Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/263

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they agreeing on both parts, that the Bread and Wine are not changed, he holds such a Sacramental Union." Luther having heard this, declared also his opinion thus; "That he did not locally include the Body and Blood of Christ with the Bread and Wine, and unite them together by any natural connexion; and that he did not make proper to the Sacraments that virtue whereby they brought salvation to the receivers; but that he maintained only a sacramental union betwixt the Body of Christ and the Bread, and betwixt His Blood and the Wine; and did teach, that the power of confirming our faith, which he attributed to the Sacraments, was not naturally inherent in the outward signs, but proceeded from the operation of Christ, and was given by His Spirit, by His words, and by the Elements." And finally, in this manner he spake to all that were present; "If you believe and teach, that in the Lord's Supper the true Body and Blood of Christ is given and received, and not the Bread and Wine only; and that this giving and receiving is real and not imaginary, we are agreed, and we own you for dear Brethren in the Lord." All this is set down at large in the twentieth tome of Luther's Works, and in the English Works of Bucer.

The next will be the Gallican Confession, made at Paris in a National Synod, and presented to King Charles IX. at the Conference of Poissy. Which speaks of the Sacrament on this wise; "Although Christ be in Heaven, where He is to remain until He come to judge the world, yet we believe that by the secret and incomprehensible virtue of His Spirit, He feeds and vivifies us by the substance of His Body and Blood received by faith. Now we say that this is done in a spiritual manner; not that we believe it to be a fancy and imagination, instead of a truth and real effect, but rather because that mystery of our union with Christ is of so sublime a nature, that it is as much above the capacity of our senses, as it is above the order of nature." Item; "We believe that in the Lord's Supper God gives us really, that is, truly and efficaciously, whatever is represented by the Sacrament. With the signs we join the true profession and fruition of the thing by them offered to us; and so, that Bread and Wine which are given to us, become our spiritual nourishment, in that they make it in some manner visible to us that the Flesh of Christ is our food, and His Blood our drink. Therefore those fanatics that reject these signs and symbols are by us rejected, our blessed Saviour having said, 'this