In spite of the attitude of the English Convocation in January, 1559, the plan for a Book of Common Prayer to some extent on the lines advocated by Guest went forward. On 16th February, 1559, a bill was introduced in the House of Commons, and read a first time, but appears to have been dropped. On 18th April and the two following days a Bill of Uniformity to authorise a Prayer Book like the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI., with certain alterations, was read three times in the House of Commons, apparently without serious opposition; and it was sent up to the House of Lords. Here it met with strenuous opposition. The third reading was passed by a majority of three votes, nine bishops and nine other peers voting against the Bill, the remainder of the bishops being absent. The “Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion” thus authorised by Parliament was the same as that in the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. except that the words of administration were composed of those of the Book of 1549 added to those of the Book of 1552, and that the declaration on kneeling was omitted. And the rubric at the beginning of Morning Prayer directed the wearing of the Eucharistic vestments at the administration of the Holy Communion by ordering that “the minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use such ornaments in the church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward the VI. according to the Act of Parliament set in the beginning of this Book,” referring to the provision in the Act of Uniformity “that such ornaments of the church, and of the ministers thereof, shall be retained and be in use as was in this Church of England, by authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the VI. until other order shall be therein taken by the authority of the queen’s majesty, with the advice of her commissioners appointed and authorised under the great seal of England, for causes ecclesiastical, or of the metropolitan of this realm”. This retention of the Eucharistic vestments is of some importance in view of Guest’s criticism of the use of them; and the change in the words of administration in combining those that were associated with the doctrine that the consecrated Sacrament is the body and blood of Christ with those which were most congenial to the deniers of this doctrine may be taken as significant of the policy which was to mark the reign of Elizabeth. The speeches of Feckenham, the Abbot of Westminster, and of Scott, the Bishop of Chester, delivered in the House of Lords against the Bill have been preserved. The general line of both is that the Missal used in Mary’s reign gave effect to the traditional doctrines of the presence and sacrifice in the Eucharist and that the proposed Prayer Book did not. In the course of his speech, Bishop Scott said:—
“Let them glory as much as they will in their Communion, it is to no purpose, seeing that the body of Christ is not there, which, as I have said, is the thing that should be communicated. There did yesterday a nobleman in this House say that he did believe that Christ is there received in the Communion set out in this Book; and, being asked if he did worship Him there, he said, No, nor never would so long as he lived. Which is a strange opinion, that Christ should be anywhere and not worshipped. They say they will worship Him in heaven but not in the Sacrament; which is much like as if a man would say that, when the emperor sitteth under his cloth of estate princely apparelled, he is to be honoured; but, if he come abroad in a frieze coat, he is not to be honoured; and yet he is all one emperor in cloth of gold under his cloth of estate and in a frieze coat abroad in the street. As it is one Christ in heaven in the form of man and in the Sacrament under the forms of bread and wine.… As concerning this matter, if we would consider all things well, we shall see the provision of God marvellous in it. For He provideth so that the very heretics and enemies of the truth be compelled to confess the truth in this behalf. For the Lutherans writing against the Zwinglians do prove that the true natural body of our Saviour Christ is in the Sacrament. And the Zwinglians against the Lutherans do prove that then it must needs be worshipped there. And thus in their contention doth the truth burst out whether they will or no. Wherefore, in my opinion of these two errors, the fonder is to say that Christ is in the Sacrament and yet not to be worshipped than to say He is not there at all. For either they do think that either He is there but in an imagination or fancy, and so not in very deed, or else they be Nestorians and think that there is His body only and not His divinity, which be both devilish and wicked. Now, my lords, consider, I beseech you, the matters here in variance, whether your lordships be able to discuss them according to learning, so as the truth may appear, or no; that is, whether the body of Christ be by this new Book consecrated, offered, adored, and truly communicated, or no; and whether these things be required necessarily by the institution of our Saviour Christ, or no; and whether Book goeth nearer the truth.”
In 1559 a “Declaration and Confession” was presented to the queen by some of the reforming party, consisting of a series of articles to a large extent following the Forty-two Articles of 1553. The fourteenth and fifteenth of these articles are as follows:—
“Of the Lord’s Supper.
“The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather it is a Sacrament of our redemption in Christ’s death, insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same the bread which we break is the communion of the body of Christ. Likewise the cup of blessing is the communion of the blood of Christ. So that in the due administration of this holy Supper we do not deny all manner of presence of Christ’s body and blood; neither do we think or say that this holy Sacrament is only a naked and a bare sign or figure, in the which nothing else is to be received of the faithful but common bread and wine, as our adversaries have at all times most untruly charged us. And yet do we not allow the corporal, carnal, and real presence which they teach and maintain, affirming Christ’s body to be sensibly handled of the priest, and also corporally and substantially to be received with the mouth as well of the wicked as of the godly. For that were contrary to the Scripture, both to remove Him out of heaven where concerning His natural body He shall continue to the end of the world, and also by making His body bodily present in so many sundry and several places at once to destroy the proprieties of His human nature. Neither do we allow the fond error of Transubstantiation or change of the substances of bread and wine into the substances of the body and blood of Christ, which, as it is repugnant to the words of the Scriptures and contrary to the plain assertions of ancient writers, so doth it utterly deny the nature of a Sacrament. But we affirm and confess that, as the wicked in the unworthy receiving of this holy Sacrament eateth and drinketh his own damnation, so to the believer and worthy receiver is verily given and exhibited whole Christ, God and Man, with the fruits of His passion. And that in the distribution of this holy Sacrament, as we with our outward senses receive the sacramental bread and wine, so inwardly by faith and through the working of God’s Spirit we are made partakers vere et efficaciter of the body and blood of our Saviour Christ, and are spiritually fed therewith unto everlasting life. And we also confess, and ever have done, that by the celebrating and right receiving of this mystery and holy Sacrament we enjoy divers and singular comforts and benefits. For herein we are assured of God’s promises of the forgiveness of sins, of the pacifying of God’s wrath, of our resurrection and everlasting life. Herein also by the secret operation of God’s Holy Spirit our faith is increased and confirmed, we are made one with Christ and He with us, we abide in Him and He in us, we are stirred up to unity and mutual charity, to joyfulness of conscience and patient suffering for Christ’s sake, and finally to continual thanksgiving to our merciful heavenly Father for the wonderful work of our salvation purchased in the death and bloodshed of our Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
“Of the perfect oblation of Christ made upon the cross.
“The offering of Christ made once for ever is the perfect redemption, the pacifying of God’s displeasure, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifice of the Masses, in the which it is commonly said that the priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or sin, are forged fables and dangerous deceits.”
In 1559 or 1560 a series of Eleven Articles was compiled by Parker, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Young, the Archbishop of York, and other bishops. Assent to them was required from all clergy on admission to cures and twice a year afterwards. They had no formal sanction from Convocation, no authority from Parliament, and no ratification from the Crown. They were designed as a temporary measure until some formal action could be taken; and as such were drawn up and used by the bishops. The articles relating to the Eucharist were as follows:—
“9. Moreover, I do not only acknowledge that private Masses were never used amongst the fathers of the primitive Church, I mean, public ministration and receiving of the Sacrament by the priest alone without a just number of communicants according to Christ’s saying, ‘Take ye and eat ye,’ etc., but also that the doctrine that maintaineth the Mass to be a propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead, and a mean to deliver souls out of purgatory, is neither agreeable to Christ’s ordinance, nor grounded upon doctrine apostolic, but contrariwise most ungodly and most injurious to the precious redemption of our Saviour Christ, and His only sufficient sacrifice offered once for ever upon the altar of the cross.
“10. I am of that mind also that the Holy Communion or Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, for the due obedience to Christ’s institution, and to express the virtue of the same, ought to be ministered unto the people under both kinds; and that it is avouched by certain fathers of the Church to be a plain sacrilege to rob them of the mystical cup for whom Christ hath shed His most precious blood, seeing He Himself hath said, ‘Drink ye all of this,’ considering also that in the time of the ancient doctors of the Church, as Cyprian, Hierom, Augustine, Gelasius, and others, six hundred years after Christ and more, both the parts of the Sacrament were ministered to the people.”
In these articles the most remarkable feature is the absence of any statement concerning the presence of Christ in the Sacrament.
In 1563 the Forty-two Articles of 1553 were considered by Convocation; and in a revised form and reduced in number to thirty-eight were published with the assent of Convocation and the ratification of the queen. The alterations bearing on the Eucharist were considerable. In what is now the twenty-fifth article the repudiation of the operation of the Sacraments “of the work wrought” was omitted. For the paragraph in the article “Of the Lord’s Supper” condemning belief in “the real and bodily presence” the following paragraph was substituted:—
“The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith.”
The article “Of the Perfect Oblation of Christ made upon the Cross” was unaltered except that “forged fables” was strengthened into “blasphemous fables”. An article was added declaring that the laity ought to receive Communion in both kinds. A new article on reception by the wicked was in the draft submitted to Convocation by Archbishop Parker, and agreed to by that body; but did not occur in the articles as finally published.
In 1571 the articles of 1563 were sanctioned by both Houses of Parliament and were subsequently again revised by Convocation, ratified by the queen, and issued in their present form, thirty-nine in number. The only alteration of moment touching the Eucharist was that the present twenty-ninth article, which had been struck out of the articles of 1563 between their acceptance by Convocation and the publication of them with the ratification of the queen, was re-inserted. The title is “Of the Wicked which do not Eat the Body of Christ in the Use of the Lord’s Supper”. Its words are:—
“The wicked and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ, but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing.”
The change in the article “Of the Lord’s Supper” is of high importance. The article of 1553 had distinctly denied “the real and bodily presence (as they term it) of Christ’s flesh and blood”. The article of 1563 and 1571 did not contain this denial, and in the place of it had the words quoted above. There is contemporary evidence as to the significance attached to the change at the time. In July, 1566, the extreme Reformers Laurence Humphrey and Thomas Sampson wrote to Henry Bullinger at Zurich:—
“The article composed in the time of Edward VI. respecting the spiritual eating, which expressly oppugned and took away the real presence in the Eucharist, and contained a most clear explanation of the truth, is now set forth among us mutilated and imperfect.”
On 22nd December, 1566, Edmund Guest the Bishop of Rochester, who in 1548 had attacked the canon of the Mass and the doctrine of a propitiatory sacrifice in the Mass and the practice of Eucharistic adoration, and in 1559 had advocated dividing the Order of Holy Communion into two parts and excluding from the Offertory onwards those who were not about to communicate, and had opposed the use of the prayer that the elements may be the body and blood of Christ, wrote to Sir William Cecil:—
“I suppose you have heard how the Bishop of Gloucester found himself grieved with the placing of this adverb ‘only’ in this article, ‘The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper after an heavenly and spiritual manner only,’ because it did take away the presence of Christ’s body in the Sacrament, and privily noted me to take his part therein, and yesterday in mine absence more plainly vouched me for the same, whereas between him and me I told him plainly that this word ‘only’ in the aforesaid article did not exclude the presence of Christ’s body from the Sacrament, but only the grossness and sensibleness in the receiving thereof. For I said unto him though he took Christ’s body in his hand, received it with his mouth, and that corporally, naturally, really, substantially, and carnally, as the doctors do write, yet did he not for all that see it, feel it, smell it, nor taste it. And therefore I told him I would speak against him therein, and the rather because the article was of mine own penning. And yet I would not for all that deny thereby anything that I had spoken for the presence. And this was the sum of our talk. And this that I said is so true by all sorts of men that even D. Harding writeth the same, as it appears more evidently by his words reported in the Bishop of Salisbury’s book, pagina 325, which be these, ‘Then ye may say that in the Sacrament His very body is present, yea really, that is to say, in deed; substantially, that is, in substance; and corporally, carnally, and naturally; by the which words is meant that His very body, His very flesh, and His very human nature is there, not after corporal, carnal, or natural wise, but invisibly, unspeakably, supernaturally, spiritually, divinely, and by way unto Him only known’. This I thought good to write unto your honour for mine own purgation.”
In May, 1571, after the Thirty-nine Articles had been agreed to by Convocation and before they were ratified by the queen, Guest wrote a further letter to Cecil, in which he said on this subject:—
“In the article ‘Of the Lord’s Supper’ it is thus said, ‘The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper after a heavenly and spiritual manner only’. Though it be true that the body of Christ cannot be given, taken, and eaten in His Supper but it must needs be truly given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, yet, because some men for a more plainness would have added this word ‘truly’ or ‘indeed’ in this wise, ‘The body of Christ is indeed given, taken, and eaten in the Supper,’ it were well to put it in, and Calvin agreeth thereunto, for thus he writeth in his commentaries upon these words of Paul, ‘hoc est corpus meum,’ ‘concludo realiter ut vulgo loquuntur hoc est vere nobis dari in coena corpus Christi’. And my lord of Salisbury hath these words, ‘That we undoubtedly receive Christ’s body in the Sacrament it is neither denied nor in question’. In that in the book it is further said, ‘after a spiritual and heavenly manner only,’ some be offended with this word ‘only,’ as my lord of Gloucester, as though this word ‘only’ did take away the real presence of Christ’s body, or the receiving of the same by the mouth, whereas it was put in only to this end, to take away all gross and sensible presence, for it is very true that, when Christ’s body is taken and eaten, it is neither seen, felt, smelt, nor tasted to be Christ’s body; and so it is received and eaten but only after a heavenly and spiritual and no sensible manner. And because it is said, ‘Because the mouth receiveth Christ’s body, therefore it is sensibly received,’ the consequent is not true, because the mouth in receiving Christ’s body doth not feel it, nor taste it, nor we by any other sense do perceive it. Yet for all this, to avoid offence and contention, the word ‘only’ may be well left out as not needful. My lord of Gloucester is pronounced excommunicate by my lord of Canterbury, and shall be cited to answer before him and other bishops to certain errors which he is accused to hold. I think if this word ‘only’ were put out of the book for his sake, it were the best. It followeth in the book, ‘But the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith’. If this word ‘profitably’ were put hereunto in this sort, ‘But the mean whereby the body of Christ is profitably received and eaten in the Supper is faith,’ then should the occasion of this question, ‘Whether the evil do receive Christ’s body in the Sacrament’ because they lack faith, which riseth of the aforesaid words and causeth much strife, should be quite taken away, for that hereby is not denied the unfruitful receiving of Christ’s body without faith, but the fruitful only affirmed.”
In the same letter Guest went on to express his wish that the article “Of the wicked which do not eat the body of Christ in the use of the Lord’s Supper” might not be ratified by the queen. On this subject he writes:—
“My lord’s grace of Canterbury is purposed to present to the queen’s majesty the first copy of the book of articles, to which the most part of the bishops have subscribed, to have it authorised by her majesty, and there is this article, ‘Evil men receive not the body of Christ,’ which article is not in the printed books either Latin or English. If this article be confirmed and authorised by the queen’s grace it will cause much business, because it is quite contrary to the Scripture and to the doctrine of the fathers, for it is certain that Judas as evil as he was did receive Christ’s body, because Christ said unto him, ‘Take, eat, this is My body’. It is not said, If thou be a good or faithful man, take, eat, this is My body, but simply, without any such conditions, ‘Take, eat, this is My body,’ so that to all men which be of the Church and of the profession of Christ, whether they be good or bad, faithful or unfaithful (for to them only Christ spake these words, ‘Take, eat, this is My body,’ and not to the Jew, Turk, miscreant beast or bird), Christ’s body is given and they do receive it. This is the cause that St. Paul saith, ‘Whosoever shall eat of this bread and drink of this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh his own damnation, because he maketh no difference of the Lord’s body’. Note these words, ‘the Lord’s body’. It is not here said, ‘The sign or Sacrament of the Lord’s body, nor the grace or fruit of the Lord’s body, nor the memory of the Lord’s passion,’ but plainly ‘the Lord’s body,’ to teach us that the evil men of the Church do receive Christ’s body.”
The objections which Guest thus felt to the twenty-ninth article did not prevent him from eventually subscribing it; and it is probable that more careful attention to the phrase “partakers of Chest” led him to see that, however much he might dislike the article, he did not by subscribing necessarily say more than that those who communicate unworthily do not profitably receive the body of Christ. His explanations of the twenty-eighth article seem to make it clear that he intended this article as completed by him to assert that the actual body of Christ is really present after consecration and received by the communicants in a spiritual manner, while the article is explicit in its rejection of views of a carnal presence; of Transubstantiation, probably understood in a carnal sense; and of a merely symbolic representation. It is likely that, at the time of their being compiled and since, the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth articles have been subscribed in good faith by those who have held almost all possible ideas of the Eucharistic presence between a carnal form of Transubstantiation and a wholly symbolic view, by those who have thought that the wicked receive the body of Christ to judgment and by those who have believed that the wicked do not receive the body of Christ at all. Similarly the article “Of the one oblation of Christ finished upon the cross” appears to have been worded in such a way as to make subscription possible both for those who denied any sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist and for those who held any doctrine of the Eucharistic sacrifice which did not conflict with the unique and complete character of the sacrifice of Calvary or make a sacrifice of the Mass which as a separate offering might be parallel and supplementary to the work of Christ on the cross.
In the reign of Edward VI. a Book of Homilies for public reading in church had been published, and had received a general commendation in the Forty-two Articles. On the accession of Elizabeth a Second Book of Homilies was compiled. It was approved by Convocation in 1562, ratified by the queen after some delay in 1563, and declared to “contain a godly and wholesome doctrine and necessary for these times” in the Thirty-eight and the Thirty-nine Articles. It is agreed by eminent commentators on the Articles, and was affirmed by a judgment of the Court of Arches in 1838, that this statement of the thirty-fifth article does not commit the Church of England to every part of the doctrines which the Homilies contain; but they are of interest and importance as showing the kind of teaching which Elizabethan divines wished English Church people to receive. One of these Homilies is entitled A Homily of the Worthy Receiving and Reverent Esteeming of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. It shows a strong sense of the existence of evils connected with the celebration of the Eucharist in the past; of the importance of reverence and devotion and reality in the reception of the Sacrament; and of the necessity of ministering it like our Lord and the Apostles and the primitive Church. The statements that “every one of us must be guests and not gazers, eaters and not lookers,” and that “we must be ourselves partakers of this Table and not beholders of others,” appear to deprecate presence at the celebration of the Sacrament without Communion. The caution—
“We must then take heed lest of the memory, it be made a sacrifice; lest of a Communion, it be made a private eating; lest of two parts we have but one; lest applying it for the dead, we lose the fruit that be alive,”
apparently condemns the offering of the Eucharist for the departed; the restriction of the Communion of other than the celebrant to the species of bread; celebrations in which the priest alone communicated; and at any rate some forms which the Eucharistic sacrifice had taken, or was thought to have taken. Because of the sacrifice on Calvary and the promise of Christ, it is said:—
“Herein thou needest no other man’s help, no other sacrifice or oblation, no sacrificing priest, no Mass, no means established by man’s invention.”
On the other hand, it is explicitly stated that—
“In the Supper of the Lord there is no vain ceremony, no bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent”;
the effects of Communion are said to be—
“the tranquillity of conscience, the increase of faith, the strengthening of hope, the large spreading abroad of brotherly kindness, with many other sundry graces of God”;
the “meat” “in this Supper” is described as—
“spiritual food; the nourishment of our soul; a heavenly refection, and not earthly; an invisible meat, and not bodily; a ghostly substance, and not carnal”;
it is said that—
“we receive not only the outward Sacrament, but the spiritual thing also; not the figure, but the truth; not the shadow only, but the body”;
and the communicant is exhorted:—
“Take then this lesson, O thou who art desirous of this Table, of Emissenus, a godly father, that when thou goest up to the reverend Communion, to be satisfied with spiritual meats, thou look up with faith upon the holy body and blood of thy God, thou marvel with reverence, thou touch it with the mind, thou receive it with the hand of thy heart, and thou take it fully with thy inward man.”
It is probable that the writer of the Homily believed that faithful communicants receive the body and blood of Christ present in their Communion with spiritual reality. Whether he held also that the body and blood are present in the consecrated elements before Communion it seems impossible to say. Nor can it be determined whether in the denials of sacrifice he meant to deny any doctrine of the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, or only those ideas which were perversions of the doctrine.
A Catechism chiefly taken from that of Poynet was drawn up by Alexander Nowell, the Dean of St. Paul’s, was welcomed by Archbishop Parker, was altered by the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury with a view to its acceptance, but never received the approval of the bishops. This Catechism consists of four parts. The fourth part is on the Sacraments. In regard to the Eucharist there are the following questions and answers:—
“Master.… Tell me the order of the Lord’s Supper.
“Scholar. It is even the same which the Lord Christ did institute.… This the form and order of the Lord’s Supper, which we ought to hold, and holily to keep till He come.
“Master. For what use?
“Scholar. To celebrate and retain continually a thankful remembrance of the Lord’s death, and of that most singular benefit which we have received thereby; and that as in Baptism we were once born again, so with the Lord’s Supper we be alway fed and sustained to spiritual and everlasting life.
“Master. Dost thou say that there are two parts in this Sacrament also, as in Baptism?
“Scholar. Yea. The one part, the bread and wine, the outward signs, which are seen with our eyes, handled with our hands, and felt with our taste; the other part, Christ Himself, with whom our souls, as with their proper food, are inwardly nourished.
“Master. Why would the Lord have here two signs to be used?
“Scholar. First, He severally gave the signs both of His body and blood, that it might be the more plain express image of His death which He suffered, His body being torn, His side pierced, and all His blood shed, and that the memory thereof so printed in our hearts should stick the deeper. And moreover, that the Lord might so provide for and help our weakness, and thereby manifestly declare that, as the bread for nourishment of our bodies, so His body hath most singular force and efficacy spiritually to feed our souls; and, as with wine men’s hearts are cheered, and their strength confirmed, so with His blood our souls are relieved and refreshed; that certainly assuring ourselves that He is not only our meat but also our drink, we do not anywhere else but in Him alone seek any part of our spiritual nourishment and eternal life.
“Master. Is there then not an only figure, but the truth itself of the benefits that thou hast rehearsed, delivered in the Supper?
“Scholar. What else? For, since Christ is the truth itself, it is no doubt that the thing which He testifieth in words, and representeth in signs, He performeth also in deed, and delivereth it unto us; and that He as surely maketh them that believe in Him partakers of His body and blood as they surely know that they have received the bread and wine into their mouth and stomach.
“Master. Since we be in the earth, and Christ’s body in heaven, how can that be that thou sayest?
“Scholar. We must lift up our souls and hearts from earth, and raise them up by faith to heaven, where Christ is.
“Master. Sayest thou then the mean to receive the body and blood of Christ standeth upon faith?
“Scholar. Yea. For, when we believe that Christ died to deliver us from death, and that He rose again to procure us life, we are partakers of the redemption purchased by His death, and of His life, and all other His good things; and, with the same conjoining wherewith the head and members are knit together, He coupleth us to Himself by secret and marvellous virtue of His Spirit, even so that we be members of His body, and be of His flesh and bones, and do grow into one body with Him.
“Master. Dost thou then, that this conjoining may be made, imagine the bread and wine to be changed into the substance of the flesh and blood of Christ?
“Scholar. There is no need to invent any such change. For both the Holy Scriptures and the best and most ancient expositors do teach that by Baptism we are likewise the members of Christ, and are of His flesh and bones, and do grow into one body with Him, when yet there is no such change made in the water.
“Master. Go on.
“Scholar. In both the Sacraments the substances of the outward things are not changed, but the word of God and heavenly grace coming to them, there is such efficacy that, as by Baptism we are once regenerate in Christ, and are first as it were joined and grafted into His body, so, when we rightly receive the Lord’s Supper, with the very divine nourishment of His body and blood, most full of health and immortality, given to us by the work of the Holy Ghost, and received of us by faith, as by the mouth of our soul, we are continually fed and sustained to eternal life, growing together in them both into one body with Christ.
“Master. Then Christ doth also otherwise than by His Supper only give Himself unto us, and knitteth us to Himself with most straight conjoining.
“Scholar. Christ did then principally give Himself to us to be the Author of our salvation when He gave Himself to death for us, that we should not perish with deserved death. By the Gospel also He giveth Himself to the faithful, and plainly teacheth that He is that lively bread that came down from heaven to nourish their souls that believe in Him. And also in Baptism, as is before said, Christ gave Himself to us effectually, for that He then made us Christians.
“Master. And sayest thou that there be no less straight bands of conjoining in the Supper?
“Scholar. In the Lord’s Supper both that communicating which I spake of is confirmed unto us and is also increased, for that each man is both by the words and mysteries of God ascertained that the same belongeth unto himself, and that Christ is by a peculiar manner given to him, that he may most fully and with most clear conjunction enjoy Him, insomuch that not only our souls are nourished with His holy body and blood as with their proper food, but also our bodies, for that they partake of the Sacraments of eternal life, have as it were by a pledge given them a certain hope assured them of resurrection and immortality, that at length, Christ abiding in us, and we again abiding in Christ, we also by Christ abiding in us may obtain not only everlasting life but also the glory which His Father gave Him. In a sum I say thus: as I imagine not any gross joining, so I affirm that same secret and marvellous communicating of Christ’s body in His Supper to be most near and straight, most assured, most true, and altogether most high and perfect.
“Master. Of this thou hast said of the Lord’s Supper, meseems, I may gather that the same was not ordained to this end, that Christ’s body should be offered in sacrifice to God the Father for sins.
“Scholar. It is not so offered. For He, when He did institute His Supper, commanded us to eat His body, not to offer it. As for the prerogative of offering for sins, it pertaineth to Christ alone, as to Him which is the eternal Priest, which also, when He died upon the cross, once made that only and everlasting sacrifice for our salvation, and fully performed the same for ever. For us there is nothing left to do but to take the use and benefit of that eternal sacrifice bequeathed to us by the Lord Himself, which we chiefly do in the Lord’s Supper.
“Master. Then I perceive the Holy Supper sendeth us to the death of Christ, and to His sacrifice once done upon the cross, by which alone God is appeased towards us.
“Scholar. It is most true. For by bread and wine, the signs, is assured unto us that, as the body of Christ was once offered a sacrifice for us to reconcile us to favour with God, and His blood once shed to wash away the spots of our sins, so now also in His Holy Supper both are given to the faithful, that we may surely know that the reconciliation of favour pertaineth to us, and may take and receive the fruit of the redemption purchased by His death.
“Master. Are then the only faithful fed with Christ’s body and blood?
“Scholar. They only. For to whom He communicateth His body, to them (as I said) He communicateth also everlasting life.
“Master. Why dost thou not grant that the body and blood of Christ are included in the bread and cup, or that the bread and wine are changed into the substance of His body and blood?
“Scholar. Because that were to bring in doubt the truth of Christ’s body, to do dishonour to Christ Himself, and to fill them with abhorring that receive the Sacrament, if we should imagine His body either to be enclosed in so narrow a room, or to be in many places at once, or His flesh to be chewed in our mouth with our teeth, and to be bitten small, and eaten as other meat.
“Master. Why then is the communicating of the Sacrament damnable to the wicked, if there is no such change made?
“Scholar. Because they come to the holy and divine mysteries with hypocrisy and counterfeiting, and do wickedly profane them, to the great injury and dishonour of the Lord Himself that ordained them.”