than what Berengarius was commanded to renounce and no interpretation can make it tolerable but such an one as is in another place of the Canon Law statuimus i. e. abrogamus nothing but a plain denying it in the sense of Pope Nicolas But however this may be it is plain they understood it not as it is now decreed But as it hapned to the Pelagians in the beginning of their heresie they spake rudely ignorantly and easily to be reprov'd but being ashamed and disputed into a more sober understanding of their hypothesis spake more warily but yet differently from what they said at first so it was and is in this question at first they understood it not it was too unreasonable in any tolerable sense to make any thing of it but experience and necessity hath brought it to what it is But that this Doctrine was not the doctrine of the first and best ages of the Church these following testimonies do make evident The words of Tertullian are these The bread being taken and distributed to his Disciples Christ made it his body saying This is my body that is the figure of my body The same is affirmed by Justin Martyr The bread of the Eucharist was a figure which Christ the Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his passion Origen calls the bread and the chalice the images of the body and blood of Christ and again That bread which is sanctified by the word of God so far as belongs to the matter or substance of it goes into the belly and is cast away in the secession or separation which to affirm of the natural or glorified body of Christ were greatly blasphemous and therefore the body of Christ which the Communicants receive is not the body in a natural sense but in a spiritual which is not capable of any such accident as the Elements are Eusebius says that Christ gave to his Disciples the Symbols of Divine Occonomy commanding the image and type of his own body to be made and that the Apostle received a command according to the constitution of the New Testament to make a memory of this sacrifice upon the Table by the symbols of his body and healthful blood S. Macarius says that in the Church is offered bread and wine the antitype of his flesh and of his bloud and they that partake of the bread that appears do spiritually eat the flesh of Christ. By which words the sense of the above cited Fathers is explicated For when they affirm that in this Sacrament is offered the figure the image the antitype of Christ's body and bloud although they speak perfectly against Transubstantiation yet they do not deny the real and spiritual presence of Christ's body and bloud which we all believe as certainly as that it is not transubstantiated or present in a natural and carnal manner THE same thing is also fully explicated by the good S. Ephrem The body of Christ received by the faithful departs not from his sensible substance and is undivided from a spiritual grace For even baptism being wholly made spiritual and being that which is the same and proper of the sensible substance I mean of water saves and that which is born doth not perish S. Gregory Nazianzen spake so expresly in this Question as if he had undertaken on purpose to confute the Article of Trent Now we shall be partakers of the Paschal supper but still in figure though more clear than in the old Law For the Legal Passover I will not be afraid to speak it was a more obscure figure of a figure S. Chrysostom affirms dogmatically that before the bread is sanctified we name it bread but the Divine grace sanctifying it by the means of the Priest it is freed from the name of bread but it is esteemed worthy to be called the Lords body although the nature of bread remains in it And again As thou eatest the body of the Lord so they the faithful in the old Testament did eat Manna as thou drinkest bloud so they the water of the rock For though the things which are made be sensible yet they are given spiritually not according to the consequence of Nature but according to the grace of a gift and with the body they also nourish the soul leading unto faith To these very many more might be added but instead of them the words of St. Austin may suffice as being an evident conviction what was the doctrine of the primitive Church in this question This great Doctor brings in Christ thus speaking as to his Disciples You are not to eat this body which you see or to drink that bloud which my crucifiers shall pour forth I have commended to you a sacrament which being spiritually understood shall quicken you And again Christ brought them to a banquet in which he commended to his Disciples the figure of his body and bloud For he did not doubt to say This is my body when he gave the sign of his body and That which by all men is called a sacrifice is the sign of the true sacrifice in which the flesh of Christ after his assumption is celebrated by the sacrament of remembrances BUT in this particular the Canon Law it self and the Master of the Sentences are the best witnesses in both which collections there are divers testimonies brought especially from S. Ambrose and S. Austin which whosoever can reconcile with the doctrine of Transubstantiation may easily put the Hyaena and a Dog a Pigeon and a Kite into couples and make fire and water enter into natural and eternal friendships Theodoret and P. Gelasius speak more emphatically even to the nature of things and the very philosophy of this Question Christ honour'd the symbols and the signs saith Theodoret which are seen with the title of his body and bloud not changing the nature but to nature adding grace For neither do the mystical signs recede from their nature for they abide in their proper substance figure and form and may be seen and touch'd c. And for a testimony that shall be esteem'd infallible we allege the words of Pope Gelasius Truly the sacraments of the body and bloud of Christ which we receive are a Divine thing for that by them we are made partakers of the Divine nature and yet it ceases not to be the substance or nature of bread and wine And truly an image and similitude of the body and bloud of Christ are celebrated in the action of the mysteries NOW from these premises we are not desirous to infer any odious consequences in reproof of the Roman Church but we think it our duty to give our own people caution and admonition 1. That they be not abus'd by the rhetorical words and high expressions alleged out of the Fathers calling the Sacrament The body or the slesh of Christ. For we all believe it is so and rejoyce in it But the
by Scotus Ocham Biel Fisher Bishop of Rochester and divers others whom Bellarmine calls most learned and most acute men it was declared that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is not expressed in the Canon of the Bible that in the Scriptures there is no place so express as without the Churches Declaration to compel us to admit of Transubstantiation and therefore at least it is to be suspected of novelty But further we know it was but a disputable question in the ninth and tenth ages after Christ that it was not pretended to be an Article of faith till the Later an Council in the time of Pope Innocent the Third MCC years and more after Christ that since that pretended determination divers of the chiefest teachers of their own side have been no more satisfied of the ground of it than they were before but still have publickly affirm'd that the Article is not express'd in Scripture particularly Johannes de Bassolis Cardinal Cajetan and Melchior Canus besides those above reckon'd And therefore if it was not express'd in Scripture it will be too clear that they made their Articles of their own heads for they could not declare it to be there if it was not and if it was there but obscurely then it ought to be taught accordingly and at most it could be but a probable doctrine and not certain as an Article of Faith But that we may put it past argument and probability it is certain that as the Doctrine was not taught in Scripture expresly so it was not at all taught as a Catholick Doctrine or an Article of the Faith by the Primitive ages of the Church Now for this we need no proof but the confession and acknowledgment of the greatest Doctors of the Church of Rome Scotus says that before the Lateran Council Transubstantiation was not an Article of Faith as Bellarmine confesses and Henriquez affirms that Scotus says it was not antient insomuch that Bellarmine accuses him of ignorance saying he talk'd at that rate because he had not read the Roman Council under Pope Gregory the VII nor that consent of Fathers which to so little purpose he had heap'd together Rem transubstantiationis Patres ne attigisse quidem said some of the English sesuits in Prison The Fathers have not so much as touch'd or medled with the matter of Transubstantiation and in Peter Lombard's time it was so far from being an Article of Faith or a Catholick Doctrine that they did not know whether it were true or no And after he had collected the sentences of the Fathers in that Article he confess'd He could not tell whether there was any substantial change or no. His words are these If it be inquir'd what kind of conversion it is whether it be formal or substantial or of another kind I am not able to define it Only I know that it is not formal because the same accidents remain the same colour and taste To some it seems to be substantial saying that so the substance is chang'd into the substance that it is done essentially To which the former authorities seem to consent But to this sentence others oppose these things If the substance of bread and wine be substantially converted into the body and blood of Christ then every day some substance is made the body or blood of Christ which before was not the body and to day something is Christ ' s body which yesterday was not and every day Christ ' s body is increased and is made of such matter of which it was not made in the conception These are his words which we have remark'd not only for the arguments sake though it be unanswerable but to give a plain demonstration that in his time this Doctrine was new not the Doctrine of the Church And this was written but about fifty years before it was said to be decreed in the Lateran Council and therefore it made haste in so short time to pass from a disputable opinion to an Article of Faith But even after the Council Durandus as good a Catholick and as famous a Doctor as any was in the Church of Rome publickly maintain'd that even after consecration the very matter of bread remain'd and although he says that by reason of the Authority of the Church it is not to be held yet it is not only possible it should be so but it implies no contradiction that it should be Christs body and yet the matter of bread remain and if this might be admitted it would salve many difficulties which arise from saying that the substance of bread does not remain But here his reason was overcome by authority and he durst not affirm that of which alone 〈◊〉 was able to give as he thought a reasonable account But by this it appears that the opinion was but then in the forge and by all their understanding they could never accord it but still the questions were uncertain according to that old Distich Corpore de Christi lis est de sanguine lis est Déque modo lis est non habitura modum And the opinion was not determined in the Lateran as it is now held at Rome but it is also plain that it is a stranger to antiquity De Transubstantiatione panis in corpus Christi rara est in antiquis scriptoribus mentio said Alphonsus à Castro There is seldom mention made in the antient writers of transubstantiating the bread into Christs body We know the modesty and interest of the man he would not have said it had been seldom if he could have found it in any reasonable degree warranted he might have said and justified it There was no mention at all of this Article in the primitive Church and that it was a mere stranger to Antiquity will not be denyed by any sober person who considers That it was with so much uneasiness entertained even in the corruptest and most degenerous times and argued and unsetled almost 1300 years after Christ. And that it was so will but too evidently appear by that stating and resolution of this question which we find in the Canon Law For Berengarius was by P. Nicolaus commanded to recant his error in these words and to affirm Verum corpus sanguinem Domini nostri Jesu Christi sensualiter non solùm in sacramento sed in veritate manibus sacerdotum tractari frangi fidelium dentibus atteri That the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ sensually not only in Sacrament but in truth is handled by the Priests hands and broken and grinded by the teeth of the faithful Now although this was publickly read at Rome before an hundred and fourteen Bishops and by the Pope sent up and down the Churches of Italy France and Germany yet at this day it is renounced by the Church of Rome and unless it be well expounded says the Gloss will lead into a heresie greater
question is after what manner it is so whether after the manner of the slesh or after the manner of spiritual grace and sacramental consequence We with the Holy Scriptures and the primitive Fathers affirm the latter The Church of Rome against the words of Scripture and the explication of Christ and the doctrine of the primitive Church affirm the former 2. That they be careful not to admit such Doctrines under a pretence of being Ancient since although the Roman errour hath been too long admitted and is ancient in respect of our days yet it is an innovation in Christianity and brought in by ignorance power and superstition very many Ages after Christ. 3. We exhort them that they remember the words of Christ when he explicates the doctrine of giving us his flesh for meat and his bloud for drink that he tells us The flesh profiteth nothing but the words which be speaks are spirit and they are life 4. THAT if those ancient and primitive Doctors above cited say true and that the symbols still remain the same in their natural substance and properties even after they are blessed and when they are receiv'd and that Christ's body and bloud are only present to faith and to the spirit that then whoever tempts them to give Divine honour to these symbols or elements as the Church of Rome does tempts them to give to a creature the due and incommunicable propriety of God and that then this evil passes further than an errour in the understanding for it carries them to a dangerous practice which cannot reasonably be excus'd from the crime of Idolatry To conclude THIS matter of it self is an error so prodigiously great and dangerous that we need not tell of the horrid and blasphemous questions which are sometimes handled by them concerning this Divine Mystery As if a Priest going by a Baker's shop and saying with intention Hoc est corpus meum whether all the Bakers bread be turned into the body of Christ Whether a Church mouse does eat her Maker Whether a man by eating the consecrated symbols does break his fast For if it be not bread and wine he does not and if it be Christ's body and bloud naturally and properly it is not bread and wine Whether it may be said the Priest is in some sense the Creator of God himself Whether his power be greater than the power of Angels and Archangels For that it is so is expresly affirmed by Cassenaeus Whether as a Bohemian Priest said that a Priest before he say his first Mass be the Son of God but afterward he is the Father of God and the Creator of his body But against this blasphemy a book was written by John Huss about the time of the Council of Constance But these things are too bad and therefore we love not to rake in so filthy chanels but give only a general warning to all our Charges to take heed of such persons who from the proper consequences of their Articles grow too bold and extravagant and of such doctrines from whence these and many other evil Propositions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 frequently do issue As the tree is such must be the fruit But we hope it may be sufficient * to say That what the Church of Rome teaches of Transubstantiation is absolutely impossible and implies contradictions very many to the belief of which no faith can oblige us and no reason can endure For Christ's body being in heaven glorious spiritual and impassible cannot be broken And since by the Roman doctrine nothing is broken but that which cannot be broken that is the colour the taste and other accidents of the elements yet if they could be broken since the accidents of bread and wine are not the substance of Christ's body and bloud it is certain that on the Altar Christ's body naturally and properly cannot be broken * And since they say that every consecrated Wafer is Christ's whole body and yet this Wafer is not that Wafer therefore either this or that is not Christ's body or else Christ hath two bodies for there are two Wafers * But when Christ instituted the Sacrament and said This is my body which is broken because at that time Christ's body was not broken naturally and properly the very words of Institution do force us to understand the Sacrament in a sense not natural but spiritual that is truly sacramental * And all this is besides the plain demonstrations of sense which tells us it is bread and it is wine naturally as much after as before consecration * And after all the natural sense is such as our blessed Saviour reprov'd in the men of Capernaum and called them to a spiritual understanding the natural sense being not only unreasonable and impossible but also to no purpose of the spirit or any ways perfective of the soul as hath been clearly demonstrated by many learned men against the fond hypothesis of the Church of Rome in this Article SECT VI. Half Communion tho' confessed to be otherwise in Christs institution and primitive practice required upon pain of Excommunication The Question now is not so much whether it be a new as a better practice than what Christ instituted Council of Constance Cassander Aquinas c. acknowledge the Novelty Pope Gelasius calls it sacrilege Greek Church communicates the people in the Chalice OUR next instance of the novelty of the Roman Religion in their Articles of division from us is that of the half Communion For they deprive the people of the Chalice and dismember the institution of Christ and praevaricate his 〈◊〉 law in this particular and recede from the practice of the Apostles and though they confess it was the practice of the primitive Church yet they lay it aside and cur so all them that say they do amiss in it that is they curse them who follow Christ and his Apostles and his Church while themselves deny to follow them Now for this we need no other testimony but their own words in the Council of Constance Whereas in certain parts of the word some temerariously presume to affirm that the Christian people ought to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist under both kinds of bread and wine and do every where communicate the Laity not only in bread but in wine also ---- Hence it is that the Council decrees and defines against this error that although Christ instituted after supper and administred this venerable Sacrament under both kinds of bread and wine yet this notwithstanding ---- And although in the primitive Church this Sacrament was receiv'd of the faithful under both kinds Here is the acknowledgment both of Christs institution in both kinds and Christs ministring it in both kinds and the practice of the primitive Church to give it in both kinds yet the conclusion from these premisses is We command under the pain of Excommunication that no Priest communicate the people under both kinds of bread and wine The
opposition is plain Christs Testament ordains it The Church of Rome forbids it It was the primitive custom to obey Christ in this a later custom is by the Church of Rome introduced to the contrary To say that the first practice and institution is necessary to be followed is called Heretical to refuse the latter subintroduc'd custom incurrs the sentence of Excommunication and this they have pass'd not only into a law but into an Article of Faith and if this be not teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men and worshipping God in vain with mens traditions then there is and there was and there can be no such thing in the world So that now the question is not whether this doctrine and practice be an INNOVATION but whether it be not better it should be so Whether it be not better to drink new wine than old Whether it be not better to obey man than Christ who is God blessed for ever Whether a late custom be not to be preferr'd before the antient a custom dissonant from the institution of Christ before that which is wholly consonant to what Christ did and taught This is such a bold affirmative of the Church of Rome that nothing can suffice to rescue us from an amazement in the consideration of it especially since although the Institution it self being the only warranty and authority for what we do is of it self our rule and precept according to that of the Lawyer Institutiones sunt praeceptiones quibus instituuntur docentur homines yet besides this Christ added preceptive words Drink ye all of this he spake it to all that received who then also represented all them who for ever after were to remember Christs death But concerning the doctrine of Antiquity in this point although the Council of Constance confess the Question yet since that time they have taken on them a new confidence and affirm that the half Communion was always more or less the practice of the most Antient times We therefore think it fit to produce testimonies concurrent with the saying of the Council of Constance such as are irrefragable and of persons beyond exception Cassander affirms That in the Latin Church for above a thousand years the body of Christ and the blood of Christ were separately given the body apart and the blood apart after the consecration of the mysteries So Aquinas also affirms According to the antient custom of the Church all men as they communicated in the body so they communicated in the blood which also to this day is kept in some Churches And therefore Paschasius Ratbertus resolves it dogmatically That neither the flesh without the blood nor the blood without the flesh is rightly communicated because the Apostles all of them did drink of the chalice And Salmeron being forc'd by the evidence of the thing ingenuously and openly confesses That it was a general custom to communicate the Laity under both kinds It was so and it was more There was antiently a Law for it Aut integra Sacrament a percipiant aut ab integris arceantur said Pope Gelasius Either all or none let them receive in both kinds or in neither and he gives this reason Quia divisio unius ejusdem mysterii sine grandi sacrilegio non potest pervenire The mystery is but one and the same and therefore it cannot be divided without great sacrilege The reason concludes as much of the Receiver as the Consecrator and speaks of all indefinitely THUS it is acknowledged to have been in the Latin Church and thus we see it ought to have been And for the Greek Church there is no question for even to this day they communicate the people in the Chalice But this case is so plain and there are such clear testimonies out of the Fathers recorded in their own Canon Law that nothing can obscure it but to use too many words about it We therefore do exhort our people to take care that they suffer not themselves to be robb'd of their portion of Christ as he is pleased sacramentally and graciously to communicate himself unto us SECT VII Publick Prayers in an unknown Tongue the Roman practice As easie to reconcile Adultery to the seventh Commandment as this practice to the fourteenth Chap. of the first to the Corinthians Testimonies of the Fathers against it That such Service does not Edifie A dumb Priest may serve as well for them that understand not as he that speaks aloud for the first can do all the Signs and Ceremonies and the other does no more to them The words both of Civil and Canon Law against it Heathen Priests and Hereticks Turks and Jews agree with the Roman practice AS the Church of Rome does great injury to Christendom in taking from the people what Christ gave them in the matter of the Sacrament so she also deprives them of very much of the benefit which they might receive by their holy prayers if they were suffered to pray in publick in a Language they understand But that 's denyed to the common people to their very great prejudice and injury CONCERNING which although it is as possible to reconcile Adultery with the seventh Commandment as Service in a Language not understood to the fourteenth Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians and that therefore if we can suppose that the Apostolical age did follow the Apostolical rule it must be concluded that the practice of the Church of Rome is contrary to the practice of the Primitive Church Yet besides this we have thought fit to declare the plain sense and practice of the succeeding Ages in a few testimonies but so pregnant as not to be avoided Origen affirms that the Grecians in their prayers use Greek and the Romans the Roman language and so every one according to his Tongue prayeth unto God and praiseth him as he is able S. Chrysostom urging the precept of the Apostle for prayers in a Language understood by the hearer affirms that which is but reasonable saying If a man speaks in the Persian Tongue and understands not what himself says to himself he is a Barbarian and therefore so he is to him that understands no more than he does And what profit can he receive who hears a sound and discerns it not It were as good he were absent as present For if he be the better to be there because he sees what is done and guesses at something in general and consents to him that ministers It is true this may be but this therefore is so because he understands something but he is only so far benefited as he understands and therefore all that which is not understood does him no more benefit that is present than to him that is absent and consents to the prayers in general and to what is done for all faithful people But If indeed ye meet for the 〈◊〉 of the Church those things ought to be spoken which the hearers understand