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

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will answer: "My son, God has provided Himself a lamb."<br />

7. <strong>The</strong> manna in the desert.<br />

"<strong>The</strong>y said one to another: It is manna. (Sept.: What is this? Ti esti<br />

touto.) And Moses said unto them, This is the bread (Sept.: outos o artos)<br />

which the Lord hath given you to eat. This is the thing (Sept.: Touto to<br />

rema) which the Lord hath comm<strong>and</strong>ed;” Exod. xvi. 15. "I am the bread of<br />

life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, <strong>and</strong> are dead. This is the<br />

bread (outos estin o artos) which cometh down from heaven, that he that<br />

eateth of it may not die. I am the living bread which came down from<br />

heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; <strong>and</strong> the bread that<br />

I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world;" John vi.<br />

49-57. "All (our fathers) did eat the same spiritual meat;" 1 Cor. x. 3.<br />

Cyrill (Lib. iv. in John xvi.): "<strong>The</strong> manna was not, therefore, the living food,<br />

but the sacred body of Christ is the food which nourisheth to eternal life."<br />

Lombard (Lib. iv. Sentent.): "That bodily bread brought the ancient people<br />

to the l<strong>and</strong> of promise through the desert; this heavenly food will carry the<br />

faithful, passing through the desert, to heaven." Gerhard, John (Loci xxii.<br />

ch. ii.): "By that bread which came down from heaven, that is by Christ's<br />

body, we are nourished, that we perish not with hunger in the desert of this<br />

world."<br />

In quoting the sixth chapter of John, as bearing on the Lord's<br />

Supper, it may be well, once for all, to say that it is quoted not on the<br />

supposition that it speaks of the Lord's Supper specifically, but that in<br />

stating the general doctrine of the life-giving power of Christ's flesh <strong>and</strong><br />

blood, it states a doctrine under which the benefits of. the sacramental<br />

eating come as a species. If we come into supernatural, blessed<br />

participation of Christ's flesh <strong>and</strong> blood, in the act of faith, without the<br />

Lord's Supper, a fortiori we have blessed participation of them in the act of<br />

faith with the Lord's Supper. <strong>The</strong> sixth of John treats of the gr<strong>and</strong> end of<br />

which the Lord's Supper is the gr<strong>and</strong> means. We partake of Christ's body<br />

<strong>and</strong> blood sacramentally, in order that we may partake of them savingly.<br />

Of the latter, not of the former, the sixth of John speaks.

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