Daniel Waterland’s great work on the Eucharist was published in 1737 and entitled A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist.  Waterland also wrote four charges related to the Eucharist for the clergy of Middlesex in his role as Archdeacon.  The 1896 edition of A Review and Four Charges will be used in this case study to assess Waterland’s doctrine of the Eucharist.

A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist will be considered first.  Waterland declares in his Introduction that the aim of his work is examine the sacrament of Holy Communion in the light of both Scripture and reason and to do this in a balanced manner, avoiding both superstition and neglect, and encouraging people to receive communion often with respect, reverence and devotion (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 3).

He then begins in Chapter I by listing the various names which have been applied to the Eucharist.  These are: breaking of bread, communion, Lord’s Supper, oblation, sacrament, Eucharist, sacrifice, commemoration, memorial, Passover and mass.  Of these the following comments are relevant to this case study. 

‘Breaking of the bread’ seems to be the oldest name for the Eucharist and derives from the actions of Christ in breaking the bread at the Last Supper.  The term is also preserved in Scripture (e.g. Acts of the Apostles 2: 42).

The term ‘communion’ (koinonia) is derived from St Paul’s account of the institution of the Eucharist, such that the Eucharist is a “Communion of the body and blood of Christ” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 22) and it is because of the communion “we therein hold with Christ and with each other” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 23). 

Waterland sees the term ‘The Lord’s Supper’ as a name deriving from Scripture (e.g. 1 Corinthians 11: 20) and one that has been commonly adopted by many Protestants (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 23).  Waterland’s difficulty with this name however, is that it more probably relates to the Christian love-feast or supper which preceded the Eucharist and which was separate from the Eucharist in purpose and time (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 26).  For Waterland this name seems less preferred than the others.

‘Oblation’ (προσορα) is seen to be an ancient name for the Eucharist found in the early Church Fathers, whereby gifts are said to be offered by sacerdotal hands, having first been brought to the altar by the people.  The gifts as oblations include both alms and the bread and wine of the Eucharist (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 27).  Waterland points out though that the oblations spoken of are never of Christ’s body and blood in the early church until Cyprian speaks in this way.  The oblations were always seen as prior to consecration, with the elements specifically being offered in order to be consecrated (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 29).  Waterland is keen here to establish the point that any language relating to the offering of Christ or his body and blood is meant as a “Eucharistical commemoration” or “of offering Christ himself in this Sacrament, unto God, but under the symbols of consecrated bread and wine” or “the commemorating of Christ” or “commemorating his passion” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 30) but not any oblation of “Christ absolutely” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 29).  Waterland’s seems to allow the use of the word ‘oblation’ in relation to the gifts of bread and wine in the Eucharist, but to exclude any immoderate sense of the word whereby Christ is seen to be offered in an absolute or fleshy and physical sense in the Eucharist.  Oblation seems to have the moderate realist sense of commemoration for Waterland.

The word ‘sacrament’ is said to be of ancient origin, but its meaning is by no means certain, and its signification various, sometimes meaning the outward sign, sometimes the thing signified and at other times both the sign and the signified or the whole action or service (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 34).  Waterland nonetheless is critical of any view which is opposed to the notion of a sacrament – both those which reject the invisible and inward grace (Socinian) and those which destroy the visible or outward sign (Roman) (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 34-35).  It appears that Waterland’s view of the Eucharist is somewhere between these two extremes and can be accommodated within the use of the word ‘sacrament’.

‘Eucharist’ is seen to denote a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 35) and was and is widely used throughout the whole church.

Waterland sees ‘sacrifice’ (υσια) as being ancient in its use concerning the offerings in the Eucharist.  This usage is seen to be distinct from any notion of a spiritual sacrifice.  Sacrifice therefore, is seen to have several uses in the early tradition of the church (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 36-37).  Most commonly though the word is seen to denote “the grand sacrifice represented and commemorated” with “the sign, as such, now adopting the name of the thing signified”.  This meant that “the memorial at length came to be called a sacrifice, as well as an oblation” because “partly as it was in itself a spiritual service or sacrifice, and partly as it was a representation and commemoration of the high tremendous sacrifice of Christ God-man”.  This meaning Waterland states is “the most prevailing acceptation of the Christian sacrifice, as held forth in the Eucharist.  But those who styled the Eucharist a sacrifice on that account, took care, as often as need was, to explain it off to a memorial of a sacrifice rather than a strict or proper sacrifice” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 37).  Waterland here clearly distinguishes two type of sacrifice.  There is the eucharistic sacrifice which is a memorial of a sacrifice and there is an historic sacrifice of Christ, which is, as he calls it, ‘a strict or proper sacrifice’.  The distinction Waterland is making here accords with the distinction made between immoderate (strict and proper sacrifice of Christ occurring at Calvary) and moderate (a memorial of the sacrifice of Christ occurring in the Eucharist).  The strict and proper sacrifice of Christ does not occur in the Eucharist since it occurred only once on the cross, but the memorial of the sacrifice occurs more than once, in fact, often, in the Eucharist.

Commemoration (αναμνσι)and memorial (μνημη) are also mentioned by Waterland as having ancient origin and were used to denote the whole service of the Eucharist.  The commemoration or memorial is a eucharistical remembrance and refers to Christ only, his incarnation and passion, his body and blood.  This is based on Christ’s words at the institution where he speaks of remembering him (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 39).  Waterland then sees the Eucharist as a commemoration and memorial of Christ’s body and blood as well as of the sacrifice of Christ.  It is in this sense then that the Eucharist can be called a sacrifice, since it is a memorial or commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice.

In his discussion of the term Passover, Waterland refers to early use of this term for the Eucharist (e.g. Origen) who spoke of the Eucharist of the Christian Passover feast, where “the flesh of the Logos may be eaten also out of the Eucharist; for the receiving spiritual nutriment any way, is with him eating the flesh of Christ” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 41).  Here Waterland, following Origen, speaks as a moderate realist.  The flesh of Christ is eaten in the Eucharist and is associated with it, but the eating is a spiritual eating and not a fleshy or immoderate eating.

The last name, ‘mass’, originally deriving from the dismissal of the people, came at a later time to refer to the assembly or the service.  At an even later time it came to mean the Eucharist specifically (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 43).  Waterland seems to be less enthusiastic about this name for the Eucharist.

Waterland’s discussion of the names for the Eucharist suggests that the prevailing theology of the Eucharist he expresses is that of moderate realism.  He distances himself from any immoderate views of Christ’s presence and sacrifice in the Eucharist and in his discussion of the names, particularly oblation, sacrament, Eucharist, sacrifice, memorial and commemoration and Passover, presents a moderate realist theology of the Eucharist.  Sign seems to be aligned with the signified.  This theology will be discussed in greater detail below.

In Chapter II of A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, Waterland considers the institution of the Eucharist.  Here he declares that Christ designed the Eucharist as “a standing memorial of his passion” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 45).  This seems to indicate that the memorial is not restricted to a past action, that is a looking backwards to the death of Christ on the cross, but that the memorial remains active or dynamic in the present.  Such a view is suggestive of moderate realism, since the actions of the Eucharist in the present commemorate and are linked with the actions of Christ on the cross.  The Eucharist does not re-iterate the sacrifice of the cross (immoderate realism) but it nonetheless commemorates it as ‘a standing memorial’ (moderate realism). 

Chapter III of A Review examines the commemoration or remembrance of Christ in the Eucharist.  Waterland considers the “proximate end and design” of the Eucharist to be “the commemoration or remembrance of Christ, ‘This do in remembrance of me’; and particularly of his death and passion, ‘show the Lord’s death till he comes’” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 54).  The ultimate end of the Eucharist, as opposed to the proximate, “is the benefit accruing from thence to ourselves” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 55).  In considering the words of our Lord, ‘This do in remembrance of me’, the Greek (εισ την εμην αναμνησιν) has several meanings.  These Waterland lists as: 1. In remembrance of me; 2. In commemoration of me; and 3. For a memorial of me, or, for my memorial (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 55).  The first of these (In remembrance of me) Waterland describes as the lowest since remembrance is not the only end of the Eucharist, nor is it “the very nature or essence of this holy rite” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 55).  It is therefore not sufficient merely to remember Christ in the Eucharist as a good person, eminent prophet, as Lord and Master or as higher than the angels.  Rather Christ must be remembered as God.  Due or suitable remembrance of Christ in the Eucharist involves consideration of his divinity (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 55-62).  The second meaning of ‘This do in remembrance of me’ (In commemoration of me) is somewhat more than mere remembrance, since commemoration implies “the notion of extolling, honouring, celebrating” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 62).  Commemoration involves “both an inward remembrance of benefits, and an outward celebration of the same” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 64-65), which Waterland contends is more than a bare remembrance.  This is really an expression of realism, where the sign (the outward celebration) and the signified (the inward remembrance of benefits) are both linked in the commemoration.  ‘For a memorial of me’ or ‘For my memorial’ is the third interpretation of ‘This do in remembrance of me’ and it is seen to contain both of the former meanings, being both remembrance and commemoration, and adding the extra dimension of sacrificial memorial as well.  Sacrificial memorial here means for Waterland “a memorial before God” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 67) and it is in this sense that “the Eucharistical commemoration as a memorial before God” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 69) is the highest view of commemoration and memorial.  “In such a sense as this, the service of the Eucharist is a memorial left to the Church of Christ, to perpetuate the memory of that great deliverance from the bondage of sin and Satan … to all succeeding generations” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 69).  Furthermore “Jesus Christ is hereby ‘set forth crucified’ (Galatians 3: 1), as it were, before their eyes, in order to make the stronger impression” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 70).  This seems to be a clear statement of moderate realism, where the signified (the sacrifice of Christ) is linked in a realist fashion, with the sign (the eucharistical memorial and commemoration).  Such a view derives from the Old Testament idea of Passover, where Passovers subsequent to the first “were a kind of representations and commemorations of the original” and “so all our Eucharistical Passovers are a sort of commemorations of the original Eucharist” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 70).  This links well with the concept of anamnesis, where the benefits of a past event (the sacrifice of Christ) are available in the present (in the Eucharist).

Chapter IV of A Review speaks of the commemoration of the death of Christ made in the Eucharist.  The basis for commemorating Christ’s death in the Eucharist rests on the truth “that our salvation chiefly stands in the meritorious suffering of our Saviour Christ” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 74).  Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross is continually pleaded in heaven by Christ and at the same time “our Eucharistical service is, as commemorating the same sacrifice here below, which our Lord himself commemorates above” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 77).  This commemoration on earth has no power in itself, other than “our Lord’s applying his merits to our performances” such that the Eucharist is an instrumental cause “in and by which God applies to men fitly disposed the virtue of that sacrifice” in such a way that the commemoration on earth in the Eucharist “corresponds with the commemoration above” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 78).  Waterland in presenting this view, rejects that argument that the Eucharist is a mere remembering, without any receiving of benefits in, or by it, and argues that the benefits of Christ are received in the Eucharist.  This is moderate realism, since in the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ is commemorated and the benefits of that sacrifice are applied and received.  He is careful to distinguish this from any immoderate notions of sacrifice, since he says: “We do not say that Christ’s death, or Christ’s crucifixion, is now present; we know it is past: but the benefits remain; and while we remember one is past, we call to mind, or keep in mind, the other also, as present, but invisible” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 80-81).  Clearly the historic sacrifice is a past event, but the eucharistic sacrifice is a present event in the sense of moderate realism, that is, not physical or fleshy.  The same notion of moderate realism is also applied to eucharistic presence by Waterland.  He argues against the idea of an absence of Christ in the Eucharist on the basis of the words ‘remembrance of me’, saying that:

“if any absence can be proved from thence, it must be the absence of what ME stands for, that is, of the whole person of Christ; … since it is not said, remembrance of my body, but remembrance of me, and since it is certain, that one part at least of what ought to be remembered is present, (not absent), therefore no argument can be justly drawn merely from the word remembrance, as necessarily inferring the absence of the thing remembered.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 81).

Waterland is clear:

“Bread and wine, the symbols of Christ’s natural body and blood, are not literally that very natural body and blood; neither is the sacrament of Christ’s passion literally the passion itself” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 83).

At the same time he is also clear to say that the Eucharist is a commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ where the benefits of that sacrifice are given to those who receive, and that Christ is present spiritually, not absent, from the Eucharist.  Waterland’s eucharistic theology is that of moderate realism.

Waterland discusses in Chapter V of A Review the consecration of the elements of bread and wine in the Eucharist.  Consecration in the Eucharist is based for him on the consecration Jesus performed at the Last Supper (taking and blessing) and on St Paul’s reference to the blessing of the cup (1 Corinthians 10: 16).  The elements in the Eucharist are therefore, in Waterland’s opinion, blessed in the consecration (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 85) and this blessing is a “sacerdotal blessing … previous to the delivering the sacred symbols, made sacred by that benediction” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 88).  What then is the effect of consecration of the elements for Waterland?  His view seems to be that common things can become sacred or holy, in that “a holy or sacred relation is conveyed to them by their appropriation or use” and that “the things are in themselves just what they before were: but now they are considered by reasonable creatures as coming under new and sacred relations” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 91).  Specifically in relation to the elements of the Eucharist he says that the symbols of bread and wine “are now no more common bread and wine, (at least not during this their sacred application), but the communicants are to consider the relation which they bear, and the uses which they serve … they contract a relative holiness by their consecration, and that is the effect.  Hence it is, that some kinds of irreverence towards these sacred symbols amount to being ‘guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 92).  Relative holiness here means, “Whatever God is once pleased to sanctify by his peculiar presence, or to claim a more special property in, or to separate to sacred uses, that is relatively holy, as having a nearer relation to God; and it must of course be treated with reverence and awe suitable” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 90).  “Such a relative holiness does undoubtedly belong to the elements once consecrated” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 92).  The causes of the relative holiness attached to the elements are: the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit as principal or properly efficient cause; prayers, thanksgivings, benedictions, as the conditional or instrumental cause; and the words of Christ (This is my body/blood) as the declaratory and promissory cause (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 93).  The power of Christ and the Holy Spirit in making the elements holy is acknowledged in the primitive church as a joint operation in the sacraments.  The Holy Spirit was seen to descend upon the elements sanctifying them for the use they were intended, and upon the recipients, sanctifying them in the use of the symbols (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 93-94).  The prayers and thanksgivings which Waterland mentions as instrumental causes of consecration were directed towards in the elements according to primitive practice, but “the sanctification, properly speaking, goes to the person fitly disposed, and is the gift of God, not the work of the outward elements, though sanctified in a certain sense, as having been consecrated to holy uses” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 96).  In reference to Origen, Waterland speaks more fully of this notion of instrumental cause of consecration, saying:

“ … he [Origen] did not scruple to make use of the same popular kind of expression, observing that the eucharistical bread, by prayer and thanksgiving, was made a sort of holy, or sanctified body, sanctifying the worthy receivers. … by body there, he does not understand our Lord’s natural body, but the sanctified bread, which he elsewhere calls the symbolical or typical body; that is to say, the representative body, as distinguished from the real body, or true food of the soul, which none by the holy partake of, and all that do so are happy.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 97).

The words of Christ (This is my body/blood) are also considered in more detail by Waterland, who considered that “the words spoken by our blessed Lord are conceived to operate now as virtually carrying in them a rule, or a promise, for all succeeding ages of the Church, that what was then done when our Lord himself administered, or consecrated, will be always done in the celebration of the Eucharist” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 98).  This means then that:

“If the elements were then sanctified or consecrated into representative symbols of Christ’s body and blood, and if the worthy receivers were then understood to partake of the true spiritual food upon receiving the symbolical; and if all this was then implied in the words, ‘This is my body’ &c., so it is now.  What the sacrament then was, in meaning, virtue, and effect, the same it is also at this day.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 98).

Waterland seems in speaking of these causes (principal, instrumental and declaratory or promissory) to be presenting a moderate realist account of the Eucharist.  Immoderate realism is clearly denied, but the presence of Christ in the elements is seen to be real, that is spiritually real, but not literally real.

Waterland also discussed the usage of the early Church Fathers (e.g. Irenaeus), who described the action of the Word and Spirit in that the bread and wine ‘become’ the body and blood of Christ.  For Waterland the word ‘become’ does not imply that the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Christ, but rather “the representative body of Christ”, in that they are “at the same time, to worthy receivers, made the means of their spiritual union with Christ himself” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 99).  Waterland’s view is that it is more the receivers who receive the logos as the spiritual presence of Christ in the use of the sacred symbols and less the bread and wine themselves.  He expresses this idea in these words:

“ … the consecration of the elements makes them holy symbols, relatively holy, on account of their relation to what they represent, or point to, by Divine institution: and it is God that gives them this holiness by the ministry of the word.  The sanctification of the communicants (which is God’s word also) is of distinct consideration from the former, though they are often confounded: and to this part belongs what has been improperly called making the symbols become our Lord’s body; and which really means making them his body to us; or more plainly still, making us partakers of our Lord’s broken body and blood shed at the same time that we receive the holy symbols.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 100). 

The moderate realist view expressed here suggests that sign relates more to the receiver than to the bread and wine, although the bread and wine are seen to possess a relative holiness, and to be made Christ’s body and blood to us, instrumentally rather than properly or literally. 

In Chapter VI of A Review Waterland considers the meaning of spiritual eating and drinking as taught in John, chapter 6.  John 6 is described as having a meaning both mystical and spiritual but not literal (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 101) and which comes down to: “All that are saved owe their salvation to the salutary passion of Christ: and their partaking thereof (which is feeding upon his flesh and blood) is their life” and “that whether with faith or without, whether in the sacraments or out of the sacraments, whether before Christ or since, whether in the covenant or out of the covenant, whether here or hereafter, no man ever was, is, or will be accepted, but in and through the grand propitiation made by the blood of Christ” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 103).  The work of salvation then for Waterland, on the basis of his interpretation of John 6, is through Christ, not faith, sacraments or covenant.  This is not to say that there is no place for faith, sacraments or covenant, but that these are less fundamental and universal than the work of Christ and salvation through Christ alone.  Indeed Waterland argues that “eating and drinking, by a very easy, common figure, mean receiving: and what is the thing to be received?  Christ himself in his whole person. … His passion is our redemption, and by his death we live.  The meat is administered to us by the hand of God; while by the hand of faith, ordinarily, we take it, and in the use of the sacraments” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 104).  Here Waterland employs a realist model, whereby ‘the thing’ is said to be received through the eating and drinking.  Even though he uses the quite startling realist term ‘meat’ he does not mean any immoderate presence, rather he is speaking in a moderate realist way, meaning by the use of the word ‘meat’ the benefits of Christ’s death.  He says: “God may extraordinarily administer the same meat, that is, may apply the same benefits of Christ’s death, and virtue of his atonement, to subjects capable, without any act of theirs” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 100). (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 104).  The benefit then does not depend on the actions of the receiver (e.g. faith) and therefore has an objective character about it, which is clearly not immoderate, but really given nonetheless in moderate realist sense.  Faith then is not the key to receiving the benefits of Christ, nor is faith the same as eating and drinking, since:

“the thing received is very distinct from the hand receiving; therefore faith is not the meat, but the mean.  Belief in Christ is the condition required, the duty commanded: but the bread of life is the reward consequent.  Believing is not eating or drinking the fruits of Christ’s passion, but it is preparatory to it, as the means to the end.  In short, faith, ordinarily, is the qualification, or one qualification; but the body and blood is the gift itself, and the real inheritance.  The doctrine of Christ, lodged in the soul, is what gives the soul its proper temperature and fitness to receive the heavenly food: but the heavenly food is Christ himself, as once crucified, who has since been glorified.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 105). 

Waterland here has set out a theology of the Eucharist which is realist and in so doing acknowledges that this same argument has been clearly set out by John Johnson in his work The Unbloody Sacrifice (edn. Parker, 1847: I, 393) (see Johnson Case Study 2.11).  The gift or body and blood of Christ, is an objective real presence, distinct from the subjective knowledge of the receiver.  The presence of Christ in the Eucharist therefore does not depend upon the faith of the receiver, but is apart from that faith, although faith is the means of knowing and receiving the gift.  Since faith is the means by which the objective and real gift is known, then the ‘thing’, the gift, the body and blood of Christ, must be spiritual, not literal, moderate, not immoderate.  “What then can the eating there mean, but the partaking of the benefits of his passion?  That is the proper Christian eating … not … of eating doctrine, but of eating sacrifice. … not of eating the doctrine of the cross, but of eating, that is, partaking of, the sacrifice or atonement of the cross.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 106-107).  That this eating and drinking is spiritual, is affirmed by Waterland when he says that:

“Spiritual feeding, … directly and primarily means no more than the eating and drinking of the Lord’s body broken, and blood shed; that is, partaking of the atonement made by his death and sufferings: that is the prime thing, the ground and basis of all the rest.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 108).

It is this “mystical union with Christ’s glorified body, which neither supposes nor infers any local presence” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 108) but which is “part of his whole Person” and which “follows a gracious vital presence of his Divine nature abiding in us, and dwelling with us.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 109).  Waterland’s discussion of a ‘vital presence’ involves Christ’s ‘Divine nature’ being in us and with us.  The idea of the divine nature’s indwelling has much in common with the idea of instantiation of Christ as Word or logos which functions as moderate realism, however Waterland does not see the divine nature as dwelling in or being instantiated in the bread and wine, but rather in the receiver.  This he does on the following account, that the words of Christ in John 6 (‘except ye eat the flesh of Christ, &c. you have no life in you’) “do not mean directly, that you have no life without the Eucharist, but that you have no life without participating of our Lord’s passion”.  This is not intended to denigrate the Eucharist, since he also says that: “the Eucharist is one way of participating of the passion, and a very considerable one” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 110), rather it seems that Waterland is saying that the Eucharist is not the ‘meat’ (the gift) but a ‘means’ of participating of the passion. 

With this view in mind, and following considerable reference to early Church Fathers (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 111-137) Waterland concludes that the early Church Fathers, in the first four centuries, in their consideration of John 6 spoke only of spiritual feeding in relation to this passage and nowhere did they interpret Christ’s words in the literal sense of eating his flesh and drinking his blood (oral manducation) (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 134-135).  By the fifth century however, this seems to have changed somewhat, and John 6 came to be interpreted directly in relation to the Eucharist, with John 6: 53 being seen as the decisive verse (“So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you’” John 6: 53 NRSV).  This meant that from the time of Pope Innocent I (circa 402 AD) the interpretation of this verse was along the lines of “unless you receive the Eucharist, you have no life in you” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 135).  Despite this difference, Waterland concludes that in relation to John 6:

“what prevailed most, and was the general sentiment wherein they united, was, that Christ himself is properly and primarily our bread of life, considered as the Word made flesh, as God incarnate, and dying for us; and that whatever else might, in a secondary sense, be called heavenly bread, (whether sacraments, or doctrine, or any holy service), it was considered but an antepast to the other, or as the same thing in the main, under a different form of expression.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 137).

The fundamental issue here for Waterland seems to be that Christ is the bread of life.  The less fundamental issue is the means by which that is known.  He suggests that Christ as the bread of life is known by spiritual eating and drinking, however, he even-handedly does not deny that sacraments, specifically the Eucharist, can also make Christ known.  The signified therefore is Christ and the sign can be the spiritual eating and drinking as well as the Eucharist (presumably with the signs of bread and wine attached).  Whatever the case, moderate realism is the underlying philosophical scheme beneath his theology.

In the next chapter of A Review (Chapter VII) Waterland considers sacramental or symbolical feeding in the Eucharist.  In Chapter VI Waterland considered the issue of spiritual eating and drinking, but in this chapter he considers the signs or symbols in the Eucharist.  He first cites St Paul’s claim (1 Corinthians 10: 3-4) that the ancient Israelites used signs and symbols for spiritual manducation (e.g. manna and the water from the rock) and that these ancients all ate the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink as Christians do.  The heavenly meat and drink, which the Israelites received in the past, and which Christians receive in the present, is Christ, however, the symbols for that spiritual manducation are not the same now as they were then.  The symbols are different but it is the same Christ who is received (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 144-145).  Waterland then comments on the Eucharist saying: “In the New Testament, the bread and wine of the Eucharist are the appointed symbols of the spiritual blessings” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 145).  How then does Waterland interpret these symbols?  He argues that they are like:

“ … instruments of investiture (into lands, honours, dignities), which are significant and emblematical of what they belong to, and are at the same time means of conveyance.  A book, a ring, a crosier, and the like, have often been made use of as instruments for such purpose.  They are not without their significancy in the way of instructive emblem: but what is most considerable, they are instruments to convey those rights, privileges, honours, offices, possessions, which in silent language they point to.  Those small gifts of pledges are nothing in themselves, but they are highly valuable with respect to what they are pledges of, and what they legally and effectively convey: so it is with the signs and symbols of both Sacraments, and particularly with the elements of bread and wine in the Eucharist.   They are, after consecration, called by the names of what they are pledges of, and are ordained to convey: because they are, though not literally, yet in just construction and certain effect, (standing on Divine promise and Divine acceptance), the very things which they are called, viz. the body and blood of Christ to all worthy receivers.  In themselves they are bread and wine from first to last: but while they are made use of in the holy service, they are considered, construed, understood, (pursuant to Divine law, promise, covenant), as standing for what they represent and exhibit.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 146).

Clearly Waterland is here presenting a moderate realist view.  The bread and wine remain bread and wine, but they at the same convey and stand for what they represent and exhibit.  The consecration allows them to be called the body and blood of Christ, although they are not that body and blood literally.  The image which Waterland uses here is that of an emblem, where the sign or emblem represents the signified, seemingly by analogy, rather than in nature.  Despite this Waterland is clear that the sign conveys the signified: the bread and wine convey the body and blood of Christ to the worthy receiver, although the bread and wine are not the body and blood of Christ in a literal sense.  It is important to note however, that he qualifies the conveying by the emblem to the period of time ‘while they are made use of in the holy service’.  This seems to indicate that there is no lasting emblematic quality in the bread and wine, and that following the proper use in the service, the emblem or sign ceases to stand in relationship to or convey the signified.  The bread and wine are emblems in their proper use only in the context of the service.  Moderate realist ideas of presence seem therefore to be restricted to proper use and not to any lasting quality (e.g. reservation).

Waterland then considers the meaning of the words, ‘This is my body’ and ‘This is my blood’.  He argues that these words cannot mean “that this bread and wine are really and literally that body in the same broken state as it hung upon the cross, and that blood which was spilled upon the ground” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 148).  The bread and wine cannot be Jesus’ glorified body either, since that is in heaven.  Since a literal meaning is not possible, on the basis of sense, reason, Scripture, antiquity and theology, Waterland suggests the words “must be brought under some figure or other, some softening explication, to make them both sense and truth” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 148).  Since the words of Jesus at the Last Supper are “solemn and awful” then “we ought to look out for some high and significant meaning as the nature of the thing can admit of” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 148).  He rejects the view, possibly that of the Nonjurors, that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ in power and effect, or in virtue and energy, seeing this view as too obscure in meaning, since there is no way of knowing how an inherent or infused virtue comes to rest upon the bare elements, and it is also seen to confuse the natural and the sacramental (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 148-149).  Waterland’s preferred explanation is to say:

“ … that the bread and wine are the body and blood (viz. the natural body and blood) in just construction, put upon them by the lawgiver himself, who has so appointed, and who is able to made it good.  The symbols are not the body and blood in power and effect, if those words mean efficiency: but, suitable dispositions supposed in the recipient, the delivery of these symbols is, in construction of Gospel law, and in Divine intention, and therefore in certain effect or consequence, a delivery of the things signified.  If God hath been pleased so to order that these outward elements, in the due use of the Eucharist, shall be imputed to us, and accepted by him, as pledges of the natural body of our Lord, and that this constructional intermingling his body and blood with ours, shall be the same thing in effect with our adhering inseparable to him, as members of parcels of him; then those outward symbols are, though not literally, yet interpretatively, and to all saving purposes, the very body and blood which they so represent with effect: they are appointed instead of them.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 149).

The signs are a delivery of the things signified, not literally but interpretatively, and are therefore a representation of the very body and blood of Christ.  This is a position of moderate realism, although the linking of the signs of bread and wine and the signified (Christ) is less realist than the views put forward by others (e.g. Johnson or the Nonjurors).  The linking however, for Waterland, between receiver and the body and blood of Christ is stronger than the linking between bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ.  Waterland seems to place more moderate realist emphasis upon the indwelling of Christ’s body and blood in people, than in any outward element.  He expresses this as a:

“Communion of the body and blood of Christ.  Which expresses communication on the part of the donor, and participation on the side of the receiver.  There is communication from God and participation by us, of Christ’s crucified body directly, and of the body glorified consequentially.  Yet this grant and this reception of our Lord’s body are not to be understood with utmost rigour, but after the manner of symbolical grants and conveyances; where the symbols are construed to be, in real and beneficial effect, what they supply the place of.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 155).

The participation in Christ’s body and blood is in the receiver through communion with the body and blood of Christ, and not in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, yet the bread and wine are still seen to be ‘symbolical grants and conveyances’.  The difficulty here seems to be that the bread and the wine are conveyances of the real and beneficial effect, but they themselves are not the body and blood of Christ, in both a literal and spiritual sense.  How then can the conveyances convey what they are not?  Waterland’s explanation seems to be in the sense of a pledge or a legal deed, where the document stands for the thing, but is not it in reality, yet it conveys its worth.  He says: “Our Lord’s body is interpretatively delivered, with all the emoluments thereunto pertaining” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 156).

He summarises the doctrine of the Eucharist, as he understands it in these words:

“ … we eat Christ crucified in this Sacrament, as we partake of the merits of his death: and if we thus have part in his crucified body, we are thereby ipso facto made partakers of the body glorified; that is, we receive our Lord’s body into a closer union, and become his members by repeated and stronger ties; provided we come worthily to the holy table, and that there is no just obstacle, on our part, to stop the current of Divine graces.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 193-194).

Whilst this chapter reveals a moderate realism in the theology of Daviel Waterland, it must be kept in mind that the realism is expressed in terms of a communion between the receiver and Christ, whereby the receiver participates in Christ, and that the participation is not between the bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ.

Chapter VIII deals specifically with St Paul’s doctrine of the Eucharist as it is expressed in 1 Corinthians 10.  Waterland interprets St Paul’s to mean in this passage that:

“Christians feeding upon the consecrated symbols, in due manner, are supposed therein to be joint partakers of, or communicants in, Christ’s body and blood, whatever that means, and also to be mystically united with each other.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 198).

There seems to be a closer association here between the consecrated symbols of bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ, than there was in the previous chapter where the emphasis was upon communion between receiver and Christ.  The fact that Waterland here states that the ‘feeding’ is upon consecrated symbols, links them to Christ’s body and blood in a moderate realist fashion.  At the same time the communion with Christ and with others in maintained in this wording.  It seems that this passage goes further towards linking the signs of bread and wine with the signified body and blood of Christ than do passages in the previous chapter.  What then does partaking in or communion of our Lord’s body and blood mean?  Waterland firstly denies that it has any literal or fleshy meaning (immoderate realism) and affirms that the bread and wine remain bread and wine in substance after consecration, being changed only according to use, relation or office (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 198-199).  He similarly denies that Christ’s natural flesh and blood are received at the same time as the bread and wine are received, with the bread and wine remaining unchanged in substance.  This is so since the natural body and blood are in heaven and not on earth, present in the sacrament.  “The symbolical body and blood (bread and wine) are there present: the rest is present only in a figure, or under certain constructions” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 199).  The natural body is not present, only a figure, and this figure seems not to be the bread and wine, but rather a spiritual eating or uniting with Christ’s living body.

Waterland also denies that the communion signifies the eating of Christ’s glorified body by faith, or with the mind, since “whatever is corporeal cannot be literally the food of the soul” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 199).  He also makes the point what is represented and eaten in the sacrament is not Christ’s glorified body, but his crucified body and blood shed, and since these are no more, they cannot be received with either mouth or mind, other than in a qualified or figurative sense (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 199-200).  It seems then that this qualified or figurative sense of receiving Christ’s crucified body and blood shed is an expression of moderate realism.  The literal body and blood are not received, but the figurative body and blood are.  By ‘figurative’ Waterland seems to mean more than joint partaking in a bare figure or outward sign, since St Paul says that in the Eucharist there is a sharing in, communion or partaking in Christ’s body and blood (1 Corinthians 10: 16) (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 200).  Clearly partaking in bread and wine is more than just partaking in bread and wine.  “There is good sense in saying, that the partaking of one thing is, in just construction, the partaking of some other thing: but to make all sign, and nothing signified, or to reckon the outward signs twice over, dropping the things signified, is unsuitable to the turn of the whole passage, and entirely defeats the Apostle’s argument.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 201).  There is therefore both sign and signified, and in the sense of a figure, the signified, Christ’s body and blood are linked with the sign, the bread and wine.  He verifies this by saying:

“The case is plain, that the four terms, bread, wine, body, and blood, have severally their respective meanings, and that the first two express the signs, to which the other two answer as things signified. … Add to this, that the eating and drinking in the Eucharist, upon the foot of the other construction, would be rendered insignificant: for the breaking of the bread, and the pouring out of the wine, would be sufficient for a bare representation or memorial of our Lord’s death: the feeding thereupon adds nothing to the representation, but must either signify our receiving something spiritual under the corporeal symbol or signify nothing.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 202).

Waterland therefore rejects the view which says that there is no “present benefits in the Eucharist” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 202) and that:

“spiritual feeding shall mean only the receiving Christ’s doctrine and promises: or that the Eucharist shall not import anything then received, (more than at other times), but shall be declarative only of what was received before, or to be received then, of after.  The design of all which is to evade any pretence of receiving graces from above, in or by the Sacrament.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 203).

Against this view Waterland cites St Paul who “does not say that the Eucharist is a declaration of communion, but a communion: nor does he say, communion with Christ our head, (though that indeed is a remote consequence of the other), but communion of the body and blood of Christ.  Therefore … the nature of our eucharistical service is an actual partaking of the death of Christ with the benefits thereof.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 203, 204).  For Waterland then the Eucharist is more than a rational process of being aware of a past action, that is, the sacrifice of Christ and his promises, and declaring that in word and action.  The Eucharist is a real communion of Christ, not in an immoderate manner, but in a moderate manner, where the body and blood of Christ is received by the worthy communicant and the benefits of Christ’s passion are also received in a real and yet spiritual fashion.  The benefits, Waterland declares are “pardon of sins, and present right to eternal life” and that these are “part of the spiritual food” and “that we receive our spiritual food at the altar, from the hands of Christ, and do not bring it thither ourselves; especially considering that Christ himself delivered the corporal food to the disciples, which was the symbol of the spiritual.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 205-206).  The Eucharist therefore is “communion of, not communion with, and of Christ’s body and blood, not simply with Christ” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 206).  Moderate realism dominates here as Waterland strongly affirms communion of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist.  He sums up his argument in these words:

“The Eucharist in its primary intention, and in its effects to all worthy communicants, is a communion of Christ’s body broken and blood shed, that is to say, a present partaking of, or having a part in our Lord’s passion, and the reconcilement therein made, and the blessed fruits of it.  This is plain good sense, and undeniable truth. ‘The body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed received of the faithful: that is, they have a real part and portion given them in the death and sufferings of the Lord Jesus, whose body was broken and blood shed for the remission of sins.  They truly and indeed partake of the virtue of his bloody sacrifice, whereby he hath obtained eternal redemption for us’ [quoted from Simon Patrick’s work Christian Sacrifice, page 53]” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 207).

Chapter IX takes up the issue of whether there is remission of sins in the Eucharist.  Waterland states “that God confers remission of sins in or by the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 238).  Remission of sins by repentance is one of the Gospel covenant promises, yet Waterland argues that:

“ … repentance alone, without a continual application of the great atonement, is of no avail upon the foot of the Christian covenant, nor can be accepted at the throne of grace; the least that we can say of the expediency of the Eucharist, in that respect, is, that it amounts to a public, solemn, certain application of Christ’s merits, for the rendering our repentance acceptable, (which no other service except Baptism does), and therefore it is a service carrying in it the liveliest assurance, and the strongest consolation, with respect to the very remission promised upon our serious repentance.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 240).

This sound very much like memorial remembrance or anamnesis, where the effects of Christ’s sacrifice are available in the present in the Eucharist.  The Eucharist, to use Waterland’s words, is an ‘application of Christ’s merits’.  This is moderate realism, where the effects of Christ’s sacrifice, in the remission of sins, are available in the present in the Eucharist.  Repentance by itself seems not to be enough, rather a ‘continual application’ of ‘the great atonement’ is necessary and this ‘continual application’ occurs in the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is therefore “an instrument of remission, or a Gospel form of absolution” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 241).

Waterland bases this on Scripture, arguing that 1 Corinthians 10: 16 tells us that in the Eucharist we are partakers of Christ’s death and of its fruits.  He therefore says:

“For if we are therein partakers of Christ’s death, with the fruits thereof; and if the atonement be one of those fruits, and indeed the first and principal; and if remission follows the atonement, wherever it is truly applied; it is manifest from these considerations taken together, that remission is conferred, or (which comes to the same) renewed and confirmed in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. … to deny that the Eucharist carries remission with it seems to make it rather a memorial of the reconcilement, than an actual participation of it.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 241-242).

The signified seems to be clearly identified with and conveyed by the sign.  This is moderate realism.

Waterland also cites Christ’s words in the institution to show that the Eucharist confers remission of sins.  Christ’s words are: “Drink ye all of this: for this is my blood, the blood of the new covenant, shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins”.  He therefore concludes that:

“Our Lord here mentions the remission of sins as the effect or fruit of the blood shed: that very blood shed is what we symbolically drink in the Eucharist, which is one of those fruits. … the receiving symbolically in the Eucharist that justifying blood of Christ, must of consequence amount to receiving present remission of sins.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 242).

It is not sufficient therefore to say that the blood of Christ spilt on the cross is sufficient, since “that blood which was once literally given for remission, upon the cross, is now every day symbolically and mystically given in the Eucharist, and given with all its fruits: therefore remission of sins is given” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 243).  The literal shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross is the historic sacrifice (immoderate realism) but the symbolical and mystical shedding of the blood is that which occurs in the Eucharist (moderate realism) with the effect of remission of sins.  The symbol or the sign exhibits what it represents, conveying what it signifies, not literally or substantially, but symbolically or mystically.  “The very attributes of the signs and things signified are reciprocally predicated of each other: the body is represented as broken, though that attribute properly belongs to the bread; and the cup, by double figure, is said to be shed for you, when in strictness of speech, that attribute belongs only to the blood” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 243).  The discussion about the strict and non-strict attributes of the signs and the things has a great deal in common with the modern secular philosopher David Armstrong’s notion of ‘strict’ and ‘loose’ instantiations.  This is clearly a moderate realist explanation of what happens in the Eucharist in the way advanced by Armstrong’s philosophical model (e.g. Armstrong, 1997).

Chapter X discusses the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit conferred in the Eucharist.  Waterland argues here that they who partake of Christ (as set out in Chapter IX) also partake of the Spirit of Christ (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 265).  This means that:

“the Eucharist, duly administered and duly received, is a medium by which we ordinarily partake of the same Spirit, and consequently of the sanctifying gifts or graces of the Spirit.  By this we understand, how he that is joined unto Christ our Lord is one spirit with him: because that Spirit who is essentially one with him is sacramentally united with us.  And as Christ dwelleth in all those who spiritually feed upon him, so are all such the temple of the Holy Ghost; and while they are so, they are sanctified in body and soul.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 274).

Here again is a statement of moderate realism, this time in relation to the presence of the Holy Spirit, which comes through the medium of the Eucharist.  As the communicants feed on Christ they also receive the Holy Spirit, who is one with Christ, and the gifts and graces of the Spirit are also received.

The role of the Holy Spirit is also discussed in relation to the consecration of the bread and wine in the Eucharist.  Waterland contends that the invocation of the Spirit in the Eucharist is upon the communicants in the use of the symbols, and not upon the symbols with the intent of “making the symbols absolutely the body and blood” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 296).  He argues that:

“ … the true and ancient intent of that part of the service was not to implore any physical change in the elements, no, nor so much as a physical connection of the Spirit with the elements, but a moral change only in the elements, as to relations and uses, and a gracious presence of the Holy Spirit upon the communicants.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 297).

Certainly Waterland attests that “the Christian world has all along believed, that the Spirit of God is invisibly present, and operates effectually in both Sacraments; as well to confer a relative holiness upon the outward symbols, as to convey the grace of sanctification to the faithful recipients” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 305), but he does not see this as bringing about any substantial change in the elements, such that they become the literal body and blood of Christ.  This he thinks is more aligned with the doctrine of transubstantiation (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 296).  For Waterland, the presence of the Holy Spirit is to be believed in the Eucharist, but it is an invisible presence, conferring a relative holiness or conferring in “a moral way” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 307) and therefore not changing the substance of the bread and wine in any immoderate manner.  The power of the Holy Spirit is seen to work on the recipients and not on the bread and wine.  Waterland’s understanding of the operation of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Eucharist is that of moderate realism.

Waterland considers in Chapter XI the federal or covenanting nature of the Holy Eucharist.  He argues that:

“It is the prevailing doctrine of the Divines, that the Service of the Holy Communion carries in it something of a federal nature, is a kind of covenanting or stipulating act; not making a new covenant, but covenanting anew, confirming or renewing the stipulation before entered into at our Baptism.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 308).

He does this on the understanding that the Eucharist is a federal service in that “it imports and implies a real and vital communion between God and every worthy receiver” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 316).  Christ himself confirms this federal expression in his words, “Drink ye all of this, for this is the new covenant” and “This cup, or wine, is my blood of the new covenant” [Matthew 26: 28 and Mark 14: 24] and “This is the new covenant in my blood” [Luke 22: 19 and 1 Corinthians 11: 25] (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 316).  The Eucharist therefore is seen to be a ‘covenanting anew’, a ‘confirming’ or ‘renewing’ of the death of Christ, into which people were baptised.  There is in this covenant ‘a real and vital communion’ between God and people.  All this suggests that the language of a federal or covenanting rite is really the language of moderate realism, since the Eucharist is not the covenant itself, the historic sacrifice, but it is a real and vital communing with that covenant.  The signs of the Eucharist are linked with the signified covenant. 

Waterland, in discussing the covenanting or federal nature of the Eucharist, agrees with Cudworth’s description of the Eucharist as “a feast upon a sacrifice, and so of consequence a federal feast” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 322).  He summarises Cudworth’s argument, saying that:

“ … the Eucharist, considered in its spiritual and mystical view, is a feast upon a sacrifice, (viz. the sacrifice once offered upon the cross), bearing some analogy to the Jewish sacrificial feasts, which were figures or shadows of this true spiritual feeding.  For as these were banquets upon typical sacrifices, this is a banquet upon the real sacrifice, to which they pointed: and as those banquets were federal directly, with respect to the legal covenant; so is this banquet federal with respect to the evangelical covenant, formerly couched under the legal one.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 322-323).

Waterland here in his paraphrasing of Cudworth is arguing that the Eucharist as a feast upon a sacrifice is a spiritual and mystical matter (moderate realism), which is analogous not only to the Jewish sacrificial feasts but also to the real sacrifice of Christ.  The sign (interpreted in federal or covenant language) is linked with the signified, actual covenant, which is the real sacrifice of Christ.  Reference should also be made to the Cudworth Case Study where Cudworth’s words are in agreement with Waterland’s interpretation and use of them.

Chapter XII of A Review examines in some detail the Eucharist considered as a sacrifice.  Waterland here contends that the idea of the Eucharist being a sacrifice of the Christian Church, in whole or part, in a proper or improper sense, is a matter agreed upon by all.  He contends also that the Roman Catholic Church has used the words oblation, sacrifice and propitiation in an inaccurate sense, which has resulted in Protestant churches being wary of using these words in relation to the Eucharist (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 338).  Despite this reticence to use the words in Protestant circles, Waterland argues that there is a proper sense to them.  The Fathers of the Church generally seemed to use the word sacrifice to mean “really nothing more than an outward sign, token, or symbol of true sacrifice” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 342).  By this they meant:

“that it was true and evangelical service, as opposed to legal: in the sense, the eucharistical service was itself true sacrifice, and properly our sacrifice.  And if, over and above, the elements themselves, unconsecrated, were ever called a sacrifice, or sacrifices, the meaning still was, that the service was the sacrifice: but when the consecrated elements had that name, it was only a metonymy of the sign for the thing signified, as they represent, and in effect exhibit, the grand sacrifice of the cross.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 343). 

The eucharistic sacrifice was seen to represent and exhibit the historic sacrifice.  Immoderate realism is therefore denied, since the eucharistic sacrifice is not strictly identical with the historic sacrifice, although the sign and the signified were clearly linked.  This is moderate realism, since Waterland affirms “that spiritual sacrifices really carry in them all that the other signify or point to, and so, upon the general reason of all sacrifice, have a just, or a more eminent title to that name” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 343-344).  The Fathers then are seen to consider “spiritual sacrifices as true and proper sacrifices … whenever they apply the name of sacrifice to the service of the Eucharist.  But to make it a material sacrifice would, in their account, have been degrading and vilifying it, reducing it to a legal ceremony, instead of a Gospel service” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 344).  Spiritual sacrifices therefore, as true and proper sacrifices, are moderate realist and found in the Eucharist, and material sacrifices are immoderate realist, and not found in the Eucharist.  This eucharistic sacrifice Waterland calls “a commemorative sacrifice” in that it is “commemorating the sacrifice of the cross” and therefore called “a sacrifice commemorative of a sacrifice” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 346).  This sacrifice is performed by the minister is three ways for Waterland.  These are:

“1. As commemorating in solemn form, the same sacrifice here below, which Christ our High Priest commemorates above.  2. As handing up (if I may so speak) those prayers and those services of Christians to Christ our Lord, who as High Priest recommends the same in heaven to God the Father.  3. As offering up to God all the faithful who are under their care and ministry, and who are sanctified by the Spirit.  In these three ways the Christian officers are priests, or liturgs, to very excellent purposes, far above the legal ones.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 346). 

The sacrifice in the Eucharist is therefore not that of the cross, but a commemoration of that of the cross, offered to God in the Eucharist, as Christ offers himself in heaven.  Such a commemoration is moderate realist.

Following an extensive review of evidence regarding sacrifice in the works of the Fathers (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 347-385) Waterland concludes that “the Fathers well understood, that to make Christ’s natural body the real sacrifice of the Eucharist, would not only be absurd in reason, but highly presumptuous and profane; and that to make the outward symbols a proper sacrifice, a material sacrifice, would be entirely contrary to Gospel principles. … The right way therefore was, to make the sacrifice spiritual.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 385).  This means for Waterland that:

“ … if it be really a spiritual sacrifice, in or by which every faithful communicant devotes himself entirely to God; and if the sacerdotal offering up our Lord’s mystical body be … a sacerdotal devoting all the faithful joining it, to God’s service, and to God’s glory: then may we again justly conclude, that the sacramental service is a federal, as well as a sacrificial solemnity: because, in this case, the administrator’s devoting the communicants, and their devoting themselves to God, is tantamount to a solemn renewing former engagements or covenants made with him, under such symbols as God has appointed, and promised to ratify on his part.” (Waterland, A Review, 1896: 386). 

Waterland here affirms that the sacrifice in the Eucharist is spiritual, but this does not exclude a ‘sacerdotal offering up our Lord’s mystical body’ and a ‘sacerdotal devoting all the faithful joining it’.  This offering up does not mean any immoderate re-iteration of Christ’s sacrifice on the altar in the Eucharist, but rather a moderate realist sense of spiritual offering, that is sacramental, federal and sacrificial.  As this is done, using the symbols of bread and wine, there is a solemn renewing of the covenant between God and people in Christ.  There is no new offering, no new covenant, no new sacrifice, but there is a renewing of the offering, the covenant and the sacrifice in the Eucharist.  It is in this sense that the eucharistic theology advanced by Waterland is moderate realist.  The signs are clearly linked with the signified, conveying the grace of God to those who receive them and there is a real communion of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist, together with a renewing of the sacrifice of Christ.

In his role as Archdeacon of Middlesex, Waterland delivered four charges to the clergy of his archdeaconry over the period 1736 to 1740.  Each of these charges concerned the Eucharist and so is useful in assessing Waterland’s eucharistic theology.  Each of these charges will now be considered using their own name but the reader is advised that the date and page numbers refer to the edition of Waterland’s Review of 1896 where these charges are attached.  The first charge, The Doctrinal Use of the Christian Sacraments, was delivered on 12 May, 1736.  In the context of discussing the sacraments in general, Waterland speaks of the Eucharist specifically, saying:

“For as the consecrated bread and wine were the authentic symbols of Christ’s body and blood, and were, in construction and certain effect, (though not in substance), the same with what they stood for, to all worthy receivers; it was manifest, that bodies so incorporated with the body of Christ must of course be partners with it in a glorious resurrection.  Thus was the Eucharist considered as a sure and certain pledge to all good men of the future resurrection of their bodies, symbolically fed with the body of Christ.  For like as the branches partake of the vine, and the members of the head, so the bodies of the faithful, being by the Eucharist incorporate with Christ’s glorified body, must of consequence appertain to it, and be glorified with it.” (Waterland, The Doctrinal Use of the Christian Sacraments, 1896: 442-443).

Waterland here advocates moderate realism in relation to the Eucharist.  The bread and wine are authentic symbols of Christ’s body and blood, but more than this, they are in ‘construction and certain effect’ the same as what they stand for, that is, the body and blood of Christ, although they are not the same in substance.  Clearly he means that the bread and wine remain bread and wine in substance, but they are also what they stand for.  The Eucharist also joins or identifies the faithful with the resurrection, providing a pledge of new life and spiritual feeding with the body of Christ.  The faithful are ‘incorporate with Christ’s glorified body’ through the Eucharist.  Clearly the signs and signified are closely associated with the signs being conveyances of God’s grace.

Waterland’s second charge together with an Appendix, was delivered on 20 April, 1738, and was entitled The Christian Sacrifice Explained.  In this charge Waterland begins by stating that the Eucharist:

“ … is a federal rite between God and man, so it must be supposed to carry something in it something that God gives to us, and something also that we give, or present, to God.  These are, as it were, the two integral parts of that holy ceremony: the former may properly be called the sacramental part, and the latter, the sacrificial.” (Waterland, The Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 457).

He goes on to warn however that there is a danger in this if we confuse the two parts of the sacrifice.  He says:

“Any great mistake concerning either may be of very ill consequence to the main thing: for if we either mistake the nature of God’s engagements towards us, or the nature of our engagements towards God, in that sacred solemnity, we so far defeat the great ends and uses of it, and prejudice ourselves in so doing.” (Waterland, The Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 457).

This warning seems to imply that there is a correct meaning of sacrifice in the Eucharist and an incorrect meaning.  For Waterland the incorrect meaning is the suggestion that “the material elements of the Eucharist were properly the Christian sacrifice” (Waterland, The Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 457).  The correct meaning for sacrifice in Waterland’s interpretation seems to be ‘spiritual sacrifices’, which are more than “mental service only” but “true sacrifice and direct homage” (Waterland, The Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 458), without any confusion of the material elements with the fleshy sacrifice of Christ.  Here Waterland is arguing that the fleshy (immoderate) sacrifice of Christ on the cross is not to be found in the Eucharist.  Sacrifice for Waterland, based on Scripture and early Church writers means “spiritual sacrifice, without giving the least hint that it was not true sacrifice, or sacrifice properly so called” (Waterland, The Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 459).  Spiritual sacrifices might be called ‘proper sacrifices’ but they are not immoderate (that is, with the material elements being seen to be the Christian sacrifice properly).  The correct meaning for sacrifice in the Eucharist is that of moderate realism where the sacrifice is a spiritual, and yet a true sacrifice.  The correct meaning for Waterland implies “work or service” rather than “material elements” (Waterland, The Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 488).  He condemns the idea of sacrifice being material elements when he says:

“Under the legal economy, bulls and goats, sheep and turtle-doves, bread offerings and wine offerings were really sacrifices: they had legal expiations (shadows of true) annexed to them; to intimate, that true expiation then, and always, must depend solely on the true sacrifice of atonement, the sacrifice of the cross.  The shadows have since disappeared; and now it is our great Gospel privilege to have immediate access to the true sacrifice, and to the true expiations, without the intervention of any legal expiation or legal sacrifice.  To imagine any expiatory sacrifice now to stand between us and the great sacrifice, is to keep us still at a distance, when we are allowed to draw near.” (Waterland, The Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 488).

Bread and wine then, cannot be to us an expiatory sacrifice.  “It is no more possible that the blood of the grape, representing Christ’s blood, should purge the conscience, and take away sins now, than the blood of bulls or of goats, representing the same blood of Christ, could do it aforetime” (Waterland, The Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 488-489).  This being so, Waterland concludes that “our expiations now are either spiritual or none: and therefore such of course must our sacrifices also be, either spiritual or none at all.” (Waterland, The Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 489).

Waterland argues that some Protestants have denied that there is a proper sacrifice in the Eucharist because of the confusion between sign and signified which developed after primitive Christian times (Waterland, The Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 479-481).  Other Protestants have maintained however, the spiritual sacrifice meaning and so avoided any immoderate realism.  He cites many Reformers in the category (both English and other continental Reformers, Waterland, The Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 473-478).  Moderate realism in relation to sacrifice is implied in Waterland’s discussion of spiritual sacrifices.

In the Appendix to this second charge, Waterland criticises John Johnson’s theology of eucharistic sacrifice as it is expressed in his work called The Unbloody Sacrifice, first published in 1714/1718 and then again in 1724 (see Johnson Case Study 2.11).  In the Appendix Waterland addresses six concerns he has with Johnson’s understanding of sacrifice.  These are:

“1. In deprecating spiritual sacrifices beyond what was decent or just.

2. In overvaluing material sacrifices.

3. In overstating many things relating to our Lord’s supposed sacrifice in the Eucharist.

4. In overturning or undermining the sacrifice of the cross.

5. In wrong stating of our sacrifice in the Eucharist.

6. In giving erroneous accounts of the Evangelical or Christian priesthood.

Waterland considers each of these six points in some detail (Waterland, Appendix to the Christian Sacrifice Explained, 1896: 492-532).  Waterland’s comments on these six points will not be examined in detail here as his arguments have been reviewed above.  It is sufficient to say that Waterland rejects what he calls Johnson’s view of the material sacrifice in the Eucharist, with the offering of that material sacrifice by the priest and Johnson’s proposition that Christ offered himself as an oblation at the Last Supper under the symbols of bread and wine and later as a sacrifice on the cross (see Johnson Case Study 2.11).  It must be acknowledged at this point that even though there are notable and significant differences in the views of Waterland and Johnson, both affirm moderate realism, in terms of the model advanced as part of this project.  Whereas Waterland emphasises the spiritual nature of sacrifice to a moderate degree, Johnson emphasises sacrifice through the material elements, but to a moderate degree also.  Both clearly reject immoderate realism in the Eucharist.  It may be that Waterland overstates Johnson’s case somewhat, implying a level of immoderate realism in what he says.  Johnson makes no such claim in The Unbloody Sacrifice, but maintains a moderate realism throughout.  Waterland’s insistence on a spiritual sacrifice only, seems to overlook the moderate realism of Johnson, and suggests that Waterland had focussed on specific issues (such as implications of a material sacrifice) without acknowledging the broader moderate realist scheme of Johnson’s work. 

Waterland’s third charge, that of the Easter Visitation of 1739, is entitled The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained.  Waterland refers here to the great stress that has been placed by some on the role of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist, especially regarding the invocation or epiclesis.  He argues that some in their stress on the work of the Holy Spirit, state that this is:

“ … not barely to make them sacred signs and pledges, or exhibitive symbols of Christ’s body and blood to every faithful communicant, (which might reasonably be admitted), but even to make them the very body, or verily the body of Christ: not the natural body, but another true body, called a spiritual body, consisting, as is presumed, of elements changed in their inward qualities, and replenished either with the Holy Spirit himself, or with graces, or virtues, or energies of the Spirit; supposed to be intrinsic to them, inherent in them, permanent with them, and received by worthy and unworthy communicants.” (Waterland, The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained, 1896: 536).

Waterland is here acknowledging that such a view (it seems he is referring here to Johannes Grabe, 1666-1711, an Anglican divine of German birth, who had much in common with the Nonjurors, see footnotes in Waterland, 1896: 536-537) is not suggesting that the Holy Spirit causes the bread and wine to become the natural body and blood of Christ.  Whilst acknowledging that there is no change in the natural substance implied, he suggests that the view being advanced, presumably by Grabe, is that the Holy Spirit changes the inward qualities, such that the graces, virtues or energies of the Spirit are now within the bread and wine of the Eucharist.  The effect of this he argues is that, the Holy Spirit, once invoked, descends upon the bread and wine on the altar, enriching them with all the virtues and graces with which the personal body and blood of Christ did abound, and thereby making them to be the very body and blood of Christ.  He quotes Grabe, saying:

“That the consecrated symbols are sanctified, and altered, if not in their substance, yet in their internal qualities, - and that the eucharistical symbols themselves are verily made, in a mysterious manner, the body and blood of our crucified Saviour.  That this sacramental flesh and blood of Christ is taken by a corporeal eating and drinking of the unworthy, as well as the worthy, communicants” (Grabe, Defence of the Greek Church, in Waterland, The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained, 1896: 536-537).

Waterland rejects this view on the basis of Scripture and the Fathers.  He argues that in the first three centuries nothing was heard of the descent of the Spirit on the elements in the Eucharist, but that the Fathers interpreted passages such as Luke 1: 35 (the annunciation of the Blessed Virgin by the Spirit coming upon her) as being attributable to the Logos (Waterland, The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained, 1896: 538).  Waterland explains by saying:

“The similitude made use of anciently with respect to the Eucharist, was that of the incarnation, intended only in a confuse, general way, and not for any rigorous exactness.  For like as our Lord, in his incarnation, made and fitted for himself a natural body to dwell in; so, in regard to the Eucharist, he has appointed and fitted for himself a symbolical body to concur with, in the distributing his graces and blessings to the faithful receivers.  As to the third Person, his more immediate presence and energy was by the ancients assigned to Baptism, ….: while to the Eucharist was assigned the more immediate presence and energy of the Logos” (Waterland, The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained, 1896: 539).

It seems that Waterland is prepared to admit that the Spirit of Christ (Logos) descends upon the elements, being united to them as the Lord was to a human body in the incarnation, that is, the Logos being “hypostatically united to the humanity of Christ” (Waterland, The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained, 1896: 540) but he is not prepared to admit that the Holy Spirit descends upon the elements, nor will he admit that it is united to them.  He argues though, that the Spirit of Christ:

“is not said to reside in the elements, but to accompany them, and to the worthy only: so that the virtual union can amount only to an union of concurrence, (not of infusion or inherence), whereby Christ is conceived to concur with the elements, in the due use of them to produce the effects in the persons fitly disposed.” (Waterland, The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained, 1896: 540).

There seems to be some inconsistency here, since he argues that the Spirit of Christ (Logos) in its hypostatic union with the humanity of Christ, is the model for the Spirit of Christ descending on the elements, but he also says that the Spirit of Christ does not reside in the elements.  If the hypostatic union is the model, then the relationship between the Spirit of Christ and the elements should properly be stronger than the case he argues.  The union he says is only one of concurrence and accompaniment, hardly that of hypostatic union.  Despite this, Waterland is putting forward a moderate realist notion of the presence of Christ in the sacramental elements – not a natural or immoderate union of flesh, but a virtual union of concurrence.  Such a union can be described as moderate realist, since the sign is seen to be in union with the signified.

The work of the Holy Spirit, properly conceived for Waterland is not “to make the sacramental body a compound of element and spirit” (Waterland, The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained, 1896: 540) but:

“the work of the Holy Spirit upon the elements was to translate or change them from common to sacred, from elements to sacraments, from their natural state and condition to supernatural end and uses, that they might become holy signs, certain pledges, or exhibitive symbols of our Lord’s natural body and blood in a mystical and spiritual way.  Not that any change was presumed, either as to the substance or the inward qualities of the elements, but only as to their outward state, condition, uses, or offices.” (Waterland, The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained, 1896: 541).

This change, or transmutation as Waterland calls it (Waterland, The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained, 1896: 542), is attested by the early Fathers, and relates not to any change of substance or inward quality, but to outward state, use or office of the elements.

For Waterland the use of symbolical language is important.  He argues:

“So long as symbolical language was well remembered and rightly understood, and men knew how to distinguish between figure and verity, between signs and things: while due care and judgment was made use of, to interpret the literal expression of Scripture and Fathers literally, and figurative expressions according to the figure: I say, while these things were so, there could be no room for imagining any change in the elements, either as to substance or internal qualities, nor for supposing that Lord’s words, ‘This is my body’, were to be otherwise interpreted than those parallel words of the Apostle, ‘that rock was Christ’ [1 Corinthians 10: 4].  For as the word ‘Christ’, which is the predicate in one proposition, is to be literally understood, and the trope lies in the verb ‘was’, put for ‘signified’, or exhibitively signified; so the word ‘body’, which is the predicate in the other proposition, is to be literally interpreted of the natural or personal body of Christ, and the trope lies in the verb ‘is’, put for ‘represents’, or exhibitively signifies.  And as it would not be right to say that the rock was a spiritual Christ, distinct from the real Christ, making two Christs; so neither can it be right to say or conceive that the bread in the Eucharist is a spiritual body of Christ, making two true bodies of Christ.  But as the rock was a symbol of the one true Christ, so is the sacramental bread a symbol exhibitive of the one true body of Christ, viz. the natural or personal body, given and received in the Eucharist: I say given and received spiritually, but truly and really; and the more truly, because spiritually, as the spiritual sense, and not the literal, is the true sense.” (Waterland, The Sacramental Part of the Eucharist Explained, 1896: 543).

Here then is Waterland’s symbolic view of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Christ’s words, ‘This is my body’ are symbolic, with ‘is’ meaning ‘represents’.  The two however, the bread and the body, are not entirely separate in Waterland’s scheme, since the representing is an exhibitive signification and the true body of Christ is given and received in the Eucharist, but in a spiritual sense.  The sign and the signified remain linked in a moderate realist sense and cannot seemingly be interpreted in any nominalist theology of separation.

In the fourth charge, delivered at the Easter Visitation, 1740, and entitled Distinctions of Sacrifice, Waterland considers four types of sacrifice: Patriarchal, Pagan, Mosaic, Christian.  Christian sacrifices:

“are the things signified, the truth, the substance, the antitypes or archetypes of those types, signs, figures, shadows.  Christians have a sacrifice of which they participate, and whereupon they feast, which is no other than the grand sacrifice itself, … and Christians have sacrifices, which they devoutly offer up as presents to the Divine Majesty: those are the spiritual sacrifices, (all reducible to one, namely, self-sacrifice), whereof the patriarchal sacrifices were signs or symbols.” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 598).

Waterland classifies sacrifices as either active or passive.  An active sacrifice is offered up to God and a passive sacrifice is participated in by the people who feast upon it.  In relation to Christ’s sacrifice, he actively offered the sacrifice, and people participate of him in a passive manner, feeding upon him.  Christ sacrifice was offered once but the virtue of that sacrifice is for ever commemorated, exhibited and participated (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 599). 

“In such a sense his sacrifice abides, and we perpetually participate of it; sometimes symbolically, as in the two sacraments; and at other times without symbols, by faith only and good life.  In this sense it is that Christians are said to ‘have an altar whereof to eat’ [Hebrews 10: 10]: and if an altar, they must have a sacrifice, for the same reason, and in the like sense.” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 599-600).

Christians therefore are seen to feast upon the body and blood of Christ, which is the grand sacrifice.  For Christians the eucharistic sacrifice is passive though, since they cannot offer it in any literal or immoderate sense.  Other sacrifices, spiritual in nature, are seen however, as being active (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 600-601).

Another distinction concerning sacrifice is that of extrinsic and intrinsic.  The only extrinsic sacrifice is that of Christ.  The sacrifices of Christians are intrinsic, for example, “good thoughts, good words, or good ways” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 601).  Christians therefore do not offer up Christ in the Eucharist in an extrinsic manner, but only soul and body, heart and mind, in an intrinsic manner (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 602-604).

Sacrifices are also seen to be visible and invisible.  “Pagan and Jewish sacrifices were visible; but Christian sacrifices were deemed invisible; not every way, but in respect of their invisible source, as arising from within, from the heart and mind, which is seen only to God” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 604-605).  Waterland however quotes Augustine, who says that: “the visible sacrifice is the sacrament, the sacred sign, of the invisible sacrifice” (Augustine, City of God, X.5, edn. Bettenson, 1986: 377) (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 605) to show that sacrifices are not invisible in all ways for Christians.  The visible sacrifice in this sense though, “is really no better than the sign, shell, shadow, of true sacrifice” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 606).  True sacrifices for Christians are the invisible sacrifices of the heart and mind or self-sacrifice.  This means that: “The sacramental elements are not the true sacrifice … but the signs of it” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 606).

Waterland also distinguishes between material and immaterial sacrifices, or corporeal and incorporeal sacrifices.  Christian sacrifices can only be immaterial or incorporeal, unlike Jewish and Pagan sacrifices, which were material or corporeal.  God has no need of the material or corporeal sacrifices, but nonetheless accepts the self-sacrifice of Christian people.  In the Eucharist, the material part, the bread and wine, is not offered to God but to people.  All that people can offer to God is thanks, praise, hymns and the like (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 608-613).

The distinction of bloody and unbloody sacrifice is also made.  Waterland cites the Patristic evidence for this use (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 613-622) and concludes that the Fathers use of the term ‘unbloody sacrifice’ in relation to the elements of the Eucharist, was “a metonymy” since they “have been sometimes called tremendous sacrifice, often body and blood, or Christ slain, and the like” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 622).

Waterland also distinguishes the term ‘smoky’ from ‘unsmoky’.  Jewish and Pagan sacrifices are seen to be smoky, in that a material sacrifice was made in a fire, but “the Gospel sacrifices were free from fumes and vapours, and inflamed only with the fire of the Holy Spirit” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 622).  The Eucharist must therefore be an unsmoky sacrifice.  The Holy Spirit was seen in the Fathers as the means of consecrating and sanctifying the elements into holy signs and sacred symbols “representative and exhibitive of the body and blood of Christ: not to make holocausts or sacrifices of them, but sacraments only; signs of the grand sacrifices of them, but sacraments only, spiritually given and received in and through them” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 628).

A distinction is also drawn between legal or literal sacrifices and spiritual or evangelical sacrifices.  Waterland observes that spiritual is in many ways opposed to corporeal or material, in the sense of material and immaterial considered above, but this is not the sense in which he opposes legal/literal and spiritual/evangelical.  Instead Waterland uses the New Testament distinction of Law and spirit (Romans 2: 29, 7: 6, 8: 2 and 2 Corinthians 3: 6).  The Law he sees as the outward shell and the Gospel he sees as the inward kernel.  The Law is carnal and the Gospel spiritual (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 633).  Jewish sacrifices are seen as literal, carnal, terrene, typical and symbolical, while Christian sacrifices are spiritual and true.  Spiritual and true sacrifices (1 Peter 2: 5) are opposed to type, figure, shadow, symbol or emblem and are true worship on the basis of Jesus’ words is ‘in spirit and in truth’ (John 4: 24) (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 634).  Waterland links this to the Eucharist, saying that Christ:

“ … performed his sacrifice in the active and transient sense, once for all, upon the cross: he distributes it daily in the passive and abiding sense of it, to all his true servants, to every faithful communicant.  His table here below is a secondary altar two views; first, on the score of our own sacrifices of prayers, praises, souls, and bodies, which we offer up from thence; secondly, as it is the best of the consecrated elements, that is, of the body and blood of Christ, that is, of the grand sacrifice, symbolically represented and exhibited, and spiritually there received; received by and with the signs bearing the name of the things.” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 640-641). 

The right view of sacrifice in the Eucharist is what Waterland describes as Melchizedekian sacrifice, which is the sacrifice partaken of in the Eucharist.  This is preferred to and compared to the Aaronical sacrifices.  Whereas the Aaronical sacrifices are literal and carnal, the Melchizedekian sacrifices were spiritual and true (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 641). 

Waterland also distinguishes between external and internal sacrifices (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 649-650), private and public (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 650-651), and lay and clerical sacrifices (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 651-655).  Whereas all Christians are seen as priests as members of Christ’s body, ordained persons are priests in a more emphatic manner.  This however, does not exclude all people “from being, properly speaking, sacrificers, but so only as to exclude them from being emphatically and eminently such as the clergy” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 651).  All are equal sacrificers, but not all are equal administrators of the sacrifice, “in a public, and solemn, and authorised way” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 652).  It is in this sense then that ‘sacerdos’ is considered to be a ‘steward of the mysteries of God’ who offers to God in the name of or in the person of the Church, that is the whole Church.  The offering of the priest in the Eucharist is not an immoderate one (e.g. a carcase) but a moderate one (e.g. a internal, invisible and spiritual sacrifice) (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 654). 

Gratulatory and propitiatory sacrifices are also distinguished.  There is only one propitiatory sacrifice in Waterland’s view and that is Christ’s sacrifice performed once upon the cross.  Even though there is one performance of this sacrifice it is “in virtue always abiding” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 655).  This seems to indicate moderate realism, since there is no re-iteration of the sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist, but its virtue is always present.  He says: “The sacrifice of Christ from without is the meritorious cause of propitiation: our own qualifying sacrifices from within are the conditional: and the two Sacraments, ordinarily, are the instrumental” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 656).  What then is the place of the elements?  He answers in this way:

“As to the material elements, in either Sacrament, they are neither an extrinsic expiation nor an intrinsic qualification, and therefore cannot, with any propriety, be called an expiatory or a propitiatory sacrifice, no not in the lowest sense of propitiation.  Indeed, the religious use of them is propitiatory, in such a sense as Christian services are so: therefore our so using them, that is, our service, is the sacrifice, and not they; and it is an intrinsic and qualifying sacrifice, not extrinsic or expiatory. … Sacraments, as such (not sacrifices), are the rights of application: the means and instruments of conveyance and reception, with respect to the benefits of the great atonement. … The Eucharist is eminently so now.” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 656-657). 

Sacrifice for Waterland is not propitiatory, but gratulatory only.

Waterland’s final distinction is “between sacrifice real and nominal, between sacrifice truly such, and sacrifice in name only” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 660).  He argues that it is impossible to argue from the name of a thing to the real thing itself.  In relation to the Eucharist he says:

“ … as the bread and wine represent the real body and blood, which were a real sacrifice, so they have the names of body, and blood, and sacrifices: and there is no more room for arguing, barely from the name of sacrifice, to real sacrifice in the one case, than there is for arguing, barely from the names of body and blood, to real body and blood, (that is to say, to transubstantiation), in the other sense.” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 663). 

Real here seems to indicate an immoderate sense of Christ’s presence and sacrifice, whereas nominal represents name only, with no immoderate sense of either presence or sacrifice.  Real in this sense is distinguished from the verbal name given to the sacrament.  The Fathers for example called the elements the body and blood of Christ and the Eucharist a sacrifice, but they did not mean this is in a real sense.  They called the thing by the name which represented it.  It is this that has become the difficulty, in that for some the sign was seen, mistakenly, to be the thing signified (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 655).  Waterland argues, citing Chrysostom, that “the real sacrifice in the Eucharist … does not mean the signs, but the things signified by them, namely Christ himself, the one sacrifice” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 668).  This means that even though the Eucharist is “a commemorative sacrifice” it “is the same as a nominal sacrifice, opposed to a real one; a sign opposed to the thing signified; a memorial of a sacrifice, not that sacrifice” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 671).  Despite this, Waterland still admits, that even though:

“Christians cannot partake of a any sacrifice in a literal sense … we may indeed partake of Christ’s sacrifice, a proper sacrifice, but not in a literal sense; for the participation is spiritual: we may literally partake of the elements; but they are not a proper sacrifice, but symbolical, and commemorative, being that they are memorial signs of the sacrifice, not the sacrifice itself” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 671-672). 

The spiritual sacrifice which Waterland speaks of is something that is really partaken of, but the sense of real is not that of a literal or immoderate sacrifice.  This does not mean however, that Christians do not offer a proper sacrifice.  The proper sacrifice they offer is a spiritual sacrifice.  The elements are a proper sacrifice when participated of in the Eucharist, since the feeding upon them is a feast upon a sacrifice.  “The words are so exactly chosen, as plainly to exclude the elements from being a proper sacrifice, and at the same time not to exclude our religious services from really being so” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 672-673). 

When he speaks of the memorial in the Eucharist, Waterland distinguishes between the memorial as applied to the elements and the memorial as applied to prayers, praises and eucharistical actions.  He says:

“As to the name memorial, it may be noted, that it is capable of a twofold meaning, according as it may be applied.  Apply it to the elements, and so it means a memorial sign, no sacrifice at all; apply it to the prayers, praises, and eucharistical actions, and then it means a memorial service, and is a sacrifice, a spiritual sacrifice” (Waterland, Distinctions of Sacrifice, 1896: 673). 

It seems that here Waterland is rejecting any view which sees the eucharistic sacrifice as being in name only (nominal).  The real or proper eucharistic sacrifice as a memorial of the sacrifice of Christ, cannot be the elements, since they are signs only, rather, the real eucharistic sacrifice is the spiritual sacrifice of the Eucharist as a memorial service.  Service is a sacrifice, spiritually, but objects are not.  The important distinction here seems to be between the objects themselves (the elements) and the eucharistical actions that are done in the service, including it would seem, those done with the elements.  The elements are a memorial sign only, but the memorial service (including the eucharistical actions with the elements, as well as prayers and praises) is the real spiritual sacrifice and not a sacrifice in name (nominal) only.

Waterland’s writings on the Eucharist establish that he is operating within a framework of moderate realism.  He does not however, associate the sign and the signified too closely, assigning the term ‘real’ to the participation of Christ in the Eucharist.  It is in the administration of the Eucharist that Christ’s body and blood is received and that the memorial of his sacrifice is real.  The elements remain memorial signs alone, and there is no immoderate sense of presence or sacrifice associated with them.  At the same time however, he seems to distance the moderate sense of realism from the signs as well.  The realism of his scheme applies only to what he calls the ‘memorial service’ (prayer, praises and eucharistical actions).  Moderate realism is to be found in the use or administration of the Eucharist and in the receiving of the worthy receiver by faith.