profitable according to the proportion of faith, and is the cause that the understanding is enlightened and attentive to what is profitable; and it is not the substance of bread, but the word pronounced upon it, which is profitable to him who eats it in a way not unworthy of the Lord.” [488:1] Cyprian uses language scarcely less equivocal, for he speaks of “that wine whereby the blood of Christ is set forth,” [488:2] and asserts that it “was wine which He called His blood.” [488:3]

Christ has said—­“Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them;” [488:4] and, true to His promises, He is really present with His people in every act of devotion.  Even when they draw near to Him in secret, or when they read His word, or when they meditate on His mercy, as well as when they listen to His gospel preached in the great congregation, He manifests Himself to them not as He does unto the world.  But in the Eucharist He reveals His character more significantly than in any of His other ordinances; for He here addresses Himself to all the senses, as well as to the soul.  In the words of institution they “hear His voice;” when the elements are presented to them, they perceive as it were “the smell of His garments;” with their hands they “handle of the Word of Life;” and they “taste and see that the Lord is good.”  But some of the early Christian writers were by no means satisfied with such representations.  They appear to have entertained an idea that Christ was in the Eucharist, not only in richer manifestations of His grace, but also in a way altogether different from that in which He vouchsafes His presence in prayer, or praise, or any other divine observance.  They conceived that, as the soul of man is united to his body, the Logos, or Divine nature of Christ, pervades the consecrated bread and wine, so that they may be called His flesh and blood; and they imagined that, in consequence, the sacred elements imparted to the material frame of the believer the germ of immortality. [489:1] Irenaeus declares that “our bodies, receiving the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but possessed of the hope of eternal life.” [489:2] This misconception of the ordinance was the fruitful source of superstition.  The mere elements began to be regarded with awful reverence; the loss of a particle of the bread, or of a drop of the wine, was considered a tremendous desecration; and it was probably the growth of such feelings which initiated the custom of standing at the time of participation.  But still there were fathers who were not carried away with the delusion, and who knew that the disposition of the worshipper was of far more consequence than the care with which he handled the holy symbols.  “You who frequent our sacred mysteries,” says Origen, “know that when you receive the body of the Lord, you take care with all due caution and veneration, that not even the smallest particle of the consecrated gift shall fall to the ground and be wasted. [489:3] If, through inattention, any part thus falls, you justly account yourselves guilty.  If then, with good reason, you use so much caution in preserving His body, how can you esteem it a lighter sin to slight the Word of God than to neglect His body?” [489:4]