'Mysterium est': the Hookerian heart of Taylor's Eucharistic theology
The tree of knowledge became the tree of death to us; and the tree of life is now become an apple of contention. The holy symbols of the eucharist were intended to be a contesseration [i.e. the forging of a union], and a union of Christian societies to God, and with one another; and the evil taking it, disunites us from God; and the evil understanding it, divides us from each other ... And yet if men would but do reason, there were in all religion no article, which might more easily excuse us from meddling with questions about it, than this of the holy sacrament ... we may in this mystery to them that curiously ask, what, or how it is? 'Mysterium est;' 'It is a sacrament, and a mystery;' by sensible instruments it consigns spiritual graces; by the creatures it brings us to God; by the body it ministers to the spirit.
These words inevitably bring us to recall Hooker's famous line:
I wishe that men would more give them selves to meditate with silence what wee have by the sacrament, and lesse to dispute of the matter how (LEP V.67.3).
Hooker then continued in a fashion which Taylor would echo in his rejection of meddling and curious questions:
Curious and intricate speculations doe hinder, they abate, they quench such inflamed notions of delight and joy as divine graces use to raise when extraordinarily they are present.
The opening words of Taylor's most significant exposition of his eucharistic theology, therefore, point to how this is deeply and profoundly Hookerian. At the Hookerian heart of Taylor's eucharistic theology is the plea for grateful, thankful silence before the mystery and gift of the Sacrament.
This was related to an appeal for a restoration of an earlier Eucharistic discourse, what Hooker termed "the sentence of antiquitie in this cause", requiring neither theories of transubstantiation or consubstantiation (V.67.11):
In a word, it appeareth not that of all the ancient fathers of the Church anie one did ever conceive or imagin other then onlie a mystically participation of Christes both bodie and blood in the sacrament (V.67.11).
Taylor likewise urged a restored "simplicity" in eucharistic doctrine:
It was happy with Christendom, when she, in this article, retained the same simplicity which she always was bound to do in her manners and intercourse; that is, to believe the thing heartily, and not to inquire curiously; and there was peace in this article for almost a thousand years together; and yet that transubstantiation was not determined.
Grateful silence in place of meddling, curious questions; and an earlier eucharistic discourse, free of speculative theories. For both Hooker and Taylor, this was the basis for an irenic approach to eucharistic doctrine, restoring the Sacrament of unity. Hence Hooker's declaration of 'a general agreement' between Christians regarding the Eucharist:
they are growen (for ought I can see) on all sides at the lengthe to a generall agreement, concerning that which alone is materiall, Namelye the reall participation of Christe and of life in his bodie and bloode by meanes of this sacrament, wherefore should the world continewe still distracted, and rent with so manyfold contentions? (V.67.2).
Similarly for Taylor, if the earlier eucharistic discourse had not been displaced by a dogmatic definition of transubstantiation, Christians would have been united in the Sacrament of unity:
So far it was very well; and if error or interest had not unravelled the secret, and looked too far into the sanctuary, where they could see nothing but a cloud of fire, majesty and, secrecy indiscriminately mixed together, - we had kneeled before the same altars, and adored the same mystery, and communicated in the same rites, to this day ... So that now the question is not, whether the symbols be changed into Christ's body and blood, or no? For it is granted on all sides.
There are three things we might say about the Hookerian heart of Taylor's Eucharistic theology. Firstly, this irenic approach should not be regarded as - to use Hooker's phrase - "greate stupiditie and dulnesse" (V.67.3). Rather, it flows from a prayerful recognition that the Eucharist is the Church's Mount Sinai: 'in cloud and majesty and awe', we behold our Redeemer in the signs of bread and wine. It is not - in a manner akin to the mystery of predestination - a time for curious, meddling speculations.
Secondly, it demonstrates how Laudian accounts of the Lord's presence in the Eucharist were fundamentally at one with the reformed Eucharistic doctrine of the Elizabethan Settlement. In fact, we might say that it was Laudian accounts which drew out the richness within that reformed Eucharistic doctrine.
Thirdly, we see here a wider Anglican sacramental piety, a consistent refusal to engage in speculative formulations and theories, instead resting in the Words of Institution, and in the church's prayers flowing from and holding those Words:
Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us ...
and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood ...
Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee, for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ.
The church's prayer at the Sacrament is sufficient. More than sufficient, it is full: full of the mystery and gift.
Or, in the words of Taylor:
And in this it was, that many of the fathers of the church laid their hands upon their mouths, and revered the mystery, but like the remains of the sacrifice, they burnt it; that is, as themselves expound the allegory, it was to be adored by faith, and not to be discussed with reason: knowing that, as Solomon said, "He that pries too far into the majesty, shall be confounded with the glory".
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