V

In 1658 a very remarkable book called Considerationes Modestœ et Pacificœ Controversiarum de Justificatione, Purgatorio, Invocatione Sanctorum, Christo Mediatore, et Eucharistia was published in London. It was the work of William Forbes, a native of Aberdeen. He travelled abroad for some years, refused the professorship of Hebrew at Oxford, and held several offices, including that of Principal, in Marischal College at Aberdeen. He was consecrated Bishop of Edinburgh when that see was founded by Charles I. in February, 1634, but died shortly after his consecration on 12th April, 1634. The book entitled Considerationes Modestœ et Pacificœ is of the nature of an Eirenicon. All the subjects treated are handled with great learning and insight; and the author shows a valuable power of grasping the positive aspects of doctrine. The concluding part is on the Eucharist. Bishop Forbes rejects the Zwinglian doctrine of a merely figurative presence. He asserts that those who communicate worthily receive the body and blood of Christ really, though spiritually and imperceptibly; and that Christ is really present in the Sacrament. He maintains that Transubstantiation is not of faith, and that it is contrary to the teaching of Holy Scripture and of the fathers; but allows that neither Transubstantiation nor Consubstantiation is heretical, and argues that our limited knowledge does not warrant rash statements as to their impossibility. He commends the adoration of our Lord in the Sacrament. He denies that the Sacrament is a sacrifice of such a kind as involves destruction; but asserts that it is a sacrifice and is propitiatory in the sense of impetrating the propitiation which Christ has already made.

“The opinion of Zwingli, which the divines of Zurich tenaciously maintained and defended, namely, that ‘Christ is present in the Eucharist only by the contemplation of faith; that there is no place to be given here to a miracle, since we know in what way Christ is present to His Supper, namely, by the quickening Spirit, spiritually and efficaciously; that sacramental union consists wholly in signification,’ etc., is by no means to be approved, since it is most clearly contrary to Scripture and the common opinion of all the fathers.”

“The holy fathers … most firmly believed that he who worthily receives these mysteries of the body and blood of Christ really and actually receives into himself the body and blood of Christ, but in a certain spiritual, miraculous, and imperceptible way.”

“The opinion of those Protestants and others seems to be most safe and most right, who think, nay, who most firmly believe that the body and blood of Christ are really and actually and substantially present and taken in the Eucharist, but in a way which the human mind cannot understand, and much more beyond the power of man to express, which is known to God alone and is not revealed to us in the Scriptures, a way indeed not by bodily or oral reception, but not only by the understanding and merely by faith, but in another way known, as has been said. to God alone, and to be left to His omnipotence.”

“In the Supper by the wonderful power of the Holy Ghost we invisibly partake of the substance of the body and blood of Christ, of which we are made recipients no otherwise than if we visibly ate and drank His flesh and blood.”

“As regards Transubstantiation, many Protestants very perilously and too rashly deny that God is able to convert the bread substantially into the body of the Lord. For Almighty God can do many things above the understanding of all men, nay, even of the angels. All indeed allow that what implies contradiction cannot be done. But inasmuch as in the particular case it is not clear to any one what the essence of each thing is, and therefore what implies or does not imply a contradiction, it is certainly a mark of great rashness, on account of the weakness of our blind understanding, to prescribe limits to God, and stubbornly to deny that He can do this or that by His omnipotence.”

“Transubstantiation is not of faith, nay, is contrary to the Scriptures and the more ancient fathers, yet is by no means to be condemned as heretical.”

“The reasons by which the more rigid Protestants seem to themselves to have proved most clearly that each doctrine, both that of the Romanists and that of the Lutherans, is contrary to the articles of the faith and therefore heretical, impious, and blasphemous, have been abundantly refuted both by the maintainers of these opinions and by others who are anxious for the unity of the Church.”

“Take away the abuse of the modern Roman Church in reserving the host, which has been consecrated once for all, in ciboria for processions and theatrical pomp, as a thing which, not less apart from Communion than in Communion itself or in relation to it, is the real and substantial body of Christ, and continues such as long as the species endure (on the corruption of which, if so be, the body and blood of the Lord cease to be there); and this controversy may be removed without condemning the practice of the ancient Church as to reservation, which was then usual.”

“Gigantic is the error of the more rigid Protestants who deny that Christ is to be adored in the Eucharist with any but inward and mental adoration, and contend that He is not to be adored with any outward rite of worship, as by kneeling or some other like position of the body. Almost all these hold wrong views about the presence of Christ the Lord in the Sacrament, who is present in a wonderful but real manner.”

“As regards the first assertion of Bellarmine about venerating the symbols with a kind of lesser worship, we admit it. But as regards his saying that the adoration of supreme worship, though in itself and properly it is due and given to Christ, yet belongs also to the symbols insofar as they are apprehended as one with Christ Himself whom they contain, and whom they cover and conceal like garments, it is false and is contrary to the opinion of many others.”

“The holy fathers say very often that the body of Christ itself is offered and sacrificed in the Eucharist, as is clear from almost numberless places, but not in such a way that all the properties of a sacrifice are properly and actually preserved, but by way of commemoration and representation of that which was performed once for all in that one only sacrifice of the cross whereby Christ our High Priest consummated all other sacrifices, and by way of pious prayer whereby the ministers of the Church most humbly beseech God the Father on account of the abiding Victim of that one sacrifice, who is seated in heaven on the right hand of the Father and is present on the Holy Table in an ineffable manner, to grant that the virtue and grace of this perpetual Victim may be efficacious and healthful to His Church for all the necessities of body and soul.… Assuredly, in every real sacrifice that is properly so called it is necessary that the victim should be consumed by a certain destructive change, as Romanists themselves universally admit. Rut in the Mass the body of Christ is neither destroyed nor changed, as is clear.”

“The more moderate Romanists rightly affirm that the Mass is not only a sacrifice of thanksgiving and service or honour, but that it can also be called hilastic or propitiatory in a sound sense, not indeed as if it effected the propitiation and forgiveness of sins, for that pertains to the sacrifice of the cross, but as impetrating the propitiation which has already been made, as prayer, of which this sacrifice is a kind, can be called propitiatory.”

“The sacrifice which is offered in the Supper is not merely of thanksgiving, but is also propitiatory in a sound sense, and is profitable to very many not only of the living but also of the departed.”