has already been adduced from the history 
 of Socrates, in which persons were allowed to communicate with 
 the Church's prayers, who were not permitted to partake of the 
 mysteries. Nor was this a single case. When those who were 
 subjected to penance had passed through its three lower stages, 
 it was the established usage not to admit them at once to the 
 full privileges of the Church, but to allow them to join in the 
 Eucharistic prayers without communicating. They were called 
 consistentes, co-standers, because they were allowed to worship 
 with the congregation at the time of the oblation, though it was 
 not partaken by themselves. This usage has the highest autho- 
 rity, for it was ordained by the Council of Nice : it is of the 
 highest antiquity, for it was sanctioned at the still earlier 
 Council of Ancyra, a.d. 315. Those who were admitted to this' 
 privilege were said " to communicate in prayer only," ^ or to 
 " communicate without the oblation." ^ The last words imply 
 probably, as was ordered by the Council of Eliberis (can. 28), that 
 
 1 Cone. Nic. Can. 13 ; Hard. i. 330. 
 * Cone. Aneyr. Can. 4, 5, 6. 
 
334 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 those who did not actually communicate should not be allowed 
 to contribute towards the expenses of the offering. So that this 
 was an incomplete communion, which was followed after a time, 
 as the Council of Ancyra expresses it, by " admission to full 
 privileges." Tor "the word communicating," says Bingham 
 (xviii. i. 6), " does not always mean partaking of the Eucharist, 
 but communicating in prayers only, w ithout the o])lation ; wliich 
 was but an imjjerfect sort of communion." From which it follows 
 that while it was considered to be a loss to be debarred the sacra- 
 ment, to be present only at the sacrifice was supposed to be a gain. 
 
 The case of the consist eates, then, shows that it was not con- 
 sidered unlawful for those who were disqualified from taking 
 part in the sacrament, to be present at the sacrifice. Now va- 
 rious circumstances of a temporary nature were a disqualifica- 
 tion from receiving. In the African Church, many persons 
 were prevented from attending on the station days, by an un- 
 willingness to break their fast. Tertullian ' advises them to 
 attend, but to receive, and reserve, instead of partaking of, the 
 Eucharist. Another hindx'ance was the opinion that St. Paul's 
 advice to the Corinthians (1 Cor. vii. 5), taken in conjunction 
 with the principle laid doAvu under the ancient Covenant i^Exod. 
 xix. 15; 1 Sam. xxi. 4, 5), was a guide for the conduct of mar- 
 ried Christians. And as in many places rules were laid douTi 
 by those in authority ^ on this subject, they could not have re- 
 quired the whole mass of the jieoplo to communicate daily. 
 
 Fourthly — Now this leads to the last statement, that the 
 ancient canons contain no order of general obligation, either 
 that every one should receive, or that those who were unpre- 
 pared to I'eceive should go away. On this point it is necessary 
 to be the more particular, because the readers of Bingham are 
 
 ^ De Oratione, 14. 
 
 - Vide Kesponsa Canonica Timotbei, 5 and 13. Beveridge's Pandecta 
 Can. vol. ii. pt. i. 166. 1'heodore's Penitentiary, xliv. 3. S. Jerome on 
 Tit. i, vol. iv. part i. p. 418. The same opinion is alluded to by S. Am- 
 brose, De Cain et Abel, ii. 6, 21, vol. i. p. 216 ; by Siricius, Ep. 4 ; 
 Labbe's Concil. vol. ii. 1226 ; by Innocent I. Ep. 2, Id. vol. iii. 10 ; by 
 S. Caisarius, App. to B. Aug, v. Serm. 266. 2. 
 
PRACTICAL CONCLrSIONS. 335 
 
 led to suppose, that to partake in the sacrifice without partaking 
 in the sacrament, was prohibited in early times. The rules to 
 which Bingham refers are the 9th Apostolical canon, repeated 
 with some modification in the 2nd canon of the Council of Anti- 
 och, and by some later Councils ; and a spurious deci-etal in the 
 canon law, attributed to Pope Auacletus,which shows, however, 
 says Bingham (xv. iv. 1), " the practice that was then prevailing 
 even in the Boman Church." The decretal runs as follows : 
 "After consecration let all communicate, who would not be 
 cast out of the Church : for so the AjDostles appointed, and the 
 Holy Boman Church observes this custom." ^ 
 
 It seems singular, at first sight, that such a direction should 
 have been given in the eighth or ninth centuries ; for the spu- 
 rious decretals, as Bingham says, express the oj)inions and prac- 
 tices which prevailed when they were forged, and the evidence 
 which has been adduced puts it beyond question, that before 
 that time persons took part in the sacrifice when they did not 
 partake of the sacrament. But the difiiculty is explained if we 
 turn to the decretal ^ itself : the passage has no reference what- 
 ever, as the readers of Bingham might suppose, to the duties of 
 the people: it is a direction given to the priests and deacons 
 who are in attendance on the Bishop. They are ordered to 
 communicate when the Bishop celebrates the Holy Eucharist. 
 It is only an instance, therefore, of the rule universally preva- 
 lent in ancient times, by which the Priesthood were required to 
 be habitual communicants. Thus the first Council of Toledo 
 orders all clerhs to " attend the daily sacrifice," under pain of 
 deprivation ; while it is contented to order laymen to be sub- 
 jected to penance " if they never communicate." * 
 
 This principle must be borne in mind, in considering the 
 earlier canons, to which we now proceed. The 8th and 9th 
 canons of the Apostles are as follows. " 8. If any Bishop, 
 Priest, Deacon, or other member of the clerical body, does not 
 
 ^ Gratian de Consecrat. Dist. ii. cap. x. 
 
 ^ Anacleti Epis. i. 2, Hard. i. 65. 
 
 3 Concil. Tolet. i. Can. 5 and 13, Hard. i. 991. 
 
886 PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 receive, when the oblation has been offered, let him assign the 
 cause, and if it be a good one, let him be pardoned. If he as- 
 sign no cause, let him be cut off from communion, as doing mis- 
 chief to the people, and raising suspicion against the offerer, 
 as though he has not rightly offered. 9. All the faithful who 
 come in, and hear the Scriptures, but do not continue for the 
 prayer and the holy receiving, ought to be cut off from com- 
 munion, as producing disorder in the Church." This is quoted 
 by Bingham, as though it ordered all who were present to 
 receive daily ; which is more than it says. The officiating minis- 
 ters, indeed, are ordered to do so, unless they give a satisfactory 
 reason to the contrary ; but all which is requii-ed of the laity 
 is to remain for the prayers and the administration. The di- 
 rection resj)ecting the priesthood would lead us to expect that 
 more could not be imposed upon the laity. For the common 
 rule was, that the clergy were bound to a far stricter observance 
 than the people : the priesthood is described by St. Cyprian as 
 those " who daily solemnize the sacrifices of God ; " ^ yet nothing 
 is required of them but a conditional reception. How, then, 
 could an unconditional reception be exacted daily from the laity? 
 The conclusion, then, which Bingham derives from this canon, 
 and which he founds upon the Latin Version of Dionysius 
 Exiguus, is not borne out by the Greek original. Neither is 
 the existence of such a general law comjiatible either with the 
 conduct of the Church in regard to the Consistentes, nor with 
 the example, which has been cited from the histoi-y of St. Chry- 
 sostom. So that taking these canons by themselves, it seems 
 natural to interpret them as is done by a Greek Scholiast, 
 adduced by Beveridge. " Putting the two canons together 
 we say, that those who are numbered in the sacred list, and 
 who minister in the Sacramental mysteries, but do not receive 
 the oblation when it is offered, are cut off, unless they assign 
 a satisfactory reason. But the consecrated persons who do not 
 go to the altar, and handle what is sacred ; and all the faithful 
 laity ; unless they wait, and continue to the end, and until that 
 ^ Ad Corneliuoii, liv. 
 
PKACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 837 
 
 which is sacred has been received by those who are worthy, 
 are cut oflf as irregular. For to say that all of us — the faithful 
 laity, and all consecrated persons, who do not take part in the 
 holy rites, must receive that which is sacred every day, or if 
 not, be cut off, is neither contemplated by the canon, nor is it 
 possible. And therefore the 9th canon says, that the faithful who 
 do not remain shall be punished, and does not add the words 
 those who do not receive. Understand the canons in this way, 
 consistently with the 2nd Canon of the Council of Antioch." ^ 
 
 These canons are commented upon by two other Greek 
 Scholiasts,^ Zonaras and Aristenus, neither of whom affirms 
 that reception, as well as attendance, was required from the 
 laity ; though Zonaras refers to the well-known fact, that 
 frequent communion was prevalent in early times. Balsamon, 
 however, understands the canon to have had the wider sense 
 attributed to it by Bingham, and expresses surprise at its 
 harshness. But all the commentators ^ connect these canons 
 with the 2nd Canon * of the Council of Antioch, which gives 
 the direction a wholly different meaning from that assigned 
 to it by Bingham. For this Antiochene Canon is not the 
 expression of a general principle, or designed to guard against 
 any separation of the sacrifice from the sacrament, but it is 
 merely a local injunction, founded on the prevalence of a par- 
 ticular heresy, and its censure is directed against those who 
 " turn away from communion in a disorderly manner." There 
 were those in the East at that time, who refused to partake 
 of the Holy Eucharist, if it had been consecrated by a married 
 priest,'' and who on this and other pretexts, had formed them- 
 
 ^ Beveridge, Pandecta Canon am, vol. i. p. 6. 
 
 ^ Beveridge, ubi sup. ^ Vide Beveridge, vol. i. pp. 6, 431, 432. 
 
 ■* "All who go into the Church of God, and hear the Holy Scriptures, 
 but do not communicate in prayer with the people, or turn away in an 
 irregular manner from the receiving of the Eucharist — shall be cast out 
 from the Church." — Hard. i. 593. The Scholiast says: "the Fathers 
 order those to be cast out of the Church who rfefuse to take part in the 
 prayers, and to communicate, irregularly, that is, without any satisfactory 
 cause, but in an irregular and groundless manner." — Zonaras in Beveridge, 
 vol. i. p. 432. 
 
 * Coun. of Gangra, Can. 4, 5, 6, &c. Hard. i. 534. 
 
SS8 PKACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 selves into a scliismatical body, which coiitiuucd to attend the 
 public worship of the Church, but communicated in private. 
 Against this practice the 2ud Canon of Antioch was aimed; 
 and if it be supposed that the 8th and 9th Apostolical Canons 
 were in like manner only local Constitutions in the Eastern 
 Church, which have outlived the particular purj)ose for which 
 they were designed, they may no doubt be interpreted in that 
 stricter sense which Bingham assigns to them. Such an in- 
 terpretation is rendered plausible by the reason which they 
 assign — a fear of disorder in the Church, and the suspicion 
 which may be cast upon the party by whom the oblation is 
 offered. This circumstance would seem to imply that the 
 object of the canons in question was merely, like that of 
 the 2nd Canon of Antioch, to put a stop to the irregular 
 practices of the Eustatians, who desired to take jjart in the 
 Eucharistic oblation,^ while they received the Holy Eucharist 
 from some priest who had no mission from the Bishop of the 
 Diocese. 
 
 It is plain, then, that the grounds produced by Bingham, 
 are no proof that it was the intention of the ancient Church 
 to exclude communicants from the Sacrifice, whenever they 
 were unprepared for the reception of the Sacrament. For 
 the decretal of Anacletus refers not to the laity, but only to 
 the clergy ; while the 2nd Canon of Antioch was not designed 
 to express any general princijDle, but was merely a local con- 
 stitution, intended to correct a particular ii-regularity ; and it 
 is only by supposing that the 8th and 9th Apostolical Canons 
 were local constitutions also, that they can be made to bear 
 that sense, for which Bingham contends. So that if this is 
 indeed their meaning, they cannot be supposed to express any 
 ffoneial law of the ancient Chmxli. Such a law would be 
 
 ' A similar reas^on may have led to the prohibition against receiving 
 the oblations of those who were not coumiuuicants. — Cone. Eliherit. Can. 
 "28. Yet it was sometimes done : as S. Basil received the oblation of the 
 Emperor Valens. — Greg. Naz. Or. xx. p. 351, and Theod. Hist. iv. 19. 
 On that occasion Valens seems to have been present at the Eucharistic 
 office (for it was the Epiphany) without communicating. 
 
. PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 339 
 
 incompatible with the fact, that the Consistentes were forbidden 
 to partake of the sacrament, while they were expected to be 
 jjresent at the sacrifice. It has been shown, too, that dui'ing 
 the earliest ages, the public ritual of the Church consisted' 
 exclusively of the Eucharistic Office ; now while there were 
 occasions on which men were unprepared to partake, it was 
 never contemplated that those who were in communion with 
 the Church should go away. "We may conclude, then, that to 
 allow the constant presence of communicants at the Eucharistic 
 sacrifice, though daily reception were left a matter of advice, 
 and not of commandment, would not be at variance with the 
 laws of the Church, any more than with the typical ordinances 
 of the tabernacle : it would not be opposed either to the shadows 
 of the Law, or the realities of the Gospel. 
 
 Thirdly — The last question, however, remains : what is its 
 benefit? Now the first answer to this is, that those who 
 forbid the practice ought to show it to be unlawful. Here 
 is a custom which has existed, as it would seem, from the very 
 commencement of the Church, and which was for the first time 
 forbidden, through the influence of the Zuinglian party, at the 
 end of fifteen centuries and a half. Surely such a circumstance 
 throws the burthen of proof upon the excluding party. Why 
 should men be debarred that liberty which was allowed them in 
 the primitive Church, unless it can be proved to be unlawful ? 
 
 But the advantages which individuals might draw from such 
 a custom are obvious. The moral benefits to be derived from 
 the holy associations of such a season are incalculable. If that 
 which is bestowed in holy ordinances is the Presence of Christ, 
 can it be possible to overestimate the blessing of drawing so 
 near to Him? Are men so independent of the influences of 
 place and circumstance, as to render them indifi'erent to an 
 occasion when heaven and earth are truly brought into relation, 
 and when the sublime realities which are habitual to the one, 
 extend themselves for a passing season to the other ? 
 
 But the greatest benefit which, according to the ancient 
 writers, is attained by individuals through participation in the 
 
 Z 2 
 
340 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 Eucharistic sacrifice, is the acceptableness which it confers 
 upon their prayers. Not only are their emotions more intense, 
 but their petitions are more efficacious. And what can be of 
 more import to the supplicant, than that he should attain his 
 request? Therefore does St. Chrysostom represent not men 
 only, but angels and archangels, as feeling an especial interest 
 in the Church's oblation, because "then the occasion aids their 
 petitions, and the offering gives them help." ^ But it is to the 
 saints on earth that this opportunity is so peculiarly precious, 
 because it is the bestowing for a season of that pi'ivilege, which 
 is perpetually afforded to the saints in bliss : it is a foretaste of 
 the beatific vision ; heaven and earth are for a moment united ; 
 inasmuch as the Incarnate Lord, whose manifested Intercession 
 is the central point of the one, bestows Himself by actual Pre- 
 sence in the other. And is it not a signal blessing to be allowed to 
 co-opex'ate in those prayers, which are rendered acceptable by the 
 immediate Presence of the Great Victim ; and wherein the peti- 
 tions of the Church on earth are blended with those of the Church 
 in heaven ? " When the whole people stands with uplifted hands, 
 a priestly assembly, and that awful sacrifice lies displayed, how 
 shall we not prevail with Grod by our entreaties ? " ^ 
 
 But beyond any benefit which may accrue to individuals, 
 this practice has its importance for the collective Church. It 
 was the exclusion of the mass of men from the Christian sacri- 
 fice, which made it necessary to substitute other offices, by which 
 the daily Eucharist has been practically superseded. Now no 
 cii'cumstance has had more influence than this upon the belief 
 of the jDcople. We may trace to it the poj^ular conviction, which 
 no argument can eff'ace, that congregations meet together merely 
 for the quickening of their feelings, or for the imparting of in- 
 struction, and not that they may obtain their petitions. And 
 thus the notion of the Church's work, as an actual operative 
 transaction, is well-nigh lost. 
 
 The effect of such errors in diminishing men's practical sense 
 
 ^ Horn, de Incomprehensibili, iii. 7, vol. i. p. 470. 
 ^ S. Chrysos. Horn. iii. 4, in Philip. 
 
PEACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 341 
 
 of the Mediation of Christ, it is impossible to overestimate. 
 The Mediation of Christ means that work which He effects 
 through His human nature, because it is not the interference of 
 any casual intercessor, but results from that position which He 
 has vouchsafed to take between God and mankind. He is the 
 sole Mediator between God and man, because He only can 
 stand midway between both. Let the efficacy, then, of His 
 man's nature be forgotten, and His Mediation is lost. Yet how 
 does the efficacy of His man's nature display itself, save through 
 those sacraments wherein He bestows Himself as the sustenance 
 of His people, and presents Himself as their pei-petual Inter- 
 cessor with God ? So that when the Holy Eucharist ceases to 
 be regarded as a real action, wherein Christ's very Presence is 
 exhibited on earth, and whereby prayer is truly rendered avail- 
 able, men fall back upon some other system of approaching to 
 God, and with a change in belief comes a change in the principle 
 of worshijD. Thus do individual prayer, and private faith, and 
 single piety, take the place of that collective action, whei'eby the 
 whole Church was supposed in ancient days to offer itself to 
 God ; and are supposed not only to be necessary, which they are, 
 to the Christian life, but to have right in themselves to accept- 
 ance. Whereas nothing has a claim to acceptance but the sacri- 
 fice of Christ ; and the Church's claim is that she is His 
 mystical body ; and it is the oblation of the perfect Head, which 
 gives efficacy to that of the imperfect members. For " the 
 Church offers to God the symbols of Our Lord's Body and 
 Blood, sanctifying the whole lump through the first-fruits." ^ 
 
 Upon this principle will depend our part in that great con- 
 troversy between faith and rationalism, which grows more 
 imminent every day. The question at issue between these tw o 
 systems is, whether the hopes of the woi'ld are to turn upon the 
 order of grace, or the order of nature. If the progress of society 
 is to lead to individual improvement and national reform, if it is 
 thus that men are to be emancipated from the debasing bonds of 
 sense, and the soul is to hold nearer intercourse with that Great 
 1 Theodoret in Psalm 109. 4. 
 
842 PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 Being, from whom it originally proceeded — then the law and 
 system of the world contains within it the seed of a moral re- 
 surrection, and the order of nature leads up to God. But those 
 whose hope is in the order of grace, must accept all those great 
 truths, which are involved in the New Creation of mankind 
 througli Christ Jesus. The renewal of the individual heart, the 
 guidance of the collective judgment, the right of approach to 
 Him from whom mankind has been separated by sin — all must 
 come from their relation to that New Head of our race, who re- 
 built in Himself the ruins of Humanity. Thus does a super- 
 natural system, and a new law, take the place of that original 
 relation to God, which resulted from our mental constitution. 
 Through the Mediation of Christ are gifts bestowed upon men ; 
 through the Mediation of Christ, is our access to the Father. 
 He is the Saviour of His Body mystical ; and its offering is 
 rendered acceptable, because He identifies it with the actual 
 oJBFering of Himself. 
 
 Such was the faith of that early age, when the fresh zeal of 
 the Christian community had not been chilled by unbelief, or 
 darkened by controversy. Its cardinal principle was a finn 
 conviction of the reality of consecration, as a process whereby 
 things earthly, and the order of nature, are superseded by 
 things heavenly, and by the order of grace. So that the gilt 
 bestowed in the Holy Eucharist is bestowed in and through tlie 
 consecrated elements. And this gift is nothing less than the 
 presence of that Incarnate God, whose Flesh and Blood are the 
 media whereby He imparts Himself. His Presence is a Real 
 Presence, though not bestgwed according to tlie order of nature ; 
 the visible is not more truly present than the Invisible : the 
 sacr amentum, which addresses itself to the sense, than the res 
 sacramenti, which addresses itself to faith and to the mind. 
 And hence does the continual sacrifice of the Church derive its 
 value, because the offering which is presented on earth is one 
 with that which is presented in Heaven. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Absolution, necessary after deadly sin, 298. 
 
 Albertinus, unfairness of his book, 181. 
 
 Anastasius Sinaita, omitted the sacramentum, 88 ; speaks of Our Lord's 
 
 Body as corruptible, 197 ; of the elevation of the Holy Eucharist, 214. 
 Antiquity, its authority, 2 ; by whom peculiarly expressed, 3. 
 Antitype, the name not applicable to the Holy Eucharist at large, but 
 
 only to its external portion, 164, 198. 
 Aquinas, did not suppose elements changed, as objects of sense, 89 ; or 
 
 that their nutritire power was withdrawn, 209. 
 Aristotelian philosophy, why employed by schoolmen in explaining the 
 
 sacraments, 209. 
 Augustin, S., framer of the scientific phraseology respecting the Holy 
 
 Eucharist, 88 ; some of his phrases admit a Calvinistic sense, 158 ; 
 
 but believed that sacramentum and res sacramenfi always went to- 
 gether, 158; some expressions of his explained, 170. 
 
 Baptism, exists only in the act of administration, 1 6 ; does not depend on 
 consecration of elements, like the Holy Eucharist, 73, 283 ; has no res 
 sacramenfi ; and therefore Christ's presence in it is not dependent on 
 the presence of His Body, 123, 124. Christ's Body only said to be 
 present in it, because of the real union with Himself, 123, 187, 283, 
 292 ; why accompanied with more express promises than the Holy 
 Eucharist, 124, 280 ; why a necessary preliminary to the Holy Eucha- 
 rist, 295 ; its normal state seen in the case of infant, not of adult Bap- 
 tism, 103 ; expressions of the Fathers respecting it, how distinguished 
 from those respecting the Holy Eucharist, 188. 
 
 Calvin, professedly dissatisfied with the theory of Zuinglius, 98, 172 ; 
 rested the efiicacy of the Holy Eucharist exclusively on the intention 
 of the Giver, 23 ; supposed the elements to be mere seals or pledges, 
 25, 102 ; the validity of which depended upon God's secret decree, 27, 
 102, 156 ; did not really ascribe any specific efficacy to sacraments, 
 178 ; his system in reality answered a political purpose, 180, by en- 
 abling men to accept the same words in opposite senses, 181. 
 
 C'atechetical writers not obstructed by the disciplina arcani, 51. 
 
 Christian Faith, its three main doctrines, 128. 
 
844 INDEX. 
 
 Christ present in Baptism by spiritual power, in the Holy Eucharist 
 through His Body and Blood, 74, 191, 283 ; His presence in the Holy 
 Eucharist owing to the presence of His liodij, 123. 
 
 Christ's Body, implies refeience to His man's nature, 63; present natur- 
 ally in heaven, 109 ; supernaturally in Holy Eucharist, 110-12, 12(5, 
 151-3 ; not corruptible or capable of being broken, 197 ; the food of 
 the mind, not the body, 199, 209, 288 ; leads to the augmentation of 
 the mystical Body of Christ, not of the receiver's body, 289 ; present 
 subsffuitiaUij in the Holy Eucharist, 121, 125, 154, 155 ; not an object 
 to the senses, but under the form of bread and wine, 116 ; implies 
 the presence of His soul and Godhead, 64 ; the mine Body which 
 suffered on the Cross, 65, 79, 196 ; worshipped in the Holy Eucharist, 
 211, by reason of the Godhead with which it is united, 216 ; received 
 by all communicants, 218, though its henefit not reaped without faith, 
 288 ; the instrmnent through which He bestows His gifts, 119, 285-6 ; 
 the medium of oneness with Deity, 2S5 ; a fit antidote to the corrup- 
 tion of the old Adam, 293 ; its manifold presence possible, because the 
 Body of God, 68, 110, 114 ; pruhahle, because that of the Second Adam, 
 69, 121 ; could not be present everywhere, 113 ; the only true sacrifice, 
 248 ; a perpetual sacrifice, 248. 
 
 Church, necessity of belonging to it, 299 ; built up by Holy Eucharist, 
 290. 
 
 Consecration, the essential characteristic of Holy Eucharist, 6 ; witnessed 
 by the ancient Liturgies, 45 ; why not more dwelt upon by English 
 divines, 13 ; implies that Christ's presence is bestowed through the 
 elements, 29, 62 ; so that the sacramentum and res sacrantenti always 
 go together, 84 ; cannot be effected save by a priest, 8. 
 
 Consistentes, joined in the Eucharistic Sacrifice without communicating, 
 333. 
 
 Consubstantiation, 96. 
 
 Cyril, S., of Alexandria, importance of his testimony, 186 ; effect of his 
 opposition to Nestorianism, 203. 
 
 Elements, said to be chanrjed by ancient writers, 50 ; especially by the 
 Greek Fathers, 194, 195 ; but not a common change, 196 ; their reality 
 vindicated by Anti-Eutychians, 201 ; their power of nourishing the 
 body of the receiver not lost, 199 ; mediieval errors on this subject, 
 200 ; whole Christ bestowed through either element, 58. 
 
 Eucharist, the carrying out of the Incarnation, 71 ; explained in three 
 passages of Scripture, 127 ; agreement respecting it for first eight centu- 
 ries, 2 ; how spoken of by five schools in the ancient Church, 192 ; con- 
 secration its essential characteristic, 6 ; how differs from Baptism, 11, 
 16 ; objection against it from alleged inutility, 77 ; Christ is present in 
 it by reason of the presence of His Body, 123, 190, 283 ; a moral, not a 
 physical instrument, 14, 284 ; bestowed through the consecrated ele- 
 ments, 17 ; its benefits not attainable without faith, 288, and a living 
 union with Christ, 295 ; why called a sacrifice, 249 ; identical with 
 that on the Cross, 250 ; corresponds to the Jewish sin-ottering, 253, 258 ; 
 the public ritual of the aijcient Cliurch, 330 ; the Liturgy solemnized 
 at Autioch, 252; the true "daily sacrifice," 317, offered daily in 
 
INDEX. 345 
 
 the age of the Apostles, 305 ; and in the Primitive Church, 306 — 10 ; 
 daily use provided for in Edward Vlth's first Prayer-Book, 311, but 
 discouraged by the Zuinglians, and by Luther, 312 ; carried formerly 
 to the sick, 55 ; reserved for reception at home, 56, or in Church, 57 ; 
 received fasting, and with hands crossed, 60. 
 
 Facundus, S., explained, 168. 
 
 Fathers, mean by Our Lord's presence in the Holy Eucharist the presence 
 of His Body, 183 ; say that Our Lord's Body as present in the Holy 
 Eucharist ought to be worshipped, 214, and that it is received by all 
 communicants, 218 ; affirm the Holy Eucharist to be a sacrifice, 262, 
 263, and the sacrifice of the res sacramenti, 269. 
 
 Forgiveness of sins, not self-acquired, 298. 
 
 Gospel of St. John, its main purpose, 128 ; subjects treated in its sixth 
 chapter, 132 ; its sixth chapter referred to Holy Eucharist by ancient 
 writers, 138, and by all the earliest commentators on Scripture, 144 ; 
 other interpretations suggested by private theories, 149. 
 
 Hebrews, Epistle to, 253. 
 
 Holy Ghost, proceeds from the Father and the Son, 225 ; why not called 
 
 a Son, 232 ; invoked to descend upon the elements, 48, 241 ; co-operates 
 
 in the Holy Eucharist, 234, 244. 
 Hooker, viewed the Holy Eucharist in its relation to the Humanity of 
 
 Christ, 31. 
 
 Identity, its various kinds, 81. 
 
 Invocation of the Holy Ghost on the elements, 48, 241 ; how consistent 
 with the efficacy of the Words of Consecration, 244, 245. 
 
 Johnson, symbolized with the Eastern rather than the Western Church, 
 221 ; supposed the Holy Eucharist to be merely a concession to the 
 prejudices of men, 77. 
 
 Liturgies, Ancient, were Eucharistic offices, 332 ; undervalued in the 
 16th century, 33 ; their antiquity, 33 — 41, number, 41, and purpose, 
 42 — 46 ; their testimony to the Eucharistic sacrifice, 264 ; all save the 
 Roman contain an Invocation of the Holy Ghost, 241. 
 
 Luther's theory of justification by faith incompatible with a belief in 
 sacraments, 91, and interferes with the Mediatorial office of Our 
 Lord, 259. He affirmed the reality, but denied the efficacy of the Holy 
 Eucharist, 92 ; denied the Eucharistic sacrifice, 259 ; thought that 
 Christ ought to be worshipped in the Holy Eucharist, 211. 
 
 Lutherans have adopted the Zuinglian theory, 92. 
 
 Missa Sicca, 313. 
 
 Moral instrument, what, 14. 
 
 Mysteries, how far to be inquired into, 4. 
 
 Origen explained, 205. 
 
346 INDEX. 
 
 Overall, Bishop, employed the phraseolo^ of the Schoolmen in the 
 Catechism, 84 ; regretted that the Christian sacrifice was discontinued 
 because of the absence of the people, 314. 
 
 Pantheism, its nature, 300 ; safeguard against it the Doctrine of the In- 
 carnation, and of the Sacraments, 302. 
 
 Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, the presence of His Body, 118, 
 123, 183, 292 ; Calvin supposed it to be merely His presence by power 
 with the minds of men, 25 ; Zuinglius that He was only an object to 
 men's thoughts, 18, 161 ; called a mystery by the Fathers, 162, 163. 
 
 Presence by virtue, may be understood as though nearly equivalent to 
 essential presence, 173, 24, 118 ; which would be as great a mystery as 
 real presence, 173. 
 
 Priesthood, its especial commission to consecrate Holy Eucharist, 8. 
 
 Real Presence, the belief that Christ's Body is the res sacramenti, or thituj 
 signified, 107, as taught in the Catechism, 117 ; distinguished from 
 Symbolical or Virtual presence, 125, 182 ; its test the worship of 
 Christ, as present under the form of bread and wine, 211. 
 
 Reprobation, an essential part of Calvin's system, 29. 
 
 Rubric respecting kneeling at the Holy Eucharist, how explained, 212. 
 
 Saicramental identity, analogous to, but not the same with personal, 81, 201. 
 
 Sacraments, Zuinglius denied them to convey grace, 20 ; their true purpose 
 is to make obsignation to each individual, 104, 282. 
 
 Sacramentum and Res Sacramenti, distinguished by St. Augustin, 84, 
 205, make up one whole, 82 ; so that all who receive one, receive the 
 other, 157, 218 ; terms which are applicable to the one, applied by the 
 ancient writers to the other, 171 ; both included in the Eucharistic 
 Sacrifice, 265, 278. 
 
 Sacrifice of Holy Eucharist, "the daily sacrifice," 317 ; that of the Body 
 of Christ, 248, 269 ; identical with that on the Cross, 250, 271 ; awful, 
 273 ; efficacious, 273 ; typified by Jewish sacrifices, 274 ; a reality, 
 275 ; offered for the dead, 281 ; not admissible on Zuinglian or Calvi- 
 nistic theory, 246, 262 ; requires belief in Real Presence, 258 ; depen- 
 dent on Mediation of Christ, 247, 280 ; why rejected by Luther, 259 ; 
 includes the offering of the sacramentum or memorial, as well as that 
 of the reality or res sacramenti, 265 ; includes the offering of the Church 
 as Christ's Body, 277 ; cannot be shared except by those who are in 
 communion, 329 ; but a benefit in itself, independently of the act of 
 communicating, 280, 340 ; this mode of employing it forbidden for the 
 first time by the Zuinglians, 312 ; but not forbidden by our present 
 Prayer- Book, 315 ; and practised in early Church, 323. 
 
 vSacrifices of Law, their various kinds, 255 ; did not require to be eaten 
 by any but the priest who otl'ered them, 320. 
 
 Scripture, how interpreted, 2, 4, 261. 
 
 Substance, its different meanings in Roman and English Tlieology, 90, 
 210 ; not an object of sense according to the Aristoteli.in philosophy, 
 90 ; not supposed by Aquinas to be so far changed, as that the elements 
 cease to be nutritive, 209. 
 
INDEX. 347 
 
 Tertullian explained, 9, 166. 
 
 Transubstantiation, not inquired into in this work, 4, 210. 
 
 Trinity, the Persons how discriminated, 222, 227 ; their relations to one 
 another independent of time, 236 ; Aquinas's suggestion respecting 
 their number, 236 ; effect of St. Augustin's treatise as fixing double 
 Procession, 225 ; the Second Person, why Incarnate, 229. 
 
 Virtual, not real, presence of Christ's Body in Baptism, 187, 190. 
 
 Virtue, and virtual, equivocal terms, 99, 175. 
 
 Virtus sacramenti discriminated from the res sacramenti in our Catechism, 
 
 84, and by the school of St. Augustin, 207 ; not attained by all who 
 
 receive the res sacramenti, 158. 
 
 Waterland's theory of the Holy Eucharist Zuinglian, 31, 155 ; his inter- 
 pretation of St. John vi., 143 ; he defends the Eucharistic sacrifice by 
 explaining it away, 262, and supposes the notion of a real sacrifice to 
 have been introduced in St. Cyprian's time, 267. 
 
 Words of Institution, consist of three parts, 6 ; effective, and not exegetical, 
 46 ; their consecrating efficacy not superseded by the Invocation of the 
 Holy Ghost, 244 ; to what Hoc refers, 6, 84. 
 
 Worship in the Holy Eucharist, paid not to the sacramentum, but the res 
 sacramenti, 215. 
 
 Zuinglius's theory rests the gift in the Holy Eucharist exclusively on the 
 disposition of the receiver, 19 ; he denied that grace was communicated 
 through sacraments, 20 ; his system leads to Sabellianism, 21 ; he ex- 
 cluded the res sacramenti, 85, and therefore could not maintain that 
 the Holy Eucharist was really beneficial, 124. 
 
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