corporeal presence, though without a transubstantiation of the elements. This has accordingly been acknowledged by Mosheim,' who was himself a Lutheran; and it should have precluded the formation of the compound epithet Zwingli- Calvinist, which you have applied to the sacramental doctrine of Calvin, blending apparently into one two opinions so essentially distinguished. 2 In your account of this sacrament, indeed, I perceive a recurrence to that doctrine of consubstantiation, by which the leader of the reformation essayed to free himself from the monstrous tenet of the church of Rome, though not so enlightened as to apprehend the notion of a spiritual presence. ،، We are content ourselves," you say,3“to receive the words, the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, etc. as they were used in the ancient church, from which our own preserved and restored them; not as denoting something absent, but as implying the spiritual unseen presence of that blessed body and blood, conveyed to us us through the unchanged though consecrated elements, unchanged in material substance, changed in their use, their efficacy, their dignity, mystically and spiritually." You object, accordingly, to Calvin, that his notion of a spiritual presence does not sufficiently connect the presence of Christ with the elements. 4 1 Eccles. Hist. vol. iv. pp. 366 367. ،، Not 2 Page 132. E Zwingli alone, but Calvin," you say, "have in their way so explained the mode of Christ's presence, as virtually to explain it away. With the fear of a weak faith, that would fain guard in a way of their own against man's giving God's glory to the outward elements, they transferred the presence of Christ simply to the believer's soul; and thus on their side destroyed the nature of a sacrament, depriving it of its inward fulness, as the Romanists, by the doctrine of transubstantiation, had removed the outward sign." To guard against this imputed deficiency, and at the same time to avoid the Romish error of transubstantiation, you assume, though by a manifest contradiction in terms, a spiritual presence of that which is, notwithstanding, corporeal. "All which Scripture says of this case, not discerning the Lord's body, guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, implies," you say," "an immediate, unseen presence of that body, which the wicked discern not, cannot partake of, but offend against, and so eat and drink judgment to themselves, in that they eat and drink the sacrament of so great a thing." From these words, however, I do not see that any other meaning can be fairly collected than this, that such persons, in treating with disrespect the outward and visible sign of the sacrament, incur the guilt of disregarding that inward and spiritual grace, which 5 Page 129. is vouchsafed to them in the sacrament, if faithfully received. Here seems to be, in truth, another instance of that too literal acceptation of terms, which has before appeared in your doctrine of justification, and which had led the Romanists into their doctrine of transubstantiation. And it is remarkable, that, in both instances, it has led you away from the church of England to the first efforts of the reformation in Germany, to the doctrine of Luther in this instance, as in the other to that of his contemporary, Osiander. You have, indeed, introduced the epithet spiritual, as if to distinguish your conception of the presence of the body of Jesus Christ in the eucharist from that of the German reformer; and the apostle Paul has certainly spoken of a spiritual, as distinguished from a natural, body. But the spiritual body, mentioned by the apostle, can be only that glorified body which, at the resurrection of the blessed, shall be fitted for the enjoyment of eternal happiness, incorruptible and immortal, and must still possess the inseparable qualities of natural bodies, by which they are limited in regard to place and time, and become objects of sense, or the doctrine of a resurrection after death would be reduced to unmeaning sounds. But if, as you say, "we are baptized in the church of England, and must belong to it," how are you at liberty to recur to the reformation of Germany for an alteration of her doctrines? You would, I suppose, plead that you have found these doctrines in the primitive church, not in the reformation of Germany. How are you, a member of the church of England, authorised to seek in antiquity the doctrines which you should hold? The church of England has published its own exposition of its doctrines, which has also been specially bound upon the clergy, as the accompanying condition of the holy orders to which they are admitted. To that exposition you, an individual clergyman, or in association with any number of clergymen, cannot make an addition; and the only allowable method of maintaining the correctness of your opinion, as you are a member of that church, is to prove that it presents a true and fair interpretation of our twenty-eighth article. In that article it is stated, 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." It is not said that the church acknowledges a spiritual unseen presence of the body of Christ in connexion with the sacramental bread; but simply that the bread is "to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same," a partaking of the body of Christ; "and likewise the cup is a partaking of the blood of Christ." It is afterwards stated, that "the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner; and," it is added, "the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the supper, is faith." It thus appears that the presence of Christ is by the terms of the article applied "simply to the believer's soul;" the very doctrine for which you have condemned Calvin, as destroying the nature of a sacrament, and to shun which, equally as the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation, you have judged it necessary to ascribe "an inward fulness" to the mere elements, which is in truth a revival of the consubstantiation of Luther. If the words of the article require any elucidation, to prove the strict spirituality of their signification, they have already received it in the concluding words of the declaration subjoined to the service of the holy communion: "the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one." It is, indeed, the distinguishing characteristic of the articles of the church of England, that their framers with great wisdom and moderation took a middle position between the extreme doctrines of the two grand sects of the reformation. Though generally respecting the confession of Augsburg, which contains the articles of the German reformation, they corrected it in regard to the eucharist, by substituting the spiritual communion of Calvin for Luther's imperfect and unintelligible doctrine of consubstantiation; and while |