By the breaking of the bread thereby is signified our Union, uniting and growing into one body and nature with Christ (receiving him by faith) even as surely and as certainely as the bread, and wine, which wee eate, and drinke in the Lordes Supper, are united, and grow into one bodie and nature with us. And that therefore, seeing that by faith we become the true members of Christ, Bone of his bone, and fleshe of his fleshe, and doe grow into one body with him, even as Eve, being formed, and taking of her substance of the body of Adam, her husband, became as it were part of him, nay one flesh with him. That therefore (I say) it must needs follow of necessitie, that wee must take life from, and be governed by one and the self same spirit of Christ, as all the members of one body take life from, and are governed by one, and the same soule. - William Tye

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The Practical Importance of Liturgy:

I recently visited a conservative, Bible-believing, MacArthur type church where the pastor quoted Martin Luther.

I recently visited a liberal Episcopalian church where the homily was about waking the sleeping Christ within us.

Yet in which church did I confess my sins to God, receive absolution, take the Supper, read multiple passages of Scripture, recite ancient creeds, and pray theologically sound prayers written by Calvinists from the 1500s?

I'll give you a hint: not the one that looked like a rock concert. American evangelicals have for too long emphasised what we believe doctrinally on paper at the expense of how we worship in practice.

The bread and wine are not changed in substance from being the same with that which is served at ordinary tables: but in respect of the sacred use whereunto they are consecrated, such a change is made, that now they differ as much from common bread and wine, as heaven from earth. Neither are they to be accounted barely significative, but truly exhibitive also of those heavenly things whereto they have relation: as being appointed by God to bee a means of conveying the same unto us, and putting us in actual possession thereof. So that in the use of this holy ordinance, as verily as a man with his bodily hand and mouth receiveth the earthly creatures; so verily doth he with his spiritual hand and mouth (if any such he have) receive the body and blood of Christ.

And this is that real and substantial presence, which we affirmed to be in the inward part of this sacred action.-Archbishop James Ussher

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