Page images
PDF
EPUB

this dogma seem to involve the truth or falsehood of the entire religion, that Transubstantiation was, until within these few years, considered the test whether one professed or rejected the entire Catholic creed. These considerations will alone sufficiently prove the necessity of seriously studying the arguments whereon doth rest the truth of our belief.

This belief is clearly defined by the Council of Trent, in the following words: Whereas, our Redeemer Christ did declare that to be truly his body which he offered under the appearance of bread, therefore hath it always been held in the Church of God, (and this holy Synod once more declareth it,) that by the consecration of the bread and wine; a change is wrought of the bread's whole substance, into the substance of Christ our Lord's body, and of the wine's whole substance, into substance of his blood's; which change, hath been, by the Holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called Transubstantiation."* Such is the dogma which we have to prove against those, who assert, that in the Eucharist, nothing more is presented to the faithful than a type, or figure, of our Redeemer's body and blood.

Church; and many others by the very same argument, have surrendered their belief in that infallibility.”—“ Elements of Rhetoric,” Oxford, 1828, p. 33. I apprehend that every one who has had any experience, will have found the latter member of this sentence totally inaccurate, and the first not so generally correct as the observation in the text.

* Sess. xiii., c. iv., see also canon ii.

But if the doctrine of the Catholic Church is so clear and explicit, as these words testify, it is by no means easy to understand the curious shades of difference observable in the doctrines of the separated Churches. Luther started with the determination to preserve the real corporal presence of the body and blood of our Saviour in the Eucharist; nay, he did not seem intentionally to abandon even the doctrine of Transubstantiation; for, he does not so much impugn it, as leave it aside, by adopting phrases used accidentally by Petrus de Alliaco. Hence, the tenth article of the Confession of Augsburg, as presented to the Emperor Charles V. in 1530, ran as follows:

"De Cœna Domini docent, quod corpus et sanguis Christi vere adsint et distribuantur vescentibus, in cœna Domini, sub specie panis et vini, et improbant secus docentus." As the history of this article is curious, I will continue to trace it for you. In the following year, Melancthon altered it, by striking out the words "sub specie panis et vini ;" thus effacing the implied absence of their substance, or the doctrine of Transubstantiation. After the disputes concerning the Eucharist had become serious in the Reformer's camp, and had involved them in a civil feud, the same disciple of Luther, anxious to bring about a conciliation, still further modified the article, both by erasure and by change. For in 1540, it was produced in the following strangely disfigured form.

"De cœna Domini docent, quod cum pane et

vino vere exhibeantur corpus et sanguis Christi, vescentibus in cœna Domini."

The clause condemnatory of those who held a different doctrine is here suppressed; the elements are introduced again into the proposition, with the important change of" sub specie" into "cum;" and "adsint et distribuantur," dwindle into one equivocal verb," exhibeantur." And thus did consubstantiation or companation come forth from the chrysalis proposition, in which we must try to suppose it originally contained !

But while this theory was thus going through his curious process, others had sprung up, as progressive modifications of one another. Carlstadt first conceived the idea of a purely spiritual presence, or rather of a real absence of our Lord's body; but as he had no arguments whereby to support his opinion, he was obliged to yield the glory of it to Zwingli and Ecolampadius, whose arguments we shall see in their proper place. The former illustrates his system by this comparison. "When the father of a family travels abroad, he presents his wife with his best ring, whereon his image is engraved, saying: 'Behold me, your husband, whom you must hold and cherish.' Now that father of the family is the type of Christ. For, departing, he gave to his spouse the Church his image, in the Sacrament of the supper."* Even these two, however, could not agree upon the right interpretation of the words of institution. Zwingli maintained

* "Huldrichi Zwinglii Opera." Tom. ii., p. 549.

that in them or signified "represents;" Ecolam. padius asserted that the metaphor was in dua, which meant "the figure of the body!"

Between the two opposite opinions of the literal and the figurative meaning of Christ's expressions, in other words, of his presence and absence in the Eucharist, there arose a middle system, which pretended to hold both, and reconcile the true receiving of our Saviour's body, with the fact of its not being there. This required a boldness unparalleled perhaps in the annals of interpretation, except among those Arians of old, who would call Christ the Son of God, yet not allow him to be consubstantial to the Father.

This attempt was made in two ways. The first was Calvin's, who ingeniously supposed that the body of Christ, present in heaven, communicated such virtue to the elements, when partaken of by the worthy receiver, that he might be said to partake of the very body. Capito and Bucer were content to halt between the two opinions, without any explanatory theory; asserting at once the presence and absence of Christ's body.*

From the latter, unfortunately, the Church of England learnt her belief; and, accordingly, we find it fraught with the contradictions which it necessarily involves. A modern writer thus expresses himself on this subject. "If the Roman

* For this sketch of the sacramental history in Germany, I am indebted to the golden book of my learned friend, Professor Mohler. 'Symbolik oder Darstellung der dogmatischen Gegensätze der Katholiken und Protestanten." Third edition, 1834, pp. 323-330.

(Catholic) and Lutheran doctrines teemed with unmasked absurdity;" (this we shall see by-and-by,) "this middle system, (if indeed it is to be considered a genuine opinion, and not, rather, a political device),* had no advantage but in the disguise of unmeaning terms; while it had the peculiar infelicity of departing as much from the literal sense of the words of institution, wherein the former triumphed, as the Zwinglian interpretation itself. I know not whether I can state, in language tolerably perspicuous, this jargon of bad metaphysical theology.

It can hardly fail to strike every unprejudiced reader, that a material substance can only in a very figurative sense be said to be received through faith; that there can be no real presence of such a body, consistently with the proper use of language, but by its local occupation of space;" (this observation is inaccurate) "and that as the Romish (Catholic) tenet of Transubstantiation is the best, so this of the Calvinists is the worst imagined of the three, that have been opposed to the simplicity of the Helvetic explanation."+

Hence it was some time before the Established

*Author's note. "The truth is, that there were but two opinions at bottom, as to this main point of the controversy; nor in the nature of things was it possible that there should be more: for what can be predicated concerning a body, in its relation to a given space, but presence and absence ?"

vol.

+"Hallam's Constitutional History of England,” vol. i. c. 2 ; i. p. 119, ed. Par. 1827. I do not quote this writer as an authority, but merely on account of the correctness of most of the cited remarks.

« PreviousContinue »