Johannes Marck’s Marrow of Christian Theology, Didactic-Elenctic XXXI
James Dodson
CHAPTER XXXI.
On the Lord’s Supper.
I. The other Sacrament of the New Testament is the SUPPER, so called from the evening time of its institution and from the communion of the faithful. But it is called LORD’S from its Author, and SACRED from its whole origin and end. Compare 1 Cor. 11:20. τὸ κυριακὸν δεῖπνον φαγεῖν [to eat the Lord’s Supper].
II. It comes under the name of the Table of the Lord, 1 Cor. 10:21. οὐ δύνασθε τραπέζης Κυρίου μετέχειν καὶ τραπέζης δαιμονίων [ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons]; of Breaking of Bread, Acts 2:42. ἦσαν δὲ προσκαρτεροῦντες τῇ διδαχῇ τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ τῇ κοινωνίᾳ καὶ τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου καὶ ταῖς προσευχαῖς [and they were continuing steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in the breaking of bread and prayers], &c.; and among the ancients also of the Sacrament of the Altar and of Oblation; both because of the memory of Christ’s Oblation celebrated here, and because of the Oblation, both corporeal, of the Symbols for common use, and spiritual, of Prayers and of a contrite Heart. But the name of Mass, Latin in origin, was introduced later, and was first used for the dismissal of the assembly.
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III. It is defined: The other Sacrament of the New Testament, in which, through participation of broken Bread and poured Wine, true spiritual nourishment through the body of Christ broken for them, and his blood poured out, is signified, sealed, and indeed, by internal grace accompanying it, truly exhibited to adult covenanted persons believing, by God through the Ministers of the Gospel; and they themselves are at the same time more efficaciously bound to love toward God and neighbor.
IV. The Institution of the Lord is read in the three Evangelists and Paul, 1 Cor. 11:23. “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread,” &c.; made after the Passover held by him with the Disciples on the last night of his life. Here these things come to be noted: 1. The acts of Christ, taking the symbols, blessing them, breaking the bread, and distributing it and the cup, so that they themselves also ate and drank, Matt. 26:29. λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν, ὅτι οὐ μὴ πίω ἀπ’ ἄρτι ἐκ τούτου τοῦ γεννήματος τῆς ἀμπέλου, ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης ὅταν αὐτὸ πίνω μεθ’ ὑμῶν καινὸν ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ πατρός μου [but I say to you, that from now on I will by no means drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father]. That Judas partook of these symbols, which some from an early age have wished from Luke 22:21, 22, πλὴν ἰδοὺ χεὶρ τοῦ παραδιδόντος με μετ’ ἐμοῦ ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέζης [but behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me upon the table], &c., seems less probable, chiefly from John 13:30. λαβὼν οὖν τὸ ψωμίον ἐκεῖνος εὐθέως ἐξῆλθεν [therefore he, having received the morsel, immediately went out], &c. 2. The Words: partly of Command, that they should receive, eat, drink, and do this which he was doing and commanding, in remembrance of him; partly of Promise, which nevertheless must be understood metonymically
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and sacramentally, when he says, “This is my Body,” &c.
V. The first substantial Sign here is Bread, without determination of the Leaven from which it is made, and whether leaven is present or absent. For since the Lord used the bread available to him at that time, it is foolish to make either leavened bread with the Greeks, or unleavened with the Latins, plainly necessary, whether because of the Lord’s use, or because of certain analogical reasons of our own. Nor can the Orbicular Hosts of the Papists and Lutherans be sufficiently proved; whether as to Matter less suited for eating, or as to the tiny Size from which many cannot participate, or as to the superstitious Form of a Coin.
VI. The other Symbol is Wine poured into a cup, Matt. 26:29. ἐκ τούτου τοῦ γεννήματος τῆς ἀμπέλου [of this fruit of the vine], &c. Here again there is no great difference in the color or kind of wine, and whether it is Undiluted or slightly Diluted with water. The Papists vainly wish this latter to be plainly necessary; either from the example of the Lord, for it is not sufficiently established that he used diluted wine; or from the flow of Water with Blood from the side of Christ, which we rather refer mystically to the Double Sacrament than to the Cup alone in the Supper; or from the mystery of the Two Natures thus represented, which the Spirit has nowhere shown to us in the present Sacrament.
VII. The Papists have acted altogether sacrilegiously in establishing in the Council of Constance the Communion of Laymen under One Species of Bread, denying the same the cup. This is contrary to the Institution of the Lord, who commanded all
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to drink, and contrary to the Apostolic practice, 1 Cor. 10:15, 16, 21. τὸ ποτήριον τῆς εὐλογίας ὃ εὐλογοῦμεν [the cup of blessing which we bless], &c.; οὐ δύνασθε ποτήριον Κυρίου πίνειν καὶ ποτήριον δαιμονίων [ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons]. 1 Cor. 11:26, 27, 28. “For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup,” &c.; “whoever shall eat this bread, and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily,” &c.; “but let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of this bread, and drink of the cup,” &c.; and contrary to the reason of Food, to which drink belongs no less than food; just as the Practice of the Anglican Church also was long otherwise.
VIII. Yet the Papists object:
1. In the Paschal Lamb, Manna, &c., Communion under One was prefigured.
Reply That prefiguration is supposed gratuitously; nor in the use of the Lamb was Wine lacking, or in the use of Manna, Water from the rock.
Objection 2. Eating is more often mentioned than drinking, John 6:50, 51.
Reply There the subject is not the Supper, or laymen alone; and under eating, drinking is always comprehended synecdochically.
Objection 3. To Christ and the Apostles in the Supper only the Breaking of Bread is attributed, Luke 24:30; Acts 2:42.
Reply In one place the subject is a common meal, and the breaking of bread is put synecdochically for the whole meal; compare Gen. 18:5. “And I will take a morsel of bread.” Isa. 58:7. “Is it not to divide thy bread to the hungry?” &c.
Objection 4. By Concomitance, the Blood of Christ is contained likewise in the symbol of Bread.
Reply This cannot properly be said; nor is the Body of Christ presented to us in the Supper as entire, nor his Blood as comprehended in the body.
IX. The Acts to be used in these symbols are commonly:
1. Taking into the hands of the Minister.
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2. Consecration, which is done by Prayer and Explication of the matter, not by the silent murmuring of the words, “This is my body,” for the Lord uttered these after consecration, and they would have no use if uttered secretly.
3. Distribution among the present Covenanted ones, mediated or immediate; which is plainly removed in the Private Masses of the Pontiffs.
4. Receiving, rather by the Hand than the Mouth; whether from those Standing or Walking, to mark readiness of service; or from those Sitting, to express familiarity with God; or even from those Kneeling, to suggest our humility, provided that all idolatry, superstition, and scandal be absent.
5. Use for the Nourishment of the body; opposed to religious Reservation, Procession, and Adoration, which obtain among the Papists.
X. Specifically, Wine ought to be Poured into the cup, and Bread to be Broken, because this act of Christ is very distinctly narrated, and has been observed from all antiquity, and the joined Sacrament is named from it, Acts 2:42. τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου [in the breaking of bread]. Acts 20:7. τοῦ κλάσαι ἄρτον [to break bread], &c.; and the Breaking of Christ’s body for us is marked by this rite. The Papists and Lutherans, who do not use Breaking because of the use of Hosts, do indeed object that several Circumstances in the institution ought not to be observed by us today; but we answer that Circumstances are to be distinguished from Essential Rites, in which manner Breaking is here proposed to us.
XI. In the administration of the Supper, Presbyters and Deacons can serve; but the chief matter to be performed belongs to Ministers of the Gospel, to whom the Divine Seals have been entrusted
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as Stewards of the mysteries of God, 1 Cor. 4:1. Nor do the Socinians extend this administration more widely from any other source than from contempt of the public Ministry, as not so ordained by God.
XII. To this Communion are to be admitted: not the Dead or Expiring; or the Non-Baptized; or Baptized Infants, since these cannot prove themselves, discern the body of the Lord, and announce his death; or those plainly Wandering from the Covenant by corrupt doctrine or life; or only the Truly Pious and Faithful, since God alone can discern them; but Adults Professing Faith and Piety in mouth and deed. It is fitting that these prove and prepare themselves decently concerning the use of the Supper, 1 Cor. 11:27, 28, 29. “Whoever shall eat this bread, or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord; but let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup; he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord,” &c. Yet in such a way that those having Conscience of Mortal Sin are not excluded from the use of the Supper, as is done by the Pontiffs, who wish this in favor of the Sacrament of Penance; contrary to the common sinful state of all believers, and the grace of Christ, which invites the greatest sinners to itself, Matt. 9:12, 13. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” &c.; “For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Matt. 11:28. “Come to me, all who labor and are burdened,” &c. Meanwhile, a Purpose of sinning altogether bars from the Supper, and a more serious Scandal given to others.
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XIII. The Place for holding the Supper is wherever the Church comes together, 1 Cor. 11:18. συνερχομένων ὑμῶν ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ [when ye come together in the church]. Acts 2:46. κλῶντές τε κατ’ οἶκον ἄρτον [and breaking bread from house to house]. And hence Carryings of the Symbols to the sick and absent ought to be disapproved, since these agree less with the common meal, and almost rest upon a wrongly believed absolute necessity of this Sacrament.
XIV. The Time also is not determined, although the Lord’s Day is to be chosen before other days, as being sacred to the Lord, Acts 20:7. ἐν δὲ τῇ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων συνηγμένων τῶν μαθητῶν τοῦ κλάσαι ἄρτον [and on the first day of the week, the disciples being gathered together to break bread], &c. Nor do I think the Morning Time is to be put after the Evening, even though a preceding Fast be imposed upon believers as necessary, even from consideration of the first Supper held by the satisfied disciples.
XV. The Necessity of this Sacrament must be maintained by the force of the Divine Command, which extends to all Christians of the New Testament, and does not pertain only to the first times of the Apostles. But that necessity is not plainly Absolute, so that even Infants are included; which the Ancients wished from the badly understood passage John 6:53. “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye do not have life in yourselves.” There the subject is not Sacramental eating, but that of Faith, as being necessary in Adults, verses 35, 40, 47. “He who believes in me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst,” &c.; “This is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life,” &c.; “Amen, amen, I say to you, he who believes in me has eternal life,” &c.
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XVI. The use of the Supper is to be repeated often, 1 Cor. 11:26. ὁσάκις γὰρ ἂν ἐσθίητε τὸν ἄρτον τοῦτον [for as often as ye eat this bread], &c. And although it is nowhere so determined how often it ought to be held, yet its more frequent use is preferable to its rarer use. Yet where today the Church does not receive daily increases, we do not wish to commend Daily Communion, which formerly obtained because of perpetual conversions in the Apostolic age and afterward.
XVII. The Rites which have further been added to this Sacrament in the Pontifical Mass, whether Prerequisite, Concomitant, or Consequent, have miserably corrupted that whole thing in the Roman communion.
XVIII. The Thing Signified is the Body and Blood of Christ, and our Spiritual Nourishment by them, as the words of Promise in the Institution teach, and the manifold Agreement which is found among these things.
XIX. The Union between the Sign and the Thing Signified here is, just as in the other Sacraments, not Local and Corporeal, but Spiritual and Symbolic; insofar as by the former the latter is represented, sealed, and also conferred upon believers. But the Pontiffs and Lutherans feign a Corporeal Presence of Christ’s Body by an indistinct, invisible, and illocal presence; or else either the bread is transubstantiated into the body of Christ, or Consubstantiation obtains through the presence of that Body In, With, and Under the Bread.
XX. We prove our opinion against these:
1. From the Analogy of all the Sacraments, where the Sign truly remains distinguished from the Thing Signified, and is not united to it.
2. From the very Institution of the Supper, where
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Christ himself sat at table, is said to have delivered bread and wine, and then wished this to be imposed as a memorial of himself who would be absent in the future.
3. From the Analogy of Faith, concerning the true and single Incarnation of Christ, the Passion once endured, the Ascension into heaven, his glorious present session at the right hand of the Father, and his one future Return.
4. From the rejected Capernaite Oral Eating, John 6:52, 60, 63. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? This is a hard saying; who can hear it?” &c.; “The Spirit is life-giving; the flesh profits nothing,” &c.
5. From the dictate also of Right Reason, which teaches that Accidents cannot be without a Subject; that the Human Body is neither Invisible, nor Omnipresent, nor in distinct places at the same time; that there is no Penetration of Dimensions, &c.
6. And in truth the dogma of Transubstantiation is recent, only at last shut up in the Roman Church a few centuries ago.
XXI. The Adversaries object:
1. That other Types of the Supper were going to be either equal to it or superior to it.
Reply Such Types are gratuitously supposed, and the excellence of the Supper consists in the clarity of the symbol and of the added promise.
2. That bodily presence is promised, John 6:51, &c.
Reply There the text does not bodily treat of the Supper, but of faith; nor ought it then to be understood of that.
3. That in the Institution Christ then said that Bread was his Body, and that one must not depart from the letter of the words.
Reply From the nature of the thing, and of other Sacraments, indeed from daily and everywhere obvious usage, Gen. 41:26. “the seven good cows are seven years,” &c.; Matt. 27:38, 39. “the field is the world,” &c.; Rev. 1:20. “the seven stars are the seven Angels of the Churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven
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Churches,” &c., these words must be understood metonymically, just as the Metonymy is here conceded by all in the name of Cup; nor do the Adversaries retain τὸ ῥητὸν [the literal saying], since they either plainly take away the bread and change “is” into “is changed,” or only join the bread with the body of Christ.
4. That the Bread is the Communion of the Body of Christ, and those who use it unworthily are guilty of Christ’s Body itself, 1 Cor. 10:16; 11:27, 29.
Reply The Communion is symbolic and spiritual, not bodily; and the body of Christ is dishonored in the symbol by those who misuse it.
XXII. Indeed, the Fathers sometimes spoke rather harshly concerning Transmutation and the Body itself of the Lord, &c. But their sayings ought to be understood from the phrase of Scripture, and from the exposition read elsewhere in them, less concerning Mutation than concerning Use and Signification of Christ’s Body.
XXIII. It is ridiculous that they call Absolute Divine Power to their aid; for from that alone it is not lawful to conclude that effect. And the works which are brought forward are either very dissimilar to the present matter, or fabricated and twisted, such as the Passage of Christ through the closed womb of his Mother, and through the doors of the sepulcher and the chamber, &c. Nor are those things worthy of mention which they add concerning the diligent Inquiry of the Church, &c.
XXIV. Now, besides other things, there falls of itself the Adoration of the Mass-host, nowhere commanded or instituted in the Scriptures, but opposed to the Divine glory, Matt. 4:10. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve,” &c.; which is certainly impiously given to it because Christ is worshiped there.
Objection 1. Christ is present there under the species of Bread and Wine.
Reply Not corporeally; nor therefore is that which contains Christ to be
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worshiped.
Objection 2. At least, by hypothesis, the Adoration of Christ is intended.
Reply In the same way all Gentiles could excuse idolatry, since they wished to worship God.
XXV. The principal end is also sufficiently clear: namely, the confirmation of our faith and strengthening in grace; and the less principal end is the distinction of believers and a strong incitement to love toward God and neighbor.
XXVI. Therefore they err here: both the Socinians, who hold this Sacrament to be a bare symbol of Christianity; and the Papists, who find here an expiatory Sacrifice for the living and the dead. This is contrary to the nature and institution of the oblation of this Sacrament; contrary to the perfection of Christ’s once-made oblation, Heb. 7:27, τοῦτο γὰρ ἐποίησεν ἐφάπαξ ἑαυτὸν ἀνενέγκας [for this he did once for all, offering up himself]; Heb. 10:14, μιᾷ γὰρ προσφορᾷ τετελείωκεν εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς τοὺς ἁγιαζομένους [for by one offering he hath perfected forever those who are sanctified], &c.; and contrary to the state of the New Testament, which excludes shadows, Heb. 10:1, 18, σκιὰν δὲ ἔχων τοῦτων, οὐκ εἰκόνα τῶν πραγμάτων [having a shadow of these things, not the very image of the things], &c. Indeed, it is most absurd, since here there is no propitiatory victim, or blood, or altar, or even priest—since the Aaronic order has been abolished, and the Melchizedekian belongs to Christ alone.
XXVII. The Papists object:
1. The type of Melchizedek’s oblation, Gen. 14:18.
Reply He brought forth bread and wine; he did not offer them.
2. The prophecies concerning the Mass-oblation, Mal. 1:11.
Reply Spiritual oblations of prayers and thanksgivings are indicated.
3. Christ in the Institution commanded them to do, that is, to offer.
Reply Christ commanded them to do this which he himself was doing and saying.
4. λειτουργεῖν [to minister] is attributed to the Apostles, Acts 13:1.
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Reply Not an oblation is signified, but the public ministry of the Word and of prayers.
5. The Fathers continually mention oblation.
Reply This was done to win Gentiles and Jews; and they understood either a Eucharistic oblation, or the solemn memorial of Christ’s oblation.
XXVIII. As from this the manifold Papistic abuse of this Sacrament is sufficiently clear, in its extension even to the dead; so the very great difference between the Supper and the Mass opens of itself. The duration of the Supper to the end of the world is noted in its institution, 1 Cor. 11:25, 26, τοῦτο ποιεῖτε, ὁσάκις ἂν πίνητε, εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν [do this, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me], &c.; τὸν θάνατον τοῦ Κυρίου καταγγέλλετε ἄχρις οὗ ἂν ἔλθῃ [ye proclaim the Lord’s death until he come].