[To the Editor of the Sma..r.vron.] Sin,—Your Anglo-Catholic correspondent puts
forward the usual plea that the words, This is My Body," " This is My
Blood," should be taken in " their natural straightforwaH sense." But he does not consider what this involves. It means that the elements on the altar are separated portion, of a dead organism. If the Body is identified with the bread, and the Blood with the wine, a literal acceptance of the wont' can have no other meaning. But this is surely impassible, Your correspondent himself denies it in the last part of hie letter.
The Roman Church meets the problem with the doctrine of Concomitance, according to which the whole Christ is under each element. This strikes me as much more reasonable than your correspondent's doctrine. But it involves a complete negation of his plea that the words must be taken in their literal natural sense.
Surely that plea is altogether absurd. When the language of material things is used to describe spiritual realities, it is, and must be, figurative, poetic. But it does not follow from this that the things so indicated are mere imagery, shadows rather than substances. Surely, as spiritual, they are nose than material—higher in the order of reality. To speak of the elements as " mere symbols " is, therefore, as fallacious as your correspondent's " natural straightforward sense.-- [With reference to our correspondent's expression •'a dead organism," surely it is in a Risen and glorified body that those who repeat the creed believe.—En. Spectator.]
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