Book Description

As the particular object of this Essay is limited to 8 consideration of the Eucharist in its sacrificial character, it is not my intention to enter with any detailed proof into the question of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation. These doctrines are undoubtedly 8 necessary basis to that of the Sacrifice, but since they have been treated of with great erudition and copiousness in many English works of controversy, to them, being easily accessible, I beg to refer those of my readers who require a complete exposition of that part of the subject. It will be sufficient for my present purpose to adduce S. Paul in proof that the real Body and Blood of Christ were made present by virtue of the words Qf our Lord. He declares that the bread which he broke was 8 'partaking of the Body of the Lord,' and the chalice 8 'communion of the Blood of Christ' (1 Cor. x.16); also, that those who partook unworthily of that bread. and that chalice were 'guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord,' and did not' discern the Body of the Lord' (1 Cor. xi. 27-9). He says, moreover, that communicants, although numerically 'many,' become 'one bread----one body' by 'partaking of the Body of the Lord' (1 Cor. x. 17). The whole point of S. Paul's argument would be utterly lost, his parallel unmeaning, and his denunciation aimless, if the real Body and Blood of Christ were not in the Eucharist. How could anyone be justly punished by sickness and death, therefore there are many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep' (1 Cor. xi. 20)-for not discerning an absent Body? How could men be 'guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ,' if the figure alone of Christ was there, and if that figure was only bread? How also can anyone be truly described as partaking of the Body and Blood of the Lord, through the reception of the consecrated bread and consecrated chalice, if that bread which 'is broken,' and that chalice so communicated, conveys no Body and no Blood of Christ? The Apostle was inspired, erudite, and not a mocking sophist; and yet, if the Protestant explanation be true, he could not, if he had tried, have used language more calculated to mislead.