Outline:
A. Excursus: The Origins of the Term “Real Presence.”
2. Explication.
2.1. The Danger of Excessive Dogmatism.
3. Appendix: Francis Turretin on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.”
4. Appendix: Archibald Alexander Hodge on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.”
5. Appendix: Michael Horton on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.”
1. The Question Stated. Return to Outline.
Phrases such as “the bread is the body of the Lord,” and “the wine is His blood,” or “the consecrated elements of bread and wine become the flesh and blood of Christ,” are nearly ubiquitous amongst historical writers. However the question at hand is not “is the bread His flesh” and “is the wine His blood?” For no Christian doubts that this is true. But rather the question to be considered is “in what way is the bread His flesh and the wine His blood? And in what way do believers subsequently feed upon Christ in the Lord’s supper? Carnally/corporeally? Or spiritually?” In the following articles I have endeavored to show that the Church has historically understood the bread to be His body and the wine to be His blood in a spiritual or mystical manner, not a carnal or corporeal one. (This is the view which is espoused by virtually all of the historical Protestant confessions. Click here for primary source documentation.)
A further clarification: Christ’s presence in the supper is spiritual, however it does not follow that it is therefore subjective. Rome’s apologists have often attempted to create an antithetical pairing between a “spiritual” presence (which they term subjective) and a “carnal/corporeal” presence (which they term objective). However to phrase the question in such a way is blatantly fallacious (the informal fallacy being committed here is known as the argumentum falsum dilemma or the “false dilemma argument”). Objectivity/reality is most certainly not predicated upon carnality/corporeality. (I have included quotations from Francis Turretin, Archibald Hodge and Michael Horton for further clarification; see the three appendices at the end of this article.) G. B. Caird notes that:
The fallacy in this objection lies in the assumption that symbols are invariably substitutes for the reality they signify, bearing the same relation to it as a still-life painting to real fruit and fish, whetting but not satisfying the appetite. But many symbols, such as a kiss, a handshake and the presentation of a latchkey, are a means, or even the means, of conveying what they represent. The most natural way of taking the copula in the eucharistic saying, therefore, is ‘represents’, with the understanding that Jesus intended the gift of bread to convey the reality it symbolised. (G. B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, [London: Duckworth, 1980], pp. 101-102.)
Note: See further: The Patristic Understanding of the Real Presence was Spiritual not Carnal/Corporeal.
John Calvin succinctly sums up the issue with these words:
But greatly mistaken are those who conceive no presence of flesh in the Supper unless it lies in the bread. For thus they leave nothing to the secret working of the Spirit, which unites Christ himself to us. To them Christ does not seem present unless he comes down to us. As though, if he should lift us to himself, we should not just as much enjoy his presence! The question is therefore only of the manner, for they place Christ in the bread, while we do not think it lawful for us to drag him from heaven. Let our readers decide which one is more correct. Only away with that calumny that Christ is removed from his Supper unless he lies hidden under the covering of bread! For since this mystery is heavenly, there is no need to draw Christ to earth that he may be joined to us. (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.17.31; trans. The Library of Christian Classics: Volume XXI: Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion: In Two Volumes (Vol. XXI: Books III.xx to IV.xx), ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960], p. 1403.)
Compare with G. W. Bromiley:
…spiritual does not mean that it is isolated from the world of true reality. It means that it is of the Holy Spirit. (G. W. Bromiley, The Unity and Disunity of the Church, [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1958], p. 50.)
See further David Dickson:
…the body of Christ in this sacrament, is spiritually eaten by believers, and his blood is spiritually drunken. …a spiritual presence, is a true and real presence, because it comes and flows from true and real causes, namely, from faith, and the Holy Spirit… (David Dickson, Truth’s Victory Over Error: Or, the True Principles of the Christian Religion, Stated and Vindicated, [Glasgow: John Bryce, 1772], p. 272.)
For additional clarification see Michael Horton quoted in section 5 (Appendix) below.
Note: Click here for more on the various views of the Lord’s supper.
A. Excursus: The Origins of the Term “Real Presence.” Return to Outline.
It is noteworthy that the term “real presence” was first coined by individuals who rejected the medieval doctrine of transubstantiation. The colocation appears in the fourteenth-century, first being utilized by John of Paris and then by John Wycliffe (cf. Darwell Stone, A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist: In Two Volumes: Vol. I, [London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909], pp. 361ff.). The phrase entered into the common vernacular in the nineteenth-century, being popularized by the writings of the Anglican theologian and historian Edward Bouverie Pusey (Idem, Vol. II, pp. 534ff.). Pusey writes:
On this combined teaching of our Articles, Catechism and Liturgy, we believe the doctrine of our Church to be, that in the Communion, there is a true, real, actual, though Spiritual, (or rather the more real, because Spiritual) Communication of the Body and Blood of Christ to the believer through the Holy Elements; that there is a true, real, spiritual, Presence of Christ at the Holy Supper; more real than if we could, with Thomas, feel Him with our hands, or thrust our hands into His side; that this is bestowed upon faith, and received by faith, as is every other Spiritual gift, but that our faith is but a receiver of God’s real, mysterious, precious, Gift; that faith opens our eyes to see what is really there, and our hearts to receive it; but that It is there independently of our faith. (Edward Bouverie Pusey, A Letter to the Right Rev. Father in God, Richard, Lord Bishop of Oxford, on the Tendency to Romanism Imputed to Doctrines Held of Old, as Now, in the English Church, [Oxford: J. H. Parker, 1839], p. 128.)
2. Explication. Return to Outline.
James Usher:
…the question betwixt our adversaries and us being, not whether Christ’s body be turned into bread, but whether bread be turned into Christ’s body, the words in St John, if they be pressed literally, serve more strongly to prove the former than the latter.
(James Usher, Archbishop Usher’s Answer to a Jesuit: With Other Tracts on Popery, [Cambridge: Pitt Press, 1835], “An Answer to a Challenge Made by a Jesuit in Ireland,” Ch. 3: Of The Real Presence, p. 42.)
Michael F. Bird:
The early church probably arrived at this conclusion of a “real presence” by reading Jesus’ words of institution (Matt 26:26–29) in light of the Johannine eucharistic discourse (John 6:26–65). The question is: What kind of presence is found in the Eucharist, and by what instrument is that presence communicated to us?
(Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013], p. 790.)
Tony Lane:
Is the bread Christ’s body? Clearly it is, because Jesus said so – but what does that mean? It is not true in a crudely literal way – Jesus does not ask us to engage in cannibalism. But many statements are deeply true without being literally true. (Tony Lane, Exploring Christian Doctrine: A Guide to What Christians Believe, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014], p. 257.)
Johannes Wollebius:
It is one thing to say that Christ is present in the bread, and quite another to say that he is present in the holy supper. Christ is present by his deity and his Spirit. He is present by his body and blood in sacramental presence…
(Johannes Wollebius, Compendium Theologiae Christianae, 1.24.1.14; trans. A Library of Protestant Thought: Reformed Dogmatics: J. Wollebius, G. Voetius, F. Turretin, trans. & ed., John W. Beardslee, [New York: Oxford University Press, 1965], p. 134.)
John Breckinridge:
The question between us is not, whether Christ be present in this sacrament; but how he is present. Evangelical Protestants all allow, as their standards clearly evince, that Christ is spiritually present; and the truth of Christ’s words recorded above, they undoubtedly believe. But they utterly deny that the bread and wine are by the consecration of a priest changed into the very, the real body and blood “bones and sinews” of Christ, so that the bread and wine no longer remain; but under their appearance is contained that same Christ who was born of the Virgin, together, with his soul and divinity. This we deny to be meant in the words of the institution.
(John Breckinridge, “Controversy No. 30: Is the Protestant Religion the Religion of Christ? [Philadelphia, August 22, 1833. To the Rev. John Hughes];” In: John Hughes, John Breckinridge, Controversy Between the Rev. John Hughes, of the Roman Catholic Church, and the Rev. John Breckinridge, of the Presbyterian Church, Relative to the Existing Differences in the Roman Catholic and Protestant Religions, [Philadelphia: Joseph Whetham, 1833], pp. 242-243.)
Herman Bavinck:
The Christian church almost unanimously upheld the teaching of this mystical union as the import of the Lord’s Supper. Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic, Lutheran as well as Reformed believers are agreed in affirming that in the Lord’s Supper there occurs an objective and real communication of the person and benefits of Christ to everyone who believes. But among themselves they diverge widely over the manner in which this communication takes place. The first three groups cited above are not satisfied unless the body and blood of Christ are also physically and locally present in the signs and received and consumed orally. The Reformed, however, teach that, while Christ is truly and essentially communicated to believers, this occurs in a spiritual manner, and this in such a way that he can be received and enjoyed only by the mouth of faith.
(Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Volume Four: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008], §. 544, p. 568.)
Cf. Nicholas Ridley:
Both you and I agree herein, that in the Sacrament is the very true and natural Body and Blood of Christ, even that which was born of the Virgin Mary, which ascended into heaven, which sitteth on the right hand of God the Father, which shall come from thence to judge the quick and the dead; only we differ in modo, in the way and manner of being: we confess all one thing to be in the Sacrament, and dissent in the manner of being there. I, being fully by God’s Word thereunto persuaded, confess Christ’s natural Body to be in the Sacrament indeed by spirit and grace, because that whosoever receiveth worthily that bread and wine receiveth effectuously Christ’s Body, and drinketh His Blood (that is, he is made effectually partaker of His Passion); and you make a grosser kind of being, enclosing a natural, a lively, and a moving body, under the shape or form of bread and wine. Now, this difference considered, to the question thus I answer, that in the Sacrament of the altar is the natural Body and Blood of Christ vere et realiter, indeed and really, for spiritually, by grace and efficacy; for so every worthy receiver receiveth the very true Body of Christ. But if you mean really and indeed, so that thereby you would include a lively and a moveable body under the forms of bread and wine, then, in that sense, is not Christ’s Body in the Sacrament really and indeed.
(Nicholas Ridley, A Brief Declaration of the Lord’s Supper, ed. H. C. G. Moule, [London: Seeley and Co., 1895], pp. 290-291.)Edward Arthur Litton:
The term ‘real presence’ which, by the way, does not occur in our formularies, is ambiguous and misleading. If Christ is present at all, or in any sense, His presence must be a real one, and not a mere phantom of the imagination. But reality may be predicated of spirit as well as of body, and which form of existence is to be here understood the mere epithet ‘real’ does not determine…
(Edward Arthur Litton, Introduction to Dogmatic Theology: New Edition, ed. Philip E. Hughes, [London: James Clarke & Co., Ltd., 1960], §. 96, p. 481.)
R. C. Sproul:
The sixteenth century witnessed a massive debate concerning the meaning and function of the sacrament. The magisterial Reformers were by no means in monolithic agreement on serious issues regarding the Lord’s Supper. Yet as divided as they were on some issues, the Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists were solidly in agreement on two vital issues—that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a means of grace and that Christ was really and truly present in the sacrament. All three affirmed that the believer is actually nurtured by the risen body and blood of Christ.
Since the sixteenth century there has been a gradual but steady erosion of the Reformed view of the sacrament so that in the present era the doctrine of the real presence is decidedly a minority report.
From the earliest times of Christian history there has been a close link between the church’s understanding of the nature of the sacrament and her attention to it. Its use tends to follow its perceived significance. When the sacrament is reduced to the level of a “naked sign” or “nude symbol,” its importance and its practice all but disappear from the life of the church.
I am convinced that where the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is taken lightly the people of God are sorely impoverished. Without both Word and sacrament we face a spiritual famine.
(R. C. Sproul, “Forward” In: Keith A. Mathison, Given For You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, [Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2002], p. x.)
Ulrich Zwingli:
Meanwhile they say that I am a heretic if I do not assent to all their madness, and they weave together extraordinary lies to bring my teaching under suspicion in the eyes of those to whom a report of them may come. As if I denied that Christ was in the Supper, denied His omnipotence, denied His words, and other things of that kind. But do you, most gracious King, hear a brief statement of my opinion as to how the body of Christ is in the Supper.
I believe that Christ is truly in the Supper, nay, I do not believe it is the Lord’s Supper unless Christ is there. …I maintain, therefore, that the body of Christ is not eaten in the Supper in the carnal and crude fashion they say, but I believe that the real body of Christ is eaten in the Supper sacramentally and spiritually by the religious, faithful, and pure mind, as also Saint Chrysostom holds.
(Ulrich Zwingli, “Exposition of the Christian Faith,” (July, 1531); In: The Latin Works of Huldreich Zwingli: Volume Two, trans. Samuel Macauley Jackson, [Philadelphia: The Heidelberg Press, 1922], pp. 285, 286. Cf. Hermann Agathon Niemeyer, ed., Collectio Confessionum in Ecclesiis Reformatis Publicatarum, [Lipsiae: Sumptibus Iulii. Klinkhardti, 1840], pp. 71, 72.)
Cf. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (c. 347-407 A.D.):
For when thou seest the Lord sacrificed, and laid upon the altar, and the priest standing and praying over the victim, and all the worshippers empurpled with that precious blood, canst thou then think that thou art still amongst men, and standing upon the earth? Art thou not, on the contrary, straightway translated to Heaven, and casting out every carnal thought from the soul, dost thou not with disembodied spirit and pure reason contemplate the things which are in Heaven? Oh! what a marvel! what love of God to man! He who sitteth on high with the Father is at that hour held in the hands of all, and gives Himself to those who are willing to embrace and grasp Him. And this all do through the eyes of faith!
(John Chrysostom, Treatise Concerning the Christian Priesthood, 3.4; PG, 48:642; trans. NPNF1, 9:46-47.) See also: ccel.org.
John Jewel:
We say and believe that we receive the body and blood of Christ truly, and not a figure or sign; but even that body which suffered death on the cross, and that blood which was shed for the forgiveness of sins. So saith Christ: “My flesh is meat indeed; and my blood is drink indeed.” And again: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” And again: “He that eateth me, even he shall live by me.”[John vi.] We say there is no other substantial food of our souls; and that he is divided among all the faithful; and that he is void of salvation and the grace of Christ, whosoever is not partaker of his body and blood. This we say, and may not flee from it hereafter.
Yet, lest happily any should be deceived, we say this meat is spiritual, and therefore it must be eaten by faith, and not with the mouth of our body. Augustine saith: “Why preparest thou thy teeth and thy belly? believe, and thou hast eaten.”[Tractat. 25. in Johan.] And again: “Prepare not your jaws, but your heart.”[Serm. 23. in Luc.] As material bread nourisheth our body, so doth the body of Christ nourish our soul, and is therefore called bread, saith Augustine: “God is the inward bread of my soul.”[Confess. Lib. i.] For we receive him, and eat him, and live by him.
(John Jewel, Bishop Jewel on the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, [London: Francis & John Rivington, 1850], pp. 23-24. Cf. The Works of John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury: The Second Portion, [Cambridge: Printed at the University Press, 1847], p. 1110.)Cf. John Jewel:
And those sacraments, together with Tertullian, Origen, Ambrose, Augustine, Hierome, Chrysostom, Basil, Dionysius, and other catholic fathers, do we call figures, signs, marks or badges, prints, copies, forms, seals, signets, similitudes, patterns, representations, remembrances, and memories. And we make no doubt, together with the same doctors, to say, that those be certain visible words, seals of righteousness, tokens of grace; and do expressly pronounce that in the Lord’s supper there is truly given unto the believing the body and blood of the Lord, the flesh of the Son of God, which quickeneth our souls, the meat that cometh from above, the food of immortality, grace, truth, and life; and the supper to be the communion of the body and blood of Christ; by the partaking whereof we be revived, we be strengthened, and be fed unto immortality; and whereby we are joined, united, and incorporate into Christ, that we may abide in him, and he in us. …We affirm that bread and wine are holy and heavenly mysteries of the body and blood of Christ, and that by them Christ himself, being the true bread of eternal life, is so presently given unto us, as that by faith we verily receive his body and his blood. Yet say we not this so, as though we thought that the nature of bread and wine is clearly changed, and goeth to nothing; as many have dreamed in these later times, which yet could never agree among themself of this their dream. For that was not Christ’s meaning, that the wheaten bread should lay apart his own nature, and receive a certain new divinity; but that he might rather change us, and (to use Theophylactus’ words) might transform us into his body. …And in speaking thus we mean not to abase the Lord’s supper, or to teach that it is but a cold ceremony only, and nothing to be wrought therein (as many falsely slander us we teach). For we affirm that Christ doth truly and presently give his own self in his sacraments; in baptism, that we may put him on; and in his supper, that we may eat him by faith and spirit, and may have everlasting life by his cross and blood. And we say not, this is done slightly and coldly, but effectually and truly. For, although we do not touch the body of Clirist with teeth and mouth, yet we hold him fast, and eat him by faith, by understanding, and by the spirit. And this is no vain faith which doth comprehend Christ; and that is not received with cold devotion, which is received with understanding, with faith, and with spirit. For Christ himself altogether is so offered and given us in these mysteries, that we may certainly know we be flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones; and that Christ “continueth in us, and we in him.” And therefore in celebrating these mysteries, the people are to good purpose exhorted, before they come to receive the holy communion, to lift up their hearts, and to direct their minds to heaven-ward; because he is there, by whom we must be full fed, and live.
(John Jewel, An Apology of the Church of England, Part II; In: The Works of John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury: The Third Portion, ed. John Ayre, [Cambridge: Printed at the University Press, 1848], pp. 62, 63, 63-64.)Gavin Ortlund:
Most of the Reformers affirmed the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and opposed transubstantiation on the grounds that it represented a departure not only from Scripture but also from patristic testimony. For example, early Protestants like Peter Martyr Vermigli and Thomas Cranmer argued that for church fathers like Augustine and Theodoret, the bread and wine remained bread and wine in substance while also becoming Christ’s body and blood. The whole appeal of their Eucharistic theology was a return to catholicity, against the changes introduced by the substance-accidents distinction in the medieval development. It is true that many modern-day evangelicals have adopted more of a symbolic view, but that is by no means representative of Protestantism wholesale.
Third and most egregiously, the idea that the Reformers were intending to replace the Eucharist with a pulpit is quite nearly the opposite of the case. The Protestant effort was to reclaim the Eucharist, not replace it. Lay Christians in the late medieval West hardly ever partook of the Eucharist. For most it would have been only once a year, if that, and even then, it was generally in one kind only (the bread, not the wine). For many the Eucharist had become more of a spectacle, and its celebration was plagued by superstitious beliefs. One of the central, animating concerns of the Protestant Reformation was to reestablish for lay Christians a meaningful and frequent participation with the Eucharist in both kinds.
(Gavin Ortlund, What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Reflective, 2024], pp. xvi-xvii.) Preview.
2.1. The Danger of Excessive Dogmatism. Return to Outline.
John of Damascus (c. 675/6-749 A.D.):
And now you ask how the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine and water the blood of Christ. And I tell you that the Holy Ghost comes down and works these things which are beyond description and understanding. …more than this we do not know, except that the word of God is true and effective and omnipotent, but the manner in which it is so is impossible to find out.
(John of Damascus, The Orthodox Faith, 4.13; trans. FC, 37:357, 358. Cf. NPNF2, 9:83.) See also: ccel.org.
Jeremy Taylor:
But S. Cyril would not allow so much liberty; not that he would have the manner determined, but not so much as thought upon; Firmam fidem mysteriis adhibentes, nunquam in tam sublimibus rebus illud ‘Quomodo’ aut cogitemus aut proferamus. For if we go about to think it or understand it, we lose our labour; quomodo enim id fiat, ne in mente intelligere, nec lingua dicere possumus, sed silentio et firma fide id suscipimus; ‘we can perceive the thing by faith, but cannot express it in words, nor understand it with our mind,’ said S. Bernard. Oportet igitur—it is at last after the steps of the former progress come to be a duty—nos in sumptionibus divinorum mysteriorum indubitatam retinere fidem, et non quærere quo pacto. The sum is this,—The manner was defined but very lately; there is no need at all to dispute it, no advantages by it, and therefore it were better it were left at liberty to every man to think as he please; for so it was in the church for above a thousand years together; and yet it were better men would not at all trouble themselves concerning it; for it is a thing impossible to be understood, and therefore it is not fit to be enquired after. This was their sense and I suppose we do in no sense prevaricate their so pious and prudent counsel by saying, The Presence of Christ is Real and Spiritual; because this account does still leave the article in his deepest mystery: not only because spiritual formalities and perfections are undiscernible and incommensurable by natural proportions and the measures of our usual notices of things, but also because the word ‘spiritual’ is so general a term, and operations so various and many by which the Spirit of God brings His purposes to pass and does His work upon the soul, that we are in this specific term very far from limiting the article to a minute and special manner. Our word of ‘spiritual presence’ is particular in nothing but that it excludes the corporal and natural manner; we say it is not this, but it is to be understood figuratively, that is, not naturally, but to the purposes and in the manner of the Spirit and spiritual things, which how they operate or are effected, we know no more than we know how a cherubin sings or thinks, or by what private conveyances a lost notion returns suddenly into our memory and stands placed in the eye of reason. Christ is present spiritually, that is, by effect and blessing; which in true speaking aking is rather the consequent of His presence than the formality. For though we are taught and feel that, yet this we profess we cannot understand, and therefore curiously enquire not. Σαφὴς ἔλεγχος ἀπιστίας τὸ πῶς περὶ Θεοῦ λέγειν, said Justin Martyr, ‘it is a manifest argument of infidelity to enquire concerning the things of God, how, or after what manner.’ And in this it was that many of the fathers of the church laid their hands upon their mouths, and revered the mystery, but like the remains of the sacrifice, they burnt it; that is, as themselves expound the allegory, it was to be adored by faith and not to be discussed with reason; knowing that, as Solomon said, Scrutator majestatis opprimetur a gloria, ‘he that pries too far into the majesty shall be confounded with the glory.’
(Jeremy Taylor, “Discourse of the Real Presence of Christ In the Holy Sacrament,” §. 1. State of the Question; In: The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor: In Ten Volumes: Vol. VI, [London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1849], pp. 12-13.)
John Bramhall:
Having viewed all your strength with a single eye, I find not one of your arguments that comes home to Transubstantiation, but only to a true Real Presence; which no genuine son of the Church of England did ever deny, no, nor your adversary himself. Christ said, “This is My Body;” what He said, we do steadfastly believe. He said not, after this or that manner, neque con, neque sub, neque trans. And therefore we place it among the opinions of the schools, not among the articles of our Faith. The Holy Eucharist, which is the Sacrament of peace and unity, ought not to be made the matter of strife and contention. …all the time we find as different expressions among those primitive Fathers, as among our modern writers at this day… Yet, notwithstanding, there were no questions, no quarrels, no contentions amongst them; there needed no Councils to order them, no conferences to reconcile them; because they contented themselves to believe what Christ had said, “This is My Body,”—without presuming on their own heads to determine the manner how it is His Body; neither weighing all their own words so exactly before any controversy was raised, nor expounding the sayings of other men contrary to the analogy of Faith. …Neither will it avail them any thing at all, that the Fathers have sometimes used such expressions of ‘seeing Christ,’of ‘touching Christ’ in the Sacrament, of ‘fastening our teeth in His Flesh,’ and ‘making our tongues red in His Blood.’ There is a great difference between a sermon to the people and a solemn retractation before a judge. The Fathers do not say, that such expressions are true, not only sacramentally or figuratively,—(as they made Berengarius both say and accurse all others that held otherwise,)—but also properly, and in the things themselves. The Fathers never meant by these forms of speech to determine the manner of the Presence (which was not dreamt of in their days), but to raise the devotion of their hearers and readers; to advertise the people of God, that they should not rest in the external symbols, or signs, but principally be intent upon the invisible grace which was both lawful and commendable for them to do. Leave us their primitive liberty, and we will not refrain from the like expressions.
(John Bramhall, “An Answer to M. De La Milletiere: His Impertinent Dedication of His Imaginary Triumph,” First Printed at the Hague, A.D. 1653; In: The Works of the Most Reverend Father In God, John Bramhall: Vol. I, [Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1842], Discourse I, pp. 8, 10, 11, 13-14.)
C. S. Lewis:
…the very last thing I want to do is to unsettle in the mind of any Christian, whatever his denomination, the concepts—for him traditional—by which he finds it profitable to represent to himself what is happening when he receives the bread and wine. I could wish that no definitions had ever been felt to be necessary; and, still more, that none had been allowed to make divisions between churches.
Some people seem able to discuss different theories of this act as if they understood them all and needed only evidence as to which was best. This light has been withheld from me. I do not know and can’t imagine what the disciples understood Our Lord to mean when, His body still unbroken and His blood unshed, He handed them the bread and wine, saying they were His body and blood. I can find within the forms of my human understanding no connection between eating a man—and it is as Man that the Lord has flesh—and entering into any spiritual oneness or community or κοινωνία with him. And I find “substance” (in Aristotle’s sense), when stripped of its own accidents and endowed with the accidents of some other substance, an object I cannot think. My effort to do so produces mere nursery-thinking—a picture of something like very rarefied plasticine. On the other hand, I get on no better with those who tell me that the elements are mere bread and mere wine, used symbolically to remind me of the death of Christ. They are, on the natural level, such a very odd symbol of that. But it would be profane to suppose that they are as arbitrary as they seem to me. I well believe there is in reality an appropriateness, even a necessity, in their selection. But it remains, for me, hidden. Again, if they are, if the whole act is, simply memorial, it would seem to follow that its value must be purely psychological, and dependent on the recipient’s sensibility at the moment of reception. And I cannot see why this particular reminder—a hundred other things may, psychologically, remind me of Christ’s death, equally, or perhaps more—should be so uniquely important as all Christendom (and my own heart) unhesitatingly declare.
However, then, it may be for others, for me the something which holds together and “informs” all the objects, words, and actions of this rite is unknown and unimaginable. I am not saying to anyone in the world, “Your explanation is wrong.” I am saying, “Your explanation leaves the mystery for me still a mystery.”
Yet I find no difficulty in believing that the veil between the worlds, nowhere else (for me) so opaque to the intellect, is nowhere else so thin and permeable to divine operation. Here a hand from the hidden country touches not only my soul but my body. …The command, after all, was Take, eat: not Take, understand. Particularly, I hope I need not be tormented by the question “What is this?”—this wafer, this sip of wine. That has a dreadful effect on me. It invites me to take “this” out of its holy context and regard it as an object among objects, indeed as part of nature. It is like taking a red coal out of the fire to examine it: it becomes a dead coal. To me, I mean. All this is autobiography, not theology.
(C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, [New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1964], Letter XIX, pp. 101-103, 104-105.)
3. Appendix: Francis Turretin on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.” Return to Outline.
Francis Turretin:
XXVI. It is one thing to eat Christ’s body; another to eat it orally and corporeally. The former denotes the object of manducation and the latter the mode. We say the former, but not the latter. Nor are these two to be confounded here—“spirit” and “spiritually.” What is eaten spiritually, still does not become a spirit, as the body which is eaten, ought not at once to be eaten corporeally. Therefore it must not be thought that, a spiritual conjunction being established, the true and most intimate union with Christ is taken away; otherwise there could be no union of Christ with his church, nor of believers among themselves and with blessed spirits (although most distantly separated as to locality).
XXVII. If Christ’s body is truly present to us, it does not follow that he is corporeally present to us on earth. Nor if he is truly received by us, must he be received by us orally and corporeally. The truth of presence differs from the mode of reception. He is indeed corporeally in heaven with respect to the existence of his body, but he is nonetheless present to our minds through faith with his spiritual presence. Therefore Christ’s body is truly present corporeally in heaven and truly spiritually present in our souls or to our faith, by which we receive him. And it is an improper inference, if spiritually then not truly; for nothing is done more truly than what is done by the Spirit.
XXVIII. The spiritual manducation of Christ does not belong only to the efficacy and virtue of the body and blood of Christ and his benefits, but also to its substance. (1) The Scriptures testify that believers are joined to Christ himself (Jn. 17:22; Gal. 2:20; 1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 3:17). (2) We are said to eat the flesh of Christ and to drink his blood, which is contradistinguished from his benefits, as also Christ distinguishes in the same place (Jn. 6:63). (3) Christ is inseparable from his benefits. The believers under the Old Testament are rightly said to have been made partakers of Christ himself and so of his body and blood, which were present to their faith. Hence they are said to have drunk of the rock, which was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). And Christ is the same yesterday and today (Heb. 13:8), even as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8).
XXIX. Hence it appears that we are falsely charged with denying the presence of Christ’s body and blood because it is improperly proceeded from the negation of one species to the negation of the genus; from the negation of corporeal presence to the negation of any presence at all. For although Christ’s body is not locally present in the Supper, it does not cease to be truly present to the mind, through the mediation of faith, in the word as much as in the sacraments.
(Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume Three, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., [Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing, 1997], 19.28.26-29, pp. 517-518.)
4. Appendix: Archibald Alexander Hodge on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.” Return to Outline.
Archibald Alexander Hodge:
The gross perversions of the Romanists and Ritualists, who have made it altogether a question of the local presence of Christ’s flesh and blood, have occasioned much confusion of thought and many prejudices on the subject Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, every believer knows that Christ is present in the sacrament—that he has, as a matter of fact, experienced his presence. If he is not present really and truly, then the sacrament can have no interest or real value to us. It does not do to say that this presence is only spiritual, because that phrase is ambiguous. If it means that the presence of Christ is not something objective to us, but simply a mental apprehension or idea of him subjectively present to our consciousness, then the phrase is false. Christ as an objective fact is as really present and active in the sacrament as are the bread and wine or the minister or our fellow-communicants by our side. If it means that Christ is present only as he is represented by the Holy Ghost, it is not wholly true, because Christ is one Person and the Holy Ghost another, and it is Christ who is personally present. The Holy Ghost doubtless is coactive in that presence and in all Christ’s mediatorial work, but this leads into depths beyond our possible understanding. It does not do to say that the divinity of Christ is present while his humanity is absent, because it is the entire indivisible divine-human Person of Christ which is present.
When Christ promises to his disciples, “Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world-age,” and, “Where two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,” he means of course that he, the God-man Mediator they loved, trusted and obeyed, would be with them. His humanity is just as essential as his divinity, otherwise his incarnation would not have been a necessity. His sympathy, his love, his special helpful tenderness, are human. He is able to be our perfect High Priest, “being touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” because he “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15).
But what do we mean by “presence”? It is a great mistake to confuse the idea of “presence” with that of nearness in space. This may be a condition of presence or it may not, but it is never “presence” itself. If you walk abroad at noonday in the tropics, the most overwhelmingly present thing to you in the universe is the intolerable sun, although it is ninety-three millions of miles distant. If another person is only one foot distant, but separated from you by a wall which cuts off all light and sound, he is as absent as if in the centre of a distant star. But if the same person, a hundred feet from you in an audience-room, sees you face to face and hears every vibration of your voice, he is as truly present as if he touched you at every point. When Whitefield’s preaching was fully heard and its power felt across the Delaware River, he was present really and truly wherever his voice was heard and his matchless eloquence felt. “Presence,” therefore, is not a question of space: it is a relation. Personal presence is such a relation of persons that they are conscious of each other as immediate objects of perception and sources of influence. We know nothing as to the ultimate nature of the union of our souls and bodies, yet we no less are certain of the fact. We know nothing as to the ultimate nature of either sight or hearing, whereby we make our mutual presence felt in social intercourse, yet we are absolutely certain of the facts. So we need not speculate how it is that Christ, the whole God-man, body, soul and divinity, is present in the sacrament, but we are absolutely certain of the fact. He has promised it. We have hundreds of times experienced it. We can neither see his face nor hear his voice with our bodily senses; nevertheless, when we exercise faith, he, the whole Christ, speaks to us, and we hear him; we speak to him, and he hears us; he takes all we give him, he gives us and we receive all of himself. This is real, because he is present. And this is not confined to the sacrament. He makes manifest to our faith the reality of his presence with us, and communicates the same grace to us on many other occasions. But here and now and thus is his appointed rendezvous. Whatever may be our fortune under other conditions and at other times, here and now and in this breaking of bread we have a personal appointment to meet our Lord. And he never disappoints those who thus seek him with faith and love.
(Archibald Alexander Hodge, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, [Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1887], Lecture XVII: The Lord’s Supper, pp. 408-410.)
5. Appendix: Michael Horton on the “Real (Spiritual) Presence.” Return to Outline.
Michael Horton:
Typical of Reformed confessions, the Westminster Larger Catechism points out that the mode, not the substance, was spiritual. Furthermore, it is crucial to bear in mind that “spiritual” here refers to a person—the Holy Spirit—and not to a merely intellectual or imaginary mode of feeding. Christ is not spiritually present as opposed to being bodily present in the sacrament, but gives himself as our food and drink by the agency of the Spirit. …Because of the agency of the Spirit, who unites us to Christ in the first place, there can be a real communication of Christ’s person and work to the church (pace Zwingli), yet without bringing Christ down to an earthly altar (pace Rome and Luther). It is not simply Christ’s divinity but also the Spirit who makes Christ’s reign universally present, so that even Christ’s true and natural body and blood can be communicated to believers. …Reformed orthodoxy reiterated the patristic view that the sacrament consists of earthly signs and heavenly realities, without separation or confusion. The rival positions forced one either to locate Christ’s true presence in (or as) the elements or deny such presence altogether. Yet in the Reformed view, a sacrament encompasses the earthly signs and the heavenly reality.
(Michael S. Horton, People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology, [Louisville & London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008], pp. 128, 129, 131.)
Cf. Michael Horton:
A sacrament is not only the signs, but the reality signified that is joined to them. Therefore, the Reformed argued, the whole Christ may be said to be present and to offer himself in the sacrament without being enclosed in the elements.
(Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011], p. 815.)
6. Appendix: William Perkins on the Real (Spiritual) Presence and the Efficacy of the Sacraments. Return to Outline.
William Perkins:
The X. point. Of real presence.
Our consent.
I. We hold and believe a presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Sacrament of the Lord’s supper: and that no feigned, but a true and real presence: which must be considered two ways; first in respect of the signs, secondly in respect of the communicants. For the first, we hold and teach, that Christ’s body and blood, are truly present with the bread and wine, being signs in the sacrament: but how? not in respect of place, of coexistence: but by sacramental relation, on this manner. When a word is uttered, the sound comes to the ear; and at the same instant, the thing signified comes to the mind; and thus by relation the word and the thing spoken of, are both present together. Even so at the Lord’s table bread and wine must not be considered barely, as substances and creatures, but as outward signs in relation to the body and blood of Christ: and this relation, arising from the very institution of the Sacrament, stands in this, that when the elements of bread & wine are present to the hand and to the mouth of the receiver; at the very same time the body and blood of Christ are presented to the mind: thus and no otherwise is Christ truly present with the signs. The second presence is in respect of the communicants, to whose believing hearts he is also really present. It will be said, what kind of presence is this? Ans. Such as the communion in the sacrament is, such is the presence: and by the communion must we judge of the presence. Now the communion is on this manner: God the father, according to the tenor of the Evangelical covenant, gives Christ in this sacrament as really and truly, as any thing can be given to man, not by part and piece-meal (as we say) but whole Christ God and man, on this sort. In Christ there be two natures, the godhead, and manhood. The godhead is not given in regard of substance, or essence: but only in regard of efficacy, merits, and operation conveyed thence to the manhood. And further, in this sacrament Christ’s whole manhood is given both body and soul, in this order. First of all is given the very manhood in respect of substance, and that really: secondly the merits & benefits thereof, as namely, the satisfaction performed by and in the manhood, to the justice of God. And thus the entire manhood with the benefits thereof, are given wholly and jointly together. For the two distinct signs of bread and wine signify not two distinct givings of the body apart and the blood apart: but the full and perfect nourishment of our souls. Again the benefits of Christ’s manhood are diversely given, some by imputation, which is, an action of God accepting that which is done by Christ as done by us: and thus it hath pleased God to give the passion of Christ & his obedience. Some again are given by a kind of propagation, which I cannot fitly express in terms, but I resemble it thus. As one candle is lighted by another, & one torch or candle-light is conveyed to twenty candles: even so the inherent righteousness of every believer, is derived from the storehouse of righteousness which is in the manhood of Christ: for the righteousness of all the members, is but the fruit thereof, even as the natural corruption in all mankind, is but a fruit of that original sin which was in Adam. Thus we see how God for his part gives Christ, and that really. To proceed, when God gives Christ, he gives withal at the same time the spirit of Christ, which spirit creates in the heart of the receiver the instrument of true faith, by which the heart doth really receive Christ given of God, by resting upon the promise, which God hath made that he will give Christ and his righteousness to every true believer. Now then, when God gives Christ with his benefits, and man for his part by faith receives the same as they are given, there rises that union which is between every good receiver and Christ himself. Which union is not forged, but a real, true, and near conjunction; nearer than which, none is or can be: because it is made by a solemn giving and receiving that passes between God and man: as also by the bond of one and the same spirit. To come then to the point, considering there is a real union, and consequently a real communion between us and Christ, (as I have proved) there must needs be such a kind of presence wherein Christ is truly and really present to the heart of him that receives the sacrament in faith. And thus far do we consent with the Romish Church touching real presence.
The dissent.
We differ not touching the presence itself, but only in the manner of presence. For though we hold a real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the sacrament, yet do we not take it to be local, bodily, or substantial, but spiritual and mystical; to the signs by sacramental relation, and to the communicants by faith alone. On the contrary, the Church of Rome maintains transubstantiation, that is, a local, bodily, and substantial presence of Christ’s body and blood, by a change and conversion of the bread and wine into the said body and blood.
Our reasons.
I. This corporal presence overturns sundry articles of faith. For we believe that the body of Christ was made of the pure substance of the virgin Mary, and that but once, namely when he was conceived by the holy Ghost, and born. But this cannot stand, if the body of Christ be made of bread and his blood of wine, as they must needs be, if there be no succession or annihilation but a real conversion of substances in the sacrament: unless we must believe contrarieties, that his body was made of the substance of the Virgin, and not of the Virgin; made once and not once but often. Again, if his body & blood be under the forms of bread and wine, then is he not as yet ascended into heaven, but remains still among us. Neither can he be said to come from heaven at the day of judgment: for he that must come thence to judge the quick and dead, must be absent from the earth. And this was the ancient faith. Augustine saith, that Christ according to his majesty and providence and grace is present with us to the end of the world: but according to his ASSUMED FLESH HE IS NOT always with us. Cyril saith, He is ABSENT IN BODY and present in virtue, whereby all things are governed. Vigilius saith, That he is gone from us according to his humanity: he hath left us in his humanity: in the form of a servant absent from us: when his flesh was on earth, it was not in heaven: being on earth, he was not in heaven: and being now in heaven, he is not on earth. Fulgentius saith, One and the same Christ, according to his humane substance, was absent from heaven when he was on earth: and LEFT THE EARTH when he ascended into heaven.
Reason II. This bodily presence overturns the nature of a true body, whose common nature or essential property it is, to have length, breadth, and thickness, which being taken away a body is no more a body. And by reason of these three dimensions, a body can occupy but one place at once, as Aristotle said, the property of a body is to be seated in some place, so as a man may say where it is. They therefore that hold the body of Christ to be in many places at once, do make it no body at all: but rather a spirit, and that infinite. They allege that God is almighty; that is true indeed, but in this and like matters we must not dispute what God can do, but what he will do. And I say further because God is omnipotent, therefore there be some things which he cannot do, as for him to deny himself, to lie, and to make the parts of a contradiction to be both true at the same time. To come to the point, if God should make the very body of Christ to be in many places at once, he should make it to be no body while it remains a body: and to be circumscribed in some one place and not circumscribed, because it is in many places at the same time: to be visible in heaven and invisible in the sacrament; and thus should he make contradictions to be true: which to do is against his nature, and argues rather impotency than power. Augustine saith to this purpose. If he could lie, deceive, be deceived, deal unjustly, he should not be omnipotent. And, Therefore he is omnipotent, because he can not do these things. Again, He is called omnipotent by doing that which he will, and not by doing that which he will not: which if it should befall him, he should not be omnipotent.
Reason III. Transubstantiation overturns the very Supper of the Lord. For in every sacrament there must be a sign, a thing signified, and a proportion or relation between them both. But popish real presence takes all away: for when the bread is really turned into Christ’s body, and the wine into his blood, then the sign is abolished, and there remains nothing but the outward forms or appearance of bread and wine. Again, it abolishes the ends of the sacrament, whereof one is to remember Christ till his coming again, who being present in the sacrament bodily, needs not to be remembered: because helps of remembrance are of things absent. Another end is to nourish the soul unto eternal life: but by transubstantiation the principal feeding is of the body and not of the soul, which is only fed with spiritual food; for though the body may be bettered by the food of the soul, yet can not the soul be fed with bodily food.
Reason IV. In the sacrament the body of Christ is received as it was crucified: and his blood, as it was shed upon the cross: but now at this time Christ’s body crucified remains still as a body, but not as a body crucified: because the act of crucifying is ceased. Therefore it is faith alone that makes Christ crucified to be present unto us in the sacrament. Again, that blood which ran out of the feet and hands and side of Christ upon the cross, was not gathered up again and put into the veins: nay, the collection was needless, because after the resurrection, he lived no more a natural but a spiritual life: and none knows what is become of this blood. The Papist therefore cannot say it is present under the form of wine locally: and we may better say it is received spiritually by faith, whose property is to give a being to things which are not.
Reason V. 1. Cor. 10. 3. The fathers of the old testament did eat the same spiritual meat, and drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of the rock which was Christ. Now they could not eat his body which was crucified, or drink his blood shed bodily, but by faith: because then his body and blood were not in nature. The Papists make answer, that the fathers did eat the same meat, and drink the same spiritual drink with themselves, not with us. But their answer is against the text. For the Apostle’s intent is to prove that the Jews were every way equal to the Corinthians, because they did eat the same spiritual meat, and drank the same spiritual drink with the Corinthians; otherwise his reason proves not the point which he hath in hand, namely that the Israelites were nothing inferior to the Corinthians.
Reason VI. And it is said, the sabbath was made for man: and not man for the sabbath: so it may be said, that the sacrament of the Lord’s supper was made for man, & not man for it: & therefore man is more excellent than the sacrament. But if the signs of bread and wine be really turned into the body and blood of Christ, then is the sacrament infinitely better than man; who in his best estate is only joined to Christ, and made a member of his mystical body: whereas the bread and wine are made very Christ. But the sacrament or outward elements indeed are not better than man: the end being always better than the thing ordained to the end. It remains therefore that Christ’s presence is not corporal but spiritual. Again in the supper of the Lord, every believer receives whole Christ, God and man, though not the godhead: now by this carnal eating, we receive not whole Christ, but only a part of his manhood: and therefore in the sacrament there is no carnal eating, and consequently no bodily presence.
Reason VII. The judgment of the ancient Church. Theodoret saith, The same Christ, who called his natural body food and bread, who also called himself a vine, he vouchsafed the visible signs the name of his own body, NOT CHANGING NATURE, but putting grace to nature; whereby he means consecration. And, The mystical signs after sanctification lose not their proper nature. For they REMAIN IN THEIR FIRST NATURE, and keep their first figure and form; and as before, may be touched and seen: and that which they are made, is understood, believed, adored. Gelasius saith, Bread and wine pass into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, yet so as the SUBSTANCE OR NATURE OF BREAD AND WINE CEASETH NOT. And they are turned into the divine substance, yet the bread and wine REMAIN STILL IN THE PROPERTY OF THEIR NATURE. Lombard saith, If it be asked what conversion this is, whether formal, or substantial, or of another kind, I am not able to define. And that the Fathers held not transubstantiation, I prove it by sundry reasons. First, they used in former times to burn with fire that which remained after the administration of the Lord’s supper. Secondly by the sacramental union of the bread and wine with the body and blood of Christ, they used to confirm the personal union of the manhood of Christ with the godhead against heretics: which argument they would not have used, if they had believed a popish real presence. Thirdly it was a custom in Constantinople, that if many parts of the sacrament remained after the administration thereof was ended, that young children should be sent for from the school to eat them; who nevertheless were barred the Lord’s table. And this argues plainly that the Church in those days, took the bread after the administration was ended, for common bread. Again, it was once an order in the Roman church, that the wine should be consecrated by dipping into it bread, which had been consecrated. But this order cannot stand with the real presence, in which the bread is turned both into the body and blood. Nicholaus Cabasilas saith, After he hath used some speech to the people, he erects their minds, and lifts their thoughts from earth, & saith, Sursum corda, Let us lift up our hearts, let us THINK ON THINGS ABOVE, and not on things that are upon the earth. They consent & say, that they lift up their hearts thither, where is their treasure, and where Christ sits at the right hand of his father.
Objections of Papists.
I. Their first reason is, John 6. 55. My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed: therefore (say they) Christ’s body must be eaten with the mouth, and his blood drunk accordingly. Ans. The chapter must be understood of a spiritual eating of Christ: his body is meat indeed but spiritual meat, and his blood spiritual drink, to be received not by the mouth, but by faith. This is the very point that Christ here intends to prove, namely that to believe in him is to eat his flesh and to drink his blood are all one. Again, this chapter must not be understood of that special eating of Christ in the sacrament: for it is said generally, v. 53. Except ye eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood, ye have no life in you: and if these very words (which are the substance of the chapter) must be understood of a sacramental eating, no man before the coming of Christ was saved: for none did bodily eat or drink his body or blood; considering it was not then existing in nature, but only was present to the believing heart by faith.
II. Object. Another argument is taken from the words of the institution. This is my body. Ans. These words must not be understood properly but by a figure: his body being put for the sign and seal of his body. It is objected, that when any make their last wills and testaments, they speak as plainly as they can: now in this supper Christ ratifies his last will and testament; and therefore he spake plainly, without any figure. Ans. Christ here speaketh plainly and by a figure also: for it hath been always the usual manner of the Lord in speaking of sacraments, to give the name of the thing signified to the sign: as Gen. 17. 10. circumcision is called the covenant of God; & in the next v. in way of exposition, the sign of the covenant. & Exod. 12. 11. the paschal lamb is called the Angels passing by or over the houses of the Israelites; whereas indeed it was but a sign thereof; & 1. Cor. 10. 4. The rock was Christ 1. Cor. 5. 7. The Passover was Christ. And the like phrase is to be found in the institution of this sacrament concerning the cup, which the Papists themselves confess to be figurative: when it is said, Luke 22. This cup is the new testament in my blood, that is, a sign, seal, and pledge thereof. Again the time when these words were spoken must be considered, and it was before the passion of Christ, whereas yet his body was not crucified nor his blood shed: and consequently neither of them could be received in bodily manner, but by faith alone. Again, Christ was not only the author, but the minister of this sacrament at the time of institution thereof: and if the bread had been truly turned into his body, and the wine into his blood, Christ with his own hands should have taken his own body and blood, and have given it to his disciples: nay, which is more, he should with his own hands, have taken his own flesh and drunk his own blood, and have eaten himself. For Christ himself did eat the bread and drink the wine, that he might with his own person consecrate his last supper, as he had consecrated baptism before. And if these words should be properly understood, every man must be a manslayer in his eating of Christ. Lastly by means of popish real presence, it comes to pass, that our bodies should be nourished by naked qualities without any substance, which in all philosophy, is false and erroneous. To help this & the like absurdities, some Papists make nine wonders in the sacrament. The first, that Christ’s body is in the Eucharist in as large a quantity as he was upon the cross, and is now in heaven, and yet exceeds not the quantity of the bread. The second, that there be accidents without a subject. The third, that bread is turned into the body of Christ, and yet is not the matter of the body, nor resolved to nothing. The fourth, that the body increases not by consecration of many hosts, and is not diminished by often receiving. The fifth, that the body of Christ is under many consecrated hosts. The sixth, that when the host is divided, the body of Christ is not divided, but under every part thereof is whole Christ. The seventh, that when the priest holds the host in his hand, the body of Christ is not felt by itself nor seen, but the forms of bread and wine. The eighth, that when the forms of bread and wine cease, the body and blood of Christ ceases also to be there. The ninth, that the accidents of bread and wine have the same effects with the bread and wine itself, which are to nourish and fill. On this manner it shall be easy for any man to defend the most absurd opinion that is or can be, if he may have liberty to answer the arguments alleged to the contrary by wonders.
To conclude, seeing there is a real communion in the sacrament between Christ and every believing heart, our duty therefore is, to bestow our hearts on Christ, endeavoring to love him, and to rejoice in him, and to long after him above all things: all our affiance must be in him, & with him; we being now on earth must have our conversation in heaven. And this is the true real presence, which the ancient Church of God hath commended unto us: for in all these liturgies these words were used, and are yet extant in the popish mass, Lift up your hearts: we lift them up unto the Lord. By which words the communicants were admonished to direct their minds and their faith to Christ sitting at the right hand of God. Thus said Augustine, If we celebrate the ascension of the Lord with devotion: let us ascend with him, and lift up our hearts. Again, they which are already risen with Christ in faith and hope are invited to the great table of heaven, to the table of Angels, WHERE IS THE BREAD.
(William Perkins, A Reformed Catholike, [Cambridge: Printed by John Legat, 1598], 10. Of Real-presence, pp. 185-204.) [spelling modernized]
William Perkins:
The nineteenth point, Of the efficacy of the sacraments.
Our consent.
Conclus. I. We teach and believe that the sacraments are signs to represent Christ with his benefits unto us.
Conclus. II. We teach further, that the sacraments are indeed instruments, whereby God offereth and giveth the foresaid benefits unto us. Thus far we consent with the Roman Church.
The difference.
The difference between us stands in sundry points. First of all, the best learned among them teach, that sacraments are physical instruments, that is, true and proper instrumental causes, having force and efficacy in them to produce and give grace. They use to express their meaning by these comparisons. When the scrivener takes the pen into his hand and writes, the action of writing comes from the pen, moved by the hand of the writer: and in cutting of wood or stone, the division comes from the saw, moved by the hand of the workman: even so the grace (say they) that is given by God, is conferred by the sacrament itself. Now we for our parts hold, that Sacraments are not physical but mere voluntary instruments. Voluntary, because it is the will and appointment of God, to use them as certain outward means of grace. Instruments: because when we use them aright according to the institution, God then answerably confers grace from himself. In this respect only take we them for instruments and no otherwise.
The second difference is this: They teach that the very action of the Minister dispensing the sacrament, as it is a work done gives grace immediately, if the party be prepared: as the very washing or sprinkling of water in baptism, and the giving of bread in the Lord’s supper: even as the orderly moving of the pen upon the paper by the hand of the writer causeth writing. We hold the contrary: namely that no action in the dispensation of a Sacrament confers grace as it is a work done, that is, by the efficacy and force of the very sacramental action itself, though ordained of God: but for two other ways. First by the signification thereof. For God testifies unto us his will and good pleasure partly by the word of promise, and partly by the sacrament: the signs representing to the eyes that which the word doth to the ears: being also types and certain images of the very same things, that are promised in the word and no other. Yea the elements are not general and confused, but particular signs to the several communicants, and by the virtues of the Institution: for when the faithful receive the signs from God by the hands of the Minister, it is as much as if God himself with his own mouth should speak unto them severally, and by name promise to them remission of sins. And things said to men particularly, do more affect, and more take away doubting, than if they were generally spoken to a whole company. Therefore signs of graces are as it were an applying and binding of the promise of salvation to every particular believer: and by this means, the oftener they are received, the more they help our infirmity, and confirm our assurance of mercy.
Again the sacrament confers grace in that the sign thereof confirms faith as a pledge, by reason it hath a promise annexed to it. For when God commands us to receive the signs in faith, and withal promises to the receivers to give the thing signified, he binds himself, as it were in bond unto us, to stand to his own word; even as men bind themselves in obligations putting to their hands and seals, so as they cannot go back. And when the signs are thus used as pledges, and that often: they greatly increase the grace of God: as a token sent from one friend to another, renews and confirms the persuasion of love.
These are the two principal ways whereby the sacraments are said to confer grace namely in respect of their signification, and as they are pledges of God’s favor unto us. And the very point here to be considered is, in what order and manner they confirm. And the manner is this. The signs and visible elements affect the senses outward and inward: the senses convey their object to the mind: the mind directed by the holy Ghost reasoneth on this manner, out of the promise annexed to the sacrament. He that useth the elements aright, shall receive grace thereby: but I use the elements aright in faith and repentance, saith the mind of the believer: therefore shall I receive from God increase of grace. Thus then, faith is confirmed not by the work done, but by a kind of reasoning caused in the mind, the argument or proof whereof is borrowed from the elements, being signs and pledges of God’s mercy.
The third difference. The Papists teach, that in the sacrament by the work done, the very grace of justification is conferred. We say no: because a man of years must first believe and be justified, before he can be a meet partaker of any sacrament. And the grace that is conferred, is only the increase of our faith, hope, sanctification, &c.
Our reasons.
Reason I. The word preached and the sacraments differ in the manner of giving Christ and his benefits unto us: because in the word the Spirit of God teacheth us by a voice conveyed to the mind by the bodily ears; but in the sacraments annexed to the word, by certain sensible and bodily signs viewed by the eye. Sacraments are nothing but visible words and promises. Otherwise, for the giving itself they differ not. Christ himself saith, that in the very word, is eaten his own flesh, which he was to give for the life of the world: and what can be said more of the Lord's supper. Augustine saith, that believers are partakers of the body and blood of Christ in baptism: and Jerome to Edibia, that in baptism we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ. If thus much may be said of baptism, why may it not also be said of the word preached. Again Jerome upon Ecclesiastes saith, It is profitable to be filled with the body of Christ and drink his blood, not only in mystery but in knowledge of holy Scripture. Now upon this it follows, that seeing the work done in the word preached confers not grace, neither doth the work done in the sacrament confer any grace.
Reason II. Math. 3. 11. I baptize you with water to repentance: but he that cometh after me is stronger than I,—he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Hence it is manifest, that grace in the sacrament proceeds not from any action in the sacrament: for John, though he do not disjoin himself and his action from Christ, and the action of his spirit: yet doth he distinguish them plainly in number, persons, and effect. To this purpose Paul, who had said of the Galatians, that he travailed of them and begot them by the Gospel, saith of himself that he is not anything, not only as he was a man, but as he was a faithful Apostle: thereby excluding the whole Evangelical ministry whereof the sacrament is a part, from the least part of divine operation, or, efficacy in conferring of grace.
Reason III. The blessed Angels, nay the very flesh of the son of God hath not any quickening virtue from itself: but all this efficacy or virtue is in and from the godhead of the son: who, by means of the flesh apprehended by faith, deriveth heavenly and spiritual life from himself to the members. Now if there be no efficacy in the flesh of Christ, but by reason of the hypostatical union: how shall bodily actions about bodily elements confer grace immediately.
Reason IV. Paul, Rom. 4. stands much upon this, to prove that justification by faith is not conferred by the sacraments. And from the circumstance of time he gathereth that Abraham was first justified, and then afterward received circumcision, the sign and seal of this righteousness. Now we know that the general condition of all sacraments is one and the same, and that baptism succeeded circumcision. And what can be more plain than the example of Cornelius, Act. 10. who before Peter came unto him, had the commendation of the fear of God, and was endued with the spirit of prayer: and afterward when Peter by preaching opened more fully the way of the Lord, he and the rest received the Holy Ghost. And after all this they were baptized. Now if they received the Holy Ghost before baptism, then they received remission of sins, and were justified before baptism.
V. Reason. The judgment of the church. Basil. If there be any grace in the water, it is not from the nature of the water, but from THE PRESENCE OF THE SPIRIT. Jerome saith, Man gives water but God gives the Holy Ghost. Augustine said, Water toucheth the body and washeth the heart: but he shows his meaning elsewhere. There is one water (saith he) of the Sacrament, another of the Spirit: the water of the sacrament is visible, the water of the Spirit invisible. That washeth the body AND SIGNIFIETH what is done in the soul. By this the soul is purged and sealed.
Object. Remission of sins, regeneration, and salvation is ascribed to the sacrament of baptism, Act. 22. 21. Eph. 5. Gal. 3. 27. Tit. 2. Ans. Salvation and remission of sins is ascribed to baptism and the Lord’s supper, as to the word; which is the power of God to salvation to all that believe: and that, as they are instruments of the Holy Ghost to signify, seal, and exhibit to the believing mind the foresaid benefits: but indeed the proper instrument whereby salvation is apprehended is faith, and sacraments are but props of faith furthering salvation two ways: first because by their signification they help to nourish and preserve faith: secondly because they seal grace and salvation to us: yea God gives grace and salvation when we use them well: so be it, we believe the word of promise made to the sacrament, whereof also they are seals. And thus we keep the middle way, neither giving too much nor too little to the sacraments.
(William Perkins, A Reformed Catholike, [Cambridge: Printed by John Legat, 1598], 19. Of the efficacy of the sacraments, pp. 295-304.) [spelling modernized]
καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria
No comments:
Post a Comment