Another contemporary of Bull and Beveridge was Bishop Ken. Thomas Ken was born in 1637. He was a Fellow of New College, Oxford, and a Fellow of Winchester. After holding several ecclesiastical preferments, he was consecrated Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1685. He was one of the “seven bishops” imprisoned in the Tower in 1688 for refusing to proclaim the “Declaration for Liberty of Conscience” ordered by King James II. On the accession of William and Mary he refused to take the new oath of allegiance, and was in consequence deprived of his see in 1691. He was opposed to the continuance of a Non-juring body by the consecration of bishops, and in 1701 suggested that he and Bishop Lloyd of Norwich, the only two deprived bishops then living, should resign their canonical claims on the sees of Bath and Wells and Norwich. In 1702 he declined the offer of Queen Anne to restore to him the bishopric of Bath and Wells; and in 1703, when Bishop Kidder, the occupant of the see, was killed by an accident, and it was offered to George Hooper, then Bishop of St. Asaph, he urged Hooper to accept, and ceded his rights to him. Ken died in 1711. His Manual of Prayers for the Use of Winchester Scholars, first published in 1674, shows his belief in a “mysterious presence” of the body and blood of Christ “in the Holy Sacrament,” and that the body and blood are communicated to those who receive worthily.
“I know, O my God, that I must look through the outward elements, and fix my faith on that which they signify, and which is the inward and invisible grace, even Thy own blessed body and blood, which is verily and indeed taken and received of the faithful in the Lord’s Supper.
“But tell me, O Thou whom my soul loveth, how canst Thou give us Thy flesh to eat?
“Lord, Thou hast told me that Thy words, they are spirit and they are life, and are therefore not carnally to be understood; Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.
“I believe Thy body and blood to be as really present in the Holy Sacrament, as Thy divine power can make it, though the manner of Thy mysterious presence I cannot comprehend.
“Lord, I believe that the bread that we break, and the cup that we drink, are not bare signs only, but the real communication of Thy body and Thy blood, and pledges to assure me of it; and I verily believe that, if with due preparation I come to Thy altar, as certainly as I receive the outward signs, so certainly shall I receive the thing signified, even Thy most blessed body and blood, to receive which inestimable blessing, O merciful Lord, do Thou fit and prepare me.”
“I adore Thee, O blessed Jesu, my Lord and my God, when I consider the benefits which through Thy mercy we receive by Thy Holy Sacrament.
“Glory be to Thee, O Lord, who there makest Thy own body and blood to become our spiritual food to strengthen and refresh our souls.
“Glory be to Thee, O Lord, who by this heavenly food dost mystically unite us to Thyself; for nothing becomes one with our bodies more than the bodily food we eat, which turns into our very substance; and nothing makes us become one with Thee more than when Thou vouchsafest to become the very food of our souls.
“Glory be to Thee, O Lord, who by this immortal food dost nourish our souls to live the life of grace here, and dost raise us up to life everlasting hereafter. Lord, do Thou evermore give me this bread.”
In his An Exposition on the Church Catechism, or the Practice of Divine Love, first published in 1685, Ken wrote:—
“Glory be to Thee, O adorable Jesus, who under the outward and visible part, the bread and wine, things obvious and easily prepared, both which Thou hast commanded to be received, dost communicate to our souls the mystery of divine love, the inward and invisible grace, Thy own most blessed body and blood, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in Thy Supper, for which all love, all glory be to Thee.
“O God incarnate, how the bread and wine, unchanged in their substance, become Thy body and Thy blood, after what extraordinary manner Thou, who art in heaven, art present throughout the whole sacramental action to every devout receiver, how Thou canst give us Thy flesh to eat and Thy blood to drink, how Thy flesh is meat indeed and Thy blood is drink indeed, how he that eateth Thy flesh and drinketh Thy blood dwelleth in Thee and Thou in him, how he shall live by Thee and be raised up by Thee to life eternal, I can by no means comprehend, but I firmly believe all Thou hast said, and I firmly rely in Thy omnipotent love to make good Thy word, for which all love, all glory, be to Thee.
“I believe, O crucified Lord, that the bread which we break in the celebration of the holy mysteries is the communication of Thy body, and the cup of blessing which we bless is the communication of Thy blood, and that Thou dost as effectually and really convey Thy body and blood to our souls by the bread and wine as Thou didst Thy Holy Spirit by Thy breath to Thy disciples, for which all love, all glory, be to Thee.”
A devotional book entitled A Week’s Preparation towards a Worthy Receiving of the Lord’s Supper was published anonymously in 1679. It became a standard book of the time, had passed through twenty-five editions before 1700, and reached a fifty-first edition in 1751. The meditations and prayers which it contains are of great devotion and fervour; they assume that those who partake of the Sacrament worthily obtain the benefits of the life and death of Christ and spiritually receive His body and blood.
“O my Jesus, Thou savedst me by Thy blood! In this Thy Sacrament Thou art set forth crucified, and I behold Thy wounds, from whence by the hand of faith I pluck forth these comfortable words of life, ‘My Lord and my God’. My God! Mine, for Thou hast partaken of my human nature, and Thou hast made me to partake of Thy divine nature; Thou hast taken upon Thee my flesh, and Thou hast communicated unto me of Thy Spirit. In this Thy Holy Sacrament Thou communicatest body and blood, flesh and spirit, Thy whole manhood, yea, Thy very Godhead too.… The bread and wine I eat and drink is not more really my food than Thou, my Jesus, in whom I believe and trust, art my God.… The faithful communicant doth receive that which the Word found, to wit, preservation unto life everlasting both to his body and soul. For the humbled sinner, believing in the Incarnation, death, and passion of Jesus, and receiving this bread and wine in token that God hath given Him for our sins, and relying on Him as his only Redeemer; this doth convey to such a penitent believer all the benefits of the birth and the death of Jesus. And, as the bread and wine, being received, do communicate to us all the strength and comfort that they contain, so the worthy receiver, by apprehending and embracing a crucified Saviour, draws persuasions of his pardon and encouragement to his graces, and so spiritually eats the flesh of Christ, and drinks His blood.… Christ, to show His love towards us, has given us of His own bread, and of His own cup; nay, He hath given us His own body as bread, His own blood as wine, for the nourishment of our souls.”
“O most good and gracious Jesus, Thou before Thy sufferings and death didst bequeath a most excellent gift unto Thy children as a pledge of Thy love, leaving for us Thy most sacred body to be our meat, and Thy most precious blood to be our drink. O Thou true food of my soul, receive me, who am to receive Thee, quicken me with Thy Spirit, feed me with Thy flesh, satisfy me with Thy blood, and let me receive life from Thee to act and to live unto Thee.”
“I am not worthy, O Lord, I am not worthy to come into Thy presence, much less to eat at Thy Table the flesh of the sacrificed Lamb.… Vouchsafe, good Lord, I humbly beseech Thee, so to work in my heart by Thy grace and Holy Spirit that I may worthily receive these heavenly mysteries to the reviving and refreshing of my sinful soul; that I may purge out the old leaven of my corrupt and wicked nature by hearty and unfeigned repentance; that I may spiritually eat Christ’s flesh, and drink His blood by a true and lively faith; that I may effectually feed upon the merits of His Incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension by virtue of Thy sweet and comfortable promises made unto us in the word of Thy Holy Gospel; finally, that I may be partaker of all the fruits and benefits of that most precious and perfect sacrifice which He in the body of His flesh offered up once for all upon the cross for the redemption and salvation of mankind.”
“O Almighty and eternal God, what worthy praise can I give unto Thee, … for feeding me this day with the precious body and blood of Jesus Christ.”
In 1681 was published a book entitled The Whole Duty of a Communicant, being Rules and Directions for a Worthy Receiving the Most Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper which was ascribed to John Gauden, who had been appointed Dean of Booking in 1641, was made Bishop of Exeter in 1660 and Bishop of Worcester in 1662, and died in 1662. This book also appears to have been much used, since it reached a seventh edition in 1698. The following passages show the doctrinal beliefs of the writer:—
“We deny not a true and real presence and perception of Christ’s body and blood in the Sacrament, which in reality even they of the other gross opinion do not imagine is to sense, but to faith; which perceives its objects as really according to faith’s perception as the senses do theirs after their manner. I believe, therefore, that in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper there are both objects presented to and received by a worthy receiver. First, the bread and wine in their own nature and substances distinct do remain as well as their accidents, which are the true objects of our sense.… Also there are spiritual, invisible, and credible, yet most true and really present, objects of faith, the body and blood of Christ, that is, Christ Jesus Himself.”
“I adore Thee, O most righteous Redeemer, that Thou art pleased to convey unto my soul Thy precious body and blood, with all the benefits of Thy death and passion; I am not worthy, O Lord, to receive Thee, but let Thy Holy and Blessed Spirit, with all His purities, prepare for Thee a lodging in my soul, where Thou mayest unite me to Thyself for ever.”
Anthony Horneck, a native of Germany, was born in 1641 and came to England twenty years later. He became a member of Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1663, and an incorporated M.A. of the University of Oxford in the following year. He held the benefices of All Saints, Oxford, and of Dolton in Devonshire, and was Prebendary of Exeter and Westminster and Wells, and preacher at the Savoy. He died in 1697. His devotional works, The Fire of the Altar, first published in 1683, and The Crucified Jesus, first published in 1686, were popular and influential in the Church of England in the latter part of the seventeenth century and the early years of the eighteenth, and went through many editions. The acts of spiritual communing with our Lord at the time of Communion are of intense feeling; his belief was clearly a form of Virtualism. He rejects Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation, explains the word “body” in the sentence “This is My body” as meaning a sign or figure or memorial of the body, and interprets the eating of Christ’s body to be effected by the subjective acts of the soul.
“Transubstantiation is a thing which neither the Scripture nor the primitive Church did ever acknowledge; and, there being nothing in the word of God to establish it, and being besides contrary to all sense and reason, we must be first given up to believe a lie, as some men it seems are (2 Thess. 2:11), before we can give assent unto it.… As these words ‘This is My body’ do not infer a Transubstantiation, so neither do they import a Consubstantiation, a word as hard as the former, and which have been taken up by the Lutheran Protestants to express their opinion that Christ’s glorified body is in, with, and under the element of the bread in the Holy Sacrament, or hid under it, a doctrine which they ground upon the ubiquity of Christ’s body, or being everywhere or in all places, which privilege they fancy was communicated to Christ’s human nature by its being joined with the divine.… Christ is present in the Holy Sacrament by His power and influence and gracious assistances, which sincere believers feel in their worthy receiving; but from hence it can never be made out that His body therefore is hid under the bread.… In what sense the bread in this Sacrament is the body of Christ, we may easily guess, if we explain Scripture by Scripture, and compare this expression with others not unlike it. 1. ‘This is My body,’ that is, This is a significant emblem or sign or figure of My body; or this bread, thus broken, represents My body, that shall be crucified for the sins of the world.… 2. ‘This is My body,’ that is, This bread is My body as the roasted lamb in the great festival of the Jews was the passover, that is, the memorial of it.… 3. That Christ’s Church is often called His body none can be ignorant that peruses these passages, Col. 1:18, Eph. 5:23, Eph. 4:12, 1 Cor. 10:16, 1 Cor. 12:27; and though that sense we have already alleged be the principal thing aimed at in these words, ‘This is My body,’ yet to show how little need there is to have recourse either to Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation, rather than run into such absurdities, we might very well say that the bread is an emblem or adumbration of Christ’s body, that is, of Christ’s Church.”
“From what hath been said it is easy to conclude what it is to eat Christ’s body in this Holy Sacrament. 1. It is to contemplate Christ’s crucified body, and the cause and reasons of that crucifixion, to view all this with our warmest thoughts, to make serious reflections on His death and agonies, and the bitterness of His passion.… 2. To eat Christ’s body is to apply the benefits of His death and passion to our souls, and to rejoice in them as our greatest treasure.… 3. To make this crucified body a persuasive and motive to holiness and obedience.”
“In all writings, both ancient and modern, about this Holy Sacrament there are various rhetorical expressions used which we must not understand literally, but as flowers strewed upon the hearse of our blessed Redeemer, and as ornaments of speech, to represent the greatness of the mystery. There is nothing more common among the fathers than to call the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper the body and blood of Christ, and the cup the vessel in which Christ’s blood is contained; and many times Christ is said to stand at the altar, and all the holy angels standing at the Table; that Christ offers His body to be bruised by the people’s teeth, and dyes them red with His blood; that the elements are changed, and become the body and blood of the Lord Jesus; and that after prayer and thanksgiving they are no more what they were before; and a thousand such expressions besides; from which the Church of Rome presently infers that they believed a Transubstantiation or a conversion of the elements into the substance of Christ’s body and blood, than which nothing can be more absurd; for, if a man compare these sayings of the ancients with other passages in their writings, it plainly appears that they meant no more than that the elements are representative of all this, and that the expressions they use are nothing but rhetorical flourishes to raise the people’s affections, and to render their devotions brisk, lively, fervent, affectionate, and vigorous. We do the same at this day when we tell you that you come to feast with Christ; that in this Sacrament He is crucified before your eyes; that you may see His blood run down; that you hear Him groan under the burden of your sins; that you see here His body hanging on the cross; that you are to stand under the tree, and catch the precious gore as balsam for your souls; all which is true in a spiritual sense, and we do it to make you more attentive, and set this passion out in such lively characters that your souls may be touched and enlivened; and, as things represented in brighter colours strike the senses more, so we speak of these things as if they were visible and perceptible by the outward eyes, that your souls may more cheerfully feed on the kernel that lies in those shells, and with greater life embrace the glorious benefits, which come to you by that precious sacrifice.”