compass and to set them in a good Light and shall first offer some general Presumptions to shew that it is not like that this was the Doctrine of the Primitive Times and then some positive proof of it 1. It is no slight Presumption against it that we do not find the Fathers take any pains to answer the Objections that do naturally arise out of the present Doctrine of the Church of Rome These Objections do not arise out of profound Study or great Learning but from the plain Dictates of common Sense which make it hard to say no more for us to believe That a Body can be in more places than one at once and that it can be in a place after the manner of a Spirit That Accidents can be without their Subject or that our Senses can deceive us in the plainest cases We find the Fathers explain some abstruse Difficulties that arise out of other Mysteries that were less known and were more speculative And while they are thought perhaps to over-do the one it is a little strange that they should never touch the other But on the contrary when they treat of Philosophical Matters they express themselves roundly in opposition to those Consequences of this Doctrine Whereas since this Doctrine has been received we see all the Speculations of Philosophy have been so managed as to keep a reserve for this Doctrine So that the uncautious way in which the Father 's handled them in proof of which Volumes of Quotatations can be made shews they had not then received that Doctrine which must of necessity give them occasion to write otherwise than they did 2. We find the Heathens studied to load the Christian Religion with all the heaviest Imputations that they could give it They objected to them the believing a God that was born and that died and the Resurrection of the Dead and many lesser matters which seemed absurd to them They had Malice enough to seek out every thing that could disgrace a Religion which grew too hard for them But they never once object this of making a God out of a piece of Bread and then eating him If this had been the Doctrine of those Ages the Heathens chiefly Celsus and Porphiry but above all Iulian could not have been ignorant of it Now it does not stand with common Sense to think that those who insist much upon inconsiderable things could have passed over this which is both so sensible and of such importance if it had been the received Belief of those Ages 3. It is also of weight that there were no Disputes nor Heresies upon this Point during the first Ages and that none of the Hereticks ever objected it to the Doctors of the Church We find they contended about all other Points Now this hath so many Difficulties in it that it should seem a little strange that all Mens Understandings should have been then so easie and consenting that this was the single Point of the whole Body of Divinity about which the Church had no dispute for the first seven Centuries It therefore inclines a Man rather to think that because there were no Disputes concerning it therefore it was not then broached Since we see plainly that ever since it was broached in the West it has occasioned lasting Disputes both with those who could not be brought to believe it and with one another concerning the several ways of explaining and maintaining it 4. It is also a strong Prejudice against the Antiquity of this Doctrine that there were none of those Rites in the first Ages which have crept in in the latter which were such natural Consequences of it that the belief of the one making way for the other we may conclude that where the one were not practised the other was not believed I will not mention all the Pomp which the latter Ages have invented to raise the lustre of this Doctrine with which the former Ages were unacquainted It is enough to observe that the Adoration of the Sacrament was such a necessary Consequence of this Doctrine that since the Primitive Times know nothing of it as the Greek Church does not to this day it is perhaps more than a Presumption that they believed it not V. But now I come to more positive and convincing Proofs And 1. The Language of the whole Church is only to be found in the Liturgies which are more severely composed than Rhetorical Discourses and of all the parts of the Office the Prayer of Consecration is that in which we must hope to find most certainly the Doctrine of the Church We find then in the fourth Century that in the Prayer of Consecration the Elements were said to be the Types of the Body and Blood of Christ as St. Basil informs us from the Greek Liturgies and the Figure of his Body and Blood as St. Ambrose informs us from the Latin Liturgies The Prayer of Consecration that is now in the Canon of the Mass is in a great part the same with that which is cited by St. Ambrose but with this important difference that instead of the words which is the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ that are in the former there is a Petition added in the latter that the Gifts may be to us the Body and Blood of Christ. If we had so many of the MSS. of the ancient Liturgies left as to be able to find out the time in which the Prayer of the Consecration was altered from what it was in St. Ambrose's days to what it is now this would be no small Article in the History of Transubstantiation But most of these are lost since then the antient Church could not believe otherwise of the Sacrament than as she expressed her self concerning it in the Prayer of Consecration it is plain that her first Doctrine concerning it was That the Bread and Wine were the Types and the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ. 2. A second Proof is from the Controversy that was began by the Apollinarists and carried on by the Eutichians Whether Christ's Humanity was swallowed up of his Divinity or not The Eutychians made use of the general Expressions by which the change in the Sacrament seemed to be carried so far that the Bread and Wine were swallowed up by it and from this they inferred that in like manner the Human Nature of Christ was swallowed up by his Divinity But in opposition to all this we find Chrysostome the Patriarch of Constantinople Ephrem the Patriarch of Antioch Gelasius the Pope Theodoret a Bishop in Asia the less and Facundus in Africk all within the compass of little more than an Age agree almost in the same words in refuting all this asserting That as the Human Nature in Christ remained still the same that it was before notwithstanding its Union with the Divine Nature even so the Bread and Wine retained still their former Nature Substance and Form and that they are only sanctified not by the change of their
A DISCOURSE CONCERNING Transubstantiation AND IDOLATRY BEING AN ANSWER TO THE BISHOP of Oxford's PLEA relating to those two Points London Printed in the Year 1688. An ANSWER to the REASONS of the Bishop of Oxford c. THIS Author would perswade the World That Transubstantiation is but a Nicety of the Schools calculated to the Aristotelian Philosophy and not defined positively in the Church of Rome but that the Corporal and Real Presence of the Substance of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament was the Doctrine of the Universal Church in the Primitive Times and that it is at this day the generally received Doctrine by all the different Parties in Europe not only the Roman Catholicks and Lutherans but both by the Churches of Switzerland and France and more particularly by the Church of England So that since all that the Church of Rome means by Transubstantiation is the Real Presence and since the Real Presence is so universally received it is a heinous thing to renounce Transubstantiation for that is in effect the renouncing the Real Presence This is the whole strength of his Argument which he fortifies by many Citations to prove that both the Antient Fathers and the Modern Reformers believed the Real Presence and that the Church of Rome believes no more But to all this I shall offer a few Exceptions I. If Transubstantiation is only a Philosophical Nicety concerning the manner of the Presence where is the hurt of renouncing it And why are the Roman Catholicks at so much Pains to have the Test repealed For it contains nothing against the Real Presence Indeed if this Argument has any force it should rather lead the Rom. Catholicks to take the Test since according to the Bishop they do not renounce in it any Article of Faith but only a bold Curiosity of the School-men Yet after all it seems they know that this is contrary to their Doctrine otherwise they would not venture so much upon a Point of an old and decried Philosophy II. In order to the stating this matter aright it is necessary to give the true Notion of the Real Presence as it is acknowledged by the Reformed We all know in what sense the Church of Rome understands it that in the Sacrament there is no Real Bread and Wine but that under the appearance of them we have the true Substance of Christ's glorified Body On the other hand the Reformed when they found the World generally fond of this Phrase they by the same Spirit of Compliance which our Saviour and his Apostles had for the Iews and that the Primitive Church had perhaps to excess for the Heathens retained the Phrase of Real Presence But as they gave it such a sense as did fully demonstrate that tho they retained a term that had for it a long Prescription yet they quite changed its meaning For they always shewed that the Body and Blood of Christ which they believed present was his Body broken and his Blood shed that is to say his Body not in its glorified State but as it was crucified So that the Presence belonging to Christ's dead Body which is not now actually in being is only his Death that is to be conceived to be presented to us and this being the sense that they always give of the Real Presence the reality falls only on that conveyance that is made to us in the Sacrament by a federal right of Christ's Death as our Sacrifice The Learned Answerer to the Oxford Discourses has so fully demonstrated this from the copious Explanations which all the Reformed give of that Phrase that one would think it were not possible either to mistake or cavil in so clear a Point The Papists had generally objected to the Reformers that they made the Sacrament no more than a bare Commemoratory Feast and some few had carried their aversion to that gross Presence which the Church of Rome had set up to another extreme to which the People by a Principle of Libertinism might have been too easily carried if the true Dignity of the Sacrament had not been maintained by Expressions of great Majesty So finding that the World was possessed of the Phrase of the Real Presence they thought fit to preserve it but with an Explanation that was liable to no Ambiguity Yet it seems our Reformers in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign had found that the Phrase had more power to carry Men to Superstition than the Explanations given to it had to retire them from it and therefore the Convocation ordered it to be laid aside tho that Order was suppressed out of Prudence And the Phrase has been ever since in use among us of which Dr. Burnet has given us a copious account Hist. Reform 2 vol. 3d Book III. The difference between the Notion of the Sacraments being a meer Commemoratory Feast and the Real Presence is as great as the value of the King's Head stamped upon a Meddal differs from the current Coin or the Impression made by the Great Seal upon Wax differs from that which any Carver or Graver may make The one is a meer Memorial but the other has a sacred Badg of Authority in it The Paschal Lamb was not only a Remembrance of the Deliverance of the People of Israel out of Egypt but a continuance of the Covenant that Moses made between God and them which distinguished them from all the Nations round about them as well as the first Passover had distinguished them from the Egyptians Now it were a strange Inference because the Lamb was called the Lord's Passover that is the Sacrifice upon the sprinkling of whose Blood the Angel passed over or passed by the Houses of the Israelites when he smote the first-born of the Egyptians to say that there was a change of the Substance of the Lamb Or because the Real Faith of a Prince is given by his Geat Seal printed on Wax and affixed to a Parchment that therefore the Substance of the Wax is changed So it is no less absurd to imagine that because the Bread and Wine are said to be the Body and Blood of Christ as broken and shed that is his Death really and effectually offered to us as our Sacrifice that therefore the Substance of the Bread and Wine are changed And thus upon the whole matter that which is present in the Sacrament is Christ dead and since his Death was transacted above 1600 Years ago the reality of his Presence can be no other than a Real Offer of his Death made to us in an Institution and federal Symbol I have explained this the more fully because with this all the Ambiguity in the use of that commonly received Phrase falls off IV. As for the Doctrine of the Antient Church there has been so much said in this Enquiry that a Man cannot hope to add any new Discoveries to what has been already found out Therefore I shall only endeavour to bring some of the most Important Observations into a narrow
Nature but by adding Grace to Nature This they do in terms plain and beyond all exception and Theodoret goes over the matter again and again in two different Treatises so that no Matter of Fact can appear more plainly than that the whole Church East and West and South did in the 5th and 6th Centuries believe that the Sanctification of the Elements in the Sacrament did no more destroy their Natures than the Union of the two Natures in Christ did destroy his Humane Nature 3. A third Proof is taken from a Practice which I will not offer to justify how ancient soever it may have been It appears indeed in the ancientest Liturgies now extant and is a Prayer in which the Sacrament is said to be offered up in Honour of the Saint of the Day to which a Petition is added that it may be accepted of God by the Intercession of the Saint This is yet in the Missal and is used upon most of the Saints days Now if the Sacrament was then believed to be the very Body and Blood of Christ there is nothing more crude not to say Prophane than to offer this up to the Honour of a Saint and and to pray that the Sacrifice of Christ's Body may be accepted of God thrô the Intercession of a Saint Therefore to give any tolerable Sense to these words we must conclude That tho these Prayers have been continued in the Roman Church since this Opinion prevailed yet they were never made in an Age in which it was received The only meaning that can be given to these words is that they made the Saints-days days of Communion as well as the Sundays were and upon that they prayed that the Sacrament which they received that day to do the more Honour to the Memory of the Saint might be recommended to the Divine Acceptance by the Intercession of the Saint So that this superstitious Practice shews plainly That the Church had not even when it began received the Doctrine of the change of the Elements into the Body and Blood of Christ. I will not pursue the Proof of this Point farther nor will I enter into a particular recital of the Sayings of the Fathers upon this Subject which would carry me far And it is done so copiously by others that I had rather refer my Reader to them than offer him a lean Abridgment of their Labours I shall only add That the Presumptions and Proofs that I have offered are much more to be valued than the pious and Rhetorical Figures by which many of the Fathers have set forth the manner of Christ's Presence in the Sacrament One thing is plain that in most of them they represent Christ present in his dead and crucified State which appears most eminently in St. Chrysostome so that this agrees with that Notion of a Real Presence that was formerly explained Men that have at the same time all the heat in their Imaginations that Eloquence can raise and all the fervour in their Heart which Devotion can inspire are seldom so correct in their Phrases and Figures as not to need some allowances Therefore one plain Proof of their Opinions from their reasonings when in cold Blood ought to be of much more weight than all their Transports and Amplifications From this general view of the State of the Church during the first Centuries I come next to consider the steps of the Change which was afterwards made I will not offer to trace out that History which Mr. Larrogue has done copiously whom I the rather mention because he is put in English. I shall only observe that by reason of the high Expressions which were used upon the occasion of the Eutychian Controversy formerly mentioned by which the Sanctification of the Elements was compared to the Union of the Humane Nature of Christ with his Divinity a great step was made to all that followed During the Dispute concerning Images those who opposed the Worship of them said according to all the ancient Liturgies that they indeed acknowleged one Image of Christ which was the Sacrament those who promoted that piece of Superstition for I refer the calling it Idolatry to its proper place had the Impudence to deny that it had ever been called the Image of Christ's Body and Blood and said that it was really his Body and Blood. We will not much dispute concerning an Age in which the World seemed mad with a Zeal for the Worship of Images and in which Rebellion and the deposing of Princes upon the pretence of Heresy began to be put in practice Such Times as these we willingly yeild up to our Adversaries Yet Damascene and the Greek Church after him carried this matter no farther than to assert an Assumption of the Elements into an Union with the Body and Blood of Christ. But when the Monk of Corbie began to carry the matter yet farther and to say that the Elements were changed into that very Body of Christ that was born of the Virgin we find all the great Men of that Age both in France Germany and England writ against him And he himself owns that he was looked upon as an Innovator those who writ against him chiefly Rabanus Maurus and Bertram or Ratramne did so plainly assert the ancient Opinion of the Sacraments being the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ that we cannot express our selves more formally than they did And from thence it was that our Saxon Homily on Easter-Day was so express in this point Yet the War and the Northern Invasions that followed put the World into so much disorder that all Disputes were soon forgot and that in the 11th Century this Opinion which had so many Partisans in the 9th was generally decried and much abandoned VI. But with relation to those Ages in which it was received some Observations occur so readily to every one that knows History that it is only for the sake of the more ignorant that I make them 1. They were Times of so much Ignorance that it is scarce conceivable to any but to those who have laboured a little in reading the Productions of those Ages which is the driest Piece of Study I know The Stile in which they writ and their way of arguing and explaining Scripture are all of a piece both Matter and Form are equally barbarous Now in such Times as the ignorant Populace were easily misled so there is somewhat in incredible Stories and Opinions that makes them pass as easily as Men are apt to fancy they see Sprights in the Night Nay the more of Mystery and Darkness that there is in any Opinion such Times are apt to cherish it the more for that very reason 2. Those were Ages in which the whole Ecclesiastical Order had entred into such Conspiracies against the State which were managed and set on with such vigor by the Popes that every Opinion which tended to render the Persons of Church-men sacred and to raise their Character was likely to receive
the best Entertainment and the greatest Incouragement possible Nothing could so secure the Persons of Priests and render them so considerable as to believe that they made their God And in such Ages no Armour was of so sure a Proof as for a Priest to take his God in his Hands Now it is known that P. Gregory the 7th who condemned Berengarius laid the Foundations of the Ecclesiastical Empire by establishing the Deposing Power so P. Innocent the 3d who got Transubstantiation to be decreed in the 4th Council of the Lateran seemed to have compleated the Project by the Addition made to the Deposing Power of transferring the Dominions of the Deposed Prince to whom he pleased since before this the Dominions must have gone to the next Heirs of the Deposed Prince It is then so plain that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation was so suitable to the advancing of those ends that it had been a Wonder indeed if it being once set on foot had not been established in such times 3. Those Ages were so corrupt and more particularly the Clergy and chiefly the Popes were by the confession of all Writers so excessively vicious that such Men could have no regard to Truth in any of their Decisions Interest must have carried all other things before it with such Popes who according to the Historians of their own Communion were perhaps the worst Men that ever lived Their Vices were so crying that nothing but the Credit that is due to Writers of their own Time and their own Church could determine us to believe them 4. As the Ignorance and Vices of those Times derogate justly from all the Credit that is due to them so the Cruelty which followed their Decisions and which was employed in the Execution of them makes it appear rather a stranger thing that so many opposed them than that so many submitted to them When Inquisitors or Dragoons manage an Argument how strong soever the Spirit may be in opposing it is certain the Flesh will be weak and will ply easily When Princes were threatned with Deposition and Hereticks with Extirpation and when both were executed with so much rigour the Success of all the Doctrines that were established in those Days ought to make no Impression on us in its Favour VII It is no less plain that there was a great and vigorous Opposition made to every Step of the Progress of this Doctrine When the Eutychians first made use of it the greatest Men of that Age set themselves against it When the Worshippers of Images did afterwards deny that the Sacrament was the Image of the Body and Blood of Christ a General Council in the East asserted according to the ancient Liturgies the contrary Proposition When Paschase Radbert set on foot the Corporal Presence in the West all the great Men of the Age writ against him Berenger was likewise highly esteemed and had many secret Followers when this Doctrine was first decreed And ever since the time of the Council of the Lateran that Transubstantiation was established there have been whole Bodies of Men that have opposed it and that have fallen as Sacrifices to the Rage of the Inquisitors And by the Processes of those of Tholouse of which I have seen the Original Records for the space of twenty Years it appears that as Transubstantiation was the Article upon which they were always chiefly examined so it was that which many of them did constantly deny so far were they on both sides from looking on it only as an Explanation of the Real Presence VIII The Novelty of this Doctrine appears plainly by the strange work that the Schools have made with it since they got it among them both in their Philosophy and Divinity and by the many different Methods that they took for explaining it till they had licked it into the shape in which it is now Which is as plain an Evidence of the Novelty of the Doctrine as can be imagined The Learned Mr. Alix has given us a clear Deduction of all that Confusion into which it has cast the School-men and the many various Methods that they fell on for maintaining it First They thought the Body of Christ was broken by the Teeth of the Faithful Then that appearing absurd and subjecting our Saviour to new Sufferings the Doctrine of a Body's being in a place after the manner of a Spirit was set up And as to the Change some thought that the Matter of Bread remained but that it was united to the Body of Christ as Nourishment is digested into our Bodies Others thought that the Form of Bread remained the Matter only being changed And some thought that the Bread was only withdrawn to give place to the Body of Christ whereas others thought it was annihilated While the better Judges had always an Eye either to a Consubstantiation or to such an Assumption of the Bread and Wine by the Eternal Word as made the Sacrament in some sense his Body indeed but not that Body which is now in Heaven All these different Opinions in which the School-men were divided even after the Decision made by Pope Innocent in the Council of the Lateran shew that the Doctrine being a Novelty Men did not yet know how to mould or form it But in process of Time the whole Philosophy was so digested as to prepare all Scholars in their first Formation to receive it the more easily And in our Age in which that Philosophy has lost its Credit what Pains do they take to suppress the New Philosophy as seeing that it cannot be so easily subdued to support this Doctrine as the Old one was And it is no unpleasant thing to see the shifts to which the Partisans of the Cartesian Philosophy are driven to explain themselves Which are indeed so very ridiculous that one can hardly think that those who make use of them believe them for they are plainly rather Tricks and Excuses than Answers IX No Man can deny that Transubstantiation is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome but he that will dispute the Authority of the Councils of the Lateran and Trent Now tho some have done the first avowedly yet as their Number is small and their Opinion decried so for the Council of Trent tho I have known some of that Communion who do not look upon it as a General Council and tho it is not at all received in France neither as to Doctrine nor Discipline yet the contrary Opinion is so universally received that they who think otherwise dare not speak out and so give their Opinion as a Secret which they trust in Confidence rather than as a Doctrine which they will own But setting aside the Authority of these Councils the common Resolution of Faith in the Church of Rome being Tradition it cannot be denied that the constant and general Tradition in the Church of Rome these last 500 Years has been in favour of Transubstantiation and that is witnessed by all the Evidences by which it is
degree of Divine Worship is offered up to a Creature nor will such Worshippers believing this to be truly the Body of Christ save the matter if indeed it is not so This may no doubt go a great way to save themselves and to bring their Sins into the class of the Sins of Ignorance but what large Thoughts soever we have of the Mercies of God to their Persons we can have no Indulgence for an Act of Divine Adoration which is directed to an Object that we are either sure is Bread or we are sure of nothing else 17. As for the Invocation and Adoration of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints I shall offer only three Classes of Instances to prove it Idolatrous 1. In the Office of the Mass on many of the Saints Days that Sacrifice which is no other than the Body and Blood of Christ according to them is offered up to the Honour of the Saints and they pray to God to accept of it through the Saints Intercession one would think it were enough to offer up the Sacrifices of Prayers and Praises to them but here is a Sacrifice which carries in the plain Words of it the most absurd Idolatry that is possible which is the offering up the Creator to the Honour of a Creature 2. In the Prayers and Hymns that are in their publick Offices there are Petitions offered up to the Saints that in the plain sense of the Words import their pardoning our Sins and changing our Hearts the daily Prayer to the Virgin goes far this way Tu nos ab hoste protege hora mortis suscipe Do thou protect us from our Enemy and receive us in the hour of Death Another goes yet further Culpas nostras ablue ut perennis Sedem Gloriae per te redempti valeamus scandere Wash thou away our Sins that so being redeemed by thee we may ascend up to the Mansions of Glory That to the Angels is of the same nature Nostra diluant jam Peccata prestando supernam Coeli gloriam May they wash away our Sins and grant us the Heavenly Glory I shall to this add two Addresses to two of our English Saints the first is to S. Alban Te nunc petimus Patrone preco sedule qui es nostra vera Gloria sive precum votis servorum scelera We implore thee our Patron who art our true Glory do thou take away the Crimes of thy Servants by thy Prayers And the other relates to Thomas Becket whom I believe our Author will not deny to have been as great a Rebel as either Coligny or his Faction and yet they pray thus to Christ Tu per Thomae sanguinem quem pro te effudit fac nos Christe scandere quo Thomas ascendit Do thou O Christ make us by the Blood of Thomas which he shed for thee to ascend up whither he has ascended and the Hymn upon him is that Verse of the 8th Psalm Thou hast crowned him with Glory and Honour and hast set him over all the Works of thy Hands One would think it were no bold thing to pronounce all this and innumerable more Instances which might be brought to the same purpose to be idolatrous If we are sent by our Author to the sences that may be put on those Words I shall only say with relation to that that the Test condemns the Devotions as they are used in the Roman Church so this belongs to the plain sence of the Words and if it is confessed that these are idolatrous as ascribing to Creatures the Right of pardoning Sins and of opening the Kingdom of Heaven which are main parts of the Divine Glory then the matter of the Test is justified A third sort of Instances is in the Prayer that comes after the Priest has pronounced the Words of Absolution Passio Domini nostri Iesu Christi merita B. Mariae Virginis omnium Sanctorum quicquid benefeceris vel mali sustinueris sint tibi in remissionem Peccatorum augmentum gratiae proemium vitae aeternae May the Passion of our Lord Iesus Christ the Merits of the B. Virgin and all the Saints and all the good thou hast done or the evil thou hast suffered be to thee effectual for the remission of thy Sins the Increase of Grace and the Reward of eternal Life Absolution in its true and unsophisticated meaning being the Declaration made to a Penitent of the Mercies of God in Christ according to the Gospel I would gladly know what milder censure is due to the mixing the Merits of the Virgin and the Saints with the Passion of Christ in order to the obtaining this Gospel-pardon with all the effects of it than in this of our Test that it is idolatrous I have now examined the two Points in which our Author thought fit to make an Apology for the Church of Rome without descending to the particulars of his Plea more minutely I have used him in this more gently than he deserves for as I examined his Reasonings I found all along both so much Ignorance and such gross Disingenuity that I had some difficulty to restrain my self from flying out on many occasions but I resolved to pursue these two Points with the gravity of stile which the matter required without entangling the Discourse with such unpleasant Digressions as the Discovery of his Errors might have led me to And I thought it enough to free unwary Readers from the Mistakes into which his Book might lead them without encreasing the contempt belonging to the Writer who has now enough upon him but I pray God grant him Repentance and a better Mind FINIS ADVERTISEMENT THE Reader is desired to take notice that the Author did not know of the Death of the Bishop of Oxford till this Answer was Printed Def. of his Eccl. Pol. p. 285 286.