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

I doubt not but that He truly offers them, and I receive them." 297
We could continue to fill pages with citations, of equal force, from
Calvinistic writers. Whatever interpretation we put upon them, they at least
make it clear that a large part of the phraseology which our Church uses is
accepted as sound and Scriptural by those who do not receive her doctrine.
Those who shrink back from the terms of our Church, as carnal, will find
that her antagonists are compelled to use terms just as open to
misconstruction. It is just as Calvinistic, on the showing of Calvinistic
standards, to speak of eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ, in
the Eucharist, as it is Lutheran. The question then lies fairly before the
Christian--Which view, Calvinistic or Lutheran, more honestly accepts the
natural meaning of the premises, which is in more logical harmony with
their necessary issues, and which more frankly stands by the obvious
meaning of the terms chosen by itself to embody its faith?
“The Ubiquitarian theory.”
As both parties start with the same form of words as to the premises,
the first question here is, Do both accept them in the same sense? On one
point we admit that both do--that is, that by the "flesh and blood of Christ,"
both mean His true human body and blood--the body which hung upon
the cross, and which still maintains its identity, though glorified in heaven.
But when the question arises, Do both mean the same thing when they
speak of communing with this body and blood of Christ, the reply is, They
do not. Here the Reformed Church seems to us to take away with one set
of terms all that it had conceded with another. But although it differs from
us, we cannot accept all of Dr. Gerhart's phraseology in regard to our
Church as accurately marking the difference. He characterizes our doctrine
as the "Ubiquitarian theory of the Lutherans." We can conceive no reason
why Dr. Gerhart applies the word "Ubiquitarian," unless it is that he
imagines that there is some ground for the reproach against our doctrine,
which was originally couched under this word, which is, indeed,
297 Institut. ch. xviii. 19, 22, 30. Corp. Ref. vol. xxix. 1003-1010. Ed. Amstelod. 1667. ix. 370. seq.