'These speeches must be understood figuratively': Cranmer's 'Answer to Gardiner' and the Sacrament as figure

In his Answer to Gardiner (1551), Cranmer had to address a point that Gardiner clearly delighted in emphasising - that Cranmer's developing eucharistic theology stood apart from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer and the Catechism Cranmer himself had published in 1548:

Truth it is, as St. Augustine saith, we receive in the sacrament the body of Christ with our mouth, and such speech other use, as a book set forth in the Archbishop of Canterbury's name, called a Catechism, willeth children to be taught, that they receive with their bodily mouth the body and blood of Christ; which I allege, because it shall appear it is a teaching set forth among us of late, as hath been also and is by the book of Common Prayer, being the most true catholic doctrine of the substance of the sacrament, in that it is there so catholicly spoken of, which book this author doth after specially allow, howsoever all the sum of his teaching doth improve [i.e. change] it in that point. So much is he contrary to himself in this work, and here in this place ...

Cranmer, of course, would have none of it. Instead, he points to the use of such sacramental language by the Fathers, language that was necessarily and inherently figurative:

And as for receiving of the body of Christ with our mouths, truth it is that St. Augustine, Ambrose, Chrysostome, and other use such speeches, that we receive the body of Christ with our mouths, see him with our eyes, feel him with our hands, break him and tear him with our teeth, eat him and digest him, which speech I have also used in my Catechism, but yet these speeches must be understand figuratively ... for we do not these things to the very body of Christ, but to the bread whereby his body is represented.

With our mouths, therefore, we receive the Sacrament of Christ's Body; we hold the Sacrament of Christ's Body in our hands; and we break the Sacrament of Christ's Body with our teeth. Self-evidently, this cannot be "the very body of Christ". This language of receiving the Sacrament of Christ's Body with our mouth, taking it into our hands, and breaking it with our teeth, Cranmer is stating, is the language of piety: it demonstrates what it is to have holy communion with the Redeemer. 

This also highlights the power of Cranmer's statement, "these speeches must be understand figuratively". Our partaking of the Sacrament is a figure of reality and truth. The Lord's Supper would not be a figure if there was not a true partaking of Christ. Our partaking of the holy Sacrament is figurative precisely because we do indeed feed on Christ. This is why the language of feeding, touching, tearing is rightfully the language of sacramental piety.

But such language of piety is not found in the BCP. Liturgical language has a different, more doctrinal function to that of piety. This being so, Gardiner cannot point to anywhere in the 1549 Holy Communion which declares that the true Body of Christ is received in the mouth:

And yet the book of Common Prayer neither useth any such speech, nor giveth any such doctrine, nor I in no point improve that godly book, nor vary from it. But yet glad I am to hear that the said book liketh you so well, as no man can mislike it, that hath any godliness in him joined with knowledge.

What, however, of Cranmer's Catechism, in which he did say of the faithful communicant, "he doth not only, with his bodyly mouthe receaue the bodye and bloude of Christ"? As with Gardiner's mischievous reading of BCP 1549, it is also clear that he is doing likewise with Cranmer's Catechism. Cranmer states in his Catechism of those who "worthely receaue the body and bloud of Christ":

For he doth not only, with his bodyly mouthe receaue the bodye and bloude of Christ, he doth also beleue the wordes of Christ, wherby he is assured, that Christes bodye was gyuen to death for vs, & that his bloude was shed for vs. And he yt this beleueth, eateth and drynketh the bodye and bloude of Christ spiritually. Of this Christ speaketh, when he sayeth. He that eateth my fleshe and drynketh my bloud, abydeth in me and I in him. And this worde and worke of God, is set before our eyes in the Lordes supper. 

The reception to which Cranmer refers when he states "with his bodyly mouthe receaue the bodye and bloude of Christ" is that of the Sacrament. The true feeding on Christ of which this is the sign is, as is made clear, by faith and is spiritual. As Cranmer goes on to state:

Againe yf a man wyl go further with you, & aske you, How can bodily eatyng and drynkynge haue so greate strength and operation? ye shall answer. To eate and to drynke, doth not worke so great thynges, but this worde & promyse of God, my bodye whiche was gyuen for you, my bloude whiche was shede for you, for ye remyssion of sinnes.

Herein is Cranmer's joy in the Sacraments: they are the "word and promise of God", by which the faithful are assured of their partaking of Christ and the Spirit, in heart and soul. Because the figure is true, there can be a language of piety which rejoices to speak of how we touch, eat, and taste the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood. This is how close, how true the word and promise of God is as we partake of the Holy Supper. As Cranmer declared in his A Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ:

For as the word of God preached putteth God into our ears, so likewise these elements of water, bread, and wine, joined to God's word, do after a sacramental manner put Christ into our eyes, mouths, hands, and all our senses.