the Lord's Table, in order that their souls may be saved? Is not reception
persons that it will do them good to come to the Lord's Table is to do them positive harm. Justification is not by the sacraments. To eat the bread and drink the wine is not the way to obtain forgiveness of sins or converting grace. On the contrary, St. Paul says that a man may eat and drink to his own condemnation (1 Cor.11:29). The Twenty-ninth Article says that" the wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ: but rather to their own condemnation do eat and drink the sign or sacrament of so great a thing."
13. But ought not all persons without exception to be pressed to come to the Lord's Table, in order that their souls may be saved? Is not reception of the Lord's Supper the truest, shortest, and best way to obtain forgiveness of sins and have eternal life? Does not our Lord Jesus Christ say in the 6th chapter of St. John's Gospel, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you;" and again, " Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life "? (John 6:53-54). Do not these texts refer to the Lord's Supper?
Those two texts have nothing to do with the Lord's Supper. This is the opinion of all the best Protestant commentators, and also of some Romish ones. The " eating and drinking" here spoken of mean the spiritual eating and drinking of the heart by faith, and the "flesh and blood" mean Christ's vicarious sacrifice of His body upon the cross. -- The penitent thief most certainly did not receive the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, yet it is certain that he "had eternal life," and went to paradise when he died. Judas Iscariot did eat the bread and wine, but he did not "have eternal life," and died in his sins. The Prayer-book Service for the Communion of the Sick contains the following statement in one of its concluding rubrics: " If the sick man do truly repent him of his sins, and stedfastly believe that Jesus Christ hath suffered death on the cross for him, and shed His blood for his redemption, earnestly remembering the benefits he hath thereby, and giving Him thanks therefore, he doth eat and drink the body and blood of Christ profitably to his soul's health, although he do not receive the sacrament with his mouth." In fact, to maintain that no one "has eternal life" who does not receive the Lord's