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

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Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper was predominant in the first four<br />

centuries. Marheineke, after presenting the evidence on which he rests his<br />

theory, goes or to say: "<strong>The</strong>re are other sayings of other Fathers (of this<br />

era), which, in whatsoever way they may be tortured, seem to admit of no<br />

other meaning than that of the real presence of our Lord." Such is that of<br />

JUSTIN MARTYR. "By no force, <strong>and</strong> by no artifice (nulla vi nulloque<br />

artificio), can his words be harmonized with the symbolic interpretation.<br />

<strong>The</strong> presence of Christ is true in the same sense in which the bread <strong>and</strong><br />

wine are in themselves true, <strong>and</strong> there is a conjunction of Christ with<br />

them." "IRENAEUS does not say that the earthly is but the figure of the<br />

heavenly, but teaches that there is a conjunction of the heavenly, to wit, the<br />

Son of God, with that earthly nature, bread <strong>and</strong> wine. 'Christ declared that<br />

the bread is His own proper (idion) body, <strong>and</strong> the cup His own proper<br />

(idion) blood;' from which words ought to be gathered what he means by<br />

the 'earthly' <strong>and</strong> 'heavenly' things. <strong>The</strong> typical sense, therefore," (the<br />

Reformed) "<strong>and</strong> the hyperbolic" (the Romish) "Irenaeus clearly excludes.<br />

Weighing with a just balance, we shall see that Irenaeus held the middle<br />

view" (the Lutheran) "in regard to the real presence."<br />

From the simple sense, then, of their own language, <strong>and</strong> from the<br />

concessions of men of eminence, who had reason to grant as little force as<br />

the testimony could possibly bear to our doctrine, it is fixed that the earliest<br />

witnesses of the faith of Christendom accord with the confession of the<br />

Lutheran Church in regard to the objective sacramental presence of the<br />

body <strong>and</strong> blood of Christ in the Holy Supper. <strong>The</strong>y st<strong>and</strong> as a bulwark<br />

alike against the false spiritualism which reduces the Divine mystery to the<br />

level of nature, <strong>and</strong> that carnalism which makes it a prodigy arrayed<br />

against nature. <strong>The</strong>y maintain, as our Church does, that the sacramental<br />

presence is neither natural nor unnatural, but supernatural, that is, is neither<br />

conditioned by the laws of the lower natures, nor contrary to them, but is<br />

conformed to the laws of the Supreme Nature.<br />

<strong>The</strong> ancient Church Catholic professed to have one concordant faith.<br />

That interpretation, therefore, of the utterances of

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