# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1856_S174
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

174 "In, With, and Under."

...Lutherans) not to be present, unless he descends to us — just as though we, when he lifts us up to himself, did not equally partake of his presence... For since this is a heavenly mystery, there is no need to fetch Christ down to the earth in order that he be united with us."*)

From this it is as clear as day that Calvin assumes a presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper in which this body and this blood, as to their substance, are and remain not on earth, where the Holy Supper is held, but in heaven alone — that is, are absent! He would rather believe that man ascends up into heaven than that Christ can descend to the earth, whereas we Lutherans believe that Christ needs no descending at all in order to be with us (Matt. 18:20; 28:20; Acts 9:5). Calvin may, then, still go on to say: "When these absurdities have been done away with" (under which Calvin reckons, for instance, that Christ's body should be in several places at once), "I gladly accept whatever can serve to express a true, substantial communication of the body and blood of the Lord, which is given under the holy symbols of the Lord's Supper"**) — all this is nothing but fine words, by which Calvin deceives only himself and others. He himself writes, a few paragraphs earlier: "I say that this eating is a fruit and effect of faith."***) Because Calvin, then, always has faith in mind, this makes him so liberal with expressions such as "true, essential presence, actual eating," etc., inasmuch as faith indeed itself lays hold of what is absent and future, "no differently than if it were there." And because Calvin at one time thinks of the presence of the heavenly gifts as to their power, and at another time of a presence in actuality, it comes about that at one point he concedes that Christ, sitting at the right hand of God, is confined by no spatial dimensions, while elsewhere he again denies this. Thus he writes, for example, to Bucer: "If you were only to alter your theses slightly at two points, you would act very fittingly — namely, if you

exerat, quin se praesentem potentia et virtute exhibeat; quin suis semper adsit,
vitam ipsis suam inspirans, in iis vivat, eos sustineat, confirmet, vegetet, conservet
incolumes, non secus ac si corpore adesset; quin denique suo ipsius corpore eos
pascat, cujus communionem spiritus sui virtute in eos transfundit. Secundum hanc
rationem corpus et sanguis Christi in sacramento nobis exhibetur." (Institut. L. 4.
c. 17. § 18.)

*) "Christus praesens illis non videtur, nisi ad nos descendat. Quasi vero,
si ad se nos evehat, non aeque potiamur ejus praesentia. Nam quum mysterium
hoc coeleste sit, necesse non est, Christum elicere in terras, ut nobis sit conjunc-
tus." (L. c. § 31.)

**) "His absurditatibus sublatis, quicquid ad exprimendam veram substantia-
lemque corporis ac sanguinis Domini communicationem, quae sub sacris coenae
symbolis fidelibus exhibetur, facere potest, libenter recipio." (L. c. § 19.)

***) "Eam manducationem fructum effectumque esse fidei dico." (L. c. § 5.)