"Spiritual Presence" and the Sacramentology of George Gillespie in English Popish Ceremonies

[Sam Jer]

I am reading a section of George Gillespie's English Popish Ceremonies online, and he says several times that Christ is neither bodily, nor spiritually present under the bread and wine. What is the kind of spiritual presence he is referring to? I have heard many refer to the Calvinist view as spiritual presence. Is Gillespie departing from the Calvinist view? Do those who speak of a spiritual presence? Or did the term change it's meaning since the times of Gillespie?

 

[RamistThomist]

I am reading a section of George Gillespie's English Popish Ceremonies online, and he says several times that Christ is neither bodily, nor spiritually present under the bread and wine. What is the kind of spiritual presence he is referring to? I have heard many refer to the Calvinist view as spiritual presence. Is Gillespie departing from the Calvinist view? Do those who speak of a spiritual presence? Or did the term change it's meaning since the times of Gillespie?

He's probably rejecting what is normally understood as the Zwinglian view, though I am not an expert on Gillespie.

 

[Sam Jer]

Whereupon the n Archbishop of Armagh sheweth, that the spirituall & inward fee∣ding upon the body and blood of Christ, is to be found out of the Sacrament, and that diverse of the Fathers doe applie the sixth of Iohn, to the hearing of the Word also; as Clemens Alexandrinus, Ori∣gen, Eusebius Caesariensis, & others. oBasilius Magnus likewise teacheth plainly, that we eate the flesh of Christ in his Word and Doctrine. This I am sure no man dare deny. The B•… then must mean by this mistery, the Sacramentall receiving of the body and blood of Christ. Now, the Sacramentall receiving of the body and blood of Christ, is the receiving of the Sacramentall Signes of his body and blood. And as the p Archbishop of Armagh also observeth, the substance which is outwardly delivered in the Sacrament, is not really the bo∣dy and blood of Christ. Againe q he saith, that the Bread and Wine are not really the body and bloud of Christ, but Figuratively and Sacramentally: thus he opposeth the Sacramentall presence of the body and blood of Christ, not onely to bodily, but also to Reall presence: and by just Analogy Sacramentall receiving of the body and blood of Christ, is not onely to be opposed to a receiving of his body and blood, into the hands and mouthes of our bodyes, but likewise to the reall receiving of the same spiritually into our

soules. It remaineth therefore, that kneeling in due regard of the Sacramentall receiving of the body and blood of Christ, must be expounded to be kneeling in reverence of the Sacramentall Signes of Christs body and blood. And so Perths Canon, and the Bishops Commentary upon it, fall in with the rest of those Formalists ci∣ted before, avouching and defending kneeling for reverence to the Sacrament.

 

[jwright82]

He's probably rejecting what is normally understood as the Zwinglian view, though I am not an expert on Gillespie.

Neither am I but Lutheran's seem to always accuse us (even way back then) of being Zwinglians, so that may be it.