prayers and hymns of the Church addressed to Christ all assume that He has human sympathies and affections which make his re- lation to us entirely different from what it is to any other order of beings in the universe. If any one asks, How the humanity of Christ, his body and soul in heaven, can sympathize with his peo- ple on earth ? the answer is, that it is in personal union with the Logos. If this answer be deemed insufficient, then the questioner may be asked, How the dust of which the human body is formed can sympathize with the immortal spirit with which it is united ? Whether the mystery of this human sympathy of Christ can be ex- plained or not, it remains a fact both of Scripture and of experience. In this sense, and not in a sense which implies any relation to space, it may be said that wherever the divinity of Christ is, there is his humanity, and as, by common consent, He is present at his table, He is there in the fulness of his human sympathy and love. But this presence of Christ in the eucharist is predicated, not of his person only, but also of his body and blood. This presence the Reformed, as Zwingle said, " if they must have words," were willing to call real. But then they explained the word " real " as the opposite of " imaginary." The negative statements con- cerning this presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper are, —
1. That it is not local or corporeal. It is not material or of the matter.
2. It is not to the senses.
3. It is not peculiar to this sacrament. Christ and his benefits, his body and blood, and all their influences on the believer, are said to be accessible to him, and as truly received by him out of the supper as in it.
On this point the Confessions, even those signed by Calvin, are perfectly explicit. In the Zurich Confession, A. D. 1545, it is said, "Believers have in the Lord's Supper no other life- giving food than that which they receive elsewhere than in that ordinance." In the Second Helvetic Confession this is taught at length, and the doctrine vindicated from the objection that it renders the sacrament useless, that if we can receive without it what we receive in it, the importance of the sacrament is gone. The answer is, that as we continually need food for the body, so we continually need food for the soul ; and that the sacra-
munion with God and communion with Christ? " and passed on without adding a word. These were the last words the writer ever heard from lips which the Spirit had often touched with a coal from the altar.
640 PART III. Ch. XX. — THE MEANS OF GRACE.
ments as well as the Word are divinely appointed means for con- veying that spiritual nourishment. That the sacraments are means of grace, does not render the Word unnecessary ; neither does the Word's being effectual and sufficient unto salvation, render the sacraments useless. Calvin teaches the same doctrine : J " The verity which is figured in the sacraments believers receive outside of the use of them. Thus in baptism, Paul's sins were washed away, which had already been blotted out. Baptism was to Cor- nelius the laver of regeneration, although he had before received the Spirit. And so in the Lord's Supper, Christ communicates Himself to us, although He had already imparted Himself to us and dwells within us." The office of the sacraments, he teaches, is to confirm and increase our faith. In his defence of this " Con- sensus," he expresses surprise that a doctrine so plainly proved by Scripture and experience should be called into question.2 In the decree of the French National Synod of 1572, it is said, " The same Lord Jesus both as to his substance and gifts, is offered to us in baptism and the ministry of the word, and received by believers."
The Church of England teaches the same doctrine, for in the office for the communion of the sick, the minister is directed to instruct a parishioner who is prevented from receiving the sacra- ment " that if he do truly repent him of his sins, and steadfastly believe that Jesus Christ hath suffered death upon the cross for him, and shed his blood for his redemption, earnestly remember- ing the benefits he hath thereby, and giving Him hearty thanks therefor, he doth eat and drink the body and blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his soul's health, although he do not receive the sacrament with his mouth." On this point there was no diversity of opinion in the Reformed Church. There is no communion with Christ, no participation of his body and blood in the Lord's Supper, which is not elsewhere offered to believers and experienced by them.
4. There is still another position maintained by the Reformed which is especially important as determining their doctrine on this subject. They not only- deny that believers receive the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper otherwise than these are
1 " Extra eorum [sacramentorum] usum fidelibus constat, quae illic figuratur Veritas. Sic baptismo abluta sunt Pauli peccata, quae jam prius abluta erant. Sic idem baptismus Cor nelio fuit lavacrum regenerationis, qui tamen jam Spiritu Sancto donatus erat. Sic in coena se communicat Christus, qui tamen et prius se nobis impertierat et perpetuo manet in nobis." Consensus Tigurinus, art. xix. ; Niemeyer, Collectio Confessionum, p. 195.
2 Niemeyer, p. 212. " Quod deinde prosequimur, fidelibus spiritualium bonorum effectum quae figurant sacramenta, extra eorum usum constare, quando et quotidie verum esse ex- perimur et probatur Scripturae testimoniis mirum est s cui displiceat."