That which I cannot hear nor see.
The application of the parable is palpable. Mr. Hawker appended to the ballad the following note:—
I have sought in these verses to suggest a shadow of that beautiful instruction to Christian men, the actual and spiritual presence of our Lord in the second Sacrament of His Church; a primal and perpetual doctrine in the faith once delivered to the saints. How sadly the simplicity of this hath and has been distorted and disturbed by the gross and sensuous notion of a carnal presence, introduced by the Romish innovation of the eleventh century![[41]]
The following passage occurs in one of his sermons:—
If there be anything in all the earth to which our Lord did join a blessing, and that for evermore, it was the bread and the cup. Surely of this Sacrament, which the apostles served, it may be said, He that receiveth you receiveth Me. Now, nothing can be more certain than that our Lord and Master, before He suffered death, called into His presence the twelve men, the equal founders of His future Church. He stood alone with the twelve. There was nobody else there but those ministers and their Lord. Nothing is more manifest than that He took bread of corn, and showed the apostles in what manner and with what words to bless and to break it. Equally clear is it, that their Lord took into His hands, with remarkable gesture and deed, the cup, and taught the twelve also the blessing of the wine. Accordingly, after the Son of man went up, we read that the apostles took bread, and blessed, and gave it to the Church. Likewise also they took the cup.
And, although the Romish Dissenters keep it back to this day, the apostles gave the wine also to the people. St. Paul, who was not one of the twelve, but a bishop afterwards ordained, writes: “We have an altar”. He speaks of the bread which he breaks, and the cup he was accustomed to bless. So we trace from those old apostolic days, down to our own, an altar-table of wood in remembrance of the wooden cross, fine white bread, good and wholesome wine, a ministry descended from the apostles, to be in all ages and in every land the outward and visible signs of a great event—the eternal sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now, nothing can be more plain than that these things, so seen, and handled, and felt, and eaten, and drunk, were delivered to the Church to contain and to convey a deep blessing, an actual grace. They were ordained for this end by Christ Himself: He said of the bread, This is My body; i.e., not a part of My flesh, but a portion of My spiritual presence, a share of that which is Divine.
Again, Jesus said about the cup, This is My blood; i.e., not that which gushed upon the soldier’s spear, but the life-blood of My heavenly heart, that which shall be shed on you from on high with the fruit of the vine—the produce of the everlasting veins of Him who is on the right hand of God.
So was it understood, so is it explained, by apostolic words. Thus said St. Paul, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion—the common reception, that is—the communication to faithful lips of the blood of Christ?”
So we say in our Catechism, that the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received. We confess that our souls are strengthened and refreshed in the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ: we call the bread and wine in our service heavenly food. We acknowledge that we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ, and drink His blood. We declare that in that Sacrament we join Him, and He us, as drops of water that mingle in the sea, and that we are, in that awful hour, very members incorporate in the mystical body of the Son of God,—words well-nigh too deep to apprehend or to explain.