658 PART IH. Ch. XX. — the means of grace.
law which gives rise to a new development. This new law, or principle of life is the substance of Christ. Herein consists the mystical union. " This union is a central, that is, an organic union between the soul-centre, (seelischen Centrum) of the exalted In- carnate one and our soul-centre, so that Christ from our centre pervades, controls, and sanctifies, both our physical-somatic, and our noetic life." 1 A few lines further on it is said, " This com- munication is real, not imaginary, .... in that before all our thought, the substantial centre of our physical and noetic life is organically united with Christ's centre, [so that in the Lord's Sup- per] we receive a new communication of the substance (Substanz- mittheilung] of the glorified Son of man." 2 What is communi- cated is sometimes said to be " the person of Christ," sometimes " the whole Christ," sometimes " his life," sometimes " his whole human life," and sometimes the " organic law of Christ's human life." The Lord's Supper, therefore, is by Ebrard declared to be an ordinance " wherein Christ renews the mystical union, the real life-bond, with his people, in that He renewedly implants Him- self, his person, and glorified humanity in them, objectively, really, and centrally, and thus confirms and renews their participation in the benefits of his death." 3
This theory repudiates the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Lutheran doctrine of oral manducation of the true, natural body and blood of Christ ; the Calvinistic idea of an emanation from the glorified body of Christ, the Reformed doctrine of the re- ception of the benefits of Christ's sacrificial death, and of Christ Himself by the indwelling of his Spirit, and insists on the com- munication of the divine humanity of Christ to the soul of the believer as a new organic law, somewhat in the same way as magnetism is added to iron as a new controlling law. Philippi 4 reviews the exhibitions of the doctrine of the eucharist given by the leading German theologians from Schleiermacher to Lange. The epithet of " mystic-theosophical," which he applies to the doctrine of Lange, applies with more or less propriety to all the
1 Christliche Dogmatik, in. iii. 2. 2. B. § 545 ; Konigsberg, 1852, vol. ii. p. 651.
2 On page 322, Ebrard, when treating of regeneration and of the mystical union with Christ thereby effected, quotes the following passage from The Mystical Presence, by Dr. J. W. Nevin, Philadelphia, 1846, p. 160, as expressing his own views on the subject : " Christ's person is one, and the person of the believer is one ; and to secure a real com- munication of the whole human life of the first over into the personality of the second, it is only necessary that the communication should spring from the centre of Christ's life and l»ass over to the centre of ours."
» Christliche Dogmatik, in. iii. 2. 2. B. § 545 ; Konigsberg, 1852, vol. ii. p. 650.
* Kirchliche Glaubenslehre, vonD. Fr. Ad. Philippi, Giitersloh, 1871, vol. v. pp. 364-380.