True Presence
The Presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper
Up until the mid-nineteenth-century Oxford Movement and the Tractarians’ attempt to misconstrue the Articles in line with their Anglo-Catholicism, the Anglican Church had a consistent understanding of the Reformation formularies – the 39 Articles (elaborated in the Homilies, as noted by Article 35), the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal. Today, that Reformation theology is held across the Anglican Church of the global south, with teaching that conforms understanding of the formularies to the explanations of the Reformers who wrote them. For those explanations, we principally look to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's A Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood (1550), John Jewel's Apology for the Church of England (1562), and Richard Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1593, 1597). I offer here a sampling from each of those texts simply to illustrate the consistency of doctrine that undergirds the Anglican formularies.
Regarding Cranmer, original drafter of the Book of Common Prayer, Ordinal, Articles of Religion, and complier of the first Book of Homilies, consider from Book 4, Ch. 2, of A Defense: "All that love and believe Christ himself, let them not think that Christ is corporally in the bread, but let them lift up their hearts unto heaven, and worship him sitting there at the right hand of his Father. Let them worship him in themselves, whose living temples they be, in whom he dwelleth and liveth spiritually: but in no wise let them worship him as corporally in the bread; for he is not in it, neither spiritually, as he is in man; nor corporally, as he is in heaven; but only sacramentally, as a thing may be said to be in the figure, whereby it is signified."
From Bishop John Jewel's Apology, Part II: "We affirm that bread and wine are holy and heavenly mysteries of the body and blood of Christ, and that by them Christ himself, being the true bread of eternal life, is so presently given unto us that by faith we verily receive his body and blood. Yet say we not this so as though we thought that the very nature of bread is changed and goeth to nothing, as many have dreamed in these later times which yet could never agree among themselves upon their own dreams. For that was not Christ's meaning, that the wheaten bread should lay apart his own nature and receive a certain new divinity, but that he might rather change us and (to use Theophylact's words) might transform us into his body. ... For, although we do not touch the body of Christ with teeth and mouth, yet we hold him fast and eat him by faith, by understanding, and by spirit... and in celebrating these mysteries, the people are to good purpose exhorted, before they come to receive the Holy Communion, to lift up their hearts and to direct their minds to heavenward; because he is there by whom we must be full fed and live. The Council of Nicea as it is alleged by some in Greek, plainly forbiddeth us to be basely affectioned or bent toward the bread and wine which are set before us." Jewel also wrote the Homily on Worthily Receiving the Lord's Supper (1563) wherein he echoes his own words here.
Finally, Richard Hooker's Laws, Book 5 (“The Word Made Flesh”) is a wonderful exploration of sacramentality. At Ch 13, “On Eucharist,” he explores the Lutheran, Catholic, and Zwinglian views, and then communicates the English view. He writes, “The real presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood should not be looked for in the sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament. The very order of Christ's words agrees with this: first, ‘Take and eat’; then, ‘This is my body which was broken for you.’ I do not see any way to gather from Christ's words when and where the bread becomes his body or the cup his blood, except within the heart and soul of the one who receives them. The sacraments really exhibit, but from what we can gather from the text are not really, nor do they really contain in themselves, that grace which it pleases God to bestow with them or by them."
In keeping with the Anglican formularies as explained by these framers, the GAFCON provinces of the Anglican Communion hold a general agreement on a non-localized but "true presence" of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, by which receiving the life of the Lord comes by reception – feeding on Christ in one’s heart, by faith. Although the ACNA Constitution affirms the Jerusalem Declaration (2008) that explicitly holds and submits to this Reformation position, the Constitution also historicizes the Articles and thereby avoids them as authoritative for Anglicans today. The ACNA is the only GAFCON province that explicitly provides for divergence from the Reformation position.
If you are interested in more extensive direct engagement with the Reformers on the Eucharistic theology, see especially:
* Cranmer, A Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament... most particularly the 3rd and 4th book.
* Jewel's Apology, Part II.
* Hooker's Laws, Book 5, ch 13 (but the whole Book is worth a read; Davenant Press has issued an abbreviated and modernized edition).
