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