'Really and effectually present with all them that duly receive the sacraments': Cranmer's 'Answer to Gardiner'

Today commences a new series on laudable Practice, as we read through Cranmer's Answer to Gardiner (1551). We begin with an extract from Cranmer's 'A Preface to the Reader', in which he addresses the meaning of his affirmation that "Christ is present in them that worthily receive the sacrament" (words which will, of course, be made famous by Hooker: "The real presence of Christ’s most blessed body and blood is not therefore to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament", LEP V.67.6):

when I say and repeat many times in my book, that the body of Christ is present in them that worthily receive the sacrament, lest any man should mistake my words, and think that I mean, that although Christ be not corporally in the outward visible signs, yet he is corporally in the persons that duly receive them, this is to advertise the reader, that I mean no such thing, but my meaning is, that the force, the grace, the virtue, and benefit of Christ's body that was crucified for us and of his blood that was shed for us, be really and effectually present with all them that duly receive the sacraments, but all this I understand of his spiritual presence, of the which he saith, I will be with you until the world's end. And, Wheresoever two or three be gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. And, He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. Nor no more is truly he corporally or really present in the due ministration of the Lord's Supper, than he is in the due ministration of Baptism; that is to say, in both spiritually by grace.

Cranmer is here clearly following Zurich and almost certainly echoing the 1549 Consensus Tigurinus, the agreement on sacramental theology between Calvin and the Church of Zurich. The Consensus Tigurinus declares in its Article 19, 'The Faithful Communicate in Christ Both Before and Outside the Use of the Sacraments':

And as the use of the sacraments is no more profitable to the unfaithful than if they abstained, yet is rather destructive to them: so on the other hand even outside the use of the sacraments the reality which is figured remains firm for the faithful. Thus the sins of Paul were washed away by baptism, although they had already been washed before Baptism. Likewise for Cornelius, Baptism was the laver of regeneration, although he had already received the Holy Spirit. Thus in the Supper Christ communicates himself to us, although he has imparted himself to us before and dwells within us for ever.

Criticisms abound of Cranmer's sacramental theology and how it follows the Consensus Tigurinus. We should, however, heed the conclusion of Gordon P. Jeanes' superb study, Signs of God's Promise: Thomas Cranmer's Sacramental Theology and the Book of Common Prayer (2008):

People often talk of someone having a 'high' or 'low' sacramental theology, and its seems that those terms are given according to the prominence of the notion of the efficacy or instrumentality of the sacrament in the grace given to the recipient. Cranmer's sacramental theology would be, on that scale, 'low'. But that is not an adequate appreciation of what he has achieved. Rather his theology is coherent, prominent in what ... we would call spirituality, and able to speak of the grace of God with a clarity and immediacy lacking in many other theologies of the time. His theology has its weaknesses, but any definition of what a 'high' sacramental theology means has to be able to include Cranmer among its exponents. 

That the presence of the Lord in the Sacraments of Baptism and the Supper is not, as Cranmer states, after the Consensus Tigurinus, different in kind to that which believers know and in which they participate throughout life, is not a 'low' sacramental theology. Rather, it is a declaration of the richness and depth of our participation in Christ. So, in the words of the Consensus Tigurinus, "the benefit of Baptism stretches through the whole course of life, because the promise contained within it lives for ever". Likewise, the Holy Communion is the sign and figure that "Christ feeds our souls through faith by virtue of his Spirit, by the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood" - and note how similar to this is Cranmer's phrase, "the force, the grace, the virtue, and benefit of Christ's body that was crucified for us and of his blood that was shed for us".

It is in this context, then, that we read Cranmer's affirmation that Christ "be really and effectually present with all them that duly receive the sacraments". As the Consensus Tigurinus declares, "the end [of the sacraments] which is first among the others is that through them God may testify, represent and seal his grace to us". In Baptism and the Supper is joyously, solemnly sealed and confirmed to us the fulness of the grace which is our participation in Christ.

(The second illustration, used here to exemplify Cranmer's eucharistic theology, is from Richard Day's A Booke of Christian Prayers, 1578, reputedly derived from a devotional work for private use by Elizabeth I.)