# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1856_S173
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

"In, With, and Under." 173

...real partaking of the true body and blood of Christ in the Supper, he nevertheless makes it so clear that every unbiased reader must see it, that he speaks only of a presence and an eating of the body of Christ that is accomplished through faith and concerns only the power and effect of the body of Christ. If, alongside this, he nevertheless claims to maintain a presence and enjoyment other than a merely spiritual one — which is indeed the constant, inseparable fruit of living faith — then this other presence can only be a purely chimerical one. But let us hear Calvin himself. When, among others, a dispute over the Holy Supper arose among the Protestants in Poland, and most of them wished to follow the Augsburg Confession, Calvin wrote to them in the year 1557: "One must explain the manner of the communication; namely, that Christ, who according to his body remains in heaven, descends to us through the wonderful power of his Spirit, and at the same time lifts us up to himself."*) In the same year Calvin wrote to the Regensburg preacher Schalling: "Indeed I do not deny that believers are truly and substantially nourished with the flesh and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, if only the manner is rightly defined — namely, that it comes about through the hidden power of the Spirit, so that the flesh and blood of Christ pour out their power into us."**) But in his Institutes Calvin writes: "Although he (Christ) has taken his flesh from us and has ascended into heaven with his body, yet he sits at the right hand of God, that is, he reigns in the might and majesty and glory of the Father. This dominion is limited by no local intervals, nor circumscribed by any dimensions, so that Christ should not manifest his power, wherever it may please him, in heaven and on earth; that he should not present himself, according to his might and power, as present; that he should not be with his own, breathing his life into them, sustaining, strengthening, quickening, and keeping them unharmed, no differently than if he were there with his body; that, finally, he should not nourish them with his own body, of whose fellowship he pours into them by the power of his Holy Spirit. In this manner the body and blood of Christ are given to us in the Sacrament."***) Further on Calvin writes: "Christ seems to those (the

*) "Explicandus est communicationis modus; quod scilicet Christus, secundum
corpus suum in coelo manens, admirabili spiritus sui virtute ad nos descendit et
simul nos ad se sursum attollit." (Joh. Calvini epist. ed. Beza. Lausannae 1576,
p. 403.)

**) "Quin fideles carne et sanguine Christi vere et substantialiter in coena
alantur, non nego, si tantum definiatur modus, arcana spiritus virtute fieri, ut vim
suam caro et sanguis Christi in nos transfundant." (C. l. p. 389.)

***) "Tametsi carnem suam a nobis sustulit et corpore in coelum ascendit, ad
dexteram tamen Patris sedet h. e. in potentia et majestate et gloria Patris regnat.
Hoc regnum nec ullis locorum spatiis limitatum nec ullis dimensionibus circum-
scriptum, quin Christus virtutem suam, ubicunque placuerit, in coelo et in terra