Lancelot Andrewes has been described as “the progenitor of the High Church tradition and its guiding spirit” (Crockett, 1989: 192).  Many later Anglican theologians, including John Cosin, Jeremy Taylor, John Bramhall and Herbert Thorndike were all nurtured in the tradition of Andrewes and became leading theologians during the years prior to and following the Puritan Commonwealth (1644-1661) (Crockett, 1989: 192).  With the coming of the seventeenth century many of the polemical debates of the sixteenth century had partially receded, especially those relating to Christ’s presence and sacrifice in the Eucharist.  It was now possible for writers, such as Andrewes to begin to speak of a ‘conversion’ or ‘change’ in the elements, although he is careful not to mean any change in the nature or substance of the bread and wine.  Instead he speaks of a change in ‘use’, but nonetheless of a presence that has a givenness about it as divine gift.  Andrewes also speaks more plainly of the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist, arguing that such an idea is integral to any understanding of the Eucharist and that the Eucharist is a ‘commemoration’ or ‘representative sacrifice’ of the once only sacrifice of Christ at Calvary (Crockett, 1989: 192-193).  Not only did Andrewes speak of the Eucharist in this ‘high’ doctrine but he also worshipped in this way.  He used various ornaments for the celebration of the Eucharist, especially in relation to the altar.  Davies comments:

“Apart from the altar coverings of silk that lapped lavishly over the corners, the two lighted candlesticks, and the finely carved altar rails, there was the higher ceremonial, the censing, together with the ‘mixed chalice’, symbolising the blood and water that flowed from the body of Christ on the Cross.  Copes and Prayer Books were brilliantly ornamented.” (Davies, 1996b: 337).

Andrewes’ writings, particularly his sermons, make frequent reference to the Eucharist.  In these writings Andrewes presents a view of the Eucharist which is based on moderate realism.  Although he does not use the word ‘instantiation’ the idea behind this word is clearly part of what Andrewes sees as the way in which Christ is present in the Eucharist.  Andrewes does use the word ‘participation’ in the sense that Christ participates in the faithful and the faithful participate in him.  For Andrewes the principle behind the incarnation (essentially instantiation) is the same principle to be found in the Eucharist.  The divine nature participates in the Eucharist just as the divine nature participated in the person of Jesus.  Andrewes says in this regard:

“This then I commend to you, even the being with Him in the Sacrament of His body, that body that was conceived and born, as for other ends so for this specially, to be ‘with you’; and this day, as for other intents so even for this, for the Holy Eucharist.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, I, 152).

Andrewes views the Eucharist as the means by which people partake of the benefits of the incarnation (Stone, 1909: II, 255).  Andrewes says:

“Now ‘the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the body, of the flesh, of Jesus Christ?’ [1 Corinthians 10: 16]  It is surely, and by it and by nothing more are we made partakers of this most blessed union.  A little before he said, “Because the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also would take part with them’ [Hebrews 2: 14] – may not we say the same?  Because he hath so done, taken ours of us, we also ensuing His steps will participate with Him and with His flesh which He hath taken of us.  It is most kindly to take part with Him in that which He took part in with us, and that to no other end but that He might make the receiving of it by us a means whereby He might ‘dwell in us, and we in Him’; He taking our flesh, and we receiving His Spirit; by His flesh which He took of us receiving His Spirit which he imparteth to us; that, as He by ours became consors humanae naturae, so we by His might become consortes divinae naturae, ‘partakers of the divine nature’. [2 Peter 1: 4]  Verily, it is the most straight and perfect ‘taking hold’ that is.  No union so knitteth as it.  Not consanguinity; brethren fall out.  Not marriage; man and wife are severed.  But that which is nourished, and the nourishment wherewith, they never are, never can be severed, but remain one for ever.  With this act them of mutual ‘taking’, taking of His flesh as He has taken ours, let us seal our duty to Him.”  (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, I, 16-17).

For Andrewes the bread and wine of the Eucharist are both tokens and the means of conveying the body and blood of Christ to the communicant.  The presence of Christ in the Eucharist is not only a divine presence but also of his flesh.  Andrewes explains what he means by saying:

“How shall we receive Him?  Who shall give Him us?  That shall One that will say unto us within a while, Accipite, ‘Take, this is My body’, ‘by the offering whereof ye are sanctified’, ‘Take, this is My blood’, by the shedding whereof ye are saved.  Both in the holy mysteries ordained by God as pledges to assure us and as conduit pipes to convey into us this and all other the benefits that come by this our Saviour.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, I, 83).

“How may we better establish our hearts with grace, or settle our minds in the truth of His promise, than by partaking these the conduit pipes of His grace, and seals of His truth unto us?  Grace and truth now proceeding not from the Word alone, but even from the flesh thereto united; the fountain of the Word flowing into the cistern of His flesh, and from thence deriving down to us this grace and truth, to them that partake Him aright.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, I, 100).

In the Eucharist Andrewes sees both a presence of Christ and a gift, and that presence and gift is Christ himself, which stands in direct relationship to the presence and gift of Christ, the incarnate.  In the Eucharist the bread and wine are described as ‘conduit pipes’ which convey to the communicant the benefits that come from Christ.  This is a statement of moderate realism where the signs (acting as conduit pipes) convey the signified benefits of Christ.  He argues his case in this way:

“Of the Sacrament we may well say, Hoc erit signum.  For a sign it is, and by it invenietis Puerum, ‘ye shall find this Child’ [Luke 2: 12].  For finding His flesh and blood, ye cannot miss but find Him too.  And a sign, not much from this here.  For Christ in the Sacrament is not altogether unlike Christ in the cratch.  To the cratch we may well liken the husk or outward symbols of it.  Outwardly it seems little worth, but it is rich of contents, as was the crib this day [the sermon was preached on Christmas Day] with Christ in it.  For what are they but infirma et egena elementa, ‘weak and poor elements’ [Galatians 4: 9] of themselves?  Yet in them find we Christ.  Even as they did this day in praesepi iumentorum panem angelorum, ‘in the beast’s crib the food of angels’, which very food our signs both represent and present unto us.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, I, 35).

Andrewes speaks plainly of the gift being in the elements and of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist being like Christ in the manger.  The signs of bread and wine in the Eucharist not only represent the presence of Christ but present Christ to the communicant.  Darwell Stone describes this as follows:

“The bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ are alike as real as His manhood and His Godhead: and they are united without either of them being changed, as the two natures of our Lord were united in the Incarnation.” (Stone, 1909: II, 258).

This moderate realist view is expressed by Andrewes in these words:

“We shall the better dispense the season, if we gather to prayers to God’s word, if we begin with them, if with the dispensation of His holy mysteries gather to that specially.  For there we do not gather to Christ or of Christ, but we gather Christ Himself; and gathering Him we shall gather the tree and fruit and all upon it.  For as there is a recapitulation of all in heaven and earth in Christ, so there is a recapitulation of all in Christ in the Holy Sacrament.  You may see it clearly: there is in Christ the Word eternal for things heaven; there is also flesh for things of earth.  Semblably, the Sacrament consisteth of a heavenly and a terrene part (it is Irenaeus’ own words); the heavenly – there the word too, the abstract of the other; the earthly – the element. …. The gathering or vintage of these two in the blessed Eucharist is as I may say a kind of hypostatical union of the sign and the thing signified, so united together as are the two natures of Christ.  And even from this sacramental union do the fathers borrow their resemblance to illustrate by it the personal union in Christ; I name Theodoret for the Greek, and Gelasius for the Latin Church, that insist upon it both, and press it against Eutyches.  That even as in the Eucharist neither part is evacuate or turned into the other, but abide each still in his former nature and substance, no more is either of Christ’s natures annulled, or one of them converted into the other, as Eutyches held, but each nature remaineth still full and whole in its own kind.  And backwards; as the two natures in Christ, so the signum and signatum in the Sacrament, e converso.  And this latter device of the substance of the bread and wine to be flown away and gone, and in the room of it a remainder of nothing else but accidents to stay behind, was to them known; and had it been true had made for Eutyches and against them.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, I, 281-282).

Andrewes denies any immoderate realism, since he insists that the heavenly part of the Eucharist (Christ’s body and blood) and the earthly part (the bread and wine) remain in their own natures without any evacuation or conversion of substance, and at the same time affirms a moderate realism using the language of the hypostatical union of Christ’s natures, human and divine.  He also is therefore denying any form of transubstantiation.  The sign (the bread and wine) and the things signified (the body and blood of Christ) are therefore seen to be united as the two natures of Christ, human and divine, are united.  It is the uniting of the sign and the signified, together with the earlier use of the word ‘participation’, that suggests the form of moderate realism that is implied in the concept of instantiation.  Andrewes’ views on the Eucharist seem to be in clear agreement with the application of a model of instantiation based on moderate realism to the theology of the Eucharist.

Andrewes is of the view that the theology of the Eucharist which he expresses is of ancient origin in the Church.  He says in regard to the idea that there is no real presence of Christ in the Eucharist:

“To a many with us it is indeed so fractio panis as it is that only and nothing beside; whereas the ‘bread which we break is the partaking of Christ’s’ true ‘body’, [1 Corinthians 10: 16] and not a sign, figure, or remembrance of it.  For the Church hath ever believed a true fruition of the true body of Christ in the Sacrament.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, V, 67).

Andrewes is arguing that the Eucharist is more than a sign, figure or remembrance and that the benefits of Christ’s true body are present in the sacrament.  It is in this sense that the bread, for Andrewes, is a ‘partaking’ of Christ’s true body.

In Andrewes book of private devotions, The Preces Privatae of Lancelot Andrewes (edn. Brightman, 1903) Andrewes includes prayer for use at the Eucharist (Andrewes, Preces Privatae, edn. Brightman, 1903: 119-124).  In the prayer called An Act of Preparation, Andrewes prays in realist terms that the Lord will allow him “to the touch and partaking of the immaculate, awful, quickening and saving mysteries of thine allholy Body and precious blood.” (Andrewes, Preces Privatae, edn. Brightman, 1903: 121).  At the offertory he prays that the Lord will, from heaven, “come to hallow us. Thou that sittest on high with the Father, and art here with us invisibly, come to hallow the gifts that are set forth, and them for whom and them by whom and the ends whereunto they are brought.” (Andrewes, Preces Privatae, edn. Brightman, 1903: 122).  He concludes this prayer by bringing before God the benefits of the Eucharist, whereby he clearly suggests that the purpose and effect of the Eucharist is far more than that of sign, figure and remembrance.  He says:

“Unto a token of the fellowship,

a memorial of the dispensation,

a showing forth of the death,

a communion of body and blood,

a participation of the Spirit,

remission of sins,

a riddance of adversaries,

quieting of conscience,

blotting out of debt,

cleansing of stains,

healing of the sickness of the soul,

renewal of the covenant,

provision for the journey of ghostly life,

increase of enabling grace/winning comfort,

compunction of repentance,

illumination of mind,

a preparatory exercise of humility,

a seal of faith,

fulness of wisdom,

a bond of charity,

a sufficient ground of almsgiving,

an armour of endurance,

alertness of thanksgiving,

confidence of prayer,

mutual indwelling,

a pledge of resurrection,

acceptable defence in judgement,

a testament of inheritance,

a stamp of perfectness.” 

(Andrewes, Preces Privatae, edn. Brightman, 1903: 122-123).

At the consecration Andrewes prays:

“ … we beseech Thee, O Lord, that with the witness of our conscience clean, receiving our share of thy hallowed things, we may be united to the holy body and blood of thy Christ, and receiving them not unworthily may have Christ indwelling in our hearts, … “(Andrewes, Preces Privatae, edn. Brightman, 1903: 123 (Andrewes, Preces Privatae, edn. Brightman, 1903: 119-124).

The bread and wine are seen to be hallowed and the communicant is seen to be united to the body and blood of Christ in a realist sense, but this is in no way in an immoderate sense of realism, since the indwelling of Christ is in the heart of the communicant.

Andrewes in his Response to Cardinal Bellarmine speaks of the reality of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, but will not be drawn on the manner of that presence.  He does however reject the doctrine of transubstantiation since witness to it cannot be found in the Scriptures.  He also affirms that the presence of Christ, not the sacrament, is to be worshipped in the Eucharist.  He says:

“Christ said, ‘This is My body’.  He did not say, ‘This is My body in this way’.  We are in agreement with you as to the end; the whole controversy is as to the method.  As to the ‘This’, we hold with firm faith that it is.  As to the ‘this is in this way’ (namely, by the Transubstantiation of the bread into the body), as to the method whereby it happens that it is, by means of In or With or Under or By transition there is no word expressed.  And because there is no word, we rightly make it not of faith; we place it perhaps among the theories of the school, but not among the articles of the faith. … We believe no less than you that the presence is real.  Concerning the method of the presence, we define nothing rashly, and, I add, we do not anxiously inquire, any more than how the blood of Christ washes us in Baptism, any more than how the human and divine natures are united in one Person in the Incarnation of Christ.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, VIII, 13).

Andrewes rejects transubstantiation, arguing that evidence for it cannot be found in the first 400 years of the Church.  Andrewes does not deny that the elements are changed but he does deny that there is a change in substance.  In referring to earlier authorities he says:

“But there is no mention there of a change in the substance, or of the substance.  But neither do we deny in this matter the preposition trans; and we allow that the elements are changed (transmutari).  But a change in substance we look for, and we find it nowhere.”  (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, VIII, 262).

The way in which the change is brought about is through the power of God.  Andrewes explains this as follows:

“At the coming of the almighty power of the Word, the nature is changed so that what before was the mere element now becomes a divine Sacrament, the substance nevertheless remaining what it was before … There is that kind of union between the visible Sacrament and the invisible reality (rem) of the Sacrament which there is between the manhood and the Godhead of Christ, where unless you want to smack of Eutyches, the manhood is not transubstantiated into the Godhead.”  (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, VIII, 265).

Once again Andrewes is arguing that the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a kind of hypostatical union between the visible and the invisible, in the same way that the manhood and the Godhead of Christ is united.  The reality of the sacrament is united to the visible elements and as such they become divine, not in a fleshy or immoderate manner, but in the manner of moderate realism.  To describe the presence of Christ as being instantiated in the Eucharist as a state of affairs, is not in opposition to the view which Andrewes puts.

This does not mean however that for Andrewes there is any argument being advanced that the communicant adores the sacrament.  He says concerning Cardinal Bellarmine’s question about whether the Anglicans adore the sacrament:

“About ‘the adoration of the sacrament’ he stumbles badly at the very threshold.  He says, ‘of the Sacrament, that is, of Christ the Lord present by a wonderful but real way in the Sacrament’.  Away with this.  Who will allow him this?  ‘Of the Sacrament, that is, of Christ in the Sacrament’.  Surely, Christ Himself, the reality (res) of the Sacrament, in and with the Sacrament, outside and without the Sacrament, wherever He is, is to be adored.  Now the king [i.e. King James I] laid down that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, and is really to be adored, that is, the reality (rem) of the Sacrament, but not the Sacrament, that is, the ‘earthly part’, as Irenaeus says, the ‘visible’, as Augustine says.  We also, like Ambrose, ‘adore the flesh of Christ in the mysteries’, and yet not it but Him who is worshipped on the altar.  For the Cardinal puts his question badly, ‘What is there worshipped’, since he ought to ask, ‘Who’, as Nazianzen says, ‘Him’, not ‘it’. And. Like Augustine, we ‘do not eat the flesh without first adoring’.  And we none of us adore the Sacrament.”  (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, VIII, 266-267).

Clearly Andrewes believes that we adore Christ in the Eucharist, but at the same time he is clear that we do not adore the sacrament.  It is Christ that is the reality of the sacrament.  In no way can the sacrament be the reality.  This fits will with a theology which argues that the nature of Christ (the reality) is instantiated in the Eucharist as a state of affairs, and which argues that it is this presence or nature of Christ which is real and worshipped.

In regard to the eucharistic sacrifice Andrewes also makes comment in his Sermons.  He says for example:

“Many among us fancy only a Sacrament in this action, and look strange at the mention of a sacrifice, whereas we not only use it as a nourishment spiritual, as that it is too, but as a means also to renew a ‘covenant’ with God by virtue of that ‘sacrifice’, as the psalmist speakest.  So our Saviour Christ in the institution telleth us, in the twenty-second chapter of Luke and twentieth verse, and the Apostle, in the thirteenth chapter of Hebrews and tenth verse.  And the old writers use no less the word sacrifice than Sacrament, altar than table, offer than eat; but both indifferently, to show there is both.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, V, 66-67).

The eucharistic sacrifice has the function of renewing the covenant in the present.  For Andrewes the words ‘sacrifice’, ‘altar’ and ‘offer’ therefore, are appropriate to the Eucharist, not in any immoderate sense of realism where the historic sacrifice is re-enacted, but in the moderate realist sense, where the effect of the past sacrifice is renewed in the present. 

The eucharistic sacrifice for Andrewes is more than mere remembering or a verbal description, since the symbols of bread and wine are the means for the renewing of the covenant and can therefore be described as an immolation in the moderate sense of realism discussed above.  The actual sacrifice occurred only once, that is at Calvary, but in the Eucharist there is a continual showing forth of that once only sacrifice.  It is for this reason that the language of sacrifice can be applied to the Eucharist in the moderate sense of realism.  This is fully expressed by Andrewes in this extended passage:

“Two things Christ there gave us in charge: 1. Anamnhsi, ‘remembering’, and 2. Lhyi, ‘receiving’.  The same two St Paul, but in other terms, 1. kataggellia, ‘showing forth’; 2. koinwnia, ‘communicating’.  Of which, ‘remembering’ and ‘showing forth’ refer to celebremus, ‘receiving’ and ‘communicating’ to epulemur here [1 Corinthians 5: 8].  The first, in remembrance of Him, Christ.  What of Him?  Mortem Domini, His death, saith St Paul, ‘to show forth the Lord’s death’ [1 Corinthians 11: 26].  Remember Him.  That we will and stay at home, think of Him there.  Nay, it must be hoc facite.  It is not mental thinking or verbal speaking, there must be actually somewhat done to celebrate this memory.  That done to the holy symbols that was done to Him, to His body and blood in the Passover; break the one, pour out the other, to represent klwmenon, how His sacred body was ‘broken’, and ekcunomenon, how His precious blood was ‘shed’.  And in corpus fractum and sanguis fusus there is immolatus.  This is it in the Eucharist that answereth to the sacrifice of the Passover, the memorial to the figure.  To them it was, hoc facite in Mei praefigurationem, ‘do this in prefiguration of Me’: to us it is, ‘do this in commemoration of Me.’ [Luke 22: 19; 1 Corinthians 11: 26].  To them prennuntiare, to us annuntiare; there is the difference.  By the same rules that theirs was, by the same may ours be termed a sacrifice.  In rigour of speech, neither of them; for to speak after the exact manner of divinity, there is but one sacrifice, veri nominis, ‘properly so called’, that is, Christ’s death.  And that sacrifice but once actually performed at His death, but ever before represented in figure, from the beginning; and ever since repeated in memory, to the world’s end.  The only absolute, all else relative to it, representative of it, operative by it.  The Lamb, but once actually slain in the fulness of time, but virtually was from the beginning, is and shall be to the end of the world.  That the centre, in which their lines and ours, their types and our antitypes do meet.  While yet this offering was not, the hope of it was kept alive by the prefiguration of it in theirs.  And after it is past, the memory of it is still kept fresh in mind by the commemoration of it in ours.  So it is the will of God, that so there might be with them a continual foreshadowing, and with us a continual showing forth, the ‘Lord’s death till he come again’.  Hence it is that what names theirs carried, ours do the like, and the fathers make no scruple at it; no more need we.  The Apostle in the tenth chapter compareth this of ours to the immolata of the heathen [1 Corinthians 10: 21]; and to the Hebrews habemus aram, [Hebrews 10: 10] matcheth it with the sacrifice of the Jews.  And we know the rule of comparisons, they must be eiusdem generis. … From the Sacrament is the applying the Sacrifice.  The Sacrifice in general, pro omnibus.  The Sacrament in particular, to each several receiver, pro singulis.  Wherein that is offered to us that was offered for us; that which is common to all, made proper to each one, while each taketh his part of it; and made proper by a communion and union, like that of meat and drink, which is most nearly and inwardly made ours, and inseparable for ever.” (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, II, 300-301).

The idea of eucharistic sacrifice is also picked in Andrewes private devotions where he prays:

“For we have held the remembrance of thy death, we have seen the figure of thy resurrection, we have been filled with thine unending life, we have had the fruition of thine inexhaustible delight:” (Andrewes, Preces Privatae, edn. Brightman, 1903: 124).

The sacrifice, once offered is held in remembrance in the Eucharist and the life of Christ is given to those who receive the sacrament, the power of the sacrifice being inexhaustible.  This is a statement of moderate realism in relation to eucharistic sacrifice.

Andrewes also comments on the eucharistic sacrifice in his Response to Cardinal Bellarmine.  Here he says:

“Our men believe that the Eucharist was instituted by the Lord for a memorial of Himself, even of His sacrifice, and, if it be lawful so to speak, to be a commemorative sacrifice, not only to be a Sacrament and for spiritual nourishment.  Though they allow this, yet they deny that either of these uses (thus instituted by the Lord together) can be divided from the other by man either because of the negligence of the people or because of the avarice of the priests.  The sacrifice which is there is Eucharistic, of which sacrifice the law is that he who offers it is to partake of it, and that he partake by receiving and eating, as the Saviour ordered.  For to ‘partake by sharing in the prayer’, that indeed is a fresh and novel way of partaking, much more even than the private Mass itself. … Do you take away from the Mass your transubstantiation; and there will not long be any strife with us about the sacrifice.  Willingly we allow that a memory of the sacrifice is made there.  That your Christ made of bread is sacrificed there we will never allow.”  (Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, VIII, 250-251).

Andrewes here admits that there is a eucharistic sacrifice and that this sacrifice is in no way fleshy or immoderate.  The eucharistic sacrifice is a memory of the sacrifice made in the context of the Eucharist.  There is no sense in which Christ is sacrificed again in any fleshy or immoderate manner.  The eucharistic sacrifice is therefore seen to be integral to the sacrament in the sense of moderate realism.  Andrewes’ theology of the eucharistic sacrifice is not opposed to a theology of the Eucharist based on moderate realism and where the sacrifice of Christ is instantiated in the Eucharist in the present by its very nature.

At Lancelot Andrewes’ funeral the sermon was preached by John Buckeridge, at that time the Bishop of Rochester.  In his sermon he states that Andrewes:

“ … taught that on the cross and in the Eucharist there is the ‘same sacrificed thing, that is, the body and blood of Christ’, but not the same ‘action of sacrifice’; and that the Church offers in the Eucharist ‘the Church itself, the universal body of Christ, and does not ‘sacrifice the natural body of Christ otherwise than by commemoration’” (cited in Stone, 1909: II, 266).

Buckeridge’s view, seemingly in line with Andrewes, was that the eucharistic sacrifice was not a reiteration of the historic sacrifice, that is, ‘not the same action of sacrifice’, but that it was nonetheless a sacrifice and that in the Eucharist there is the ‘same sacrificed thing, that is, the body and blood of Christ’.  Such a view is in harmony with the idea of anamnesis, where the nature of Christ’s sacrifice is instantiated in the present in the Eucharist.  Buckeridge is careful to exclude any immoderate notions of sacrifice since he states that the eucharistic sacrifice does not mean the sacrifice of the natural body.  The commemoration must therefore be more than simple memory.  Rather the commemoration is the effect of the sacrifice in the present in the Eucharist.  This is moderate realism in relation to eucharistic sacrifice.  A fuller quotation from Buckeridege is included below:

“As Christ’s cross was His altar where He offered Himself for us, so the church hath an altar also where it offereth itself, not Christum in Capite, but Christum in membris, not Christ the Head properly but only in commemoration, but Christ the members.  For Christ cannot be offered truly and properly no more but once upon the cross, for he cannot be offered again no more than He can be dead again; and dying and shedding blood as He did upon the cross, and not dying and not shedding blood as in the Eucharist, cannot be one action of Christ offered on the cross, and of Christ offered in the Church at the altar by the priest by representation only, nor more than Christ and the priest are one person: and therefore, though in the cross and in the Eucharist there by idem sacrificatum, the same sacrificed thing, that is, the body and blood of Christ offered by Christ to His Father on the cross, and received and participated by the communicants in the sacrifice of the altar, yet idem sacrificium quoad actionem sacrificii, or sacrficandi, it is impossible there should be the same sacrifice, understanding by sacrifice the action of the sacrifice.  For then the action of Christ’s sacrifice, which is long since past, should continue as long as the Eucharist shall endure, even unto the world’s end, and His consummatum est is not yet finished; and dying and not dying, shedding of blood and not shedding of blood, and suffering and not suffering, cannot possibly be one action; and the representation of an action cannot be the action itself. … This then is the daily sacrifice of the church in St. Augustine’s resolute judgment, even the Church itself, the universal body of Christ, not the natural body, whereof the Sacrament is an examplar and a memorial only, as hath been showed. … We deny not then the daily sacrifice of the Church, that is, the Church itself, warranted by Scriptures and fathers.  We take not upon us to sacrifice the natural body of Christ otherwise than by commemoration, as Christ Himself and St Paul doth prescribe.” (Buckeridge, in Andrewes, Works, edn. Wilson and Bliss, 1841-54, VIII, 260, 265-266).

Like Andrewes, Buckeridge excludes immoderate notions of sacrifice by arguing that the actions of dying and shedding blood on the cross cannot be the same historic action of sacrifice in the Eucharist.  If the ‘action’ at Calvary and the ‘action’ in the Eucharist are the same in an historic sense (an immoderate notion), then Christ has not died.  The Eucharist therefore cannot be action of Christ dying in the immoderate sense.  The sense then that Buckeridge is arguing is that the nature of the sacrifice is commemorated in the Eucharist and the effects of that sacrifice are available in the Eucharist.  This is moderate realism where the nature of Christ’s sacrifice is instantiated in the Eucharist.

Andrewes’ eucharistic theology is based on moderate realism in relation to both the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and in relation to eucharistic sacrifice.