So, Presbyterians hold to a higher view of communion then most reformed churches?
Not that I know of. Calvin said we commune on Christ's body and blood, but through the agency of the Holy Spirit. As far as I know all Reformed churches take some view like that.
Westminster is the traditional Presbyterian confession. It says " Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament,[13] do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.[14]"
The Reformed churches tend to use Heidelberg. Several questions involve the Lord's Supper, but I think these are the most directly relevant to the mode of presence. (This is from the new translation, by the way.)
from Q76:
...
But it means more.
Through the Holy Spirit, who lives both in Christ and in us,
we are united more and more to Christs blessed body.2
And so, although he is in heaven3 and we are on earth,
we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone.4
And we forever live on and are governed by one Spirit,
as the members of our body are by one soul.5
Q78:
Q. Do the bread and wine become
the real body and blood of Christ?
A. No.
Just as the water of baptism
is not changed into Christs blood
and does not itself wash away sins
but is simply a divine sign and assurance1 of these things,
so too the holy bread of the Lords Supper
does not become the actual body of Christ,2
even though it is called the body of Christ3
in keeping with the nature and language of sacraments.4
Q79:
Q. Why then does Christ call
the bread his body
and the cup his blood,
or the new covenant in his blood,
and Paul use the words,
a sharing in Christs body and blood?
A. Christ has good reason for these words.
He wants to teach us that
just as bread and wine nourish the temporal life,
so too his crucified body and poured-out blood
are the true food and drink of our souls for eternal life.1
But more important,
he wants to assure us, by this visible sign and pledge,
that we, through the Holy Spirits work,
share in his true body and blood
as surely as our mouths
receive these holy signs in his remembrance,2
and that all of his suffering and obedience
are as definitely ours
as if we personally
had suffered and made satisfaction for our sins.3
My reading of Calvin is that we commune on Christ's body and blood through the Holy Spirit. Not so much that the body is spiritually present with us as that we are spiritually in contact with the body. Calvin rejected the ubiquity of Christ's body. That is, he believed that Christ's body has the normal properties of a human body, which is that is present in a specific place, and not everywhere. Luther, on the other hand, asserted the ubiquity. Hence Luther can speak of the body and blood being physically present with the worshipper in and through the elements, while Calvin can't.
So for Calvin the Spirit unites us with Christ. It seems to be that Heidelberg is consistent with that. I can't tell whether Westminster adds something to it. It talks of the body being spiritually present to the worshipper, but that could mean the same thing.
If you believe "lex orandi, lex credendi", i.e. that worship shows and to some extent determines belief, I note that in the PCUSA services I've attended recently, the pastor hands the bread to worshippers saying something like "the body of Christ broken for you," showing every sign of some kind of real presence. (PCUSA communion services also now seem to be based on the anaphora of Hippolytus, which is a more ancient model than that used by the Catholic Church. Among other things, it preserves a real epiclesis.)
