Jeremy Taylor, like John Cosin, has been described as holding high church views on the Eucharist in his early life, but during the Restoration, becoming more associated with central church views (Dugmore, 1942: 90-91).  Henry McAdoo finds this view too simplistic and characterises Taylor as being a “Laudian by sympathy” (McAdoo, 1988: 15) where “the real presence is a deliberately-taken position based on the mystery of the eucharist, [and] the essential mystery of sacramentality” (McAdoo, 1988: 50).  Taylor then, is less concerned with ‘how’ Christ is present in the Eucharist and more with ‘what’ is present, that is, the body and blood of Christ.  There seems in Taylor, according to Henry McAdoo less of a search for a category to express the mode of the eucharistic presence and more of a considered affirmation of the existence of the mysterious presence of Christ in the Eucharist (McAdoo, 1988: 45). 

There are references to the Eucharist in many of Taylor’s works and these will be reviewed in this case study.

On the Reverence Due to the Altar (1643)

An early work of Taylor’s, written around 1643 and called On the Reverence Due to the Altar (edn Heber-Eden, 1847-1852: V, 317-338) shows Taylor’s early high church views regarding the Eucharist.  At the time of writing this work Taylor was Archbishop Laud’s chaplain and held a fellowship at All Soul’s College, Oxford, given to him by Laud (Dugmore, 1942: 91).  The views expressed in this work reflected the views of Laud, perhaps in gratitude for the positions he had been given or at least they were expressed under the influence of Laud.  Taylor spoke of the need to worship God, not only internally and spiritually, but also in external ways.  Laud had argued that ‘bodily’ or external worship was appropriate for the Christian (see Laud case study – 1.29).  Such external worship Taylor argued was directed to places, such as the altar, where Christ was seen to be specially present in the Eucharist.  Taylor argues that:

“The Altar or Holy Table is sedes Corporis et Sanguinis Christi. S. Chrysost: hom: 21. in 2 Cor: et alibi.  And if the Altars, and the Arke and the Temple in the Law of Nature and Moses were Holy, because they were God’s Memorialls, as I shewed above, then by the same reason shall the Altar be uperagion, highly Holy, because it is Christ’s Memoriall. ….. Wee doe believe that Christ is there really present in the Sacrament, there is the body and bloud of Christ, which are, ‘verely, and indeed’ taken and received by the faithfull, saith our Church in her Catechisme. ….”  (Taylor, On the Reverence Due to the Altar, edn Heber-Eden, 1847-1852, V, 330).

Taylor also addresses the question of whether there should be reverence to the altar when the sacrament is not present on it.  He says “Shall not the Christian Altar be most holy where is present the blessed Body and bloud of the Sonne of God?” (Taylor, On the Reverence Due to the Altar, edn Heber-Eden, 1847-1852, V, 330) and that, “Our worship is towards holy places, but the adoration is intended to God.” (Taylor, On the Reverence Due to the Altar, edn Heber-Eden, 1847-1852, V, 335).  Taylor also argues that:

“Adoratis altaribus, that is adorato Christo praesente in altaribus: inclinato capite ad altare, that is, inclinato capite ad Deum ibidem, atque in sacris residentem: and wee have good warrant to authorize this expression – for saith our Blessed Saviour, When you goe into a house aspazesqe eauthn, salute, or worship it, not the walls, but the inhabitants, so it is for altars.” (Taylor, On the Reverence Due to the Altar, edn Heber-Eden, 1847-1852, V, 334-335).

These views accord with the views of Laud (see Laud case study) and suggest that Taylor in the early period of his life had realist views of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Christ was seen to be really present on the altar in the Eucharist.

The Great Exemplar (1649)

In 1649 Taylor completed a work entitled The Great Exemplar of Sanctity and Holy Life, According to the Christian Institution: Described in the History of the Life and Death of the Ever-Blessed Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the World (edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 1-349).  In The Great Exemplar Taylor speaks of the Eucharist in Discourse XIX entitled Of the Institution and Reception of the holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (edn. Bohn, 1844: 305-316).  He describes the Eucharist as:

“an action among all the instances of religion [as] the most perfect and consummate [which] actually performs all that could be necessary for man, and it presents to man as great a thing as God could give; for it is impossible any thing should be greater than himself. …. Because, after a mysterious and ineffable manner, we receive him, who is light and life, the fountain of grace, the sanctifier of our secular comforts, and the author of holiness and glory. ….. Christ has remained in the world, by the communication of this sacrament. ….. The bread, when it is consecrated, and made sacramental, is the body of our Lord; and the fraction and distribution of it is the communication of that body, which died for us upon the cross.” (Taylor, The Great Exemplar, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 305). 

Taylor in this passage is presenting a very realist understanding of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is said to perform all that is necessary for humanity, suggesting that the Eucharist performs what Christ performed at Calvary.  Christ is really received in the Eucharist and the Eucharist functions as the means by which Christ remains in the world.  The bread is specifically said to be the body of the Lord following the consecration and the action of Christ on the cross, is specifically communicated by the fraction and distribution of the bread. 

Taylor also speaks of the institution of the supper and of Paul’s interpretation of it, stating that anyone who doubts that the bread is the body of Christ or that the Eucharist is the communication of that body, which died for us on the cross:

“ … must either think that Christ was not able to verify his word, and to make ‘bread’ by his benediction, to become to us to be ‘his body’; or that St Paul did not well interpret and understand this mystery, when he called it ‘bread’.  Christ reconciles them both, calling himself ‘the bread of life’: and if we be offended at it, because it is ‘alive’, and therefore less apt to become food, we are invited to it because it is ‘bread’; and if the sacrament, to others, seem less mysterious, because it is ‘bread’, we are heightened in our faith and reverence, because it is ‘life’: the bread of the sacrament is the life of us, by being the bread of the sacrament.” (Taylor, The Great Exemplar, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 305-306).

Such language is suggestive of immoderate realism, where the natural, crucified body of Christ is said to be present in the Eucharist and where it is described as being ‘alive’.  Taylor’s language however, must be interpreted with some caution and qualification.  Taylor realises this need himself, since he says:

“Some do observe the literal sense of the words that they understand them also in a natural: some so alter them, by metaphors and preternatural significations, that they will not understand them at all in a proper.  We see it, we feel it, we taste it, and we smell it to be bread; and, by philosophy, we are led into a belief of that substance, whose accidents these are, as we are to believe that to be fire, which burns, and flames, and shines: but Christ also affirmed, concerning it, ‘This is my body’; and if faith can create an assent as strong as its object is infallible, or can be as certain in its conclusion, as sense is certain in its apprehensions, we must, at no hand, doubt that it is Christ’s body.  Let the sense of that be what it will, so that we believe those words, and (whatsoever that sense is which Christ intended) that we no more doubt in our faith than we do in our sense; ….. And they, that are forward to believe the change of substance, can intend no more, but that it be believed verily to be the body of the Lord.  And if they think it impossible to reconcile its being bread with the verity of being Christ’s body, let them remember that themselves are put to more difficulties, and to admit of more miracles, and to contradict more sciences, and to refuse the testimony of sense, in affirming the special manner of transubstantiation.  And, therefore, it were safer to admit the words in their first sense, in which we shall no more be at war with reason, nor so much with sense, and not at all with faith.  And, for persons of the contradictory persuasion, who, to avoid the natural sense, affirm it only to be figurative, since their design is only to make the sacrament to be Christ’s body in the sense of faith, and not of philosophy, they may remember, that its being really present does not hinder but that all that reality may be spiritual; and if it be Christ’s body, so it be not affirmed such in a natural sense and manner, it is still only the object of faith and spirit; and if it be affirmed only to be spiritual, then there is not danger to faith in admitting the words of Christ’s institution, ‘This is my body’.  I suppose it to be a mistake, to think that whatsoever is real must be natural; and it is no less to think spiritual to be only figurative: that is too much, and this is too little.  Philosophy and faith may be reconciled;” (Taylor, The Great Exemplar, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 306).

Taylor is in this passage denying any immoderate realism.  At the same time he rejects the purely figurative sense of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and presents a realist view of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.  He is not using ‘natural’ and ‘spiritual’ in any opposing way.  ‘Real’ for Taylor does not solely equate with ‘natural’ and ‘spiritual’ does not solely equate with ‘figurative’.  ‘Real’ seems to have the meaning of both ‘natural’ and ‘spiritual’.  He rejects the use of ‘natural’ in any literal or immoderate sense, as would be the case in any extreme form of transubstantiation.  The idea of a ‘change of substance’ however, seems to be admitted, but not in the literal or immoderate sense.  For Taylor, admitting the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, by sense and by philosophy, does not carry with it as great a difficulty as transubstantiation (that is, as he understands transubstantiation) does.  In Taylor’s scheme there are two propositions: one of faith and one of sense, and “one is as literal as the other” (Taylor, The Great Exemplar, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 307).  Admitting the presence by ‘sense’ and ‘philosophy’ seems to mean that by sense the bread remains bread but that by philosophy Christ is really present nonetheless in the bread and in the Eucharist in a real and natural, yet spiritual manner.  The views of Taylor, as expressed in The Great Exemplar seem to have much in common with the idea of moderate realism.  Bread and wine remain bread and wine (the sense aspect), but Christ’s body and blood is nonetheless instantiated in the bread and wine in a real way (the philosophical aspect).  Taylor, using a model of moderate realism seeks to reconcile philosophy and faith.

This conclusion is reinforced by the following passage from The Great Exemplar.  Here Taylor views the elements of bread and wine as effective means of grace, showing the power of Christ, but at the same time he also effectively reconciles philosophy and faith.  He says:

“[Christ’s] power is manifest, in making the symbols to be the instruments of conveying himself to the spirit of the receiver: he nourishes the soul with bread, and feeds the body with a sacrament; he makes the body spiritual, by his graces there ministered, and makes the spirit to be united to his body, by a participation of the Divine nature.  In the sacrament, that body which is reigning in heaven, is exposed upon the table of blessing; and his body, which was broken for us, is now broken again, and yet remains impassible.  Every consecrated portion of bread and wine does exhibit Christ entirely to the faithful receiver; and yet Christ remains one, while he is wholly ministered in ten thousand portions.  So long as we call these mysterious, and make them intricate, to exercise our faith, and to represent the wonder of the mystery, and to increase our charity; our being inquisitive into the abyss can have no evil purposes.  God hath instituted the rite in visible symbols, to make the secret grace as presential and discernible as it might; that, by an instrument of sense, our spirits might be accommodated, as with an exterior object, to produce an internal act.  But it is the prodigy of a miraculous power, by instruments so easy, to produce effects so glorious. ….. For, therefore, our wisest Master hath appointed bread and wine, that we may be corporally united to him; that as the symbols, becoming nutriment, are turned into the substance of our bodies; so Christ, being the food of our souls, should assimilate us, making us partakers of the Divine nature” (Taylor, The Great Exemplar, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 307).

The symbols effectively convey Christ to the spirit of the receiver, providing nourishment for the body and the soul.  The human body is made spiritual by the grace of Christ received in the Eucharist and the spirit of the receiver is united to Christ’s body by “a participation of the Divine nature’.  Here is moderate realism in an ecclesial dimension.  The divine nature participates (is instantiated) in the spirit of the receiver and in so receiving the receiver partakes in the divine nature.  There is moderate realism also in terms of the heavenly body and blood of Christ being instantiated in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.  The heavenly body is ‘exposed’ on the altar, not in an immoderate fashion, since it remains impassible, but in a moderate sense of realism, where the divine nature (‘every consecrated portion of bread and wine does exhibit Christ entirely’) is instantiated in the bread and wine.  Christ’s body and blood remains in heaven (‘one’), yet he is ‘wholly ministered in ten thousand portions’.  It is not the literal body and blood of Christ that is ministered (immoderate realism) but the divine nature (moderate realism).  Although Taylor does not use the words of moderate realism in his eucharistic theology (that is, instantiation as moderate realism) he does seemingly use the same philosophical idea.  ‘The secret grace’ or ‘divine nature’ is ‘presential’ (instantiated) in the symbols.  The ‘glorious’ (secret grace and divine nature) is present (instantiated) in the ‘instruments of sense’ (bread and wine) in an effective and real manner, but not a carnal and fleshy manner (that is, immoderate realism).

Taylor also presents in The Great Exemplar moderate realism in relation to the sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist.  He describes the Eucharist as a “commemoration and representment of Christ’s death”, but also as a “commemorative sacrifice” (Taylor, The Great Exemplar, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 308).  He expands this by saying:

“ … whatsoever Christ did at the institution, the same he commanded the Church to do, in remembrance and repeated rites; and himself also does the same thing in heaven for us, making perpetual intercession for his church, the body of his redeemed ones, by representing to his Father his death and sacrifice.  There he sits, a High Priest continually, and offers still the same one perfect sacrifice; that is, still represents it as having been once finished and consummate, in order to perpetual and never-failing events.  And this, also, his ministers do on earth; they offer up the same sacrifice to God, the sacrifice of the cross, by prayers, and a commemorating rite and representment, according to his holy institution.  And as all the effects of grace and the titles of glory were purchased for us on the cross, and the actual mysteries of redemption perfected on earth, but are applied to us, and made effectual to single persons and communities of men, by Christ’s intercession in heaven; so also they are promoted by acts of duty and religion here on earth, that we may be ‘workers together with God’, (as St Paul expresses it, 2 Cor. 6: 1) and, in virtue of the eternal and all-sufficient sacrifice, may offer up our prayers and our duty; and by representing that sacrifice, may send up, together with our prayers, an instrument of their graciousness and acceptation. … we ‘celebrate and exhibit the Lord’s death’, in sacrament and symbol; and this is that great express, which, when the church offers to God the Father, it obtains all those blessings which that sacrifice purchased. … As Christ is a priest in heaven for ever, and yet does not sacrifice himself afresh, nor yet without a sacrifice could he be a priest; but, by a daily ministration and intercession, represents his sacrifice to God, and offers himself as sacrificed: so he does upon earth, by the ministry of his servants; he is offered to God, that is, he is, by prayers and the sacrament, represented or ‘offered up to God, as sacrificed’; which, in effect, is a celebration of his death, and the applying it to present and future necessities of the church, as we are capable, by a ministry like to his in heaven.  It follows, then, that the celebration of this sacrifice be, in its proportion, an instrument of applying the proper sacrifice to all the purposes which it first designed.  It is ministerially, and by application, an instrument propitiatory; it is eucharistical, it is an homage, and an act of adoration; and it is impetratory, and obtains for us, and for the whole church, all the benefits of the sacrifice, which is now celebrated and applied; that is, as this rite is the remembrance and ministerial celebration of Christ’s sacrifice, so it is destined to do honour to God, to express the homage and duty of his servants, to acknowledge his supreme dominion, to give him thanks and worship, to beg pardon, blessings, and supply of all our needs.” (Taylor, The Great Exemplar, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 308).

Taylor in this passage expresses the view that that which was instituted at the Lord’s Supper is repeated and remembered in the Eucharist.  The same is seen to be true of the sacrifice which Christ offers in heaven and the sacrifice which is offered on earth in the Eucharist.  The church and her ministers are seen to offer the same sacrifice as Christ, that is, the sacrifice of the cross, in the sacrifice of the Eucharist.  This is not to say that the sacrifice of the Eucharist is the same as the sacrifice of the cross, but rather that that which was offered on the cross is also offered in the Eucharist.  Immoderate notions of realism in relation to sacrifice are excluded, since Taylor argues that Christ does not offer himself ‘afresh’, but Christ by his offering and the church by her offering in the Eucharist, represents the sacrifice to God and is offered up, as sacrificed.  The idea of memorial remembrance or anamnesis is what Taylor is arguing here, since he says that the ‘celebration of Christ’s death’ is ‘applied to the present and the future’.  The effects of the sacrifice are available in the present and the future in the Eucharist.  It is in this sense that the Eucharist can be described as ‘propitiatory’, since it is an instrument applying the sacrifice.  It is also ‘eucharistical’ and ‘impetratory’, when it is celebrated and applied in the Eucharist as a ‘remembrance and ministerial celebration of Christ’s sacrifice’.  Taylor’s views on eucharistic sacrifice are in line with the idea of moderate realism.  The nature of the sacrifice of the cross is instantiated in the Eucharist, being known as the eucharistic sacrifice.  The sacrifice of the cross is not repeated, but the nature of the sacrifice is available in the Eucharist in the present.

The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living (1650)

In The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living, published in 1650, Taylor makes references to the Eucharist, describing the consecration and the benefits of receiving Holy Communion.  The following quotations are cited:

“When the holy man stands at the table of blessing, and ministers the rite of consecration, then do as the angels do, who behold, and love, and wonder that the Son of God should become food to the souls of his servants: that he, who cannot suffer any change or lessening, should be broken into pieces, and enter into the body to support and nourish the spirit, and yet at the same time remain in heaven, while he descends to thee upon earth. …. These are such glories, that although they are made so obvious, that each eye may behold them, yet they are also so deep, that no thought can fathom them: but so it hath pleased him to make these mysteries to be sensible, because the excellency and depth of the mercy is not intelligible; that while we are ravished and comprehended within the infiniteness of so vast and mysterious a mercy, yet we may be sure of it, as of that thing we see, and feel, and smell, and taste; but yet it is so great we cannot understand it.” (Taylor, The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 498).

Taylor here presents a moderate realist view of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.  He says the Son of Man does ‘become’ spiritual food, being broken into pieces and entering into the body of the communicant, providing spiritual nourishment.  Immoderate realism is excluded since Taylor also says that Christ, even though present in the Eucharist and received by the communicant, remains in heaven.  Clearly there is no carnal sense of presence by Taylor.  The method of the presence is not easily discerned and remains of mystery.  Even so the mystery is ‘sensible’ and the presence is as real as the thing (bread and wine) that is perceived by the communicant.

Taylor goes on to say:

“In the act of receiving, exercise acts of faith with much confidence and resignation, believing it not to be common bread and wine, but holy in their use, holy in their signification, holy in their change, and holy in their effect: and believe, if thou art a worthy communicant, thou dost as verily receive Christ’s body and blood to all effects and purposes of the Spirit, as thou dost receive the blessed elements into thy mouth, that thou puttest thy finger to his hands, and thy hand into his side, and thy lips to the fontinel of blood, sucking life from his heart; and yet if thou dost communicate unworthily, thou eatest and drinkest Christ to thy danger, and death, and destruction.  Dispute not concerning the secret of the mystery, and the nicety of the manner of Christ’s presence; it is sufficient to thee, that Christ shall be present to thy soul, as an instrument of grace, as a pledge of the resurrection, as the earnest of glory and immortality, and a means of many intermedial blessings, even all such as are necessary on thy part but a holy life, and a true belief of all the sayings of Christ; amongst which, indefinitely assent to the words of institution, and believe that Christ, in the holy sacrament, gives thee his body and his blood.  He that believes not this, is not a Christian.  He that believes so much, needs not to inquire further, nor to entangle his faith by disbelieving his sense.” (Taylor, The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 499).

In this passage Taylor continues to argue for the real, spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  He does however, speak here of ‘the act of receiving’ and ‘the use’.  These expressions are typically associated with a receptionist doctrine, where the presence of Christ is restricted to the ministration and use of the sacrament.  This type of language was not encountered in Taylor’s earlier works and some interpret this as a sign that Taylor is modifying his views on the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, so that they are more in line with central church and receptionist ideas (Dugmore, 1942: 94-95).  Taylor’s words do seem in some ways to support such a conclusion in that he speaks of the elements being holy in their ‘use’, ‘signification’ and ‘effect’.  He also speaks of them being holy in their ‘change’.  It does not seem, in light of the other words spoken at this point, that the word ‘change’ is being used in the sense of change in substance.  Rather it seems that here Taylor is speaking of a change in ‘use’.  The consecration is therefore seen to be a setting apart of the bread and wine to a holy use, whereby the elements ‘change’ from ordinary bread and wine to be holy bread and wine.  This does not however, mean that the communicant does not receive the body and blood of Christ in a real and spiritual manner.  Indeed Taylor argues that this is exactly what the communicant receives.  For Taylor the body and blood is received in as real a manner as the bread and wine is received.  This does not seem to mean though that the bread and wine are the body and blood.  In fact Taylor is disparaging of any attempt to define the manner of the presence closely.  For him it is sufficient to say that the communicant receives the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist and that this is a real gift and presence to the communicant, which is an actual source of grace and blessing.  The nature of Christ’s body and blood is instantiated in the Eucharist and received in a real, yet spiritual manner by the communicant.  Taylor’s words contain what McAdoo suggests “is a certain elusiveness” and “a resistance to categorisation” (McAdoo, 1988: 80).  This elusiveness and resistance needs to be borne in mind when attempting to place Taylor within a certain church party.  McAdoo further suggests that does not mean that Taylor is prone to self-contradiction, rather it is for Taylor, that “the mystery of the Eucharist requires both modes [figurative and realist] of expressing what happens at Holy Communion.” (McAdoo, 1988: 84).  It is therefore possible for Taylor to say that in the Eucharist bread and wine is not merely common bread and wine, “but holy in their use, holy in their signification, holy in their change, and holy in their effect” (Taylor, The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 499).  The use, the signification, the change and the effect are all important for Taylor.

In another passage Taylor says in relation to eucharistic sacrifice that:

“When I said, that the sacrifice of the cross, which Christ offered for all the sins and all the needs of the world, is represented to God by the minister in the sacrament, and offered up in prayer and sacramental memory, after the manner that Christ himself intercedes for us in heaven, (so far as his glorious priesthood is imitable by his ministers on earth), I must of necessity also mean, that all the benefits of that sacrifice are then conveyed to all, that communicate worthily.” (Taylor, The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 499-500).

Here Taylor is clearly arguing for a moderate realist view of sacrifice in the Eucharist where Christ’s sacrifice is instantiated in the present in the Eucharist as memorial remembrance or anamnesis.  The sacrifice of Christ is not only represented in the Eucharist, but that benefits of that sacrifice are given to all who communicate.  McAdoo argues that:

“Taylor is saying that the celebrant offers Christ, re-presents Christ, as already sacrificed once for all.  He does so in union with, and through the grace of, the ascended Christ who continues to re-present in intercession to his Father that one perfect sacrifice. … Taylor underlines the instrumentality of the eucharistic offering.” (McAdoo, 1988: 81).

The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying (1651)

Taylor’s theme in this book is that the best way to prepare for holy dying is by holy living.  He says: “It is a great art to die well, and to be learnt by men in health.” (Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 517).  Receiving the sacrament of the Lord’s body and blood is seen to be appropriate at the time of death and the minister’s office includes the duty of inviting the sick and dying to receive (Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 593).  By receiving the sacrament at the time of death:

“ … such persons, who are in the state of grace, may lose no accidental advantage of spiritual improvement, but may receive into their dying bodies the symbols and great consignations of the resurrection, and into their souls the pledges of immortality; and may appear before God their Father in the union and with the impresses and likeness of their elder Brother.” (Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 593).

The symbols received in the Eucharist are clearly more than reminders, but rather the means of consigning the power of the resurrection to the dying person and a pledge of eternal life.  The symbols unite the dying person to Christ and give the ‘impresses and likeness’ of Christ.

The Eucharist is the final part of the restoration between the dying person and God, imparting to the dying person advantages.  Taylor describes it in these words:

“When the holy sacrament is to be administered, let the exhortation be made proper to the mystery, but fitted to the man; that is, that it be used for the advantages of faith, or love, or contrition: let all the circumstances of the Divine love be represented, all the mysterious advantages of the blessed sacrament be declared; that it is the bread which came down from heaven, that it is the representation of Christ’s death to all the purposes and capacities of faith, and the real exhibition of Christ’s body and blood to all the purposes of the Spirit: that it is the earnest of the resurrection, and the seed of glorious immortality; that as, by our cognation to the body of the first Adam, we took in death, so by our union with the second Adam, we shall have the inheritance of life; … that if we, being worthy communicants of these sacred pledges, be presented to God with Christ within us, our being accepted of God is certain, even for the sake of his Well-beloved; that dwells within us; that this is the sacrament of that body, which was broken for our sins, of that blood, which purifies our souls, by which we are presented to God pure and holy in the Beloved; that now we may ascertain our hopes, and make our faith confident; ..” (Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 594).

The sacrament has the advantages of faith, love and contrition, representing the divine in a mysterious way, as well as representing Christ’s death and exhibiting Christ’s body and blood, with the benefits of the resurrection attached.  Christ is said to be within the person who is dying and it is this presence which brings about acceptance by God following death, purifies the soul and makes the dying person confident in faith and hope.  The means of the presence and the sacrifice expressed in this work is that of moderate realism.  Taylor speaks of representation and exhibition, indicating moderate realism, but at the same time points to the reality of the presence and the sacrifice for the person who receives the Eucharist close to death.

Clerus Domini or A Discourse of the Divine Institution, Necessity, Sacredness, and Separation of the Office Ministerial.  Together with the Nature and Manner of its Power and Operation (1651)

This work, Clerus Domini, is a defence of the priesthood as a divine institution, commissioned by Christ.  Taylor sees four elements in this commission: the power of binding and loosing, preaching the Gospel, the administration of baptism and the celebration of the Eucharist (Taylor, Clerus Domini, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 685-698).

The fourth element of the commission concerns us here, that is, the Eucharist.  Taylor describes the Eucharist as:

“ … the most solemn, sacred, and divinest mystery in our religion, that in which the clergy in their appointed ministry do diakonounteV  mesiteuein,

‘stand between God and the people’, and do fulfil a special and incomprehensible ministry, which ‘the angels themselves do look into’ with admiration; … But the ‘eucharist’ is the fulness of all the mysteriousness of our religion; and the clergy, when they officiate here, are most truly, in the phrase of St Paul, ‘dispensatores mysteriorum Dei’, ‘dispensers of the great mysteries of the kingdom’”. (Taylor, Clerus Domini, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 694).

Not only is the Eucharist a solemn, sacred and divine mystery, but it is the offering up of Christ’s sacrifice on behalf of the people of God.  Taylor assigns the role of the offering up to the priesthood, saying:

“Now Christ did establish a number of select persons to be ministers of this great sacrifice, finished upon the cross; that they also should exhibit and represent to God, in the manner which their Lord appointed them, this sacrifice, commemorating the action and suffering of the great priest; and by the way of prayers and impetration, offering up that action in behalf of the people, epi to anw jusiasthrion anapemyaV taV jusiaV, as Gregory Nazianzen expresses it, ‘sending up sacrifices to be laid upon the altar in heaven’; that the church might be truly united unto Christ their head, and in the way of their ministry, may do what he does in heaven.  For he exhibits the sacrifice, that is, himself, actually and presentially in heaven: the priest on earth commemorates the same, and, by his prayers, represents it to God in behalf of the whole catholic church; presentially too, by another and more mysterious way of presence; but both Christ in heaven, and his ministers on earth, do actuate that sacrifice, and apply it to its purposed design by praying to God in the virtue and merit of that sacrifice: Christ himself, in high and glorious manner; the ministers of his priesthood (as it becomes ministers) humbly, sacramentally, and according to the energy of human advocation and intercession; this is the sum and great mysteriousness of Christianity, …” (Taylor, Clerus Domini, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 694-695).

The role of the priest is clearly related in Taylor’s mind to the role of Christ and to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.  He says:

“Now what Christ does always in a proper and most glorious manner, the ministers of the gospel also do in theirs; commemorating the sacrifice upon the cross, ‘giving thanks’, and celebrating a perpetual eucharist for it, and ‘by declaring the death of Christ’, and praying to God in the virtue of it, for all the members of the church, and all persons capable; it is ‘in genere orationis’, a sacrifice, and an instrument of propitiation, as all holy prayers are in their several proportions.” (Taylor, Clerus Domini, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 695).

The priest performs a role of sacrifice and through the words of prayer, celebrates ‘a perpetual eucharist’, ‘declaring the death of Christ’ and in so doing presenting ‘an instrument of propitiation’.  Clearly the work of the priest in the Eucharist is more than merely giving thanks, but carrying forward the work of Christ.  This is the notion of memorial remembrance or anamnesis and as such is based on moderate realism.

The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, Proved against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation (1654)

In this work Taylor presents a sustained treatment of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, a presence which he argues is spiritual, but also real.  This work is “an outstanding example of the classical Anglican three-fold appeal to Scripture, to the teaching of the Primitive Church, and to reason” (McAdoo, 1988: 109).

In Section I of The Real Presence Taylor begins by affirming what he has said in other places (e.g. The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living), that is, the Eucharist is “a sacrament, and a mystery” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 685).  It is the nature of this sacrament and mystery that “by sensible instruments it consigns spiritual graces; by the creatures it brings us to God; by the body it ministers to the spirit.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 685).  Taylor also begins by arguing that it is a mistake to inquire too deeply into the manner of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and that it is better merely to believe, with Erasmus, that the “true body of Christ was present, whether under the consecrated bread or any other way” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 685).  Transubstantiation is therefore seen to be a problem since it attempts to define the manner of the presence too closely and was unnecessary during almost the first thousand years of the church’s history.  Taylor’s preference is to say that the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is “real and spiritual” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 685).  By this term ‘spiritual presence’ he implies nothing in particular, other than “that it excludes the corporal and natural manner” and that the spiritual presence “is to be understood figuratively, that is, not naturally, but to the purposes and in the manner of the Spirit and spiritual things. … Christ is present spiritually, that is, by effect and blessing; which, in true speaking, is rather the consequent of his presence than the formality.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 685).  Taylor expresses these thoughts in a fuller manner, saying:

“The doctrine of the church of England, and generally of the protestants, in this article is, - that after the minister of the holy mysteries hath rightly prayed, and blessed or consecrated the bread and the wine, the symbols become changed into the body and blood of Christ, after a sacramental, that is, in a spiritual real manner: so that all that worthily communicate, do by faith receive Christ, really, effectually, to all the purposes of his passion. ….. The result of the doctrine is this: It is bread, and it is Christ’s body.  It is bread in substance, Christ in the sacrament; and Christ is as really given to all that are truly disposed, as the symbols are; each as they can; Christ as Christ be given; the bread and wine as they can; and to the same real purposes to which they are designed; and Christ does as really nourish and sanctify the soul, as the elements do the body.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 686).

Change is clearly envisioned in the elements, but this change is not any form of immoderate realism.  Rather the change is after a sacramental, but nonetheless, real and spiritual manner.  The communicant receives Christ fully (‘really, effectually, to all purposes of his passion’).  This wording implies a moderate realism, where the nature of Christ is instantiated in the Eucharist and received by the communicant.  There is no change in the substance of the bread and wine, but there is a sacramental change in that Christ is in the Eucharist, not carnally or in an immoderate manner, but really and spiritually.

In support of this view Taylor cites the Catechism of the Church of England, referring to the ‘inward part of thing signified’ by the consecrated bread and wine as being ‘the body and blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received of the faithful in the Lord’s supper’ (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 686). 

Taylor is also careful to make the point that a ‘spiritual presence’ is also a ‘real presence’ and that the two terms are “hugely consistent” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 686).  Indeed he goes so far as to say

“that the gifts of the Holy Ghost are real graces, and a spirit is a proper substance ….. intelligible things ….[and that] things discerned by the mind of man, are more truly and really such, and of more excellent substance and reality, than things only sensible.  And therefore, when things spiritual are signified by materials, the thing under the figure is called true, and the material part is opposed to it, as less true or real.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 686).

The focus of Taylor’s argument here is away from the idea of any change of substance in the material elements and onto the reality of the spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Indeed he says, “the spiritual presence of Christ is the true, real, and effective” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 686) so that “Christ is more truly and really present in spiritual presence than in corporal, in the heavenly effect than in the natural being” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 687).  Taylor’s position of the spiritual being more true and more real than the natural conforms well to the argument put in this thesis, that is, Christ is present in the Eucharist in a real way, but the manner of this presence is not carnal or immoderate, rather it is by nature, that is, an instantiation of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

Taylor is careful to distinguish the word ‘real’ from ‘natural’ in any discussion of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.  In speaking of attempts to deny that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, Taylor says:

“ ….. and when the real presence is denied, the word ‘real’ is taken for ‘natural’; and does not signify ‘transcendenter’, or, in his just and most proper signification.  But the word ‘substantialiter’ is also used by protestants in this question: which I suppose may be the same with that which is in the article of Trent; ‘sacramentaliter prasesens Salvator substantia sua nobis adest’, ‘in substance, but after a sacramental manner’: which words, if they might be understood in the sense in which the protestants use them, that is, really, truly, without fiction or the help of fancy, but ‘in rei veritate’, ….. it might become an instrument of a united confession; and this is the manner of speaking St Bernard used in his sermon of St Martin, where he affirms, ‘In sacramento exhiberi nobis veram carnis substantiam, sed spiritualiter, non carnaliter’: ‘In the sacrament is given us the true substance of Christ’s body or flesh, but not carnally, but spiritually’; that is, not to our mouths, but to our hearts; not be chewed by teeth, but to be eaten by faith.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 687).

Here again Taylor uses words in conformity with the model of moderate realism.  ‘Real’ for Taylor seems to imply moderate realism, whereas ‘natural’ implies immoderate realism.  Confusion occurs when the two words ‘real’ and ‘natural’ are equated.  When this occurs ‘the just and most proper signification’ of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist is denied.  This ‘just and most proper signification’ can be interpreted to mean instantiation of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist as moderate realism, in the way argued in this thesis.  Substance therefore for Taylor does not necessarily mean a ‘natural’ presence, that is an immoderate realist presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist.  Substance here can be taken to mean instantiation of the nature of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist or substance in a sacramental manner.  Indeed Taylor argues that the word ‘substance’ is a higher genus than ‘corpus’ or body and that substance “is made more special by a superadded difference” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 732).  This means for Taylor that a body becomes not a species but a genus, “that is, more universal by being made more particular” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 732).  ‘Species’ implies immoderate realism, suggesting the carnal or fleshy body and blood of Christ, whereas ‘genus’ does not.  Indeed ‘genus’ lends itself to the notion of moderate realism advanced and suggests instantiation of the nature or kind of Christ as Word or logos.  It is Christ, the Word or logos, that is instantiated in the Eucharist as genus, not the physical species, Christ’s fleshy body and blood.  Substance then is used for Taylor in the sense of genus, not species

It is perhaps unfortunate that Taylor persists in the use of the word ‘substance’ since this seems to bring with it the connotations of ‘natural’ or immoderate realism and requires considerable intricate explication to deny any such meaning.  The idea however, that he is attempting to express, seems to be that of Christ’s nature is instantiated in the Eucharist in a moderate realist sense.  This is confirmed in the quotation from St Bernard, where reference is made to the ‘true substance’ of Christ’s body and blood, in a spiritual, as opposed to a carnal manner.

Taylor goes so far as to say that the word ‘corporaliter’ can also be used in relation to the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, saying that “the expression may become warrantable, and consonant to our doctrine; and means no more than ‘really’ and ‘without fiction’, or ‘beyond a figure’” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 688).  Any presence that is ‘corporaliter’, in the way in which Taylor speaks of it, is not in any natural or immoderate sense, nor is it merely a figure or imagined, rather it is real and more than a figure.  This forms of words corresponds yet again to the moderate realist view of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.  For Taylor this description of presence in the Eucharist is akin to Paul’s words in regard to Christ’s relationship to the Godhead (‘In Christ dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily’ Colossians 2: 9).  The fullness of God is to be found (instantiated) in the person of Christ.  Therefore Taylor says “in St Paul skia kai swma are opposed, ‘what are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ’ (Colossian 2: 17) that is ‘the substance’, ‘the reality’, the correlative of type and figure, the thing signified”. (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 688).  For Taylor this means:

“ … that we, receiving Christ in the sacrament ‘corporally’ or ‘bodily’, understand, that we do it really, by the ministry of our bodies receiving him into our souls.  And thus we affirm Christ’s body to be present in the sacrament: not only in type or figure, but in blessing and real effect; that is, more than in the types of the law; the shadows were of the law, ‘but the body is of Christ’ (Colossians 2: 17).  And besides this; the word ‘corporally’ may be very well used, when by it is only understood a corporal sign.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 688).

Taylor draws a powerful distinction, as he sees it, in regard to the word ‘spiritual’ as used by the Church of England and the Church of Rome.  Taylor argues:

“We say that Christ’s body is in the sacrament, ‘really, but spiritually’.  They say it is there ‘really, but spiritually’. …. Where now is the difference?  Here, by ‘spiritually’ they mean ‘present after the manner of a spirit’; by ‘spiritually’ we mean, ‘present to our spirits only’; that is, so as Christ is not present to any other sense but that of faith and spiritual susception; but their way makes his body to be present no way but that which is impossible, and implies a contradiction; a body not after a manner of a body, a body like a spirit; a body without a body; and a sacrifice of body and blood without blood: ‘corpus incorporeum, cruor incruentus’.  They say, that Christ’s body is truly present there, as it was upon the cross, but not after the manner of all or any body, but after that manner of being as an angel is in a place: - that it is there spiritually.  But we, by the real spiritual presence of Christ, do understand Christ to be present, as the Spirit of God is present in the hearts of the faithful, by blessing and grace; and this is all which we mean besides the tropical and figurative presence”. (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 687-688).

The phrase ‘present to our spirits only’ is crucial here.  For Taylor this use of the word ‘spirits’ seems to mean ‘faith’ and ‘spiritual susception’ as he calls it.  This implies that the presence is not a carnal or immoderate realist presence but a presence perceived by faith.  Such a presence can be seen as one in nature, that is, an instantiation in a moderate realist sense.  The communicant does not perceive the carnal or bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but rather the nature of Christ, instantiated in the Eucharist.  Taylor’s language, interpreted in this way, is akin to the language of moderate realism advanced in this project.  Any notion of a bodily substance is avoided, but at the same time, a real and spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist is affirmed.  Taylor does not dispute that Christ’s body is really in the sacrament, but he does dispute the manner of the presence.  He addresses this in the following question and answer:

“ … whether, when we say we believe Christ’s body to be ‘really’ in the sacrament, we mean, ‘that body, that flesh, that was born of the Virgin Mary’, that was crucified, dead and buried?  I answer, I know none else that he had, or hath: there is but one body of Christ natural and glorified; but he that says, that body is glorified, which was crucified, says it is the same body, but not after the same manner (see Bishop Ridley’s answer to Curtop’s first argument in his disputation at Oxford): and so it is in the sacrament; we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ, that was broken and poured forth; for there is no other body, no other blood, of Christ; but though it is the same which we eat and drink, yet it is in another manner: and therefore, when any of the protestant divines, or any of the fathers, deny that body which was born of the Virgin Mary, that was crucified, to be eaten in the sacrament, - as Bertram, as St Jerome, as Clemens Alexandrinus, expressly affirm; the meaning is easy; - they intend that it is not eaten in a natural sense; and then calling it ‘corpus spirituale’, the word ‘spiritual’ is not substantial predication, but it is an affirmation of the manner, though in disputation, it be made the predicate of a proposition, and the opposite member of a distinction.  ‘That body which was crucified, is not that body that is eaten in the sacrament’, - if the intention of the proposition be to speak of the eating it in the same manner of being; but ‘that body which was crucified, the same body we do eat’, - if the intention be to speak of the same thing in several manners of being and operating.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 688-689).

This passage affirms Taylor’s belief that Christ’s body is eaten in the sacrament, but it is not present in the same manner as it was on earth in the flesh of Jesus.  The manner of the presence and the eating is not in a natural sense but it is nonetheless the same body, present not naturally but spiritually, not as a spirit but to the spirit of those who receive it.  There are therefore ‘several manners of being and operating’.  It is these several manners of being and operating that are addressed in the model of eucharistic theology proposed in this project.  There are those who claim that the manner of the presence is purely figurative (e.g. Zwingli) and clearly Taylor is not one of these.  There are those who claim that the manner of the presence is natural (e.g. distorted view of transubstantiation) and immoderate in its realism, and clearly Taylor is not one of these.  There are also those who claim that the manner of the presence is real and spiritual in the sense of moderate realism and it seems that Taylor is one of these.  Taylor confirms this in the last paragraph of Section I of The Real Presence, when he says in summary:

“So that now the question is not, whether the symbols be changed into Christ’s body and blood or no?  for it is granted on all sides: but whether this conversion be sacramental and figurative?  or whether it be natural and bodily?  Nor is it, whether Christ is really taken, but whether he be taken in a spiritual, or in a natural manner?  We say, the conversion is figurative, mysterious, and sacramental; they say it is proper, natural, and corporal: we affirm that Christ is really taken to faith, by the Spirit, to all real effects of his passion; they say, he is taken by the mouth, and that the spiritual and virtual taking of him, in virtue or effect, is not sufficient, though done also in the sacrament.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 689).

Taylor’s distinction is between the natural and the sacramental.  Change into the body and blood of Christ is admitted – the conversion being sacramental and figurative.  The manner of the taking is spiritual but nonetheless real and not merely figurative, with all the benefits of the passion being received by the communicant.  It seems that Taylor’s model is in accord with the model proposed in this project – the manner of the presence is a real presence, but in a moderate realist sense and the body and the benefits of Christ are instantiated in the Eucharist in a real and spiritual manner.

In Section II of The Real Presence (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 689-690) Taylor examines the question of transubstantiation and argues that it is not warrantable by Scripture.  Section III (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 690-698) examines the evidence of the sixth chapter of St John’s Gospel as this relates to the Eucharist, concluding again that transubstantiation is not taught by Christ in this place.  He also argues that the meaning of this sixth chapter of John does not relate to any natural form of Christ’s presence in the sacrament. 

Section IV (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 699-701) looks at the words of institution in the synoptic gospels and in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  Here Taylor analyses the way in which the words of institution have been interpreted arguing that the words of institution are seen as ‘words of consecration’ in the Latin church, such that Hoc est corpus meum when said by the priest have the effect of changing the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood.  This change he asserts is called ‘transubstantiation’.  However if the words do not effect this change, then Christ’s body and blood can be present before the words are spoken.  The means for the presence is therefore either the prayer of the priest or in the use and eating and drinking of the elements.  If the prayer of the priest is the means of the change then it is uncertain when the change takes place.  This Taylor argues is the view of the Greek Church (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 700).  This means that the particular words Hoc est corpus meum effect nothing and that it is the prayer as a whole that brings about the change.  If the presence is effected after the words have been said, then Christ’s body is present only in the reception and the words ‘take and eat’ are as effective as ‘this is my body’.  This means that any use of the elements other than taking and receiving them (e.g. reservation, carrying about, adoration, elevation) has no meaning since the meaning is in the taking and the eating.  In a stunning exhibition of logical reasoning Taylor argues against the idea that the words Hoc est corpus meum are words of consecration which effect a change in the elements such that they become the body and blood of Christ.  He says:

“If they make these words to signify properly and not figuratively, then it is a declaration of something already in being, and not effective of anything after it.  For else est does not signify is but it shall be; because the conversion is future to the pronunciation: and by the confession of the Roman doctors the bread is not transubstantiated till the um in meum be quite out, till the last syllable be spoken; but yet I suppose, they cannot show an example, or reason, or precedent, or grammar, or any thing for it, that est should be an active word. … they affirm that it is made Christ’s body, by saying, ‘It is Christ’s body’; but their saying so must suppose the thing done, or else their saying so is false; and if it be done before, then to say it, does not do it at all, because it is done already.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 699)

It seems that Taylor’s argument applies to any sense of a natural change, such as might be found in a distorted or immoderate view of transubstantiation.  The application of his argument to transubstantiation in the moderate sense (where there is no natural change but only a change in substance with the accidents remaining – such as Aquinas advances) is however less clear.  Taylor clearly rejects any immoderate form of transubstantiation but his argument against any moderate form of transubstantiation, such as that put forward by Aquinas, who like Taylor also argues against any natural change in the bread and wine, is less clear.  Taylor’s rejection of transubstantiation seems to be based on the distorted form rather than any moderate view.

Taylor goes on to speak about the effect of Christ’s blessing on the bread and wine.  He asks whether it had any effect or none.  He concludes that the effect of the blessing was that the bread and the wine became ‘eucharistical’ (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 700).  It is in this sense that the bread and wine can be called the body and blood of Christ.  Therefore Taylor concludes that:

“ … since the change that is made is made not naturally, or by a certain number of syllables in the manner of a charm, but solemnly, sacredly, morally, and by prayer, it becomes also the body of our Lord to moral effects, as a consequent of a moral instrument.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 700).

This seems to be an affirmation of a moderate realism, where any natural or immoderate presence is excluded, but where the presence of Christ is nonetheless real.  At the same time however, Taylor’s moderate realism must be seen together with its receptionist sense since he argues that:

“ … ‘Take’, ‘Eat’, and ‘This do’, are as necessary to the sacrament as ‘Hoc est corpus’; and declare that it is Christ’s body only in the use and the administration; and therefore not ‘natural’ but ‘spiritual’”. (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 700)

This does not seem to limit the reality of the presence but merely the manner.  Any change in the elements:

“ … is not natural and proper, but figurative, sacramental, and spiritual: exhibiting what it signifies, being real to all intents and purposes of the Spirit.”. (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 701).

Moderate realism as a spiritual real presence is affirmed and immoderate realism in the form of a natural or fleshy presence is denied.  This moderate realism however, is not a localised presence in the bread and wine alone.  Taylor in Section V (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 701-707) speaks of the presence in the whole action of the Eucharist and not just in the bread and wine, although it serves as a focus.  He says:

“… though the bread be the nearest part of the thing demonstrated, yet it is not bread alone, but sacramental bread; that is, bread so used, broken, given, eaten, as it is in the institution and use: Touto, ‘This’ is my body; and touto refers to the whole action about the bread and wine, and so touto may be easily understood without an impropriety.  And indeed it is necessary that touto, ‘this’, should take in the whole action on all sides: because the bread neither is the natural body of Christ, nor yet is it alone a sufficient symbol or representment of it.  But the bread ‘broken, blessed, given, distributed, taken, eaten’; this is Christ’s body.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 702).

For Taylor the presence of Christ is really in the Eucharist, in the whole action, including reception, with a focus on the bread, although this is not in any local or natural manner.  Indeed concerning the elements, Taylor concludes by saying “that it is bread and Christ’s body too; and that is the doctrine of the protestants.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 703).  The presence of Christ is in the bread in the sense that the bread is broken, blessed, given, distributed, taken and eaten.  The presence of Christ in the Eucharist requires more than an instantiation in bread and wine, although Taylor states it is both bread and Christ’s body.  Rather it requires an instantiation in the whole action of the Eucharist of which the bread and wine are part.  This is something more than pure receptionism, since the presence is in the breaking and blessing as well as the giving and distributing, and also in the receiving (taking and eating).  Receptionism is part of what Taylor sees as the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but it is not all there is for Taylor concerning the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  The presence of Christ in the Eucharist is clearly related to both the symbols and the use for Taylor, since he says:

“ … Symbols of the blessed sacrament are called ‘bread’ and ‘the cup’, after consecration; that is, in the whole use of them.  This is twice affirmed by St Paul: ‘The cup of blessing, which we bless, is it not the communication (so it should be read) of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the communication of the body of Christ?’ as if he had said, ‘This bread is Christ’s body’, that is, the exhibition and donation of it, not Christ’s body formally, but virtually, and effectively; it makes us communicate with Christ’s body in all the effects and benefits: ….. and so is the cup of benediction, that is when the cup is blessed, it communicates Christ’s blood, and so does the blessed bread; ….. Hence the argument is plain; That which is broken, is the communication of the Christ’s body; but that which is broken, is bread, therefore bread is the communication of Christ’s body.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 704).

Bread and wine for Taylor remain bread and wine, but they are nonetheless the means of the ‘communication’ of Christ’s body and blood.  There is no change of substance in the bread but the bread has a higher purpose and use than ordinary bread – “ … by blessing, the bread becomes better, but therefore it still remains.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 705).  Immoderate notions and change of substance are rejected but the instantiation of the body and blood of Christ is accepted as the bread and wine serves as the communication of Christ’s body and blood and as common bread “is sublimed to become the body of Christ. (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 706).  Echoing Justin Martyr he goes on to say “… that, which, before the consecration was known to be natural bread, and therefore, now to say it was not common bread, is to say it is bread and something more.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 706).  At the same time any notion of consubstantiation (that is, that Christ’s natural body being together with the natural bread) is denied ((Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 707).  For Taylor the communication of the body and blood of Christ is real but spiritual, not natural, and it is the spiritual presence of Christ’s body and blood with the bread and wine which constitutes the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Taylor concludes this section by saying:

“Since therefore (as I have proved) the bread remains, and of bread it was affirmed ‘This is my body’, it follows inevitably, that it is figuratively, not properly and naturally, spoken of bread, that it is the flesh or body of our Lord.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 707).

This type of language seems compatible with the language of moderate realism and instantiation.

In Section VI (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 707-711) Taylor considers in detail the meaning of the words est corpus meum.  Taylor proposes that in the Eucharist:

“ ... it is not Christ’s body properly, or naturally: for though it signifies a real effect, yet it signifies the body figuratively, or the effects and real benefits.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 708).

The meaning of the words est corpus meum Taylor defines as “tropical and figurative” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 707), stating that

“Christ’s natural body is now in heaven definitively, and no where else; and that he is in the sacrament as he can be in a sacrament, in the hearts of faithful receivers as he hath promised to be there; that is, in the sacrament mystically, operatively, as in a moral and divine instrument, in the hearts of receivers by faith and blessing” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 707-708).

Taylor therefore argues that the correct meaning of est (is) is significat (signifies) (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 708) since Christ “of his body, he affirmed it to be bread, it is certain also and confessed to be a figure (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 710).  What is the meaning of significat for Taylor?  This needs careful treatment.  Does he use significat in the sense that Zwingli uses it?  Some examination of Zwingli’s writing will be necessary to determine this.

Zwingli interpreted Christ’s words at the institution of the Lord’s Supper as figurative only, regarding the consecrated bread and wine as merely symbols of the body and blood of Christ.  He argued that:

“To eat sacramentally can be nothing else than to eat the sign or figure.”  (Zwingli, Works, ii, 212, quoted in Stone, 1909: II, 40).

He also rejected the idea of eucharistic sacrifice completely, explaining the Eucharist as a commemoration only.  He says:

“That Christ who offered himself up once as a sacrifice, is a perpetual and valid payment for the sin all believers: from this it follows that the mass is not a sacrifice, but a memorial of the sacrifice and a seal of the redemption which Christ has manifested to us.”  (Zwingli, The Exposition of the Sixty-Seven Articles, Article 18, edn. Furcha, 1984: I, 92)

For Zwingli the idea of the reception of a body and of eating spiritually are inconsistent with one another and therefore the meaning of the word ‘is’ in the sentence ‘This is my body’ could only be ‘signifies’.  Zwingli stated that:

“The whole difficulty lies not in the pronoun ‘this’ but …. in the verb ‘is’.  For this word is often used in Holy Scripture in the sense of ‘signifies’.”  (Zwingli, Works, ii, 209, cited in Stone, 1909: II, 40).

He also argued that:

“Now take up Christ’s words in Matthew 26: 26, ‘Jesus took bread, etc., saying, “Take, eat; this is my body”, [Luke 22: 19] “which is given for you”’.  Put ‘signifies’ for ‘is’ here and you have, “Take, eat; this signifies my body which is given for you”.  Then the meaning will certainly be, “Take, eat; for this which I bid you do will signify to you or remind you of my body which presently is to be given for you”.  For he adds immediately [Luke 22: 19], “This do in remembrance of me”.  Behold the end for which he bids them eat, namely, the commemoration of him.”  (Zwingli,  Letter to Matthew Alber Concerning the Lord’s Supper, edn. Pipkin, 1984: II, 139).

For Zwingli then the Eucharist and the eating and the drinking was only a spiritual matter involving the faithful communicant in a process of contemplation on the work Christ has previously accomplished on the cross.  He expresses this in the following way:

“Therefore the view is irreligious which maintains that the body of Christ is eaten in the Supper physically, naturally, essentially, and even quantitatively, for it is not in agreement with the truth … To eat the body of Christ spiritually is equivalent to trusting with heart and soul upon the mercy and goodness of God through Christ, that is, to have the assurance of an unbroken faith that God will give us the forgiveness of sins and the joy of eternal salvation for the sake of his Son … to eat the body of Christ sacramentally is to eat the body of Christ with the heart and mind in conjunction with the sacrament.”  (Zwingli, An Exposition of the Faith, edn. Bromiley, 1953: 258).

Clearly Taylor means much more than what Zwingli means in regard to both the presence and sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist.  For Zwingli the word significat meant only a mental reminder of a past and completed event.  Taylor however argues that the benefits of Christ’s passion and death are present in the Eucharist and received by the faithful.  For Zwingli the bread and wine were nude symbols, having no ‘gift’ communicated by them.  Taylor clearly sees the bread and wine as remaining bread and wine in substance but at the same time he sees them as the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in a spiritual sense.  Both Zwingli and Taylor reject the idea that the natural body and blood of Christ is present in the bread and wine and in the Eucharist, but Zwingli also rejects the spiritual real presence as well.  Taylor’s view is quite different.  Zwingli works within a nominalist framework whereas Taylor works within that of moderate realism. 

What then does Taylor mean by significat?  It seems that his use of the word is intended to exclude any immoderate realist notions of presence and sacrifice, whereby the natural body of Christ is present and sacrificed in the Eucharist.  His use of the word does not however, exclude any idea of a spiritual real presence and the availability of the effects of Christ’s passion and death in the present in the Eucharist.  Taylor’s use of significat therefore performs the function of emphasising the figurative nature of Christ’s presence and sacrifice in the Eucharist, but it in no way limits the real and spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Zwingli’s words do not seem capable of sustaining the idea of instantiation or moderate realism, but Taylor’s do.  It therefore seems inappropriate to render any other meaning to Taylor’s use of significat apart from that of moderate realism.  Taylor says:

“ … that as Christ in heaven represents his death in the way of intercession, so do we by our ministry: but as in heaven it is wholly a representing of his body crucified, a rememoration of his crucifixion, of his death and passion, by which he reconciled God and man: so it is in the sacrament after our manner, ‘This is my body given for you’, that is, ‘This is the sacrament of my death, in which my body was given for you’. …. And to us a participation, or an exhibition of it, as it became beneficial to us, that is, as it was crucified, as it was our sacrifice.  And this is wholly agreeable to the nature of the thing, and the order of the words, and the body of the circumstances, that it is next to that which is evident in itself, and needs no further light but the considering of the words and the design of the institution.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 712-713).

For Taylor there is clearly more than mere remembering going on in the Eucharist.  As Christ’s death is represented in heaven by the intercession of Christ, so on earth Christ’s death is represented in the Eucharist, and the benefits of that death are available in the Eucharist.  This is moderate realism and far more than Zwingli allows.  At the same time however, Taylor is careful to avoid any suggestion that there can be adoration of the signs.  He says:

“For we receive the mysteries as representing and exhibiting to our souls the flesh and blood of Christ; so that we worship in the sumption, and venerable usages of the signs of his body.  But we give no Divine worship to the signs: we do not call the sacrament our God.” (Taylor, The Real Presence, edn. Bohn, 1844: II, 759).

Taylor’s view here is consistent with that presented above.  The worship due is in the eating and drinking and the use of the signs, but not in the signs themselves.  The signs are more than bread and wine in their use, since they communicate and exhibit the body and blood of Christ, but they remain in their natural substance of bread and wine.  The presence of Christ in the Eucharist is real and spiritual – immoderate realism being denied and moderate realism affirmed.

The Worthy Communicant or A Discourse of the Nature, Effects, and Blessings, consequent to the worthy receiving of the Lord’s Supper, and of all the duties required in order to a worthy preparation. (1660)

The Worthy Communicant (edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 855-963) was published in 1660.  In this book Taylor speaks of seeking Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist and of how “Christ comes to meet us clothed with a mystery” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 857).  It is in the Eucharist that:

“God sends his Son, and here his son manifests himself; the church and the holy table of the Lord, the assemblies of saints, and the devotions of his people; the word and sacrament, the oblation of bread and wine, and the offering of ourselves, the consecration and the communion, are the things of God, and of Jesus Christ; and he that is employed in these, is there where God loves to be, and where Christ is to be found; in the employments in which God delights, in the ministries of his own choice, in the work of the gospel, and the methods of grace, in the economy of heaven, and the dispensations of eternal happiness.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 857).

It is because of the solemn nature of the Eucharist that the communicant must be careful to look for Christ in a worthy manner, since “sure enough Christ is here” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 857).  Since the Eucharist is so high a mystery, “whoever will partake of God’s secrets, must first look into his own” and not “eat of this sacrifice with a defiled head” since the Eucharist “is for those only that are worthy” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 857).  Taylor’s purpose therefore in this work is to write about “all the advantages of a worthy communion” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 858).

Taylor begins his discussion of the Eucharist by considering the many ways in which people have thought of it and then goes on to declare his own view, saying:

“In the holy sacrament of the eucharist, the body of Christ, according to the proper signification of a human body, is not at all, but in a sense differing from the proper and natural body; that is, in a sense agreeing to sacraments.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 861).

Taylor has first denied any sense of immoderate realism by declaring that the body of Christ is not present in the Eucharist in the sense of a proper and natural body since Christ’s body in the natural sense can only be present in heaven and not on earth (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 862).  At the same time though he does not deny the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist.  He says that: “this eating and drinking of Christ’s flesh and blood, can only be done by the ministries of life and of the Spirit, which is opposed to nature, and flesh, and death” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 861).  Taylor says, leaning heavily on Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, that:

“The flesh of Christ is his word; the blood of Christ is his Spirit; and by believing in his word, and being assisted and conducted by his Spirit, we are nourished up to life; and so Christ is our food, so he becomes life unto our souls.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 862).

He goes on to say:

“As the body or flesh of Christ is his word, so the blood of Christ is his spirit in real effect and signification, … and by receiving his Spirit we receive the best thing that God gives: not his lifeless body, but his flesh with life in it. … The word and the Spirit are the flesh and blood of Christ, that is the ground of all.  Now, because there are two great sermons of the gospel, which are the sum total and abbreviature of the whole word of God, the great messages of the word incarnate.  Christ was pleased to invest these two words with two sacraments, and assist those two sacraments, as did the whole word of God, with the presence of his Spirit, that in them we might do more solemnly what was in the ordinary ministrations done plainly and without extraordinary regards.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 863-864).

Herein it seems that Taylor is working within a model of moderate realism and is saying much the same as the notion of instantiation says.  In the two great sacraments is instantiated the word incarnate, not in some fleshy manner, but in spirit and in real effect and signification.

In speaking of the Eucharist further Taylor goes on to say that the Eucharist:

“is ‘verbum visibile’, the same word read to the eye and to the ear.  Here the word of God is made our food, in a manner so near to our understanding, that our tongues and palates feel the metaphor and the sacramental signification: here faith is in triumph and exaltation: but as in all other ministries evangelical, we eat Christ by faith, here we have faith also by eating Christ: thus eating and drinking is faith; it is faith in mystery, and faith in ceremony; it is faith in act, and faith in habit; it is exercised, and it is advanced; and therefore, it is certain that here we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, with much eminency and advantage.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 864).

Here Taylor argues that the visible word, as metaphor and sacramental signification, is known through the physical senses of eating and drinking.  Not only does the communicant eat Christ by faith, but faith is had by eating Christ.  This suggests more than empty symbol and it also suggests that eating Christ does not depend on faith alone, although faith is clearly part of the equation.  The flesh and blood of Christ is eaten as the communicant receives the benefits of Christ through the eating and drinking.

He continues, saying:

“The sum is this.  Christ’s body, his flesh and his blood, are, therefore, called our meat and our drink, because, by his incarnation and manifestation in the flesh he became life unto us: so that it is mysterious, indeed, in the expression, but very proper and intelligible in the event, to say that we eat his flesh and drink his blood, since by these it is that we have and preserve life.  But because what Christ began in his incarnation, he finished in his body on the cross, and all the whole progression of mysteries in his body, was still an operatory of life and spiritual being to us, - the sacrament of the Lord’s supper being a commemoration and exhibition of his death, which was the consummation of our redemption by his body and blood, does contain in it a visible word, the word in symbol and visibility, and special manifestation.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn, Bohn, 1844: III, 864).

Here then is the notion of the instantiation of the nature of Christ, the word, ‘in symbol and visibility’, in the Eucharist, in the form of moderate realism.  In the Eucharist the word is visible in symbol and manifest to those who receive, not as a fleshy presence but as a real and spiritual presence of Christ’s body and blood.  In relation to eucharistic sacrifice Taylor states that the Eucharist is both a ‘commemoration and exhibition’ of Christ’s death.  Clearly there is no reiteration of the sacrifice of the cross but the effects of the sacrifice are remembered and shown forth in the Eucharist.  It seems that moderate realism and the notion of instantiation, whereby the Eucharist is the state of affairs where Christ is present and received, and where there is memorial remembrance, is in accord with what Taylor is saying.

Further discussion of eucharistic sacrifice is undertaken in Section III of The Worthy Communicant (edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 865-868).  Taylor sees the need to consider this matter “for the satisfaction of those that speak things too contemptible of these holy mysteries” and who say “it is nothing but a commemoration of Christ’s death, an act of obedience, a ceremony of memorial, but of no spiritual effect, and of no proper advantage to the soul of the receiver.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 865).  Taylor is really denying any nominalist interpretation of the sacrament.  He distances himself from the view that says that the sign and the signified are separated and self-enclosed entities.  In arguing against such a view in relation to the Eucharist, Taylor states that it is necessary to consider how Christ’s “natural body enters into this economy and dispensation [i.e. the Eucharist] (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 865).  This needs to be noted carefully.  Taylor is saying that he will present an argument to show how Christ’s ‘natural body’ enters into the Eucharist.  His argument proceeds in this way:

“ … that Christ, besides his spiritual body and blood, did also give us his natural, and we receive that by the means of this.  For this he gave but once, then, when upon the cross he was broken for our sins; this body could die but once, and heaven was the place appointed for it, and at once all was sufficiently effected by it, which was designed in the counsel of God.  For by the virtue of that death, Christ is become the author of life unto us and of salvation; he is our Lord and our lawgiver; by it he reconciled his Father to the world, and in virtue of that he intercedes for us in heaven, and sends his Spirit upon earth, and feeds our souls by his word; he instructs us to wisdom, and admits us to repentance, and gives us pardon, and, by means of his own appointment, nourishes us up by holiness to life eternal.

The body being carried from us to heaven, cannot be touched or tasted by us on earth; but yet Christ left to us symbols and sacraments of this natural body; not to be, or to convey that natural body to us, but to do more and better for us; to convey all the blessings and graces procured for us by the breaking of that body, and the effusion of that blood: which blessings, being spiritual, are therefore called his body spiritually, because procured by that body which died for us; and are, therefore, called our food, because by them we live a new life in the spirit, and Christ is our bread and our life, because by him, after this manner, we are nourished to life eternal.  That is, plainly thus, - therefore we eat Christ’s spiritual body, because he has given us his natural body to be broken, and his natural blood to be shed, for the remission of our sins, and for the obtaining the grace and acceptability of repentance.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 865).

Taylor here argues that Christ gave both his spiritual and natural body and blood and that people receive by both of the spiritual and the natural.  The natural body was given once only (at Calvary) and now is to be found in heaven.  Taylor clearly denies any form of immoderate realism in the Eucharist since that natural body cannot be touched or tasted, however it is by the ‘symbols and sacraments of this natural body’ that something better than the natural body is conveyed to those who receive the sacrament of the Eucharist.  This better thing, received in the Eucharist, is ‘all the blessings and graces procured for us by the breaking of that body’.  This is a statement of memorial remembrance or anamnesis whereby the effects of the once only sacrifice are available in the present to those who receive the sacrament.  We eat Christ’s spiritual body (eucharistic sacrifice) because Christ’s natural body was broken for us (historic sacrifice).  The eucharistic sacrifice as Taylor expresses it excludes any carnal notion of sacrifice in the Eucharist, but does not exclude a moderate realist notion of eucharistic sacrifice expressed as memorial remembrance or anamnesis.  It is by the eating of the spiritual body that people share in the benefits gained through the breaking of the natural body.  This is very much the idea of instantiation, where in the Eucharist there is an instance of the benefits gained through the breaking of the natural body.  This eating of the spiritual body is effective, more effective than any other means, since Taylor says:

“Certainly by all these it appears, that this sacrament is the great ministry of life and salvation: here is the publication of the great word of salvation, here is set forth most illustriously the body and blood of Christ, the food of our souls; much more clearly than in baptism, much more effectually than in simple enunciation, or preaching and declaration by words:- for this preaching is, in infants and strangers to Christ, to produce faith; but this sacramental enunciation, is the declaration and confession of it by men in Christ; a glorying in it, giving praise for it, a declaring it to be done, and owned, and accepted, and prevailing.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 866).

There is little use, says Taylor, in arguing whether sacraments confer grace or not by their own power, since:

“ … neither the external act, nor the inward grace and morality, does effect our pardon and salvation; but the Spirit of God, who blesses the symbols, and assists the duty, makes them holy, and thus acceptable.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 866).

Taylor here clearly distances himself from those see the power of the Eucharist in its ministration alone.  He says:

“ … they that attribute the efficacy to the ministration of the sacrament, choose to magnify the immediate work of man, rather than the immediate work of God, and prefer the external, at least in glorious appellations, before the internal.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 866).

Taylor is equally dismissive of those who deny the power of the external symbols, since he says:

“ … they that deny efficacy to the external work, and wholly attribute the blessing  and grace to the moral co-operation, make too open a way for despisers to neglect the Divine institution, and to lay aside or lightly esteem the sacraments of the church.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 866).

For Taylor it is “the formal, the sense and signification” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 866) which is important in the Eucharist, as it is in the preaching of the word.  Therefore it is “the internal and formal part, the signification and sense of the sacrament” which has the power to “dispose the spirit of the receiver the rather to admit and entertain the grace of the Spirit of God there consigned, and there exhibited, and there collated.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 866).  It is the Spirit which causes the sacrament to function, not the external or the internal aspects.  Taylor expresses this in these words, saying:

“But neither the outward nor the inward part does effect it, neither the sacrament nor the moral disposition; only the Spirit operates the sacrament, and the communicant receives it by his moral disposition, by the hand of faith.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 866).

For Taylor it is not possible to say that “the graces of God are given to believers out of the sacrament, - ergo, not by or in the sacrament; but rather thus, - if God’s grace overflows sometimes, and goes without his own instruments, much more shall he give it in the use of them.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 867).  For Taylor then, “The sacraments are God’s signs, the opportunities of grace and action.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 867).  By ‘use’ of the sacraments he seems to mean that they are the means by which the grace of God is given and received.  This is a statement of moderate realism where the grace and action of God, that is, Christ as Word or logos, is instantiated in the Eucharist.  The spiritual presence of Christ and the effects of Christ’s sacrifice in the Eucharist are grace and action in the lives of people, and the Eucharist is the sign or the opportunity for this to occur.  The Eucharist is “the method of the Divine economy, to dispense the grace which himself signifies, in a ceremony of his own institution.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 867-868).

In Section IV of The Worthy Communicant (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 869-874) Taylor speaks of the blessings and graces of the Eucharist.  In speaking of the increase of faith by the receiving of the sacrament, Taylor says:

“And when we concorporate the sign with the signification, we conjoin the word and the spirit; and faith passes on from believing to an imaginary seeing, and from thence to a greater earnestness of believing, and we shall believe more abundantly: … To eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ sacramentally, is an act of faith; and every act of faith, joined with the sacrament, does grow by the nature of grace, and the measures of a blessing; and, therefore, is eating of Christ spiritually.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 869).

Here again is a statement of moderate realism.  Taylor argues that in the Eucharist the ‘sign’ (bread and wine) and the ‘signification’ (Christ’s body and blood) is ‘concorporated’ or made together in one ‘body’, that is, the Eucharist.  It is in the Eucharist that grace is received, faith is increased and the body and blood of Christ is eaten and drunk in a spiritual manner.  The sign and the signified are clearly not separated but ‘concorporated’ or joined together in the context of the Eucharist.  This is a denial of nominalism and an affirmation of realism.  For Taylor:

“unless the sacraments communicate what they relate to, they are no communion or communication at all.  For it is true, that our mouth eats the material signs; but, at the same time, faith eats too, and therefore must eat, that is, must partake of the thing signified.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 870).

Eucharistic sacrifice is again discussed in a moderate realist fashion in Section IV as Taylor says:

“For when Christ was consecrated on the cross, and became our high priest, having reconciled us to God by the death of the cross, he became infinitely gracious in the eyes of God, and was admitted to the celestial and eternal priesthood in heaven; where, in the virtue of the cross, he intercedes for us, and represents an eternal sacrifice in the heaven on our behalf. …. And therefore, since it is necessary, that he hath something to offer so long as he is a priest, and there is no other sacrifice but that of himself offered upon the cross, - it follows, that Christ, in heaven, perpetually offers and represents that sacrifice to his heavenly Father, and, in virtue of that, obtains all good things for his church.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 871).

Christ’s sacrifice then, is offered once on the cross, but the effect of that sacrifice is ‘infinitely gracious’ and an ‘eternal sacrifice’ where ‘Christ, in heaven, perpetually offers and represents that sacrifice’ to the benefit of the church.  What Christ does in heaven, argues Taylor, he has commanded his followers to do on earth:

“that is, to represent his death, to commemorate this sacrifice, by humble prayer, and thankful record; and, by faithful manifestation and joyful eucharist, to lay it before the eyes of our heavenly Father, so ministering in his priesthood, and doing according to his commandment and his example; the church being the image of heaven: the priest, the minister of Christ; the holy table being a copy of the celestial altar; and the eternal sacrifice of the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world, being always the same: it bleeds no more after the finishing of it on the cross; but it is wonderfully represented in heaven, and graciously represented here; by Christ’s action there, by his commandment here. … that the virtue of the eternal sacrifice may be salutary and effectual to all the needs of the church, both for things temporal and eternal.  And therefore, it was not without great mystery and clear signification, that our blessed Lord was pleased to command the representation of his death and sacrifice on the cross should be made by  breaking bread and effusion of wine; to signify to us the nature and sacredness of the liturgy we are about, and that we minister in the priesthood of Christ, who is a great priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec; that is, we are ministers in that unchangeable priesthood, imitating, in the external ministry, the prototype Melchisedec: …. And, in the internal, imitating the antitype, or the substance, Christ himself; who offered up his body and blood for atonement for us, - and, by the sacraments of bread and wine, and the prayers of oblation and intercession, commands us to officiate in his priesthood, in the external ministering like Melchisedec, in the internal, after the manner of Christ himself.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 871).

The sacrifice of the Eucharist is clearly distinguished from the sacrifice of the cross, but the ‘virtue’ of the eternal sacrifice is ‘effective’ in the Eucharist.  Taylor also distinguishes between the ‘external’ and ‘internal’ ministry.  In the external ministry of the Eucharist the church imitates the priesthood of Christ, following the order of the Old Testament priesthood of Melchisedec.  In the internal ministry of the Eucharist however, the imitation is of the ‘antitype’ or ‘substance’ of Christ himself.  There is then a moderate realism in both the external and internal ministry, whereby the priesthood of Christ is instantiated in the Eucharist in the external manner of the earthly priest, and the substance of Christ is instantiated in the Eucharist in an internal manner. 

Taylor concludes The Worthy Communicant with some prayers and devotion to be used at the time of receiving the sacrament.  Some of these are indicative of moderate realism.  A couple of examples are quoted below.  At the time of the consecration of the symbols of bread and wine Taylor suggests this prayer:

“O Holy Jesu, I behold thee stretched upon the cross, with thy arms spread, ready to embrace and receive all mankind into they bosom. … Grant that I may not receive bread alone, for man cannot live by that, but that I may eat Christ: that I may not search into the secret of nature, but inquire after the miracles of grace.  I do admire, I worship, and I love.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 960).

After the receiving of the bread Taylor suggests this prayer:

“Thou, O blessed Saviour Jesus, hast given me thy precious body to be the food of my soul.” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 961).

These prayers are very realist, suggesting as they do that Christ’s body is beheld on the altar in the symbols as it was on the cross.  Clearly Taylor suggests that there is more than bread received, that it is the body and blood of Christ that is received in the Eucharist.  These prayers need however, to be interpreted in relation to the underlying theme of The Worthy Communicant.  Although very realist in sound, Taylor cannot be accused of any immoderate realism, since he is clear elsewhere in suggesting that the presence and sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist is both real and spiritual and not carnal.  Taylor’s theology of the Eucharist in this work is therefore confirmed as moderate realist, where Christ’s body and blood is indeed present and received in the Eucharist, after a spiritual manner and to great effect in the lives of those who receive.  The sign and the signified are both received, although the signified is not received in any carnal or immoderate manner.  Taylor’s theology supports the present project in suggesting that Christ’s body and blood is instantiated in the Eucharist in a moderate realist manner.

An Office or Order for the Administration of the Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper according to the way of the Apostolical Churches, and the Doctrine of the Church of England (1658).

Taylor’s order for the Eucharist (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 818-824) is found amongst other liturgies he wrote in a work called A Collection of Offices (Taylor, A Collection of Offices, or Forms of Prayer in cases Ordinary and Extraordinary; Taken out of the Scriptures, and the Ancient Liturgies of Several Churches, especially the Greek, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 800-854).  These liturgies were published during the Commonwealth period (around the year 1658) and were intended to provide services when use of the Book of Common Prayer was forbidden (Grisbrooke, 1958: 19).  The eucharistic liturgy designed by Taylor sought to revise the English use according to ancient use, especially those of the Eastern Church (Porter, 1979: 71).  Taylor’s eucharistic office has been characterised by W. Jardine Grisbrooke as inferior to the Book of Common Prayer in terms of its liturgical craftsmanship, but superior to the Book of Common Prayer in its eucharistic theology.  Grisbrooke has said that:

“What Taylor’s liturgy loses in the matter of liturgical artistry, when compared with Cranmer’s, it more than gains by its reverence for ancient and traditional models, and its adherence to a more normal – and, incidentally, more typical Anglican – theology of the eucharistic action.” (Grisbrooke, 1958: 21).

Taylor’s An Office for the Holy Communion has three sections: Ante-communion, Communion and Post-communion.  Some analysis of the prayers in this office will be now be made in order to assess the theology of the Eucharist found therein. 

In the Ante-communion there is a Prayer of Preparation which prays in part that the communicants will present themselves:

“ … at thy holy table to represent a holy, venerable, an unbloody sacrifice for our sins”, and in relation to the celebrant of the Eucharist, that “by the power of the Holy Ghost, make me worthy for this ministry, accepting this service for his sake, whose sacrifice I represent, by whose commandment I minister, even our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 818).

The Eucharist is described as a sacrifice in the moderate realist sense (unbloody) and as representing the sacrifice of Christ.  Indeed “the whole emphasis is on sacrifice and communion” (Porter, 1979: 74).  No previous English liturgy had used such a prayer (Porter, 1979: 73).  The next prayer carries this theme forward, speaking of “presenting a holy sacrifice holily unto thee, that thou mayest receive it in heaven and smell a sweet odour in the union of the eternal sacrifice, which our blessed Lord perpetually offers.” (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 819).  The Eucharist is therefore seen to be a holy sacrifice, received in heaven and joined with the eternal sacrifice.  This implies moderate realism in that the Eucharist is not a re-iteration of the eternal sacrifice, but rather something joined to it.  The prayer also asks that the Eucharist may be accepted as were “the gifts of Abel, the sacrifice of Noah, the services of Moses and Aaron, the peace offering of Samuel, the repentance of David, and the incense of Zacharias” (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 819).  As these were offered by those of old, so may the Eucharist in the present be offered, “by the hands of us miserable sinners, to finish and perfect this oblation, that it may be sanctified by the Holy Ghost and be accepted by the Lord Jesus” (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 819).  The idea of offering is clear in reference to the Eucharist, although it is also clear that this does not mean the historic sacrifice of the cross.  Even so this offering is described as an ‘oblation’, which is to be sanctified.  Once again a notion of moderate realism is applied to eucharistic sacrifice.

The next section of Taylor’s eucharistic office is the Communion, where a ‘Prayer of Consecration’ is said.  The consecration begins with an epiclesis where God the Father is asked to send the Holy Spirit, “to sanctify and enlighten our hearts” and to “bless and sanctify these gifts” so that “this bread may become the holy body of Christ” and “this chalice may become the life-giving blood of Christ” (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 821-822).  It is important to note that the bread and the chalice are said to ‘become’ the body and blood of Christ.  These words imply a change in the bread and the wine as a result of the action of the Holy Spirit in the context of the Prayer of Consecration.  This language represents a distinct departure from the tradition of the BCP.  In the 1549 BCP at this point the words were “with thy Holy Spirit and word vouchsafe to bless and sanctify these thy gifts of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ” (Ketley, 1844: 88).  In the 1552 BCP (and in subsequent prayer books) the words became “grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour’s Jesu Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood” (Ketley, 1844: 279).  The word ‘become’, previously used in pre-Reformation Sarum Use (see Sarum Missal, 1989) was deleted in the 1549 BCP and the words ‘may be unto us’ found in the 1549 BCP were also deleted in the 1552 and  subsequent prayer books, lessening any sense of a change in the bread and wine and any association between the bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ.  The emphasis had become on the ‘institution’ and the ‘receiving’, that is, the use and ministration, not on any moderate realist sense of a real presence in the bread and wine.  The communicants were ‘partakers’ of Christ’s body and blood but the partaking was more associated with the institution than with the bread and wine.  Taylor’s usage therefore represents not only a significant departure from the prevailing English prayer book pattern, but goes further, in a realist sense, than the 1549 BCP, which had only suggested that the bread and wine ‘may be unto us’ the body and blood of Christ, not that the bread and wine ‘become’ the body and blood of Christ, as Taylor had done.  Taylor’s Prayer of Consecration therefore represents a more realist tradition of eucharistic presence than any of the previous English prayer books, although Taylor does this in a moderate realist sense.  There is no sense of any immoderate realism, where the fleshy body and blood of Christ is seen to be present in the Eucharist.

Following the institution narrative, Taylor inserts a prayer which he calls the Prayer of Oblation.  This prayer is the slightly altered anamnesis from the Liturgy of St James (Porter, 1979: 77).  The use of the word ‘oblation’ and the content of the prayer are important in assessing Taylor’s doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice as he expresses it in this liturgy.  Following the recitation of the events of Christ’s death and passion, the prayer prays that the communicants may: “humbly present to thee, O Lord, this present sacrifice of remembrance and thanksgiving” (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 822).  The Eucharist is here described as a sacrifice, not only of thanksgiving, but also of remembrance, which is presented to God.

This prayer is followed by another short prayer which is ordered to be said by the minister at the time of receiving communion.  This prayer asks that the communicant “religiously, thankfully, and without reproof, partake of thy blessed body and blood for the remission of my sins, and unto life eternal.” (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 822).  Clearly in the communion the communicant is seen to ‘partake of thy blessed body and blood’ and this suggests that Christ’s body and blood is really present and received and that they are effective in remitting sins.  The words of administration which follow use the formula, “The body/blood of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 822) at the time of the delivery of the bread and wine, thereby associating the presence of Christ’s body and blood with the bread and wine in a realist sense.

The prayers following reception ask that the Lord will “make me this day partaker of thy heavenly table” (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 822) thereby associating the earthly altar with the heavenly one.  Another prayer also asks that Christ will “lodge in my soul” (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 822) suggesting that the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a spiritual manner (moderate realism) and not a fleshy or carnal presence (immoderate realism).

Following Communion a number of prayers are set in the section entitled The Post-Communion.  Amongst these the following words are found:

“Receive, O eternal God, this sacrifice for and in behalf of all christian people”

“Glory be to thee, O God, our Father, who hast vouchsafed to made us at this time partakers of the body and blood of they holy Son.”

“Glory be to thee, O Christ, our King, the only begotten Son of God, who wert pleased to become a sacrifice for our sins, a redemption for calamity, the physician and the physic, the life and the health, the meat and the drink of our souls; thou, by thy unspeakable mercy, didst descend to the weakness of sinful flesh, remaining still in the perfect purity of spirit, and hast made us partakers of thy holy body and blood.” (Taylor, An Office for the Holy Communion, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 823-4).

These prayers point once again to a moderate realist notion of both presence and sacrifice in the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is described as a ‘sacrifice’ for all people, by which they are partakers of the body and blood of Christ.  The final prayer suggests that Christ comes down to earth, to ‘the weakness of sinful flesh’ in the Eucharist, and that this perfection of spiritual presence is the means whereby people become partakers of the body and blood of Christ.  This comes very close to describing the process of instantiation, where the nature of Christ, as Word or logos, is present in the Eucharist in a real and spiritual manner.

Harry Porter observes that this eucharistic liturgy was the opportunity for Taylor “to frame a complete liturgical expression of his own eucharistic belief and devotions.” (Porter, 1979: 81).  It seems that this expression is one of moderate realism, where the real presence of Christ and eucharistic sacrifice as memorial remembrance or anamnesis, is an integral part of the liturgy.  Taylor’s arrangement of material represents, however, a number of different perspectives.  The words of administration and the placement of the epiclesis before the institution narrative reflect the model of the 1549 BCP and the Scottish BCP of 1637.  The less realist words of administration and the dropping of the anamnesis and epiclesis in the 1552 BCP are avoided by Taylor, thereby making his eucharistic rite to reflect a more realist position of presence and sacrifice.  At the same time, the arrangement of the rite reflects much of the typical Anglican order of the seventeenth century (Porter, 1979: 78), especially as regards the rearrangement of traditional and early liturgical material.  This is most apparent in the reception of communion almost immediately after the consecration (reflecting Cranmer’s 1552 BCP order).  Early liturgies had included several prayers after the consecration and before reception, with the consecrated elements remaining on the altar as a possible source of devotion and as a lessening of the climax of reception.  This pattern was followed by Cranmer in the 1549 BCP but abandoned in the 1552 BCP.  Whereas Cranmer’s 1552 justification here seems to have been to emphasise reception and lessen any suggestion of eucharistic devotions by having reception follow immediately following the consecration, Taylor’s view is somewhat different.  Porter comments that Taylor’s eucharistic theology indicates that by receiving Christ’s body and blood very soon after the consecration the people are sacrificers too (Taylor, Holy Living, edn. Bohn, 1844: I, 497) and may plead the benefits of this sacrifice for themselves (Porter, 1979: 80).  This is the language of moderate realism, and differs markedly from that of Cranmer.  Whilst Taylor’s order of liturgical elements coincides with Cranmer’s 1552 order, his theology of the Eucharist does not.  Porter suggests that while modern liturgists would reject his order of liturgical elements, they would not reject his eucharistic theology (moderate realism) (Porter, 1979: 81).

Conclusion

Taylor’s eucharistic theology, while based on the Anglican three-fold formula of Scripture, tradition and reason, owes a great deal to the early Church Fathers as well.  It has been argued that in the writings of the early Church Fathers, “ ‘symbolical’ or ‘figurative’ language is not incompatible with an underlying ‘realism’; to some extent it is also true that startlingly ‘realistic’ language can accompany a basic acknowledgement of ‘symbolism’” (Lampe, 1968: 37).  Such an argument is really that of Jeremy Taylor.  Such an argument is also that of moderate realism.  Taylor’s argument regarding eucharistic presence and sacrifice, is one “which is real and also dynamic, life-giving, but not in any sense physical.  The inward gift and the outward sign are real entities, and remain distinct” (McAdoo, 1988: 61).  It is because of this combination of both the figurative language and realism in Taylor’s eucharistic, that he has been described as having a “certain elusiveness” and “a resistance to categorisation” (McAdoo, 1988: 80).  Taylor, as has been discussed above, was less interested in the question ‘What was present in the Eucharist?’ and more concerned with the question ‘Who was present?’.  The reality of the presence and sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist was his concern, not the manner of it.

Taylor’s views on the Eucharist seem to indicate both a figurative and realist element.  He emphasises that Christ is really present and that the sacrifice is pleaded in the Eucharist, but he also emphasises that this is a ‘spiritual’ not a ‘carnal’ sense.  It seems also that Taylor does not fall into the trap of emphasising the spiritual at the expense of the real.  For Taylor both the word and the element are essential, since he quotes St Augustine approvingly saying, that, “when the word and the element are joined, then it is a perfect sacrament” (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 868).  Taylor therefore bridges any gap between figurative and realist language, with the power of the joining being assigned to the Holy Spirit (Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, edn. Bohn, 1844: III, 905).  Indeed in his eucharistic theology Taylor:

“ … is striving to underline the essential connection between the elements and their reception on the one hand and the reception of Christ and life through Him on the other.  Eating and drinking is the symbol and the sacrament of a new life in Christ.  The physical and the spiritual are purposefully and indissolubly linked in the sacrament. … The spiritual is sacramentally expressed by the physical and the physical achieves the fulfilment of its divinely ordained purpose through the spiritual.” (McAdoo, 1988: 181).

It is this linking of the spiritual and the physical, the figurative and the real, which demonstrates the moderate realism of Taylor.  There is no sense of immoderate realism as a carnal presence in what Taylor says, but there is, in Taylor’s theology, a mystical, personalist and dynamic presence of Christ and availability of the effects of Christ’s sacrifice, in the Eucharist, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Moderate realism is therefore seen to be prevailing idea behind Taylor’s eucharistic theology.