These Sections teach the Reformed doctrine as to the relation which in the Lord's Supper subsists between the sign and the grace signified — that is, as to the nature of the presence of Christ in the sacrament, and the sense in which, consequently, the worthy recipient is said to feed upon the body and blood of the Lord. This Reformed doctrine may be stated as follows :

1st. The bread and wine — always remaining mere bread and wine, without change — represent, by the divine appointment, the flesh and blood of the Redeemer offered as a sacrifice for sin. The relation between the bread and wine and the body and blood is purely moral or representative.

2d. The body and blood are present, therefore, only virtually — that is, the virtues and effects of the sacrifice of the body of the Redeemer on the cross are made present and are actually conveyed in the sacrament to the worthy receiver by the power of the Holy Ghost, who uses the sacrament as his instrument according to his sovereign will.

3d. When it is said, therefore, that believers receive and feed upon the body and blood of Christ, it is meant that they receive not by the mouth, but through faith, the benefits secured by Christ s sacrificial death upon

the cross — that this feeding upon Christ is purely spiritual, accomplished through the free and sovereign agency of the Holy Ghost, and through the instrumentality and in the exercise of faith alone. So that in no case is it ever done by the unbeliever. The unbeliever therefore, receiving the outward sign with his mouth while he fails to receive the inward grace in his soul, only increases his own condemnation and hardens his own heart by the exercise. All, therefore, who are known to be unbelievers, and whose unbelief is made manifest either by their ignorance or their ungodliness, should be prevented, both for their own sake and for the Church's sake, from coming to the Lord's table until they are able to make a credible profession of their faith.

4th. Hence, also, it follows that believers do in the same sense receive and feed upon the body and blood of Christ at other times without the use of the sacrament, and in the use of other meaus of grace — as prayer, meditation on the Word, etc.*

In these sections certain dangerous errors and superstitious practices of the Church of Home are condemned ; and we have placed all these sections together, that we may include the leading error, called transubstantiation, which has given rise to the absurd doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass, and the various other tenets and practices here rejected.

I. The Church of Rome holds that the words, " This is my body," and, " This is my blood," are to be understood in their most literal sense; and that the priest, by pronouncing these words, with a good intention, changes the substance of the bread and wine into the real body and blood of Jesus Christ; which change is known by the name of transubstantiation. This doctrine receives no support from Scripture, but is founded on a gross perversion of its language. The words, " This is my body," and, " This is my blood," were manifestly used by our Saviour in a figurative sense; and must have been so understood by the apostles, to whom they were immediately addressed. Such figurative expressions are of frequent occurrence in Scripture, No one supposes that, when our Lora said, '* I am the vine," " I am the way," " I am the door," he meant us to understand that he is literally a \dne, a way, and a door; and no satisfactory reason can be assigned for understanding the words of institution in a literal sense. Our Saviour plainly meant that the bread and wine signify or represent his body and blood; and nothing is more common in Scripture than to affix to a type or symbol the name of the thing signified by it; thus circumcision is called God's covenant (Gen. xvii. 10); the paschal lamb, the passover (Exod. xii. 11); and the smitten rock, Christ. — 1 Cor. x. 4. But, not only is the doctrine of transubstantiation destitute of any support from the inspired writings, it is repugnant to Scripture; for the Apostle Paul gives to the elements after blessing the very same names they had before it ; which certainly intimates that there is no change of their substance. — 1 Cor. xi. 26, 28. It is also contradicted by our senses; for we see and taste that the bread and wine after blessing, and when we actually receive them, still continue to be bread and wine, without any change or alteration whatever. It is equally repugnant to reason; for this tells us that Christ's body cannot be both in heaven and on earth at the same time ; but according to the Popish doctrine of transubstantiation, though the body of Christ remains in heaven, it is also present, not in one place on earth only, but in a thousand places — wherever the priest has, with aisood intention, pronounced the words

208 CONFESSION OF FATTH. [cHAP. XXIX.

of institution. This doctrine likewise overthrows the nature of the sacrament. Two things are necessary to a sacrament — a sign and a thing signified — an object presented to our senses, and some promised blessing which is represented and sealed by it. But by transubstantiation the sign is annihilated, and the thing signified is put in its place.

Transubstantiation is not only contrary to Scripture, and reason, and common sense, but it has been, and is, the cause of manifold superstitions, yea, of gross idolatries. In the fourth section, several of these superstitious and idolatrous practices are specified. Conceiving that the bread and wine are changed into the real body and blood of Christ, Papists reserve part of the consecrated wafers, for the purpose of giving them to the sick, or other absent persons, at some future time. In direct opposition to the command of Christ, " Drink ye all of it," they deny the cup to the people; on the pretence that, as the bread is changed into the body of Christ, they partake, by concomitancy, of the blood together with the body. When the priest is supposed to have changed the bread into the body of Christ, he adores it with bended knee, and rising, lifts it up, that it may be seen and adored by the people — which is called the elevation of the host; it is also carried about in solemn procession, that it may receive the homage of all who meet it; and, in short, it is worshipped as if it were Christ himself. All these pi-actices are declared by our Confession to be " contrary to the nature of this sacrament, and to the institution of Christ." They were unknown in the primitive ages of the Church, and have evidently originated in the absurd doctrine of ti'ansubstantiation.

II. In the Church of Rome, the priest being supposed to have changed the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Christ, it is also conceived that, in laying upon the altar what has been thus transubstantiated, he offers to God a sacrifice which, although it be distinguished from all others by being without the shedding of blood, is a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead. This is called the sacrifice of the mass. As this is founded upon the doctrine of transubstantiation, if the one be imscriptural so must the other. But we may adduce a few of those pointed declarations of Scripture, by which this particular doctrine is refuted. " Once in the end of the world hath he appeared, to putaway sin by the sacrifice of himself." " Christ was once offered, to bear the sins of many." " We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." " By 07ie offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified."-^Heb. ix. 26, 28; x. 10, 14. These texts, and

they might easily be greatly multiplied, clearly prove that the one sacrifice of Christ, once offered by himself, is sufficient and perfect; and we are expressly told that "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins." — Heb. x. 26. In the language of our Confession, therefore, " the Popish sacrifice of the mass is most abominably injurious to Christ's one only sacrifice — the alone propitiation for all the sins of the elect."

III. The right manner of dispensing the sacrament of the supper is here declared.

1. The minister is to read the word of institution to the people, to pray, and bless the elements of bread and wine, and thereby to set them apart from a common to a holy use. In instituting this sacrament, according to the evangelist Matthew, "Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it.** — Matt. xxvi. 26. Some have observed, that it is not necessary for us to understand this as signifying that Jesus blessed the bread, for the pronoun it is r supplement; and as the word rendered blessed sometimes means to give tAar«A;s, especially as the evangelist Luke employs the phrase, "he gave thanks," they conclude that the two expressions are in this case synonymous; and that we are to understand that Jesus blessed, not the bread, but God, or gave thanks to his Father. We are of opinion, however, that the pronoun it has been very properly introduced by our translators after the word blessed, as it is unquestionably repeated with the utmost propriety after the word brake; and we conceive that the order of the words requires us to understand that Jesus blessed the bread. Nor is there any more difficulty in apprehending how Jesus blessed the bread, than in apprehending how God blessed the seventh or the Sabbath-day. — Gen. ii. 3; Exod. xx. 11. Indeed, the two cases are exactly analogous; — God blessed the seventh day by setting it apart to a holy use, or appointing it to be a day of sacred rest; Christ blessed the bread, by setting it apart from a common to a holy use, or appointing it to be the visible symbol of his body. And while it belonged exclusively to Christ, as the Head of the Church, to appoint bread and wine to be the symbols of his body and blood, yet we are persuaded that the servants of Christ, in administering the Lord's supper, are warranted, according to the institution and example of Christ, to set ajiart by solemn prayer so much of the elements as shall be used from a common to a holy use. That there is a sense in which the servants of Christ may be said to bless the elements, seems plain from 1 Cor. X. 16, where Paul denominates the sacramental cup " The cup of blessing vhich we bless.** It is not pretended that any real change is thereby made upon the elements, but only

298 * CONFESSION OF FAITH. [cHAP. XXIX.

a relative change, so that they are not to be looked upon as common bread and wine, but as the sacred symbols of Christ's body and blood.

2. The minister is also to take and break the bread. The breaking of the bread is an essential part of this ordinance, and, when it is wantinfj, the sacrament is not celebrated according to the original institution. It is, indeed, so essential, that the Lord's supper is sometimes designated from it alone, the whole being denominated from a part. The " breaking of bread" is mentioned am.ong the institutions of the gospel (Acts ii.42); and in Acts xx. 7, we are told that, "upon the first day of the week, the disciples came together to break bread:" inlsoth of which passages the celebration of the Lord's supper is doubtless meant by the " breaking of bread." The rite is significant, and we are left in no doubt about the meaning of the action. Our Saviour himself explained it when he said, " This is my body, which is broken for you;" intimating that the broken bread is a tigure of his body as wounded, bruised, and crucified, to make atonement for our sins. As an unbroken Christ could not profit sinners, so unbroken bread cannot fully represent to faith the food of the soul. Wherefore, to divide the bread into small pieces called wafers, and put a wafer into the mouth of each of the communicants, as is done in the Church of Rome, is grossly to corrupt this ordinance, for it takes away the significant action of breaking the bread.

3. The minister is further to take the cup, and give both the elements to the communicants. The cup, as well as the bread, is an essential element in this ordinance — the one representing the blood, and the other representing the body of Christ. To give both the elements to all the communicants, was the universal practice of the Church of God for about 1400 years; but the Church of Rome then departed from the primitive institution, and the practice of the ancient Church, by withholding the cup from the laity. The Council of Constance* decreed, "That though Christ did administer this venerable sacrament to his disciples under both the kinds of bread and wine, yet notwithstanding this, the custom of conmiunicating under one kind only is now to be taken for a law." And, " Though, in the primitive Church, this sacrament was received by the faithful under both kinds, yet, notwithstanding this, the custom that is introduced of communicating under one kind only for the laity is now to be taken for a law." The Council of Trent t also declared, " That the laity, and the clergy not officiating, are not bound

♦ Anno HU, Bess. 13. f Anno 1545, Sess. 21.

by any divine precept, to receive the sacrament of the eucharist under both kinds." " And further declares, that although our Redeemer in the last supper instituted this sacrament in two kinds, and so delivered it to the apostles, yet under one kind only, whol'^ and entire Christ and the true sacrament are taken ; and tliat, therefore, those who receive only one kind are deprived of no grace necessary to salvation." The Church of Rome, it will be remarked, acknowledges both kinds, the bread and the wine, to have been instituted by Christ, and the ordinance to have been thus celebrated in primitive times; she is, therefore, guilty of an avowed opposition to the authority of Christ, has sacrilegiously mutilated this holy sacrament, and infringed the privileges of the Christian people. The command of Christ to drink the wine is as express as the command to eat the bread; nay, as foreseeing how, in after ages, this ordinance would be dismembered by the prohibition of the cup to the laity, he is even more explicit in his injunction concerning the cup than the bread. Of the bread, he simply said, " Take, eat;" but when he gave the cup, he said, " Drink ye all of it." — Matt. xxvi. 26, 27. According to the divine institution, therefore, both the elements are to be given to all the communicants. And as really as the bread and wine are given to the communicants, so Christ gives himself, with all his benefits, to the worthy receivers; and in taking these elements— in eating the bread and drinking the wine — they profess to receive Christ by faith, and to rest their hope of pardon and salvation solely upon his death.