from^ the glorified body of Christ in heaven, nor to the communica- tion of the theanthropic nature of Christ, but only to " the bless- ing of Christ, and the working of his Spirit in them that receive " the sacrament of his body and blood.
By some of the early fathers the resurrection of the body was regarded as a specific effect of the Lord's Supper, which was therefore called, as by Ignatius, * <£ap/Aa*cov aflavao-ias, avriSoros rov aTToOaveiv. This idea was connected in their minds with the doc- trine of impanation referred to in the foregoing foot-note. Of this there is little trace in the theology of either the Reformed or Lutheran Church. In the Scotch Confession of 1560, it is in- deed said : " As the eternal deity gives life and immortality to the flesh of Christ, so also his flesh and blood, when eaten and drunk by us, confer on us the same prerogatives ; " and in the confession adopted by the Lutherans in 1592 it is said, the body of Christ is received by the mouth " in pignus et certificationem resurrectionis nostrorum corporum ex mortuis ; " on which Phil- ippi remarks that those words do not imply any " immediate cor- poreal operation or any implanting in us of a germ of a resurrection body. They only teach that this sacrament is a pledge of our res- urrection ; and as this idea is introduced only in one place in the acknowledged standards of the Church, and there only inciden- tally, it is to be considered as a subordinate matter. The main point is the pledge of the pardon of sin and of eternal life which includes an assurance of the resurrection of the body." 2
According to the standards of the Reformed Church, therefore :
far as known to the writer), who advocated this doctrine, was the late Dr. August Hahn of the University of Leipzig. "Bread and wine," he says, "in the Lord's Supper, are what the human body formerly was when the Son of God (the divine Logos) was here on earth ; that is, the means of his perceptible presence and efficiency on those who receive Him in a penitent and believing heart; they are therefore = the body and blood of Christ; since in them the Lord, who is the Light, the Life, and the Resurrection, communicates Himself actually, truly, and essentially (wirklich und wahrhaftig und wesentlich) to his people, and makes this bread, the bread of eternal life." See Lehrbuch des Christlicken Glaubens, von August Hahn, Leipzig, 1828, p. 602. On page 603, he says, Luther was right in rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation, and " he would have been right had he taught that with in, with, and under the bread and wine in the Holy Supper, we actually and essen- tially or really (wirklich und wesentlich) receive the present person Jesus Christ or the Logos, and hence this bread and this wine are the body and the blood of Christ, wherein He now communicates the bread which is from heaven to believers, as formerly when He came in lit- eral flesh and blood He gave Himself to them. But Luther erred when he asserted that with, in, and under the bread and wine, the real body which suffered for us, and the blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for us, are communicated, because according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. xv. 45-50), the spiritual, heavenly body of our glorified Lord, is not flesh and blood; and a body, whatever be its nature, cannot as body be ubiquitous."
1 Ad Ephesios, xx. ; Epistles, edit. Oxford, 1709, p. 19.
a Kirchliche Glaubenslehre, von D. Fr. Ad. Philippi, ordentlichem Professor der Theo- logie zu Rostock, Giitersloh, 1871, vol. v. p. 266.
650 FART ni. Ch. XX.— THE MEANS OF GRACE.
The Lord's Supper is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ ; as a memorial of his death, wherein, under the symbols of bread and wine, his body as broken and his blood as shed for the remis- sion of sins, are signified, and, by the power of the Holy Ghost, sealed and applied to believers ; whereby their union with Christ and their mutual fellowship are set forth and confirmed, their faith strengthened, and their souls nourished unto eternal life.
Christ is really present to his people in this sacrament, not bodily, but in spirit ; not in the sense of local nearness, but of efficacious operation. They receive Him, not with the mouth but by faith ; they receive his flesh and blood, not as flesh, not as material par- ticles, not its human life, not the supernatural influence of his glorified body in heaven ; but his body as broken and his blood as shed. The union thus signified and effected is not a corporeal union, not a mixture of substances, but a spiritual and mystical union due to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The efficacy of this sacrament, as a means of grace, is not in the signs, nor in the service, nor in the minister, nor in the word, but in the at- tending influence of the Holy Ghost.
§ 17. Modern Views concerning the LoroVs Supper.
The modern philosophy has introduced certain principles as to the nature of God and his relation to the world, and as to the nature of man and his relation to God, which when applied to Christian doctrines have produced a revolution in theology. It has already been shown that the principles of this philosophy in their application to the origin and present state of man, to the per- son and work of Christ, and to the way in which men are made partakers of his salvation, have introduced a method of presenting the gospel utterly unintelligible to those unacquainted with the modern speculations. The word philosophy is to be understood in a sense wide enough to include a great diversity of systems, which although they have certain principles in common, differ widely from each other. They belong to two general classes, the panthe- istic and theistic, which merge off into each other in every variety of form, and in different degrees of approximation towards identity.
According to the pantheistic theory, the world is the ever varying and unfolding existence form of God; and man is the form in which He comes to consciousness on this earth. Accord- ing to the theistic theory, the world owes its existence to the will of God, in 'which He is immanent and of which He is the life. Man is the form in which generic humanity is manifested