always kept in check by the strong Zwinglian atmosphere which pervaded the original theology of the English Church, and which has been its prevailing hue ever since. Into this more reasonable theology almost every expression that has been since used (till quite our modern times) might be resolved. But in the earlier years of the reign of Elizabeth, not only the Queen herself, but a very large portion of the English clergy, who had been brought up in the Roman doctrine, still held opinions scarcely distinguishable from it. Thus it came to pass that, in the spirit of compromise and conciliation which pervaded all their work, the framers of the formularies, though determined to keep the Zwinglian doctrine intact, yet often so expressed it as to make it look as much like Lutheranism as possible. Elizabeth herself, when cross-questioned in her sister's time, evaded the doctrine rather than stated it distinctly. There are still to be seen rudely carved on a stone under the pulpit of the Church of Walton on Thames the lines in which she gave the answer that to many a devout spirit in the English Church has seemed a sufficient reply to all questionings on the subject:

Christ was the Word and spake it,

He took the bread and brake it;

And what the Word doth make it
That I believe and take it.

The Articles as finally drawn up in her reign exhibit this same reluctance to exclude positively one or other of the two views. The 28th Article, as originally written in Edward VI.'s time, had expressed the exact Helvetic doctrine. A sentence was added in which, amidst a crowd of Zwinglian expressions, one word-' given '—was inserted which, though not necessarily Lutheran or Roman, certainly lent itself to that meaning. The 29th Article, on 'the wicked which eat not the Body of Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper,' which was added in Elizabeth's time, was obviously meant to condemn the doctrine that there is any reception possible but a moral reception. But-not to speak of the slight wavering,

at its close, of the positiveness of its opening-this very Article, though authorised by the canons of 1603, and by implication in the Caroline Act of Uniformity in 1662, does not occur in the edition of the Articles (which are here only 38 in number), authorised by the 13th of Elizabeth. That is to say, this most Protestant of all the Articles is confirmed by what many regard as the authority of the Church in Convocation, and by the legislature of Charles II.'s time, but it was not confirmed by the Act which first imposed the Articles, and which had for its object the admission of Presbyterian orders.

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The Catechism, which originally contained no exposition of the sacraments at all, in the time of James I. received a supplement, in which for one moment the highly rhetorical language of the Fathers and Schoolmen is strongly pressed: 'The Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received in the Lord's Supper.' But then the qualifying clause comes in, by the faithful'; and these very words are further restricted as describing, not the bread and wine, but the thing signified thereby.' The strong denial of the Real and bodily, the Real and essential Presence,' which was in Edward VI.'s time incorporated in the 28th Article, and afterwards appended to the Prayer Book in his Declaration of Kneeling, was in Elizabeth's omitted altogether, and when revived in Charles II.'s time was altered to meet the views of the then predominant High Church divines; though the Declaration itself was restored at the request of the Puritan party. But the words real and essential Presence there being' were omitted, and the words 'corporal presence' substituted for them. The consequence is, that while the adoration of the elements or of any corporal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood' is strictly forbidden as idolatrous, the worship of any real and essential presence there being of Christ's natural flesh and blood' is by implication not condemned by this Declaration of the Rubric.

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Most characteristic of all is the combination of the two tendencies in the words of the administration of the Eucha

rist. In the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., which retained. as much as possible of the ancient forms both in belief and usage, the words were almost the same as now in the Roman Church, and as formerly in the Sarum Missal: "The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.' In the second Prayer Book of Edward VI., when the Swiss influence had taken complete possession of the English Reformers, this clause was dropped, and in its place was substituted the words, 'Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.' In the Prayer Book of Elizabeth, and no doubt by her desire, the two clauses were united, and so have remained ever since. 'Excellently well done was it,' says an old Anglican divine, ' of Queen Elizabeth and her Reformers, to link both together; for between the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, and the Sacramental Commemoration of His Passion, there is so inseparable a league as subsist they cannot, except they consist. "Excellently well done was it,' we may add, to leave this standing proof, in the very heart of our most solemn service, that the two views which have long divided the Christian Church are compatible with joint Christian communion--so that here at least Luther and Zwingli might feel themselves at one; that the Puritan Edward and the Roman Mary might, had they lived under the Latitudinarian though Lutheran Elizabeth, have thus far worshipped together.

What has occurred in the Church of England is an example of what might occur and has occurred in other Churches, not so pointedly perhaps, but not less really.

L'Estrange, Alliance of Divine Offices, p. 219.

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CHAPTER VI.

THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST.

It may be necessary, in order to justify and explain the preceding chapter, to inquire into the Biblical meaning of the expressions the body' and 'the blood of Christ,' both as they occur in St. John's Gospel, without express reference to the Eucharist, and as they occur in connection with the Eucharist in the three Gospels and the Epistles.

St. John's

I. The words in St. John's Gospel (vi. 53-56) are as follows- 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 Gospel. I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.'

you

It is said that a great orator once gave this advice to a younger speaker who asked his counsel: You are more anxious about words than about ideas. Remember that if are thinking of words you will have no ideas; but if you have ideas, words will come of themselves.' That is true as regards ordinary eloquence. It is no less true in considering the eloquence of religion. In theology, in religious conversation, in religious ordinances, we ought as much as possible to try to get beneath the phrases we use, and never to rest satisfied with the words, however excellent, until we have ascertained what we mean by them. Thus alone can we fathom the depth

Mr. Pitt to Lord Wellesley. Reminiscences of Archdeacon Sinclair,

p. 273.

of such phrases; thus alone can we protect ourselves against the superstition of forms and the idols of the market-place'; thus alone can we grasp the realities of which words and forms are the shadow.

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The passage under consideration in St. John's Gospel at once contains this principle, and also is one of the most striking examples of it. It is one of those startling expressions used by Christ to show us that He intends to drive us from the letter to the spirit, by which He shatters the crust and shell in order to force us to the kernel. It is as if He said: 'It is not enough for you to see the outward face of the Son of man, or hear his outward words, or touch His outward vesture. That is not Himself. It is not enough that you walk by His side, or hear others talk of Him or use terms of affection and endearment towards Him. You must go deeper than this: you must go to His very inmost heart, to the very core and marrow of His being. You must not only read and understand, but you must mark, learn, and inwardly digest, and make part of yourselves, that which alone can be part of the human spirit and conscience.' It expresses, with regard to the life and death of Jesus Christ, the same general truth as is expressed when St. Paul says: 'Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ '—that is, clothe yourselves with His spirit as with a garment. Or again: Let the same mind be in you as was in Christ Jesus.' It is the general truth which our Lord Himself expressed: 'I am the Vine; ye are the branches.' In all the meaning is the same; but, inasmuch as the figure of speech of which we are now speaking is stronger, it also expresses more fully and forcibly what the others express generally. It is the figure, not altogether strange to Western ears, but more familiar to the Eastern mind, in which intellectual and moral instruction is represented under the image of eating and drinking, feasting and carousing, digesting and nourishing. 'I,' says Wisdom in the book of Ecclesiasticus 'am the mother of fair

This is well put in an early sermon of Arnold on this passage, vol. i. Sermon XXIV.