Scripture : " To those who receive it worthily and with faith, the bread which we break is the communion of the body of Christ." The second clause rejects transubstantiation. The third is di- rected against the Lutheran doctrine, and asserts that as Christ is in heaven ; " non debet quisquam fidelium carnis ejus et sanguinis realem et corporalem (ut loquuntur) praesentiam in eucharistia vel credere vel profiteri."
Article twenty-eight of the Thirty-nine Articles adopted in 1562, contains the first three clauses substantially as they ap- peared in the article of Edward VI., and then adds : " The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the supper only after a heavenly and spiritual manner ; and the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the supper, is faith. The sa- crament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance re- served, carried about, lifted up, and worshipped." In the early edition of these articles, the clause against transubstantiation was amplified as follows : " Forasmuch as the truth of man's nature requireth, that the body of one and the selfsame man cannot be at one time in divers places, but must needs be in one certain place ; therefore the body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and divers places : and because as Holy Scripture doth teach, Christ was taken up into heaven, and there shall continue unto the end of the world ; a faithful man ought not either to be- lieve, or openly confess the real and bodily presence, as they term it, of Christ's flesh and blood in the sacrament of the Lord's Sup- per." J All this is implied in the form in which the article now stands. It affords clear evidence what were the sentiments of the English Reformers on this subject. It is principally interesting as it repudiates the idea of the " real presence " of the flesh and blood of Christ in the sacrament ; which even Zwingle was willing to al- low. He, however, used the word " real " in a very different sense from that in which it is used by either Romanists or Lutherans.
The Sense in which Christ is present in the Lord's Supper.
The extracts from the symbols of the Reformed Church enable us to answer, First, the question in what sense according to that Church, Christ is present in the Lord's Supper. The Reformed theologians are careful to explain what they mean by the word presence. Anything is said to be present when it operates duly on our perceiving faculties. A sensible object is present (prse sensi-
1 See Exposition of Thirty^nine Articles by Gilbert [Burnet], 6th edit. Dublin, 1790, p 403.