influence emanating from his glorified body in heaven, and con- veyed to the believer by the power of the Holy Ghost. Accord- ing to the Reformed generally, it is not this supernatural power of the glorified body of Christ that is present and received, but the sacrificial efficacy of his body broken and his blood shed for the remission of sins.
Secondly, as the thing received, according to the two doctrines, is different, so are the mode and organ and condition of recep- tion. According to the Lutherans the body and blood are re- ceived " corporaliter ; " the organ is the mouth ; the only condi- tion is the actual reception of the bread and wine. The body and blood of Christ are received equally by believers and unbeliev- ers ; although to their spiritual good only by the former. Accord- ing to the Reformed, the mode of reception is not corporeal, but spiritual ; the organ is not the mouth, but faith ; and the condi- tion of reception is the presence and exercise of faith on the part of the communicant. This point of difference is clearly recog- nized in the Form of Concord, when it says that the Reformed think that the body and blood of Christ, " tantum in coelis, et praeterea nullibi esse, ideoque Christum nobis cum pane et vino verum corpus et verum sanguinem manducandum et bibendum dare, spiritualiter, per fidem, sed non corporaliter ore sumen- dum."1
Manducation.
Thirdly, another point of difference, which the Form of Con- cord points out between the two Churches, concerns the mandu- cation or eating which takes place in the Lord's Supper. Our Lord in the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel, although not there treating of the Eucharist, says, that He is the true bread which came down from heaven, and that whosoever eateth of that bread shall live forever. And in the same chapter, with a change of language but not of meaning, He says, " The bread that I will give is my flesh." " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at the last day.'* Such being the language of Christ, every Christian must admit that there is a sense in which the believer may properly be said to eat the flesh and to drink the blood of the Son of man. The only question is, What does such
1 Solidd Declaration vn. 6 ; Hase, Libri Symbolici, p. 727. See also Dr. Julius Miiller. Vergleichung der Lehren Luihers und Calvins vom heiligen Abendmahl, in his Dogma- tische Abhandlungen, Bremen, 1870, p. 425.
668 PART ni. Ch. XX. — THE MEANS OF GRACE.
language mean ? According to the Reformed the meaning is that it is the indispensable condition of eternal life, that we should receive Christ as He is offered to us in the gospel ; and as He is there offered to us as a sacrifice for our sins, his body broken and his blood shed for us, we must receive and appropriate Him in that character. To receive Him as the true bread, and to eat of that bread, is to receive and appropriate Him as being to us the source of eternal life ; and to eat his flesh and drink his blood is to receive and appropriate Him as the broken and bleeding sacri- fice for our sins. In other words, to eat is to believe. The Form of Concord correctly recognizes this as the doctrine of the Re- formed Church. It says,1 that the Reformed in rejecting the literal sense of the words " eat, this is my body," teach " ut edere corpus Christi nihil aliud ipsis significet, quam credere in Chris- tum, et vocabulum corporis illis nil nisi symbolum, hoc est, sig- num seu figuram corporis Christi denotet, quod tamen non in ter- ris in sacra coena praesens, sed tantum in coelis sit." That the Reformed are right in this matter may, in passing, be argued, (1.) From the fact that our Lord in John vi. interchanges as equivalent the words "eating" and "believing." He says, "If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever ; " and, " He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life." The same specific effect is ascribed to eating and believing, and therefore the two words express the same act. (2.) The eating spoken of is declared to be the indispensable condition of eternal life. " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." But it is the clear doctrine of the Bible, and the common doctrine of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, that the only eating which is necessary to eternal life is that which consists in believing. Lutherans are as far as the Re- formed from making the sacramental eating of the body and blood of Christ in the supper essential to salvation. (3.) Nothing is es- sential to salvation under the new dispensation that was not essen- tial under the old. This also is a part of the common faith of both Churches. But under the Old Testament there could be no other eating of the flesh of Christ, than believing on Him as the passover, or, lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. (4.) Any corporal eating of the flesh of Christ's body and drink- ing of his blood, as He sat at table with his disciples, would seem to be inconceivable. (5.) Our Lord Himself, in opposition to the sense put upon his words by the people of Capernaum, said : "It
1 vii. 7 ; Hase, Libri Symbolici, p. 727.