VIII

One result of the Eucharistic controversy which arose in consequence of the publication of the Plain Account may be seen in the various works about the Eucharist from the pen of Dr. Daniel Waterland. Waterland was born in 1683, became Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1713, was subsequently Canon of Windsor and Archdeacon of Middlesex, and held other preferments. He died in 1740. Before the out-break of the controversy occasioned by the publication of the Plain Account he had in 1730 published three tracts entitled Remarks upon Dr. Clarke’s Exposition of the Church Catechism; The Nature, Obligation, and Efficacy of the Christian Sacraments Considered; and A Supplement to the Treatise on the Nature, Obligation, and Efficacy of the Christian Sacraments. In these tracts the nature of the Holy Eucharist was necessarily in view; but they did not contain any complete or detailed consideration of it. The controversy excited by the Plain Account led to Dr. Waterland delivering his Charge on The Doctrinal Use of the Christian Sacraments Considered in 1736, and to his writing the elaborate treatise, A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist as laid down in Scripture and Antiquity, which appeared in 1736. He continued the treatment of the same subject in the Charges on The Christian Sacrifice Explained, The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained, and Distinctions of Sacrifice, delivered in 1738, 1739, and 1740. In the treatise and in the Charges the doctrines of the presence and of the sacrifice are considered with great seriousness, thoroughness, and learning. The arguments both of the author of the Plain Account and of such theologians as Johnson and Brett are kept well in view. The conclusions accepted throughout are the same as those in the latest position of Cranmer, namely, that those who communicate worthily receive, not Christ’s body and blood, but the virtue and grace of them; and that the sacrificial character of the Eucharist is completely described when there is said to be a remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice, a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and the oblation of the lives of the communicants. Waterland explicitly rejects the “Romanist,” “Lutheran,” “Calvinist,” and “Zwinglian” opinions about the presence, and also that of Johnson; and in his careful enumeration of the sacrificial characteristics of the Eucharist, which he calls “a true and proper sacrifice,” he does not include the presentation to God the Father of the body and blood of our Lord. The main features of his teaching may be seen in the following quotations:—

“Whatever God is once pleased to sanctify by His more peculiar presence, or to claim a more special property in, or to separate to sacred uses, that is relatively holy as having a nearer relation to God; and it must of course be treated with a reverence and awe suitable.… The thrones, or sceptres, or crowns, or presence-rooms of princes are, in this lower sense, relatively sacred; and an offence may be committed against the majesty of the sovereign by an irreverence offered to what so peculiarly belong to him.… The things are in themselves just what they before were; but now they are considered by reasonable creatures as coming under new and sacred relations, which have their moral effect, insomuch that now the honour of the divine majesty in one case, or of royal in the other case, becomes deeply interested in them. Let us now apply these general principles to the particular instance of relative holiness supposed to be conveyed to the symbols of bread and wine by their consecration. They are now no more common bread and wine (at least not during this their sacred application), but the communicants are to consider the relation which they bear, and the uses which they serve to.”

“Come we then directly to consider the words, ‘This is My body,’ and ‘This is My blood’. What can they, or what do they mean?

“1. They cannot mean that this bread and this wine are really and literally that body in the same broken state as it hung upon the cross, and that blood which was spilled upon the ground 1700 years ago. Neither yet can they mean that this bread and wine literally and properly are our Lord’s glorified body, which is as far distant from us as heaven is distant; all sense, all reason, all Scripture, all antiquity, and sound theology reclaim against so wild a thought.

“2. Well, then, since the words cannot be understood literally, or with utmost rigour, they must be brought under some figure or other, some softening explication, to make them both sense and truth.

“3. … There appears to be something very solemn and awful in our Lord’s pointed words, ‘This is My body,’ and ‘This is My blood’. Had He intended no more than a bare commemoration or representation, it might have been sufficient to have said, ‘Eat this bread broken,’ and ‘Drink this wine poured out,’ in remembrance of Me and My passion, without declaring in that strong manner that the bread and wine are His body and blood, at the same time commanding His disciples to take them as such. We ought to look out for some as high and significant a meaning as the nature of the thing can admit of, in order to answer such emphatical words and gestures.

“4. Some, receding from the letter, have supposed the words to mean, this bread and this wine are My body and blood in power and effect, or in virtue and energy; which is not much amiss, excepting that it seems to carry in it some obscure conception either of an inherent or infused virtue resting upon the bare elements, and operating as a mean, which is not the truth of the case; excepting also that it leaves us but a very dark and confused idea of what the Lord’s body and blood means in that way of speaking, whether natural or sacramental or both in one.

“5. It appears more reasonable and more proper to say that the bread and wine are the body and blood, namely, the natural body and blood, in just construction put upon them by the Lawgiver Himself, who has so appointed, and who is able to make it good. The symbols are not the body in power and effect, if those words mean efficiency; but, suitable dispositions supposed in the recipient, the delivery of these symbols is, in construction of Gospel law, and in divine intention, and therefore in certain effect and consequence, a delivery of the thing signified. If God hath been pleased so to order that these outward elements, in the due use of the Eucharist, shall be imputed to us, and accepted by Him, as pledges of the natural body of our Lord, and that this constructional intermingling His body and blood with ours shall be the same thing in effect with our adhering inseparably to Him as members or parcels of Him; then those outward symbols are, though not literally, yet interpretatively and to all saving purposes, that very body and blood which they so represent with effect; they are appointed instead of them.”

“Sacramental or symbolical feeding in the Eucharist is feeding upon the body broken and the blood shed under the signs and symbols of bread and wine; the result of such feeding is the strengthening or perfecting our mystical union with the body glorified; and so, properly speaking, we feed upon the body as dead, and we receive it into closer union as living, and both in the Eucharist when duly celebrated.…

“1. To the Romanists, who plead warmly for the very body and blood in the Eucharist, we make answer that we do receive the very body and blood in it and through it as properly as a man receives an estate and becomes possessed of an inheritance by any deeds or conveyances.…

“2. To the Lutherans, who seem to contend for a mixture of the visible elements with the body invisible, we have this to reply, that we readily admit of a symbolical delivery, or conveyance, of one by the other.…

“3. To the Calvinists of the ancient stamp, if any such remained now, we might reply that, though we eat not Christ’s glorified body in the Eucharist, yet we really receive it, while we receive it into closer mystical union than before.…

“4. To the Zwinglian Sacramentarians, old Anabaptists, Socinians, and Remonstrants, who will not admit of any medium between local corporal presence and no presence at all as to beneficial effects, no medium between the natural body itself and mere signs and figures, to them we rejoin that there is no necessity of falling in with either extreme, because there is a medium, a very just one, and where indeed the truth lies. For, though there is no corporal presence, yet there is a spiritual one, exhibitive of divine blessings and graces; and, though we eat not Christ’s natural glorified body in the Sacrament, or out of it, yet our mystical union with that very body is strengthened and perfected in and through the Sacrament by the operation of the Holy Spirit.…

“5. To those who admit not that the natural body of Christ is in any sense received at all, but imagine that the elements, as impregnated or animated with the Spirit, are the only body received, and are made our Lord’s body by such union with the Spirit, I say, to those we make answer that the union of the Spirit with the elements (rather than with the persons) appears to be a gross notion and groundless; and, if it were admitted, yet could it not make the elements in any just sense our Lord’s body, but the notion would resolve itself into a kind of impanation of the Spirit for the time. Besides, that the consequence would be that the Lord’s body is received by all communicants, worthy or unworthy, which is not the truth of the case. Wherefore, to avoid all such needless suppositions and needless perplexities, let us be content to teach only this plain doctrine, that we eat Christ crucified in this Sacrament as we partake of the merits of His death; and, if we thus have part in His crucified body, we are thereby ipso facto made partakers of the body glorified; that is, we receive our Lord’s body into a closer union than before, and become His members by repeated and stronger ties, provided we come worthily to the Holy Table, and that there is no just obstacle on our part to stop the current of divine graces.”

“The service therefore of the Eucharist … is both a true and a proper sacrifice … and the noblest that we are capable of offering, when considered as comprehending under it many true and evangelical sacrifices: 1. The sacrifice of alms to the poor and oblations to the Church.… 2. The sacrifice of prayer from a pure heart.… 3. The sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God the Father through Christ Jesus our Lord.… 4. The sacrifice of a penitent and contrite heart.… 5. The sacrifice of ourselves, our souls and bodies.… 6. The offering up the mystical body of Christ, that is, His Church.… 7. The offering up of true converts or sincere penitents to God by their pastors.… 8. The sacrifice of faith and hope and self-humiliation in commemorating the grand sacrifice and resting finally upon it.”

An illustration of the wide prevalence in the middle and latter part of the eighteenth century of some such way of regarding the Eucharist as that advocated by Waterland is in the devotional manual entitled The New Week’s Preparation for a Worthy Receiving of the Lord’s Supper, the first edition of which was published in 1749. This book was avowedly designed to counteract and supersede the old Week’s Preparation; and it appears to have gradually taken the place of that work as a popular manual; it continued to be much used to the end of the eighteenth century and for some part of the nineteenth. The doctrine assumed in the prayers and meditations is that the Eucharist is a commemorative sacrifice appointed as a means of representing the passion and presenting its merits to God the Father on earth, as our Lord presents them in heaven; and that the consecrated bread and wine are symbols through the reception of which those who communicate worthily obtain spiritual benefits and spiritually feed on Christ.

“Lord, who are we, unworthy sinners, that Thou thus regardest our wretched dust?… It was for our sakes, and to draw us up to Thy love, that Thou hast commanded us to commemorate and represent Thy passion, and present the merits of it before Thy Father on earth, as Thou dost present them to Him in heaven. It was for our sakes, and to help the infirmities of our nature, that Thou didst appoint a commemorative sacrifice of that one oblation of Thyself once offered upon the cross, and bread and wine so offered and blessed as symbols of Thy body and blood.”

“Now, O my God, prostrate before Thine altar, I dare not so much as look upon this mystery of our salvation if Thou hadst not invited me: I beseech Thee, therefore, accept of this representation we make before Thee of that all-sufficient sacrifice which Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ made upon the cross: let the merit of it plead effectually for the pardon and forgiveness of all my sins, and render Thee favourable and propitious to me a miserable sinner; let the power of it prevail against all the powers of darkness; let the wisdom of it make me wise unto salvation; and let the peace of it reconcile me unto Thee, and bring to me peace of conscience. And then, O Blessed Jesus, my Redeemer, I shall be enabled to adore Thee, who didst endure the painful and shameful death of the cross to recover me from the state of sin and misery.… With all my soul, O dear Jesus, I love and praise Thee for the stupendous expression of Thy bounty and goodness towards me. O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me; O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant me Thy peace. Amen, Lord Jesus. Amen.”

“I beseech Thee, O Lord, to cure my infirmities, and let me not only receive the outward and visible sign, but the inward and spiritual grace, the body and blood of Thy Son Jesus Christ.”

“O Blessed Jesu, who vouchsafest to be my food, nourish my soul to eternal life; create in me a mighty hunger after righteousness, and let this divine food instil into my weak and languishing soul new supplies of grace, new life, new vigour, and new resolutions, that I may never again faint or droop or tire in my duty.”

“Consider, O my soul, how by divine providence we have escaped the dangers of this night, and are continued together under a deep sense of our duty, which we yesterday acknowledged and confirmed in the receiving of that Holy Sacrament which in its outward part is only bread and wine which the Lord hath commanded to be received, that is, to be eaten and drank by all such as come to His Table, in remembrance of the body and blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper. A Sacrament which at once by the bread broken signifies the body of Christ broken on the cross and by the wine poured out signifies the blood of Christ shed at His crucifixion. But guard against that doctrine which teaches that we eat the natural body and drink the natural blood of Christ; for the natural body and blood of 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; and therefore we cannot eat and drink Christ’s natural body and blood in the Sacrament.

“2. We are well assured by Christ Himself as well as by His Apostle that the Lord’s Supper was expressly designed for the remembrance of Christ after He should be taken away; therefore Christ, who is to be remembered, cannot be corporally present at the time of such remembrance. And as the bread and wine were ordained for memorials of His body broken and blood shed for us, His natural body and blood must be absent in order to be remembered by means of such memorials. They themselves cannot be the memorials of themselves in this rite; for nothing can be eaten or drank in remembrance of itself. They who argue for the contrary doctrine run into the greatest absurdities. For,

“3. The doing any act in remembrance of a person implies his bodily absence; and we are never said, nor can we be said, to perform that action in order, if he be corporally present, to remember him. And therefore, the end of this institution being the remembrance of Christ, it must follow from hence that to eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper must be to eat and drink in a sense consistent with the notion of this remembrance, and, consequently, that to suppose or teach that Christians eat His real natural body in remembrance of His real natural body, and drink His real blood in remembrance of His real blood, is to teach that they are to do something in order to remember Him which at the same time supposes Him to be corporally present, and destroys the very notion of that remembrance, and so directly contradicts the most important words of the institution itself. Therefore,

“4. It cannot be the natural body and blood of Christ which is eaten and drank in the Lord’s Supper, but something else, namely, bread and wine, in remembrance of them. All this is founded upon the plain notion of the word remembrance; and this remembrance is expressly mentioned in the original institution as a part thereof, and consequently it is this remembrance which constitutes the very nature of this Holy Sacrament. So that,

“5. The real presence maintained by Protestants is not the presence of Christ’s natural body, but the real presence of Christ’s invisible power and grace so in and with the elements of bread and wine as to convey spiritual and real effects to the souls of such as duly receive them; for Christ did not only give His Son Jesus Christ to die for us but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance in that Holy Sacrament. Now, spiritual food and sustenance is doubtless the food and sustenance of the spirit; so to eat and drink spiritually is a figurative expression, and signifies the feeding upon Christ’s body with our heart by faith. See John 6:63.

“6. Therefore, the benefits whereof we are made partakers of this Sacrament, to the strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the body and blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the bread and wine. O happy soul, that feeds on such celestial food, that art refreshed with the bread that came down from heaven, if with a true penitent heart and lively faith thou receive that Holy Sacrament, for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink His blood. And,

“7. Consider that bread and wine (or anything else which it might have pleased Christ to have chosen) may by the blessing and appointment of God be as communicative of grace as the true natural flesh and blood of Christ itself can be; for even that, if you could indeed eat it with your teeth, would no more communicate grace or any blessing to the receiver without such institution and appointment of God than any other food in the world that you can eat.

“8. Wherefore it is my firm belief that, as this Sacrament is matter of mere institution and appointment, I am concerned to know no more either what the Sacrament is, or how it operates, than it hath pleased God to reveal in the Holy Scriptures. And it will be sufficient for me to believe that the consecrated elements are both called and made the body and blood of Christ so verily and indeed to all spiritual intents and purposes as to convey to the faithful receiver whatever grace and blessing Christ hath annexed to the due performance of those holy rites which He hath ordained as pledges of His love and for our joy and comfort.”