That there are substantial differences between Anglican and Roman doctrines, none can rationally deny, though some have tried, and continue trying, to deny it. The article's purpose, therefore, is primarily to show what the Anglican doctrines are - here specifically, the doctrine of the sacrament of Our Saviour's Body and Blood.

As further assistance to Anglicans, the article commends Anglican doctrine by showing that it is grounded in Scripture and the Fathers, and upholds the sense and purpose of the sacrament. The scholarship underlying the theological aspect of the above article is not mine, but Cranmer's.

Cranmer's exposition of the authorities is comprehensive. He does not cite isolated statements of a few of the Fathers. He examines any and all of them who wrote on the subject, including those whose writings have been alleged to support transubstantiation. He shows their meaning by the entire context. All these authorities draw to the same point: Christ meant not that people should consume His flesh and blood with their mouths, but that by means of faith in Him alone, through the outward sign of being fed and through other means of grace, they should consume His flesh and blood in their hearts and souls where its power to nourish can take effect.

The comment by William Scott rightly observes that Cranmer counted Christ's presence in relation to the bread and wine to be equivalent to Christ's presence in relation to the water of Baptism: Christ truly and spiritually washes us in Baptism with His blood without His blood being objectively present in the water, and He feeds us with His flesh and blood in Communion without His flesh and blood being objectively present in the bread and wine. In stating this, however, Cranmer was only repeating the teaching of the Fathers, whom he quotes on that point.

Sound and reliable corroboration of Cranmer comes from another of the best qualified and most respected authorities on Anglican doctrine, Richard Hooker+. From his perspective at the end of the 16th century, he reflects and supports fully the theological basis and the sense of the Articles of Religion and Cranmer's exposition. His words are a better and more pastoral statement of Anglican doctrine than is likely to be found outside of Cranmer's own writings:

"[S]hall I wish that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the sacrament, and less to dispute of the manner how? ...

"[Christ's] flesh and blood are the true cause of eternal life; ... this they are, not by the bare force of their own substance, but through the dignity and worth of his Person which offered them up by way of sacrifice for the life of the whole world. ...

"Is there anything more expedite, clear, and easy, than that as Christ is termed our life because through him we obtain life, so the parts of this sacrament are his body and blood for that they are so to us who receiving them receive that ... which they are termed? The bread and cup are his body and blood because they are causes instrumental upon the receipt whereof the participation of his body and blood ensueth." "[L]et our Lord's Apostle [Paul] be his interpreter:" the bread is "the communion of" his body and the wine is "the communion of" his blood.

"The real presence of Christ's most blessed body and blood is not therefore to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament. ... As for the sacraments, they really exhibit, but for aught we can gather out of that which is written on them, they are not really nor do they really contain in themselves that grace which with them or by them it pleaseth God to bestow.

"... There is no sentence of Holy Scripture which saith that we cannot by this sacrament be made partakers of his body and blood except they be first contained in the sacrament, or the sacrament converted into them. 'This is my body,' and 'this is my blood,' being words of promise, [since] we all agree that by the sacrament Christ doth really and truly in us perform his promise, why do we vainly trouble ourselves with so fierce contentions whether by consubstantiation, or else by transubstantiation the sacrament itself be first possessed with Christ, or no? A thing which no way can either further or hinder us howsoever it stand, because our participation of Christ in this sacrament dependeth on the cooperation of his omnipotent power which maketh it his body and blood to us, whether with change or without alteration of the elements such as they imagine, we need not greatly to care nor inquire.

"... [T]hat strong conceit which [consubstantiation and transubstantiation] have embraced as touching a literal, corporal and oral [chewing] of the very substance of his flesh and blood is surely an opinion no where delivered in Scripture. ... [W]hen some others did so conceive of eating his flesh, our Saviour to abate that error in them gave them directly to understand how his flesh so eaten could profit them nothing, because the words which he spake were spirit, that is to say, they had a reference to a mystical participation, which mystical participation giveth life.

"... [I]t appeareth not that of all the ancient Fathers of the Church any one did ever conceive or imagine other than only a mystical participation of Christ's both body and blood in the sacrament; neither ... was [it] their meaning to persuade the world either of a corporal consubstantiation of Christ with those ... elements before we receive them, or of the like transubstantiation of them into the body and blood of Christ.

"...[W]hat moveth us to argue of the manner how life should come by bread, our duty being here but to take what is offered, and assuredly to rest persuaded of this, that can we but eat, we are safe? ... [O]ur hunger is satisfied and our thirst for ever quenched. ... What these elements are in themselves it skilleth not. It is enough that to me which take them they are the body and blood of Christ. His promise in witness hereof sufficeth; his word he knoweth which way to accomplish. Why should any cogitation possess the mind of a faithful communicant but this, "O my God thou art true, O my Soul thou art happy." Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V, ch. 67 (1597).

The Roots of the Continuing Church Movement Part II can be seen here:

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=9192

The Roots of the Continuing Church Movement Part I can be seen here:

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6051

---Stephen Cooper is Editor of The SOJOURNER, Ascensiontide 2007. He is a member of The Church of the Redeemer, Anglican, Fairbanks, Alaska, a Continuing Anglican parish founded in 1980. Mr. Cooper is a layman and an attorney, federal prosecutor and former state District Attorney. He was National Chancellor of the American Episcopal Church (under Archbishop Anthony Clavier) from 1987-1988 and Chancellor of the Diocese of the West (AEC and ACA) 1986-1995 and Provincial Chancellor, Province of the West, ACA 1993-1996. He is author of "Reclaiming Our Heritage -- A Call to Return to the Original Mission of the Continuing Church..