Hooker's defence of Zwingli

This was it that some did exceedinglie feare, least Zwinglius and Oecolampadius would bringe to passe, that men should accompt of this sacrament but only as of a shadowe, destitute emptie and voide of Christe - LEP V.67.2.

Hooker's words can sound like a critique of Zwingli and Oecolampadius.  They are, however, the introduction to a defence of the Swiss Reformed eucharistic theologies which emerged from these Reformers.  The point Hooker makes is that what was feared regarding the sacramental teaching of Zwingli and Oecolampadius has not come to pass:

But seeinge that by openinge the severall opinions which have bene held, they are growen (for ought I can see) on all sides at the lengthe to a generall agreement, concerninge that which alone is materiall, Namelye the reall participation of Christ and of life in his bodie and bloode by meanes of this sacrament - ibid.

As Zwingli declared in his The Exposition of the Christian Faith (1531), we do "eat the body of Christ sacramentally" in the Supper:

I believe that Christ is truly in the Supper, nay, I do not believe it is the Lord's Supper unless Christ is there ...  I believe that the real body of Christ is eaten in the Supper sacramentally and spiritually by the religious, faithful, and pure mind, as also Saint Chrysostom holds.

Zwingli and Oecolampadius established the defining characteristics of Swiss Reformed eucharistic theologies: the importance of the Lord's Ascension and sursum corda, the bread and wine as sign but not thing signified, those without faith partake of the sacrament but not the reality of Christ.  Vermigli, Bucer, Bullinger, and Calvin debated, refined and restated this sacramental understanding in light of Lutheran critique, with the Consensus Tigurinus (1549/51) giving authoritative expression to the outcome of the reflection within and debates between the Swiss churches and their allies.

It is this approach which Hooker defends when he asserts that our participation in Christ in the holy Eucharist is not dependent upon Christ being "externallye seated in the verie consecrated elements them selves", for this insistence would, Hooker insists, require consubstantiation or transubstantiation.  This leads him to an explicit defence of those whom Roman Catholic and Lutheran apologists dismissed as 'Sacramentarians':

It seemeth therefore much amisse that against them whome they terme Sacramentaries so many invective discorses are made all runninge upon two pointes, that the Eucharist is not a bare signe or figure onlie, and that the efficacie of his bodie and blood is not all wee receive in this sacrament.  For no man having read theire bookes and writinges which are thus traduced can be ignorant that both these assertions they plainely confesse to be most true - V.67.8.

He then goes on to invoke the 'mystical' understanding of the Sacrament which was at the heart of the Swiss theologies, what Zwingli had summarised when he referred to the words of institution as declaring "this is my sacramental or mystical body":

They doe not so interpret the wordes of Christ as if the name of his bodie did importe but the figure of his bodie, and to be were onlie to signifie his blood.  They graunt that these holy mysteries received in due manner doe instrumentallie both make us pertakers of the grace of that bodie and blood which were given for the life of the world, and besides also imparte unto us even in true and reall though mysticall manner the verie person of our Lord him selfe whole perfect and intire as hath bene showed - ibid.

This is the "mysticall participation" (V.67.9), as the Consensus Tigurinus affirms: "Christ ... in the Supper makes us partakers of himself".

There is a two-fold significance to Hooker's defence of Zwingli and the eucharistic theologies of the Swiss Reformation.  The first is Hooker's apologetic intent in response to Cartwright's critique of the BCP Holy Communion, in particular the contention that the words of administration retain "the popish manner".  It is, however, precisely because Hooker has defended the "mysticall participation" of the Swiss Reformed eucharistic theologies, that he also defends the BCP form for the administration of the holy Eucharist:

there is no cause why administringe the sacramentes wee should forebeare to expresse that in our formes of speech which he by his word and gospell teacheth all to believe ... So the reason taken from the use of Sacraments in that they are instruments of grace unto everie particular man may with good congruitie leade the Church to frame accordingly her words in administration of Sacraments - V.68.2.

Similarly, the truth of this "mysticall participation" proclaimed by the Swiss Reformed theologies of the Sacrament also justifies the retention by the ecclesia Anglicana of kneeling to receive the Sacrament:

comming as receivers of inestimable grace at the hands of God, what doth better beseeme our bodies at that hower then to bee sensible witnesses of mind unfainedly humbled? - V.68.3.

The BCP, then, takes seriously the truths of the Swiss Reformed eucharistic theologies.

The second significant aspect of Hooker's defence of Zwingli is that it is an invitation to reconsider the latter's eucharistic theology, moving beyond the glib caricatures of 'Zwinglianism' that are common to both its opponents and latter-day proponents.  G.R. Potter, in his now classic study, summarises Zwingli's eucharistic teaching:

It was for the believer only that Christ was really present, spiritually, not physically, but assuredly present - dum fides adest homini, habet deum praesentem.  It was therefore perfectly reasonable to describe the symbolical bread as the body of the Lord.

As Zwingli himself says of the Eucharist in The Exposition of the Christian Faith:

When the sight sees the bread and the cup which in place of Christ signify His goodness and inherent character, does it not also aid faith? For it sees Christ, as it were, before the eyes, as the heart, kindled by His beauty, languishes for Him. The touch takes the bread into its hands - the bread which is no longer bread but Christ by representation.

None of this is to deny that the revisions to Zwingli's teaching by Vermigli, Bucer, Bullinger, and Calvin were necessary to rightly emphasise and protect the true and mystical participation in Christ in the Sacrament which Hooker celebrates and affirms.  It is, however, to remind us that Zwingli's sacramental teaching gave rise to a rich Eucharistic theology in the churches of the Swiss Reformation, a Eucharistic theology of true and mystical participation which lies at the heart of Hooker's reflection on the Sacrament:

The fruite of the Eucharist is the participation of the bodie and blood of Christ.  There is no sentence of holy scripture which saith that wee cannot by this sacrament be made pertakers of his bodie and bloode except they be first conteined in the sacrament or the sacrament converted into them - V.67.6.