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'Christ giveth himself truly to be eaten': Cranmer's 'Answer to Gardiner'

What other text is rest of the there in Scripture that encountereth with these words of Scripture, This is my body, whereby to alter the signification of them? There is no Scripture saith, Christ did not give his body, but the figure of his body ...

Gardiner's words, quoted by Cranmer in his Answer to Gardiner (1551), aptly summarise the core of his critique of Cranmer and, indeed, the core of the Roman and Lutheran critiques of the Swiss eucharistic theologies: "This is my body". The Swiss and their English supporters, it was alleged, pervert the Lord's words, emptying them of content, leaving only an empty figure.

Cranmer's response is not to flee from or equivocate on the key affirmations of the Swiss eucharistic theologies, but to robustly reaffirm them:

The Scripture is plain, and you confess also, that it was bread that Christ spake of, when he said, This is my body. And what need we any other Scripture to encounter with speech these words, seeing that all men know that bread is not Christ's body, the one having sense and reason, the other none at all? Wherefore in that speech must needs be sought another sense and meaning than the words of themselves do give, which is, as all old writers do teach, and the circumstances of the text declare, that the bread is a figure and sacrament of Christ's body. And yet as he giveth the bread to be eaten with our mouths, so giveth he his very body to be eaten with our faith. And therefore I say, that Christ giveth himself truly to be eaten, chawed, and digested, but all is spiritually with faith, not with mouth. And yet you would bear me in hand, that I say that thing which I say not: that is to say, That Christ did not give his body, but the figure of his body. And because you be not able to confute that I say, you would make me to say that you can confute.

"This is my body" is the true word of the Lord spoken to the faithful in the Supper. Not, however, to our mouths and bodily appetites, but to our souls and faith. In our souls, by faith, we truly eat, chew, and digest our Lord Jesus Christ in the Sacrament. This was affirmed by the Consensus Tigurinus:

Since the testimonies and seals, which God has given us of his grace, are true; there can be no doubt that God grants within us by his Spirit that which the sacraments figure to our eyes and other senses.

And as Bullinger would declare in a sermon on the Lord's Supper:

the faythfull acknowledging the Sacrament and misterie, receiue with their mouth, the sacramental bread of his body: but with the mouth of the spirit, they eate the very body of the Lord.

Cranmer, with the Swiss divines, refuted any notion that it is but a figure the faithful receive in the Holy Supper. No, for "Christ giveth himself truly to be eaten". 

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