stand, but both overthrowing the nature of the Sacrament, we are forced to show that the words of Christ cannot admit of either.

SECTION II.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION UNSCRIPTURAL.

The first of these so-called explanations obliges those who hold it to deny that what we receive in Holy Com munion is in any real sense bread and wine.

The other obliges those who hold it to deny that what we receive in Holy Communion is in any real sense the Body and Blood of Christ.

The first of these explanations is that of the Church of Rome, which, in her authorized formularies, asserts in plain terms, that after consecration the bread is no longer bread in any sense, but the natural Body of the Saviour; only, in mercy to our weakness, and in order that we may not recoil from such food, God graciously permits it to retain all the appearances of bread, such as colour, shape, taste, &c. And so with the cup. The Church of Rome asserts that the cup contains the actual Blood of Christ, and no longer any wine at all; but that God, in compassion to man's weakness, suffers it to retain the appearance, and smell, and taste of wine.

Now, the Holy Spirit forbids us to hold any such view, for in the Scriptures inspired by Him, the bread is from first to last called "bread." "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ?" Again, the Apostle three times calls the bread after consecration bread, "As oft as ye eat this bread," i. e. the particular bread which has been consecrated, "ye do show the Lord's death till He come." Again, "whosoever shall eat this

bread . . . unworthily, shall be guilty of the body. . . of the Lord." Again, "Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread. (1 Cor. xi. 26-28.)

In all these cases, the thing spoken of as bread, and as so remaining bread, is that bread which has been consecrated.

And still more plainly are we taught that after consccration the wine in the cup remains in substance the same as before, for our Lord called it, after blessing or consecrating it, "This fruit of the vine.”

So that respecting each kind in this Sacrament, words are said or written from which we are bound to infer that both bread and wine remain, as to their natural substances, what they were before consecration.

But upon this view of the presence of Christ's Body and Blood I shall dwell no longer at present, as my concern in this book is not with those who hold a gross and carnal view, but with those who virtually deny any presence of Christ's Flesh and Blood in Holy Communion.

Let me, however, remind the reader that the Romish view of the presence of Christ's Body and Blood is devoid of all mystery. Its principle is strictly rationalistic, for it is an attempt to render the whole matter intelligible, and to bring it down to the level of human thought and reason. Transubstantiation, or the doctrine of the substance of the elements no longer remaining, but giving place to the actual Flesh and Blood of the Redeemer, turns the Sacrament into a miracle, in which the Almighty power of God suddenly substitutes one thing in its natural substance in the place of the natural substance of another thing.

According to this view the Holy Sacrament is not a mystery, but a miracle. The miracle may be surpassingly great, but it is perfectly intelligible. When once you ap

prehend the terms which describe it, you have not to ask another question about it.

If there is any difficulty about it, that difficulty does not attach to the apprehension of it, but to this-that God should require us, after such a carnal and earthly manner, to eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of Man. If He requires such a carnal and earthly feeding, then transubstantiation is a perfectly rational and intelligible explanation of the mode of Christ's presence to enable us to do so.'

SECTION III.

THE MERELY FIGURATIVE VIEW.

We have now to consider an error diametrically opposite to that of transubstantiation.

After the Reformation, persons calling themselves Evangelical believers broached the doctrine that the consecrated elements are to be accounted nothing more than figures, types, or emblems of flesh and blood not present, but absent; and that we feed on the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion, only in the same way as we may by a strong figure be said to feed on His Body and Blood, when we are moved by a sermon on His Atoning Sacrifice, or when we mentally contemplate His love in dying for us.

According to this view, the bread and wine are merely intended to refresh our memories as to the great fact of Redemption, and whilst partaking of them we are, by an act of the memory, to realize that Christ's | Body was broken, and that His Blood was shed for us upon the cross.

So that when our Saviour said, "Take, eat; this is

1 It has been suggested to me that the remarks upon Transubstantiation in this section are insufficient; particularly as some are endeavouring to prove that there is no real difference between the Churches of England and Rome on the mode in which the Body and Blood of Christ are present in the Eucharist.

As the persons who believe in the dogma of Transubstantiation

profess to hold it as being what the Church has ruled respecting the mode of Christ's presence, it will be needful to depart from the general plan of this publication (which is that of a continuous appeal to Scripture), and to show that the passages of Scripture which seem to imply that the bread and wine remain unchanged as to their substance have been so interpreted from the first by the Fathers of the Church; and also that many expressions in the most ancient Liturgies are inconsistent with any Theory of the Presence which implies the annihilation of the elements.

But, first of all, what is Transubstantiation? It is laid down by the Council of Trent to be this, that, by the words of consecration, the whole substance of the bread is converted into the substance of the Body of Christ, and the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His Blood: so that the bread and wine no longer remain in existence, but the Body and Blood of Christ take their place.

Now this is a physical explanation of what the Church of Eng. land receives as a mystery, and so as inexplicable; and being a rude and impertinent unveiling, as it were, of a deep mystery, itself requires explanations and suggests questions which tend inconceivably to lower the Christian's conception of the Eucharist. It introduces physical conceptions into a matter which is preeminently supra-physical, and local considerations respecting what is supra-local.

It suggests the hardest metaphysical questions into what is pre-eminently the domain of simple loving faith: such, for instance, as the very nature of substance itself.

It introduces unreality into the domain of truth, for the elements are held to be no longer what they seem to be.

It suggests degrading questions, which the enemies of all mystery and indeed of all Divine working in the Eucharist are not slow to ask, and which those who give occasion to them by adopting this gratuitously impertinent theory are bound to answer.

To take one: What becomes of the Eucharist if an animal eats it, which is very possible when the Eucharist is reserved?

To take a second (which is actually one of the questions in the Catechism of the Council of Trent): "Are bones, nerves, and whatsoever things pertain to the perfection of man really present here together with the Godhead? And the answer is in the affirmative.

Again, Transubstantiation requires at least three physical miracles.

The miracle by which the bread is transformed into flesh.

The miracle by which the "accidents," such as colour, taste, and smell, of bread and wine are preserved, whilst the substance vanishes; so that there is to our eyes no change of appear

ance.

And a third miracle, sometimes at least, is necessitated, which is the recreation of the substance of bread, and the withdrawal of the Body of Christ.

Now if there be any necessity laid upon those who desire to accept the words of Christ in their integrity to hold a dogma suggesting such questions and involving such consequences, then be it so the words of Jesus are to be believed and realized at all hazards.

But so far from their being any such necessity, the literal meaning of the words of Christ were held for above a thousand years in the Church before this mode of defining His presence was attempted to be imposed upon the consciences of believers. The reader may see in any work of any competent Anglican divine treating on this subject, a long list of passages from the Fathers (some of them reaching far into medieval times), not one passage of which would have been written if the Father in question had supposed that Transubstantiation was even an allowable opinion in the Church.

·

I shall now give some of these, all which the reader will find (cited for the very purpose for which I cite them) in the "Notes to a Sermon on The Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist,'" by Dr. Pusey, preached on the Second Sunday after Epiphany, 1853. I shall preface the extracts with the following passage from the Sermon itself:

In

"To receive literally, then, those words of our Lord, 'This is My body,' does not necessarily imply any absence, or cessation, or annihilation of the substance of the outward elements. taking them literally, we are bound to take equally in their plain sense His other words, in which He calls what He had just consecrated to be sacramentally His blood, 'this fruit of the vine;' or again, those other words of Holy Scripture, 'the bread which we break;' 6 as often as ye eat this bread;' whosoever shall eat this bread;' 'so let him eat that bread;' we are all partakers of that one bread;' Our blessed Lord, through those words, 'This is My body,' teaches us that which it concerns us to know,-His own precious gift, the means of union and incorporation with Himself, whereby He hallows us, nourishes our souls to life everlasting, reforms our nature, and conforms it to His own; recreates us to newness of life; binds and cements us to Himself as man; washes, beautifies, kindles our minds; strengthens our hearts; is a source of life within us, joining us to Himself our Life, and giving us the victory over sin and death. Yet He did not deny what Himself and Holy Scripture elsewhere seem in equally plain language to affirm."

The first early writer cited by Dr. Pusey in support of this is Irenæus. The extract, from the clearness of its teaching, and from the character of him who wrote it, and from the age in which it was written, seems almost to make the citing of any other witness superfluous. It runs thus :-

"Our meaning is in harmony with the Eucharist-and the Eucharist again affirms our meaning. And we offer to Him His own, carefully teaching the communication and union, and confessing the resurrection of the flesh and spirit. For as the bread