They acknowledged further, that in the Lord's supper not only are the outward elements of bread and wine present; and not only the power and effect, or the mere signs of the body and blood; but that the true essential body which was broken for us, and the true essential blood of Jesus Christ himself, which was shed for us, by means of the consecrated bread and wine are truly and in a present way distributed and received, in virtue of the sacramental union, which consists not in the character of a mere sign, nor yet in the force of a seal only, but also in the joint vndivided presentation of the earthly elements and of the true body and blood of Jesus Christ; only this sacramental union has no place beyond the sacred transaction itself, but alone in the same.

This moreover was agreed, that in the spiritual side of the transaction not only the power, benefit, and effect, but the essence and substance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ himself, in the use of the holy supper, here on earth, are enjoyed, that is, are in a spiritual way by true faith eaten and drunk, and that this spiritual participation is of necessary account for the right use of the ordinance."

The report then goes on to say, that the Reformed theologians could not allow this spiritual participation to be by the organ of the mouth, but only through the action of faith, as the medium of a process above sense; while the Saxons insisted on the idea of an oral coinmunication, holding in the case of unbelievers as well as believers. Here accordingly the agreement failed; but not till it came to this. The Reformed had no quarrel with the matter of what the Lutherans were concerned to uphold in the sacrament, the fact of a real mystical communication with the living substance of Christ, but only with their crass view of the way in which the mystery was supposed to come to pass.

The Declaration of Thorn completes this class of expository symbols. It was presented by the Reformed theologians to the General Synod held at Thorn in the year 1645, as a solemn statement of what they judged to be the true sense of the Reformed creed, as exhibited in previous confessions; in which character, it passed into symbolical credit afterwards in Poland, as well as in Brandenburg and Prussia. For the German Reformed church thus especially, it must be regarded as of absolutely conclusive force, on the whole subject now under consid. eration; since it certifies to us, in the most direct and authentic form, the precise import of its sacramental faith, as it stood in the beginning. The chapter on the "Lord's supper" consists of fourteen articles. The first three run as follows:

"1. As Baptism is the sacrament of our spiritual regeneration in Christ, so the holy supper is the sacrament of our spiritual nutrition

in the same; wherein Christ himself, by the outward symbols of bread and wine, sanctified by his word, which we are commanded to eat and drink corporally and visibly in memory of his sacrifice, attests that he exhibits and communicates to us his body given for us and the blood of the N. Testament shed for us, as spiritual food and drink unto eternal life.

"2. This sacrament then consists of terrene things, bread and wine, and celestial things, the body and blood of the Lord; both of which, though it be in a different mode, are still exhibited to us in the most true, real and present way. Namely, the terrene things in a natural, bodily and terrene mode; but the celestial things in a spiritual, mystical and celestial mode, such as inscrutable to reason and sense we hold by faith only; by which we grasp the words of promise and the thing itself promised, to wit, Christ crucified with

all his benefits.

"3. Hence even the terrene things, bread and wine, are styled the body and blood of Christ, as being so in truth, not indeed substantially or corporeally, but sacramentally and mystically, or through and on account of the sacramental union; which does not consist in naked signification, nor yet in obsignation only, but also in this joint and simultaneous exhibition and communication of the terrene and celestial things, under their different modes."

The two next articles explain, in what sense the early fathers speak of the elements as changed into Christ's body and blood, and of the whole ordinance as a sacrifice; after which follows, in articles 6-9, a rejection in full of transubstantiation, every sort of local inclusion or co-existence, and the idea of a corpor eal or oral communication in any way whatever, together with the mass and the worship of the host. Passing over this, we resume our quotation with the tenth article.

"10. Still the signs are by no means nude, void and vain, but simultaneously exhibit what they signify and seal, as most certain media and efficacious instruments, by which the body and blood of Christ, and so Christ himself with all his benefits, are exhibited and offered to all communicants, while to believers they are actually donated and delivered, so as to be received by them as saving and lifegiving food to the soul.

11. Nor do we by any means deny the true presence of Christ's body and blood in the supper, but only the local and corporal mode of presence, and a substantial union with the elements; the presence itself as with us, we sacredly believe and this not as imaginary, but as most true, most real, and most efficacious, namely, that very mystical union of Christ with us, which he himself, as he promises by word and by symbol offers, by his Spirit also effects, and which we through faith accept, and by love feel, agreeably to that ancient

saying: The motion is felt, the mode unknown, the presence believed (Motum sentimus, modum nescimus, præsentiam credimus). "12. Whence it is clear, that not merely the virtue, efficacy, operation or benefits of Christ, are presented and communicated to us, but especially the substance itself of Christ's body and blood, that self-same victim which was given for the life of the world and slain upon the cross, that by believing communion with the victim and union with Christ himself, we might in consequence partake also of the merits and benefits procured by his sacrifice, and abide in him even as he does in us.

"13. And this, not only as to the soul, but also as to our body. For although, as by the bodily mouth we receive the terrene part, so it is by the faith of the heart as the proper organ that we receive the celestial part; according to that old line, ventrem, quod terimus, mentem, quod credimus, intrat;' still by the mediation of this faith, not merely our souls, but also our bodies themselves, are inserted and united into Christ's body BY HIS SPIRIT, unto the hope of the resurrection and everlasting life, that we may be flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones, and so one mystical body with himself, which the apostle with good reason has styled a great mystery."

The last article insists on the use of the cup for the laity, as well as the bread.'

Altogether what a luminous commentary we have here on the sacramental phraseology of the Reformed symbols, as it was understood by the German church in the beginning of the seventeenth century. And who will pretend to say, that such a commentary is not of more weight at least than any amount of merely modern Puritan authority, arbitrarily wresting the same phraseology into another sense altogether, to please its own anti-mystical humor? The relation between sign and thing signified, is not general only but special; both enter into the constitution of the sacrament; the 66 exhibition" of the invisible grace is its actual presentation at the time, under an objective form; this is too, not the benefits of Christ merely, but the quickening substance of his life itself; and that again his proper man's life, in which he died on the cross and with which he now reigns in heaven; the soul or heart, acted upon by the Holy Ghost in the great mystery of its participation is not the understanding simply as a separate existence, but the inmost ground and centre of our whole living nature, out from which in a real way the organic force of Christ's life is reproductively carried into both mind and body, transmuting them, as Hooker has it, from sin

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to righteousness, from death and corruption to glory and immortality. All in full harmony with the beautiful representation of Calvin: "Christi caro instar fontis est divitis et inexhausti, quæ vitam a divinitate in seipsam scaturientem ad nos transfundit."

IV.

CONCLUSION.

We have now carried our historical trial as far, as the proper wants of the subject would seem to require; and we may safely leave it with all candid readers, we think, to decide for themselves what force the whole should have, as regards the general question in debate. If we are not entirely mistaken, the evidence we have brought forward is sufficient to show conclusively, that the original and proper sacramental doctrine of the Reformed church was of a truth in all material points, what we have described it to be in the Mystical Presence; and that the counter statement of Princeton, accordingly, falls altogether short of the full and entire truth. To see at a glance the difference between the two representations, as well as to estimate their comparative claims to regard, in the light of the examination through which we have now gone, we have only to repeat the recapitulatory paragraph of the Princeton article, which we have before quoted, adding to its several clauses at the same time what is needed in the way of supplement to complete their sense. To make the contrast between the two forms of statement more immediately plain, the supplementary parts are presented in a different type, and of course without quotation marks.

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Christ is really present to his people, in this ordinance, not bodily, but by his Spirit," as the medium of a higher mode of existence; "not in the sense of local nearness, but of efficacious operation," nullifying mirifically the bar of distance and bringing the very substance of his body into union with their life. "They receive him, not with the mouth, but by faith," as the organ by which only the soul is qualified to admit the divine action now noticed; "they receive his flesh, not as flesh, not as material particles," but dynamically in the inward power of its life, (so that the clause "nor its human life," is not correct;) his body as broken and his blood as shed," the value of that sacrifice carried in the vivific virtue of the same body now gloriously exalted in heaven. "The union thus signified and effected between him and them, is not a corporeal union, nor a mix

ture of substances," in the Roman or Lutheran sense," but spiritual and mystical;" not merely mental, but including the real presence of Christ's whole life under an objective character, and reaching on our side also through the soul into the body; "arising from the indwelling of the Spirit," not as the proxy only of an absent Christ, but as the supernatural bond of a true life connection, by which his very flesh is joined to ours, more intimately far than the trunk to its branches, or the head to its members, in the natural world. "The efficacy of this sacrament, as a means of grace, is not in the signs," separately taken," nor in the service," outwardly considered, "nor in the minister, nor in the word, but solely in the attending influence of the Holy Ghost," as the necessary complement or inward side of the divine mystery itself of whose presence the outward signs are the sure guaranty and pledge, and whose mirific action can never fail to take effect objectively where the subject is in a state to admit it by faith. "This we believe," so filled out with positive contents," to be a fair statement of the doctrine of the Reformed church."

The fact then of a broad and serious variation from the old Reformed doctrine of the Lord's supper, in the reigning Puritan view of the present time, ought not to be disputed nor disguised. Some pains are taken, in the Mystical Presence, to illustrate and define this modern view, by suitable extracts from popular authors; as also to place it in direct contrast at several points with the older doctrine, for the purpose of bringing the fact now mentioned into clear light. Let the two following quotations, the first from Professor Stuart of Andover, the other from that well known work, Dick's Theology, suffice at present, in place of all other authorities, for specimen and exemplification. Both of these distinguished divines sink the Lord's supper into a simply commemorative ordinance throughout.

"Here we find," says Prof. Stuart, "the great object of the symbols at the table of the Lord. They are to show forth his death until he come.' They are designed in a peculiar manner to recall to the mind of the communicant, the sufferings and death of him who instituted these memorials. Other views of him must accompany such recollections. His love, his pity, his constancy, his inextinguishable compassion for perishing men, his hatred of sin, his earnest desire for the purification and holiness of all his followers -all these, and more of the like things, stand inseparably connected with the remembrance of his death on the cross. And it is by a lively remembrance of these things, and a lively and active faith in them, that the believer must be profited, if profited at all, at the