SUPPER***


Transcribed from the 1877 Hatchards edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org





                               THE DOCTRINE
                                    OF
                            THE LORD’S SUPPER.


                               AS TAUGHT BY

                          The Church of England.

                                * * * * *

                                  BY THE
                              REV. E. HOARE,

         VICAR OF TRINITY, TUNBRIDGE WELLS, AND HONORARY CANON OF
                               CANTERBURY.

                                * * * * *

                                 LONDON:
                          HATCHARDS, PICCADILLY.
                                  1877.

                                * * * * *




INTRODUCTION.


IT is a very easy thing to make a confident assertion, and such
assertions produce a greater effect on many minds than the most careful
and best-established proof.  Thus it is not at all an uncommon thing to
hear it asserted with the utmost confidence that what is termed ‘The
Doctrine of the Real Presence,’ is taught by the Church of England; and
the result is that a considerable number of persons believe in the
assertion, and place reliance on those who make it, as if they, and they
only, were the true expositors of the Church’s doctrine.  In many cases a
blind consent is blindly given.  The Scriptures are not investigated
because the point is supposed to have been settled by the Church, and the
documents of the Church are not studied because the doctrine is regarded
as beyond the reach of doubt; whereas, if the real groundwork of that
opinion were examined, it would be found to consist in nothing more than
confident assertion.  But those who are loyal to the Church of England
ought not to be satisfied with any such representation of its teaching.
The issues at stake are far too serious, and, now that after three
hundred years of faithful service the Church of England is entering on
such a sifting time as she has never yet experienced, it is only fair to
her that her own language should be patiently heard, and her own teaching
honestly examined.  This, then, is the object of this address.  I am not
about to discuss the teaching of Scripture, but of the Church of England;
and my desire is to ascertain by the careful and candid examination of
her own documents whether there is, or is not, any authority for the
assertion that she teaches what is commonly called ‘The Doctrine of the
Real Presence.’  In doing this, our first business is to ascertain what
is the real point at issue, and this is not so easy a task as it may
appear, as amongst those who maintain that doctrine there are no
authoritative documents on the subject to which we can refer.  But, I
believe, I am perfectly safe in arranging the three principal points at
issue under the three heads of the Real Presence, Adoration, and
Sacrifice; and these three I propose to investigate in that order.




CHAPTER I.
THE REAL PRESENCE.


THIS lies at the foundation of the whole controversy, and to this our
first and chief attention must be directed.  Now, there can be no doubt
on the minds of those who take the Word of God as their true and only
guide that it is the sacred privilege of the Children of God to feed by
faith on the most precious body and blood of our blessed Saviour.  I am
not now discussing in what way we feed on Him, or whether His words in
the 6th chapter of St. John refer, or do not refer, to the Sacrament of
the Lord’s Supper.  It is my own belief that they do not; but that is not
the present question.  My present concern is with the fact that, however
we explain His words, we are taught by our Lord Himself that such a
feeding is essential to our life: ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.’  Nor can there be any
doubt that in 1 Cor. x. 16, 17, the partaking (_κοινωνία_) of the body
and blood of Christ is connected with the Lord’s Supper.  I am not now
making any assertion as to the way in which it is connected, for that is
the great point to be determined.  All that I now say is that there
clearly is a connexion, for the words are: ‘The cup of blessing which we
bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?  The bread which
we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?  For we being
many, are one bread and one body; for we are all partakers of that one
bread.’

Two things, therefore, seem plain from Scripture: that there is a feeding
on the body and blood of our most blessed Saviour, without which none can
live, and that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is in some way or other
connected with that sacred privilege.  Thus far, I presume, we are all
agreed.  But as to the nature of the connexion, there is the widest
possible divergence.  Rome teaches that by the act of consecration the
bread and wine become Christ Himself; that the bread and wine cease to be
bread and wine, and that both the bread and wine become each of them a
whole Christ, body, soul, and divinity.  The advocates for the doctrine
of the Real Presence in the Church of England differ, as far as I can
understand them, from Rome in one respect, and one only; namely, that
they maintain that the bread and wine do not cease to have the accidents
of bread and wine, so that they may still be spoken of as bread and wine,
although they have become the body and blood of Christ, or rather Christ
Himself.  This slight difference is of no practical importance in the
discussion, and appears to have been introduced only to avoid the
conclusion drawn from those texts which speak of the bread as bread, and
the wine as wine, after consecration.  The practical conclusion is the
same, viz. that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself is in the bread and in the
wine.  This is what is meant by the expression, ‘The real objective
presence.’  It means that He is present in the elements as a real
independent object, without any reference to the character of the
recipient, as a book is an independent object in the hand of the man who
holds it, without any reference to his state of mind or character.  In
opposition to this, it is maintained by us who cling to the great
principles of the Reformation, that there is no change whatever in the
bread and wine, that they are solemnly set apart for sacramental use by
means of consecration, but that they remain exactly the same as before
consecration, in substance, and accidents, and everything else.  That the
most precious body and blood of Christ is altogether spiritual food, and
that the soul feeds on it by faith, and faith alone.  That there are two
perfectly distinct kinds of food, the one material, and the other
spiritual; the one for the body, the other for the soul; and two
perfectly distinct actions; the one of the body eating the bread, the
other of the soul feeding on Christ Himself by faith.  That the material
food is an emblem of the spiritual; and that the act of eating by the
body is an emblem of the act of feeding by the soul; and the manner of
the two are so far connected by sacramental appointment, that when we
receive the emblem we are warranted to expect the enjoyment of the
reality.  When the body feeds materially on the one, the believer’s heart
feeds spiritually on the other; but the two acts are distinct, and the
one must not be confounded with the other.  From this statement it will
appear that the point at issue is, whether the precious body and blood of
our blessed Lord and Saviour are in the bread and in the wine, so as to
be eaten and drunk whenever, and by whomsoever, the elements are
received, or whether the spiritual food described in this expression is
received by the soul alone without being localised in the consecrated
elements.  And my object is to endeavour to ascertain which of these two
systems is taught by the Church of England.  That dear old Church is at
this present time in a position to call forth the deepest anxiety and the
most earnest prayers of all those who love the truth.  Some are
endeavouring to destroy it, some to corrupt it, and some to uphold it in
its integrity.  In such a state of things it is not fair that the Church
should be held responsible for the assertions even of its friends.  Its
own voice ought to be heard, and its own clear statement carefully
studied.  I have no intention, therefore, of endeavouring to confuse the
subject by a mass of quotations from collateral writers, but will turn at
once to those authoritative documents for which the Church has made
herself responsible.  These are the Articles, Catechism, Liturgy, and
Homilies; and these, if it please God, we will examine in order.

                                * * * * *

_The Articles_.—There are seven Articles—xxv. to xxxi.—bearing more or
less upon the subject; and from these we may gather the real teaching of
our Church.  The first of them, the twenty-fifth, refers to sacraments in
general.  ‘Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of
Christian men’s professions, but rather they be certain sure witnesses
and effectual signs of grace, and God’s good will towards us, by the
which He doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also
strengthen and confirm our faith in Him.’  In other words, before men
they are badges of our profession, and before God they are signs or
witnesses by which God works invisibly in the soul.  In this definition
there is no idea of any change in the substance of the sign.  The sign is
not described as being changed into the thing signified, but as being
accompanied by it, so that when the believer with the hand and lip
visibly receives the sign, it pleases God in His own great grace
invisibly to feed the soul and confirm the faith.  The visible sign and
the invisible gift are therefore kept quite distinct.  The one is
mercifully granted in connexion with the other, but never said to be
incorporated with it, for the sign would cease to be a sign if it were
changed into the thing signified.  With this definition of a Sacrament,
the 27th Article—which describes that of baptism—exactly agrees.  It
describes it not merely as a badge of a Christian man’s profession, but
also declares that it is a sign and means of grace.  ‘A sign of
regeneration or new birth;’ a ‘means whereby as by an instrument, they
that receive baptism rightly (1) are grafted into the Church; (2) the
promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God
by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed; (3) faith is confirmed,
and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God.’  But no change is here
described as taking place in the water.  It is nowhere said to be changed
into regeneration.  The gifts described are God’s direct gifts to the
soul, and are never said to be infused into the element of water.  The
water is sanctified, or set apart for sacramental use, but the
consecration produces no change in its quality or substance.  The new
birth is not in the water, but is the act of the Holy Spirit moving in
the soul.  The minister on earth visibly administers the visible sign to
the body, and we trust that God in heaven invisibly bestows the invisible
gift on the soul.  It is not my business now to discuss the connexion
between the visible sign and the invisible gift.  It is enough for my
present purpose to point out that the one is not changed into the other,
but that the water remains water, or, in other words, that the sign does
not cease to be a sign, as it would do if it were changed into the thing
signified.

Now it would be strange indeed if after having first given so perfectly
clear a general definition of the general nature of a sacrament, and
having so clearly defined baptism, in perfect harmony with that general
definition, our Church were afterwards to teach a doctrine respecting the
Lord’s Supper, altogether at variance with the general definition, and
with her own explanation of the other sacrament.  The Church of England
includes both sacraments in one definition, and in that definition she
never alludes to any change in the sign or elements.  In the sacrament of
baptism, no one, I believe, would for a moment assert the existence of
such a change, even if there were no special Article on the subject.  Our
conclusion therefore must be, that, according to the Church’s teaching,
there is no change in the elements in the Lord’s Supper.  As the water in
baptism remains water still, so the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper
remain what they were before, plain, simple bread and wine; dedicated, it
is true, to the Lord’s service, but altogether unchanged by such
dedication.

But we are not left to depend altogether on such conclusions, for there
is a special Article on the subject, viz., the twenty-eighth.  In the
first clause we find the Lord’s Supper described as both sacraments were
described in the twenty-fifth, and baptism in the twenty-seventh, as a
sign and means of grace.  ‘The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of
the love which Christians ought to have among themselves one to another;
but rather is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ’s death, inasmuch
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 of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.’  Having gone
thus far in harmony with their general definition, and having quoted the
words from 1 Cor. x., our Reformers were clearly brought to the
consideration of the very point under discussion, viz., in what way does
the soul of the believer partake in the Lord’s Supper of the body and
blood of his blessed Lord and Saviour?  This question they boldly and
clearly answer, declaring in the first place, what is not, and in the
second place, what is, the truth respecting it.  They first declare that
it is not by transubstantiation.  ‘Transubstantiation (or the change of
the substance of bread and wine), in the Supper of the Lord cannot be
proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture,
overthroweth the nature of a sacrament’ (because if the sign is changed
into the thing signified, it ceases to be a sign), ‘and hath given
occasion to many superstitions.’  It would be fruitless to endeavour to
trace the sophistry with which those who desire reconciliation of the
Church of England with Rome, have endeavoured to avoid the clear
statements of this pungent Article.  But their conclusion is one which is
such an outrage on common sense that it would be utterly ludicrous if it
were not inexpressibly melancholy, to see men who, we hope, are devout
men, embracing it.  We are now deliberately told that the Article was not
directed against the doctrine of transubstantiation at all, but against a
change for which the name of ‘transaccidentation’ has been recently
adopted.  Now I know we live in an age of discovery, but it is difficult
for any person of plain common sense, to believe in such a discovery as
this.  No one who knows anything of the history of the Reformation can be
ignorant of the intense eagerness with which the doctrine of
transubstantiation was discussed.  In books, in sermons, in public
disputations, it was argued again and again, by all the most learned
theologians of the day.  The speculations of the schoolmen as well as the
writings of the early fathers were largely quoted.  The very distinction
now revived between substance and accident was carefully discussed.  And
men felt so deeply the wide difference between the teaching of Rome and
the teaching of Scripture that they could not yield even to save their
lives.  The stake was before them as the certain issue of their
confession, and liberty and honour was the promised reward if only they
would yield.  But they had that deep conviction of the deadly error of
the doctrine of transubstantiation that they counted it a privilege
rather to die than to deny the truth of God.  And I put it to any man of
common sense and common honesty: is it possible to believe that, after
all, there was no real difference between Rome and the Reformers?  That
Bonner and Gardiner, and Latimer, Cranmer, and Ridley did, in fact,
agree; that there might have been a little confusion in some of their
minds as to the difference between substance and accident, so that they
used the word transubstantiation without knowing its real meaning, but
that in all essential points they were agreed, so that the fires of
Smithfield were lighted all by mistake, and men who were burned agreed
with them that burned them.  Clever men and learned men may put forth
such a theory, but common sense revolts against it; and all thinking men
must agree that, if this be the only theory on which it can be
maintained, the doctrine of the Real Objective Presence is not the
doctrine of the Church.  Plain honest men will be ready to cry ‘shame’ on
those who by theological sophistry are endeavouring to evade the plain
and incontestable evidence of the great facts of the Reformation.  The
Reformers knew well enough what Rome meant by ‘transubstantiation,’ and
the twenty-eighth Article is decisive on the point that there is no such
change in the Supper of the Lord.

But the error having been denied, the next clause of the Article is
employed to assert the truth: ‘The body of Christ is given, taken, and
eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner; and the
means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is
Faith.’  It is most important to observe that word ‘only,’ for