AN EPISTLE OF A CATHOLIQUE To his Friend A PROTESTANT Touching the Doctrine of Reall Presence OR The Answer to a Question propounded in these Tearms What should move you contrary to the plain Testimony of your Senses to believe that after Consecration the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament is become REALLY Christs very Body and Blood Matth. 22.29 Ye doe erre not KNOWING the Scriptures nor the POWER of God It is a manifest signe of an VNBELIEVING Heart in the Works of God to ask HOW This or That can be St. Basil lib. 5. contr Eunom Printed in the Year 1659. An Epistle of a Catholique to his Friend a Protestant touching the Doctrine of Real Presence SIR YOu having desired me to give you some probable Reasons which did or do perswade me to believe that after the words of Consecration the Bread contrary to the Senses of Seeing and Feeling and Tasting is Christs very Body and the Wine his Blood in answer to your demand I shall according to my weak Capacity tell you truly by what Reasons I am chiefly so perswaded First the Holy Scriptures unanimously in expresse tearms say That it is his Body and that it is his Blood the places in the Evangelists are so manifest and well known that it may seem needless to name them however for the importance of the matter I quote them to you Mat. 26.26 28. Mark 14.22 24. Luke 22.19 20. Secondly the Ancient Fathers did never understand those places otherwise then in their literal and proper sense as appeareth by their Works left in writing which are too numerous here to insert and is acknowledged by many of the most eminent Protestants themselves as namely Philip Melancthon the Centurists Bucer Peter Martyr Calvin and others as you may see in the Book called The Progeny of Catholiques and Protestants lib. 2. cap. 8. pag. 35 36 37. lib. 5. cap. 3. pag. 13. Thirdly it was the unanimous Doctrine of the Councels not one of them ever determining the contrary though at some times moved so to have done by some few private persons that Heretically opposed the Doctrine and many of the said Councels having expresly determined for it Fourthly it was ever the constant Belief and Practice of the universall Church throughout the world and whensoever any did oppose it they were presently judged condemned and cast out by the Church of that Age as Heretiques and in all after ages so likewise esteemed namely Heretiques and their memory held abominable stinking like to those Carcases Esay 66.24 which it is not improbable the Prophet in Spirit might principally mean when he said that the Carcases of the men that had transgressed being cast out shall be an abhorring to all flesh For so indeed most commonly are the memories of all Heretiques they are an abhorring not onely to the Catholique Church but to all flesh for the latter Heretiques do in one kinde or other usually condemn the former as much as Catholiques do Fifthly the Divisions and Differences which are among those whose opinions in this matter be contrary to the Church are so many and manifold that it is not easie to reckon them and do clearly convince that there can be no certainty of Truth in any of their said different opinions Luther in his time observed Eight several Expositions of those words Hoc est corpus meum This is my Body all contrary one to another and coming as he saith not from the Spirit of God but from the mouth of Devils and not long after him Claudius de Sainctes a learned Bishop of the Catholique Church in his Book of the Eucharist reckoned no less then fourscore different Expositions of the said words of Institution This is my Body c. and this is my Blood c. all earnestly maintained by learned Protestants with rejection of the contrary sense So that we see once out of the way of true expounding of Scripture and there 's no end of erring Luther speaking of Carolstadius Zuinglius and Oecolampadius all three Sacramentarians as he calls them saith Cursed be their Charity and Concord for ever and ever signifying that he would have nothing to do with them in the matter of this Sacrament He said moreover that they expounded the words This is my Body as absurdly as if one should expound that Text in the Book of Genesis In the beginning God made heaven and earth thus The Cuckow did eat up the Tittling or Hedge-Sparrow bones and all and as for that Passage of Saint John Chap 1. v. 14. of his Gospel The word was made flesh their Exposition saith Luther is as good as to say A crooked staff is made a Kite Thus did Luther not without cause set out and deride the Sacramentarians expounding of Scripture as you may see more at large noted pag. 22. of the Answer to Mr. Charks Preface called The Triall of Spirits Sixthly if the words This is my Body be to be expounded thus This is a figure or This is a sign of my Body then is there no hard mystery no hard saying at all in those words nor in those other which our Saviour spake John 6.53 Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have no life in you which were utterly contrary not onely to the speeches language and confessions of all Writers and of all Records of Antiquity which acknowledge a great difficulty and hardness in this Mystery and a great irreconcileable repugnancy to carnal sense and Reason that the Eucharist or Sacrament should be verily and truly Christs Body and Blood but contrary to the whole purport of our Lords Answer to the Capernaites whose great stumbling question was how Christ could give them his flesh to eat This both They and also some of his Disciples called an hard saying they could not understand how it should be done nor yet by the Answer which our Saviour gave them did they or indeed could they in reason understand it as the Sacramentarians now do to wit that the Bread in a Spiritual sense is onely a figure of his Body and not his very Body indeed For what hardness had there been then to conceive and comprehend the full nature of the Mystery especially how could his Saying have been thought so hard that it should move many of Christs own Disciples to leave him and to walk no longer with him And surely a sad parting it was seeing our Lord presently upon it said as it were mournfully to the Twelve and will ye also go away And yet notwithstanding though it were for their satisfaction and to keep them from going away with the rest our Saviour even he who is so great a lover of souls thought fit to make them no other answer but this Doth this offend you what if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before John 6.62 as much as if he had said though I do ascend and leave you yet of necessity my flesh must be eaten
cap. 3. part 3. makes a solemn Prayer expresly to the Blessed Sacrament upon the Altar and generally all the Ancient Leiturgies of the Church do shew that at the time of Elevation and whensoever the Consecrated Symbols were openly presented especially before Receiving the custom of the Church was with one voice to make their prayers unto it in these and the like words Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world have mercy upon us God be merciful to us sinners Lord I am not worthy thou shouldest come under my roof c. Many other examples might be produced but these may suffice to shew how unreasonable your conceit is that in the Fathers opinion the Bread and Wine were but bare Figures and did not really contain the very Substance of Christs Body and Blood Wherefore my Friend in the depth of your Solitude and nightly Meditations considerately think upon the doings of these Ancient Fathers Shall we say with Protestants that they adored Bread as the old Ethniques said that the Christians did eat Mans flesh at their solemn Meetings which though it were a Calumny in the sense that the Heathens charged it upon them yet 't is certain it took its rise from the Belief which Christians were known to have concerning the Blessed Eucharist namely that it was Christs Flesh and Blood in deed and truth though after a divine and incomprehensible manner and not onely a Figure of them I told you before that St. Augustin lib. 6. Confess cap. 3. for the nine years in which he was a Manichaean Heretick confesseth of himself that he did nothing but clamour and bark against the Church But O Lord saith he being now converted from that Heresie I finde to my great comfort that I barked not all that time so much against the Catholick Faith as against certain vain Fancies which my carnal thoughts and conceptions had fixed to the Faith And are not Protestants most patently guilty of the same Phrensie Do they any thing else but form to themselves false conceptions of the Doctrine of Catholicks and of the Catholick Church and then rail at it But let us pray that with St. Augustin they may be converted from this great evil Let us consider also whether it be not much more safe to follow the plain words of Christ which say This is my Body and the Universal Church which hath alwayes understood those words in their plain and litteral sense then either the private and contrary expositions of Hereticks or the suggestion of your own natural sense and reason against the words of Christ and against the universal Belief of his Church in a business of such sublime and high Mystery wherein it is far better and far more agreeable to the humility of Christians to captivate our understandings as the Apostle saith to the obedience of Faith When we were in the Loins of our first Parent Adam we lost Paradise by following our carnal sense and reason in the eating of that forbidden Fruit is it any more then equity then that upon Gods command and in full Belief of his Word we should renounce as it were our reason for a time and resign up our natural understandings unto God to regain Paradise Reflect I pray attentively upon those places of the Fathers which you think make most for your opinion viz. That the Symbols of Bread and Wine are but meer Figures and see if they be not capable of a fair and reasonable Interpretation to the contrary and more agreeable to the Catholick Doctrine In times before any controversie about the Eucharist was moved the Fathers conscious to themselves of their own true sense and meaning took a liberty of speaking sometimes and uttered some things in a dubious and ambiguous maner of expression at least as may seem so to us whose judgements are for the most part byassed set one way more then another by reason of Controversie There is scarce any Heresie against the Truth of Christian Religion but if we will be partial Interpreters of the Fathers we may finde some passages in them that through this foresaid liberty and ambiguity of speech may seem to favour it But then let us be so equal and indifferent as to consider the many and more plain passages which the same Fathers and others contemporary to them have left us in their writings to the contrary and in full assertion of the Catholick Truth and our mindes will quickly be satisfied especially if we cast into the Balance the perpetual practise not onely of the Ancient Fathers themselves but even of all the Churches upon Earth concerning the most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar Declare therefore if you can for I even challenge you to it Declare I say if you can in all your reading what one Orthodox Father or any other Authour of good name in the Church of God what one General Council what one particular Synod or National Church upon Earth for the space of 1500. years after Christ did so Officiate or celebrate the Holy Eucharist upon a Table as that they held it to be a meer Figure or Sacramental sign onely signifying Christs Body and Blood unto us as Protestants hold and not really being or not really containing or not really exhibiting and conveighing it in verity and Substance to us or that they denied the real Sacrifice of Christs Body in the Eucharist upon a true proper and real Altar A Sacrifice I say in it self and according to the original Institution thereof generally Propitiatory for all mankinde but more particularly effectual for the Church and those for whom it is specially offered or that by special Faith and Devotion do make themselves capable of the Actual Benefit and Vertue of it But if this be too hard and cannot be shewed then because the weal of Eternity is a matter of so great consequence and this Ordinance of the daily Sacrifice a thing of so great efficacy and value that as Mr. Aynsworth notes upon Levit. 5.15 the wisest among the Jews held that the world did continue and was upheld by it and that the general though not total abolishing thereof amongst Christians is to be the work of that great enemy of our Lord Antichrist Matth 24.15 Mark 13.14 Dan. 9.27 according to the judgement and consent of the Fathers in consideration I say of these things I would gladly have it shewen as well by the Testimony of Gods Holy Word as by the judgement and belief of some Orthodox Church Council or Synod within the time above specified how my poor soul may hope to be saved if I leave the universal way and rule of all good Christians which is Tradition and the continued practice of Christs Catholick Church and follow the enemies and opposers thereof in any of their private and contrary paths Lastly because by multitude of words Truth may be darkened Job 38.2 I desire that the Answer which shall be given to these demands may be plain perspicuous and direct to the purpose without evasions and shiftings to any other matter without any vain and unnecessary Circumlocutions of words without Scholastical Distinctions or any kinde of that cunning craftiness of speech and reasoning which is contrary to the simplicity of true believing condemned by the Apostle Ephes 4.14 and fit for nothing but to abuse and mislead simple and sincere mindes into errour according as in all Ages it may be observed to have been the practice of false Teachers and their chief engine wherewith to entangle and deceive souls The wise man doth well describe them Prov. 2.15 Their wayes saith he are crooked like the way of a Serpent upon a rock Prov. 30.19 ever inconstant and varying like that of the wanton woman who hath forsaken the guide of her youth So these forsake their Mother the onely True Church of Christ and run gadding every one after their own Fancies and groundless Imaginations But let them wander alone I desire I say that the Answer to these Queries be punctual and down-right to the matter that is having named the Authour and set down his words truly and faithfully that you use no enlargement at all upon them at least not further then is necessary for the clear explication of his meaning and withal giving your Reasons in brief Thus doing Sir you shall much oblige your faithful Friend c. FINIS
and my blood be drunken for otherwise life cannot be had if therefore this saying You must eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood offend you now and seem an hard saying to you now while he is present with you what will it do then when you shall see him leave you and ascend up in his Body into heaven where he was before how will you then think it possible to eat his flesh This I say was the effect of our Lords answer to them concerning their wondering how they should be able to eat Christs flesh and their being scandalized at it as a thing altogether impossible as you may see John 6.53 54. Whence surely it appeareth that if either our Saviour had expounded himself to mean or they had understood it that he did mean that his flesh should be eaten and his blood drunk in a sign or figure onely that speech of his what if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before could have had no sufficient reason For doubtless the sign or figure of his Body whatsoever it were might easily enough be eaten by them after that his Body should be ascended To take Bread and to break it in token that Christs Body was broken for us upon the Cross is no such hard thing but that it may be done as well in Christs absence as in his presence yea something more properly in his absence then in his presence at least then in his visible natural and ordinary presence but now it is clear our Saviour in that place mentions his Ascension to his Disciples as a thing that should make the mystery of eating his flesh to seem more difficult to them and not less therefore he meant they should eat it more then in a bare sign or figure onely for that I say they might as easily do when he were in heaven as while he was on earth Moreover our Lord knowing that the Capernaites looked upon him as a meer man and also that while he spake of giving them his flesh to eat they understood him in a gross and carnal manner as that he should give them his flesh cut in pieces to eat or the like to extinguish and take away that gross conceit out of their mindes he telleth them that Flesh to wit according to their gross manner of understanding profitteth nothing But now first his Flesh was not meer humane flesh as they apprehended it but it was the flesh of the Son of God yea of the true God 1 John 5.20 it was flesh united to the Deity and therefore in respect of other common flesh whether of Beasts or Men Christs Body was to be accounted rather a Spiritual and Divine Body rather Spiritual and Divine Flesh then natural and common It was the Lords Body who came down from heaven and is eternally from everlasting to everlasting alwayes in heaven it was a Body full of grace and excellent vertue and also a Body full of divine and incomprehensible Mystery It was a Body Incarnate by the Holy Ghost without man and born of a Virgin without forcing or violating the Womb a Body that passed through a multitude and was not discerned Luke 4.30 compared with John 8.59 A Body that went out of the Sepulchre not forcing away the stone Matth. 28.2 5 6. That came into the room where the Disciples were gathered together the doors being shut John 20.19 it came in I say and stood in the midst of them before they ever perceived it just as if it had been a Spirit and insomuch as the Disciples Luke 24.36 37. took it verily to have been a spirit And therefore of such a Body as this and of such a Person as Christ was God even the true God blâ—ssed for ever to say how can this man give us his flesh to eat or how can the Sacrament rightly consecrated be his Body is a foolish and an infidel question For he can do it well enough he can give us his flesh to eat and his bloud to drink though our sense perceive it not and though as he saith we must eat his Body yet his Body remaineth alwayes whole it is not to be cut or torn in pieces as the Capernaites imagined for he doth not say he would give us a piece of his flesh or a part of his flâ—sh but his flesh entirely that is to say his whole Body the entire Humanity which he received of the Blessed Virgin this he would give to every one of us He can do all things to him nothing is impossible He was with two of his Disciples at Emmaus talking with them and conversing with them and immediately vanished out of their sight and was present with other Disciples at Jerusalem as may be gathered from Luke 24.29 31. compared with John 20.19 And though he be alwayes at the right hand of God in Heaven as appears Acts 3.22 yet is he also sometimes when he pleases upon earth to convert sinners as for example Saul Acts 9.17.27 and to comfort the faithful in their prisons as Acts 23.11 He can do all things I say he can as God do whatsoever he pleaseth in Heaven and Earth What are we then silly creatures to question how he can give us his flesh to eat seeing he hath said that we must eat it or perish But still you object and say that this Doctrine viz. that Bread should become Christs real Body in truth and substance is so strangly absurd that you cannot believe it I answer no more could the Jews nor some of his Disciples of whom therefore as taxing and noting their incredulity thereby our Lord saith John 6.64 65. That no man can come unto him and believe his words except it were given him from above and if there had been nothing that is no greater mystery in these words of Christ This is my Body c. but onely this viz. a figure or sign of my Body what needed all that contest so long so difficult about the words as was betwixt Christ and the Jews Yea then have the universal Church Councels Fathers Martyrs and all been deceived for never any of them all took the Sacrament to be onely a Figure of Christs Body But you say you cannot believe it Tell me Is it not as easie for our humane Reason to conceive that the Bread which our Lord said was his Body should be so indeed as it is to conceive that the little Babe sucking at his Virgin-Mothers breast was the Creatour of the whole Universe both of the Heavens and Earth of the Sea and of all things therein contained Is it not as easie for a Christian to believe this Doctrine as to believe that the little Babe in the Manger whom the three Sages adored was the Almighty God Faith may and must believe these things though sense and reason cannot Therefore St. Paul speaks 2 Cor. 10.5 of captivating our understanding and every thought and imagination to the obedience of Christ and Rom.
short but a short moment even as a drop of a bucket to the whole ocean seâ— and one gravel stone in comparison of the sands upon the sea shore so are a thousand yea a thousand thousands of years to the dayes of Eternity Therefore O my soul saith Esdras 2 Esdras 8.4 5. swallow down understanding and devour wisdom for thou hast no longer time then onely to live wherein thou must gain eternity Wherefore as the Preacher saith Eccles 9.10 whatsoever thy hand hath found to do to wit of good do it with all thy might for there is no labouring in the grave Let us now resolutely and courageously resign up our selves to all manner of afflictions for heavens sake and by so doing lay hold of eternal life let us not let slip any opportunity for in that way we shall best gather to our selves treasures of glory we may think our selves happy as many of us as in this kind and for this cause suffer persecution Diverse Catholique Countreys want this high favour from God which we in England have Such in other Countreys as fix their eyes upon eternity force themselves to long and sharp Penances in Fastings Watchings hard Labour austere Discipline with other mortifications of the flesh but instead of these we in England have countrey-men and neighbours persecuting us to the loss of goods liberty and life sometimes O let us be content and account that this time is our Fair and Market our Mart-time to get both precious glorious and durable riches to eternity And as for those who are our Persecutours let us mourn and pray for them Our Lord said to the daughters of Jerusalem Weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your children So I would to God these would pitty themselves more then they pitty those whom they persecute which yet sometimes they seem to do Let us pray earnestly for them and fear that it is for some great foregoing sins still aggravated and continued by our own iniquities that hath so incensed and moved the merciful God to permit our neighbours to be our persecuters and that God uses them as his Battle-ax as the Rod of his wrath and the Staff of his indignation to punish Hypocrites but to purge and purifie those whom he loves O 't is a woful condition that such our persecuters are in let us pray heartily for them for their Conversion and amendment before the Altar of our God that it would please the merciful God of all flesh and Father of Spirits to illuminate those that live out of the Church seriously to apprehend the danger of their estate and the great importance of eternal Salvation and that it would please the Almighty to incline the hearts of our Magistrates both rightly to understand our Religion and impartially to consider our Sufferings and however they oppress and persecute us yet O Lord make us ever with exact fidelity to perform our duties to them And also let us pray that God would be pleased to asswage his anger towards our Nation to forgive the sins of our forefathers and ours and to turn away his wrath from us their postetity to deliver the ignorant from being any longer seduced by false Teachers and the learned from being mislead by their worldly interests and passions and the whole Nation from the Spirit of Contradiction Licentiousness and Discord that instead of so many Sects Divisions and changes of Religion they may all again be restored to that One True Religion and to that unity of Minde and steadiness of Faith and tranquillity of Conscience which is no where else to be sought no where else to be found but in the Communion of Gods Church nor by any other means to be attained but by the conduct of his Grace Amen An Appendix to the foregoing Discourse in Answer to an Objection c. Dear Friend WHereas you object that Tertullian and some other of the Arcients do call the Symbols of Bread and Wine after Consecration Figures onely I wonder that you being a knowing man in these matters should thus speak That they call them Figures sometimes it s confest and so do divers Catholick Writers of present times as you may see in Bellarmin Libr. 1. de Sacram. Eucharist cap. 5 but that they called or esteemed them Figures onely and no more or Figures without the Substance as Protestants do is denied The Holy Scripture calls the Son Heb. 1.3 the express Image or Figure of his Fathers Substance or Person Is he not therefore of the same Substance and Divine Nature with the Father The Quakers indeed understand and esteem him onely a Figure because of this Text but the Church and all true Christians believe otherwise namely that though he be the Figure of God yet he is also in the verity of his own Person true and eternal God and that in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Col. 2.9 And therefore for you to say that the Fathers esteemed the Sacrament duly consecrated to be a Figure onely of Christs Body is a great mistake and undervaluing of the Fathers Judgements supposing them to be so stupid that they should both Adore and also Offer up to God as a Sacrifice of such Divine Vertue and Merit and of so Supream and Superlative Excellency above all other Sacrifices whatsoever that had been offered before it that which was in it self but a piece of Bread a thing so much inferiour even to the meanest of the Jewish Sacrifices I say that the Fathers should thus Magnifie and Adore that which they believed to be nothing else but a piece of bread is the greatest absurdity that can be imposed upon men But you wil not believe perhaps that the Fathers Adored the Sacrament To convince you of this I shall alledge some few examples of many out of their Works by which it will undeniably appear what both their judgement and practice was concerning this matter First St. Augustin Epist 118. saith It is he the Apostle saith shall be damned who doth not with SINGULAR VENERATION or Adoration make a difference betwixt this meat and all other meats And again upon the 98. Psalm No man saith he eateth this Sacrament but first he Adoreth it Secondly St. Ambrose lib. 3. cap. 12. de Spir. Sanct. We ADORE saith he the flesh of Christ in the Mysteries Thirdly St. Chrysostome Homil. 24. in 1. ad Cor. We ADORE him on the Altar as the Wisemen did in the Manger Matth. 2.11 Fourthly St. Gregory Nazianzen in Epitaph Gorgon professeth of his Devout and Faithful Sister Gorgonia that being in a distress she ran to the Church and casting her self down before the Altar invocated or called upon Christ who is adored or worshipped thereon Fifthly Theodoret. dial 2. entituled Inconfusus The Mystical Symbols saith he are ADORED as being in truth the things they are believed to be to wit the Body and Blood of Christ Lastly St. Dennis Areopagita Scholar of the Apostles themselves Ecclesiast Hierarch