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REFORMATION SETTLEMENT

CHAPTER I

THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST

THE Primate has in his recent Charge given us, with admirable clearness, an exposition of the various aspects of the doctrine of the Eucharist which, in his opinion, have been held at different times in Eastern and Western Christendom.

I. There is, first, the Zwinglian view, according to which the Sacrament, in fact, differs from prayer in degree, but not in kind.' His Grace admits that this view softens, purifies, elevates, kindles;' but it is only as a memory of a past sacred event, kindling devotion as a Trafalgar or Waterloo banquet may kindle patriotism. This view, excellent as far as it goes, he rejects as inadequate.

II. There is, next, the doctrine of a mysterious gift, uniting us to Christ in a special manner and degree, giving new power, new cleansing, new life,

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and even new insight into spiritual things, leavening the whole being with a heavenly infection. This gift is something far beyond the natural working of our own minds.' And 'this mysterious gift,' which theologians call the res sacramenti, results from the consecration of the bread and wine in the way ordained by the Church. It is, therefore, independent of the communicant.

Between the Zwinglian doctrine and this 'there can be no question at all that the Church holds the latter,' in common with the early Christians' universally, and with the Greek and other Churches in the East' to-day, as well as with the Romans and the Lutherans.'

III. But now comes a subdivision of opinion. The Roman Church defines the manner of the Presence by the word Transubstantiation, which the Church of England rejects as going beyond our Lord's revelation, and overthrowing the nature of a sacrament' in addition. Others, like Hooker, 'maintain that the Real Presence should not be looked for in the consecrated elements, but in the receivers.' The Church certainly teaches Hooker's doctrine,' which is indeed inseparable from belief in a Real Presence. Yet Hooker's doctrine does not exhaust the Church's teaching, which implies 'the further doctrine that there is a Real Presence in some way attached to the elements at the time of consecration and before the reception."

If there be no Real Presence until the reception, it may be asked what is the effect of consecration, and may

not the consecration be omitted? The answer is obvious. On the theory that the Real Presence is bestowed in the reception and not before, then the effect of the prayer of consecration is to attach to the elements, not a presence, but a promise. The bread has been blessed according to our Lord's command, and the Lord's promise is that when the communicant partakes of the bread, so blessed, he shall be a partaker of the Lord's Body.

But this does not, even on the admission of the Judicial Committee in the Bennett case, 'exclude the other opinion, namely, that in some mysterious way there is a Presence attached to the elements from the moment of their consecration.' 'It is difficult,' the Primate thinks, if not impossible, really to distinguish between this doctrine and the Lutheran doctrine commonly called Consubstantiation, and it is important that it should be clearly understood that it is not unlawful to hold it and to teach it within the Church of England.'

That is, I believe, an accurate epitome of what the Archbishop of Canterbury has laid down as the doctrine of the Real Presence sanctioned by the Church of England. It has evoked a good deal of criticism, more particularly in regard to the doctrine of Hooker and that of Consubstantiation. On these two points I shall have something to say presently. But there is so much misconception on the general subject that it may be useful to explain, as far as possible, what the doctrine of the Real Presence connotes in the minds of those who hold it, without any attempt or desire to define the mode of the

Presence. My own belief, based on considerable experience, is that the controversy is largely a verbal one, some denying what others do not affirm. The truth is that human language is totally inadequate to express the verities of the spiritual world. It is always more or less symbolical, and never comes up to the reality. It is the clothing, not the skin, of thought, and never, even at its best, fits its contents accurately. This is true of ordinary ideas. But all that relates to the being and mode of working of the infinite Creator must necessarily be beyond the compass of mundane speech. St. Paul tells us that when he was 'snatched up into Paradise' in some mysterious way above his comprehension he heard unutterable utterances, which it is impossible for man to put into speech' (äpρητа ῥήματα, ἃ οὐκ ἐξὸν ἀνθρώπῳ λαλῆσαι). Who can doubt that the Nicene Creed itself, with all the skilled precision bestowed on its terminology by the united experts of Christendom in the most supple and plastic of languages, gives but a most imperfect expression to the truths which it enshrines? And thus it sometimes happens that what seem to be contradictory statements are in fact only different aspects of the same truth. Hooker's language about the Eucharist is, I believe, a case in point. His meaning is by no means exhausted by the oftquoted sentence :—

The real presence of Christ's most blessed Body and Blood is not therefore to be sought for in the Sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the Sacrament.

An isolated quotation may bear a very different meaning when restored to its context. Let me therefore quote what precedes and follows this famous passage in Hooker :

The bread and cup are His Body and Blood because they are causes instrumental upon the receipt whereof the participation of His Body and Blood ensueth. For that which produceth any certain effect is not vainly nor improperly said to be that very effect whereunto it tendeth. Every cause is in the effect which groweth from it. Our souls and bodies, quickened to eternal life, are effects the cause whereof is the Person of Christ. His Body and Blood are the true wellspring out of which it floweth. So that His Body and Blood are in that very subject whereunto they minister life, not only by effect or operation, even as the influence of the heavens is in plants, beasts, men, and in every thing which they quicken, but also by a far more Divine and mystical kind of union, which maketh us one with Him even as He and the Father are one.

Then follows the passage in dispute, which Hooker proceeds to explain and amplify. And what he is plainly anxious to show is that the Sacraments have in themselves no inherent virtue; that they were ordained for a purpose, and that they have no efficacy beyond or apart from that purpose; that the Eucharist was ordained in order to incorporate us into Christ, and that we have no right to look for Christ's presence in the Sacrament except in connection with that purpose.

The fruit of the Eucharist is the participation of the Body and Blood of Christ. There is no sentence of Holy