(/cev^) empty; void of truth, weightless and worthless. It is moreover, a deceit ; it disappoints and misleads. This is not said of natural philosophy, which concerns itself with the facts and laws of nature ; nor of moral philosophy, which treats of the phenomena and laws of our moral nature; nor of intellectual philosophy, which deals with the operations and laws of mind as revealed in consciousness. But it is said of speculative philosophy ; of every system which undertakes to determine on d priori speculative principles, the nature of God, the origin and constitution of the universe, the nature of man and of his relation to God, or to use common language, of the finite to the infinite. It was the orien- tal philosophy which the Spirit of God by the pen of St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Colossians, pronounced " a vain deceit." He says the same thing in the Epistle to the Corinthians of the Greek philosophy, whether Eleatic or Platonic. This judgment of inspi- ration is confirmed by experience. Who now cares a straw for the speculations of the ancients, of the schoolmen, or of their mod- ern successors. Who is now a Hegelian ? Forty years ago, who was not ? We were told then, as we are told now, that certain scientific principles have a right to be respected and employed in the exposition of the doctrine of the Bible. But what is called science — in the sphere of speculation — in one age, is repudiated as nonsense in another. No philosophy has the right to control or modify the exposition of the doctrines of the Bible, except the philosophy of the Bible itself; that is, the principles which are therein asserted or assumed.
§ 18. The Lutheran Doctrine concerning the Lord's Supper.
Protestants at the time of the Reformation agreed on all the great doctrines of the Gospel. Luther was as thorough an Augus- tinian as Calvin. There would have been no schism had it not been for the difference of views which gradually arose on the true nature of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And even on this point, such was the desire to avoid division, and such the spirit of concession manifested by the Reformed, that a schism would have been avoided, had it not been that Luther insisted on the adoption of the very words in which he stated his doctrine on the subject. That there was a real difference between the parties must be ad- mitted, but that difference was not such as to justify a division in the ranks of Protestants ; and the Reformed were willing to adopt a mode of stating the doctrine which both parties could re- ceive without a violation of conscience. One attempt after an-
662 PART m. Ch. XX. — THE MEANS OF GRACE.
other designed to effect a compromise failed, and the Lutherans and Reformed separated into two ecclesiastical denominations, and so remain at the present time. In the Evangelical Church of Prussia under the pressure of the government, the two parties have been brought into one Church which comprehends the greater part of the people. But beyond the limits of Prussia the two Churches remain distinct, though no longer in a state of mutual alienation.
Luther took his stand on the words of Christ, " This is my body," which he insisted must be understood literally. He would admit of no figure in the subject, copula, or predicate. Christ affirmed that " This," that which I hold in my hand, and which I give you to eat, is my body.1 This position having been as-
l Lutherans lay great stress on the fact that in Matthew xxvi. 26, tovto (this) is neuter, and ipros (bread) is masculine, and therefore that the meaning cannot be ' This bread is my body,' but ' This that I give you to eat is my body.' It must be admitted that the neuter pronoun cannot be referred to the masculine noun grammatically, but it evidently does re- fer to it ad sensum. ' This thing which I hold in my hand and which I give you to eat is my body.' But the thing which Christ gave his disciples was the bread which he had taken and broken ; and therefore it was the bread which He affirmed was, either literally or figuratively, his body. Lutherans themselves cannot avoid saying and admitting that the bread in the Lord's Supper is the body of Christ. Thus Luther (Larger Catechism, v. 12, 13; Hase, Libri Symbolici, p. 554) tells his catechumen to say, " Though infinite myriads of devils and all fanatics should impudently demand, How bread and wine can be the body and blood of Christ? I know that all spirits and all learned men put together have not as much intelligence as Almighty God has in his little finger." The bread therefore he teaches is the body of Christ. And Dr. Krauth (p. 609) says, "Just as it would be blasphemy to say, 'Man is God,' and is yet literally true of Christ, ' This man is God,' so would it be blasphemy to say, 'Bread is Christ' 9 body,' and yet it is literally true, ' This bread is Christ's body.' " It is conceded, therefore, that after all, the pronoun " This " (tovto), in the words of institution, does refer to the noun "bread," and that if the language of Cltrist is to be understood literally, He affirms that the bread in the Lord's Supper is his body. On this concession it may be remarked, (1. ) That it seems to yield everything to the Romanists. If the bread is literally the body of Christ, it is no longer bread; for no one asserts that the same thing can be bread and flesh at the same time. If, therefore, the words of Christ are to be taken literally, they teach the doctrine of transubstantiation. (2.) It will not do to say that the bread remains bread and that the body of Christ is in, with, and under it, for that makes the language figurative, and the literal interpretation, the main, if not the only, prop of the Lutheran doctrine, is given up. When Christ says, "This cup is the New Testament," it is admitted that the cup is used metonymically for the wine in the cup. And if the language of our Lord, ' This bread is my body,' means, This bread is the vehicle of my body, then He spoke figuratively and not literally; and whether the figure used be metonymy or metaphor is a question to be determined by the nature of the proposition, the context, and the analogy of Scripture. But the advocates of the metonymical sense are not entitled to charge those who adopt the metaphorical meaning, with giving up the literal sense. That is done by the one party as well as by the other.
A great deal of discussion has been expended on the meaning of the substantive verb "is," in the proposition, " This is my body." The Reformed are wont to say that it means, "signifies," "represents," or "symbolizes" my body. The Lutherans maintain that it is the mere copula between the subject and predicate, and never has, or can have the meaning assigned to it by the Reformed ; and in this they are right. Yet it seems to be a dispute about words. There i9 no real difference between the parties. When the Re-