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of the Presence where is the hurt of renouncing it And why are the Roman Catholicks at so much Pains to have the Test repealed For it contains nothing against the Real Presence Indeed if this Argument has any force it should rather lead the Rom.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
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
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