The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

with Romanism at some points, there has been nursed a deeper and more
radical anti-Romish feeling on these very doctrines, than his own?
Dr. Shedd goes on to say: “These Popish elements are found in
those portions particularly, which treat of the sacraments; and more
particularly in that article which defines the Sacrament of the Supper. In
Article XIII, the Augsburg Confession is careful to condemn the Papal
theory, that the sacraments are efficacious, ex opere operato, that is by
their intrinsic efficacy, without regard to faith in the recipient, or to the
operation of the Holy Spirit; but when, in Article X, it treats of the Lord's
Supper, it teaches that 'the body and blood of Christ are truly present, and
are distributed to those who partake of the Supper.' This doctrine of
Consubstantiation, according to which there are two factors, viz.: the
material bread and wine, and the immaterial or spiritual body of Christ
united or consubstantiated in the consecrated sacramental symbols, does
not differ in kind from the Popish doctrine of Transubstantiation, according
to which there is, indeed, but one element in the consecrated symbols, but
that is the very body and blood of Christ into which the bread and wine
have been transmuted." Nothing is more difficult, than for a thinker or
believer of one school, fairly to represent the opinions and faith of thinkers
and believers of another school. On the points on which Dr. Shedd here
dwells, his Puritanical tone of mind renders it so difficult for him to enter
into the very heart of the historical faith of the Church, that we can hardly
blame him, that if it were his duty to attempt to present, in his own
language, the views of the Lutheran Church, he has not done it very
successfully. From the moment he abandons the Lutheran sense of terms,
and reads into them a Puritan construction, from that moment he wanders
from the facts, and unconsciously misrepresents.
In noticing Dr. Shedd's critique on this alleged feature of Romanism,
we would say in passing, that the Augsburg Confession does not teach the
doctrine of Consubstantiation. From first to last, the Lutheran Church has
rejected the name of Consubstantiation and everything which that name
properly