ADVERTISEMENT.

IN

In my Sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of Wells, on Sunday, August 7 of the present year, I adduced proof from Holy Scripture of a Proposition, of which it had been publicly declared by a Bishop of the Church of England that it "is not the Doctrine of the Church of England." I restate the Proposition here.

"That to all who come to the LORD's Table, to those who eat and drink worthily, and to those who eat and drink unworthily, the Body and Blood of CHRIST are given; and that by all who come to the LORD's Table, by those who eat and drink worthily, and by those who eat and drink unworthily, the Body and Blood of CHRIST are received."

I have seen only one attempt* to invalidate the Scriptural proof of this Proposition adduced by me

*The Real Presence in the heart, not in the Elements; being strictures in reply to a Sermon on the Real Presence, by the Ven. George Anthony Denison, M.A., Archdeacon of Taunton. By the Rev. John Ward Spencer, B.A., late scholar of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Perpetual Curate of Wilton, in the

in that Sermon. I have a very few words to say upon it.

The writer has introduced much personal and irrelevant matter, but has altogether missed, or mistaken, or misstated the main drift of my Sermon, and the course of my argument: so that, if I had any object to serve by replying to him, I should first have to ask him to recast all that he has written.

To such an extent does this confusion prevail in a pamphlet of twenty-nine pages, that the Scriptural proof adduced by me in support of Proposition III. is dealt with as adduced in support of Proposition I.; and the whole form and manner of the writer's argument is involved in a like illogical and inextricable confusion.

It is curious, however, and not a little instructive to observe that the writer allows (p. 18,)* that if Proposition I. and II. be true--i. e. if it be true that there is a Real Spiritual Presence of the Body and Blood of CHRIST in the Consecrated Bread and Wine-in that case, Proposition III. which is the main subject of my argument-must, of necessity, be true also. I doubt whether some of those, in whose Archdeaconry of Taunton. London: John Crockford, 29, Essex Street, Strand.

* " Proposition III. as being a deduction only from Propositions I. and II." (i.e. precisely that which I have in terms stated it not to be) "does not, it would seem, require a separate consideration. Being necessarily dependent upon these Propositions, it must stand or fall together with them."

sense this pamphlet has been written, will thank the writer for this admission.

But, supposing the admission to represent their judgment, the question is thereby reduced to a single and simple issue; and I will only say that, if Members of the Church of England see fit to affirm that the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of CHRIST is in the heart of the faithful receiver only, and not in the Consecrated Bread and Wine, their controversy is, not with me, nor indeed with any man, but, with the Holy Scriptures, as witnessed to by the Church Catholic throughout all time; and that they place themselves in a dilemma out of which I must leave it to them to extricate themselves.

The Church of England is either ONE in Doctrine with the Church Primitive, or it is not. If it BE ONE, then it is not true that the doctrine that the Real Presence is "in the heart, not in the Elements" is the Doctrine of the Church of England. If it BE NOT ONE, then the position of the Church of England, as taken in the Sixteenth Century, is destroyed, and its justification, as against the Church of Rome, is of no force or value. It is at once reduced to the level of Protestant sects, and, as such, appeals to the principle of developement, and rests upon the unsubstantial foundation of private judgment. In the first case then, those who maintain that the Real Presence is "in the heart, not in the Elements," are unsound and erring members of a true Church-in the second they are members of an unsound and erring Church.

This is the whole amount of the answer which I feel in any way called upon to give to opponents. I am not indeed so much concerned with opponents, as with those who, from various causes, not having as yet had their attention called to the true nature and account of the Doctrine of the Real Presence, may be, under the Divine blessing, "rooted and built up in CHRIST, and stablished in THE FAITH ;"* and it is with this view and in this hope, that I employ every legitimate means of teaching and argument and persuasion which is within my reach. For it presses upon my mind, more and more deeply every day that I live, and look upon the influences that are everywhere at work around us and within us, that THE ONLY POSITION in which it will, humanly speaking, be found possible for the Church of England to maintain herself against the Church of Rome-against Germany and Geneva-against the deceivers and the anti-Christs which multiply fast upon every side in these latter days-is THAT ONE POSITION which was taken by our own Reformers in the Sixteenth Century; THE POSITION of Apostolic Doctrine and Apostolic Order: THE POSITION of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church. Now the evidence of both Apostolic Doctrine and Apostolic Order is found in the belief and practice of the Church Primitive. To this our Reformers appealed; we, and all who in any age would be found faithful, must be content to do so likewise. By this they tested all things: it must be even so with ourselves * Coloss. ii. 7.