is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing ; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." It was not his literal flesh that He was to give us to eat, for that would profit nothing. His words, on that subject, were to be un- derstood in a spiritual sense.1
But although the Lutherans reject the doctrine of the Re- formed who teach that the eating of the body of Christ in the sacrament is spiritual and by faith, and assert that it is corporal (corporaliter) and by the mouth, yet they strenuously resist the idea that it is after the manner of ordinary food. They maintain that the manner is supernatural and incomprehensible. The Lutherans distinguish between a spiritual manducation, of which says the Form of Concord, Christ treats especially in the sixth chapter of St. John, and which is by faith, and a sacramental manducation which is by the mouth, when in the Lord's Supper, " verum et substantial corpus et sanguis Christi ore accipiuntur atque participantur ab omnibus, qui panem ilium benedictum et vinum in coena Dominica edunt et bibunt." The words of Christ, it is said, " non potest nisi orali, non autem de crassa, carnali, capernaitica, sed de supernaturali et incomprehensibili manduca- tione corporis Christi intelligi." 2 Being incomprehensible, it is of course inexplicable.
However, although the Lutherans reject the idea that the body of Christ in the Lord's Supper is eaten after the manner of ordi- nary food, yet the language of Luther on this subject, adopted or defended by his followers, can hardly be understood in any other sense. In his instruction to Melancthon,3 he says, " Of our doc- trine this is the sum, that the body of Christ is truly eaten in and with the bread, so that what the bread does and suffers, the body of Christ does and suffers ; it is distributed, eaten, and masti- cated (zerbissen) by the teeth." On this passage Philippi4 re- marks that as Luther says that this is propter unionem sacra- mentalem, it is not inconsistent with the language of the Form of Concord which denies that the body of Christ is lacerated by the teeth and digested as ordinary food. He says it is analo- gous to the proposition, God died, not as to his divine nature
1 There are two modes of interpreting the passage John vi. 50-58. According to the one, it is to he understood as referring to a participation of the benefit of Christ's sacri- ficial death, according to the other, of the reception of his body and blood in the Supper. A large portion of the Lutheran theologians adopt the former.
• Form of Concord, vn. 63, 64; Hase, Libri Symbolici, pp. 744, 745. 3 Works, edit. Walch, 1745, vol. xvi. p. 2489.
* Kirchliche Glaubenslehre, vol. v. p. 350.
670 PART in. Ch. XX. — THE MEANS OF GRACE.
but as to his assumed human nature. The language of Luther on this subject is seldom now heard from the lips of Lutherans.
Mode of Presence.
A thing is present where it is perceived and where it acts. The nature of that presence varies with the nature of the object of which it is affirmed. A body is present where it is perceived by the senses or acts upon them. The soul is present where it per- ceives and acts. It is somewhere, and not everywhere. God is present everywhere, as He fills immensity. There is no portion of space from which He is absent as to his essence, knowledge, or power.1 As the Lutherans affirm the presence of the substance of Christ's natural body and blood in the Lord's Supper, of that body which was born of the Virgin and suffered on the cross ; and as that body was and is material, it would seem to follow that the presence affirmed is local. It is a presence in a definite place. The Reformed, therefore, always understood the Luther- ans to assert the local presence of the body of Christ in the Lord's Supper. The Lutherans, however, deny that they teach any such presence. This after all may be a dispute about words.2 The parties may take the word " local " in different senses. The Lutherans say that the body and blood of Christ are with, in, and under the bread and wine. They are held in the hand and taken into the mouth. This is all the Reformed mean when they speak of a local presence ; a presence in a definite portion of space. Magnetism is locally present in the magnet ; electricity in the Leyden jar. The soul is locally present in the body. The man is locally present in mind and body where he perceives and acts and where he is perceived and acted upon. Lutherans appear to take
1 Luther and Lutherans speak of three modes of Christ's presence : First, that in which He was present when here on earth ; " raumerf iillende und vom Baum umschollene," space- filling and by space circumscribed ; Second, that which is in space, but does not fill any por- tion of it, and is not circumscribed by it. In this state Christ's body rose from the grave and passed through closed doors. This kind of presence belongs to angels. Third, the divine and celestial mode of presence, according to which Christ, in virtue of the union of the two natures in his person, is present in his humanity, in his soul and body, wherever God is present. It is specially in the second and third modes (the definitive and the re- pletive) that Luther asserted the presence of Christ's body in the eucharist; although he asserted that the first was possible, " Denn er wolle in keiner Weise laugnen, dass Gottes Gewalt nicht sollte so viel vermogen, dass ein Leib zugleich an vielen Orten sein mbge, auch leiblicher, begreiflicher Weise. 'V Philippi, ut supra, vol. v. p. 346.
2 On this word Gerhard remarks : " Terminum localis praesentise esse ambiguum. Corpus Christi prsesens esse dicimus in illo loco, in quo celebratur ccena, sed modo locali et cir- cumscriptive prsesens esse negamus. Si prajsentiam localem sensu posteriori intelligunt, habentnos sibi consentientes ; si priori, repugnamus." Loci Theologici, xxn. xi. § 106; edit. Tubingen, 1770, vol. x. p. 186.