ceived by the faithful, and therefore implies that it is here. He says, 'as amid the apparent identity of this teaching, each fresh oracle enounces some fresh portion of the whole truth, so also does this; that his flesh and blood in the sacrament shall give life ; not only because they are the flesh and blood of the Incarnate Word, who is life, but also because they are the very flesh and blood which were given and shed for the life of the world; and are given to those for whom they had been given. This is said yet more distinctly in the awful words whereby he consecrated for ever elements of this world to be his body and blood.' Here it is distinctly affirmed that the very flesh and blood which were given and shed 1800 years ago on Calvary, are now given to those for whom they had been given : i. e. to the whole world; for the Dr. himself says ، they were given and shed for the life of the world.' Since then Christ died for all; according to Dr. Pusey, his flesh and blood are given to the whole human race; which is not true in fact. But in p. 14, he says, ‘that the eternal word, who is God, having taken to him our flesh, and joined it indissolubly with himself, and so, where his flesh is, there he is, and we receiving it (i. e. his flesh) receive him, and receiving him are joined on to him through his flesh to the Father; and he dwelling in us, dwell in him, and with him in God.' Since all who receive his flesh receive him, and dwell in him and with him in God, and his flesh is given to all men, having been given for all men, it follows that ALL men dwell in him and with him in God the absurdity of which is too clear to need : comment. These, my Lord, will be found, I believe, all the important variations which have taken place in those parts of our present service which relate to the eucharist; and the spirit in which these have been made, is with one exception, viz. the substitution of 'corporal' for 'real and essential' presence, in the protestation at the end of the communion-service, entirely opposed to any notion of Christ's being present in or with the elements, and evidently agrees with the doctrine of the real intercommunion of the believer with his Lord, in his own institution, not externally but internally, not by receiving Him in or through or with or by the elements, but by faith after a heavenly In the words of Hooker, the and spiritual manner. real presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not therefore to be sought for in the sacrament, And Saviour's words but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament. this is my body 'drink ye all of blood of the New this,' then followeth, this is my Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins.' I see not which way it should be gathered by the words of Christ, when and where the bread is his body or the cup his blood, but only in the very heart and soul of him who receiveth them. As for the sacraments, they really exhibit but for ought we can gather out of that which is written of them, they are not really, nor do really contain in themselves that grace which with them or by them it pleaseth God to bestow.' * If on all sides it is confessed that the grace of baptism is poured into the soul of man, that by water we receive it, although it be neither seated in the water nor the water changed into it, what should induce men to think that the grace of the eucharist must needs be in the eucharist, before it be in us that receive it? The fruit of the Eucharist is the participation † of the body and blood of Christ. There is no sentence of Holy Scripture which saith, that we cannot by this sacrament be made partakers of his body and blood, except they be first contained in the sacrament, or the sacrament converted into them. ""This is my body, and this is my blood," being words of promise, sith we all agree, that by the sacrament Christ doth really and truly in us perform his promise, why do we vainly trouble ourselves with so fierce contentions, whether by consubstantiation, or else by transubstantiation the sacrament itself be first possessed with * Hooker. Eccl. Pol. Book V. Chap. LXVIII. No. 6. † κοινωνια. 1 Cor. x. 16. Erroneously rendered by some Communication,' to favour the notion of its being given by the Priest to the Communicant. Christ or no? A thing which can no way either further or hinder us, howsoever it stand, because our participation of Christ in this sacrament dependeth on the co-operation of his omnipotent power, which maketh it his body and blood to us, whether with change or without alteration of the element, we need not greatly to care nor inquire.' Archbishop Secker has well stated the Church's doctrine in his Lectures on her Catechism. He says, having quoted St. John's Gospel, vi. 48, 53-55, where our Saviour declares, that he is the bread of life, that his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood drink indeed: that whoso eateth the one and drinketh the other, hath eternal life and that without doing it, we have no life in us; But this, if understood literally, would prove not that the bread in the sacrament was turned into his flesh, but that his flesh was turned into bread: and, therefore, it is not to be understood literally, as indeed he himself gives us notice: the flesh profiteth nothing: the words which I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are life (verse 63): it is not the gross and literal, but the figurative and spiritual eating and drinking; the partaking by a lively faith of a union with me, and being inwardly nourished by the fruits of my offering up my flesh and blood for you, that alone can be of benefit to the soul.'* And as this is plainly the sense in which he says * Archbishop Secker's Lectures, pp. 412, 413. Oxon. 1804. that his flesh is meat indeed and his blood drink indeed, so it is the sense in which the latter part of the third answer of our Catechism (upon the Lord's Supper) is to be understood; that "the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper:" words intended to show that our Church as truly believes the strongest assertions of Scripture concerning this sacrament, as the Church of Rome doth; only she takes more care to understand them in the right meaning, which is, that though in one sense all communicants equally partake of what Christ calls his body and blood-i. e. the outward signs of them : yet in a much more important sense, the faithful only, the pious and virtuous receiver eats his flesh, and drinks his blood; shares in the life and strength derived to men from his incarnation and death; and, through faith in him, becomes, by a vital union, one with him; a member, as St. Paul expresses it, of his flesh and of his bones, certainly not in a literal sense, which yet the Romanist might as well assert (and Dr. Pusey does assert-Sermon, p. 11), as that we eat his flesh in a literal sense but in a figurative and spiritual one. In appearance the sacrament of Christ's death is given to all alike: but verily and indeed, in its beneficial effects, to none beside the faithful. Even to the unworthy communicant he is present, as he is wherever we meet together in his name: but in a better and more gracious sense to the worthy |