"Your saying is no small derogation to baptism": Cranmer's 'Answer to Gardiner' and the Sacrament of Holy Baptism
When Gardiner drew this distinction between Baptism and Eucharist, Cranmer - in his Answer to Gardiner (1551) - was ready with an approach well-established in Swiss sacramental theology, accusing papalist opponents of demeaning the Sacrament of Baptism:
And where you say that in baptism we receive the Spirit of Christ, and in the sacrament of his body and blood we receive his very flesh and blood: this your saying is no small derogation to baptism, wherein we receive not only the Spirit of Christ, but also Christ himself, whole body and soul, manhood and Godhead, unto everlasting life, as well as in the holy communion. For St. Paul saith, As many as be baptized in Christ, put Christ upon them: Nevertheless, this is done in divers respects; for in baptism it is done in respect of regeneration, and in the holy communion, in respect of nourishment and augmentation.
Our participation in Christ through the Sacrament of Baptism, argues Cranmer, while it has a different purpose than the Eucharist, is not at all qualitatively different: there is not a 'greater' participation of Christ in the Eucharist than in Baptism. Gardiner's wording, of course, clearly suggests that there is a 'greater' participation: indeed, the different claim for the Lord's presence in the Eucharist, as defined by transubstantiation, necessitates this.
Cranmer, by contrast, claims for Holy Baptism our partaking of "Christ himself, whole body and soul, manhood and Godhead, unto everlasting life". In Baptism, this partaking is "in respect of our regeneration"; in the Supper, "in respect of nourishment and augmentation". We truly partake of Christ in both Sacraments.
Liturgical expression was given to this in Cranmer's 1552 rites for Baptism and Holy Communion. We see this particularly when comparing the post-baptism and post-communion prayers of thanksgiving:
that as he is made partaker of the death of thy sonne, so he may be partaker of his resurreccion: so that finalli, with the residue of thy holy congregacion, he may be enheritour of thine everlasting kingdom - Baptism;
and that we bee verye membres incorporate in thy mistical body, which is the blessed companie of all faythfull people, and be also heyrs, through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom - Communion.
The similarities are striking, rejoicing in our sacramental participation in Christ in both Baptism and Eucharist.
Richard Hooker echoes Cranmer in his account of our "participation of Christ" in Baptism and Supper:
Wee receive Christ Jesus in baptisme once as the first beginner, in the Eucharist often as beinge by continewall degrees the finishers of our life. By baptisme therefore wee receive Christ Jesus and from him that savinge grace which is proper unto baptisme. By the other sacrament wee receive him also impartinge therein him selfe and that grace which the Eucharist properlie bestoweth. So that ech sacrament havinge both that which is generall or common, and that also which is peculiar unto it selfe, wee maie hereby gather that the participation of Christ which properlie belongeth to any one sacrament is not otherwise to be obtained but by the sacrament whereunto it is proper (LEP V.57.6).
Like Cranmer, Hooker takes care to distinguish the purpose of our "participation of Christ" in the two sacraments. This, however, does not obscure what is "common" - that "By baptisme ... wee receive Christ Jesus" and in the Eucharist "wee receive him also".
(The second illustration in each post in this series is usually the administration of Holy Communion, from Richard Day's A Booke of Christian Prayers, 1578. In today's post it is the administration of Holy Baptism from day's book.
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