A letter, to the congregation of St. James' church, York, U. Canada

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Section II. The Doctrine Of The Holy Eucharist

According to the Church, of England. According to the Church of Rome.

" The Supper of the Lord is not only " a sign of the love that Christians ought " to have among themselves one to ano- " ther; but rather is a Sacrament of our "redemption by Christ's death; inso- " much that to such as rightly, worthily " and with faith receive the same, the " bread which we break, is a partaking " of the body of Christ ; and likewise " the cup of blessing is a partaking of " the blood of Christ.

" Transubstantiation (or the change " of the substance of bread and wine) " in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be " proved by holy writ ; but is repugnant " to the plain words of Scripture, over- " throweth the nature of a Sacrament, u and hath given occasion to many su- ". perstitions,

" 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 Sacrament of the Lord's Sup- " per was not by Christ's ordinance -" reserved, carried about, lifted up or " worshipped."

28th Article of Religion.

" I do likewise profess, that in the " Mass there is offered a true, proper " and propitiatory sacrifice for the living " and the dead ; and that the body and " blood, together with the soul and divi- " nity of our Lord Jesus Christ, arc " truly, really and substantially in the " most Holy Sacrament of the Lord's " Supper; and that the whole substance " of the bread is turned into the body, " and the whole substance of the wine is " turned into the blood, which change " the Catholic Church calls Transub- " stantiation.

" I do also profess, that whole and " entire Christ, and a true Sacrament, " is received under one kind only."

17th <§• 18th Articles of the Creed, established by Pope Pious the Fourth, and the Council of Trent.

On referring to the Gospels, we find that our Lord, at the institution of the Eucharist, did three things:— First. He took the bread and the cup of the Jewish Paschal Supper, and separated and consecrated them, making them the representative figures, symbols or substitutes of his body and blood. Second. He oftered them in sacrifice to God, and by these pledges voluntarily gave or offered to God his body and blood as a sacrifice upon the cross. Third. He blessed them, that ihey might become his body and blood, not in bare figure or representation only, as they were made by his separation of them before, but in efficacy and life-giving virtue: and as such he gave them, with these words, which are the ground of our faith and hope: " This is my body which is given for you," "this is my blood which is shed for you." After Christ our eternal High Priest had performed his own oblation of himself once offered, that one all sufficient sacrifice, which gave virtue to all the rest before, as well as after his appearing, he authorized and commanded his Apostles, and in ihem all their successors in the Christian Priesthood, to do as he had done, although not to the same end : for what he did was in order to his actual death of inexhaustible merit, but what we do is in order to commemorate and receive the mercies and blessings of it ; to perpetuate under the figures or representations, which he had appointed the memorial of his death and sacrifice ; to plead his merits with the Father, and to obtain all the benefits which by his death he purchased for mankind, pardon, grace and eternal glory: "Do this" he said, " in remembrance of me."

The most essential part of the Eucharist is the symbolical use of bread and wine, which Christ ordained for our instruction, and the form of words with which he taught us to accompany it. Now a corruption in its celebration may take place in two ways ; first, by omiuiDg any essential part ; or second, by appending to it circumstances inconsistent with its true character: of both these kinds of corruption the primitive Church was wholly guiltless, as most evidently appears from the accounts handed down of the manner they adopted in its celebration. The Bishop or Priest first gave thanks to God for all his mercies, especially for those of creation and redemption ; then to shew the authority by which he was acting, and his obedience to the commands of Christ, he recited the words of the institution of the Holy Sacrament which he was celebrating : in doing this, he took the bread into his hands, and brake it, to represent the body of Christ ; the cup also of wine, to represent the blood ; — over the bread and the cup, he repeated Christ's powerful words : " This is my body," " this is my blood;" the elements being thus made the symbols or representations of Christ's crucified body and blood, were offered to God as the great and acceptable sacrifice of the Christian Church. The Bishop or Priest continued his prayer, and intreated the Almighty Father to send upon the bread and wine the Holy Spirit to sanctify and bless them, and to make them Christ's spiritual life-giving body in power and virtue, that to all the faithful they might be effectual to all spiritual purposes. The officiating Bishop or Priest then received the Eucharist in both kinds himself, and proceeded to deliver it in both kinds to the people. In these days the utmost simplicity prevailed ; to have reserved any part of the Eucharist for the Ministers alone, or for any one privileged class of believers, would have been to manifest a violation of that great principle of equality recognized by the Gospel, that in the sight of God there is no respect of persons. The communion of the body and blood of Christ was deemed a privilege of the most precious kind, to which every convert was entitled ; and so far was the Church from throwing any impediment in the way, that she earnestly and affectionately invited all her members to partake of this holy Sacrament; and it was long thought to be inconsistent with the Christian profession, to be otherwise than a regular communicant.

Nearly fifty of the most ancient Liturgies have been collected, among which we find one, which has been attributed to St. James, our Lord's brother, and which was assuredly constantly used in the very first age in the Church of Jerusalem. This Liturgy may be justly considered one of the most precious monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity, and its strict conformity with the account given by St. Cyril of his service, is a demonstrative proof that it has come down to us in all its original purity and simplicity. Now, however much these numerous Liturgies differ in other things, they agree with that of St. James, and with each other in their manner of consecrating the elements, and in their distribution : the consecration is solemnized by the three steps already noticed.

1st. The words of our Saviour's institution, containing the Priest's authority to celebrate the solemn office, and his setting apart the elements, as the representatives of his body and blood, broken and shed for the sins of the world, by pronouncing over them the words of Christ : " This is my body," " this is my blood." 2nd. A solemn oblation or offering of these instituted memorials, in sacrifice to God the Father, commemorative of his Son's death and passion. 3rd. Prayer for God's acceptance and blessing upon them by his Holy Spirit, sanctifying them through his Divine power, so as to make them the spiritual life-giving body and blood of Christ, and the means of conveying to the well disposed receiver, all the benefits purchased by our Lord's sacrifice for mankind, pardon, grace, and eternal life.

In accordance with the ancient Liturgies and Eucharistic services of the Church universal in its primitive times are the sentiments of the Christian authors of those ages, commonly called the Fathers. These form a cloud of witnesses to the commemorative sacrifice, representative and yet efficacious and communicative of the blessings obtained for us by Christ's body and blood. This Holy Sacrament, says Ireneus, (quoting one out of many,) consists of two parts, an earthly and an heavenly : bread and wine from the earth, but the body and blood of Christ in spirit, power and heavenly efficacy. Far indeed were the Father's from imagining any change in the bread and wine, but only in their qualities, by the sanctifying power of the Divine spirit, for so the blessed author of the high and heavenly mystery had taught them " it is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing, the words that I speak unto you are spirit, and they are life." Thus we have seen, and it deserves our particular attention, that in all the forms of administering the Eucharist handed down from the first ages, the most harmonious concurrence prevailed, and that the three important points noticed above, were invariably introduced in the same order. Nor did the Church of Rome, then a highly respected Church, for purity as well as station, differ (nor for many ages after) from the Church of Jerusalem or other Churches, in the celebration of the Eucharist, all of them arranged the service in the same order, and gave to the words the same interpretation. We have further the unanimous testimony of all the ancient Fathers and early writers of the Christian Church from the very beginning, and for many ages downward, that this is the true and real import of our Lord's command, and that their manner of administering the Eucharist is the only way in which it ought to be administered. — From all this the fullest conviction arises, that such is our Saviour's gracious will on this his last and dying command : antiquity, universality and consent, all concurring in this just interpretation of scriptural truth, and in the administration of the Lord's Supper, in both kinds to communicants. This universal testimony of the Church cannot deceive us : that which was taught and practiced in all considerable Churches, for the first four centuries, must be of apostolical authority ; and indeed without this testimony of the Church, it is impossible to prove the canon of the New Testament, or to establish the authority of the books which it contains, and surely there can be no testimony so satisfactory in ascertaining the nature and design of the Holy Eucharist, as that of the primitive Church. To her we are indebted for the authenticity of the records of the institution, and to her we must look for rightly understanding the mind and will of the Apostles, from whom she received the records of our Lord, and by whose doctrines and practice she was instructed in their true meaning.

Had the Scriptures represented the Lord's Supper, as simply a memorial of our Saviour's death, there would have been little room for variety of opinion ; but these are expressions, both in the words of the institution and in other places of Scripture, which open a further view of this ordinance, and which differently apprehended, may give rise to some difference of sentiment. In the words of the institution, Jesus calls the cup, " the New Testament or covenant in my blood," this implies some connexion between the cup drunk in the Lord's Supper, and the new covenant, which may call forth some variety of conception. He likewise says, "This is my body, this is my blood," which implies a sacredness, of the degrees of which different apprehensions may be entertained respecting their connexion. The Apostle St. Paul, in reciting the words of the institution to the Corinthians, for the purpose of correcting certain improprieties in celebrating this ordinance, speaks of the guilt and danger of eating and drinking unworthily, in a manner which to some conveys an awful idea of the sanctity of the Lord's Supper, and to many suggests the most precious benefits, as the certain consequences of eating and drinking worthily. Now as these passages of Scripture would naturally give rise to some difference of opinion respecting the ordinance, in some of its aspects it seems to indicate the special care of the holy spirit, that the Eucharistic service of the Church has ever been so carefully framed upon the apostolic model, that during the first eight ages, not the smallest innovation was ever attempted, and even now, with the exception of the Roman Church, which has departed from the primitive usage, almost all other regular Churches, even to that recently discovered in the Mountains of Malabar, however divided among themselves in other respects, exhibit in the service of the Eucharist the most harmonious concurrence. This must of itself carry strong conviction to every candid mind, that such was the true meaning and form of our Redeemer's most holy institution, and according to which his Apostles acted and instructed.

But the spirit of God does not always contend with the spirit of man, and the mental darkness, which for many ages overspread Europe, the natural progress of error, the credulity of superstition, and the artifice of designing men, multiplied corruptions in the Church, and produced a firm belief in the most incredible things. But neither the veneration for reliques, the prayers for the dead, and the invocation of saints, are to be compared, unscriptural as they are, to the victory obtained in the thirteenth century, by Pope Innocent, over the common understanding of man in establishing transubstantiation : it is indeed the most astonishing departure from common sense recorded in the history of the hnman mind ; for it requires us to believe that the words " This is my body," " this is my blood," are to be understood in their mere literal sense, that when Jesus pronunced these words he changed, by his Almighty power, the bread upon the table into his body, and the wine into his blood ; and really delivered his body and blood into the hands of his disciples ; and that at all times, when the Supper is administered, the Priest, by pronouncing these words with a good intention, has the power of making a similar change. This change is called transubstantiation, for it means that the bread and wine are not altered in figure, taste, weight or any other accident, but that the substance of them is completely destroyed, and that of the body and blood of Christ substituted for it, that the persons receiving what has been consecrated do not receive bread and wine, but literally partake of the body and blood of Christ, and really eat his flesh and drink his blood. It is further conceived, by those holding to this doctrine, that the bread and wine thus changed are presented by the Priest to God; and he receives the name of Priest, because in laying them upon the altar he offers to God a sacrifice which, although it is distinguished from all others, by being without the shedding of blood, is a true propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the dead and of the living. The body and blood of Christ which were presented on the cross are again presented in the sacrifice of the Mass. It is conceived that the materials of this sacrifice being truly the body and blood of Christ, possess intrinsic virtue, which does not depend upon the disposition of him who receives them, but operates immediately on all who do not obstruct the operation by a mortal sin. Hence it is accounted of great importance, for the salvation of the sick, that parts of these materials should be sent to them ; it is further conceived, that as the bread and wine when converted into the body and blood of Christ, are a natural object of reverence and adoration to Christians, it is highly proper to worship them upon the altar, and that it is expedient to carry them about in solemn procession, that they may receive the homage of all who meet them.

Hence arose that expression in the Church of Rome, the elevation of the Host, Elevatio Hostice. But as the wine, in being carried about, was exposed to accidents inconsistent with the veneration due to the body and blood of Christ, it became customary to send only the bread, and in order to satisfy those who for this reason did not receive the wine, they were taught that, as the bread was changed into the body of Christ, they necessarily partook of the blood with the body of which the flesh retained particles or drops. In process of time, the people were not allowed to partake of the cup, and it was said when Jesus spake these words, "drink ye all of it," he was addressing himself only to his Apostles, so that his command was fulfilled, when the Priests, the successors of the Apostles drank of the cup, although the people were excluded : and thus the last part of this system conspired with the first in exalting the Clergy above the Laity, for the same persons who had the power of changing bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, and who presented what they had just made as a sacrifice for the sins of others, enjoyed the privilege of partaking of the cup, while communion in one kind only, was permitted the people.

Such is the doctrine imposed upon the Church by Pope Innocent, not that this Prince was its inventor, for during the great ignorance, depravity and superstition of the ninth century, Pascasius, Abbot of Corbey, was, according to Cardinal Bellarmine, the first who wrote in express terms upon the subject : but though not the inventor, the honor of establishing it as an article of faith belongs to Innocent the Third, for he had sufficient influence in the fourth Lateran Council, held in 1215, to get it inserted as a necessary matter of belief, it was farther confirmed in the Council of Trent, and at length inserted in the Roman Catholic Creed, promulgated by Pope Pious the Fourth, in 1564.

When this extraordinary doctrine was first proposed by Pascasius, it was most strenuously resisted as untenable and hostile to the simplicity, truth and beauty of the Christian Theology, by the most learned and pious men of the age. — Raban, Archbishop of Mentz, a Prelate, deeply skilled in the Latin, Greek and Hebrew Languages, celebrated for his great erudition, and deemed the glory of Germany, opposed this innovation with determined hostility. Scotus, also so much celebrated for his skill in Languages, Philosophy and Theology, wrote against the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and his work circulated through Christendom more than two hundred years without incurring the charge of heresy or experiencing any mark of reprobation from Pope, Council, Clergy or Laity. Bertram, esteemed for the sanctity of his character, and his profound attainments in Science and Theology, wrote a book on the body and blood of the Lord, in answer to the interpretation of Pascasius, which was widely disseminated through the Christian world, and was never condemned for heresy. — Many other eminent men wrote and contended against this novel doctrine, whose names in a brief review like this, need not be mentioned : and it is the less necessary, as the free and extensive circulation which the publications of Scotus and Bertram obtained, without even any insinuation of error, must, to every unprejudiced mind, furnish irresistible proof of their conformity to the received doctrine of the Church in the ninth century, and that transubstantiation was then a novelty. — Indeed the very fact that this doctrine produced the most bitter contention from its first publication till it was confirmed two hundred years after by the Lateran Council, is demonstrative of its novelty, and that before that period it was totally unknown to the Church.

It has therefore no claim to Ecclesiastical antiquity, for the Church in her primitive days of simplicity and piety, and even after many inferior corruptions had crept in, believed without exception till the ninth century that the bread and wine retained their own nature or substance, and conveyed nourishment to the human body. She farther believed that they were made to the faithful the channels of the most precious blessings, and sanctified by the prayer of consecration ; that they underwent a moral change similar to the water in baptism. Had the doctrine of transubstantiation been true, how came it to be hid from the Apostles and first Christians, from the Churches in the East and in the West, from all the followers of Christ for more than eight hundred years ; and why was it left to struggle nearly eight hundred years longer before it was adopted by the ruling part of only one denomination of Christians., while on the other hand, almost all Christians, for more than eighteen centuries, have held the same doctrine concerning the elements of bread and wine as the Church of England now does ; and even now the belief of transubstantiation introduced upon human authority is confined to the Roman Church, and believed to be only received in a qualified sense by a portion of her members.

It is evident that the doctrine of transubstantiation rests upon the strictly literal meaning of the words, "This is my body," " this is my blood." Now it has been shewn that they were not so read and understood in the primitive Church, by which they were taken in a figurative sense, as if our Lord had said, this represents my body, this represents my blood; or, this signifies my body, this signifies my blood : expressions of this sort are common in all languages ; on looking at a medal we naturally say, this is Julias Csesar ; or at Mr. Pitt's bust, this is Pitt. In Scripture they are very numerous : thus Joseph, in Genesis says, the three branches are three days, the three D baskets are three days; the seven fat kine are seven years, the seven good ears of corn are seven years, that is, signify seven years; the rock that followed the Israelites, says St. Paul, was Christ, that is represented Christ; thus Daniel, the ram with the two horns are the Kings of Media. In the parable of the Sower, our Lord says, the seed is the word, and the figure is carried through the whole parable ; Christ calls himself the door, the vine, and his father the husbandman ; he calls his disciples the salt of the earth, the light of the world : St. Paul having spoken of Sarah and Hagar, adds, these are the two covenants : the seven stars (says St. John) are the angels of the seven Churches;, and in the Book of Exodus, after God had spoken of the Paschal Lamb, "This is the Lords Passover." Now our Saviour, substituting the Holy Communion for the Sacrament, follows the style of the Old Testament, and uses the same expressions as the Jews were wont to use at the celebration of the Passover.

In all this there is nothing violent, so far to the contrary, that common sense prompts such a reading, and in all of them the speakers give them the same meaning, as that which we contend for in the passages instituting the Lord's Supper. If we refer to the conduct of our Lord at the institution, we shall find that the disciples who were present could give them no other interpretation, and surely they were as competent judges as Pascasius, who did not come into existence till more than eight centuries after; nor will it be presumptuous in us to understand the Eucharist as St. Peter and St. Paul understood it, rather than follow the Abbot of Corbey. Our Lord took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke the bread and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take eat : this is my body ;" now of what did the Saviour speak, but of the bread which he had just given them, and which they held in their hands; was it not bread still? did he not speak of that thing which he took and brake and gave thern ? and what was that but the true bread, which he then distributed. It is impossible to believe, nor did the Apostles present so believe, that our Saviour meant this bread is my natural body, this wine is my natural blood : on the contrary, acting as a Priest, according to the order of Melchisedec, whose sacrifice typical of his was the pure offering of bread and wine, our Lord offered the same, that is, his own body and blood represented by bread and wine as pledges of his body and blood, which the day after hung upon the cross, a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

When our Lord made this oblation, and gave himself at the last Supper to suffer and to die, under the symbols or substitutes of bread and wine, we cannot without horror give them a literal interpretation, or think that he would lay violent hands upon himself— wound and break up his own body, and shed out his own blood: our more rational belief is, that he did, under representatives of his own appointment, figures of his body and blood, sure pledges of the real substance, give his body to be broken and his blood to be shed by the hands of his crucifiers : and in order to shew his transcendant love to lost mankind, he made a voluntary oblation of himself while still in perfect liberty : no man, he said, taketh away my life from me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again; when therefore he said to the Apostles, "Take eat," &c. we are to understand him as saying: Take eat; this bread now broken and given to you, is the memorial or representative of my body, which is under this emblem now given, offered and devoted to God for you: This do, continue to do as 1 have done; and thereby make this memorial of me and of what I now do when I am gone from you : and drink ye all of this cup, for this cup is the memorial or repre-, sentative of my blood, which is now under this emblem devoted and offered to God, as shed for you and for many, for the remission of sins ; do as I have now done, as often as you make tiiis memorial of me.

Moreover, to take the words in their literal sense is to believe that the Lord took himself, and gave himself from himself, and was eaten even by those disciples that did not touch him ; and his blood was drunk by them even whilst it remained in his veins : but these things are so totally opposed to the most common understanding, that no one can for a moment admit them. That the Apostles understood our Saviour in a figurative sense evidently appears from the fact, that they expressed neither terror nor amazement, as they certainly would have done had they understood him otherwise. But they saw and knew what he took and broke, that it was the real bread on the table; they did not suspect any secret meaning, nor did our Saviour declare any change, as appears from his own words. St. Paul's expressions are inconsistent with any change in the substance of the elements, for speaking of the communicants he saith, "for as often as ye eat this bread," and again, " we are partakers of that one bread," calling it bread after consecration ; for it is certain that the elements are not to be eaten nor drunk till they are consecrated, and that we are not partakers of the elements till we eat and drink them, and yet the Apostle calls it bread even after participation, tl for we are partakers of that one bread." And our Saviour calls the wine, the fruit of the vine, even after the Apostles had drunk it ; he farther says, this cup is the New Testament of my blood, which words could not be meant in a literal sense, for the cup could not be changed into a covenant, though it might be a representation or memorial of it.

Let it be remembered that all languages are more or less figurative; and those of Eastern nations are especially so. In the Scriptures the diction abounds in figures, and the discourses and speeches of our Saviour are full of them. Now to discover the true meaning of such words and passages we are not to take them in their literal sense, when it would involve an impossibility. Thus, when God declares the Prophet to be a defenced city; an iron pillar ; a brazen wail : we must consider the words figurative, because taken literally they involve that which is impossible : again, when such words and expressions, taken literally, are contrary to common sense, or the context, they are to be taken figuratively : — thus, when the Psalmist exclaims, * f awake, why sleepest thou ? w he means moral, not natural sleep. " The blood of Jerusalem," means the blood shed and the murder committed by the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In applying these two rules to the institution of the Lord's Supper we find that the literal sense is not only repugnant to sacred history and involves an absurdity, but that it is contrary to the context, and to many parallel passages : yet upon a forced and literal construction of these words the Church of Rome, since the thirteenth century, has erected and maintained the doctrine of transubstantiation, or of the conversion of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, into the actual body and blood of Christ ; a doctrine which is manifestly repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the very nature of a Sacrament, and giveth rise to many superstitions. In truth, to take the words "this is my body," in the sense of transubstantiation, is in direct contradiction to the senses as well as to the reason of mankind ; and yet the Church of Rome will not understand the plain institution of the Sacrament, in both kinds, like men who believe not that there is a God who made the world, but can swallow a thousand things far more difficult.