The Lord’s Supper being observed in commemoration of
the death of Christ, which was the sacrifice offered for the sins of
men, the idea of a sacrifice was early conjoined with it; and finally,
it came to be regarded not merely as the symbol of a sacrifice, but in
some sense a sacrifice itself. There was also another cause which
contributed to this belief. It was the anxious wish of some of the
fathers to give to their religion a degree of splendour, which might
make a powerful impression upon the senses. Under the Jewish economy,
the numerous sacrifices that were offered, in a remarkable degree
riveted the attention; and, with reference to this, it became customary
to hold forth the Lord’s Supper as the great sacrifice in the Christian
church. This mode of speaking quickly gained ground; it is often used by
Cyprian, although he plainly understood it in a mystical sense; and the
ordinance of the supper was not unfrequently styled the eucharistical
sacrifice. It was very early the practice to hold up the elements,
previous to their being distributed, to the view of the people, probably
to excite in them more effectually devout and reverential feelings; and
this laid the foundation for that adoration of them which was, at a
subsequent period, as we shall soon find, extensively introduced.
For several ages, says Dr. Cook, the state of opinion respecting the
sacramental elements was, that they were memorials of Christ’s death,
but that, agreeably to his own declaration, his body and blood were, in
some sense, present with them. The questions, however, what was the
nature of that presence? and what were the physical consequences as to
the bread and the wine? however much we may conceive these points to
have been involved in the opinion actually held, or the language
actually used, seem not to have been for a long period much agitated,
or, at all events, not authoritatively decided, although the Roman
Catholic writers gladly and triumphantly bring forward the expressions
that were so often used from the earliest age, in support of the tenet
which their church at length espoused. But it was not to be supposed
that the curiosity of man would be permanently arrested at the threshold
of this most mysterious inquiry; and accordingly a definite theory, with
respect to it, was, in the ninth century, avowed, and zealously
defended. Pascasius Radbert, a monk, and afterward abbot of Corbey in
Picardy, published a treatise concerning the sacrament of the body and
blood of Christ, in which he did not hesitate to maintain the following
most extraordinary positions: “That after the consecration of the bread
and wine in the Lord’s Supper, nothing remained of these symbols but the
outward form or figure under which the body and blood of Christ were
really and locally present; and that this body so present was the
identical body that had been born of the Virgin Mary, had suffered on
the cross, and had been raised from the dead.” The publication of
notions so decidedly at war with all which human beings must credit,
excited, as might have been expected, astonishment and indignation; and,
accordingly, many writers exerted their talents against it. Among these
was the celebrated Johannes Scotus, who laid the axe to the root of the
tree, and, shaking off all that figurative language which had been so
sadly abused, distinctly and powerfully stated, that the bread and wine
used in the eucharist were the signs or symbols of the absent body and
blood of Christ. The light of reason and truth was, however, too feeble
to penetrate through the darkness which during this age was spread over
the minds and understandings of men. No public declaration, indeed, as
to the nature of the sacramental elements was made; and even the popes
did not interpose their high and revered authority with regard to it;
but there seems little doubt that the opinion of Pascasius was adopted
by the greater part of the western church, although it is not likely
that much deference was paid to his explanations of it. The question was
again agitated, and attracted more notice than it had ever before done,
in the course of the eleventh century. Several theologians,
distinguished for the period at which they lived, shocked with the
grossness and absurdity of the conversion which had been defended,
strenuously opposed it. Among these Berenger holds the most conspicuous
place, both on account of the zeal and ability which he displayed, and
the cruel and unchristian manner in which he was resisted. About the
commencement of the century, he began to inculcate that the bread and
wine of the eucharist were not truly and actually, but only
figuratively, and by similitude, the body and blood of Christ; and a
doctrine so rational obtained many adherents in France, Italy, and
England. He was, however, encountered by a host of opponents, numbers of
whom possessed the highest situations in the church; and the church
itself, either from having perceived that the doctrine which he laboured
to confute was grateful to the people, or, what is more likely, tended
to exalt the powers and to increase the influence and wealth of the
priesthood, declared against him, various councils having been
assembled, and having pronounced their solemn decrees in condemnation of
what he taught. The councils did not rest their hope of overcoming
Berenger upon the strength of the reasoning which they could urge
against him: they took a much more summary method, and threatened to put
him to death if he did not recant. At one synod held at Rome, under the
immediate eye of the pope, the fathers of whom it consisted so
successfully alarmed Berenger, that, not having sufficient vigour of
mind to stand firm against their cruelty, he confessed that he had been
in error, and subscribed the following declaration composed by one of
the cardinals: “The bread and wine which are placed on the altar are,
after consecration, not merely a sacrament, symbol, or figure, but even
the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is handled by
the hands of the priests, and broken and chewed by the teeth of the
faithful.” He had no sooner escaped from the violence which he had
dreaded, than he shrunk from the tenet to which he had been forced to
give his assent, and he again avowed his original sentiments; but he was
afterward turned aside from his integrity by the arts and the infamous
persecution of new councils, although he died adhering to the
spirituality of Christ’s presence in the eucharist. From this time the
strange opinion of Pascasius rapidly gained ground, being supported by
all the influence of popes and councils; but there had not yet been
devised a term which clearly expressed what was really implied in that
opinion. In the next century, the ingenuity of some theologian invented
what was wanting; the change that takes place on the elements after
consecration having been denominated by him transubstantiation. Still,
however, some latitude was afforded to those who interpreted the
epithet; but this in the thirteenth century was taken away, a celebrated
council of the Lateran, attended by no fewer than four hundred and
twelve bishops, and eight hundred abbots and priors, having, at the
instigation of Innocent the Third, one of the most arrogant and
presumptuous of the pontiffs, explicitly adopted transubstantiation as
an article of faith, in the monstrous form in which it is now held in
the popish church, and denounced anathemas against all who hesitated to
give their assent. The opposition which after this was made to a
doctrine so revolting to the senses and the reason, was very feeble,
insomuch that it may, in consequence of the decree of the Lateran
council, be considered as having become the established faith of the
western church. In the Greek church it was long resisted, and, indeed,
was not embraced till the seventeenth century, a time at which it might
have been thought that it could not have extended the range of its
influence.
After transubstantiation was thus sanctioned, a change necessarily took
place with respect to various parts of the service used in administering
the eucharist. That solemn service was now viewed as an actual sacrifice
or offering of the body of Christ for the sins of men, and the elevation
of the host was held forth as calling for the adoration and worship of
believers; so that an ordinance mercifully designed to preserve the pure
influence of the most spiritual and elevated religion, became the
instrument, in the hands of ignorant or corrupt men, of introducing the
most senseless and degrading idolatry. When the Reformation shook the
influence of the church, and brought into exercise the intellectual
faculties of man, the subject of the eucharist demanded and received the
closest and most anxious attention. It might have been naturally
supposed, that when Luther directed his vigorous mind to point out and
to condemn the abuses which had been sanctioned in the popish church, he
would not have spared a doctrine the most irrational and objectionable
which that church avows, and that he would have vindicated the holy
ordinance of the Lord’s Supper from the abomination with which it had
been associated. He did, indeed, object to transubstantiation, but he
did so with a degree of hesitation truly astonishing, although that
hesitation was displayed by many of the first reformers. He declared
that he saw no warrant for believing that the bread and wine were
actually changed into the body and blood of Christ; but he adhered to
the literal import of our Saviour’s words, teaching that his body and
blood were received, and that they were in some incomprehensible manner
conjoined or united with the bread and wine. It is quite evident, that
although this system got rid of one difficulty by leaving the testimony
of the senses as to the bread and wine unchallenged, yet it is just as
incomprehensible as the other, assumes as a fact what the senses cannot
discern, and involves in it difficulties equally repugnant to the
plainest dictates of reason. Powerful accordingly as most deservedly was
his ascendency, and great as was the veneration with which he was
contemplated, he was upon this point happily opposed; his colleague, the
celebrated Carlostadt, openly avowing, that when our Lord said of the
bread, “This is my body,” he pointed to his own person, and thus taught
that the bread was merely the sign or emblem of it. Luther warmly
resisted this opinion; Carlostadt was obliged, surely in little
consistency with the fundamental principle of Protestantism, in
consequence of having professed it, to leave Wirtemberg; and although it
procured some adherents, yet as it rested upon an assertion of which
there could be no proof, it was never extensively disseminated, and was
ultimately abandoned by Carlostadt himself. The discussion, however,
which he had commenced stimulated others to the consideration of the
subject, and led Zuinglius, who had previously often meditated upon it,
and Œcolampadius, two of the most distinguished reformers, to submit
to the public the doctrine, that the bread and wine are only symbols of
Christ’s body and blood, but that the body of our Lord was in heaven, to
which after his resurrection he had ascended. Luther composed several
works to confute the opinions of Zuinglius. At the commencement of the
controversy respecting the eucharist among the defenders of the
Protestant faith, there seem to have been only two opinions, that of
Luther, asserting that the body and blood of Christ were actually with
the bread and wine, and that of Zuinglius, Œcolampadius, and Bucer,
that the bread and wine were the emblems or signs of Christ’s body and
blood, no other advantage being derived from partaking of them than the
moral effect naturally resulting from the commemoration of an event so
awful and so deeply interesting as the crucifixion of our Redeemer.
Calvin soon published what may be regarded as a new view of the subject.
Admitting the justness of the interpretation of our Lord’s words given
by Zuinglius, he maintained that spiritual influence was conveyed to
worthy partakers of the Lord’s Supper, insomuch that Christ may be said
to be spiritually present with the outward elements. The sentiments of
this most eminent theologian made a deep impression upon the public
mind; and although the churches of Zurich and Berne long adhered to the
creed of Zuinglius, yet, through the perseverance and dexterity of
Calvin, the Swiss Protestant churches at length united with that of
Geneva in assenting to the spiritual presence of Christ in the sacrament
of the Lord’s Supper. In other countries, too, he saw many adhering to
what he had taught, and carrying to as great length as it could be
carried what, under his system, must be termed the allegorical language
which he recommended. The French Protestants in their confession thus
express themselves: “We affirm that the holy supper of our Lord is a
witness to us of our union with the Lord Jesus Christ, because that he
is not only once dead and raised up again from the dead for us, but also
he doth indeed feed and nourish us with his flesh and blood. And
although he be now in heaven, and shall remain there till he come to
judge the world, yet we believe that, by the secret and incomprehensible
virtue of his Spirit, he doth nourish and quicken us with the substance
of his body and blood. But we say that this is done in a spiritual
manner; nor do we hereby substitute in place of the effect and truth an
idle fancy and conceit of our own; but rather, because this mystery of
our union with Christ is so high a thing that it surmounteth all our
senses, yea and the whole order of nature, and in short, because it is
celestial, it cannot be comprehended but by faith.” Knox, who revered
Calvin, carried into Scotland the opinions of that reformer; and in the
original Scottish confessions, similar language, though somewhat more
guarded than that which has been just quoted, is used: “We assuredly
believe that in the supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with
us, that he becometh the very nourishment and food of our souls. Not
that we imagine any transubstantiation,--but this union and communion
which we have with the body and blood of Christ Jesus in the right use
of the sacrament, is wrought by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who by
true faith carrieth us above all things that are visible, carnal, and
earthly, and maketh us to feed upon the body and blood of Christ Jesus.
We most assuredly believe that the bread which we break is the communion
of Christ’s body, and the cup which we bless is the communion of his
blood; so that we confess and undoubtedly believe, that the faithful in
the right use of the Lord’s table so do eat the body and drink the blood
of the Lord Jesus, that he remaineth in them and they in him; yea, that
they are so made flesh of his flesh, and bones of his bones, that as the
eternal Godhead hath given to the flesh of Christ Jesus life and
immortality, so doth Christ Jesus’s flesh and blood, eaten and drunken
by us, give to us the same prerogatives.” The church of Scotland, which
did not long use this first confession, seems to have seen, in the
course of the following century, the propriety, if not of relinquishing,
yet of more cautiously employing the phraseology now brought into view;
for in the Westminster confession, which is still the standard of faith
in that church, there is unquestionably a great improvement in the style
which has been adopted in treating of this subject. In it the compilers
declare, that “the outward elements in the sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper duly set apart to the uses ordained by Christ, have such relation
to him crucified, as that truly, yet sacramentally only, they are
sometimes called by the name of the things they represent; namely the
body and blood of Christ, albeit in substance and nature they still
remain truly and only bread and wine, as they were before.” Then after
most powerfully exposing the absurdity of transubstantiation,
representing it as repugnant not to Scripture alone, but to reason and
common sense, they proceed: “Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of
the visible elements in this sacrament, do then also inwardly by faith,
really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually,
receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death:
the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally in,
with, or under the bread and wine, yet as really but spiritually present
to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves
are to their outward senses.” The church of England was in its first
reformation from popery inclined to adhere to the Lutherans; but in the
time of Edward the Sixth, a more correct and Scriptural view seems to
have been taken. In the thirty-nine articles, the present creed of the
English church, it is said of this ordinance: “The supper of the Lord is
not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among
themselves one to another, but rather it is a sacrament of our
redemption by Christ’s death; insomuch that, to such as rightly,
worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a
partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup is a partaking of
the blood of Christ.” This strong language is, however, in the same
article, so modified, as to show that all which was intended by it was
to represent the spiritual influence conveyed through the Lord’s Supper;
for it is taught, “that the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in
the supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner.” The idea of
Zuinglius, that the Lord’s Supper is merely a commemoration of Christ’s
death, naturally producing a moral effect upon the serious and
considerate mind, has been held by members of both the established
churches in Great Britain. It was vigorously defended, about the
beginning of last century, by Bishop Hoadly, in a work which he
entitled, “A plain Account of the Nature and Ends of the Sacrament of
the Lord’s Supper;” and it has more recently been supported by Dr. Bell,
in a treatise denominated “An Attempt to ascertain the Authority,
Nature, and Design of the Lord’s Supper.” The ingenuity of particular
individuals has been exerted in giving other peculiar illustrations of
the subject. Cudworth and Bishop Warburton, for example, represented the
sacrament of the supper under the view of a feast upon a sacrifice; but
such speculations have not influenced the faith of any large
denomination of Christians.
the death of Christ, which was the sacrifice offered for the sins of
men, the idea of a sacrifice was early conjoined with it; and finally,
it came to be regarded not merely as the symbol of a sacrifice, but in
some sense a sacrifice itself. There was also another cause which
contributed to this belief. It was the anxious wish of some of the
fathers to give to their religion a degree of splendour, which might
make a powerful impression upon the senses. Under the Jewish economy,
the numerous sacrifices that were offered, in a remarkable degree
riveted the attention; and, with reference to this, it became customary
to hold forth the Lord’s Supper as the great sacrifice in the Christian
church. This mode of speaking quickly gained ground; it is often used by
Cyprian, although he plainly understood it in a mystical sense; and the
ordinance of the supper was not unfrequently styled the eucharistical
sacrifice. It was very early the practice to hold up the elements,
previous to their being distributed, to the view of the people, probably
to excite in them more effectually devout and reverential feelings; and
this laid the foundation for that adoration of them which was, at a
subsequent period, as we shall soon find, extensively introduced.
For several ages, says Dr. Cook, the state of opinion respecting the
sacramental elements was, that they were memorials of Christ’s death,
but that, agreeably to his own declaration, his body and blood were, in
some sense, present with them. The questions, however, what was the
nature of that presence? and what were the physical consequences as to
the bread and the wine? however much we may conceive these points to
have been involved in the opinion actually held, or the language
actually used, seem not to have been for a long period much agitated,
or, at all events, not authoritatively decided, although the Roman
Catholic writers gladly and triumphantly bring forward the expressions
that were so often used from the earliest age, in support of the tenet
which their church at length espoused. But it was not to be supposed
that the curiosity of man would be permanently arrested at the threshold
of this most mysterious inquiry; and accordingly a definite theory, with
respect to it, was, in the ninth century, avowed, and zealously
defended. Pascasius Radbert, a monk, and afterward abbot of Corbey in
Picardy, published a treatise concerning the sacrament of the body and
blood of Christ, in which he did not hesitate to maintain the following
most extraordinary positions: “That after the consecration of the bread
and wine in the Lord’s Supper, nothing remained of these symbols but the
outward form or figure under which the body and blood of Christ were
really and locally present; and that this body so present was the
identical body that had been born of the Virgin Mary, had suffered on
the cross, and had been raised from the dead.” The publication of
notions so decidedly at war with all which human beings must credit,
excited, as might have been expected, astonishment and indignation; and,
accordingly, many writers exerted their talents against it. Among these
was the celebrated Johannes Scotus, who laid the axe to the root of the
tree, and, shaking off all that figurative language which had been so
sadly abused, distinctly and powerfully stated, that the bread and wine
used in the eucharist were the signs or symbols of the absent body and
blood of Christ. The light of reason and truth was, however, too feeble
to penetrate through the darkness which during this age was spread over
the minds and understandings of men. No public declaration, indeed, as
to the nature of the sacramental elements was made; and even the popes
did not interpose their high and revered authority with regard to it;
but there seems little doubt that the opinion of Pascasius was adopted
by the greater part of the western church, although it is not likely
that much deference was paid to his explanations of it. The question was
again agitated, and attracted more notice than it had ever before done,
in the course of the eleventh century. Several theologians,
distinguished for the period at which they lived, shocked with the
grossness and absurdity of the conversion which had been defended,
strenuously opposed it. Among these Berenger holds the most conspicuous
place, both on account of the zeal and ability which he displayed, and
the cruel and unchristian manner in which he was resisted. About the
commencement of the century, he began to inculcate that the bread and
wine of the eucharist were not truly and actually, but only
figuratively, and by similitude, the body and blood of Christ; and a
doctrine so rational obtained many adherents in France, Italy, and
England. He was, however, encountered by a host of opponents, numbers of
whom possessed the highest situations in the church; and the church
itself, either from having perceived that the doctrine which he laboured
to confute was grateful to the people, or, what is more likely, tended
to exalt the powers and to increase the influence and wealth of the
priesthood, declared against him, various councils having been
assembled, and having pronounced their solemn decrees in condemnation of
what he taught. The councils did not rest their hope of overcoming
Berenger upon the strength of the reasoning which they could urge
against him: they took a much more summary method, and threatened to put
him to death if he did not recant. At one synod held at Rome, under the
immediate eye of the pope, the fathers of whom it consisted so
successfully alarmed Berenger, that, not having sufficient vigour of
mind to stand firm against their cruelty, he confessed that he had been
in error, and subscribed the following declaration composed by one of
the cardinals: “The bread and wine which are placed on the altar are,
after consecration, not merely a sacrament, symbol, or figure, but even
the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is handled by
the hands of the priests, and broken and chewed by the teeth of the
faithful.” He had no sooner escaped from the violence which he had
dreaded, than he shrunk from the tenet to which he had been forced to
give his assent, and he again avowed his original sentiments; but he was
afterward turned aside from his integrity by the arts and the infamous
persecution of new councils, although he died adhering to the
spirituality of Christ’s presence in the eucharist. From this time the
strange opinion of Pascasius rapidly gained ground, being supported by
all the influence of popes and councils; but there had not yet been
devised a term which clearly expressed what was really implied in that
opinion. In the next century, the ingenuity of some theologian invented
what was wanting; the change that takes place on the elements after
consecration having been denominated by him transubstantiation. Still,
however, some latitude was afforded to those who interpreted the
epithet; but this in the thirteenth century was taken away, a celebrated
council of the Lateran, attended by no fewer than four hundred and
twelve bishops, and eight hundred abbots and priors, having, at the
instigation of Innocent the Third, one of the most arrogant and
presumptuous of the pontiffs, explicitly adopted transubstantiation as
an article of faith, in the monstrous form in which it is now held in
the popish church, and denounced anathemas against all who hesitated to
give their assent. The opposition which after this was made to a
doctrine so revolting to the senses and the reason, was very feeble,
insomuch that it may, in consequence of the decree of the Lateran
council, be considered as having become the established faith of the
western church. In the Greek church it was long resisted, and, indeed,
was not embraced till the seventeenth century, a time at which it might
have been thought that it could not have extended the range of its
influence.
After transubstantiation was thus sanctioned, a change necessarily took
place with respect to various parts of the service used in administering
the eucharist. That solemn service was now viewed as an actual sacrifice
or offering of the body of Christ for the sins of men, and the elevation
of the host was held forth as calling for the adoration and worship of
believers; so that an ordinance mercifully designed to preserve the pure
influence of the most spiritual and elevated religion, became the
instrument, in the hands of ignorant or corrupt men, of introducing the
most senseless and degrading idolatry. When the Reformation shook the
influence of the church, and brought into exercise the intellectual
faculties of man, the subject of the eucharist demanded and received the
closest and most anxious attention. It might have been naturally
supposed, that when Luther directed his vigorous mind to point out and
to condemn the abuses which had been sanctioned in the popish church, he
would not have spared a doctrine the most irrational and objectionable
which that church avows, and that he would have vindicated the holy
ordinance of the Lord’s Supper from the abomination with which it had
been associated. He did, indeed, object to transubstantiation, but he
did so with a degree of hesitation truly astonishing, although that
hesitation was displayed by many of the first reformers. He declared
that he saw no warrant for believing that the bread and wine were
actually changed into the body and blood of Christ; but he adhered to
the literal import of our Saviour’s words, teaching that his body and
blood were received, and that they were in some incomprehensible manner
conjoined or united with the bread and wine. It is quite evident, that
although this system got rid of one difficulty by leaving the testimony
of the senses as to the bread and wine unchallenged, yet it is just as
incomprehensible as the other, assumes as a fact what the senses cannot
discern, and involves in it difficulties equally repugnant to the
plainest dictates of reason. Powerful accordingly as most deservedly was
his ascendency, and great as was the veneration with which he was
contemplated, he was upon this point happily opposed; his colleague, the
celebrated Carlostadt, openly avowing, that when our Lord said of the
bread, “This is my body,” he pointed to his own person, and thus taught
that the bread was merely the sign or emblem of it. Luther warmly
resisted this opinion; Carlostadt was obliged, surely in little
consistency with the fundamental principle of Protestantism, in
consequence of having professed it, to leave Wirtemberg; and although it
procured some adherents, yet as it rested upon an assertion of which
there could be no proof, it was never extensively disseminated, and was
ultimately abandoned by Carlostadt himself. The discussion, however,
which he had commenced stimulated others to the consideration of the
subject, and led Zuinglius, who had previously often meditated upon it,
and Œcolampadius, two of the most distinguished reformers, to submit
to the public the doctrine, that the bread and wine are only symbols of
Christ’s body and blood, but that the body of our Lord was in heaven, to
which after his resurrection he had ascended. Luther composed several
works to confute the opinions of Zuinglius. At the commencement of the
controversy respecting the eucharist among the defenders of the
Protestant faith, there seem to have been only two opinions, that of
Luther, asserting that the body and blood of Christ were actually with
the bread and wine, and that of Zuinglius, Œcolampadius, and Bucer,
that the bread and wine were the emblems or signs of Christ’s body and
blood, no other advantage being derived from partaking of them than the
moral effect naturally resulting from the commemoration of an event so
awful and so deeply interesting as the crucifixion of our Redeemer.
Calvin soon published what may be regarded as a new view of the subject.
Admitting the justness of the interpretation of our Lord’s words given
by Zuinglius, he maintained that spiritual influence was conveyed to
worthy partakers of the Lord’s Supper, insomuch that Christ may be said
to be spiritually present with the outward elements. The sentiments of
this most eminent theologian made a deep impression upon the public
mind; and although the churches of Zurich and Berne long adhered to the
creed of Zuinglius, yet, through the perseverance and dexterity of
Calvin, the Swiss Protestant churches at length united with that of
Geneva in assenting to the spiritual presence of Christ in the sacrament
of the Lord’s Supper. In other countries, too, he saw many adhering to
what he had taught, and carrying to as great length as it could be
carried what, under his system, must be termed the allegorical language
which he recommended. The French Protestants in their confession thus
express themselves: “We affirm that the holy supper of our Lord is a
witness to us of our union with the Lord Jesus Christ, because that he
is not only once dead and raised up again from the dead for us, but also
he doth indeed feed and nourish us with his flesh and blood. And
although he be now in heaven, and shall remain there till he come to
judge the world, yet we believe that, by the secret and incomprehensible
virtue of his Spirit, he doth nourish and quicken us with the substance
of his body and blood. But we say that this is done in a spiritual
manner; nor do we hereby substitute in place of the effect and truth an
idle fancy and conceit of our own; but rather, because this mystery of
our union with Christ is so high a thing that it surmounteth all our
senses, yea and the whole order of nature, and in short, because it is
celestial, it cannot be comprehended but by faith.” Knox, who revered
Calvin, carried into Scotland the opinions of that reformer; and in the
original Scottish confessions, similar language, though somewhat more
guarded than that which has been just quoted, is used: “We assuredly
believe that in the supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with
us, that he becometh the very nourishment and food of our souls. Not
that we imagine any transubstantiation,--but this union and communion
which we have with the body and blood of Christ Jesus in the right use
of the sacrament, is wrought by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who by
true faith carrieth us above all things that are visible, carnal, and
earthly, and maketh us to feed upon the body and blood of Christ Jesus.
We most assuredly believe that the bread which we break is the communion
of Christ’s body, and the cup which we bless is the communion of his
blood; so that we confess and undoubtedly believe, that the faithful in
the right use of the Lord’s table so do eat the body and drink the blood
of the Lord Jesus, that he remaineth in them and they in him; yea, that
they are so made flesh of his flesh, and bones of his bones, that as the
eternal Godhead hath given to the flesh of Christ Jesus life and
immortality, so doth Christ Jesus’s flesh and blood, eaten and drunken
by us, give to us the same prerogatives.” The church of Scotland, which
did not long use this first confession, seems to have seen, in the
course of the following century, the propriety, if not of relinquishing,
yet of more cautiously employing the phraseology now brought into view;
for in the Westminster confession, which is still the standard of faith
in that church, there is unquestionably a great improvement in the style
which has been adopted in treating of this subject. In it the compilers
declare, that “the outward elements in the sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper duly set apart to the uses ordained by Christ, have such relation
to him crucified, as that truly, yet sacramentally only, they are
sometimes called by the name of the things they represent; namely the
body and blood of Christ, albeit in substance and nature they still
remain truly and only bread and wine, as they were before.” Then after
most powerfully exposing the absurdity of transubstantiation,
representing it as repugnant not to Scripture alone, but to reason and
common sense, they proceed: “Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of
the visible elements in this sacrament, do then also inwardly by faith,
really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually,
receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death:
the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally in,
with, or under the bread and wine, yet as really but spiritually present
to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves
are to their outward senses.” The church of England was in its first
reformation from popery inclined to adhere to the Lutherans; but in the
time of Edward the Sixth, a more correct and Scriptural view seems to
have been taken. In the thirty-nine articles, the present creed of the
English church, it is said of this ordinance: “The supper of the Lord is
not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among
themselves one to another, but rather it is a sacrament of our
redemption by Christ’s death; insomuch that, to such as rightly,
worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a
partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup is a partaking of
the blood of Christ.” This strong language is, however, in the same
article, so modified, as to show that all which was intended by it was
to represent the spiritual influence conveyed through the Lord’s Supper;
for it is taught, “that the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in
the supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner.” The idea of
Zuinglius, that the Lord’s Supper is merely a commemoration of Christ’s
death, naturally producing a moral effect upon the serious and
considerate mind, has been held by members of both the established
churches in Great Britain. It was vigorously defended, about the
beginning of last century, by Bishop Hoadly, in a work which he
entitled, “A plain Account of the Nature and Ends of the Sacrament of
the Lord’s Supper;” and it has more recently been supported by Dr. Bell,
in a treatise denominated “An Attempt to ascertain the Authority,
Nature, and Design of the Lord’s Supper.” The ingenuity of particular
individuals has been exerted in giving other peculiar illustrations of
the subject. Cudworth and Bishop Warburton, for example, represented the
sacrament of the supper under the view of a feast upon a sacrifice; but
such speculations have not influenced the faith of any large
denomination of Christians.