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

of Jesus, from the polished cities or the anchorites of the desert, one
Eucharistic voice ascended: 'Righteous art Thou, O Lord, and all Thy
words are truth.' Thou hast said, 'This is My body, this is My blood.' Hast
Thou said, and shalt not Thou do it? As Thou hast said, so we believe.
"Truly, O Lord, 'Thy holy Church throughout all the world doth
acknowledge Thee.'"
Peter Bayle.
But not alone from the hand of one who, though in a non-Lutheran
Church, has become Lutheran on this point, have we testimony as to the
identity of our faith with the faith of the early Church of the Fathers. We
have the same testimony from others within the Reformed Church, whose
concessions are the more striking because those who make them still
refuse to accept the Lutheran faith. On this point, one citation may suffice.
It is from Peter Bayle, 385 the unrivalled general scholar of his age. He says:
"There are Protestants who, without holding the opinions of the Lutherans,
are, nevertheless, convinced that, in forming hypotheses (to harmonize the
statements of the Fathers on the Eucharist), the view of the Augsburg
Confession is preferable to all others in furnishing a reason for the phrases
of antiquity. For, as the expressions in regard to Jesus Christ which seem
most directly in conflict with each other are best harmonized--so that not
even a shadow of contradiction remains, by the supposition that he is both
God and man in unity of person--in the same way all the terms, difficult,
inflated, hyperbolic, simple, and direct, which the Fathers used in speaking
of the Holy Sacrament, can be easily harmonized on the supposition that,
in the Supper, is present at once both the humanity of Christ and the
substance of the bread."
385 Nouv. de la Rep. des Lettres, 1687, Febr. Art. II., 129-181.