I.

§ i. Of Transubstantiation.

Point at issue. In common with the Church of Rome and with the whole Catholic Church, the Church of England teaches that the Body and Blood of Christ are really given and received in this Sacrament. She differs from Rome in holding that the Eucharistic Presence is spiritual and not substantial, to be received by faith, and not by oral manducation.

2. Definition of "Transubstantiation." At the XIIIth Session of the Council of Trent (1551), the mode of the Sacramental Presence was the subject of a warm dispute between Dominicans and Franciscans; the former holding that the substance of the Bread is transmuted; the latter that it ceases to be. The decree of the Council is understood to have been framed with the view of satisfying both parties, and therefore to admit of either construction1. Whether by substitution or by transmutation, the consecrated elements have lost their proper substance; the accidents alone remaining (i.e. their colour, taste, size, &c.). Under the species, and under every part of the species, the whole Christ is thenceforth contained -His Body and Blood, His Soul and Divinity. This miracle is labelled by the Council with the name of Transubstantiation, a term which had been previously adopted by the Lateran Council of 1215.

3. Meaning of the word "Substance." According to the scholastic philosophy, derived from Aristotelian sources, every material object may be resolved in thought into "substance" and "accidents." The substance of a body (from the Tridentine point of view) has no property which can be discerned by the senses or detected by chemical analysis. It possesses

1 Sarpi, Hist. Co. Trent, lib. IV.

neither extension nor solidity. These belong to the "accidental form;" they may be changed while the substance remains invariable; e. g. a hard body may become soft, a small surface large, a white object red, from causes that do not in the slightest degree affect the underlying nature which makes the body what it is.

Now Transubstantiation is the reverse of the common process. In this case, the accidents remain unaltered: the substance alone is changed. The wafer was Bread: after consecration it is the Body of Christ. Or rather, its "substance" has been converted into the "substance" of Christ's Body: Christ exists under the accidents of the wafer whole, entire, yet in substance only, i. e. without solidity or extension or any sensible property whatsoever. The "accidents" of the consecrated Wafer are the accidents of bread: its "substance" (in the Tridentine sense of the term) is Christ.

An attempt has been recently made to draw a distinction between this theory and that which the Church of England condemns. It has been pleaded that the "Transubstantiation" of the XXVIIIth Article is not the scholastic "Transubstantiation" of the Tridentine divines, but the grossly materialistic belief which was held by the vulgar at the period of the Reformation, and which is still commonly thought to be represented by the term. In short, it is now said that the Church of England simply intends to condemn Transaccidentation; that Transubstantiation, in its Tridentine sense, is identical with her own view of the Eucharistic Presence1. But this idea, however

1 The suggestion is perhaps originally due to Mr Newman, Tract XC. p. 49 &c. (ed. Pusey). It has been worked out with some assurance by the anonymous author of the Kiss of Peace (Hayes, 1867), and more cautiously by Bp. Forbes,

skilfully it may have been worked out, is beset with improbabilities. The decree of the Council of Trent was passed in 1551: the 29 (= 28)th Article of the Church of England was approved by Convocation in the following year. Is it probable that our Reformers were either so careless, or so ill-informed in the topics of the day, as to use a theological term without one word of explanation in a different sense from that in which it had just received the imprimatur of Rome? Is it possible that men of such gigantic stature in theology as Cranmer and Ridley and Jewel could have been ignorant of the definite meaning which the word had borne among theologians for above three hundred years? Has it been reserved for the nineteenth century to discover a misconception so palpable, so fatal to sober discussion, so unjust to our opponents? It is now said that even Bishop Andrewes failed to understand the Roman view1. Probably there are few English Churchmen who will not think it safe to err in his company.

4. Argument from Scripture. (a) Words of Institution. It is not denied that Our Lord called the Sacramental Bread His Body and the Sacramental Cup His Blood. The question is simply one of interpretation. Is the Roman view of His words the only view which is consistent with an honest treatment of the passage?

In this inquiry our best guide will be the analogy of Scriptural language and facts. Now, we have no instance of any similar form of words employed to denote a change miraculously produced. A priori, Articles, II. pp. 545-552. See also Dr Pusey, Eirenicon, p. 24, who thinks that Transubstantiation has acquired a new meaning since the Council of Trent.

His one reason

will hardly have much weight with other minds. 1 Kiss of Peace, pp. 67, 68.

we should expect in such a case to read "Let this become,” or “This is made, My Body” [Toûto YEVNOŃTW —γέγονεν—τὸ σῶμά Μου ̇ rather than τοῦτό ἐστιν]. But the form which actually occurs, though without an exact parallel in Scripture, is not very dissimilar from a class of expressions which not only admit but require a figurative interpretation. "The seven good kine are seven years" (Gen. xli. 26); "The ten horns are ten kings" (Dan. vii. 24); "The field is the world" (S. Matt. xiii. 38); "These [women] are the two covenants” (Gal. iv. 24); “The seven stars are the angels” (Apoc. i. 20); are familiar examples. Allowing that the analogy is not complete, because each of these sentences carries with it palpable evidence of its figurative character; still it remains true that the nearest parallels which Scripture supplies are uniformly unfavourable to the literal view of the passage under discussion.

Nor does this view gain any support from the analogy of Scripture facts. All the miracles of Scripture appealed to the senses of those who witnessed them. We read of miraculous changes-changes in all probability of substance; but in each case the accidents were converted also. The rod of Moses, when changed into a serpent, assumed the serpent's form (Exod. iv. 3, 4). The water made wine acquired the taste of wine (S. John ii. 10). The miracle of Transubstantiation alone refuses to submit to this test. Though wrought upon matter, it leaves no sensible trace of its operation. We do not say that such a change is impossible; we are content to point out the suspicious contrast in which it stands to all the indisputable workings of miraculous power.

(b) Our Lord's discourse in the Synagogue of Capernaum (S. John vi. 47-59) is the next Scriptural