But the error having been denied, the next clause of the Article is employed to assert the truth: ‘The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner; and the means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith.’ It is most important to observe that word ‘only,’ for it is exclusive of all material feeding. If it were not there it might have been possible to have argued that the Article admits the idea of a material in addition to a spiritual feeding—a feeding with the mouth as well as a feeding with the heart. But the word ‘only’ renders any such theory impossible. There is ‘only’ one manner in which He is received, and that one manner is heavenly and spiritual. With equal clearness it is declared that as there is only one mode in which the body of our blessed Saviour is received, and that heavenly and spiritual; so there is only one mean whereby it is received and eaten, and that one mean is faith. The Article does not speak of _a_ means, as if it was one of many but of ‘_the_ means’ in order to show that it stands quite alone, that it is only spiritual food, and received only by faith. The lips receive the bread, and the believing heart receives the spiritual food of Christ Himself. The body feeds on the material food, the soul on the spiritual. The means whereby the body feeds is the same as in common eating, and the means on which the soul feeds is faith. This important distinction of the outward and inward action is taught with equal clearness in Article xxix.:—‘Of the wicked which eat not the body of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.’ It may seem strange at first sight that any persons should be eager to maintain that the wicked receive so sacred a gift as the body and blood of our blessed Saviour; but a very slight reflection will show the reason, for on this question hinges the whole controversy. If the bread and wine have become the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, or if after consecration He is in them, then it must follow as a matter of certain consequence that whoever eats them eats Him. But if, on the other hand, He is not in the bread and wine at all, but is received by the heart as the bread and wine are by the body, then it follows that if the heart be not right with God, a person may eat the bread, but never feed on the body and blood of our most blessed Lord and Saviour. The whole question whether there is any independent, localized presence of our blessed Redeemer in the elements is involved in the decision whether the wicked in receiving those elements do or do not receive Him. On this point the language of the twenty-ninth Article is perfectly clear:—‘The wicked and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as St. Augustine saith) the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ; but rather to their condemnation do