A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

REAL PRESENCE. (See Transubstantiation, Communion, Lord’s Supper, Eucharist.) The Homily on the Sacrament expressly asserts, “Thus much we must be sure to hold, that in the supper of the Lord there is no vain ceremony or bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent: but the communion of the body and blood of our Lord in a marvellous incorporation, which, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, is through faith wrought in the souls of the faithful.” In the order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, the elements are repeatedly designated as the body and blood of Christ, and after the reception of them we give thanks that God “doth vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body of [His] Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ.” In the exhortation of the same office, mention is made of “the holy communion of the body and blood of Christ.” “We spiritually eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his blood.”—Ibid. “Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body,” &c.—Prayer before Consecration. “Grant that we, receiving these thy creatures, of bread and wine, &c. ... may be partakers of his most precious body and blood.”—Consecration. The catechism, in agreement with this, defines the inward part of this sacrament to be “the body and blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s supper.” The 28th Article asserts, with reference to the holy communion, that “to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.”

So speaks the Church of England, which expressly rejects the Romish figment of transubstantiation. Therefore, the Church of England distinguishes between the real presence, which she so strongly asserts, and the Romish error which has led to Romish heresy.

Bishop Ridley, our great reformer, who died because he would not accept the fable of transubstantiation, said, addressing his judge, “My lord, you know that where any equivocation, which is a word having two significations, is, except distinction be given, no direct answer can be made; for it is one of Aristotle’s fallacies, containing two questions under one, the which cannot be satisfied with one answer. For both you and I agree herein, that the sacrament is the very true and natural body and blood of Christ, even that which was born of the Virgin Mary, which ascended into heaven, and which sitteth at the right hand of God the Father, which shall come from thence to judge both the quick and the dead, only we differ in modo, in the way and manner of being; we confess all one thing to be in the sacrament, and dissent in the manner of being there. I, being fully by God’s word thereto persuaded, confess Christ’s natural body to be in the sacrament, indeed by spirit and grace, because whosoever receiveth worthily that bread and wine, receiveth effectually Christ’s body and drinketh his blood; that is, he is made effectually partaker of his passion; and you make a grosser kind of being, enclosing a natural, a lively, a moving body, under the shape or form of bread and wine. Now this difference considered, to the question I answer: that in the sacrament of the altar is the natural body and blood of Christ vere et realiter, indeed and in reality, if you take those terms, indeed and really, for spiritually by grace and efficacy; for so every worthy receiver receiveth the very true body of Christ: but if you mean really and indeed, so that thereby you include a lively and a moveable body under the forms of bread and wine, then, in that sense, is not Christ’s body in the sacrament, really and indeed.”—Wordsworth’s Biography, iii. 237. The difference is strongly pointed out by Gloucester Ridley. “With reference to Bishop Ridley’s opinions, he and those associated with him denied the presence of Christ’s body in the natural substance of his human and assumpt nature, but grant the presence of the same by grace; that is, they affirmed and said, that the substance of the natural body and blood of Christ is only remaining in heaven, and so shall be until the latter day, when he shall come again to judge the quick and the dead; but by grace the same body is present here with us, as we say of the sun, which in substance never removeth his place out of the heavens, is yet present here by his beams, light, and natural influence, when it shineth upon earth. For all grant that St. Paul’s words require, that the bread which we break should be the communion of the body of Christ, and that the cup of blessing should be the communion of the blood of Christ.”—Ridley.

That which is given by the priest in this sacrament is, as to its substance, bread and wine; as to its sacramental nature and signification, it is the figure or representation of Christ’s body and blood, which was broken and shed for us. The very body and blood of Christ, as yet, it is not; but, being with faith and piety received by the communicant, it becomes to him, by the blessing of God and the grace of the Holy Spirit, the very body and blood of Christ; as it entitles him to a part in the sacrifice of his death, and to the benefits thereby procured to all his faithful and obedient servants.—Abp. Wake.

These words (viz. “the body and blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received”) are intended to show, that our Church as truly believes the strongest assertions of Scripture concerning this sacrament, as the Church of Rome doth, only takes more care to understand them in the right meaning: which is, that though, in one sense, all communicants equally partake of what Christ calls his body and blood, that is, the outward signs of them, yet in a much more important sense, “the faithful” only, the pious and virtuous receiver, eats his flesh and drinks his blood, shares in the life and strength derived to men from his incarnation and death, and, through faith in him, becomes, by a vital union, one with him; “a member,” as St. Paul expresses it, “of his flesh and of his bones” (Eph. v. 30); certainly not in a literal sense, which yet the Romanists might as well assert, as that we eat his flesh in a literal sense, but in a figurative and spiritual one. In appearance, the sacrament of Christ’s death is given to all alike; but “verily and indeed,” in its beneficial effects, to none besides the faithful. Even to the unworthy communicant he is present, as he is wherever we meet together in his name; but in a better and most gracious sense to the worthy soul, becoming, by the inward virtue of his Spirit, its food and sustenance.

This real presence of Christ in the sacrament, his Church hath always believed. But the monstrous notion of his bodily presence was started 700 years after his death; and arose chiefly from the indiscretion of preachers and writers of warm imaginations, who instead of explaining judiciously the lofty figures of Scripture language, heightened them, and went beyond them, till both it and they had their meaning mistaken most astonishingly. And when once an opinion had taken root, that seemed to exalt the holy sacrament so much, it easily grew and spread; and the more for its wonderful absurdity in those ignorant and superstitious ages: till at length, 500 years ago, and 1200 years after our Saviour’s birth, it was established for a gospel-truth, by the pretended authority of the Romish Church; and even this had been tolerable in comparison, if they had not added idolatrous practice to erroneous belief, worshipping, on their knees, a bit of bread for the Son of God. Nor are they content to do this themselves, but, with most unchristian cruelty, curse and murder those who refuse it.

It is true we also kneel at the sacrament as they do, but for a very different purpose; not to acknowledge “any corporal presence of Christ’s natural flesh and blood,” as our Church, to prevent all possibility of misconstruction, expressly declares, adding, that “his body is in heaven, and not here,” but to worship him who is everywhere present, the invisible God. And this posture of kneeling we by no means look upon as in itself necessary, but as a very becoming appointment, and very fit to accompany the prayers and praises which we offer up at the instant of receiving; and to express that inward spirit of piety and humility, on which our partaking worthily of this ordinance, and receiving benefit from it, depend.—Abp. Secker.

At the end of the whole office (of the Communion) is added a protestation concerning the gesture of kneeling at the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, and explaining the Church’s notion of the presence of Christ’s body and blood in the same. This was first added in the Second Book of King Edward, in order to disclaim any adoration to be intended by that ceremony, either unto the sacramental bread or wine then bodily received, or unto any real and essential presence there being, of Christ’s natural flesh and blood. But upon Queen Elizabeth’s accession this was laid aside. It appears no more in any of our Common Prayers till the last review: at which time it was again added, with some little amendment of the expressions and transposal of the sentences; but exactly the same throughout as to the sense; excepting that the words real and essential presence were thought proper to be changed for corporal presence. For a real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist, is what our Church frequently asserts in this very office of Communion, in her Articles, in her Homilies, and in her catechism [as quoted above]. This is the doctrine of our Church in relation to the real presence in the sacrament, entirely different from the doctrine of transubstantiation, which she here, as well as elsewhere, disclaims: a doctrine which requires so many ridiculous absurdities and notorious contradictions to support it, that it is needless to offer any confutation of it, in a Church, which allows her members the use of their senses, reason, Scripture, and antiquity.—Wheatly.

REALISTS. The Realists, who followed the doctrine of Aristotle with respect to universal ideas, were so called in opposition to the Nominalists, (see Nominalists,) who embraced the hypothesis of Zeno and the Stoics upon that perplexed and intricate subject. Aristotle held, against Plato, that, previous to, and independent of, matter, there were no universal ideas or essences; and that the ideas, or exemplars, which the latter supposed to have existed in the Divine mind, and to have been the models of all created things, had been eternally impressed upon matter, and were coeval with, and inherent in, their objects. Zeno and his followers, departing both from the Platonic and Aristotelian systems, maintained that these pretended universals had neither form nor essence, and were no more than mere terms and nominal representations of their particular objects. The doctrine of Aristotle prevailed until the eleventh century, when Roscelinus embraced the Stoical system, and founded the sect of the Nominalists, whose sentiments were propagated with great success by the famous Abelard. These two sects differed considerably among themselves, and explained, or rather obscured, their respective tenets in a variety of ways.

RECANTATION. (See Abjuration.)