I. The Definition, Institution, and Design of the Lord's Supper
"The Lord's supper was instituted by Christ, who has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of him, adding these promises, first, that his body was offered and broken on the cross for me, and his blood shed for me, as certainly as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me, and the cup communicated to me: and further, that he feeds and nourishes my soul to everlasting life, with his crucified body and shed blood, as assuredly as I receive from the hands of the minister and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord, as certain signs of the body and blood of Christ."
"The Lord's supper was instituted: 1. That it might be a confirmation of our faith, or a most sure proof of our union, and communion with Christ, who feeds us with his body and blood unto everlasting life, as truly as we receive these signs from the hands of the minister." [Zacharias Ursinus - Commentary on the Heidelberg]
"The Lord's supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ's appointment, his death is showed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment, and growth in grace." [Thomas Vincent - The Shorter Catechism]
"After God has once received us into his family, it is not that he may regard us in the light of servants, but of sons, performing the part of a kind and anxious parent, and providing for our maintenance during the whole course of our lives." "To this end, he has given another sacrament to his Church by the hand of his only begotten Son, viz., a spiritual feast, at which Christ testifies that he himself is living bread, (John 6: 51,) on which our souls feed, for a true and blessed immortality." [John Calvin - Institutes]
"It is a visible sermon, wherein Christ crucified is set before us; or, it is a sacrament of the New Testament, wherein by receiving the holy elements of bread and wine, our communion with Christ is signified and sealed up to us." [Thomas Watson - The Ten Commandments]
II. The Spiritual and Mystical Eating of Christ's Body and Blood
"The eating of the body, and the drinking of the blood of Christ is not corporal, but spiritual, and embraces, 1. Faith in his sufferings and death. 2. The forgiveness of sins, and the gift of eternal life through faith. 3. Our union with Christ through the Holy Spirit, who dwells both in Christ and in us. 4. The quickening influence of the same Spirit." "This eating is that communion which we have with Christ, of which the Scriptures speak, and of which we make confession in the Creed, which consists in a spiritual union with Christ, as members with the head, and branches with the vine." [Zacharias Ursinus - Commentary on the Heidelberg]
"In summary one can therefore say, that Christ, the whole, rich, full Christ, according to his divine and human nature, with his person and work, in the state of his humiliation and in that of his exaltation, is the materia interna, the res coelestis, the thing signified in the sacrament." [Herman Bavinck - Reformed Dogmatics]
"The union between Christ and us is that whereby Christ and we are joined together, and made one." "This expression of eating denotes four things; (1) The near mystic union between Christ and his saints." "As the food which is eaten incorporates with the body, and becomes one with it, so, by eating Christ's flesh, and drinking his blood spiritually, we partake of his merits and graces, and are mystically 'one with them.'" [Thomas Watson - The Ten Commandments]
"The communion of the body and blood of Christ is, therefore, to be made through faith partakers of Christ and all his benefits, by the same Spirit dwelling both in Christ, and in us, and effecting the same things in us which he does in Christ: or, it is the spiritual fellowship which the faithful have with Christ, as members with the head, and as branches with the vine."
III. The Sacramental Union of Sign and Thing Signified
"The union which holds between the sign and the thing signified in the sacraments is called a sacramental union; and it is of this that we must now speak."
"A sacramental union, therefore, is not corporal, nor does it consist in the presence of the sign and the thing signified in the same place; much less in tran, or con-substantiation; but it is relative, and consists in these two things: 1. In a likeness or correspondence between the signs and the things signified thereby... 2. In the joint-exhibition and reception of the signs and things signified in their proper use, which cannot be done without faith..." [Zacharias Ursinus - Commentary on the Heidelberg]
"The true sense and interpretation then of the words of Christ, This is my body, which is given for you, is, this bread which I break and give unto you is the sign of my body, which was delivered unto death for you, and is a certain seal of your union with me, so that whosoever shall believe and eat this bread, does, in a certain sense, really and truly eat my body."
"According to the Reformed view this is: (a) not physical , as the Roman Catholics claim, as if the thing signified were inherent in the sign, and the reception of the materia externa necessarily carried with it a participation in the materia interna ; (b) nor local , as the Lutherans represent it, as if the sign and the thing signified were present in the same space, so that both believers and unbelievers receive the full sacrament when they receive the sign; (c) but spiritual , or as Turretin expresses it, relative and moral , so that, where the sacrament is received in faith, the grace of God accompanies it." [Louis Berkhof - Systematic Theology]
"The Romish Church teaches grievous error concerning the Lord's Supper. It teaches, (1.) That when consecrated by the priest the whole substance of the bread and the whole substance of the wine are transmuted into the substance of the body and blood of Christ. (2.) That as his body is inseparable from his soul and divinity, where the one is there the other must be." [Charles Hodge - Systematic Theology]
"The Papists hold transubstantiation—that the bread, after consecration, is turned into the very substance of Christ's body." "We say, we receive Christ's body spiritually ; they say, they receive Christ's body physically ; which is contrary to Scripture." [Thomas Watson - The Ten Commandments]
IV. The Necessity of Faith, Preparation, and Spiritual Examination
"The sacraments are used lawfully, when the faithful, or such as are converted observe the rites which God has instituted, as signs of grace, and pledges of his will to them." "Their proper use consists in true faith and repentance."
"The Lord's supper was instituted: ... For those who are truly sorrowful for their sins, and yet trust that these are forgiven them for the sake of Christ; and that their remaining infirmities are covered by his passion and death; and who also earnestly desire to have their faith more and more strengthened, and their lives more holy; but hypocrites, and such as turn not to God with sincere hearts, eat and drink judgment to themselves." [Zacharias Ursinus - Commentary on the Heidelberg]
"The sacrament being called a communion , shows... That this ordinance is for believers only, because none else can have communion with Christ in these holy mysteries." [Thomas Watson - The Ten Commandments]
"It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord's supper, that they examine themselves of their knowledge to discern the Lord's body, of their faith to feed upon him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience; lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves." [Thomas Vincent - The Shorter Catechism]
"The Lord takes notice of the frame of our hearts when we come to his table." "We dress ourselves when we come to the table of some great monarch; so, when we are going to the table of the Lord, we should dress ourselves by holy meditation and heart consideration." [Thomas Watson - The Ten Commandments]
V. The Rejection of the Popish Mass and its Errors
"The Lord's supper testifies to us, that we have a full pardon of all sin by the only sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which he himself has once accomplished on the cross; and that we by the Holy Ghost are ingrafted into Christ, who, according to his human nature, is now not on earth, but in heaven, at the right hand of God his Father, and will there be worshipped by us:—but the mass teacheth that the living and the dead have not the pardon of sins, through the sufferings of Christ, unless Christ is also daily offered for them by the priests; and further, that Christ is bodily under the form of bread and wine, and therefore is to be worshipped in them; so that the mass, at bottom, is nothing else than a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering? Jesus Christ, and an accursed idolatry."
"We reject the idea of the mass, and also the term itself, for the reason that it does not belong to the Lord's supper, which has nothing in common with the mass, although some of the ancient writers employed the term." [Zacharias Ursinus - Commentary on the Heidelberg]
"Another iniquity chargeable on the mass is, that it sinks and buries the cross and passion of Christ." "I come now to the crowning point, viz., that the sacred Supper, on which the Lord left the memorial of his passion formed and engraved, was taken away, hidden and destroyed when the mass was erected." "As widely as giving differs from receiving, does sacrifice differ from the sacrament of the Supper." [John Calvin - Institutes]
"The Lord’s Supper is a sacrificial meal, a meal of the believers with Christ on the ground of his sacrifice and therefore to be administered not on an altar but on a table." [Herman Bavinck - Reformed Dogmatics]