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

wine in the Lord's Supper. Second, of those who deny the Scripture
testimony in regard to the internal or heavenly element, the Zwinglians,
Calvinists, Socinians, and Rationalists, who deny the objective presence of
the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus in his Supper. Third, of those
who deny both, who, combining, as it were, the two erroneous extremes,
contend that in the Lord's Supper there is neither bread nor body--wine
nor blood--and maintain that the Supper is not an objective, permanent
institution, but a purely ideal, spiritual thing. Such are the Quakers, and
certain schools of mystics.
The long array of what claims to be argument in behalf of the various
mistaken views which are rejected in the Antithesis to the Tenth Article
may be classified under these heads: Arguments from a false grammar; a
false lexicography; a false rhetoric; a false philosophy; a false dogmatic; a
false construction of history; a false presumption as to the effect of the
Scriptural doctrine on the Christian life.
In regard to these various genera of error, and the arguments for
them, some of the species have been abandoned--some have been already
sufficiently noticed in the thetical treatment of the doctrine--some are
unworthy of notice. We may, therefore, confine ourselves to the form of
error in regard to the Lord's Supper which we are, practically, most
frequently called to meet. It is not likely that we will meet a Carlstadtian,
who will maintain that the key to the words is that Christ pointed to His
body, when He said, "This is My body;" or an "OEcolampadian," who
will say that the word "body" is metaphorical; or a "Schwenkfeldian," who
will argue that the subject is predicate, the predicate subject, and that the
words are to be inverted, "My body is this." The modern argument against
the true doctrine of the Lord's Supper rests ordinarily on two exegetical
assumptions, both of which have the common feature that whereas the
truth rests on what Christ actually said, in. its direct sense, these assume
that the interpreter is justified in adding to our Saviour's words, and in
modifying their natural force.
Two chief centres of the most recent controversy, as to the exegesis
of the words of the institution, are "touto" and