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a I B RARY

OF THE UN 1VER5ITY Of ILLI NOIS

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR

ARE WE BETTER THAN OUR FATHERS? Lectures in St. Paul's Cathedral, 1871. (Jas. Parker & Co.)

SOME OF THE BONDS OF SOCIETY. Lectures in St. Paul's Cathedral, 1872. (National Society's Depository.)

THE COST OF VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS AND OF

BOARD SCHOOLS. (National Society's Depository.) 1875.

IS THE CANADIAN SYSTEM OF EDUCATION RATES POSSIBLE IN ENGLAND ? (National Society's Depository.) 1875.

POSITION OF THE CELEBRANT. A Speech in Convoca- tion. 1875.

THE POSITION OF THE PRIEST ORDERED BY THE

EUBRICS IN THE COMMUNION SERVICE INTERPRETED BY THEMSELVES. (Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.) 1876.

THE CHURCH'S NEED OF MORE WORKERS. A

Sermon. (Rivingtons.) 1876.

On the Doctrine of the Real Presence.

COEEESPONDENCE

BETWEEN THE

EARL OF EEDESDALE

AND THE

HONOUBABLE CHARLES L. WOOD,

President of the English Church Union.

LONDON:

JOHN MUERAY, ALBEMARLE STREET^

1879.

LONDON : I'KINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

i

CORRESPONDENCE.

Batsford Park, December 1st, 1878.

Dear Mr. Wood,

I find in the Oxford Journal a report of a speech made by you at a meeting of the University Branch of the English Church Union, in which, com- menting on a memorial addressed to the Bishop on the subject of Cuddesden College, you said that he ought to have told the memorialists that the ques- tion was not one of ritual, but the whole principle of the sacramental system ; the doctrine of the Eeal Pre- sence being at the bottom of the present controver- sies. What, then, is the true doctrine of the Real Presence ? I send you a leaflet on the subject which I published a short time ago, setting forth the Apostolic Doctrine thereon, derived, as Apostolic Doctrine can alone be obtained, from Scripture. I have not yet found anyone able to controvert the arguments therein set forth, or the doctrine derived from them. St. Paul's teaching on the subject ap- pears very clear. The paper is very short, and I should really be much obliged to you if you would tell me in what respect the doctrine I have expressed is in any respect contradicted or modified in any

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Apostolic teaching, or by any words of Christ Him- self; or if your time is too much occupied, if you would get some friend of yours to answer me, as I am very anxious to learn the truth on the subject. The matter is in so short a compass that the work with anyone who knows the subject must be very light if my reasoning is erroneous.

Believe me

Yours very sincerely,

Redesdale. To Hon. C. L. Wood.

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THE APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE OF THE REAL PRESENCE.

BY

THE EARL OF REDESDALE.

All Scripture teaches the Omnipresence of God, and Christ as God is ever with us in the Omnipresent Godhead. When the Holy Sacrament is given He is there without any priestly intervention, equally before, during the celebration, and after. This is the only real presence of Christ as God, then and always to be adored.

When Christ instituted the Holy Sacrament, and said, " This is my body which is given for yon, this is my blood which is shed for you," He spoke of His human and mortal body and blood. God is a spirit, Christ had body and blood as man only, and as snch could alone be made a sacrifice. His Godhead could not be given for us. His Godhead could not die for our sins. When He cried out, "- My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," He declared that He was leaving His human body alone on the Cross. How could God forsake God ? and how could Christ's body die if God was still in and part of it? Christ as perfect man had soul as well as body. When His body died, the soul (His departed spirit), " never to be divided" from His Godhead, went down with it into Hell, as the Apostles' Creed teaches. His dead body did not go down into Hell, but remained on

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earth in tlie sepulchre till raised on the third day, when the Godhead and soul re-entered it in strict fulfilment of David's prophecy, Psalm xvi. 10 : " For thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." The separation was necessary for resurrection. How could Christ be raised from the dead on the third day if His body was not then dead ? His body which died on the Cross, and was buried, is the body which was given for us, and from it, while dead, came the blood which was shed for us. The bread and wine have consequently nothing of the Godhead in them.

This body Christ has made His Church here on earth, mystical and invisible, and of it all Christians are members. This is distinctly set forth by St. Paul in Ephes. v. 30-32 : "For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." It is impossible to have used words which could more clearly indicate that the membership is with the human body of Christ than that we are members of His flesh and bones. We cannot in any way through this membership become members of His Godhead, for then we should become members of the Father and Holy Ghost also.

The Sacrament was instituted by Christ, that those thus receiving, in remembrance of and in the manner ordained by Him, His pure and undefiled body and blood, might have their membership with Him thereby confirmed and strengthened. That the body and blood given through the bread and wine are the mortal body, and the same mystical and invisible body of which the recipients are already members, is

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clearly shown by St. Paul, 1 Cor. x. 16, 17 : '' The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the com- munion of the blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ? For we being many are one bread, and one body : for we are all partakers of that one bread." The bread and wine, the means whereby and through the re- ception of which His body and blood are conveyed into that mystical and invisible body of which we are members, are, when eaten, passed through our human body with our ordinary food. To adore them is to adore an image, and to adore the human body of Christ which is to be communicated to us through them, is to adore the body of which we are ourselves members, and which through that membership is ever really present with us.

The Apostolic doctrine herein shortly set forth derives its authority from Scripture alone. No contradiction of it is worth anything unless taken from the same Apostolic source, and all who in any way hold the Roman doctrine of the Real Presence are hereby challenged so to contradict it, if they can.

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10, Belgrave Square, December 2nd, 1878.

Dear Lord Redesdale,

I am exceedingly obliged to you for your letter and its inclosure, which I have just read. If you will let me, as I am on the point of leaving town for a few days on some business which is just now taking up all my time, I will delay answering your letter till I come back. When I do, I think and hope I can prove to you that what you say about the Eu- charist is based upon a mistake as to the consequences of the Incarnation ; and if so^ it is only another proof that a defective view as to the means by which the Incarnation is extended to us has its root in a defec- tive view of the Incarnation itself.

I know you will not accuse me of presumption for writing in this way, or think anything else but that I am truly grateful to you for writing to me on the subject. As Dr. Pusey so well says in his last sermon, which I think would interest you — " Science and Unscience" — we ought not to wish to make Scripture accord with our ideas, but our ideas with Scripture.

Believe me

Yours very sincerely,

Charles L. Wood.

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Batsford Parky December ^rd, 1878.

Dear Mr. Wood,

I thank you for your reply to my letter, and am glad to learn from you that you will send me a carefully-prepared answer to it.

I entirely agree with the opinion you express that " we ought not to wish to make Scripture accord with our ideas, but our ideas with Scripture."

Believe me

Yours very sincerely,

Redesdale.

Batsford Park, December 11th, 1878.

Dear Mr. Wood,

As more than a fortnight has passed since you thanked me for the letter I addressed to you on the subject of the " Eeal Presence,'* and told me that you were " truly grateful to me for writing to you on the subject," I hope you will excuse me for asking for the reply to it you promised. My leaflet is very short, and I only desire you to show me where my statements in it are incorrect, where my reasonings on Christ's words and Bible records are unsound, and in what respect my interpretation of the plain words of St. Paul is erroneous.

Believe me

Yours very sincerely,

Redesdale.

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Hickleton, December 18</i, 1878.

My dear Lord Eedesdale,

I have been putting off answering your letter, partly because I have had a great deal to do since you wrote, partly because controversy as a rule is so use- less and unsatisfactory that I felt I had been guilty of some conceit in thinking that it might be my business to embark upon the discussion of such a subject with you, and partly because such thoughts as these and my business together had indisposed me to begin my letter. For this idleness I beg your pardon, and will try to make up for it by answering your letter at once.

If I understand your argument aright, it is based upon an affirmative and two negative propositions.

The affirmative proposition being this, that in the Holy Eucharist we really do receive the Body and Blood of Christ, by means of which (" His pure and undefiled Body and Blood ") we have " our member- ship with Him confirmed and strengthened."

The negative propositions being : 1. ** That the body and blood given through the bread and wine are the mortal body of Christ." 2. That the mortal body of Christ is not to be adored, because the dead body of Christ is separate from the Godhead, has nothing of the Godhead in it, and is moreover only that body of which we are ourselves the members.

These propositions in regard to the Eucharist are further based on certain propositions as to our Lord's person and nature, as, e.g., that when our Lord died on the Cross the Godhead was separated from His

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body, and did not re-enter it till the Resurrection. This is drawn out in the expressions, " How could Christ's body die if Grod was still in and part of it ?" and " when His body died, the soul never to be divided from His Godhead went down with it into Hell," the inference from the context being that the Godhead though united to the soul was divided from the body.

Now, in regard to the affirmative proposition I have nothing to say except the pleasure that I have in finding we are at one. You assert the presence of our Lord's Body and Blood in the Eucharist ; you reject the interpretation of those who see in the Eucharist only the figure of an absent reality ; you believe with me that it is not mere bread and wine which we receive in Holy Communion, but that His Body and Blood, in the words of the article, are given, taken, and received in the Eucharist, and that we are thereby made one with Him and He with us.

I therefore go on at once to the negative pro- positions, and address myself to the point upon which they turn — those assertions as to our Lord's nature and person, which are the real kernel of the matter.

By way of preface let me, however, just remark that the way you connect Eucharistic doctrine vdi\\ doctrine touching our Lord's person is an illustration of what I ventured to say before, viz., how close the connection is between the doctrine of the Incarnation and the doctrine of the Sacraments by means of which the Incarnation is extended to us. A fact

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which invests the controversies of the present day with their real importance.

Now, with respect to our Lord's person and the natures which are united in Him, is there not some confusion in your words ? You say (speaking of them in relation to His death) " Christ had body and blood as man only, and as such could alone be made a sacrifice." And again, " His Godhead could not be given for us ; His Godhead could not die ;" or again, '* He declared He was leaving His human body alone on the Cross," z.^., separating His Deity from it.

But surely the truth is that God took a body and soul in order that He might die in it. Who was conceived of the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary ? God. Who was born ? God. Who came and went clothed in mortal form on earth ? God. Who was crucified ? God. Whose blood redeemed us ? St. Paul replies, the blood of God. Who was buried ? God. Who rose again ? God. But let me put it in the words of one whose authority you will, I am sure, accept. Bishop Pearson, on that article in the Creed, He was crucified dead and buried, writes as follows : " But because Christ was not only man but also God, and there was not only an union between His soul and body while He lived, but also a conjunction of both natures (i.e., the divine and human) and an union in His person, it will be further necessary, for the understanding of His death, to show what union was dissolved, what continued, that we may not make the separation either less or greater than it was. Whereas there were two different substantial unions in

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Christ, one of the parts of His human nature (ix., His body and soul) each to other, in which His humanity did consist, and by which He was truly man ; the other of His natures human and divine, by which it came to pass that Grod was Man and Man God. First, it is certain that the union of the parts of His human nature was dissolved on the Cross, and a real separation made between His soul and body. As far, then, as humanity consists in the essential Union of the parts of human nature, so far the humanity of Christ upon His death did cease to be ... . But, secondly, the union of the two natures (the divine and the human) remained still as to the parts (i.e„ the body and soul), nor was the soul or body separated from the Divinity, but still subsisted as they did before by the subsistence of the second Person of the Trinity.

The truth of this assertion appeareth from the Creed, for as we proved before that the only begotten and eternal Son of God, God of God, ver^r God of very God, was conceived, born, and suffered .... so while the Creed, speaking of the same Person that He was buried and descended into Hell, it sheweth that neither His body, in respect of which He was buried, nor His soul, in respect of which He was generally conceived to descend into Hell^ had lost that Union .... The Word was once, indeed, without either soul or body, but after it was made flesh it was never parted either from the one or the other .... Thus Christ did really and truly die according to the condition of death to which the nature of man is subject ; but although He was more than man, yet

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He died no more than a man can die : a separation was made between the soul and body, but no disunion of them and His Deity. They (His body and soul) were disjoined from one another, but not from Him who took them both together; rather by virtue of that remaining conjunction they were again united after their separation."

Of Christ's body then it is as true, as it is true of His soul, that never for an instant was it, or could it be, divided from His Deity. It was the tabernacle of God, the temple of the Word during the three days when it lay in the grave, just as truly as during the thirty-three years when He walked the earth. Where it is present there is the Incarnate Presence of God the Son, and where God manifests His Incaruate Presence there He is to be worshipped, as it is urged in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews by the allusion, in reference to the Incarnation, to the words, " When He bringeth the first begotten into the world, let all the angels of God worship Him."

God is omnipresent, yet of God the Word it is said, " I am come into the world, and again I go to the Father." But what means this coming and going of the Omnipresent Word of God, except the Incarnation, in respect of which He manifests Himself in time and space, abhorring not for nine months the Virgin's womb, just as to-day He condescends to make use of the material elements of bread and wine as the points of contact between Himself and us ?

Let me add to this, that if those words, " My God,

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my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ?" could signify a solution, as Bishop Pearson says, of the Union of the Deity with the human body and soul which the Word had assumed, that separation would have taken place not at our Lord's death, but during His life, which, involving as it does a double personality in our Lord, is Nestorianism. Whereas, indeed, to quote Bishop Pearson again, those words infer no more than that " He allowed His humanity to be bereft of such joys and comforts from the Deity as should assuage and mitigate the acerbity of His present torments."

But^ in truth, is not the whole discussion of this subject already settled by the fact that " Christ being dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him " ? It is not Christ's mortal body that is given to us in the Eucharist, but His glorified humanity, which, having passed through the grave and gate of death once for all in the days of His humiliation, has now entered into the heavenly places made without hands, and there, as the Lamb that had been slain but now alive for evermore, pleads for us upon the altar in Heaven.

The real question at issue is the relation of the Church's worship on earth to the continual abiding intercession of her head in Heaven ; and if it is iden- tical with it, as every line of the Bible appears to me to assert, and as most certainly historical Christianity from the very earliest time has ever believed, because both in heaven and earth the offering and the offerer are the same, Jesus Christ our High Priest after the

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order of Melchizedeck visibly appearing before the Father for us there, invisibly here under earthly forms and by the intervention of earthly representa- tives, then all controversy is at an end between us.

In conclusion, let me ask, in reference to the following words on page 4 of your paper^ " We cannot in any way through this membership (with His body) become members of His Godhead, for then we should become " members of the Father and the Holy Ghost also ;" assuming that " members " here means united to^ which is the sense of the passage as I understand it, whether this union of ourselves with the ever blessed Trinity is not the precise object and scope of the Christian religion ?

Made in the image of God and for union with Hira, we had marred that image and separated ourselves from Him ; but He who had originally formed us in His image, would not thus leave us to ourselves. He re-stamps human nature with more than its former glory by His assumption of it to Himself. He fills it with that life which He is by nature. In it He expiates and satisfies for the sins of the whole world, and then imparting that nature to us by the operation of the Holy Ghost, Who is the bond of Union in the adorable Trinity, He re-unites us in His own person to the Father. One with the Father in the Son by the Spirit, that is, lifted up into the fellowship of the Holy Trinity, abiding in the Father and the Son by the Spirit ; continuing, as St. John says, in the Son and in the Father, or to quote our Lord's own words at the institution of the

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Eucharist, " If any man keep my words, my Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make our abode with him." What is all this but the sum of our belief as Christians, the revelation of our glory as members of the Beloved ?

One word more. If there is a confusion in the conception apparently defended in the paper which I am venturing to criticise, that our Lord's Godhead was severed from His human body after His death on the Cross, is there not also a confusion between our Lord's Sacramental body and His mystical body, the Church ? Is there not, too, a mistake in sup- posing that anyone adores the bread and wine ? It is Christ's Presence under them that is adored, not the external veil by which that Presence is shrouded.

If the Eoman theory be that the change of the bread and the wine in the Eucharist involves the destruc- tion of the elements as material substances, which is what I understand by our denial of transubstantia- tion, I do not know that anyone has defended such a theory as to the mode of the Eeal Presence; but this is a further question into which I need not enter. I will only ask you to believe two things, — one, that I should not have written as I have done, except at your own request. It is so very disagree- able to me to be in the position of attempting to criticise anything you have written. It seems to me unfitting, and clearly not my business ; and next, speaking for myself, that though I have written as if the subjects under discussion were open questions, I

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cannot for one minute admit them to be really such. They are questions which have either been definitely settled by those general councils which, accepted by the whole Church, East and West alike, have pro- claimed what that faith is which has been held from the beginning with respect to them, or they are questions upon which, though they may not be alluded to in the ipsissima verba of an Oecumenical Council, are yet really closed questions to those who are content to take the sense of the whole Church, the quod semper, the quod uhique, and the quod ah omni- hus as to the meaning of Scripture rather than their own. To that authority I frankly submit myself, and I can honestly say that, so far as my experience goes, what maybe accepted on authority in the first instance, and without a full comprehension of all it involves, ends by making itself clear to the intelligence, till like the Samaritans we can say, " Now we believe, not because of thy saying (that is, the authority of others), but because we have heard Him ourselves."

I should be sorry not to have added this, for yielding to none as I trust in my reverence for the written Word of God, I must hold with that Word that " no Scripture is of private interpretation," and that it is possible, nay probable, if we separate our- selves from the consensus of Christendom as to its true meaning, that we shall wrest its words to our own destruction. I think half our difficulties at the present time come from this very fact, from the fact, I mean, that people interpret the Bible for them- selves, without any reference to the proportion of

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faith, often omitting great portions of Scripture altogether from consideration. Were it not so, I cannot help also thinking that they would see that our present controversies involve much deeper sub- jects than the mere externals of religion, and that just as it was the relation of the Son to the Father that occupied the attention of the first centuries, so it is the relation that exists between us and the Son that is now in question. Will you consider this, and believe me to be

Ever yours most sincerely,

Charles L. Wood.

Batsford Fark, December 22nd, 1878.

Dear Mr. Wood,

I cannot sufficiently thank you for your letter, and the pains you have taken to comply with my request.

1 will endeavour to be as short as possible in com- menting on the different points in it on which I may not go altogether with you, and on which I differ from you.

First, on what you call my affirmative proposi- tion—

I believe that in substance we probably agree, but you go beyond me in considering that I assert the presence of our Lord's body and blood in the Eucha- rist ; I believe that the bread and wine are the means ordained by Christ whereby through faith we receive His body and blood, but I cannot accept

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the doctrine that His body and blood are in the elements when consecrated, and are to be revered as such by the wayfarers in the street through which they are carried.

Next, on what you call my negative propositions — I do not find that you in any way meet my objec- tion that Christ's Grodhead could not be given for us, and that His Godhead could not die for our sins. He was made man with a mortal body to enable these things to be done. How could God be offered as a sacrifice to Himself? You ask whose blood redeemed us ? and answer, St. Paul replies the blood of God. I cannot find any such words of St. Paul. The blood of Christ or of Jesus Christ is the expres- sion used by him and St. Peter. No doubt Christ was God as well as man, but it was as perfect man that His blood was shed by which we are redeemed. I do not understand your reasoning that if the words " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ?" could signify a solution of the Deity with the human body and soul, that separation would have taken place, not at our Lord's death, but during His life. Nor can I accept the interpretation that they mean no more than that God allowed His humanity to be bereft of such joys and comforts from the Deity as should assuage and mitigate the intensity of his present torments. Did martyrs in the flames cry out that God had forsaken them? Does the Christian believe himself to be forsaken of God be- cause He allows him to suffer torments ? Is it possible to conceive that Christ at that moment used

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words of equivocal meaning? As man he used David's prophetic words in that remarkable psalm which so wonderfully describes the crucifixion, and I ask again how could God forsake God? What right have we to give any other than the plain meaning to His words ?

You object to my statement that in becoming members of Christ we cannot become members of His Godhead, for then we should become members of the Father and the Holy Ghost also, and say, If "members" here means "united to," which is the sense of the passage as I understand it, is not this union of ourselves with the ever Blessed Trinity the precise object and scope of the Christian religion ? The passage you so understand is, " We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." Where do you find flesh and bones connected with the other persons in the Trinity ?

Now as to the meaning of our membership, and our union with the Trinity through that membership. St. Paul explains it thus — " Know ye not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you." The temple of God is not God, though the Spirit of God dwelleth in it.

You omit to notice the quotation from St. Paul which appears to me conclusive on the subject, ac- cording to its plain interpretation. He tells the Corinthian Christians that they are members of Christ's body, of His flesh, and of His bones, that the cup is the communion of the blood of Christ and the bread of His body, and that they being many are

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one body and one bread. What can that mean, but that the bread is the same body as that of which they are members ? The spiritual body in which they will be raised from the dead. I cannot believe that the body of which I hope I am a member is God as well as man, but I can accept it as a temple into which, if I keep it pure, the Spirit of God may enter and dwell.

In conclusion, I ask you, in your own wise words in your former letter, not to wish to make Scripture accord with your ideas, but your ideas with Scripture. St. Paul is a higher authority than any QEcumenical Council, or than Bishop Pearson. Believe me,

Yours most sincerely,

Pedesdale.

I enclose a little pamphlet which I published some time ago, in which you will find an article on the Peal Presence, which explains more fully my under- standing on the subject.

[ Vide Appendix.]

Hickleton, December 26th, 1878.

My dear Lord Pedesdale,

I am glad to think from your letter that you were not vexed with anything I said.

The expression '* Blood of God " is in Acts xx. xxviii.

It does not seem to me that I shall advance what I

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believe to be the cause of truth by saying more on the subject, so that I shall not do more in thanking you for your second paper than add the following observations : —

It pleased God for the purpose of reconciling the world to Himself — of carrying out the At-one-ment — to unite Himself with our humanity in the womb of the Blessed Virgin. Does it not then appear to be a denial of the truth of the Incarnation to assert that He ever dissociated Himself from that nature which He so assumed ?

The Blessed Virgin bore within herself for nine months God the Word, while He was taking to Him- self of her substance, our nature from its very first beginning.

The Deity contained in her bosom was recognised by St. John the Baptist, himself unborn, and when (as we say in the Psalms on Christmas Day) that Deity, rejoicing like a giant to run His course, came out of His chamber, and was laid in the manger. He was worshipped by the angels ; as it is written, " Let all the angels of God worship Him."

Believing then that the Word has been made flesh, that that flesh which He gave for the life of the world is given to us in the Eucharist, " The bread which I give is my flesh," and that " Whoso eateth that flesh," as He Himself says, " dwell eth in Me and I in him," how can a Christian refuse to worship Him to-day under the forms of bread and wine, as St. John worshipped Him still concealed in bis mother, or as the shepherds wori^hipped Him in the

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manger at Bethlehem, which (and it is surely a fact to be remembered) is by interpretation the " House of Bread."

This to me is the plain teaching of the Bible. I cannot read St. John's Gospel in any other light, and you would be the last person, in deference to that principle of private judgment advocated in your paper, to ask me to accept opinions which do not commend themselves to my judgment as consistent with Scripture, and which, if I understand them (about which I am by no means sure), appear to me to be open to the charge of confounding the persons of the Blessed Trinity, and of denying the abiding reality of the Incarnation of the Son.

Please forgive me for saying this, but I am quite

sure you would wish me to say what I really think,

and again thanking you for taking the trouble to

write to me.

Believe me to be,

Dear Lord Eedesdale,

Yours sincerely,

Charles L. Wood.

The whole subject is so important and the respon- sibility of writing and speaking about it is so great, that I cannot help asking you, if you have not seen it, to look at Saddler's " Church Doctrine and Bible Truth." It is a book which deserves your attention.

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Batsford Park, December 2Sth, 1878.

My dear Mr. Wood,

I am very sorry that you decline to meet the arguments in my last letter. T can understand your thinking that . " you would not advance what you believe to be the cause of truth by saying more on the subject." I am afraid that on the point in ques- tion you are more inclined to make Scripture agree with your ideas than your ideas with Scripture.

I assure you that I acknowledge the Divinity of Christ as fully and sincerely as yourself. The sole point on which we differ is that I hold that His God- head could not die, and that His body which died for our sins, was His human body only, which could not have died if His Godhead was still in and part of it.

Scripture tells us that the body which died for us is that which we receive through the bread, and that we are members of that body. Therefore, whether you or I are right, Christ's body at the Holy Com- munion is as really present with us as with the bread. He has told us that where two or three are gathered together in His name. He is in the midst of them, and He is therefore present in His Godhead at the Holy Communion, and as such to be adored, before, during, and after its celebration, without any re- ference to the bread or ourselves. Deny this if you can.

I will not trouble you with more. I propose to publish our correspondence, as I hope it may induce

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some one to enter more fully into the contest than you are inclined to do.

Believe me,

Yours very sincerely,

• Eedesdale.

HicMeton, December 29 tJi, 1878.

My dear Lord Redesdale,

It never occurred to me that you would wish to publish our letters. Had it done so, though there is nothing, so far as I recollect, that I should wish to modify, I should have taken more pains in the form of my letters ; but this is a detail which does not touch the merits of the question.

I cannot think that there is any advantage in publishing such a private correspondence, but if you really wish to do so, I will only add that you should state in some form that my letters were written to one whom having known for so many years, I never looked upon as anything else but a friend, and that they were written without any idea of publication, although of course I could have no objection to such publication, if it was wished. Believe me.

Yours most sincerely,

Charles L. Wood.

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Batsford Park, December SOth, 1878.

My dear Mr. Wood,

I cordially acknowledge our private friend- ship, but I did not address my first letter to you as a private friend, but to ask for your criticism of a publication of mine on the Real Presence in con- sequence of a public speech made by you as President of the English Church Union. Indeed so little did I consider it private that I asked you, if you had not time or inclination to answer it, to get some friend of yours to do so, knowing from your position in the Union that you could easily find a substitute.

You gladly undertook the work, asking for time to do so properly, and you have so ably expressed the views of those you act with, though declining for the most part to enter into the criticism I par- ticularly desired, that I have no hesitation in avail- ing myself of your permission to publish, sending the proof to you for revision. Believe me,

Yours very sincerely,

Redesdale.

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APPENDIX

FROM

REASONINGS ON SOME DISPUTED POINTS OF DOCTRINE,

BY

LOED EEDESDALE.

The Real Presence.

There are few points of doctrine which have given rise to more differences, or have more disturbed the peace of the Church, than that touching the pre- sence of Christ, in one way or another, in the Eucharistic elements, and the manner in which those elements, when consecrated, are to be regarded. And yet how entirely all difficulties vanish before a real sense of His omnipresence. We lower His Divinity if we do not believe that He is everywhere ; and once convinced of this, what is there worth disputing about ? If He is everywhere. He is nearer to us in His G-odhead, and therefore more worthy to be adored, when we are at the west end of the church, than He can be to us with or in the sacred elements at the east end, and which at most are only held to be or to represent His flesh and blood. To doubt this is to ignore — indeed, to deny His omnipresence.

Let no one undervalue the holy Sacrament, or the benefits conferred by it, but let us consider the purpose for which it was ordained. Those who are accepted of God become members of Christ's body,

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of that body, as has been before shown^ in which He appeared on earth, and by and in which He was directly connected with our nature in this world. But our membership is not a visible incorporation, but a mystical one, and the flesh and blood which we receive in the sacrament through the bread and wine must also be mystical, in order to be in proper relation to the mystical body of ours, which is to receive and be nourished by it. Christ has said, " Except ye eat My flesh and drink My blood ye have no life in you ;" and, " He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me, and I in him ;" and has instituted the means by which this is to be effected, telling us that in eating the bread we partake of His body, and that in drinking the wine we drink His blood, and that is all we know and all we have to believe. Anything else is simply human conception and fancy, and any attempt to explain or account for the mystery, by supposing a change to take place in the elements when consecrated, fails to make the effect to be pro- duced clearer to the understanding. It gratifies the vanity of some to make their followers believe that they make Christ present through the bread and wine ; but what is that to those who believe in His omnipresence, and know that without any such aid He is with them always ; that when they sin He is there to judge, and when they truly repent that He is there to pardon ? The question really is, whether it is right to hold that by man's action something is put into the bread and wine which was not there before, or that when we eat ih^ bread and drink the wine something is put into us by Christ's action which was not there before.

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Let us examine the teaching of those who hold and inculcate that after consecration there is a real presence of Christ in the elements, which is to be adored. God alone is to be adored. What Christ gives us in the bread and wine is His body which was sacrificed for us, and His blood which was shed. His Godhead was not given for