THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
are met by the declaration of the objective reality of grace in the sacrament (ex opere operato). Penitent faith that justifies is a divine act in the subject, impotent without prevenient and cooperating grace. Man is justified before works, but potentially the future new obedience is contained through the grace of God in the justifying faith. God gives eternal life according to one's works and not as a free gift according to his good pleasure. The Anglican Confession had represented baptism as a testimony invariably associated with profession and regeneration, but prominent theologians of the State Church, under the influence of the Westminster Confession, had departed from this teaching, holding that the baptism of the Spirit was restricted to the elect, not in virtue of the sacramental act, but of the " absolute decree," while the non-elect were merely sprinkled with water. In the Gorham Case the judicial committee has declared this modification admissible, despite the Tractarian protests. Pusey opposed the new construction on the basis of John iii. 5; Titus hi. 5; I John iii. 9; I Pet. i. 23, as well as a strong array of patristic and creedal authority. Regeneration is instantaneous with baptism, by an act of God, contrary to the opinion of Evangelical parties that it takes place through the fife of repentance, faith, prayer, and love. Several in the heat of emphasis, like Newman, Ward, and Carter, advanced to extremes with difficulty to be distinguished from the Roman Catholic; while admitting imputation in baptism, they laid main stress on the infusion of the Holy Spirit. According to the Thirty-nine Articles, the Eucharist is not only a token of love among Christians, but a sacrament of redemption by Christ's death (xxviii.); the body of Christ is given and eaten in a heavenly and spiritual manner by 5. The faith. The Catechism, on the other Real hand, distinguishes between the " sign " Presence, (bread and wine) and the " thing signified " (the body and blood of Christ). Tractarianism strongly emphasized the element of imparting and based its Eucharistic views on the Fathers and early Anglicanism. The consecrated elements become truly, though mystically, the body and blood of Christ; and Christ really present communicates himself to the believing unto salvation, but to the unbelieving unto damnation. This is the doctrine of the real presence, represented as thf essential in the sacrament by all Tractarians in common, amid all the variants of opinion as to the manner or means. Perceval declares that he and his colleagues take the real presence as sacramental, spiritual, and mystical, while the Roman Catholics regard the same as substantial, corporeal, and miraculous. According to Wilberforce the sacrament is an objective fact, independent of the cooperation and assent of the recipient and carrying out the redemption begun in the incarnation of Christ. Pusey (The Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, Oxford, 1853; Doctrine of the Real Presence as Contained in the Fathers, 1855; The Real Presence, 1857) sums up his view that the consecration elements become by virtue of the words of consecration of Christ (not the priests') truly and actually, though in a spiritual and inexpressible way, his body and blood.
To him all centers upon the consecration, committed by Christ to authorized persons, through the apostolic commission to the bishops and under them to the priests. Without the act of the right priest there is no consecration and no sacrament. It is the Roman conception and the sacrament is an opus operatum. As to the manner, most of the Tractarians represent a consubstantiation or conjunction of the elements with the body and blood of Christ objectively created by Christ's words of consecration. In view of the thorough adherence to the real objective presence in the elements, this consubstantiation can be regarded only in the sense of transubstantiation, though in a more refined and spiritual way, as also Newman would have it. The doctrine of the real presence develops into the further concept of the Eucharist as a sacrifice. This is not, however, a repetition of the sacrifice on the cross, for Christ was sacrificed once for all time, but by the sacrifice at the altar are appropriated the forgiveness of sins and the justification and reception of the sinner in the sight of God, rendered possible by the sacrifice on Calvary. This is involved in the larger thesis that not only is Christ offered as the subject of the sacrament, but the Church as the mystical body is included. The Eucharist, therefore, represents the offered collective Church and Christ, as well as the offering Christ and mystical body, the Church. Finally, from the doctrine of the real presence followed the conclusion, on the one hand, upon the objective real efficacy of the Eucharist, when it came to be generally held that not only the elements, but also the present Christ is received by worthy and unworthy alike, by the former to salvation and the latter to damnation. On the other hand, the doctrine led to the adoration of the body and blood of Christ, which were said to be really and truly present in the species of bread and wine; though to the elements themselves no adoration may be paid (Denison). Confession, in the Church of England, is left to the discretion of the individual. Tractarianism, however, made both confession and absolution sacraments and indispensable aids to salvation, ascribing to both the restoration of baptismal regeneration lost by sin, and the perfecting of the spiritual life. Absolution was not to be a declaratory act, but the judicial act of the priest. (The man who confesses to God may be forgiven, but who confesses to a priest must be forgiven. — Tract for the Days, 1.) Since, moreover, the priest, to give absolution, must have the confession not alone of the general sinful state of the penitent, but also of his individual sins, auricular confession, not required by the official Church, necessarily follows. It was also zealously promoted by the ritualists, calling forth a rich ascetic literature (cf. William Gresly, ut sup.; T. T. Carter's Doctrine of Confession, London, 1865; and the anonymous The Priest in Absolution, part i., 1866, and part ii., 1886, as guide for the clergy only).
In historical retrospect the Tractarian movement signifies the attempted logical conclusion of the uncompleted reaction on the part of the great Anglicans from Bishop Andrewes to Bishop Ken against the non-Catholic elements of the Reformation of the sixteenth century; or the restoration of