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

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Whence this harmony, but that one spirit attuned all the various minds in<br />

the one body into one; so that the very heretics were slow herein to depart<br />

from it?<br />

"<strong>The</strong>re is a difference ofttimes in the setting, so to speak, of the one<br />

jewel, truth. We may meet with that truth where we should not have<br />

expected it; some may even be deterred, here <strong>and</strong> there, by the mystical<br />

interpretations of Holy Scripture, amid which they find it. That mystical<br />

interpretation is no matter of faith. But a mode of interpretation which<br />

presupposes any object of belief to be alluded to, when scarce anything is<br />

mentioned which may recall it to the mind, shows at least how deeply that<br />

belief is stamped upon the soul. It is a common saying, how 'Bishop<br />

Horne found our Lord Jesus Christ everywhere in the Psalms, Grotius<br />

nowhere.' Certainly our Lord must have been much in Bishop Horne's<br />

heart, that everything in the Psalms spoke to his soul of Him. So much the<br />

more, then, must our Lord's gift of His body <strong>and</strong> blood have been in the<br />

hearts of the early Fathers, that words which would not suggest the thought<br />

of them to others spoke it to them.<br />

"But however different the occasions may be upon which the truth is<br />

spoken of, in whatever variety of ways it may be mentioned, the truth itself<br />

is one <strong>and</strong> the same--one uniform, simple, consentient truth; that what is<br />

consecrated upon the altars for us to receive, what, under the outward<br />

elements is there present for us to receive, is the body <strong>and</strong> blood of Christ;<br />

by receiving which the faithful in the Lord's Supper do verily <strong>and</strong> indeed<br />

take <strong>and</strong> receive the body <strong>and</strong> blood of Christ; by presuming to approach<br />

which, the wicked (i. e. those who with impenitent hearts wilfully purpose<br />

to persevere in deadly sin, <strong>and</strong> yet venture to 'take the sacrament') become<br />

guilty of the body <strong>and</strong> blood of the Lord; i. e. become guilty of a guilt like<br />

theirs who laid h<strong>and</strong>s on His divine person while yet in the flesh among us,<br />

or who shed His all-holy blood.<br />

"Now, we have been accustomed to value Ante-Nicene Testimonies<br />

to the divinity of our Lord; we are struck when St. Cyprian (while deciding<br />

as to the baptism of infants on the eighth day) lays down the doctrine of<br />

the transmission of

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