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

does not feel that Zwingli would have weakened his cause less by saying
honestly, "I cannot harmonize this text with my view," than he has by an
interpretation so forced as to look like evidence of purpose to make, in any
wary, God's words square with a certain assumption?
4. A few distinguished names among English and American writers
may be quoted. On these words, POOL, the great master among the old
Puritan commentators, says: “The cup which we bless, is it not the
communion of the blood of Christ? that is, it is an action whereby and
wherein Christ communicates Himself and His grace to us." "The bread is
the communion of the body of Christ; an action wherein Christians have a
fellowship and communion with Christ." It will be noticed that, in the face
of the text, POOL substitutes "Christ" for "body of Christ," and again for
"blood of Christ." Substitute the very term of the sacred Word for his
substitute, and PooL is forced to say of the Lord's Supper: "It is an action
whereby and wherein Christ communicates His blood to us," "an action
whereby Christians have a fellowship and communion with the body of
Christ," and this is, as far as it goes, the very doctrine of our Church.
Bishop WILSON'S paraphrase is: "The bread which we break, after
consecration, is it not that by which we have communion with Christ, our
Head?"
HUSSEY explains the' communion" "by spiritually partaking of the
blood and body of Christ in the Eucharist."
The OLDER TRANSLATORS in English bring out the true sense
very clearly: "Is not the cup of blessing, which we bless, partaking of the
blood of Christ?" "Is not the bread, which we break, partaking of the body
of Christ?" Such is the rendering of the earliest and latest Tyndale, of
Coverdale, of Cranmer, and of the Bishops. The first English translation,
and for more than half a century the only one, which used the word
"communion" was the Genevan, which was made at Geneva by English
religious fugitives who were strong Calvinists,and who here followed Beza,
evidently for doctrinal reasons, as the marginal note shows. From the
Genevan (1557) it went into the Authorized Version (1611), which
obscures the Apostle’s