Recursos financieros

Henry Scougal is the last in time of the seventeenth century, and the only post- Restoration voice to speak in this thesis. Henry Scougal was most probably born in 1650 in Saltoun, East Lothian,290while his father was Minister, and was the second son of Patrick Scougal, the Bishop of Aberdeen, 1664—1682. He began his studies at King’s College, Aberdeen, the year of his father’s election and consecration. He graduated in 1668, was then made a regent of the University, and in 1669 he was appointed a professor, a post he held for four years. In 1673 he accepted the parish of Auchterless in Aberdeenshire, which incumbency he held for only a year. In 1674 he was appointed to the Professorship and chair of Divinity at King’s College, once held by John Forbes of Corse. He died at the early age of 28, four years later. His lasting fame is hisThe Life of God in the Soul of Man, published in 1677, the year before his death, and which is still in print. This little volume, together with the nine sermons sometimes printed with it (of which one, the subject immediate interest, is concerned with the Eucharist); a thesis written for the occasion of his appointment to the chair of Divinity,De Objecto cultus Religiosi; a fragment,On Pastoral Cure; and a liturgical text,The Morning and Evening Service, for use in the Cathedral in Aberdeen, form the whole corpus of his known work.291

The Sermon. ‘A Preparation for the Holy Sacrament’.Joshua 3: 5, Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.

290

Bruce, James,Lives of Eminent Men of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, L. Smith etc., 1841, p. 271.

291_{Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology, N. M. de S. Cameron, ed., T&T Clark, 1993,}

This sermon of preparation was preached, quite possibly in the Parish Church at Auchterless, on a Saturday in 1673, before the celebration of the Eucharist and the receiving of Holy Communion on the following day. The elements of the sermon which do suggest Auchterless, and which do not suggest a University congregation are 1) the significance that he lays upon the celebration of the Eucharist; 2) the clarity and simplicity of the explanation of eucharistic doctrine; 3) the caution with which Scougal introduces the quotation from Chrysostom; 4) the care with which he handles what could be controversial points, such as eucharistic sacrifice, and the nature of the change which the consecrated bread and wine undergo in the Eucharist, without compromising his doctrinal position. Dr. George Garden says that Scougal thought that sermons should be of ‘…seasonable and useful subjects, such as to instruct the people’s minds…not in airy and fanciful words, nor words too big with sense…’.292 The whole sermon suggests a learned man preaching to unlearned people for whom he cares, and whom wishes to instruct, without patronising them.

In it Scougal is preparing his congregation not only to receive Holy Communion by a personal inner preparation, but also as a Christian congregation, that is in a corporate as well as personal dimension, for what is to happen in the Eucharist. In other words, the Eucharist is an action of the Church toward God, and the responding action of grace is to the communicants as the Church, not as a collection of individual

believers. The incidents that Scougal cites are the acts of God to his People Israel as a whole. He begins, ‘When God is to make any signal discovery and manifestation of himself to his people, he calleth them to a solemn preparation, that they may be in a fit posture to attend and receive it’.293And then he cites three instances of the Exodus: 1) the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai; 2) the sending of the quails ‘to satisfy and punish the inordinate appetites of that people who loathed manna, and lusted after flesh’, (Numbers 11: 18); and 3) the people at the borders of Canaan under Joshua.

Scougal says that first, the Lord will come, ‘down into this house not, [as at Sinai] “with fire and blackness, and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which they that heard, entreated that the word should not be

292

Bruce, James, op. cit., p. 275.

293_{Scougal, Henry, ‘A Preparation for the Holy Sacrament’,The Life of God in the Soul of Man with}

spoken to them any more, because they could not endure what was commanded,” (Heb. 8: 9, 10, 14), but with …love, …divine light, …his holy Spirit’, and he will give them ‘another law of liberty and love’.294Second, tomorrow He will give flesh to eat, ‘…the flesh and blood of the son of man… which is meat in deed’.295And third, ‘the Lord will open a passage for his people towards theheavenly Canaan, …in the confines of thepromised landin the suburbs of happiness and glory’.296

Next Scougal asks, ‘What are those wonders we expect to see?’ He answers, ‘A little bread broken and divided among us, a little wine poured fourth and drunk: Is there anything to surprise and amaze us here?’297Scougal contrasts what is to be seen with the outward eye, ‘For the outside of this ordinance is very poor and mean’, with that which can be seen those whose eyes are, ‘opened to …spiritual and divine

things,…can easily see…and discern astonishing wonders …of power and wisdom and love’.298

‘If we consider what is represented to us in this sacrament, we have therein occasion to behold, the most wonderful and astonishing spectacle that ever was seen in this lower world, the only begotten Son of God suffering for the sins of the world; the Lord of glory hanging betwixt two thieves; for in this ordinanceJesus Christ is evidently set forth as crucified before our eyes’.299He goes on, ‘We may read and hear of it at other times, but this is a more clear and solemn representation of it, our dying Lord commanded us todo it in remembrance of him’.300Scougal is speaking in the terms of Aberdeen tradition of Patristic teaching, of the eucharistic offering of bread and wine commemorating and representing the death of Christ. Scougal’s description of the Eucharist in the quotation above is very much in the vein of the similar passage in James Sibbald’s sermon on John 6: 44, 45. (Scougal may very well have known Sibbald’s sermons as they were published in Aberdeen only ten years before he was made a Regent at the University.) Certainly, Scougal is not suggesting an understanding of the Eucharist in which the bread and wine excite the regenerate

294 Ibid., p. 231. 295_{Ibid., p. 232.} 296_{Ibid., p. 232.} 297_{Ibid., p. 233.} 298 Ibid., p. 233. 299_{Ibid., p. 233.} 300_{Ibid., p. 233.}

mind to the mental remembrance of the saving events of old, and contemplate their efficacy to the believer now. Scougal asserts four things that are external to the believer: 1) That God is coming to ‘this house’; 2) that he will demonstrate salvation before them; 3) that he will feed them on the flesh of the Son of Man; and 4) that what they eat will ‘place them in the suburbs of happiness and glory’.301Indeed, Scougal goes so far as to say that they will see and handle the Lord. ‘Here our thoughts are more fixed, and our meditations raised, we get a nearer and more advantageous prospect, and our faith comes not only by the ear, our other senses contribute unto it, that we may say, in some sense, with the beloved disciple, that we have not only heard, but haveseen with our eyes, we have looked upon it, and our hands have handled the word of life.(I John. 1: 1)’302It may also be said that there is a fifth element that is beyond the inner contemplation of the believer, and that is the elapse of time. Scougal promises that ‘tomorrow’ in the Eucharist they will see and handle the Lord, ‘tomorrow’ the Lord will act to bring grace in a specific way not present today.

Scougal uses the promise of ‘tomorrow’ in the text from Johsua as the text implies, that there will be grace available and Divine power demonstrated, not available or demonstrated now, but at the time (and place) appointed by God, in this instance, the Eucharist. The Eucharist, specifically, is an event in which the Divine action and Divine grace, not available at other times is manifested.

Scougal draws upon the idea of the senses, exactly as Sibbald did and in exactly the same way. He is using the application of the faculties of physical sense, enabled by the Holy Spirit, allow true spiritual perception. He suggests that we both see and touch the Lord in the Sacrament. He next considers the senses in a worldly sense, that is the purely physical application of the faculties of sense, and judges that if we saw ‘a more sensible resemblance and tragical representation of the death of Christ’, we might weep, ‘but it is a mean and low devotion that is seated in the inferior faculties of the soul’’.303‘Faith takes the hint that sense doth give it, and in the sacramental bread and wine can behold the blood and wounds of our blessed Saviour. And thus that holy ordinance we are to celebrate, presents to our view the wonderful

301

Ibid., p. 232.

302_{Ibid., p. 234.} 303_{Ibid., p. 234.}

redemption of mankind; so if there were not more, on this account we might [still] say in some sense,Tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you’.304

The next paragraph of the sermon is of particular significance. ‘But that is not all’, Scougal continues, ‘this Sacrament doth not only represent a wonder that is already past, but exhibits one anew: the bread and wine that we receive, are not bare and empty signs, to put us in mind of the death and sufferings of Christ: Our Saviour calls them hisbody and blood, and such without question they are to all spiritual purposes and advantages’.305First, Scougal rejects the idea the bread and wine are ‘bare and empty signs’ that convey nothing in themselves, but are only reminders of the benefits already received. Receiving Holy Communion not only represents a wonder, ‘that is already past’, that is the Cross, ‘but exhibits one anew, thebody and blood’ of Christ. Scougal then rejects the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation, in a non-polemical comment, ‘We are not obliged to believe that after the consecration the bread and wine do vanish, and the body and blood succeed in their room’, and calls upon the witness of reason, scripture, and the ancient church to affirm it, ‘Our sense and reason do assure us of the contrary, the scripture doth nowhere affirm it, nor did ever the ancient church believe it’.306Scougal then quotes St. John 6: 63, ‘“It is the Spirit that quickeneth the flesh profiteth nothing;” these words of our Saviour “are spirit and life”’.307The bread and wine do not change nature, ‘yet they undergo a mighty change as to their efficacy and use’.308This phrase, ‘change as to efficacy and use’ is very close to John Forbes of Corse who in his Seventh Argument against transubstantiation says, ‘According, therefore to the mind of [Gregory of Nyssa] no other than their previous nature remains in the consecrated bread and wine…the whole change is

accidental, that is relating to use and office, fruit and dignity. Besides, when he says that the bread is made the Body of Christ, he overthrows Transubstantiation’.309

Also, Scougal is making precisely the same point that John Forbes does in the

following quotation from Athanasius’ sermon on Matthew 12: 32, where he uses John 6: 62, in his interpretation of the text, ‘He [Jesus] discriminates between the Spirit and

304_{Ibid., p. 234.} 305_{Ibid., p. 235.} 306_{Ibid., p. 235.} 307 Ibid., p. 235. 308_{Ibid., p. 235.} 309_{Ibid., p. 113.}

the flesh, in order that believing not only what appeared to the eyes, but also in the invisible signification, we should discriminate the things that were spoken, that they were not carnal but spiritual. For to how many men would his body have sufficed that it could become the sustenance of the whole world? But for this reason he made mention of the Ascension of the Son of Man into heaven that he might draw them away a corporal underatanding, and thence they should understand the flesh of which He had spoken was celestial food from above, and spiritual sustenance which was given by Himself, “For the things I speak unto you are Spirit and Life’”.310The bread and wine now consecrated are the body and blood of Christ and can convey to the person of the faithful communicant the benefits of Christ’s death which ordinary bread cannot. Its use is for the fulfilment of the Divine purpose in the Church, that by receiving the body and blood of Christ as he commanded, the establishment of the New Covenant in his blood, the forgiveness of sins, and the appointment to eternal life, at work in the faithful communicant by his baptism (Rom. 6:3), can be

continually renewed.

In a comment very similar to one of John Forbes of Corse (in hisIrenicum, ‘…the bodily refreshment is slight…’311) Scougal observes, ‘That food which could yield but little refreshment to the body, is now become a means to strengthen and nourish the soul, an instrument to convey to us all of those blessings that the body and blood of our Saviour can afford us’.312The bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, not by change of substance, but by the Holy Spirit, ‘it is the Spirit that quickeneth’ and they ‘under go a mighty change as to their efficacy and use’, and become the means by which the Holy Spirit unknowably operates to give the benefits of Christ’s Passion to the believers.

Scougal next turns to the idea of sacrifice in the Old Testament, and considers it in connection with the Cross and the Eucharist. This idea is also similar to that in Sibbald’s sermon of Psalm 65, in which he also connects the sacrifices of the Old Testament to the Cross, and the Cross to the Eucharist. In a succinct sentence he says, ‘As under the law a part of some sacrifices was burnt on thealtar, and a part was eaten by those for whom they were offered, so our blessed Saviour having offered

310

Low, W. L., op. cit., p. 60. (InstructionesXI, viii, 7)

311_{Selwyn, E. G., op. cit., p. 114.} 312_{Scougal, Henry, op. cit., p. 235.}

himself on thealtarof thecross, as propitiation for the sins of men, did substitute these holy symbols in place of his body and blood, that we by feasting on them, might get an interest in that sacrifice, and be partakers of the atonement that was made, and the pardon that was purchased by him’. This simple statement makes clear the

doctrine of the Eucharist as the Church’s memorial sacrifice: the offering of bread and wine at Christ’s command as commemorating and representing his death to us and before the Father. That Scougal has a concept of the Eucharist as propitiatory in the sense already defined by John Forbes of Corse and by William Forbes is explicit in his saying, ‘that we by feasting on them, might get an interest in that sacrifice, and be partakers of the atonement that was made, and the pardon that purchased by him’.313 Then he says that, ‘it was a signal miracle he wrought… when he turned the water into wine, but sure it is a greater, and more important one, to turn bread and wine into his body and blood, in the sense that we have been explaining’.314In other words the communicants are to witness an unseen but powerful change in the bread and wine upon the holy Table of their church, not metaphorical, but spiritual and real. Eating the bread that has been consecrated to be the Body of Christ and drinking the wine that has been consecrated to be the Blood of Christ offer the possibility of change to the eater and drinker.

Scougal says, ‘In this sacrament Christ doth convey himself unto the souls of men, and take stronger possession of them’.315He then speaks of the instance of Satan entering intoJudasafter the ‘sop’, where the sop was the sign of Satan’s bringing Judas under his nearer control, (The idea of ‘Judas’ sop’ drawing him closer to the devil is used by Knox inThe Ministration of the Sacraments used in the English Congregation at Geneva, 1556.316) so by receiving Holy Communion, Christ enters the hearts and lives of his people. ‘…as after thesop, Satan entered into Judas, so with these holy elements Christ entereth in to the hearts of his people, becomes the food and nourishment of their souls, he diffuseth himself through all their faculties, and animates them with his life and spirit. In a word, that it may not be any more they,but Christ that liveth in them(Gal. ii. 20). Thus we are fed and nourished by the body and blood of Christ, while the power of the Godhead doth diffuse its virtue and operation

313_{Ibid., p. 236.} 314

Ibid., p. 236.

315_{Ibid., p. 236.}

into the human nature, to the enlivening of the hearts who do rightly receive these sacramental pledges’.317Scougal, along with John Forbes of Corse318and James Sibbald319describes receiving the body and the blood of Christ as being the means by which the Christian person is transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Robert Bruce describes the Lord’s Supper and the means by which one can ‘…get a better grip of Christ… so where I had a little grip [by the Word] …between my finger and

my thumb, now [by the Sacrament I] get him with my whole hand…’.320What

Scougal is describing is qualitatively different; it is not ‘more of Christ’, but a change of the faithful communicant into the likeness of Christ.

Scougal, remembering ‘the signal miracle’ at the wedding feast at Cana and that ‘it was a great matter to feed a multitude with a few loaves and fishes’,321indirectly