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

in establishing one, then have we in establishing that established the five.
The sense of the words of the Institution which our Church
confesses, which is derived from the words themselves, is sustained by
every Scripture allusion to them. Not only is there not the faintest hint
anywhere that they are figurative, but every fresh allusion to them gives
new evidence that they are to be taken as they sound. If the offering of the
ancient sacrifices pointed to a true offering of Christ, the eating of the
sacrifices necessarily points to a true, though supernatural, communion of
the body and blood which He offered. If the slaying of the Paschal Lamb
pointed to the slaying of Christ's body, the sacramental reception of the
body of the Lamb of God must be a part of the New Testament Passover;
the Lord's Supper cannot substitute an unreality for a reality, but must
substitute a higher reality for a lower one. If Moses meant what he said
when he declared, as he sprinkled the book and the people: "This is the
blood of the Testament which God bath enjoined unto you" (Heb. ix. 20),
then must our Lord be accepted at His word, when, with the covenanting
terms of the Old Testament, the Testament of Moses, so clearly in his eye,
and meaning to mark the New Testament antithesis, He says: "This is My
blood, of the New Testament." Every Scripture declaration in regard to the
Supper of the Lord points, with an unvarying tendency, to the great result
which is treasured in the faith of our Church. When we ask, What is it
which Christ tells us to Take, eat? He replies, This is My body, not This is
a sign of My body. When we ask, What does the bread communicate? St.
Paul replies, The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the
body of Christ? not the communion of the sign of His body. When we ask,
What is he guilty of who eats and drinks unworthily? the answer is, He is
guilty of the body and blood of Christ, not of the sign of the body or sign
of the blood. When we ask, How did the unworthy communicant come to
incur this guilt? what did he fail to discern? the reply is, Not discerning the
Lord's body, not that he failed to discern the sign or symbol of Christ's
body. We cannot tear from its place the sacramental doctrine