laudable Practice

In our last reading , prior to Advent, from the 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth , by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38), we considered how Lindsay's critique of the rejection of festival days by the opponents of the Articles of Perth stood well within the mainstream of the Continental Reformed tradition. We resume the readings from Lindsay's work as he refutes those who, rejecting the Articles of Perth, appear to make the provisions of the 1560 Book of Discipline (rejecting festival days, requiring communicants to sit for reception etc.) a necessary order: Yee are not able to produce any warrant for the vniforme iudgement of the Church, nor Canon of Assembly, nor act of Parliament, nor confession of faith, nor publike protestation, which either condemnes the points concluded at Perth, as vnlawfull to bee vsed in the worship of God; or establisheth the contrary as things necessary, that ca...

Resuming weekly readings from Cranmer's Answer to Gardiner (1551), we turn to Gardiner challenging Cranmer's account of our true feeding on Christ. This account, insists Gardiner, falls far short of catholic teaching: But the catholic teaching, by the Scriptures, goeth further, confessing Christ to feed such as be regenerate in him, not only by his body and blood, but also with his body and blood delivered in this sacrament by him indeed to us, which the faithful, by his institution and commandment, receive with their faith and with their mouth also, and with those special dainties be fed specially at Christ's table. Before proceeding to Cranmer's response, we might note how Gardiner uses the phrase "at Christ's table", suggesting that the use of 'table' with reference to the altar was not necessarily an inherently Reformed usage. In terms of Cranmer's response, he again declares that he does not disagree with Gardiner's statement that Ch...

And this shall suffice here, to show how Christ's intent was to give verily, as he did in deed, his precious body and blood to be eaten and drunken. Cranmer has no hesitation in  affirming  these words of his opponent in the Answer to Gardiner (1551). This is indeed what the Dominical and Apostolic words on the institution of the Eucharist declare: And when this true believing man cometh to the Lord's Supper, and according to Christ's commandment receiveth the bread broken in remembrance that Christ's body was broken for him upon the cross, and drinketh the wine in remembrance of the effusion of Christ's blood for his sins, and unfeignedly believeth the same, to him the words of our Saviour Christ be effectuous and operatory, Take, eat, this is my body which is given for thee; and, Drink of this, for this is my blood which is shed for thee, to the remission of thy sins. And as St. Paul saith, the bread unto him is the communion of Christ's body, and the wine, t...

As Cranmer, in his Answer to Gardiner (1553), reviews his opponent's critique of his eucharistic theology, he turns to what is perhaps the heart of that critique - that Cranmer denies the mystery of the Sacrament, reducing it to an empty ceremony: But if it may now be thought seemly for us to be so bold, in so high a mystery to begin to discuss Christ's intent; what should move us to think, that Christ would use so many words, without effectual and real signification, as he rehearsed touching the mystery of this sacrament? The nature of Cranmer's rebuttal of this accusation is significant. He invokes a series of patristic comments affirming that the Lord termed the bread and wine of the Sacrament His Body and Blood: I have alleged Irene saying that "Christ confessed bread be his body, and the cup to be his blood." I have cited Tertullian, who saith, in many places, that "Christ called bread his body." I have brought in for the same purpose Cyprian, who ...

Wherefore, to resume that mother-sentence, whereof I little thought that so much trouble would have grown, "I doubt not but God was merciful to save thousands of our fathers living in popish superstitions, inasmuch as they sinned ignorantly": alas, what bloody matter is there contained in this sentence that it should be an occasion of so many hard censures! Did I say that "thousands of our fathers might be saved"? I have showed which  way it cannot be denied. Did I say, "I doubt it not but they were saved"? I see no impiety in  this persuasion ... On this commemoration of Richard Hooker, we turn to words from his A Learned Discourse on Justification   (1585),   responding to those who attacked him for affirming that salvation was to be found within the pre-Reformation Roman Church. We might begin by noting Hooker's insistence regarding the salvation of "our fathers", an insistence that surely echoed the Christian instincts of the average pari...

On this Reformation Day, I offer extracts from various of the Confessions of the Reformation, indicating the profound continuity and retrieval at work in the Reformation, reaffirming creedal orthodoxy, proclaiming sacramental and ministerial order, and demonstrating the catholic nature of the Churches of the Reformation. Such is the richness and depth of the magisterial Protestantism which shaped the Protestant national churches of Reformation Europe. From this well these Churches should be drinking deeply, not least in the time of the Quiet Revival.  That some of those in the Quiet Revival will find the grace and truth of the Christian faith in Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or Pentecostalism is only to be expected and should be recognised with joy, for Christ is the centre of the Church catholic in all its expressions. It will, however, be a fundamental betrayal of the Reformation - and, more, of the Gospel - if the Protestant national churches of Europe, exchanging their glorious...

Now, where the author, to exclude the mystery of corporal  manducation, bringeth forth of St. Augustine such words as en treat of the effect and operation of the worthy receiving of the sa crament, the handling is not so sincere as this matter requireth. In his defence of our partaking of Christ in the holy Sacrament was by "corporal manducation", Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, accused Cranmer of deliberately misinterpreting Augustine. Cranmer, in his Answer to Gardiner (1551), responds by again quoting Augustine, from De Doctrina Christiana , "where he saith, that 'the eating and drinking of Christ's flesh and blood is a figurative speech'" - in other words, that our partaking of Christ is not by corporal manducation. For Cranmer, corporal manducation was to be rejected not because it made an excessive claim for the Sacrament but, rather, because mere corporal manducation failed to recognise the nature of our spiritual partaking of Christ: Wheref...

Jeremy Taylor in The Worthy Communicant - Chapter III, Section V ' Of the proper and specific Work of Faith in the Reception of the Holy Communion ' - providing a robust statement of a distinctive of Reformed eucharistic theology, the rejection of the manducatio impiorum : If the manducation of Christ's flesh and drinking his blood be spiritual, and done by faith, and is effected by the Spirit, and that this faith signifies an entire dedition [i.e. surrender] of ourselves to Christ, and sanctification of the whole man to the service of Christ, then it follows, that the wicked do not communicate with Christ, they eat not his flesh, and they drink not his blood: they eat and drink indeed; but it is gravel in their teeth, and death in their belly; they eat and drink damnation to themselves. For unless a man be a member of Christ, unless Christ dwells in him by a living faith, he does not eat the bread that came down from heaven. "They lick the rock," saith St. Cypri...

Gardiner insisted that John 6 referred to the Eucharist: this discourse "set forth the doctrine of the mystery of the eating of Christ's flesh and drinking his blood in the sacrament, which must needs be understanded of a corporal eating". Cranmer, in his Answer to Gardiner (1551), explicitly denied that Our Lord's words, " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you", are an account of the Supper: The spiritual eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood by faith, by digesting his death in our minds, as our only price, ransom, and redemption from eternal damnation, is the cause wherefore Christ said, that if we eat not his flesh, and drink not his blood, we have not life in us: and if we eat his flesh, and drink his blood, we have everlasting life. And if Christ had never ordained the sacrament, yet should we have eaten his flesh and drunken his blood, and have had thereby everlasting life, as all the faithful d...

And as in baptism in baptism we receive the Spirit of Christ, for the renewing of our life, so do we in this sacrament of Christ's most precious body and blood, receive Christ's very flesh and drink his very blood ... When Gardiner drew this distinction between Baptism and Eucharist, Cranmer - in his Answer to Gardiner  (1551) - was ready with an approach well-established in Swiss sacramental theology, accusing papalist opponents of demeaning the Sacrament of Baptism: And where you say that in baptism we receive the Spirit of Christ, and in the sacrament of his body and blood we receive his very flesh and blood: this your saying is no small derogation to baptism, wherein we receive not only the Spirit of Christ, but also Christ himself, whole body and soul, manhood and Godhead, unto everlasting life, as well as in the holy communion. For St. Paul saith, As many as be baptized in Christ, put Christ upon them: Nevertheless, this is done in divers respects; for in baptism it is do...

Last week we saw how, in his 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618 , David Lindsay - Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - made the case that the Church of Scotland had authority to alter ceremonies established at the Reformation. Lindsay invoked Reformed insistence that "ceremonies are but temporal" to undermine an exalted claim for fixing that particular ceremonial order as beyond change and reform. In today's extract, Lindsay moves on to consider the various Articles of Perth , demonstrating how it was fitting that they, in changed circumstances, altered the ceremonial order of the 1560 Book of Discipline . He began by again emphasising that changing circumstances justify a change to mere ceremonies: For if by occasion of any of these circumstances, the obseruation, which was profitable at one time, become hurtfull at another, and that which serued for reformation, breedes and fosters corruption, pr...

And albeit this author would not have them bare tokens, yet and they be only tokens ... One can almost hear the contempt with which Gardiner, in the above quote, used the word "tokens" with reference to Cranmer's doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Noting Cranmer's denial that the Bread and Wine are "bare tokens", Gardiner suggests that this denial misses the point - the Bread and Wine are still then "only tokens". Cranmer, however, does not run from the term in his Answer to Gardiner (1551). In fact, he confidently embraces it, affirming that the Bread and Wine in the Supper are indeed "tokens": Is therefore the whole use of the bread in the whole action and ministration of the Lord's holy Supper but a naked or nude and bare token? Is not one loaf being broken and distributed among faithful people in the Lord's Supper, taken and eaten of them, a token that the body of Christ was broken and crucified for them? and is to them spiri...

One of the lines of argument used by Gardiner in his critique of Cranmer's Reformed eucharistic theology was that such a view of the Sacrament was an innovation, contrary to established 'catholic' (the term was, of course, contested) teaching. Gardiner pointed to condemnations of Ratramnus, Berengar, and Wycliffe to illustrate this.  In his Answer to Gardiner (1551), however, Cranmer turns this argument against his opponent. The very fact that Ratramnus in  De corpore et sanguine Domini (c.831), Berengar in  De sacra coena (c.1050), and Wycliffe in De Eucharistia Tractatus Maio  (1379) denounced corporeal presence and affirmed a spiritual partaking of Christ by the faithful, is evidence of antecedents of Reformed teaching across the centuries.  Cranmer first considers Ratramnus (Bertrame): And as for Bertrame, he did nothing else but at the request of King Charles set out the true doctrine of the holy catholic Church from Christ unto his time, concerning...

In his Answer to Gardiner (1551), Cranmer responds to Gardiner's allegation that he taught, regarding the Sacraments, "there is nothing to be worshipped, for there is nothing present but in figure, and in a sign: which whosever saith, calleth the thing in deed absent". In doing so, Cranmer emphasises that while the water, bread, and wine of the Sacraments do not have within themselves grace, they are yet holy for they are signs of the truth and reality of God's grace: And as concerning the holiness of bread and wine, (whereunto I may add the water in baptism,) how can a dumb or an insensible and lifeless creature receive into itself any food, and feed thereupon? No more is it possible that a spiritless creature should receive any spiritual sanctification or holiness. And yet do I not utterly deprive the outward sacraments of the name of holy things, because of the holy use whereunto they serve, and not because of any holiness that lieth hid in the insensible creature...