XII. A Statement of the Calvinisms Belief in the Doctrine of the Real

Presence.

To remove, once for all, the ambiguities of expression which the Calvinists employ on this subject, and at the same time to shew how nearly they have approached to our view, though I only undertook to explain the doctrines of the Church, it may be as well to add here a statement of their opinions.

They are divided into two parties on the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist. The first party says that it comprises the figure only of the Body and Blood ; the second, the Real Presence of our Lord's Body and Blood : we will consider each separately.

First they say that this great miracle which we believe of the real presence, is of no avail, since it is enough for our salvation that Jesus Christ died for us, that this sacrifice is fully communicated to us by faith ; and of this we are assured by the Word of God : they further add that if it was intended to clothe this Word in outward and visible signs, it was enough to have given us simple symbols, such as water in Baptism, without its being necessary to draw down from heaven the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

This seems a very easy way of explaining the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and yet it is not sufficiently explicit to satisfy our adversaries. They are aware that it was just such reasonings that brought the Socinians to deny the miracle of the Incarnation. Could not God, ask these heretics, save us without so many circuitous circumstances ? He had but to pardon us, and could He not have taught us as well, both as to doctrine and obedience, by the life and example of a man gifted with His Holy Spirit, without ever intending He should be God ? " The Calvinists, however, see the weakness of this argument, — for first, is it for us to deny or to affirm the mysteries of religion, according to our finite view of their utility or practicability? God alone knows His secret workings ; for us we have only to make them beneficial and useful to ourselves, by believing all He reveals to us, and by applying His grace in any way He thinks it expedient to appoint. And secondly, without entering into the question of the possibility of our salvation being wrought for us without the Incarnation and Death of the Son of God, (a useless dispute which the Reformers have made so much of in their lectures) it is enough to read in the Gospel that the Son of God voluntarily chose to shew His love for man by such unspeakable proofs. Love was the sole cause of that real union by which He became Man. Love drove Him to sacrifice that same Body which He really took. Love prompted Him to plan all His designs, and supported Him throughout with unremitting force. Thus when He decrees to manifest to one of His children individually, that love He has testified to all generally, He finds means wherewith He can effect His purpose, as readily as those He used to accomplish our salvation. Why then should we marvel if He gives to each of us the very substance of His Flesh and Blood ? He does so to engraft within us the conviction that He took that flesh and blood upon Him for us, and that He likewise gave it in sacrifice for us. What has been done by Him already, renders the sequel quite within our belief. The whole order of His dispensations prepares us for this end, and His Word is the pledge that does not suifer us to doubt.

Our adversaries were aware that Christians would not be content with simple figures and symbols of the Body and Blood in the Eucharist, especially after being accustomed so long to receive no less a gift than Himself ; therefore they do not like to be accused of denying that there is a real and substantial participation of Jesus Christ in their Supper. They maintain, as we do, that He therein makes us partakers of the very substance of His Body. Thus they say in their Catechism, " We are strengthened and refreshed by the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ," and deeming it would not be sufficient that He shewed us by a figure that we should partake in His sacrifice, they affirm incontestibly, " That the Body of our Lord which is given to us in His Supper is a pledge to assure us thereof," really very remarkable words, and which we shall have to return to immediately to examine. Here then, by the confession of the Calvinistg is established, that the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is present in our Mysteries, for what is partaken in Us very substance must be really present. It is true they explain this participation by saying, it is spiritual, and by faith, and yet they will have it to be real. And because it is not possible to understand how a body, which is communicated to us only after a spiritual manner, should also be partaken of really and in its very substance, they have fallen into a difficulty which prevents their reconciling these two parts of their doctrine so opposed to each other, and therefore they have been compelled to confess two things, which cannot be true unless they believe what the Church teaches.

The first is, That Jesus Christ is given to us in the Eucharist after a manner entirely proper to that Mystery, and differing from that in which He is received at Baptism, or by " hearing the Word." We will trace out the consequences of this principle ; but first let us see how the Reformers grant it to us.

I will not cite the testimony of any particular author, but only the words of their Catechism, where it speaks of the Lord's Supper. It says in express terms that Jesus Christ is not only given us in very truth, and in very substance, but yet, though He is communicated to us verily, both in Baptism and by the preaching of the Word, it is only in part and not fully. Whence it follows, He is partaken of " fully " in the Lord's Supper, and not in part. •

There is a vast difference between receiving " in part " and receiving " fully." If then Jesus Christ is received elsewhere " in part," it follows He can only be received fully in the Lord's Supper. We conclude then from their own confession, that we are to look for a participation in the Lord's Supper, proper to that Mystery, and different from that we may expect from Baptism or hearing the Word of God ; and still, this fulness does not depend upon our Faith, since Faith is an absolute requisite in every action of the Christian, and is as necessary in hearing the Word, and in Baptism, as in the Lord's Supper.

It is truly astonishing that much as the Reformers wish to place on a par, Baptism, Preaching, and the Lord's Supper, by reason that Jesus Christ is conveyed to us in them, they have never dared to say in their Catechism, That Jesus Christ is given to us in His very substance in Baptism, or in Preaching, as they themselves affirm He is in the Eucharist. They have not been able to get over this, that we partake of Jesus Christ in this Sacrament in a way quite peculiar to itself, and also that Faith, which is common to every action of a Christian, is not this peculiar manner. Again, this peculiar manner of receiving Jesus Christ in the Eucharist must be " real," since it secures, to the faithful, the very substance of His Body and Blood. So clear is this, from their own statements, that we must conclude, that there is in the Eucharist, a " real " manner of taking and receiving the Body and Blood of our Saviour, which is not merely by faith . And this is the very doctrine of the Church Catholic.

The second thing the Reformers grant, is taken from the article which follows the one already quoted from their Catechism, and is to this effect, " That the Body of the Lord Jesus, insomuch as it has been once offered in sacrifice for our reconciliation with God, is now given us, to assure us of our participation in this reconciliation." If these words have any meaning, and are not mere idle expressions of vain ideas, they ought to prove that Jesus Christ does not give us a figure only, but His very Body, to guarantee the actual participation we have in His Sacrifice, and reconciliation of the whole human race. Now, if the reception of the Body of our Lord assures us of the participation in the fruits of His death, we must necessarily distinguish between the reception of His Body, and the participation in His death, because one is the pledge that we possess the other. Whence, going on a step farther, we say, if our adversaries are obliged to distinguish in the Lord's Supper, between the reception of our Lord's Body, and the participation in the fruits and grace of His Sacrifice, they must also distinguish between reception of this Divine Body, and that participation which is made spiritually and by faith. For this last participation is not capable of being divided into two distinct actions, by one of which they shall receive the Body of our Lord, and by the other the fruit of His Sacrifice ; for who can possibly distinguish between a spiritual participation of our Lord's Body, and a spiritual participation in the fruits of His death. They are compelled, then, to acknowledge that besides the Communion, in which we partake spiritually of the Body of our Lord, and of His Spirit likewise, in receiving the fruits of His Death, there is still another actual and substantial Communion of the Body of the same Lord, which is the pledge that assures the former to us, provided we present no obstacle ourselves to this grace, by any evil disposition of our own.

This is in fact involved in their own teaching, and they must, to explain this truth in any way satisfactorily to themselves, agree with the Church on this head. Who is not here struck by the force ( truth ? All that results from the principles which our adversaries are compelled to avow is perfectly agreeable to the feeling of the Church. The most uninformed Catholic conceives without difficulty that there n a communion with Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist which he can find no where else -we perfectly understand «• that His Body is given us as a pledge that we have part in His Sacrifice and Death, readily perceive that there are necessarily two means by which we are united to Jesus Christ ; one, by receiving His very Flesh ; and the other by receiving His Spirit ; the former being the pledge obtaining the latter. But much as our adversaries are obliged confess these things in principle, their feeling is so much at varia: with it they will never be able to reconcile the evident contradictions into which they have been led. It has often surprised me why they did not explain their doctrine in a less complicated way. Why should they not say boldly, without so much ceremony, that Jesus Christ having shed His Blood for us, left us in token of it, two distinct of His Body and Blood? That He gave to these signs the name of the things signified ? That these sacred signs were pledges to assure to us our part in the fruits of His death; and moreover, that we are spiritually nourished by the efficacy of His Body and Blood ? After so many attempts to prove that as the signs received the name of the objects, the sign of the Body might be called the Body itself, n incumbent on them to admit all the consequences of such a doctrine, and to abide by them. To render these signs efficacious it was enough, that grace was promised through them, or rather, in accordance with°their principles, that it was assured by them.

They need not have taken so much pains to prove that we receive the very Body of our Lord, to shew our participation in His sacrifice, since they are quite content that the water in Baptism should be a sign of the Blood that cleanses from sin; and they never endeavoured to prove that in it we receive the very Blood of our Lord, to shew o participation in His grace there given. Had they only reasoned in tl way on the subject of the Holy Eucharist their doctrine would not have been so complicated. But those who invent and innovate can never say as much as they would desire; they find certain undoubted facts, and established principles, which are very unyielding, and they are forced to give in. The Arians endeavoured to deprive our Lord of the name of God, and Only Begotten. The Nestorians only half admitted that Unity of Person they were obliged to give in their writings to our Lord. The Pelagians, who denied original sin, would gladly have denied also the necessity of Infant Baptism for the remission of sins, and by that means they thought to abolish the argument which Catholics drew, from this practice, in favour of original sin. But as I just said, those who find principles long established have not the courage to overturn them entirely.

If the Calvinists would really speak the truth (I have no doubt in saying) they would gladly have to acknowledge nothing more in the Eucharist than the figure of the Body of our Lord, and in reality only a participation of His spiritual benefits, laying aside those important words, " participation in His actual Body," and many others which prove His Real Presence, which in fact they find too embarrassing. It would be more convenient for them to believe that that communion in the Lord's Supper was none other than that received in Holy Baptism, and by the Ministry of the Word ; without explaining as they have thought it needful to do that in the Lord's Supper we receive " fully," and at other times only " in part." Though, doubtless, such was their inclination, the words of our Lord prevent them from acknowledging it openly. Our Lord having so precisely said at the institution, " This is My Body — This is My Blood," words which He applied solely to this subject, what grounds have we for supposing that He intended this to be extended to all the actions of the Christian life, when evidently He is alluding to one particular instance ? And besides, the whole course of His Divine teaching, the inferences to be drawn from His mysteries and His doctrine, the design of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, the very simple words He used, the natural impression they make upon Christians, all combine to make clear the notion of a Real Presence. And thus it is that our adversaries are obliged to use words whose sounds at least should give some confused idea of this Reality. If we keep to the principles of faith implicitly, as the Catholic does, or make human reason our rule, as the Infidel does, it is far more easy to make out some fixed plan of doctrine, and abide by the consequences, — but when we attempt to make a combined system out of both, we are led to say more than we wish, and to adopt opinions whose manifest inconsistencies prove the fallacy of our arguments.

This is just what has happened to these Reformers; and God has thus permitted them so far to wander from the Church, and no farther, as if to facilitate their return to Catholic Unity. For since experience has shewn them that to speak the language of truth, they are obliged to use the same expressions we do, must they not think as we do, to understand rightly what they say ? If they find in their Creeds passages whose full meaning must be borrowed from ours, does it not follow that the entire pure faith is among us ? And these detached sentences of Catholic faith which we find scattered here and there in their Catechism, although they require to be annexed to their context, so to speak, ought to send them to the communion of the Church, to seek there the full explanation of the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist? They would doubtless come to her if human reason did not darken their Creed, too dependent, as it is, upon their bodily senses.

And now having shown what are the fruits of their doctrine, I will turn to conclude what I have to say further on our own.