3.3 The Doctrine of the “Real Presence” and the Priestly Theory
With the dogma of transubstantiation, as held by the Church of Rome, stands very closely connected the question as to the manner in which Christ is present in the ordinance of the Supper. The doctrine of the “real presence” of Christ in the Sacrament has, more almost than any other in theology, been made the subject of prolonged and bitter controversy. By the Church of Rome, as we have seen, the real presence of Christ is explained to be the true and actual existence of the body and blood, the soul and Divinity of the Saviour, under the sensible appearances of bread and wine; so that in the elements Christ is as much present after a bodily sort, in consequence of their transubstantiation, as He ever was present to His disciples of old in the days of His flesh. By the Lutheran Church, the real presence of Christ in the ordinance is maintained, not upon the principle of such a change in the substance of the elements into Christ’s body and blood as contradicts the testimony of our senses, but, rather upon the supposition that the bread and wine remaining the same, the real body and blood of Christ are nevertheless united to them in some mysterious manner, so as to be actually present with them, and actually received along with them, when they are partaken of by the communicant. By our own Church, as well as by many other Protestant communions, the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament is asserted on the ground that He is not in a bodily manner present in the substance of the elements, nor yet in a bodily manner mysteriously present with the elements, but only spiritually present to the faith of him who receives the ordinance in faith.176
The influence of the fierce and frequent controversies waged in connection with the nature and efficacy of the Lord’s Supper shortly after the date of the Reformation, and the disposition on the part of Luther, and the Churches affected by his influence, to depart as little as possible from the established phraseology of the ancient Church on the subject of the Sacrament, served to introduce, or to continue in theological discussions, a language somewhat exaggerated, and occasionally almost unintelligible, in regard to this question. Such, undoubtedly, was the phrase “consubstantiation,” used by some of the Lutherans to express the mysterious corporeal presence of Christ, not in, but with, or under, or somehow in connection with the elements; and such also was the phrase “impanation,” employed by others to elucidate, or rather to obscure, the doctrine of the manner in which Christ’s bodily presence is connected with the sacramental bread. And I cannot help thinking that, under the power of very much the same influences, the term “real presence” has not unfrequently been employed and explained, even by orthodox divines, in such a way as to give a somewhat exaggerated and mysterious aspect to the connection subsisting between Christ and the Sacrament. That phrase has occasionally been employed in association with such language as to leave the impression that Christ was present in the Supper, not spiritually to the faith of the believer, and not corporeally to the senses of the communicant, but in some indefinite manner between the two, and after a sort mysterious and peculiar to the Sacrament of the Supper. Such language seems to have no warrant in the Word of God.
The Scriptures give us no ground to assert that Christ is present in the Sacrament of the Supper in a manner different from that in which He is present in the Sacrament of Baptism. I do not speak at present of the extent of the blessing or of the grace which He may impart in the one or the other Sacrament by His presence; I speak only of the manner of His presence. There is nothing, I think, in Scripture to warrant us in affirming that the manner of Christ’s presence in the Supper is in itself unique or peculiar, or indeed in any respect different from the manner of His presence in Baptism, or any other of His own ordinances. In all of these He is present, after a spiritual manner, to the faith of the participator in the ordinance, and in no other way.177 The blessings which that presence may impart may be different in different ordinances, and may be more or less in one than in another. But there is nothing in the Word of God which would lead us to say that the real presence of Christ in any of His ordinances, whether sacramental or not, is anything else than Christ present, through his Spirit and power, to the faith of the believer. Such promises as these—“Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world;” “Where two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of you;” “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me;”178 and such like—plainly give us ground to affirm that Christ, through His Spirit, is present in His ordinances to the faith of the believer, imparting spiritual blessing and grace. But there is nothing that would lead us to make a difference or distinction between the presence of Christ in the Supper and the presence of Christ in His other ordinances, in so far as the manner of that presence is concerned. The efficacy of the Saviour’s presence may be different in the way of imparting more or less of saving grace, according to the nature of the ordinance, and the degree of the believer’s faith. But the manner of that presence is the same, being realized through the Spirit of Christ, and to the faith of the believer. The Sacramentarian controversy has tended in no small measure to introduce into the language of theology, in connection with the “real presence,” an ambiguity of thought and statement, not confined to Romanist, or even semi-Romanist divines.179
But, passing from that part of the Popish theory of the Supper which refers to the alleged change produced on the elements by transubstantiation, and to the manner of Christ’s presence in the ordinance, I go on to consider the other part of the Popish theory of the Supper which refers to the office of the ministering priest in the Sacrament, or his power to offer the body and blood of Christ, actually present, as a true sacrifice for sin. The first grand error in the Popish doctrine of the Lord’s Supper is the monstrous figment of the transubstantiation of the elements; the second, intimately connected with the first, and perhaps yet more extensive and mischievous as an error in its practical bearings, is the doctrine of the power of the Church, in the ordinance of bread and wine, to offer a true and efficacious propitiation to God, both for the living and the dead. The sacrifice of the mass is founded upon, and very closely connected with, the dogma of transubstantiation,—in some sort following as an inference from the assumption that the priest stands in Christ’s stead at the Communion Table, and, by a supernatural power not inferior to Christ’s, changes, by the utterance of the words of institution, the elements of bread and wine into the actual body and blood, soul and Divinity, which were once the sacrifice offered up for this world upon the Cross. In the performance of this supernatural and mysterious office, which, according to its own theory, it is given to the Church of Rome to discharge, we see both the priest and the sacrifice,—the priest, acting as mediator between God and the people, offering a true satisfaction to God for sin, and promising remission and reconciliation; and the sacrifice presented to God, real and efficacious, because in fact the very same sacrifice, in its substance, of the flesh and blood of Christ, as He Himself once made and presented, and not less availing in its mighty virtue to propitiate God, and procure salvation for the sinner. A real office of priesthood, and a real offering of sacrifice, are the two features that characterize this second portion of the Popish theory of the Sacraments. Both are asserted, and both are essential in the sacrifice of the mass, which has been grafted on the dogma of transubstantiation, and both form integral parts of that monstrous system of sacerdotal usurpation by which the Church of Rome seeks to build up her spiritual tyranny. The position, then, laid down by the Church of Rome in connection with the subject of the mass, may be conveniently discussed under these two heads: first, the claim which she makes to possess and exercise the office of a true priesthood; and second, the power that she arrogates to make and offer a true sacrifice to God. Reserving the second of these points for future consideration, we shall now proceed to deal with the claim put forth by the Church of Rome to hold and exercise the office of a real priesthood.
This claim runs through the doctrine and practice of the Popish Church in all its departments, and is not restricted to the case of its views in connection with the Supper. The priestly office and sacerdotal pretensions are recognised in almost every branch of its administration as a Church, and, indeed, are fundamental to the system. But the priesthood which it pretends to exercise towards God and on behalf of man is perhaps developed most prominently and conspicuously in connection with its doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. The question is one that lies at the very root of the difference between the Popish and Protestant systems, and on that account is of more than ordinary interest and importance.
The doctrine of a real priesthood residing in the Christian ministry, more especially in connection with its chief function of offering the sacrifice of the mass, is thus stated by the Council of Trent: “Sacrifice and priesthood are so joined together by the ordinance of God that they existed under every dispensation. Since, therefore, under the New Testament the Catholic Church has received the holy visible sacrifice of the Eucharist by the institution of the Lord, it is necessary also to confess that there is in it a new, visible, and outward priesthood into which the old has been transferred. Now the sacred writings show, and the tradition of the Catholic Church has always taught, that this was instituted by the same Lord our Saviour, and that a power was given to the Apostles, and their successors in the priesthood, of consecrating, offering, and administering His body and blood, and also of remitting and retaining sins.” “If any shall say that by these words, ‘Do this in remembrance of me,’ Christ did not appoint the Apostles to be priests, or did not ordain that they and other priests should offer His body and blood, let him be accursed.” “If any shall say that the sacrifice of the mass is only one of praise and thanksgiving, or a bare commemoration of the sacrifice accomplished upon the Cross, but not propitiatory; or that it only profits him who receives it, and ought not to be offered for the living and dead, for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities,—let him be accursed.”180
Amid the other errors contained in these statements by the Council of Trent, what we have chiefly to do with at present is the claim which is put forth on behalf of the Church of Rome and her ministers to hold and exercise the office of priesthood in the same sense as, ceremonially, the priests of a former dispensation did so; with power now, not ceremonially, but really, to act as priests in the absence of Christ in heaven, and truly to offer sacrifice to God for sin. The question in regard to such a claim is this: Have we any warrant to believe that a visible and external priesthood has been established in the New Testament Church, with powers to act as mediators between God and man, and offer the propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; or has the office of priesthood which existed under a former economy no longer an existence now in the Gospel Church, there being none on earth authorized or qualified to undertake it,—the one Priesthood, in the end of the world for sin, having completed its work on earth, and the Priest who held the office having returned to heaven to continue it there? This is a vital and fundamental question, not only in order to enable us to form an estimate of the real character of the system of Romanists, but also because it enters so essentially into the principles held by High Churchmen of other denominations.
3.3.1 [Priesthood as a standing ordinance was abrogated with the Jewish economy]
The existence of a priesthood as a standing ordinance in the Christian Church is inconsistent with the fact that such an office was abrogated with the Jewish economy, and necessarily came to an end when that dispensation gave place to the Gospel economy.
An earthly priesthood was an ordinance appointed for a special purpose and a special time; and the purpose having been served, and the time past, it is necessarily at an end. The priestly office, and the institution of sacrifice with which it stands inseparably connected, formed part of that instrumentality by which, for thousands of years, God prepared this world for the coming and the death of His own Son as its Saviour. First of all, it was the father of the family who was ordained the priest to offer the sacrifice for the rest, and to approach unto God on behalf of his household; the members of which drew near to God, and worshipped, and were accepted only through him. Such seems to have been the practice in patriarchal times, and apparently not without the appointment, or at least the sanction, of God. The father of the family, as well as the divinely appointed sacrifice he offered, thus in a general and distant way represented Christ as the medium whereby sinners might approach to God in worship. But the patriarchal institute was too general and vague a type of the One Mediator through whom alone, when fully revealed, men were to find access to God. Accordingly it was done away with, and another institute was ordained in its place, with priests specially set apart to the office of mediators between God and the people, and with more special authority given, and more distinct provision made for them to be the media through whom the rest were to present their worship and sacrifices, and themselves to make their approach to God and find acceptance. Under the Mosaic ritual, it was no longer lawful for the sinner himself directly to approach to God with his own offering of worship or sacrifice; it was no longer lawful for the sinner even to draw near with his sacrifice unto God through the head of the family, as under the patriarchal institute. The avenue of approach to God was, step by step, narrowed and restricted. First, the father of the family was marked out and selected as the recognised priest and mediator for the rest. Next, a further limitation took place, and the priest of Aaron’s line was specially appointed to stand in the stead of the whole families of the nation in their approach to God; and strict provision was made—and guarded by the most solemn penalties—that no man should venture to present the sacrifice himself, or to worship except through the media of this one commissioned priesthood. The thousands of Israel were restricted in their legal worship to the one avenue, and forbidden to draw near to the Holy One of Israel except through the one mediation of the earthly priest of Aaron’s lineage.
And why was it that this earthly priesthood was thus marked off from all the rest, and the other worshippers made dependent on the one appointed priest of Aaron’s house? And why were men forbidden to approach to God directly and immediately themselves, or even indirectly through any other but this one mediator? The answer is obvious. The priesthood was so restricted, and so fenced about with solemn limitations, in order that it might be a type of Christ, “the one Mediator between God and man.” From age to age, and from step to step, the worshippers of God under the old economies were more and more shut up to the idea and the practice of approaching the Most High God only through the channel of one Priesthood and the person of one High Priest. The typical priests and priesthoods of former dispensations led men’s hearts and habits to fix upon the one Mediator through whom alone we now draw near to God. They taught the worshippers to anticipate and to hope in that one Man, who is now the Priest, not of one family, as in patriarchal times, nor of one nation, as in Jewish times, but the Priest through whom all the families and all the nations of the world draw nigh to God. The earthly priesthoods of the former days of the Church all converged upon and pointed to and centred in Christ. With Christ, therefore, those priesthoods came to an end. The type was merged in the Antitype, and then was done away. The priests of other days, together with the sacrifices which they offered, have served the object designed by them, and are abolished. They can, from the very nature of their office, have no use, and no meaning, and no place in a Church to which another and a higher priesthood has been given, and when the sign has given place to the thing that was signified. The office of the priesthood on earth ceased with the former dispensation; and not only is there no re-appointment under the Gospel of such an order of men in the Church, but they would, from the very place and office that they occupied, be inconsistent with the Gospel economy. They formed part and parcel of a typical system which has been abolished.
3.3.2 [Priesthood inconsistent with the privileges of believers under the Gospel]
The existence of a priesthood as a standing ordinance in the Christian Church is inconsistent with the privileges of believers under the Gospel.
It is not unfrequently argued by the advocates of Romanist or semi-Romanist principles on this subject, that the privilege of a human priesthood and a human mediatorship is one so great and precious that it cannot be conceived to exist, as we know it did, under the earlier and far inferior dispensation, and yet to be awanting under the later and far better dispensation of the Gospel. The presence of an earthly priesthood, it is urged, must be enjoyed by the Church now, inasmuch as it cannot be supposed to be deprived of one of the highest privileges which belonged to the former and less richly endowed Church of the Old Testament.181
A comparison between the superior advantages of the Gospel Church, as measured by those of the Jewish, is the very consideration which, instead of proving that a human priesthood is continued to us now, most emphatically demonstrates that it is abrogated. The presence and office of a human priesthood, enjoyed by worshippers under the law, are far surpassed by the higher and more glorious privileges enjoyed by believers under the Gospel. No doubt it was an act of grace and condescension on the part of God, to permit sinners to approach His presence through the avenue of a visible priesthood and a visible sacrifice in former times, even although that boon was granted to them under solemn and jealous restrictions; and it was a great and precious privilege for the worshipper to be allowed to draw near to the mercy-seat through means of a human mediator, and by the intervention of a material offering. But the privilege of Christians in the New Testament Church is better and more glorious still. Through Christ a new and living way has been opened up for all to draw nigh to God, not indirectly through a human mediator, but directly, each man for himself. The whole brotherhood of believers are no longer dependent upon one of themselves for the liberty or opportunity of access to the common Father; and without distinction of special office, it is the freedom purchased for all, without earthly priest or earthly intercessor interposed, to go with boldness into the very holiest. The presence of an earthly and external priesthood is no evidence of superior privilege, but the reverse. It is the mark of an imperfect and carnal dispensation.
That it was necessary for the worshipper to employ the intervention of another than himself in order that he might approach to his Creator,—that a sinner should be dependent on another sinner for pardon or access to heaven,—that he should not dare to engage his heart to draw near to God except through the medium of a human priesthood,—were strong arguments to prove the essential imperfection of that dispensation which witnessed such things, and constituted a yoke of bondage which it was hard to bear. And what it was when the sons of Aaron by God’s own appointment were the human priests and mediators, that it is now in the case of those Churches who bind upon their own necks the institute of a human priesthood, and then boast of it as their exclusive distinction and privilege. It is a spiritual yoke that is too heavy to bear; it is a retrogression from the freedom wherewith under the Gospel Christ has made His people free; it is a badge of the voluntary thraldom and debasement of a Church that has itself gone into bondage to men, instead of maintaining the liberty of Christ the Lord. The restriction of approaching God only through the earthly priest in the local temple at Jerusalem, and by the blood of bulls and goats,—the prohibition forbidding the sinner to draw near to the mercy-seat directly himself, or through any other medium,—those were evidences of essential imperfection in the Church state of the worshippers under a former economy. And the human priesthood of the Church of Rome,—the material sacrifice made and offered for the worshippers,—the priest standing between the sinner and God, and barring or opening the way of approach,—the mediator acting as the medium of communication between the Most High and His creatures, and retaining or remitting their sin,—these, too, are restrictions, and, because human and unauthorized, daring and impious restrictions, upon the freeness of God’s grace and the liberties of His redeemed people.
It is a fact of much significance, and indeed of decisive force in this argument, that throughout the whole of the New Testament Scriptures there is no instance in which either the name of priest, or the functions belonging to the office of priesthood, are ascribed to the ministers of the Christian Church; that the only examples of the use of the term are those in which it is given, not to the minister, but to the people; and that the ascription of the privileges of the office is uniformly made to the members at large. On the one hand, the term ἱερευς, or “priest,” is never in any single instance in the New Testament applied to a minister of the Christian Church, although always made use of to designate the priest of the Aaronic dispensation. The usual name given to the minister of the New Testament Church is πρεσβυτερος,—the change of designation marking very decisively the change in the nature of the office.182 On the other hand, on the only occasions on which the word ἱερευς is used in the New Testament in reference to any except a Jewish priest, it is given to the members of the Christian Church at large, and not to the ministers of that Church. In the Book of Revelation, believers are spoken of as “kings and priests to God;” and in the first Epistle of Peter they are described as a “royal priesthood.”183 The name formerly appropriated to the sons of Aaron, selected and anointed from among the rest of the congregation to be priests to God, is not inherited by the ministers of the Christian Church in the same exclusive manner, but, on the contrary, is applied in an enlarged and extended sense to the whole body of believers. More than this: the privilege enjoyed by the priests of old, of alone of all the worshipping assembly drawing near to God without the intervention of any other, is a privilege uniformly represented in the New Testament as not peculiar to the ministers of the Church, but extended now to all its members, and common to all believers. The office peculiar to the minister of the Christian Church is described at large in the New Testament Scriptures, and is a “ministry” or “service” unto others (διακονια, λειτουργια), not a mediatorship on behalf of others. It is spoken of as an office of “ministering,” “preaching,” “exhorting,” “ruling,” amid the flock of Christ, not an office of sacrificing, and making reconciliation, and approaching to God as the mediator on behalf of the rest, and becoming the avenue for the access of their persons or worship to the Divine presence. On the contrary, this privilege of approaching directly to God without the intervention of any substitute or proxy on earth, is a privilege which is expressly attributed to all believers as their personal right: so that, if in any sense there are priests now on earth, those priests are the believing people of God at large; and if in any sense there are priestly sacrifices now offered up, they are the spiritual sacrifices of the prayer and praise of Christians, without distinction of office or place in the Church. The sacerdotal theory on which the Church system of Rome is built, and the priestly office which is so conspicuously developed in her practice as regards the Lord’s Supper, are utterly repugnant to the spirit of the New Testament Church, and to the privileges which it has secured to believers. The privilege of a human priesthood, which existed under the law, is abolished under the Gospel; or rather, in its spirit and substance, the privilege is enlarged and extended to all believers under the New Testament Church. It was the peculiar and distinctive prerogative of the priests under the law, that they alone of all the worshippers drew near to God without a human mediator. That prerogative is common to all the royal priesthood of believers under the Gospel.
3.3.3 [Priesthood inconsistent with the one office of Christ as the Priest and Mediator]
The existence of an earthly priesthood as a standing ordinance of the Christian Church is inconsistent with the one office of Christ as the Priest and Mediator of His people.
Earthly priest the New Testament Church has none. The very name is blotted out from the inspired history of the Church under the Gospel in its application to any office-bearer within its pale; and it is found, in so far as it can now be found on earth, only in connection with that spiritual and universal priesthood which belongs alike to all true believers, who have equally the privilege of free approach to God, equally the anointing which makes them His people, and equally the consecration that sets them apart for His service. In any other sense than this, there is no priest in the Christian Church on earth. The material sacrifice made by men has ceased, the incense kindled by men no longer burns, the atonement presented by men is no more offered up. The Gospel is a religion without a priest on earth, without a sacrifice, and without an altar. And yet there is a priesthood that belongs to the Christian Church still; and there is a Priest who yet discharges that office on behalf of His people. “We have a great High Priest that hath passed into the heavens for us,”—not a mortal and dying man, but one “of whom it is witnessed that He liveth for ever,”184—not a priest who offers, as did the sons of Aaron of old, the typical sacrifices of blood, or, as the ministers of Rome do now, the pretended sacrifices of an unbloody offering of bread and wine,—but one who, once for all, offered up a Divine yet human sacrifice for men,—not an intercessor, who, like the high priest under the law, entered into God’s presence with the blood of bulls and goats, nor yet like the priest of the Papacy with a consecrated wafer,—but an Intercessor, who, with His own precious and more than mortal blood, has passed into the presence of God,—an Intercessor, the Son of God, presenting the offering of Himself without spot or blemish, and pleading for us on the ground of His meritorious sacrifice. And this office which the Son of God now discharges in heaven for His Church passes not from Him to any other (ἀπαραβατον ἐχει την ἱερωσυνην).185 His is an unchangeable and undying Priesthood; and He ever liveth to make intercession for His people. The office which He sustains and discharges in heaven is His own incommunicable office, which none save Himself has either the right or the power to discharge. The one Priest that has made the sacrifice and offered it to God for the sins of many,—there was none that could share with Him in that mighty and mysterious work. The one Priest to stand between God and a sinful world,—there was none but the Son that could undertake so to approach unto the Most High. The one Priest to intercede with an offended God for the guilty,—there was none but the equal of the Father that could so plead. The one Priest to dispense unto men throughout all ages the blessings of redemption and grace,—there is none equal to the task but He “in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Alone in His office as in His nature, unapproachable in His work as in His greatness, “He abideth a Priest for ever,”—the ever-present and ever-living Mediator, who has no fellow to share in His priestly functions, and whose glory as Mediator He will not give unto another.
And what shall we say of those Church systems, Romanist and semi-Romanist, that give to mortal men that office of Priest which none can bear but the Son of God, and constitute sinners mediators on earth between their fellow-sinners and the Almighty? Such an encroachment upon His incommunicable office touches very nearly the honour of Christ. The assumption by men of His personal and inalienable prerogatives, inseparable from Himself as Mediator, is a dishonour done to Him in that very character in which He stands forth supreme and alone before the eyes of the universe. The very title of Mediator belongs in the Christian Church to none but One, and He the only-begotten Son of the Father. Our lips are now forbidden to name another Priest but Jesus. Even in the Old Testament Church, the name and the office of the Priest had something in them of awful and mysterious import, typical as they were of the fulness of the Gospel day, and of the greatness of the Gospel Mediator, and fenced about, as we know them to have been, with the solemn and irrevocable sentence of death upon those who should unwarrantably assume or encroach upon them. And still more awful are that name and office of Priest, now that in these latter days they have been sustained by the Son of God Incarnate, and mysteriously sanctified by the shedding of that more than mortal blood which was poured out on Calvary, and which He still day by day presents in heaven, as He continually pleads with the Father there. To stand between God and man, as Christ once stood amid the darkness of Calvary, was a work which none but He could do. To stand between God and man, as Christ now stands, a Priest in heaven no less than on earth, is a work which none but He can accomplish. To bear the burden of such an office now is as little competent to mortal man as it was to bear the burden of it in the Garden, or at the Cross. The name of Priest between God and man is Christ’s inalienable and incommunicable name,—whether He bears the anger of an offended Judge, or pleads with the compassion of a reconciled Father,—whether He makes, as He once did, atonement by sacrifice, or makes, as He now does, intercession by prayer. It is the sin above others of the Church of Rome, that it has assumed to itself that name of Priest, which none in heaven or in earth is worthy to bear but the Son of God, and that its ministers pretend to stand between the creature and the Creator in the exercise of His priestly office among men.186
[“In defending the monstrous doctrine of transubstantiation, Papists commonly begin with proving the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament, which no Protestant Church ever denied,—the dispute being, not as to the reality, but the mode of the presence of Christ; Papists holding that He is present in a corporal and carnal manner to the senses of all communicants, and Protestants, that He is present in a spiritual manner to the faith of worthy receivers. Having established the real presence, they then either assert, as Dr. Milner does, that Protestants do not hold it, and of course are in error upon this point; or acknowledging, as Bossuet does, that they do hold it, try to show that this requires them, in consistency, to admit the Popish doctrine of transubstantiation. The latter is the course commonly adopted by Popish controversialists.”—Cunningham, Notes on Stillingfleet’s Doct. and Pract. of the Church of Rome, p. 69.]↩︎
“Romanists, Lutherans, and Reformed,” says Dr. Hodge, in commenting on 1 Cor. 10:16, “all agree that a participation of the cup is a participation of the blood of Christ; and that a participation of the bread is a participation of the body of Christ. But when it is asked, what is the nature of this participation, the answers given are radically different. The Reformed answer negatively, that it is ‘not after a corporal or carnal manner;’ that is, it is not by the mouth, or as ordinary food is received. Affirmatively they answer, that it is ‘by faith,’ and therefore by the soul. This of course determines the nature of the thing partaken of, or the sense in which the body and blood of Christ are received. If the reception is not by the mouth, but by faith, then the thing received is not the material body and blood, but the body and blood as a sacrifice, i.e. their sacrificial virtue. Hence all Reformed Churches teach (and even the rubrics of the Church of England) that the body and blood of Christ are received elsewhere than at the Lord’s Table, and without the reception of the bread and wine, which in the Sacrament are their symbols and the organs of communication, as elsewhere the Word is that organ. Another point, no less clear as to the Reformed doctrine, is, that since the body and blood of Christ are received by faith, they are not received by unbelievers.” [It is remarkable, as the same author has pointed out in his Essays, p. 350, that the Anglican Confessions, the Articles of 1552 and 1562, are decidedly more Zwinglian in tone and expression with regard to the Lord’s Supper than the standards of any other of the Reformed, as distinguished from the Lutheran Churches. This comes out unmistakeably on contrasting the articles with the other Calvinistic confessions, among which they stand in Niemeyer’s collection. In whatever way it is to be accounted for, the fact is at least a curious one, especially considering the numerous High Church expositions, to which the formularies in question have been subjected.]↩︎
Matt. 18:20; 18:20; Rev. 3:20.↩︎
“Archdeacon Denison,” observes Dean Goode, in his very able and valuable work on the Nature of Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist, “supposes that, by calling the presence he holds a spiritual presence, he distinguishes it from the presence implied both by the doctrine of transubstantiation and consubstantiation. But they who hold these doctrines maintain as much as he does, that the presence is a spiritual presence; meaning that Christ’s body is really present in the form of a spirit (see pp. 593 f.) This interpretation of the phrase Archdeacon Denison adopts, and seems in fact acquainted with no other. He has thus turned the spiritual eating of Christ’s flesh, which our divines maintain, meaning an act of the soul, into the bodily eating of Christ’s flesh, present in the form of a spirit, and thus involved himself in all the absurdities pointed out by all our divines, who have treated dogmatically on the point, as attending such a notion. The controversy might perhaps be almost wholly summed up in one brief question: Is the reception of the true body and blood of Christ an act of the body or of the soul, of the mouth, or of faith? On one side, those who hold the doctrine of the presence of that body and blood in, with, or under the forms of the elements, maintain that the reception is an act of the body, the soul of the believer feeding upon them by faith, after that reception. On the other side it is maintained that there is no such presence in the consecrated substances themselves, and that the reception is an act of the soul, an act of faith. The term ‘real presence’ is used by both parties. By the former it is used to describe their doctrine as denoting an actual presence of the body of Christ, though in an invisible and immaterial form to the bodies of men, in the consecrated substances received into the mouth. The latter also use the phrase, inasmuch as they maintain that the presence of that body to the soul, to influence and invigorate it, is as real, spiritually considered, as a local presence of it to our bodies,—just as Augustin says that the woman that only touched the border of Christ’s garment, touched Him by faith more than the crowd that pressed upon Him; and as Bishop Jewel says, ‘The thing that is inwardly received in faith and in spirit is received verily and indeed.’”—Nat. of Christ’s Pres. in the Euch. Lond. 1856, vol. i. pp. vi. ix. 11–55, etc., vol. ii. 641–749, etc. Wilberforce, Doct. of the Holy Euch. 3d ed. pp. 76–95, 130–152, 221–231. Hodge, Princeton Ess. and Rev. New York 1857, pp. 358–370. [Turrettin, Op. loc. xix. qu. xxviii. Thomasius, Dogmatik, 3ter Th. 2te Abth. pp. 50 ff. 87–107. Bp. E. H. Browne, Expos. of the Thirty-nine Art. 8th ed. p. 680.]↩︎
Concilii Trident. Canones et Decreta, Sess. xxiii. cap. i.; De Instit. Sacerdot. Nov. Leg. Sess. xxii.; De Sacrificio Missae. can. ii. iii. Cf. Bellarm. Disput. tom. iii. Pars 2; De Eucharistiâ, lib. i. cap. ii., lib. iii. cap. i.–xi., lib. v. cap. xvii. xx; Amesius, Bellarm. Enerv. tom. iii. lib. iv. cap. i.–iii. ix. 16, 21.↩︎
[“The inspired prophets,” says Bishop Jolly (Scotch Episcopal), “foretell the happy accession of the Gentiles to the fold of Christ, and to the benefits of His sacrifice for the sins of the world, by means of a sacrifice and altar similar to what had prevailed among the Israelites, but of more extensive compass and reach.” (In proof of this, the author cites the usual texts—Isa. 19:19–23; 66:21; Jer. 33:18; and Mal. 1:11.) “Levi still continues, and is perpetuated in his sacerdotal ministry; the high priest, priests and Levites of the law still in effect subsisting in the Bishops—all considered as only one (!)—with the priests and deacons.” Christian Sacrifice in the Eucharist, 2d ed. pp. 24, 26. Wilberforce, On the Incarnation, p. 386, etc.]↩︎
[“In truth, the word Presbyter doth seem more fit, and, in propriety of speech, more agreeable than Priest with the drift of the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ.”—Hooker, Eccles. Pol. B. v. ch. lxxviii. 4.]↩︎
Rev. 1:6; 1 Pet. 2:5–9.↩︎
Heb. 4:14; 7:8.↩︎
Heb. 7:24.↩︎
Litton, Church of Christ, Lond. 1851, pp. 599–657. Garbett, Bampton Lectures, 1842, vol. i. pp. 169–228. [See also Luther’s vigorous and comprehensive treatment of the question of the universal priesthood of believers, which is a very favourite subject with him, in his three great works of the year 1520,—his Letter, “An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation,” his “De Captivitate Babylonicâ,” and “De Libertate Christianâ.” Calvin, Inst. lib. iv. cap. xviii. 13–17. Owen, Works, Goold’s ed. vol. xiii. pp. 19–28, vol. xix. pp. 3–259. Gerhard, Loci Theolog. loc. xxiii. cap. i. 14–16. Arnold, Fragment on the Church, 2d ed. pp. 15–46. Goode, Rule of Faith, Lond. 1842, vol. ii. pp. 166–170.]↩︎