'After the mind of St. Augustine': Cranmer's 'Answer to Gardiner' and the sacraments of the Old Covenant

Amongst the points of debate between Gardiner and Cranmer, in Answer to Gardiner (1551), was the nature of the sacraments of the Old Covenant: were they a sign of the people of Israel partaking of Christ? While Gardiner's key point is that the sacraments of the Old Covenant were not a means of partaking of Christ, his position is less than clearly stated as he is forced to admit that "in a sense" that those of the Old Covenant did so partake of Christ:

Their sacraments were figures of the things, but ours contain the very things. And therefore albeit in a sense to the learned men, it may be verified, that the fathers did eat the body of Christ and drink his blood, yet there is no such form of words in Scripture, and it is more agreeable to the simplicity of Scripture to say, the fathers before Christ's nativity did not eat the body and blood of Christ, which body and blood Christ himself truly took of the body of the Virgin Mary. 

A chief difficulty for Gardiner, of course, is the Apostle's words in 1 Corinthians 10:

and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

Gardiner offers no clear reason as to why Saint Paul's words do not mean that those of the Old Covenant partook of Christ in their sacraments:

For although St. Paul in the tenth of the Corinthians be so understanded of some, as the fathers should eat the same spiritual meat and drink the same spiritual drink that we do, to which understanding all do not agree, yet following that understanding, we may not so press the words as there should be no difference at all ...

He does appeal to Augustine in an attempt to make things clearer:

we may not so press the words [of the Apostle] as there should be no difference at all, and this one special difference St. Augustine noteth, how their sacraments contained the promise of that which in our sacraments is given.

This, however, invites Cranmer to turn to Augustine in response, to Tractate 26 on John's Gospel:

Manna signified this bread; God's altar signified this bread. Those were sacraments. In the signs they were diverse; in the thing which was signified they were alike.

Cranmer emphasises, therefore, how Augustine's teaching affirms the very truth Gardiner seeks to deny, that in the sacraments of the Old Covenant Christ was received:

And although in the manner of signifying there be great difference between their sacraments and ours, yet, as St. Augustine saith, both we and they receive one thing in the diversity of sacraments; and our sacraments contain presently the very things signified, no more than theirs did.

What, then, is the difference between the sacraments of the Old Covenant and those of the New Covenant?

For in their sacraments they were by Christ presently regenerated and fed, as we be in ours; although their sacraments were figures of the death of Christ to come, and ours be figures of his death now past ... And all is but one Christ, one flesh, and one blood, as concerning the substance; yet that which to the fathers was to come, is to us passed. 

Cranmer's account of the relationship between the sacraments of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is profoundly, richly Christocentric. The sacraments of both Covenants flow from Christ Crucified: the sacraments of the Old Covenant 'backwards' over time, the sacraments of the New Covenant 'forward' through time. At the heart and centre of all time under both Covenants, therefore, is Christ Crucified.

It is an understanding which also recognises the union of the Old and New Covenants, and of the people of God under both Covenants, a union which is likewise rooted in and flowing from Christ:

to them he was, and to us he is spiritually present, and sacramentally also, and of both sacramentally, spiritually, and effectually eaten and drunken to eternal salvation and everlasting life.

This is, as Cranmer makes explicitly clear, an Augustinian vision. 

And so, after the mind of St. Augustine, it is clear that the same things were given to the faithful receivers in the sacraments of the Old Testament that be given in the New; the same to them was circumcision, that to us is baptism; and to them by manna was given the same thing, that now is given to us in the sacramental bread.

This Augustinian vision gives assurance that Christ's saving grace in the sacraments reaches through time to us, no less than it did to the people of the Old Covenant. We too are separated in time and space from Christ, no less than the people of the Old Covenant, for "corporally and locally he was not yet born unto them, and from us he is gone and ascended up into heaven". But our sacramental partaking of Him is as true as that of the people of the Old Covenant, 

as the fathers had the same Christ and mediator that we have ... so did they spiritually eat his flesh and drink his blood, as we do, and spiritually feed of him, and by faith he was present with them, as he is with us; although carnally and corporally he was yet to come unto them, and from us is gone up to his Father into heaven.

Understanding the relationship between the sacraments of the Old and New Covenants "after the mind of St. Augustine" - a particular emphasis encouraged by Zwingli and the Swiss theologies - provides yet another example of the richness of Cranmer's sacramental theology. It is no 'low' view of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Supper to believe that they are, as were circumcision and manna for the people of the Old Covenant, the efficacious means of our partaking of Christ, even as we, like they, are separated from His saving Cross and Passion by space and time.