that it is no more a process to be instructed it 's all instructed already and they can do no more for their part to put it in a condition to be discerned on But who shall be the Judge of it It shall be every one of you according to the Principles of your own Religion For according to the Principles of ours there would be no question at all because on one hand our Church has all the marks by which it has been judged since St. Augustin's time that we ought to acknowledge it the true Church of Jesus Christ And on the other we believe that Jesus Christ has given to his Church an infallible Authority to which every particular person is bound to submit But your Church is grounded on another Maxim directly contrary and you are made to believe that every one of you have right to examine and judge after all your Ministers assembled in a General Synod could say unto you Make use then of the liberty which is given you even to the end you may be sure if they had reason or not to give it you Read and Judge but read with such attention and care as you would bring to comprehend an Affair upon which depended the Life of one of your best Friends and judge with that Conscience and sincerity of Heart with which you would desire to be judged if your Life or Death depended on the Judgment they were to make of you And indeed there is no less at the stake in this occasion only with this difference that these Men who should Judge you could not preserve your Life but for a little time nor condemn you but to a Death which sooner or later you could not eschew Whereas it is of far greater importance to you to discern in this process after the instruction that is given you of the same for in judging it aright and having nothing but God before your eyes you may eschew a Death which never ends a Death which all those will incur who have been made to look upon as a Damnable Errour the Ancient and perpetual Faith of the most sublime Mystery of our Religion and may put your selves in a condition to enjoy one day a Life eternally happy after having received the pledge thereof by the real and true partaking of the Worlds Saviour wherewith the Catholick Church nourishes her Children THE FAITH OF THE CATHOLICK CHVRCH Concerning the EUCHARIST Invincibly proved by the Argument used against the Protestants in the Books of Mr Arnaud entituled The Perpetuity of the Faith c. THere is no Christian can deny that a Doctrine regarding one of the principal Mysteries of Religion such as is the Eucharist * The Controversie of the Eucharist is one of the most important of those which makes the separation betwixt the Roman Church and the Protestants says Mr. Claud p. 1. of the Preface of his Answer to Mr. Arnaud The Article of the Eucharist in my Judgment is one of the most essential says M. de Larroque Minister at Rouen in his Preface to the History of the Eucharist which had been always believed in the Universal Church is a Doctrine taught by the Apostles to the first Believers We shall then have proved the Doctrine of the Real Presence such as the Roman Church now believes it to be the Apostles Doctrine when we shall have proved it to be that which has always been believed in all the Churches of the World. Now it 's impossible but it must have been always believed in all Churches If being certain it was universally believed in some Ages we can demonstrate that it could not proceed from an innovation or change of its ancient Faith that the Church of these Ages began to believe it The business will be compleatly done then if we can make out this And thus we make it out SECT 1. ARGUMENT All the Churches both of the East and West were found to be united in the Belief of the Real Presence towards the beginning of the eleventh Century and they are found to be yet united in the same Belief excepting onely some new Sects of the last Age. But it is impossible this Belief should have been established of new or by an innovation of their ancient Faith in all these Churches and yet no trace nor memorial of that Innovation appeared And it is certain there has appeared none at all neither from Paschasius his time to that of Berengarius nor from Berengarius his time even to this day Therefore it is certain that the Doctrine of the Real Presence is the perpetual Doctrine of the Church and consequently none can maintain the contrary without being an Heretick THe first Proposition which is called the major has two parts one that the Churches of the East were united in the same Faith concerning the Eucharist with the Roman Church in Berengarius his time The other that they are united with the same at this time The second Proposition which is called the minor has likewise two parts One that supposing the truth of the major as to Berengarius's time it 's impossible that the innovation pretended by the Calvinists to have been made in all Churches from Paschasius to Berengarius could be made in that time The other that if it was not made in that time in all the Eastern Churches it would be impossible it could have been made from Berengarius's time to this day SECT 2. The general Proof of the major in respect of Berengarius his time A Matter of fact unanimously asserted by contemporary Authors who cannot be suspected to have been deceived or intending to deceive and which has not been contradicted by those who were most concerned to contradict it ought to be held for most certain and undoubted But we have shewn from the very beginning of the first Treatise of the Perpetuity and in the first Tome 2 Book 7 Chap. and 9 Book 1 Chap. That all those who wrote against Berengarius Adelmanus who had studied under S. Fulbert Hugo Bishop of Langres Deodurnus Bishop of Leige Lanfrancus Archbishop of Canterbury Durandus Abbot of Troarn Guitmondus Archbishop of Aversa in Italy did all of them reproach to him That he had separated himself from the unity of the Holy Church that he scandalized the whole Church that none before him had dreamed of his Follies that his Heresie was so notorious that there needed not a Council assembled to condemn it that he impugned what the Church taught througbout the World That the Berengarians had not for themselves one sole Town nor so much as one Village And in a word that there needed no more but to ask the Latins the Greeks the Armenians and generally all the Christians of whatsover Nation and all would answer That they believed the change of the terrestical substance of the Bread and Wine by the infallible incomprehensible and miraculous operation of the Omnipotence of God into the essence or substance of the Lords Body We did likewise
evidently impossible that Mr. Claud could not extricate himself otherwise as we have shewn than by an Engine or Machine of Reâ—renchment whereby he would have â—s believe against all truth that the â—oint controverted in this matter is not â—he belief of the whole World but onâ—y that of the Occident and of the Provinces submitted to the Obedience of â—he Pope SECT 5 The Second Member of the Prooâ— of the impossibility of an insensiblâ— change from the end of the Ninth Age to the beginning of the Eleventh THe fourth Circumstance viz. That this Innovation ought to have been made in a manner so imperceptible as that no tract thereof remained to posterity is treated in the ninth Chapter of the same Book which has for Title Examination of the Engines or Means of Execution in which is shewn the impossibility of an insensible change I would wish one should read it entirely for they would have greater satisfaction But not to be too prolix I shall transcribe here the most necessary The inutility of the preceeding means made use of by Mr. Claud gives us no ground to expect great matter from those he pretends were made use of to bring to pass this insensible change So it may be seen in the Description thereof made on his own proper words that he knows not what to lay hold on and employs contradictory means Sometimes he makes the Real Presence establisht by the noise of Disputes pag. 300. Sometimes he avows there were no Disputes in the Tenth Age in which he pretends this change was made pag. 651. So here we have right to ask of him in the first place that he would take his option and that in chusing one of these chimerical moyens he should confess he advanced the other falsly and timerariously Yet it must be granted that if the contradiction be evident it is in some manner necessary and he was forced to it by the consequence of his false it was impossible the Belief of the Reaâ— Presence should be introduced into the Church in case it had not always been in it without a great number of Disputes and Contestations and therefore at first he lays hold on this moyen as absolutely necessary for his purpose These Meanings or Senses says he were assaulted by the noise of Disputes pag. 30. But when he saw that these Disputes did necessarily draw after them Writings on either hand and that he could produce none he repents himself of the step he had advanced and retires back in contradicting himself by a pretty Antithese as we have seen I conclude indeed says he pag. 400. that since there were no Writings on the matter there were no Disputes about it The consequence in my opinion is reasonable but I do not conclude that there having been no Disputes therefore the Doctrine of the Church was not assaulted The consequence is not good was established without being defended ......... I conclude indeed that if there had been Disputes on the point Ignorance had not subsisted But I conclude likewise that Ignorance has subsisted because there were no Disputes If we require proofs from Mr. Claud. that the Real Absence which he calls the Doctrine of the Church was assaulted by false Philosophy by the Intrigues of Monks and hy the Authority of the Court of Rome which was never more fierce nor more powerful He would be no less straitned than he is to produce Writings and Disputes for there is as little likelihood in the one as the other Never was there any thing more remote from Philosophy true or false than all what remains of the Writings of the Tenth Age And if there was any ignorance greater in this than in other Ages it was onely of Aristotles Philosophy and Humane Literature For the Ecclesiasticks of that time applied themselves onely to the reading of the holy Scripture and the Fathers That Authority of the Court of Rome which Mr. Claud says was never so fierce nor so powerful and by which he will have the true Doctrine to have been attacked is also a fiction not only timeratious and groundless but notoriously false and contrary to the truth of History For not onely the Court of Rome was neither fierce nor powerful in the Tenth Age but was extreamly depressed for the Emperours taking upon them to make depose the Popes and elect others it may be said that during all this Age the Roman Church was under the dependence of the Temporal Power and consequently was never less in condition to make a new Doctrine be recevied by the whole Church as it was never farther from enterprizing it These Intrigues of Monks are meer fables without likelihood and without ground The Monks of these times were either disorderly and thought little on changing the Faith of the Church or reformed as these of the Congregation of Cluny the Camaldulenses establisht by St. Romuald in Italy the Monks of Germany reformed by the Bishops There were also several other Reforms made in France and Germany of which mention is made in the Book of the Perpetuity But all these Reforms aimed at the withdrawing of the Monks from the Intrigues of the World and not to intangle them therein We have yet extant the Life of St. Mayeul written by St. Odilon that of St. Odo written by an Author contemporary those of St. Odilon and St. Romuald written by Petrus Damianus As all these persons were perswaded of the Real Presence St. Odo speaks honourably of Paschasius in his Conferences St Odo saw Berengarius Petrus Damianus survived the condemnation of his Heresie and condemns it every where throughout all his Books so they would have made no difficulty to avow that they whose Lives they wrote had laboured to establish the Belief of the Real Presence They would have thought Intrigues for such a subject honourable and taking from them the name of Intrigues they would have made them pass for works of their Zeal for the Truth And yet we find not that it 's observed of any of these holy religious Men that they contributed any manner oâ— way to root out the Opinion contrary to the Real Presence nor to spread that Doctrine abroad I knew not if Mr. Claud has been at the pains to reflect on this Observation and if he sees the consequence that springs from it So that to help him to draw them I entreat him to consider that if it was true that the Doctrine of the Real Presence had been establisht in the Tenth Age and pagated into all the Provinces of Christendom It must be absolutely necessary that all those who were reputed for Piety and Learning in these times had their part in its establishment and laboured for the same And as there can hardly be imagined a greater work than to perswade this Belief to all the Ecclesiasticks and to all the People to overcome all the oppositions of their Reason and their Senses fortified by the multitude and by being accustomed to other more easie and more humane
Cogitations It would have doubtless been the principal Occupation of these Paschasites and these Paschasites who should have so changed the Faith of the whole Church could be no other than Men who were considered as the Heads of the Religion of that Age and who by their Authority drew the Ecclesiasticks and People after them Now we have the Lives of the most part of these persons written by Authors contemporary or at least of the following Age. We can reckon more than twenty of them whom I omit for brevity and resume the Discourse by this reflection But it is not said neither of these Saints nor of any other that they preached the Doctrine of the Real Presence that they were zealous for its establishment that they converted many persons to this Belief And that which should have been their chiefest occupation and the principal object of their Zeal and Devotion according to Mr. Clauld's fancies is not so much as observed by the Historians save only by St. Odo Archbishop of Canterbury Uncle to St. Oswald but in a manner far from giving ground to think that the Belief of the Real Presence was not that of his time The History of St. Odo which William of Malmsbury draws from Osborn carries onely that several persons doubting of the verity of the Eucharist he confirmed them in the Faith by a Miracle in shewing the Host changed into Flesh Plurimos de veritate Dominici corporis dubitantes says William of Malmsbury it a roboravit ut panem Altaris ver sum in carnem vâ—num calicis in sanguinem propalam ostenderet denuo in pristinam speciem retorta usui humano conducibilia faceret Guil Malmsb. in Odone The matter of fact is acknowledged by the Protestants themselves though Baleus no less than Aubertin ascribes it to the Devil mendacibus Satanae miraculis This proves indeed that there were in St. Odo's time some persons who doubted of the Real Presence which is no strange thing being that the Mysteryitself is capable to excite these kind of doubts And besides this John Scot had retired himself to England where he might have made some private Disciples of his Doctrine But here it s manifestly seen that this doubt was condemned by Odo Head of the English Church who having been lookt upon as a Saint by those of his time and not accused of Errour by any is an unquestionable Witness of the Faith of the Church of England during the Tenth Age The same Osborn in the Life of St. Dunstan chap. 44. speaks likewise of the Eucharist but onely occasionally and to shew how much this Saint was replenished with the Spirit of God Being returned says he to the Altar he changed the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ by the holy Benediction And when he had given the Blessing to the People he left once more the Altar to preach and being inebriated with the Spirit of God he spake of the verity of the Body of Jesus Christ of the future Resurrection and of Life eternal in such a manner that one would have thought they heard speaking a Man already beatified Lo here the rank which was given to the Article of the Real Presence in the Tenth Age. It ought moreover to be concluded from the example of St. Odo that if all the Authors of the Lives of Saints had had any such thing to be related of those whose Lives they wrote and if they had had ground to remark the Conversions they had made they would not have omitted to have done it and consequently their silence is an evident proof that these Saints never had it in their view to inspire the Doctrine of the Real Presence that they never dream'd of this project And as it could not have been established by others than by them it follows that it was not established by any person in that Age because it needed not being the ancient Belief of preceeding Ages After having remarked what ought to have been found in the Lives written particularly of the Saints of that time we pass next to the Histories Annals and Chronicles The same observation may be made on the Historian Ditmarus Bishop of Mersbourg who at least had no less intention to write the Ecclesiastical History of his time than that of the Temporal State of Germany His great Birth did not suffer him to be ignorant of what passed in his time He was an intimate Friend of all the Bishops of his Age and he makes the Eloge of several of them in his History wherein are reckoned to the number of eleven He speaks of a great many others and makes his own Life in his History but he neither mentions of himself nor of any other that took pains to establish the Belief of the Real Presence Will Mr. Claud say that all these Bishops had no part in this Work or that the matter was not worth the remarking Will he pretend that to withdraw Germany from an Opinion which the Paschasites must have lookt upon as a detestable Crime to perswade the World a Doctrine so contrary to Reason and which they judged so necessary for Salvation was a thing too trivial to appear in the Eloge of these Bishops We find the same silence in all the other Historians of the Ninth and Teâ—th Age how sollicitous soever they were to transmit to us the Affairs of the Church There are reckoned up ten what Histories what Annals or Chronicles which says not so much as one word of that establishment of the Real Presence of these Disputes of these Conversions nor of the Zeal of the Bishops of that time to instruct all the people in that Doctrine In a word as Mr. Claud who is acute enough to forsee what ought to be misses not to rank amongst those means which could advance the establishment of the Real Presence the Intrigues of Courts the Combinations of great Men the Interests of Bishops and other worldly Engines and which he says he would have remarked if he had been living at that time It must be granted to him that Intrigues which should have had so great effects ought to have been most remarkable and yet we find no mention at all made of them in any of the contemporary Authors who wrote the Lives of the Princes and Princesses of this Age as in Wittichindus Ditmarus Glaber Rodolphus Helgaldus Odilo and several others Many proofs are there seen of the Zeal of these two Princes for Religion and it 's hard to find any who were more careful who had more favour for the Church and who had more esteem and affection for the holy Bishops and Religious Men of their time And if it was true that the Doctrine of the Real Presence was introduced in their time it must have been by their Authority and favour Whence comes it then that that Zeal and all these Actions which should have flowed from it have not been observed by any Author And that in the telling us
the meaning of the Calvinists containing no more but the institution of Bread as a sign of the Body of Jesus Christ. It 's a manifest absurdity to assert they import a promise and engagement on God's part to give really his Body to those who should take the Signs of it Perhaps the Ministers will answer true it is the promise of that real receiving the Body of Jesus Christ which they believe is not contained in these words This is my Body but it 's contained in other Passages as in the 6 chap. of St. John and in these words of St. Paul 1 Cor. 10. The Bread which we break is it not the communion of the Body of Jesus Christ This is what must be examined in few words As to the 6 of John it is clear they cannot make use of it to prove their belief concerning the Eucharist seeing they hold with the Lutherians that the Evangelist speaks not of this Sacrament in all that Chapter There is no word of the Supper here says Calvin on the 53 vers but of the continual communication of the Flesh of Christ which we have without the use of the Supper And he adds These of Bohemia have not adduced this passage pertinently to prove that all in general should receive the Cup. They could not then be thought to deal seriously if they should alledge this Chapter to prove their belief concerning the Supper since they judge the Evangelist does not speak of it therein As to the passage of St. Paul I confess that being taken in the true sence which is that of the Real Presence it includes that of receiving the Flesh of Jesus Christ which is a consequence of that Presence But it cannot rationally be concluded according to the Calvinists for first Zuinglius cuts off at one stroak all the consequences they can draw from it by pretending that the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not signifie Communion or Participation of the Body of Jesus Christ but a company of People who live upon the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and that by eating this Bread one declares himself a member of the Church Tom. 2 fol. 211.258.342 Besides this explication of Zuinglius whose Authority should be considerable to the Ministers because of the rank he holds among those who have erected their Church of new They themselves furnish us with others which destroy all the consequences they can draw from that passage for who can hinder a Socinian to explain these words of St. Paul in a figurative sence as themselves explain these of Jesus Christ and who can hinder him to say that these words must be so rendered The Bread which we break is it not the sign or figure of the Body of Jesus Christ as they render these others this is the sign or figure of my Body Now how can they conclude from thence that in receiving this Figure they receive really and in effect the thing figured unless it be by a great number of groundless suppositions and by supplying from their own imaginations what the Scripture says not at all They must then will they nill they confess that the figurative sence they give to the words of Jesus Christ This is my Body is altogether false it being so manifestly contrary not only to that which all Christians who believe the Real Presence since the Apostles have given to them but also to the Principles of the Ministers They must therefore renounce it to defend their belief concerning the eating and receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in their Supper Here is moreover another advantage drawn from the main Argument and we cannot sufficiently admire the care the Divine Providence has had to guard this Mysterie of our Faith with so great abundance of Proofs against the incredulity of men For it must be observed that altho' commonly it follows not that he who errs in one Point errs also in another altogether distinct from it Yet God has so disposed things as it follows necessarily that if the Calvinists err in any one of the Points upon which we accuse them of Heresie their Doctrine concerning the Eucharist is false and ours is true To be convinced of this there needs only to consider two Principles the one of Right the other of Fact both equally certain The first is It 's impossible the truth of the Mysterie of the Eucharist should be known only by a Society of Hereticks and that all other Societies should be in errour concerning so capital and important a Point for if this supposition were possible it would be also possible that the whole World might be in errour and that there were no Orthodox Church at all seeing that only Society which should know the truth of the Mysterie of the Eucharist would be Heretical in all other Points and all the other Societies would be Heretical in point of the Eucharist The second is There is none at present in the world but only the Society of the Calvinists and those who have sprung from it or have risen up with it as the Anabaptists the Socinians and Quakers who deny the Real Presence This cannot be doubted of after the Proofs we have above set down Wherefore it follows necessarily that if the Calvinists had reason to deny this Presence all the other Societies must have been in errour as to this Point and it being impossible according as I have said that the truth of this Mysterie should be known only by Hereticks there needs no more but to convince the Calvinists of Heresig upon any other Point that 's common to them with the Sacramentarians to conclude thence demonstrativly that they are also Heriticks in matter of the Eucharist because otherwise it would follow that notwithstanding of their being Herericks they alone should know the truth of this Mysterie which is altogether impossible Wherefore they are not consequences only probable but entirely certain and demonstrative To say the Calvinists are Hereticks in condemning as Idolatry the Invocation of Saints the Honour that 's given to their Reliques as is invincibly proved in the Answer to the writing of a Minister upon several points of Controversie Therefore their Doctrine concerning the Eucharist is false The Calvinists are Heriticks in rejecting Prayer for the Dead in promising Salvation to their Children dead with out Baptism c as we have demonstrated in the last chapter of the Defence of the Faith of the Church for answer to a letter of Mr. Spon Therefore their Doctrine concerning the Eucharist is false The Calvinists are Heriticks in believing that the state of the Church was interrupted in so far as it was necessary according to them that God should raise up People in an extraordinary manner to erect the Church of new This we have likewise proved so as admits no reply in the first part of the Answer to Mr. Spon Therefore their belief concerning the Eucharist is false So there needs no more but to convince them of errour