IV

Richard Field, one of the most famous and learned of post-Reformation English divines, was born at Hemel Hempstead in 1561. He was a member of Magdalen Hall, and later of Queen’s College, Oxford. He was lecturer of Lincoln’s Inn, Rector of Burghclere, and Prebendary of Windsor; and in 1610 was appointed Dean of Gloucester. In 1616 he died. The first four books of his work Of the Church were published in 1606; the fifth book appeared in 1610. A second edition considerably enlarged was issued posthumously in 1628. From allusions to the Eucharist in the course of this book, it appears that Field held that the bread and wine are changed in use at the consecration, so that they signify and exhibit and contain and communicate the body and blood of Christ; and that the Eucharist is a sacrificial commemoration of the passion and death of Christ like to our Lord’s presentation of Himself to God the Father in heaven.

“That body and blood which all true Christians do know to be mystically communicated to them in the Sacrament, to their unspeakable comfort.”

“The thing that is offered is the body of Christ, which is an eternal and perpetual propitiatory sacrifice, in that it was once offered by death upon the cross, and hath an everlasting and never-failing force and efficacy. Touching the manner of offering Christ’s body and blood, we must consider that there is a double offering of a thing to God. First, so as men are wont to do that give something to God out of that they possess, professing that they will no longer be owners of it, but that it shall be His, and serve for such uses and employments as He shall convert it to. Secondly, a man may be said to offer a thing unto God in that he bringeth it to His presence, setteth it before His eyes, and offereth it to His view, to incline Him to do something by the sight of it, and respect had to it. In this sort Christ offereth Himself and His body once crucified daily in heaven, and so intercedeth for us, not as giving it in the nature of a gift or present, for He gave Himself to God once, to be holy unto Him for ever, nor in the nature of a sacrifice, for He died once for sin, and rose never to die any more, but in that He setteth it before the eyes of God His Father, representing it unto Him, and so offering it to His view, to obtain grace and mercy for us. And in this sort we also offer Him daily on the altar in that, commemorating His death and lively representing His bitter passions endured in His body upon the cross, we offer Him that was once crucified and sacrificed for us on the cross, and all His sufferings, to the view and gracious consideration of the Almighty, earnestly desiring, and assuredly hoping, that He will incline to pity us and show mercy unto us for this His dearest Son’s sake, who in our nature for us, to satisfy His displeasure, and to procure us acceptation, endured such and so grievous things. This kind of offering or sacrificing Christ commemoratively is twofold, inward and outward: outward, as the taking, breaking, and distributing the mystical bread, and pouring out the cup of blessing, which is the Communion of the blood of Christ; the inward consisteth in the faith and devotion of the Church and people of God so commemorating the death and passion of Christ their crucified Saviour, and representing and setting it before the eyes of the Almighty, that they fly unto it as their only stay and refuge, and beseech Him to be merciful unto them for His sake that endured all these things, to satisfy His wrath, and work their peace and good.”

“We have altars in the same sort the fathers had, though we have thrown down popish altars; … we admit the Eucharist to be rightly named a sacrifice, though we detest the blasphemous construction the papists make of it.”

“All agree in this, that they understand such a mutation or change to be made that that which before was earthly and common bread by the words of institution, the invocation of God’s name and divine virtue, is made a Sacrament of the true body and blood of Christ, visibly sitting at the right hand of God in heaven, and yet after an invisible and incomprehensible manner present in the Church; and that the body and blood of Christ are in the Sacrament, and exhibited and given as spiritual meat and drink for the salvation and everlasting life of them that are worthy partakers of the same.”

“The true presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Sacrament, the exhibition of them to be the food of our souls, and such a change of the elements in virtue, grace, and power, of containing in them, and communicating to us, Christ’s body and blood, as the nature of so excellent a Sacrament requireth.”

An interesting feature of Field’s treatment of the Eucharist is his contention at length that the canon of the Mass as used in the mediæval Church did not involve any doctrine contrary to that held since the Reformation.