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Pusey on the Eucharist

I'm increasingly convinced that perhaps the greatest theological lack in Evangelical churches today is a lack of a thorough-going Eucharistic Theology. Given the emphasis that the Reformers placed upon the doctrine this is perhaps surprising, although I wonder whether it springs both from a fear of appearing too Roman in orientation and a worry about preaching pure theology rather than in an expository style at mainstream services (understandable, given that much theology can be dull as dishwater when presented poorly). I'm currently preparing a lecture on the Oxford Movement and came across the quote from Pusey below. While never exactly a popular chap with Evangelicals, perhaps we could learn something from his beautiful statements on the sacrament:

"The Communion is not a mere going up of our hearts to Christ, but a coming down of Him to us. Well indeed may the ancient service bid us, 'lift up your hearts'; and well may we answer, 'we lift them up unto the Lord'. Well may we lift them up to meet the Lord, but it is to receive Him that we lift them up, not to embrace Him for ourselves. The outward emblems, bread and wine, which we see, would in themselves not lift us up to Christ, but depress us, except so far as we know them to be emblems and pledges, channels of Him and His Presence to our souls, as they are made to His Heavenly Body and Blood. Of themselves they are plainly slight and insufficient to convey any spiritual benefit. They are emblems of nothing but His humiliation, forms of earth, such as He took. They tell us that He, Very God, took upon Him a form of earth, and that that form was broken; their very breaking speaks His greater humiliation, and that to receive a humble Saviour, we must also be humbled; that we must not look to gain Him for ourselves, but bow ourselves to the earth, and pray Him to have pity upon and give life to our dust". Pusey, Parochial Sermons



This post first appeared on Evangatology, please read the originial post: here

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Pusey on the Eucharist

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