concerning it and sent it to several of his most learned Acquaintance the better to undeceive them in this matter One of these Persons to whom this Present was made having been pleased to communicate to me the very Paper which by the Abbot 's order was brought to him it may not perhaps be amiss to gratifie the Reader 's curiosity if I here insert it at its full length * The Abbot means that now at his death he hoped he might speak freely what he durst not in his Life-time do Permission hoped for to speak freely for the Truth I Cannot but exceedingly wonder that a certain Preacher who reads the Holy Scriptures and will maintain nothing but by their Authority should nevertheless undertake to defend against all Opposers by the Scriptures the Real Presence in the Eucharist out of the act of receiving and think himself so sure to overcome in this Occasion as to talk of it as a thing certain and in which he knows he cannot be resisted It would certainly be more safe not to be too much prepossessed with any thing I will not name the Person because I have no mind to displease him But in the mean time neither Sense nor Reason nor the Word of God have suggested to him one word of it unless the Apostle was mistaken when he said ' If ye are risen with Christ seek those things that are above where Christ is sate at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above and not on things upon the Earth Coloss 3.1 2. For how could he speak after this manner if Jesus Christ be still upon Earth by his real Presence under the species in the Eucharist When he ascended into Heaven he said not to his Disciples which saw his wonderful Ascension I shall be with you always by my Real Presence under the species of the Eucharist which shall be publickly exposed to you In his Sermon at the Supper which he had just now celebrated and which immediately preceded his Passion Jesus Christ according to S. John says expresly to his Apostles that he was about to leave them that he should not be long absent that he would send to them the Comforter but not one word of his Real Presence in the Eucharist which he had so lately instituted under the Bread and Wine to be a Mystery of our Faith for the nourishment of the Soul to life Eternal as ordinary Bread and Wine are for the nourishment of the Body to a temporal Life and that too for ALL the faithful as is clearly signified by those Words Drink ye all of this Whereupon I have elsewhere remark'd the custom of Libations which were in use time out of mind throughout the whole Roman Empire and which custom was establish'd in honour of the gods As may be seen in the Version of Athenaeus in 1680 and as I had observed long before upon Virgil and Horace though there was but little notice taken of it Which makes me think it very probable that our Saviour intended to sanctifie this Profane custom as he did some others which I have remarked in the same place When Men undertake to prove too much they very often prove nothing at all To maintain that Jesus Christ is intire in the Eucharist with all his Bodily extension and all his Dignity so as he is in Heaven so that under the Roundness of the Bread there is nothing that is Round under the Whiteness there is nothing White this is what the Scripture has not said one word of They are indeed meer Visions and which are not so easie to maintain as Men may think The Priest who celebrates breaks the Host in three pieces One of these he puts into the Cup of the two others he communicates in memory as 't is plain of what we read That Jesus the night in which he was betray'd took Bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and said Take Eat This is my Body which is broken for you Do this in Remembrance of Me. 1 Cor. 11.23 24. In the Mass there is here no more Bread they are only the appearances of Bread that is to say the Accidents and which are not tied to any Substance And yet so long as there is but one Atom of those Accidents which they call Eucharistical species in the Consecration that has been made the true Flesh of the Lord Jesus is so annex'd to them that it remains there whole and intire without the least confusion and may be so in diverse places at the same time I doubt not but those who teach us this Doctrine have thought of it more than once but have they well consider'd it for there is not one word of it in all the Sacred Writings Is it nothing that Jesus Christ said to his Apostles but a little while before his Passion when he was now about to celebrate his Holy Supper with them You shall have the Poor always with you but me ye shall not have always Matth. 26.11 His Real Presence in the Eucharist out of the act of communicating not excepted They say to the People Behold your Creator that made Heaven and Earth And the People seeing the consecrated Bread in the Ciboire wherein 't is carry'd abroad says Behold the good God going in procession to confound the Hereticks and according to their natural inclination they adore with all their Hearts they know not what because so they have been instructed and the better to maintain their prejudice intire in this matter they become mad But alas they know not what they do and we ought to pity their Excess On the other side who can tell whether the Priest has consecrated or indeed whether he be capable of consecrating Is it a point of Faith to believe that among so many Priests not one of them is a Cheat and an Impostor This certainly cannot be of Faith and if this be not neither is that which exposed with so much Pomp to carry the true Body of the Lord through the Streets of Faith. Thus the belief is at best but Conjecture and then whatsoever in such cases is not of Faith is sin according to the Apostle Rom. 14.23 I know not what colour can be sufficient to excuse so strong an Objection unless Men will absolutely resist the Holy Scripture and right Reason founded upon it 'T is further said that Jesus Christ is in many places at the same time in the Hosts which are carried in very different manners But neither for this is there any Text of Scripture You will say this may be I answer the Question here is not of the Infinite power of Jesus Christ but of his Will and which we must obey when it is known to us and of this as to the present point we read nothing in the Holy Scripture The shorter way then would be to say that the Sacrament of one Parish is not the same with that of another although both the one and the other concur
that Debate stopp'd or at least he should have added some new strength to it But to send it again into the World in the same forlorn State it was before to take no notice either from whose Store-house he borrow'd it or what had been returned to it This is in effect to confess that they have no more to say for themselves And 't is a sad Cause indeed that has nothing to keep it up but what they know very well we can answer and that they themselves are unable to defend But to return to the Points proposed to be consider'd And First To state the Notion of the Real Presence as acknowledged by the Church of England I must observe 1st That our Church utterly denies our Saviour's Body to be so Really Present in the Blessed Sacrament as either to leave Heaven or to exist in several places at the same time We confess with this Author 1. Tract p. 19. §. 27. that it would be no less a Contradiction for Christ's Natural Body to be in several places at the same time by any other Mode whatsoever than by that which the Church of Rome has stated the repugnancy being in the thing its self and not in the manner of it 2dly That we deny that in the Sacred Elements which we receive there is any other Substance than that of Bread and Wine distributed to the Communicants which alone they take into their Mouths and press with their Teeth Answer to T. G's Dialogues Lond. 1679. pag. 66. In short All which the Doctrine of our Church implies by this Phrase is only a Real Presence of Christ's Invisible Power and Grace so in and with the Elements as by the faithful receiving of them to convey spiritual and real Effects to the Souls of Men. As the Bodies assumed by Angels might be called their Bodies while they assumed them or rather as the Church is the Body of Christ because of his Spirit quickening and enlivening the Souls of Believers so the Bread and Wine after Consecration are the Real but the Spiritual and Mystical Body of Christ Thus has that learned Man to whom T. G. first made this Objection stated the Notion of the Real Presence profess'd by us and that this is indeed the true Doctrine of the Church of England in this matter is evident not only from the plain words of our xxviii Article and of our Church Catechism but also from the whole Tenour of that Office which we use in the celebration of it In our Exhortation to it this Blessed Eucharist is expresly called The Communion of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ We are told that if with a true Penitent Heart and lively Faith we receive this Holy Sacrament then we Spiritually eat the Flesh of Christ and drink his Blood. When the Priest delivers the consecrated Bread he bids the Communicant Take and eat this in Remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed on him in thy Heart by Faith with Thanksgiving In our Prayer after the Receiving We thank God for that he doâ—â— vouchsafe to feed us who have duly received these Holy Mysteries with the Spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ and doth assure us thereby of his favour and goodness towards us and that we are very Members incorporate in the Mystical Body of his Son. All which and many other the like Expressions clearly shew that the Real Presence which we confess in this Holy Eucharist is no other than in St. Pauls Phrase a Real Communion of Christ's Body and Blood or as our Church expresses it Article xxviii That to such as rightly and worthily and with Faith receive the same the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ Hence it was that in the Prayer of Consecration in King Edward vi time the Church of England after the Example of the ancient Liturgies of the Greek Church used that Form which our Author observes to have been since left out Tract I. 2. And with thy Holy Spirit vouchsafe to Bless and Sanctifie these thy Gifts and Creatures of Bread and Wine that they may be unto us the Body and Blood of thy most dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ i. e. as the Sense plainly implies may Communicate to our Souls all the Blessings and Graces which Christ's Body and Blood has purchased for us which is in Effect the very same we now pray for in the same Address Hear us O Merciful Father we most humbly beseech thee and grant that we receiving these thy Creatures of Bread and Wine according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christs Holy Institution in remembrance of his Death and Passion may be partakers of his most Blessed Body and Blood. Between which two Petitions there is so near an Affinity that had not 〈◊〉 Author been very desirous to find out Mysteries where there are indeed none He would hardly have suffer'd his Puritan Friend to have lead him to make so heavy a complaint Pag. 3. about so small a Variation I will not deny but that some Men may possibly have advanced their private Notions beyond what is here said But this is I am sure all that our Church warrants or that we are therefore concern'd to defend And if there be indeed any who as our Author here expresses it do believe Christs natural Body to be as in Heaven so in the Holy Sacrament they may please to consider how this can be reconciled with the Rubrick of our Church That the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christs natural Body to be at one time in more places than one In the mean time I pass on to the next thing I proposs'd Secondly To shew in Opposition to the Pretences of our Adversary that this has been the Notion of the Real Presence constantly maintain'd by our most Learned and Orthodox Divines And here because our Author has thought fit to appeal not only to our own but to the forreign Divines for this new Faith which he is pleas'd to impose upon us viz. Tract 1. §. 7. That the very Substance of Christs Body that his natural Body that that very Body that was born of the Blessed Virgin and crucified on the Cross c. is present as in Heaven so Here in this Holy Sacrament i. e. in both at the same time I must be content to follow his Steps and enquire into the Doctrine first of Mr. Calvin and his followers next of our own Country-men in this Particular And first for Mr. Calvin and his followers I cannot but observe what different charges are brought against them in this matter On the one hand we are told by Becanus the Jesuit that * Calvinistae negant corpus sanguinem Christi vere realiter substantialiter praesentem
for their Adoration whereby they become Absolved by other Protestants from Idolatry in adoring our Lord as present there I see not why the Grounds of Roman Catholicks should be any whit less valued than theirs In Answer to which the Reader may please to remember that I have before said that we do not excuse those Lutherans who do this so much upon this Principle that they have a more plausible Ground or Motive for their Adoration but for this rather that confessing the Substance of the Bread to remain they do not mistake their Object but pay their Adoration indeed to Christ only supposing him to be there where in Truth he is not But 2dly this Author is very much mistaken if he thinks the Lutherans have no better a Foundation for their Real Presence than the Papists See Ibid. Indeed were the difference no greater than between a Con and a Trans it would I confess be hardly worth the while to contend about it But when we come to the Point it self we may observe these four Advantages among many others of the Lutherans side 1. They confess for the outward Elements that they are really what they appear to be Bread and Wine and so they do no Violence to their Senses which as I have said is a great aggravation against the Papists 2. By this means they are at no defiance with all those Texts of Scripture where they are so often called Bread and Wine after Consecration All which the Papist contradicts but the Lutheran does not 3. From the words of Christ This is my Body we all of us confess may be inferr'd that Christ's Body is in this Holy Sacrament But whence do's the Papist infer the destruction of the Substance of the Bread so that what is taken and blessed and given is not Bread but Christ's Body under the appearance of Bread This is an Error which I am sure the Text gives no manner of colour to and therefore our Author cannot with any reason pretend as he do's whether we consult the Text of Holy Scripture or our own Senses that they have as good grounds for their Real Presence as the Lutherans have for theirs To all which let me add 4thly that by Transubstantiation they destroy the very Nature of a Sacrament by leaving no true external Sign or Symbol and which is another unanswerable Argument against them whilst the Lutherans acknowledging the Substance of the Bread to remain do not destroy at all the Nature of this Sacrament but retain the same Sign which our Blessed Lord established and so have no Objection on this side neither to convict them But yet notwithstanding all this Pag. 26 27. Do not some of our Writers confess that the Papists Interpretation is more rational than the Lutherans I Answer What certain Protestants may have said in Zeal for their own Opinions and in particular Hospinian upon the account of his Master Zuinglius I cannot tell But sure I am we are not bound to answer for all that any Protestant Author has said And if these Reasons I have here given for the contrary are valid they ought to be more regarded than the ungrounded Assertions of a Sacramentary Historian Well Pag. 27. but still the Papist do's not ground his Adoration upon Transubstantiation but on Corporal Presence and so they must both be excused or neither This is a fetch to very little purpose For let me ask this Author He confesses he founds his Adoration upon the Corporal Presence Do's he believe the Corporal Presence in the way of Transubstantiation exclusive to all others or no If he do's then 't is evident that the Corporal Presence and Transubstantiation must with him stand or fall together and so if he adores on the account of the Corporal Presence he do's it upon the account of Transubstantiation If he do's not believe this 't is plain he is no Papist nor submits to the Authority of the Church of Rome which has defined the Corporal Presence to be after this particular manner exclusive to all Others and Anathematized all that dare to deny it Laying aside therefore this Comparison and which in truth will do them but very little kindness Pag. 27. §. xxiv Let us view more particularly what rational Grounds they have to exhibit for this their belief of their Corporal Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and of the Adoration of him upon that account I. Ibid. Ground And the first is Divine Revelation For which our Author offers the two usual Instances of the words of Institution and the 6th Chapter of S. John both which therefore I have at large discoursed on above and I believe sufficiently shewn how false a Foundation these are of this belief But yet since our Author reminds us * Pag. 27 28. That against these no Argument taken from our Senses or Reason is valid I will beg leave to remind him of his own Assertion too * See Treatise 1. p. 14. That none can believe a thing true upon what Motive soever that he knows certainly to be false or which is all one certainly to contradict So that if our Reason then makes us certain of such a contradiction P. 21. Treat 1. we may be certain that there neither is nor can be a contrary Revelation and when any Revelation tho NEVER SO PLAIN is brought we are bound to interpret it so as not to affirm a certainly known impossibility From which Principle it seems to me to follow that were Hoc est Corpus meum as evident a proof of Transubstantiation as their own Authors confess it is not yet if our Sense and Reason tell us that there are certain Contradictions against the common Principles of Nature and the universal Sentiments of all Mankind no otherwise to be avoided but by taking those words in the sense in which we do we are then BOVND to interpret them so as to avoid these Impossibilities And this I am confident I have at large shewn above to be the Case and thither I refer the Reader II. Ground P. 28. §. xxv Their second Ground is founded upon the Authority of those Councils that have determined this Matter The Declaration as he calls it of the most Supreme and Vniversal Church-Authority that hath been assembled in former Times for the decision of this Controversy long before the birth of Protestantism These are great Words indeed but I wonder who ever heard before that a few miserable * These are his Synods at Rome Vercelles Tours Rome again An. 1059. and again An. 1078. Synods of particular Prelats such as are all those to which he refers us assembled against Berengarius were the most supream and universal Church-Authority For his little Reflection that they were assembled long before the birth of Protestantism I must tell him I doubt he is mistaken The Religion of Protestants like that of Papists is composs'd of two great parts Catholick Christianity common in some
in the same design to worship God as the Paschal Lamb of one Family was not the Lamb of another although both the one and the other were to accomplish the same Mystery Thus for instance on Corpus Christi-day the Sacrament of S. Germain d' Auxerrois where the perpetual Vicar consecrates the Host and Monsieur the Dean the first Curé carrys it the Procession under a rich Canopy crown'd with Flowers this Host is not the same with that of S. Paul's which is carried after another manner viz. the Image of that Apostle made of Silver gilt falling from his Horse at his Conversion under the Sacrament of Jesus Christ hung up in rays of Gold and carried under the covering of another stately Canopy and so of all the other Churches As for the stories of several Hosts that have been stabb'd with Penknives and have bled they serve only to bring in some superstition contrary to the word of God which never pretended that there was material Blood in the consecrated Bread because it is the Body of Jesus Christ in a mystery of Faith. For what is said of an Infant that was seen in the stead of the Host and of the figure of Christ sitting upon a Sepulshre instead of the same Host are meer Fables suggested by the Father of Lies It is further reported of certain Robbers that carrying away the Vessel in which the Host is kept they have thrown the Host it self upon the ground and trampled it under foot sometimes have cast it into nasty places without any fear that it should avenge it self This is a most horrible thought and of which we ought not to open our mouths but only to detest so dreadful a profanation The same must be said of those Hosts which have been cast up as soon as received whether by sick persons or sometimes by debauched Priests disordered with the last nights intemperance both which have sometimes happened not to say any thing of those other terrible inconveniences remark'd in the Cautions concerning the Mass All which shew that Men have carry'd things too far without any warrant from the Word of God. It is not therefore so easie as some imagine to maintain the Doctrine of the Real Presence out of the Use against the Opinions of any Opposer In the mean time the Truth is terribly obscured and few give themselves the trouble to clear it On the contrary it seems that among the many Writers of the Age there are some who make it their whole business to hide it and to keep themselves from finding it out as if they desired never to be wiser than they are The vanity of lying flatters them but too much in all the Humane passions which sway them There are nevertheless some faithful Disciples and Apostolick Souls who are exempted to obey God by his Grace and to give glory to his Name It was not long before his departure that David said Every man is a lyar Psal 115.2 and S. Paul to the Romans 3.4 to show that God only is true adds immediately after from Psalm * Li. 4. 50.6 Thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest Such was the Opinion of Monsieur de Marolles as to this point I should too much trespass upon the Reader 's patience to insist thus particularly upon others of lesser note The Author of the late Historical Treatise of Transubstantiation has fully shewn not only his own Opinion but the Tradition of all the Ages of the Church against it And though I dare not say the same of whoever he was that set forth the ‡ Il nous suffit que J.C. qui est la Verité meme nous ait assuré que ce Sacrament est veritablement fon Corps qu'il ait ordonne de manger sa chair boire son sang car il faut absolument qu'il y soit puis q'il il nous ordonne de l'y manger sans s'embarasser l'Esprit de quelle maniere comment cela se fait 2. Part p. 102. Moyens surs Honnestes c. that he did not believe Transubstantiation himself yet this is clear That he did not desire any one should be forced to believe it or indeed be encouraged to search too nicely into the manner how Christ is Present and Eaten in the Holy Sacrament Whether Monsieur de Meaux believes this Doctrine or not his authority is become of so little importance that I do not think it worth the while to examine Yet the first French * Advertissement n. 14. p. 22. Mr. B. Speaking of that Edition Il n'y avoit en aucun lieu de l'Article ni le terme de Transubstantiation ni cette proposition que le pain le vin sont changez au corps au sang de J.C. dans la derniere Edition apres ces mots le propre Corps le propâ—e â—ing de J.C. il a ajoute ausquelles le pain le vin sont changez cest ce qu'on appelle Transubstantiation Answer to his Exposition observes that in the suppress'd Edition of it he had not at all mentioned that the Bread and Wine are turned into the Body and Blood of Christ those words in the close of that Paragraph which we now read viz. that the Bread and the Wine are changed into the proper Body and proper Blood of Jesus Christ and that this is that which is called Transubstantiation being put in ‡ Monsieur de Meaux Letter of his alterations Vind. p. 13. 117. pour l'ordre pour une plus grande netteté du discours du style for the greater neatness of the Discourse and Stile since But now for his Vindicator 't is evident if he understands his own meaning that he is not very well instructed about it * Vindication of the Bishop of Condom's Expos Pag. 83. It is manifest says he that our dispute with Protestants is not about the manner How Jesus Christ is Present but only about the Thing it self whether the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ be truly really and substantially present after the words of Consecration under the species or Appearance of Bread and Wine the substance of Bread and Wine being not so present In which words if his meaning be to exclude totally the manner How Jesus Christ becomes present in the Eucharist as his expression is from being a matter of Faith it might well have been ranged amongst the rest of their new Popery 1686. But if he designs not to exclude the manner of Christ's Presence but only the mode of the Conversion as he seems by some other of his words to insinuate viz. whether it be by Adduction c. from being a matter of Faith he ought not then to have deny'd the manner of Christ's Presence in the Eucharist which their Church has absolutely defined to be by that wonderful and singular Conversion so aptly called Transubstantiation but more precisely to have explain'd his School-nicety and
which is altogether as unintelligible as the Mystery which 't is brought to explain I might to the particulars hitherto mentioned add the whole Sect of their new Philosophers who following the Hypothesis of their Master Des-cartes that Accidents are nothing else but the Modes of Matter must here either renounce his Doctrine or their Churches Belief But I shall close these remarks which have already run to a greater length than I designed with one instance more from a Prelate of our own Church but yet whos 's truly Christian sincerity will I am perswaded justifie him even to those of the Roman Communion The same is affirmed by Monsieur du Moulin of several Priests in France Disp Sedannens de Sacr. Euch. par 4. p. 846. Nec abs re de intentione presbyteri dubitatur cum plurimi Sacerdotes canant Missam relactante Conscientiâ quales multos vidimus qui ejurato Papismo fatebantur se diu cecinisse Missam animo à Missà alienissimo and it is the learned Archbishop Usher who having been so happy as to convert several Roman Priests from their errors and inquiring diligently of them what they who said Mass every day and were not obliged to confess Venial Sins could have to trouble their Confessors so continually withal ingenuously acknowledged to him that the chiefest part of their constant Confession was their Infidelity as to the point of Transubstantiation and for which as was most fit they mutually quitted and absolved one another And now that is thus clear from so many instances of the greatest Men in the Roman Church which this last Age has produced and from whose discovery we may reasonably enough infer the like of many others that have not come to our knowledge that several Persons who have lived and enjoyed some of the greatest Honours and Dignities in that Communion have nevertheless been Hereticks in this point may I beseech those who are still mis-led with this great Error to stop a while and seriously examine with me two or three plain considerations and in which I suppose they are not a little concerned And the first is Of their own danger but especially upon their Own Principles It is but a very little while since an ingenious Person now living in the French Church the Abbé Petit publish'd a Book which he calls (a) Les Veritez de la Religion prouveés defendues contre les auciennes Heresies par la verité de l'Eucharistie 1686. The truths of the Christian Religion proved and defended against the antient Heresies by the Truth of the Eucharist And what he means by this truth he thus declares in his Preface viz. the change of (b) Que du pain divienne le Corps du fils de Dieu du Vin son sang Preface p. 7. the Bread into the Body of the Son of God and of the Wine into his Blood. He there pretends that this Doctrine however combatted by us now was (c) Quoiqu'il n'y ait point presentement de verites plus incontestables que les trois grands articles de nostre foi qui sont contenus dans le symbole c'est à dire la dizinite de J. C. la divinite du S. Esprit la Resurrection Cependant j ' ose dire que la presence réelle de J. C. au Saint Sacrament etoit une verité encore plus indubitable dans les premiers siecles de l'Eglise Pref. p. 5. yet more undoubted in the Primitive Church than either the divinity of Christ and the Holy Ghost or the certainty of our future Resurrection And this he wrote as the Title tells us (d) Traitté pour confirmer les Noveaux Convertis dans la foi de l'Eglise Catholique To confirm the new Converts in the Faith of the Catholick Church meaning according to their usual figure the Roman How far this extravagant undertaking may serve to convince them I cannot tell this I know that if we may credit those who have been that Abbot ' s most intimate acquaintance he believes but very little of it himself unless he also be become in this point a new Convert But now if what has before been said of so many eminent Persons of their Church be true as after a due and diligent examination of every particular there set down I must beg leave to profess I am fully perswaded that it is 't will need no long deduction to shew how dangerous an influence their unbelief must have had in some of the chiefest instances of their constant Worship For 1. It is the Doctrine of the (e) Concil Trid. Sess vii Can. 11. siquis dixerit in ministris dum Sacramenta conficiunt non requiri intentionem saltem saciendi quod facit Ecclesia Anathema sit Council of Trent that to make a Sacrament the Priest must have if not an Actual yet at least a Virtual Intention of doing that which the Church does And in the (f) Vid. de defectibus circa Missam c. de defectu Intentionis In Missali R. Rubricks of their Missal the want of such an Intention in the Priest is one of the defects there set down as sufficient to hinder a Consecration Now if this be true as every Roman Catholick who acknowledges the Authority of that Synod must believe it to be 't is then evident that in all those Masses which any of the Persons I before named have said there could have been no Consecration It being absurd to suppose that they who believed not Transubstantiation could have an intention to make any such change of the Bread into the Body of Christ which they thought it impossible to do Now if there were no Consecration but that the Bread continued meer Bread as it was before then Secondly All those who attended at their Masses and Adored their Hosts pay'd the supream worship of God to a bare Wafer and no more How far the modern plea of their good Intention to Adore Christ in those sacred Offices may excuse them from having committed Idolatry it is not necessary I should here examine They who desire a satisfaction in this matter may please to recur to a late excellent Treatise written purposely on this Subject A Discourse concerning the Adoration of the Host Lond. 1685. and where they will find the weakness of this supposal sufficiently exposed But since (a) Vid. Catharin in Cajet pag. 133. Ed. Paris 1535. Where he quotes S. Thomas and Paludanus for the same Opinion This Book of his was seen and approved by the Pope's order by the Divines at Paris as himself tel's us in the review of it Lugdan 1542. many of their own greatest Men confess that if any one by mistake should worship an Unconsecrated Host taking it to have been Consecrated he would be guilty of Idolatry and that such an Error would not be sufficient to excuse him may they please to consider with what Faith they can pay this Divine Adoration to that which
in memory of their Deliverance out of Egypt The bitter Herbs were a * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 remembrance of the bitter servitude they underwent there Exod. i. 14. The red Wine was a †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Memorial of the Blood of the Children of Israel slain by Pharaoh And for this they were expresly commanded by Moses Exod. xiii 8. to * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SHEW i.e. to annunciate or tell forth to their Children what the Lord had done for them And so in this Holy Sacrament Christ expresly institutes it for the same end * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do this says he in remembrance of me which St. Paul thus explains 1 Cor. xi 26. For as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do or rather do ye * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SHEW the very word before used the Lords death till his coming So clear an Allusion does every part of this Sacrament bear to that ancient Solemnity and we must be more blind than the Jews themselves not to see that as that other Sacrament of Baptism was instituted by Christ from the Practise and Custom of the ‖ See Dr. Hammonds Practical Catechism Lib. 6. pag. 115. Oper. fol. Lond. 1684. Jewish Doctors who received their Proselytes by the like washing so was this Holy Eucharist establisht upon the Analogy which we have seen to the Paschal Supper whose place it supplies and whose Ceremonies it so exactly retains that it seems only to have heightned the design and changed the Application to a more excellent Remembrance I know not how far it may be allow'd to confirm this Analogie That it was one of the most ancient Traditions among the * Vid. Fagium in Annotat in Exod. xii 13. where he renders their words thus Et in eadem die viz. xv mensis Nisan sc Martii redimendus est Israel in diebus Messiae Vid. Vol. 1. Critic M. p 498. Jews of old that the Messiah should come and work out their deliverance The very same night in which God had brought them out of Egypt the night of the Paschal Solemnity But certainly considerable it is that as God under the Law the same night in which he deliver'd them instituted the Passover to be a perpetual Memorial of it throughout their Generations so here our Saviour instituted his Communion not only in the same Night in which he deliver'd us but immediately after having eaten His last Passover to shew us that what that Solemnity had hitherto been to the Jews this Sacrament should from henceforth be to us and that we by this Ceremony should commemorate ours as they by that other had been commanded to do their Deliverance This the Holy Scriptures themselves direct us to by so often calling our Blessed Saviour in express terms The Lamb of God Joh. i. 29. St. Peter speaking of our Redemption wrought by Him tells us that it was not obtained by corruptible things such as silver and gold but by the precious Blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot 1 Pet. i. 18. And St. Paul so clearly directs us to this allusion that no possible doubt can remain of it Christ says he our Passover is sacrificed for us theresore let us keep the Feast 2 Cor. 1. v. 7. And now after so many Arguments for this Application as being joined together I think I might almost call a Demonstration of it I suppose I may without scruple lay down this foundation both for the unfolding of the nature of this Holy Sacrament in the General and for the Examination of those two great points I am here to consider in particular viz. That our Saviour in this Institution addressing himself to Jews and speaking in the direct form of the Paschal Phrases and in a Ceremony which 't is thus evident he designed to introduce in the stead of that Solemnity The best method we can take for explaining both the words and intent of this Communion will be to examine what such men to whom he spake must necessarily have conceived to be his meaning but especially on an occasion wherein it neither became him to be obscure and the Apostles silence not one of them demanding any explication of his words as at other times they were wont to do clearly shewing that he was not difficult to be understood This only Postulate being granted which I think I have so good reason to expect I shall now go on to examine by it the first great Point proposed to be consider'd viz. Of the Real Presence of Christ in this Holy Sacrament and that 1st As established by the Church of Rome 2dly As acknowledged by the Church of England PART I. CHAP. I. Of TRANSUBSTANTIATION Or the Real Presence Establish'd by the CHURCH of ROME TRansubstantiation is defined by the * Concil Trid. Sess 13. cap. 4. Can. 2. Council of Trent to the A WONDERFVL CONVERSION of the whole Substance of the Bread in this Holy Sacrament into the whole substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of the Wine into his Blood the Species or Accidents only of the Bread and Wine remaining For the better understanding of which Wonderful Conversion because the Church of Rome which is not very liberal in any of her Instructions has taken †Catechismus ad Parochos Par. II. cap. de Euch. Sacr. n. 39.41 45. particular care that this should not be too much explain'd to the People as well knowing it to be a Doctrine so absurd that even their credulity could hardly be able to digest it it may not be amiss if from the very words of their own Catechism we examine a little farther into it Now three things there are which they tell us must be consider'd in it I. * Catech. ibid. n. xxv Sect. Primum That the true Body of Christ our Lord the very same that was Born of the Virgin and now sits in Heaven at the right hand of the Father is contained in this Sacrament Now by the true Body they mean not only his Human Body and whatsoever belongs to it as Bones Sinews c. to be contain'd in this Sacrament ‖ Ibid. n. xxxi Sect. Totus Christus ut Deus Homo in Eucharistia continetur But the intire Christ God and Man so that the Eucharistical Elements are changed into our Saviour as to both his Substances and the consequences of both his Blood Soul and Divinity its self all which are really present in this Sacrament * Ibid. n. xxxiii Sect. Per Concomitantiam in Euch. quae sint the Body of Christ by the Consecration the rest by Concomitance with the Body Again When 't is said †Ibid. n. xxxix Sect. Conversio quae sit in Euchar. c. That the whole Substance of the Bread is changed into his whole Body and the whole Substance of the Wine into his whole Blood this is not to be
so understood as if the Bread did not contain the whole Substance of his Blood as well as of his Body and so the Wine the whole Substance of his Body as well as of his Blood (⸪) Ibid. n. xxxv Sect. Christus totus in qualibet particula n. xlii c. seeing Christ is intire in each part of the Sacrament nay in every the least Crumb or Drop of either part II. The * Ibid. n. xxv Sect. Secundum second thing to be consider'd for the understanding of this Mystery is That not any part of the Substance of the Bread and Wine remains tho nothing may seem more contrary to the Senses than this in which they are certainly in the right III. †Ibid. n. xxv Sect. Tertium n. xliv Sect. Accid sine subjecto const in Euch. That the Accidents of the Bread and Wine which either our Eyes see as the Colour Form c. or our other Senses perceive as the Tast Touch Smell all these are in no Subject but exist by themselves after a wonderful manner and which cannot be explain'd For the rest the Conversion its self ‖ Ibid. n. xxxvii Sect. Primo natione It is very difficult to be comprehended How Christs Body which before Consecration was not in the Sacrament should now come to be there since 't is certain that it changes not its place but is still all the while in Heaven Nor is it made present there by Creation * Ibid. n. xxxix Sect. Conversio quae sit in Euch. c. nor by any other Change For it is neither increased nor diminish'd but remains whole in its Substance as before †Ibid. n. xliii Quonam modo Christus existat in Euchar. Christ is not in the Sacrament Locally for he has no Quantity there is neither Great nor Little. (**) Ibid. n. xli Sect. De Transubstant curiosius non inquirendum In a word Men ought not to inquire too curiously how this Change can be made for it is not to be comprehended seeing neither in any natural Changes nor indeed in the whole Creation is there any Example of any thing like it Such is the Account which themselves give of this Mystery From all which we may in short conclude the State of the Question before us to be this That we do not dispute at all about Christ's Real Presence which after a Spiritual and Heavenly manner we acknowledg in this Holy Eucharist as we shall hereafter shew nor by consequence of the Truth of Christs Words which we undoubtedly believe But only about this Manner of his Presence viz. Whether the Bread and the Wine be changed into the very natural Body and Blood of Christ so that the Bread and Wine themselves do no longer remain But that under the Appearance of them is contain'd that same Body of Christ which was Born of the Blessed Virgin with his Soul and Divinity which same Body of Christ tho extended in all its parts in Heaven is at the same time in the Sacrament without any Extension neither Great nor Small comes thither neither by Generation nor by Creation nor by any local Motion forasmuch as it continues still at the right Hand of God in Heaven at the very same instant that it exists whole and intire in every consecrated Host or Chalice nay more is whole and intire not only in the whole Host or the whole Chalice but in every the least Crumb of the Host and every the least Drop of the Chalice here upon Earth And here it might well be thought a very needless indeed an extravagant undertaking to prove that those Elements which so many of our Senses tell us continue after their Consecration the very same as to what concerns their natural Substance that they were before are in reality the very same That what all the World Sees and Feels and Smells and Tasts to be Bread and Wine is not changed into the very natural Flesh and Blood of a Body actually before existent had it not entred into the Minds of so great a part of the Christian Church to joyn in the maintaining of a Paradox which has nothing to defend it but that fond Presumption they have certainly done well to take up That they cannot possibly be in the wrong and without which it would be very difficult for them to perswade any sober man that they are here in the right To shew that those words which they tell us work all this Miracle and are the only reason that engages them to maintain so many absurdities as are confessedly the unavoidable Consequences of this Doctrine have no such force nor interpretation as they pretend I must desire it may be remembred what I before remark'd That this Holy Sacrament was establish'd by our Saviour in the room of the Jewish Passever and upon the very Words and Ceremonies of it So that if in that all things were Typical the Feast the Customs the Expressions merely allusive to something that had been done before and of which this sacred Ceremony was the memorial we ought in all reason to conclude that both our Saviour must have designed and his Apostles understood this Holy Sacrament to have been the same too Now as to the Nature of the Passover we have already seen that it was appointed by God as a Remembrance of his delivery of the Jews out of the Land of Egypt when he slew all the first-born of the Egyptians Exod. xii The Lamb which they ate every year in this Feast was an Eucharistical Sacrifice and Type of that first Lamb which was slain in the night of their deliverance and whose Blood sprinkled upon the Posts of their Doors had preserved their Fore-fathers from the destroying Angel that he should not do them any mischief The Bread of Affliction which they broke and of which they said perhaps in the very * Vid. Cameron Annot. in Matt. xxvi 26. in illa verba 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inter critic pag. 780. l. 24. same manner that Christ did of the very same Loaf Take eat this is the Bread of affliction which our Fathers ate in Egypt they esteem'd a Type and Figure of that unleaven'd Bread which their Forefathers so many Ages before had eaten there and upon that account called it * Allix Serm. pag. 503. The Memorial of their delivery out of Egypt †Hammond Pract. Catechism lib vi pag. Ed. fol. The Cup of Blessing which they blessed and of which they ALL drank in this Feast they did it at once in memory both of the Blood of the Children of Israel slain by Pharaoh and of the Blood of the Lamb which being sprinkled upon their doors preserved their own from being shed with that of the Egyptians Now all these Idea's with which the Apostles had so long been acquainted could not but presently suggest to them the same design of our Blessed Saviour in the Institution of this Holy Sacrament That when
He as the Master of the Feast took the Loaf Blessed and brake it and gave it to them and Bid them in like manner henceforward Do this in Remembrance of Him He certainly designed that by this Ceremony which hitherto they had used in memory of their deliverance out of Egypt they should now continue the memory of their Blessed Lord and of that deliverance which he was about to work for them That as by calling the Lamb in that Feast The Body of the Passover they understood that it was the remembrance of God's mercy in commanding the destroying Angel to pass over their Houses when he slew their Enemies the memorial of the Lamb which was killed for this purpose in Egypt so Christ calling the Bread his Body nay his Body broken for them could certainly mean nothing else but that it was the Type the Memorial of his Body which as yet was not but was now just ready to be given for their redemption This is so natural a reflection and in one Part at least of this Holy Sacrament so necessary too that 't is impossible to explain it otherwise This Cup says our Saviour is the New Testament in my Blood That is as * See Exod. xxiv 8. Heb. ix â—0 And this Allusion is applied by S. Peter 1 Ep. i 2. Vid. Hammond Annot. in loc lit a. Moses had before said of the Old Testament in the very same Phrase the seal the ratification of it Now if those words be taken literally then 1st 'T is the Cup that is Transubstantiated not the Wine 2ly It is changed not into Christ's Blood as they pretend but into the New Testament in his Blood which being confessedly absurd and impossible it must in all reason follow That the Apostles understood our Saviour alike in both His Expressions and that by consequence we ought to interpret those words This is my Body which is broken for you of the Bread's being the Type or Figure of his Body as we must that of the Cup That it was the New Testament in his Blood i. e. the sign or seal of the New Testament So naturally do all these Notions direct us to a figurative interpretation of his Words the whole design of this Institution and all the Parts and Ceremonies of it being plainly Typical in Remembrance as Christ himself has told us of Him. But now if we go on more particularly to inquire into the Expression its self This is my Body which is broken for you That will yet more clearly confirm this interpretation It has before been observed That these words of our Saviour in this Holy Sacrament were used by him instead of that other Expression of the Master in the Paschal Feast when in the very same manner he took the very same Bread into his Hands and blessed it and brake it and gave it to those who were at the Table with Him saying This is the Bread of affliction which our Fathers ate in Egypt And can any thing in the world be more plain than that as never any Jew yet imagined that the Bread which they thus took every year was by that saying of the Master of their Feast changed into the very substance of that Bread which their forefathers had so many Ages before consumed in Egypt in the night of their deliverance but being thus broken and given to them became a Type a Figure a Memorial of it So neither could those to whom our Saviour Christ now spake and who as being Jews had so long been used to this Phrase ever imagine that the pieces of that Loaf which He brake and gave them saying This is my Body which is broken for you Do this in Remembrance of me became thereupon the very Body of that Saviour from whose Hands they received it and who did not sure with one member of his Body give away his whole Body from himself to them but only designed that by this Ceremony they should remember Him and his Body broken for them as by the same they had hitherto remembred the Bread of affliction which their Fathers ate in Egypt I ought not to omit it because it very much confirms the force of this Argument That what I have here said of this Analogy of the Holy Eucharist to the Jewish Passover was not the original remark of any Protestant or indeed of any other Christians differing from the Church of Rome in this point But was objected to them long before the Reformation by the * Vid. apud Author Fortalitii Fidei Lib. 4. Consid 6. Impos 10. Those who have not this Book may find the Quotation at large in the late Edition of Joan. Parisiensis in Praefat. pag. 73 74. Jews themselves to shew that in their literal Interpretation of these Words they had manifestly departed from the intention of our Blessed Saviour and advanced a notion in which 't was impossible for his Apostles or any other acquainted as they were with the Paschal forms ever to have understood him And if †Epistol xxiii ad Bonifac Vol. 2. pag. 29. Oper. Ed. Lugd. 1664. St. Augustine who I suppose will not be thought a Heretick by either party may be allow'd to speak for the Christians he tells us we are to look upon the Phrase This is my Body Just says He as when in ordinary conversation we are wont to say This is Christmas or Good-Friday or Easter-day Not that this is the very day on which Christ was born or suffer'd or rose from the dead but the return or remembrance of that day on which Christ was born or suffer'd or rose again It is wonderful to consider with what confidence our new Missionaries produce these words on all occasions and thereby shew us how fond they would be of the Holy Scripture and how willingly they would make it their Guide in Controversie did it but ever so little favour their Cause Can any thing say they be more express This is my Body Is it possible for words to be spoken more clear and positive And indeed were all the Expressions of Holy Scripture to be taken in their literal meaning I will not deny but that those words might as evidently prove Bread to be Christs Body as those other in St. John I am the Bread that came down from Heaven argue a contrary Transubstantiation of Christ's Body into Bread John vi 48 51. or those more usual instances I am the true Vine I am the door of the sheep That Rock was Christ prove a great many Transubstantiations more viz. of our Saviour into a Vine a Door and a Rock But now if for all this plainness and positiveness in these expressions they themselves tell us That it would be ridiculous to conclude from hence that Christ was indeed turned into all these and many other the like things they may please to give us leave to say the same of this before us it being neither less impossible nor less unreasonable to suppose Bread to be changed
propriety of speech the Wicked receive not in this Holy Sacrament the Body and Blood of Christ although they do outwardly press with their teeth the Holy Elements but rather eat and drink the Sacrament of His Body and Blood to their damnation II. Secondly For our Saviours words which are supposed to work this great Change 't is evident from the Liturgies of the Eastern Church that the Greek Fathers did not believe them to be words of Consecration This Arcudius himself is forced to confess of some of the latter Greeks viz. That they take these Words only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Historically See his Book de Concord Lib. 3. Cap. 27. And indeed all the ancient Liturgies of that Church plainly speak it However both He and Goar endeavour to shift it off in which the Prayer of Consecration is after the words of Institution and distinct from it So in Liturg. S. Chrysostom Edition Goar pag. 76. n. 130. 132. are pronounced the Words of Institution Then pag. 77. numb 139. the Deacon bids the Priest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who thereupon thus consecrates it He first signs it three times with the sign of the Cross and then thus prays 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so the Cup afterwards but to be the same in this Holy Eucharist that the Haggadah or History of the Passover was in that ancient Feast That is were read only as an account of the Occasion and design of the Institution of this Blessed Sacrament not to work any Miracles in the Consecration And for the * The same seems to have been the custom of the African Church whose Prayers now used see in Ludolph Histor l. 3. cap. 5. Where is also the Expression mentioned n. 56. Hic Panis est Corpus meum c. African Churches they at this day expound them in this very Sacrament after such a manner as themselves confess to be inconsistent with Transubstantiation viz. This Bread is the Body of Christ III. Let it be considered Thirdly That it was a great debate in the Primitive Church for above a thousand Years Whether Christs Glorified Body had any Blood in it or no Now how those Men could possibly have questioned whether Christ's Glorified Body had any Blood at all in it See this whole matter deduced through the first Ages to St. Augustine whom Consentius consulted about this very matter in a particular Treatise written by Monsieur Allix de Sanguine Christi 8vo Paris 1680. had they then believed the Cup of Eucharist to have been truly and really changed into the Blood of his Glorified Body as is now asserted is what will hardly I believe be ever told us IV. We will add to this Fourthly their manner of opposing the Heathenism of the World. With what confidence could they have rallied them as they did for worshipping gods which their own Hands had made So Justin Martyr Apol. 2. Tertul. Apolog. cap. 12. Arnobius lib. 1. Minutius Felix p. 26. Octav. Julius Firmicus pag. 37. Edit Lugdunens 4to 1652. Hieron lib. 12. in Esai St. Augustinus in Psal 80. in Psal 113. Lactantius Instit lib. 2. cap. 4. Chrysostom Homil 57. in Genes c. That had neither Voice nor Life nor Motion Exposed to Age to Corruption to Dust to Worms to Fire and other Accidents That they adored gods which their Enemies could spoil them of Thieves and Robbers take from them which having no power to defend themselves were forced to be kept under Locks and Bolts to secure them For is not the Eucharistical Bread and Wine in a higher degree than any of their Idols were exposed to the same raillery Had their Wafer if such then was their Host any voice or life or motion Did not their own Hands form its substance and their Mouths speak it into a God Could it defend its self I do not say from publick Enemies or private Robbers but even from the very Vermine the creeping things of the Earth Or should we suppose the Christians to have been so impudent as notwithstanding all this to expose others for the same follies of which themselves were more notoriously guilty yet were there no * And yet that none did the Learned Rigaltius confesses Not. ad Tertul. l. 2. ad Vxor c. 5. Heathens that had wit enough to recriminate The other †See Tertul. Apol. c. 21. Et de carne Christi c. 4.5 Justin Martyr Apol. 2. Arnob l. 2. Orig. contr Cels l. 1. Articles of our Faith they sufficiently traduced That we should worship a Man and He too a Malefactor crucified by Pilate How would they have triumph'd could they have added That they worshipped a bit of Bread too which Coster himself thought a more ridiculous Idolatry than any the Heathens were guilty of Since this Doctrine has been started we have heard of the Reproaches of all sorts of Men Jews Heathens Mahometans against us on this account ‖ See du Perron de l' Euchar l. 3. c. 29. p. 973. Were there no Apostates that could tell them of this secret before Not any Julian that had malice enough to publish their Confusion Certainly had the Ancients been the Men they are now endeavour'd to be represented we had long ere this seen the whole World filled with the Writings that had proclaimed their shame in one of the greatest instances of Impudence and Inconsideration to attacque their Enemies for that very Crime of which themselves were more notoriously guilty V. Nor does their manner of Disputing against the Heretical Christians any less speak their Opinion in this Point See this fully handled in a late treatise called The Doctrine of the Trinity and Transubstantiation compared c. 1687. than their way of Opposing the Idolatry of the Heathens It was a great argument amongst them to expose the frenzy of Eutyches who imagined some such kind of Transubstantiation of the humane nature of Christ into the Divine to produce the Example of the Eucharist That as there the Bread and the Wine says P. Gelasius Being perfected by the Holy Spirit pass into the Divine Substance yet so as still to remain in the property of their own Nature or substance of Bread and Wine This Argument is managed by St. Chrysostome Epist ad Caesarium Monachum By Theodoret Dial. 2. pag. 85 Ed G. L. Paris 1642. Tom. 4. Gelasius in Opere contra Eutychen Nestorium He thus states the Eutychian Hereâ—â—e ' Dicunt unam esse naturam i.e. Divinam Against this he thus disputes Certe Sacramenta quae sumimus corporis sanguinis Christs divina res est Et tamen non definit substantia vel Natura Panis Vini Satis ergo nobis Evidentur Ostenditur hoc nobis de ipso Christo Domino sentiendum quod in ejus imagine profitemur Vt sicut in hanc sc in divinam transeant S. Spiritu perficiente substantiam permanentes tamen in suae proprietate naturae sic c. So here the
whilst so present which is during the Action of the Lord's Supper i. e. says he as I conceive them from the Consecration till the end of the Communion are to be Adored I answer First As to the former part it is confess'd that the Lutherans do indeed suppose Christ to be present not only to the worthy Communicants but also to the Consecrated Symbols But now secondly for the other part that during the Action of the Lord's Supper He is to be Adored there this is not so certain For 1. I do not find any thing establish'd amongst them as to this matter neither in the Confession of Auxpourg nor in any other publick Acts of their Church 2. I find several of their Divines utterly denying that Christ's Body is to be Adored in the Holy Sacrament and our * See below Disc 2. p. 16. Author himself confesses it Tho now 3. †Conrad Schlusselburgius Catal. Haeret l. 3. arg 45. p. 205. Item Arg. 103. p. 280. It. arg 174. p. 327. Francof 1605. And Hospinian quotes it of Luther himself that it was his Opinion Concord discor p. 358. n. 16. Genev. 1678. I will not deny but that some others of them do allow if not that Christ's Body yet that Christ himself is to be Adored after a peculiar manner in the Action of the Lord's Supper and as far as I conceive do by the Action mean as our Author here represents it from the Consecration to the end of the Communion So that then with this Limitation his Proposition I presume may be admitted That the Lutherans do acknowledg that Christ is present during the Action of the Lord's Supper and therefore it is by several of them supposed that he ought to be adored in it As to the sixth and last Concession §. vi p. 10 11. which he draws from Monsieur Daille's Apologiâ—â— That tho we do not our selves belive the Real Presence of Christ ' s Body in the Signs yet neither do we esteem the belief of it so criminal as to oblige us to break off Communion with all those that hold it and therefore that had the Roman Church no other Error but this that it would not have given us any sufficient cause of separation from it we are ready to admit it always supposing that the belief of it had not been press'd upon us neither as a necessary Article of Communion nor any Anathema pronounced against us for not receiving it And for the other part of it which he subjoyns Ibid. pag. 11. That a Disciple giving Divine Honour upon mistake to another Person much resembling our Saviour Christ would have been no Idolater from whence he would infer That therefore allowing a Consecrated Host to be truly Adorable a Person that should by mistake adore an unconsecrated One would not be guilty of Idolatry We are content to allow it tho what use he can make of it in this Controversy unless against his own Brethren S. Thomas Paludanus and others I do not understand since he knows we utterly deny any Host consecrated or not to be fit to be worshipped And this may serve for his first Foundation of Protestant Concessions which were they every one as certain as his first is that Christ is to be adored I cannot see what his Cause would gain by it and he has not by any Application of them in this Treatise given us the least reason to think that they are of any moment in it But some Men have a peculiar faculty of amusing the World with nothing and I remember I once heard a judicious and modest Man give this Character of an Author much resembling ours with reference to his Guide in Controversy that for a Book which carried a great appearance of Reasoning it had the least in it of any he ever met with But I go on II. 2. Part. Catholick Assertions To his Catholick Assertions And first Catholicks as he calls them affirm in the Eucharist after the Consecration Pag. 13. §. ix a Sign or Symbol to remain still distinct and having a divers Existence from that of the thing signified or from Christ's Body contained in or under it This 't is true the Papists or if you please the Catholicks do affirm because that otherwise they could not call it a Sacrament But now if we enquire what that which they call a Sign or a Symbol in this Holy Sacrament is we shall find it to be neither such as our Blessed Saviour establish'd nor indeed any thing that can in propriety of Speech be so termed For our Saviour Christ 't is evident that the Symbols instituted by him were Bread and Wine They were these that he took and blessed and gave to his Disciples and commanded them also in like manner to take and bless and give to others in remembrance of him and as the Symbols of his Body and Blood in this Holy Eucharist But now for the Papists they destroy the Bread and the Wine they leave only a few aiery empty Species that is appearances of something but which are really nothing have no substance to support them The Symbols establish'd by Christ were Festival Symbols a matter apt for our Corporal Nourishment so signify to us that as by them viz. by Bread and Wine our Bodies are nourished to a Corporal Life so by the Body and Blood of Christ which they both represent and communicate to us our Souls are fed to Life Everlasting But for that which hath no Substance i. e. nothing which can be converted into our Bodily Nourishment how that can be a Symbol of this Spiritual Food I do not very well understand Indeed our Author tells us Pag. 14. §. x. That tho after Consecration the Substance of the Bread and Wine is deny'd to remain yet is Substance here taken in such a sense as that neither the hardness nor the softness nor the frangibility nor the savour nor the odour nor the nutritive virtue of the Bread nor nothing visible or tangible or otherwise perceptible by any Sense is involved in it That is to say that the Symbol or external Sign then in this Eucharist is according to them a hard soft frangible gustible odoriferous nutritive visible tangible perceptible nothing Verily a fit external Species indeed to contain a one manifold visible invisible extended unextended local illocal absent present natural supernatural corporal spiritual Body Secondly Concerning the Adoration of the Sacrament he tells us That this word Sacrament Pag. 14. §. xi is not to be taken always in the same sense but sometimes to be used to signify only the external Sign or Symbols sometimes only the Res Sacramenti or the thing contain'd under them which is the more principal part thereof This indeed is a sort of new Divinity I always thought hitherto that when we talked of a Sacrament properly so called we had meant an outward and visible Sign of an inward and spiritual Grace and that this
A DISCOURSE OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST IN THE TWO GREAT POINTS OF THE Real Presence AND THE Adoration of the Host IN ANSWER to the Two DISCOURSES lately Printed at OXFORD on This SUBJECT To which is prefixed A Large HISTORICAL PREFACE relating to the same ARGUMENT LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXVII THE PREFACE THE nature of the Holy Eucharist is a subject that hath been both so frequently insisted upon and so fully explain'd in our own and other Languages that it may well be thought a very needless undertaking for any one to trouble the World with any farther Reflections upon it For not to mention now those Eminent Men who have heretofore labour'd in this work nor to run beyond the points that are here designed to be examined What can be said more evidently to shew the impossibility of the pretended substantial change of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ in this Holy Sacrament than has been done in the late excellent Discourse against Transubstantiation It is but a very little time since the Adoration of the Host has been shewn not only to be a novel invention contrary to the practice of all Antiquity but the danger of it evidently demonstrated notwithstanding whatever pretences can be made of a good intention to excuse them from the charge and danger of Idolatry who continue the practice of it And both these not only still remain unanswer'd but if we may be allow'd to judge either by their own strength or by our Adversaries silence are truly and indeed unanswerable It is not therefore out of any the least Opinion that any thing more need be said to confirm our cause much less that I esteem my self able to undertake it with the same success that those other Champions of our Faith have done it that I venture these Discourses to a publick view But since our Adversaries still continue without taking notice of any of these things to cry up their Great Diana no less than if she had never at all been shewn to be but an Idol I thought it might not be amiss to revive our Instances against it And that we ought not to appear less sollicitous by a frequent repetition of our Reasons to keep men in the Truth than others are by a continual insisting upon their so often baffled Sophistry to lead them into Error 'T was an ingenious Apology that Seneca once made for his often repeating the same things That he did but inculcate over and over the same Counsels to those that over and over committed the same faults And I remember an antient Father has left it as his Opinion that it was useful for the same truths to be vindicated by many because that one Man's Writings might possibly chance to come where the others did not and what was less fully or clearly explain'd by one might be supplied and enlarged by the other And a greater than either of these S. Paul has at once left us both an example and a warrant for this sollicitude Phil. 3.1 To write the same things to you to me says he is not grievous but for you it is safe Indeed I think if there be any need of an excuse for this undertaking it ought to be rather to Apologize for a far greater absurdity which we all commit in writing at all against those Men who in these Disputes concerning the Holy Sacrament have most evidently shewn that to be true of Christians which was once said of the antient Philosophers That there can be nothing so absurd which some Men will not adventure to maintain In most of our other Controversies with those of the Church of Rome we shew them to be Erroneous in this they are Extravagant And as an eminent Pen has very justly express'd it Discourse against Transubstantiation Pag. 2. The business of Transubstantiation is not a Controversie of Scripture against Scripture or of Reason against Reason but of downright Impudence against the plain meaning of Scripture and all the sense and reason of mankind The truth is as the same Person goes on Ibid. It is a most self-evident falshood and there is no Doctrine or Proposition in the World that is of it self more evidently true than Transubstantiation is evidently false And if such things as these must be disputed and this Evidence That what we see and handle and taste to be Bread is Bread and not the Body of a Man and what we see and taste to be Wine is Wine and not Blood may not pass for sufficient without any farther Proof I cannot discern why any Man that hath but confidence enough to do so may not deny any thing to be what all the World sees it is or affirm it to be what all the World sees it is not and this without all possibility of being further confuted But yet since it has pleased God so far to give over some Men to a spirit of delusion as not only seriously to believe this themselves but also rashly to damn all those that cannot believe it with them we ought as well for the security of those who have not yet abandoned their own sense and reason in compliance only with others who in this matter profess to have laid aside theirs as in charity to such deluded Persons as are unhappily led away with these Errors to shew them their unreasonableness To convince them that Christianity is a wise and rational Religion that 't is a mistaken Piety to suppose that Men ought to believe Contradictions or that their Faith is ever the more perfect because the Object of it is impossible That our Senses ought to be trusted in judging aright of their proper Object that to deny this is to overthrow the greatest external Evidence we have for our Religion which is founded upon their judgment or if that will be more considerable is to take away all the grounds that even themselves can pretend to wherefore they should disbelieve them in favour of Transubstantiation And this I perswade my self I have in the following Discourse sufficiently shewn and I shall not need to repeat it again here For the words themselves which are the grounds of this great Error I have taken that Method which seemed to me the most proper to find out the true meaning of them and as far as the nature of the Enquiry would permit have endeavour'd to render it plain and intelligible even to the meanest Capacity And I have some cause to hope that the most learned will not be dissatisfied with the design what ever they may be with the performance it being from such that I have taken the greatest part of my Reflections and in which I pretend to little of my own besides the care of putting together here what I had observed scattered up and down in parts elsewhere It was so much the more fit at this time to insist upon this manner of arguing in that a late
Council it was no matter of Faith nor but for its decision would have been now That the Ancients did not believe it that the Scripture does not express it in short that the interpretation which we give is altogether as agreeable to the words of Christ and in truth free from infinite inconveniences with which the other abounds All which plainly enough shews that not only the late private Heretical Spirit whose imperious sentiments and private Glosses and contradictory interpretations as a late * Consensus Veterum Pag. 27. Author has elegantly expressed it like the victorious Rabble of the Fishermen of Naples riding in triumph and trampling under foot Ecclesiastical Traditions Decrees and Constitutions Ancient Fathers Ancient Liturgies the whole Church of Christ but especially those words of his This is my Body has opposed this Doctrine but even those who are to be supposed to have had the greatest reverence for all these their own Masters and Doctors found it difficult to embrace so Absurd and Contradictory a Belief And here then let me beseech those into whose hands these Papers may chance to fall seriously to consider this matter and whether the sole Authority of such a Pope as Innocent III whose actions towards one of our own Kings and in favour of that very ill Man Dominick and his Inquisition K. John. were there nothing else remaining of his Life might be sufficient to render him detestable to all good Men ought to be of so great an Authority with us as to engage us to give up our senses and our reason nay and even Scripture and Antiquity it self in obedience to his arbitrary and unwarrantable Definition It is I suppose sufficiently evident from what has been before observed how little assurance their own Authors had for all the definition of the Council of Lateran of this Doctrine I shall not need to say what debates arose among the Divines of the Council of Trent about it And though since its determination there Men have not dared so openly to speak their Minds concerning it as before yet we are not to imagine that they are therefore ever the more convinced of its Truth I will not deny but that very great numbers in the Roman Communion by a profound ignorance and a blind obedience the two great Gospel perfections with some men disposed to swallow any thing that the Church shall think fit to require of them may sincerely profess the belief of this Doctrine because they have either never at all considered it or it may be are not capable of comprehending the impossibility of it Nor shall I be so uncharitable as to suppose that all even of the learned amongst them do wilfully profess and act in this matter against what they believe and know to be true I will rather perswade my self that some motives or prejudices which I am not able to comprehend do really blind their eyes and make them stumble in the brightness of a mid-day light But yet that all those who nevertheless continue to live in the external Communion of the Church of Rome are not thus sincere in the belief of it is what I think I may without uncharitableness affirm and because it will be a matter of great importance to make this appear especially to those of that Perswasion I will beg leave to offer such proofs of it as have come to my knowledge in some of the most eminent Persons of these last Ages and to which I doubt not but others better acquainted with these secrets than I can pretend to be might be able to add many more Examples And the first that I shall mention is the famous †Petri Picherelli Expositio Verborum institutionis Caenae Domini Lugd. Batav 1629. 12o. Picherellus of whom the testimonies prefix'd to his Works speak so advantagiously that I shall not need say any thing of the esteem which the learned World had of him * Hoc est Corpus meum i. e. Hic panis fractus est Corpus meum pag. 10. Hoc est Corpus meum i. e. Panis quem frangimus est communio cum Corpore Christi pag. 14. and pag. 27. Expounding Gratian. dist 2. Can. Non Hoc Corpus Ipsum Corpus invisibiliter de vero germano Corpore in Caelis agente intelligitur Non ipsum visibiliter de Corpore sanguine Sacramentalibus Pane Vino Corporis Christi sanguinis symbolis Quae rei quam significant nomen per supradictam metonymiam mutuantur I must transcribe his whole Treatise should I insist on all he has delivered repugnant to their Doctrine of Transubstantiation Suffice it to observe that in his Exposition of the words of Institution This is my Body He gives this plain interpretation of them This Bread is my Body which is both freely allowed by the Papists themselves to be inconsistent with their belief as to this matter and which he largely shews not only to be his own but to have been the constant Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers in this point But in this it may be there is not so much ground for our admiration that one who was not very fond of any of the Errors of that Church should openly dissent from her in this It will more be wondred that a person so eminent amongst them as Cardinal du Perron and that has written so much in defence of Transubstantiation should nevertheless all the while Himself believe nothing of it And yet this we are assured he freely confess'd to some of his Friends not long before his death That he thought the Doctrine to be Monstrous that He had done his endeavour to colour it over the best He could in his Books but that in short he had undertaken an ill cause and which was not to be maintain'd But I will set down the relation as I find it in Monsieur Drelincourt 's * Reponse à la Lettre de Monsig le Prince 〈◊〉 Ernest aus cinq Micistres de Paris c. Geneve 1664. Answer to the Landgrave of Hesse and who would not have presum'd to have offer'd a relation so considerable and to a person of such Quality had he at all fear'd that he could have been disproved in it †Votre Altesse me croira s'il luy plait Mais je luy puis dire avectonte sincerite verité que si le defunt Cardinal du Perron luy a persuadé la Transubstantiation il luy a persuadé ce qu'il n'a pû se persuader à forméme qu'il n'a nullement cru Car je scay par des Gene d' Honneur dignes de foy qui l'avoient apris de temoins oculaires que des Amis de cet illustre scavant Cardinal qui l'estoient allé visiter lors qu' il estoit languissant en son lit malade de la maladie dont il est mort le prierent de leâ—r dire franchement ce qu'il croyeit de la Transubstantiation
qu'il répondit qu' il la tenoit pour un Monstre Et comme ils luy demanderent comment done il en avoit écrit si amplement si doctement il repliqua qu'il avoit deployé toutes les Adresses de son Esprit poâ— colourer cet abus pour le rendre plausibile qu'il avoit fait comrre ceux qui font tous leurs Efforts pour defendre une manvaise Cause Your Highness says He may believe me if you please But I can assure you with all sincerity and truth that if the late Cardinal du Perron has convinced you of the Truth of Transubstantiation he has convinced you of that of which he could never convince himself nor did he ever believe it For I have been informed by certain Persons of Honour and that are in all respects worthy of belief and who had it from those that were eye witnesses That some friends of that Illustrious and Learned Cardinal who went to see him as he lay languishing upon his Bed and ill of that distemper of which he died desired him to tell them freely what he thought of Transubstantiation To whom he answer'd That 't was a MONSTER And when they farther ask'd him How then he had written so copiously and learnedly about it He replied That he had done the utmost that his Wit and Parts had enabled him to COLOUR OVER THIS ABUSE and RENDER IT PLAUSIBLE But that he had done like those who employ all their force to defend an ILL CAUSE And thus far Monsieur Drelincourt I could to this add some farther circumstances which I have learnt of this matter but what is here said may suffice to shew what the real Opinion of this great Cardinal after all his Voluminous Writings as to this Doctrine was unless some future Obligations shall perhaps engage me to enter on a more particular account of it To these two great instances of another Nation I will beg leave to subjoyn a third of our own Country Father Barnes the Benedictine Catholico-Romano-Pacificus Oxon. 1680. Pag. 90. Assertio Transubstantiationis sâ—u mutationis substantialis panis licet sit Opinio communior non tamen est fides Ecclesiae Et Scripturae Patres docentes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sufficienter expoâ—â— possant de admirandâ— supernaturali mutatione Panis per Praesentiam Corporis Christi ei accedentem sine substantialis Panis desitione Et. P. 95. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 illam in Augustissimo Sacramento factam plerique graves antiqui Scriptoresita explicant ut non fiat per desitionem substantiae panis sed per receptionem supernaturalem substantiae Corporis Christi in substantiam Panis V. pl. who in his Pacific Discourse of most of the points in Controversie between us and the Papists expresly declares That the Assertion of Transubstantiation or of the substantial change of the Bread though it be indeed the more common Opinion is yet no part of the Churches Faith And that the Scripture and Fathers when they speak of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be sufficiently Expounded of that admirable and supernatural change of the Bread by the presence of Christ's Body added to it without the departure of the substance of the Bread it self It appears by these words how little this Monk thought Transubstantiation an Article of Faith. But a greater than he and who not only did not esteem it necessary for Others to receive it but clearly shews that he did not believe it himself Illustriss atque Reverend Pâ—de Marea Parisiens Archiep. Dissertationes Posthumae De Sanctissimo Eucharistiae Sacramento dissertatio in sne is the Illustrious Monsieur de Marca late Archbishop of Paris and well known to the World for his great Learning and Eminence His Treatise of the Eucharist was publish'd with Authority by one of his near Relations the Abbé Faget at Paris 1668. with some other little Tracts which he had received from the Archbishops own hands In the close of that Treatise he thus delivers his Opinion †Species Pâ—nis est Essentiâ Naturâ distincta à Corpore Christi sibi adjuncto licet ratio Eucharistiae id exigat ut substantia Panis interior conversa suerit in illud Corpus modo quodam qui omnem cogitationem exsuperat Caeterum mutatio illa non officit quin Panis qui videtur id est Accidentia suam Naturam Extantiam Essentiam SIVE SUBSTANTIAM retineat naturae verae Proprietates inter quas est alendi corporis humani facultas Vnde consequitur rectè observatum à Gelasio Sacramenta Corporis Sanguinis Christi divinam rem esse quia Panis Vinum in divinam transeunt substantiam S. spiritu persiciente nempe in Corpus Christi spiritale sed ex alia parte non desinere substantiam naturam Panis Vini sed ea permanere in suae proprietate Naturae Quoniam scil postquam Panis in divinam substantiam transivit NON INTERIIT INTEGRA PANIS NATURA QUAM SUBSTANTIAM QUOQUE VOCAT NEC DESIVIT SED in suae proprietate Naturae permansit ad alendum Corpus idonea quod est praecipuum confecti panis munus Note That in the Paris Edition they have put in those words printed in the Black Letter id est Accidentia and omitted those that I have caused to be set in Capitals But in the Original leaf which I have left in S. Martin's Library to be seen by any that pleases and which was cut out for the sake of this passage it stands as I have said and as it is truly represented in the Holland Edition The species of the Bread is in its Essence and Nature distinct from the Body of Christ adjoyn'd to it although the reason of the Eucharist requires that the inward substance of the Bread should be converted into that Body after a manner that exceeds all Imagination But yet this change hinders not but that the BREAD which is seen still RETAINS its own NATURE BEING and ESSENCE or SUBSTANCE together with the proprieties of its true Nature among which one is the faculty of nourishing our Bodies c. Whence it follows that it was rightly observ'd by Gelasius that the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ was a Divine thing because the Bread and Wine being perfected by the Holy Spirit pass into the Divine substance viz. the spiritual Body of Christ but on the other side that the SUBSTANCE and NATURE of the BREAD and WINE do not cease to be but continue still in the propriety of their own Nature And here I suppose any one who reads this passage alone of this Treatise might without the help of * Baluze 2 Lettre à Monsieur le Presid Marca S'il est vray ce que j'ay de la peine à croire que feu Monsigneur ait composé les Traittez que M. Faget a fait imprimer sous son nom dont il se vante dans la Preface
Being no Priests they had no Power to Consecrate All the Hosts therefore which were either offered or taken or worshipped in any of the Masses celebrated by those Priests whom these two Bishops Ordained were only meer Bread and not the Body of Christ And as many of them as being afterwards advanced to a higher dignity were consecrated Bishops received no Episcopal Character because they were destitute of the Priestly before Thus the danger still encreases For by this means the Priests whom they also Ordain are no Priests and when any of them shall be promoted to a higher degree are uncapable of being made Bishops And so by the Infidelity of these two Men there are at this day infinite numbers of Priests and Bishops who say Mass and confer Orders without any manner of power to do either and in a little time it may be there shall not be a true Bishop or Priest in the whole Gallicane Church But II. A second Consideration which I would beg leave to offer from the fore-going instances is this What reliance we can make upon the Pretended Infallibility of their Church when 't is thus plain that so many of the most learned Men of their own Communion did not only not believe it to be Infallible but supposed it to have actually Erred and that in those very Doctrines that are at this day esteemed the most considerable Points in difference between Vs It is plain from what has been said in the foregoing reflection that disbelieving Transubstantiation they must also have lookt upon all the other Consequences of it viz. the Adoration of the Host the Sacrifice of the Mass c. as Erroneous too Now though it be not yet agreed among them nor ever likely to be where the supposed Infallibility of their Church is seated yet since all manner of Authority has conspired to establish these things Popes have decreed them Councils defined them and both Popes and Councils anathematized all those that shall presume to doubt of them 't is evident either these Men did not believe the Church to be Infallible as is pretended or they did not believe the Roman to be according to the modern phrase indeed the Catholick Church III. And upon the same grounds there will arise a third Reflection which they may please to make with us and that is with what Reason they can press us with the Authority of their Church in these matters when such eminent persons of their own Communion and who certainly were much more Obliged to it than we can be thought to be yet did not esteem it sufficient to enslave their belief It is a reproach generally cast upon us that we set up a private Spirit in opposition to the Wisdom and Authority of the Church of God and think our selves better able to judge in matters of Faith than the most General Council that was ever yet assembled This is usually said but is indeed a foul Misrepresentation of our Opinion All we say is that every Man ought to act Rationally in matters of Religion as well as in other concerns to employ his Vnderstanding with the utmost skill and diligence that he is able to know God's will and what it is that he requires of us We do not set up our own judgments against the Authority of the Church but having both the Holy Oracles of God and the Definitions of Men before us we give to each their proper weight And therefore if the one at any time contradicts the other we resolve as is most fitting not that our own but God's Authority revealed to us in his Word is to be preferred And he who without this examination servilely gives up himself to follow whatever is required of him He may be in the right if his Church or Guide be so but according to this method shall never be able to give a reason of his Faith nor if he chance to be born in a False Religion ever be in a capacity of being better instructed For if we must be allowed nothing but to obey only and not presume to enquire why He that is a Jew must continue a Jew still he that is a Turk a Turk a Protestant must always be a Protestant In short in whatsoever profession any one now is in that he must continue whether true or false if reason and examination must be excluded all place in matters of Religion * All this is lately granted by the Catholick Representer Cap. VI. And indeed after all their clamours against us on this occasion yet is this no more than what themselves require of us when 't is in order to their own advantage Is a Proselyte to be made they offer to him their Arguments They tell him a long story of their Church the Succession Visibility and other Notes of it To what purpose is all this if we are not to be Judges to examine their pretences whether these are sufficient marks of such a Church as they suppose and if they are whether they do indeed agree to theirs and then upon a full conviction submit to them Now if this be their intention 't is then clear let them pretend what they will that they think us both capable of judging in these matters and that we ought to follow that which all things considered we find to be most reasonable which is all that we desire And for this we have here the undoubted Examples of those Eminent Persons of their own Communion before named who notwithstanding the Authority of their Church and the decision of so many Councils esteemed by it as General have yet both thought themselves at liberty to examine their Decrees and even to pass sentence too upon them that they were erroneous in the Points here mentioned And therefore certainly we may modestly desire the same liberty which themselves take at least till we can be convinced and that by such Arguments as we shall be allow'd to judge of that there is such an infallible Guide whom we ought in all things to follow without further inquiry and where we may find him and when this is done I will for my part promise as freely to give up my self to his Conduct as I am till then I think reasonably resolved to follow what according to the best of my ability in proving all things I shall find indeed to be Good. IV. I might from the same Principles Fourthly argue the Reasonableness of our Reformation at least in the opinion of those great Men of whom we have hitherto been speaking And who thinking it allow'd to them to dissent themselves from the received Doctrine of their Church which they found to be erroneous could not but in their Consciences justifie us who as a national Church no way subjected to their Authority did the same and by the right which every such Church has within it self reformed those Errors which like the Tares were sprung up with the Good Seed This 't is evident they must have approved and for one
Church of England as to this point is Pag. 86 Our Authors exceptions against it Answered Pag. 87 II. What is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome and whether what this Author has said in favour of it may be sufficient to warrant their Practice as to this matter Pag. 91 Their Doctrine stated ib. The Defence of it unsufficient shewn in Answer 1. To his Protestant-Concessions Pag. 93 2. To his Catholick Assertions First Pag. 96 Second Pag. 99 Third ib. Fourth Pag. 100 Fifth Pag. 102 Sixth Pag. 103 Seventh Pag. 104 Eighth ib. 3. To the Grounds he offers of their Belief Pag. 105 The Lutherans Practice no Apology for theirs Pag. 106 Ground First Answer'd Pag. 108 Ground Second Answer'd Pag. 109 Ground Third Answer'd Pag. 113 Ground Fourth Answer'd Pag. 114 Ground Fifth Answer'd Pag. 115 Some Arguments proposed upon their own Principles against this Adoration Pag. 117 Conclusion Pag. 125 ERRATA PAG. xvii l. 10. fourth r. sixth p. xviii l. 10. in r. on p. xxii l. 33. r. they are p. xxiv l. 5. r. That thou p. 13. marg Hammond l. 6. p. 129. p. 64. marg Casaubon ib. l. 19. Body is of Christ p. 76. l. 24. dele which p. 80. l. 15. then that p. 91. l. 27. r. this Holy. p. 98. l. 16. for then r. the. p. 112. l. 18. Catholicâ l. 20. asks A few lesser Faults there are which the Reader may please to correct A DISCOURSE OF THE Holy Eucharist With particular Reference To the two GREAT POINTS OF THE REAL PRESENCE AND The Adoration of the HOST INTRODUCTION Of the Nature of this HOLY SACRAMENT in the General TO understand the true design of our Blessed Saviour in the Institution of this Holy Sacrament we cannot I suppose take any better course than to consider first of all what Account the Sacred Writers have left us of the Time and Manner of the doing of it Now for this St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. 11.23 That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betray'd having first eaten the Passover according to the Law Exod. 12. Matt. xxvi 20. took Bread and when he had given thanks he brake it * Matt. xxvi and gave it to the Disciples and said Take Eat This is my Body which is broken for you This do in Remembrance of Me. After the same manner also he took the Cup when he had supp'd saying This Cup is the New-Testament in my Blood This do ye as oft as ye Drink it in Remembrance of me Such is the Account which St. Paul gives us of the Original of this Holy Sacrament Nor do the Evangelists dissent from it only that St. Matthew with reference to the Cup adds Drink ye ALL of it Matt. xxvi 27. to which St. Mark subjoins a particular Observation and which ought not here to be pass'd by That they ALL drank of it Mark xiv 23. It is not to be doubted but that the design of our Blessed Saviour in instituting this Holy Sacrament was to Abolish the Jewish Passover and to establish the Memory of another and a much greater Deliverance than that of the first-born now to be wrought for the whole World in his Death The Bread which he brake and the Wine which he poured out being such clear Types of his Body to be broken his Blood to be shed for the Redemption of Mankind that it is impossible for us to doubt of the Application And as God Almighty under the Law designed that other Memorial of the Paschal Lamb now changed into a so much better and more excellent Remembrance to continue as long as the Law its self stood in force So this Blessed Eucharist establish'd by Christ in the room of it must no doubt have been intended by Him to be continued in his Church as long as the Covenant seal'd with that Blood which it exhibits stands And therefore that since that shall never be abolish'd 't is evident that this also will remain our Duty and be our perpetual Obligation to the end of the World. This is the import of our Saviours Addition Do this in Remembrance of Me and is by St. Paul more fully expressed in those Words which he immediately subjoyns to the History of the Institution before recited 1 Cor. xi 26. For as often as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup ye do shew i.e. in the Jewish Phrase set forth Commemorate the Lords Death till his coming And that this Holy Sacrament now establish'd in the place of the Jewish Passover might be both the better understood and the easier received by them it is a thing much to be remarked for the right explaining of it how exactly he accommodated all the Notions and Ideas of that Ancient Ceremony to this new Institution I. In that Paschal Supper the Master of the House took Bread and presenting it before them instead of the usual Benediction of the Bread He brake it and gave it to them saying ‖ See Dr. Hammond on Mat. xxvi lit E. Casaubon in Mat. xxvi 26. c. This is the Bread of Affliction which our Fathers ate in Egypt In this Sacred Feast our Saviour in like manner takes Bread the very Loaf which the Jews were wont to take for the Ceremony before mentioned breaks it and gives it to his Disciples saying This is my Body which is broken for you alluding thereby not only to their Ceremony in his Action but even to their very manner of Speech in his Expression to the Passover before them which in their Language they constantly called * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vid. Buxtorf Vindic. contr Capel P. 14. Hammond in Mat. xxvi l. e. c. the Body of the Paschal Lamb. II. In that Ancient Feast the Master of the House in like manner after Supper took the Cup and having given thanks gave it to them saying †Allix preparat a la Sainte Cene. cap. 2. pag. 16. This is the Fruit of the Vine and the Blood of the Grape In this Holy Sacrament our Blessed Lord in the very same manner takes the Cup he Blesses it and gives it to his Disciples saying This Cup is the New-Testament in my Blood his Action being again the very same with theirs and for his Expression it is that which Moses used when he ratified the Ancient Covenant between God and the Jews Exod. xxiv 8. compared with Hebr. ix 20. saying This is the Blood of the Testament III. In that Ancient Feast after all this was finish'd they were wont to sing a * Dr. Lightfoots Heb Talmud Observation Mat. xxvi ver 26 27. T. 2. p. 258 260. Hymn the Psalms yet extant from the cxiii to the cxix thence called by them the Great Hallelujah In this Holy Supper our Saviour and his Disciples are expresly recorded to have done the like and very probably in the self-same words See Matt. xxvi 30. Mark xiv 26. In a word Lastly IV. That ancient Passover the Jews were commanded to keep
into Christ's Body than for Christ's Body to be changed into Bread a Vine a Door a Rock or whatever you please of the like kind But I have already shewn the ground of this mistake to be their want of considering the Customs and Phrases of the Jewish Passover and upon which both the Holy Eucharist it self and these Expressions in it were founded And I will only add this farther in confirmation of it That in the Stile of the Hebrew Language in general there is nothing more ordinary than for things to be said to * Expressions of this kind are very frequent in Holy Scripture The seed is the Word of God Luke viii 11. The field is the World the good seed are the children of the kingdom The tares are the children of the wicked one Matt. xiii 38. The seven Angels are the Angels of the seven Churches and the seven Candlesticks are the seven Churches Rev. i. 20. With infinite more of the like kind Be that which they Signifie or Represent Thus Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's Dream Gen. xli 26. The seven good Kine says he are seven years and again The seven good Ears of Corn are seven years i. e. as is plain they signify seven years And so in like manner in this place Christ took Bread and blessed and brake it and gave it to his disciples saying Take Eat this is my Body which is Broken for you That is this Bread thus Taken and Blessed and Broken and Given to you This Bread and this Action signifies and represents my Body which shall be Broken for you And indeed after all this seeming assurance it is nevertheless plain That they themselves are not very well satisfied with their own interpretation †See the Preface We have shewn before how little confidence their greatest Schoolmen had of this Doctrine those who have stood the most stifly for it could never yet * See their Opinions collected by Monsieur Aubertine de Eucharistiâ lib. 1. cap. 9.11 12 13 14. agree how to explain these words so as to prove it And Cardinal Bellarmine alone who reckons up the most part of their several ways and argues the weakness too of every one but his own may be sufficient to assure us that they are never likely to be And might serve to shew what just cause their own great * Tract 2. de Verbis quibus Conficitur Catharinus had so long since to cry out upon his Enquiry only into the meaning of the very first word This Consider says he Reader into what difficulties they are thrown who go about to write upon this matter when the word THIS only has had so many and such contradictory Expositions that they are enough to make a man lose his Wits but barely to consider them all 'T was this forced so many of their †See their Testimonies cited in the late Historical Treatise of Transubstantiation in the Defence of the Exposition of the Church of England p. 63 64 65. In the Preface above c. greatest and most learned men before Luther ingenuously to profess That there was not in Scripture any evident proof of this Doctrine and even Cardinal Cajetan since to own That had not the Church determined for the literal sense of those words This is my Body they might have passed in the Metaphorical It is the general acknowledgment of their ‖ See Bellarmin's words in the Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England pag. 56 57. To which may be added Salmer Tom. 9. Tr. 20. Suarez Disp 58. Sect. 7. Vasquez Disp 201. c. 1. c. greatest Writers at this day That if the Pronoun THIS in that Proposition This is my Body be referr'd to the Bread which our Saviour Christ held in his Hand which he bless'd which he brake and gave to his Disciples and of which therefore certainly if of any thing he said This is my Body the natural repugnancy that there is between the two things affirm'd of one another Bread and Christs Body will force them to be taken in a figurative Interpretation For as much as 't is impossible that Bread should be Christ's Body otherwise than in a figure And however to avoid so dangerous a Consequence they will rather apply it to any thing nay to nothing at all than to the Bread yet they would do well to consider whether they do not thereby fall into as great a danger on the other side since if the Relative THIS do's not determine those words to the Bread 't is evident that nothing in that whole Proposition do's And then how those words shall work so great a change in a Subject to which they have no manner of Relation will I believe be as difficult to shew as the change its self is incomprehensible to conceive And now after so plain an evidence of the weakness of that foundation which is by all confessed to be the chief and has by many of the most Learned of that Church been thought the only Pillar of this Cause I might well dispense with my self from entring on any farther examination of their other pretences to establish it But because they have taken great pains of late to apply the †Concil Trid. Sess xiii sixth Chapter of St. John to the Holy Eucharist tho' it might be sufficient in general to say that no good Argument for a matter of such consequence can be built upon a place which so many of the * See them thus ranged by Albertinus de Euch. lib 1. cap. 30. pag. 209. Two Popes Innocent III. Pius II. Four Cardinals Bonaventure D' Alliaco Cusan Cajetane Two Archbishops Richardus Armachannus Guererius Granatensis Five Bishops Stephanus Eduensis Durandus Mimatensis Gulielmus Altisiodorensis Lindanus Ruremondensis Jansenius Gandavensis Doctors and Professors of Divinity in great abundance Alexander Alensis Richardus de media villa Jo. Gerson Jo. de Ragufio Gabriel Biel Thomas Waldenfis Author tract contr perfidiam quorundam Bohemorum Jo. Maria Verratus Tilmannus Segebergensis Astesanus Conradus Jo. Ferus Conradus Sasgerus Jo. Hesselius Ruardus Tapperus Palatios Rigaltius Here are 50. of the Roman Church who reject this Application of this Chapter For the Fathers see the Learned Paraphrase lately set forth of this Chapter in the Preface All which shews how little strength any Argument from this Chapter can have to establish Transubstantiation most Eminent and Learned of that Communion have judged not to have the least Relation to this matter yet I will nevertheless beg leave very briefly to shew the Weakness of this Second Attempt too and that 't is in vain that they rally these scatter'd Forces whilst their main Body continues so intirely defeated It is a little surprizing in this matter that they universally tell us That neither the beginning nor ending of our Saviours Discourse in that Chapter belongs to this Matter that both before and after that passage which they refer to 't is
all Metaphor only just two or three words for their purpose Literal But that which raises our wonder to the highest pitch is that the very fifty first Verse its self on which they found their Argument is two thirds of it Figure and only otherwise in one Clause to serve their Hypothesis I am says our Saviour the living Bread which came down from Heaven This is Figurative If any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever That is they say by a Spiritual Eating by Faith And the Bread which I will give is my Flesh which I will give for the life of the World. This only must be understood of a proper manducation of a real eating of his Flesh in this Holy Sacrament It must be confessed that this is an Arbitrary way of explaining indeed and becomes the Character of a Church whose dictates are to be received not examined and may therefore pass well enough amongst those with whom the supposed Infallibility of their Guides is thought a sufficient dispensation for their own private Consideration But for us who can see no reason for this sudden change of our Saviours Discourse nay think that the connexion of that last Clause with the foregoing is an evident sign that they all keep the same Character and are therefore not a little scandalized at so Capernaitical a Comment as indeed Who can bear it V. 60. They will please to excuse us if we take our Saviours Interpretation to be at least of as good an Authority as 't is much more reasonable than theirs V. 62. Do's this says he Offend you Do's my saying that ye must eat my flesh and drink my Blood scandalize you Mistake not my design I mean not any carnal eating of me that indeed might justly move your Horrour It is the Spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life He that desires a fuller account of this Chapter may please to recur to the late excellent †A Paraphrase with Notes and a Preface upon the Sixth Chapter of Saint John Lond. 1686. Paraphrase set out on purpose to explain it and which will be abundantly sufficient to shew the reasonableness of that Interpretation which we give of it I shall only add to close all that one Remark which * De Doctrin Christian Lib. 3. Cap. 16. Saint Augustine has left us concerning it and so much the rather in that it is one of the rules which he lays down for the right Interpreting of Holy Scripture and illustrates with this particular Example If says he the saying be Preceptive either forbidding a wicked action or commanding to do that which is good it is no Figurative saying But if it seems to command any Villany or Wickedness or forbid what is profitable and good it is Figurative This saying Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you have no Life in you seems to command a Villanous or Wicked Thing It is therefore a FIGVRE enjoining us to communicate in the Passion of our Lord and to lay it up in dear and profitable Remembrance that his Flesh was crucifi'd and wounded for our sakes And now having thus clearly I perswade my self shewn the Weakness of those Grounds on which this Doctrine of the substantial Change of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ in this Holy Sacrament is establish'd I shall but very little insist on any other Arguments against it Only in a Word to demonstrate that all manner of Proofs fail them in this great Error I will in the close here subjoin two or three short Considerations more to shew this Doctrine opposite not only to Holy Scripture as we have seen but also 1. To the best and purest Tradition of the Church 2. To the Right Reason and 3. To the Common Senses of all Mankind I. That this Doctrine is opposite to the best and purest Tradition of the Church Now to shew this I shall not heap together a multitude of Quotations out of those Fathers through whose hands this Tradition must have past He that desires such an Account may find it fully done by one of the Roman Communion in a little * A Treatise of Transubstantiation by one of the Church of Rome c. Printed for Rich. Chiswell 1687. Treatise just now publish'd in our own Language I will rather take a method that seems to me less liable to any just Exception and that is to lay down some general Remarks of undoubted Truth and whose consequence will be as evident as their certainty is undeniable And I. For the Expressions of the Holy Fathers It is not deny'd Such are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but never 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Note there is hardly any of these Words which they have applied to the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist but they have attributed the same to the Water in Baptism but that in their popular Discourses they have spared no words except that of Transubstantiation which not one of them ever used to set off so great a Mystery And I believe that were the Sermons and Devotional Treatises of our own Divines alone since the Reformation searcht into one might find Expressions among them as much over-strain'd * See Treatise first of the Adoration c Printed lately at Oxford Which would make the World believe that we hold I know not what imaginary Real Presence on this account just as truly as the Fathers did Transubstantiation And doubtless these would be as strong an Argument to prove Transubstantiation now the Doctrine of the Church of England as those to argue it to have been the Opinion of those Primitive Ages But now let us consult these men in their more exact composures when they come to teach not to declaim and we shall find they will then tell us That these Elements are for their * It is not necessary to transcribe the Particulars here that have been so often and fully alledged Most of these Expressions may be found in the Treatise of Transubstantiation lately published The rest may be seen in Blondel Eclaircissements Familiers de la Controverse de l' Eucharistie Cap. iv vii viii Claude Rep. au 2. Traittè de la Perpetuitè i. Part. Cap. iv v. Forbesius Instructiones Historico-Theolog lib. xi cap. ix x xi xii xiii xv Larrogue Histoire de l' Eucharistie liv 2. cap. ii substance what they were before Bread and Wine That they retain the true properties of their nature to nourish and feed the Body that they are things inanimate and void of sense That with reference to the Holy Sacrament they are Images Figures Signes Symbols Memorials Types and Antitypes of the Body and Blood of Christ That in their Vse and Benefit they are indeed the very Body and Blood of Christ to every saithful Receiver but in a Spiritual and Heavenly manner as we confess That in
Humane Nature of Christ still remains though assumed by and conjoyned to the Divine Which words as their Editor has done well to set a Cautè upon in the Margent to signifie their danger so this is clear from them that Gelasius and so the other Writers that have made use of the same Argument as St. Chrysostome Theodoret c. must have thought the Bread and the Wine in the Eucharist no more to have been really changed into the very Body and Blood of Christ than they did believe his Humane Nature to have been truly turned into the Divine For that otherwise the parallel would have stood them in no stead nay would have afforded a defence of that Heresie which they undertook to oppose by it VI. Yet more Had the Primitive Christians believed this great Change how comes it to pass that we find none of those Marks nor Signs of it that the World has since abounded with * See the contrary proved that the Fathers did not believe this by Blondel de l'Euch c. 8. Claude Rep. au 2. Traitte de la Perpetuite part 1. c. 4. No talk of Accidents existing without Subjects of the Senses being liable to be deceived in judging of their proper Objects in short no Philosophy corrupted to maintain this Paradox No Adorations Processions Vows paid to it as to Christ himself It is but a very little time since the †Under Greg. ix Ann. 1240. vid. Nauclerum ad Ann. cit Bell came in play to give the People notice that they should fall down and Worship this new God. The ‖ Instituted by Vrban iv Ann. 1264. Feast in honour of it is an Invention of Yesterday the Adoring of it in the Streets no ⸪ Indeed in all Probability a hundred years later older Had not those first Christians respect sufficient for our Blessed Saviour Or did they perhaps do all this Let them shew it us if they can But till then we must beg leave to conclude That since we find not the least Footsteps of any of these necessary Appendages of this Doctrine among the Primitive Christians it is not to be imagined that we should find the Opinion neither VII But this is not all We do not only not find any such Proofs as these of this Doctrine but we find other Instances directly contrary to this belief In some Churches they ‖ So in that of Jerusalem See Hesych in Levitic l. 2. c. 8. burnt what remained of the Consecrated Elements * So in that of Constantinople Evag. Hist l. 4. c. 35. In others they gave it to little Children to Eat †Vid. apud Autor Vit. Basilii c. 8. in Vit. Pat. l. 1. This Custom was condemned in a Council at Carthage Anno 419. Vid. Codic Eccl. Afric Justel c. 18. In some they buried it with their Dead In all they permitted the Communicants to carry home some Remnants of them they sent it abroad by Sea by Land from one Church and Village to another without any Provision of Bell or Taper Canopy or Incense or any other mark of Adoration they sometimes made ⸪ Vid. St. August Oper. imp contr Julian lib. 3. c. 164. Poultices of the Bread they mix'd the ⸫ See an instance of this in Baronius Ann. 648. Sect. 15. The 8th General Council did the same In Act. Syn. Wine with their Ink all which we can never imagine such holy Men would have presumed to do had they indeed believed them to be the very Body and Blood of our Blessed Lord. VIII Lastly Since the prevalence of this Doctrine in the Church what Opposition has it met with What Schisms has it caused What infinite Debates have there risen about it I shall not need to speak of the Troubles of Berenger in the Eleventh Of the Waldenses Albigenses and others in the Twelfth Century Of Wickliff Hus c. who continued the Opposition and finally of the great Reformation in the beginning of the last Age by all which this Heresy has been opposed ever since it came to any Knowledg in the Church Now is it possible to be believed that so many Centuries should pass so many Heresies should arise and a Doctrine so full of Contradictions remain uncontested in the Church for almost a Thousand years That Berenger should be one of the first that should begin to Credit his Senses to Consult his Reason or even to Defend his Creed These are Improbabilities that will need very convincing Arguments indeed to remove them But for the little late French trick of proving this Doctrine necessary to have been received in the Primitive Church This is the Foundation of the Authors of the Treatises De la Perpetuite Answered by Mons Claude because it is so in the Present and if you will believe them 't is impossible a Change should have been made I suppose we need only turn the terms of the Argument to shew the Weakness of the Proof viz. That from all these and many other Observations that might be offer'd of the like kind 't is Evident that this Doctrine at the beginning was not believed in the Church and let them from thence see if they can conclude that neither is it believed now Thus contrary is this Doctrine to the Best and Purest Tradition of the Church Nor is it less Secondly II. To Right Reason too It were endless to heap together all the Contradictions that might be offer'd to prove this That there should be Length and nothing Long See Mr. Chillingworth against Knot c. iv n. 46. Breadth and nothing Broad Thickness and nothing Thick Whiteness and nothing White Roundness and nothing Round Weight and nothing Heavy Sweetness and nothing Sweet Moisture and nothing Moist Fluidness and nothing Flowing many Actions and no Agent many Passions and no Patient i.e. That there should be a Long Broad Thick White Round Heavy Sweet Moist Flowing Active Passive NOTHING That Bread should be turned into the Substance of Christ and yet not any thing of the Bread become any thing of Christ neither the Matter nor the Form nor the Accidents of the Bread be made either the Matter or the Form or the Accidents of Christ that Bread should be turned into Nothing and at the same Time with the same Action turned into Christ and yet Christ should not be Nothing that the same Thing at the same Time should have its just Dimensions and just Distance of its Parts one from another and at the same time not have it but all its Parts together in one and the self-same Point That the same Thing at the same time should be wholly Above its self and wholly Below its self Within its self and Without its self on the Right-hand and on the Left-hand and Round-about its self That the same thing at the same time should move to and from its self and yet lie still or that it should be carried from one place to another through the middle space
and yet not move That there should be no Certainty in our Senses and yet that we should know something Certainly and yet know nothing but by our Senses That that which Is and Was long ago should now begin to be That that is now to be made of Nothing which is not Nothing but Something That the same thing should be Before and After its self These and many other of the like nature are the unavoidable and most of them the avow'd Consequences of Transubstantiation and I need not say all of them Contradictions to Right Reason But I shall insist rather upon such Instances as the Primitive Fathers have judged to be absurd and impossible and which will at once shew both the Falseness and Novelty of this monstrous Doctrine and such are these * See Examples of every one of these collected by Blondel Eclaircissements familiers de la controverse de l' Eucharistie cap. 8. p. 253. That a thing already existing should be produced anew That a finite thing should be in many places at the same time That a Body should be in a place and yet take up no room in it That a Body should penetrate the dimensions of another Body That a Body should exist after the manner of a Spirit That a real body should be invisible and impassible That the same thing should be its self and the figure of its self That the same thing should be contained in and participate of its self †Monsieur Claude Rep. au 2. Traitte de la Perpetuite part 1. c. 4. n. 11. p. 73. Ed. 4to Paris 1668. That an Accident should exist by its self without a Subject after the manner of a Substance All these things the primitive Fathers have declared to be in their Opinions gross Absurdities and Contradictions without making any exception of the Divine Power for the sake of the Eucharist as some do now And indeed it were well if the impossibilities stopp'd here but alas the Repugnancies extend to the very Creed its self and destroy the chiefest Articles of our Faith the Fundamentals of Christianity How can that man profess that he believes our Saviour Christ to have been born xvi Ages since of the Virgin Mary whose very Body he sees the Priest about to make now before his Eyes That he believes him to have Ascended into Heaven and behold he is yet with us upon Earth There to Sit at the right hand of God the Father Almighty till in the end of the World He shall come again with Glory to judg both the Quick and the Dead And behold he is here carried through the Streets lock'd up in a Box Adored first and then Eaten by his own Creatures carried up and down in several manners and to several places and sometimes Lost out of a Priests Pocket These are no far-fetch'd Considerations they are the obvious Consequences of this Belief and if these things are impossible as doubtless if there be any such thing as Reason in the World they are I suppose it may be very much the concern of every one that professes this Faith to reflect a little upon them and think what account must one day be given of their persisting obstinately in a point so evidently erroneous that the least degree of an impartial judgment would presently have shewn them the falseness of it But God has not left himself without farther witness in this matter but has given us Thirdly III. The Conviction of our Senses against it An Argument this which since it cannot be Answered they seem resolved to run it down as the Stoick in Lucian who began to call names when he had nothing else to say for himself But if the Senses are such ill Informers that they may not be trusted in matters of this moment would these Disputers please to tell us What Authority they have for the truth of the Christian Religion Was not Christianity first founded upon the Miracles of our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles Or were not the Senses judges of those Miracles Are not the Incarnation Death Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord the most Fundamental Articles of our Faith Have we any other Argument to warrant our belief of these but what comes to us by the ministry of our Senses * John xx 27 29. Did not Christ himself appeal to them for the proof of his own Rising The Romanist himself believes Transubstantiation because he reads in the Scripture or rather to speak more agreeably to the method of their Church because he has been told there are such Words there as Hee est Corpus Meum Now not to enquire how far those words will serve to warrant this Doctrine is it not evident that he cannot be sure there are any such words there if he may not trust his Senses And if he may is it not as plain That he must seek for some other meaning than what they give of them Let us suppose the change they speak of to be Supernatural Be it as much a Miracle as they desire The very Character of a Miracle is to be known by the Senses Nor God nor Christ nor any Prophet or Apostle ever pretended to any other And I shall leave it to any one to judge what progress Christianity would have made in the World if it had had no other Miracles but such as Transubstanation to confirm it i. e. Great Wonders confidently asserted but such as every ones sense and reason would tell him were both falsely asserted and impossible to be performed But now whil'st we thus oppose the Errors of some by asserting the continuance of the Natural Substance of the Elements of Bread and Wine in this Holy Eucharist let not any one think that we would therefore set up the mistakes of others as if this Holy Sacrament were nothing more than a meer Rite and Ceremony a bare Commemoration only of Christ's Death and Passion Our Church indeed teaches us to believe That the Bread and Wine continue still in their True and Natural Substance but it teaches us also that 't is the Body and Blood of Christ See the Church Catechism and Article Twenty eighth The Communion-Office c. which every faithful Soul receives in that Holy Supper Spiritually indeed and after a Heavenly manner but yet most truly and really too The Primitive Fathers of whom we have before spoken sufficiently assure us that they were strangers to that Corporeal change that is now pretended but for this Divine and Mystical they have openly enough declared for it Nor are we therefore afraid to confess a change and that a very great one too made in this Holy Sacrament The Bread and the Wine which we here Consecrate ought not to be given or received by any one in this Mystery as common ordinary food Those Holy Elements which the Prayers of the Church have sanctified and the Divine Words of our Blessed Saviour applied to them though not Transubstantiated yet certainly separated to a Holy use and
599. Ibid. We do not say that in the Eucharist there is only a commemoration of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ nor do we say that in it we are made partakers only of the fruits of his death and passion but we joyn the ground with the fruits affirming with St. Paul that the Bread which by Gods appointment we break is the participation of the Body of Christ crucified for us the Cup which we drink the Communion of the true Blood that was shed for us and that in the very same Substance which he received in the Womb of the Virgin and which he carry'd up with him into the Heavens Then descending to the Popish Doctrine of Transubstantiation It overthrows says he the truth of Christs Humane nature and of his Ascension So little did he suppose that Christs natural Body could be at the same time both in Heaven and in the Sacrament Hereupon he explains himself yet farther But now if any one should ask of us whether we make Christ absent from the Holy Supper We answer By no means But yet if we respect the distance of place as when we speak of his Corporal presence and of his Humanity we must we affirm says he that Christs Body is as far distant from the Bread and Wine as Heaven is from Earth If any one shall from thence conclude that we make Christ absent from the Holy Supper he will conclude amiss For this Honour we allow to God that though the Body of Jesus Christ be now in Heaven and not elsewhere and we on Earth and not elsewhere yet are we made partakers of his Body and Blood after a spiritual manner and by the means of Faith. Thus do's Beza in like manner expound their Doctrine of the Real Presence by a real communion of Christs Body and Blood and flatly condemns our Authors invention PETER MARTYR of his natural Bodie 's being either in the Symbols or any where else upon Earth The same is the account which †Respondâ—o pro meâ parte Corpus Christi non else Verè et substantialiter alibi quà m in Calo. Non tamen inficior Christi corpus verum sanguinem illius Verum quae pro salute humana cradita sunt in Cruce fide spiritualiter percipi in Sacrâ Coenâ Histoire Eccles. de Beze liv 4. p. 606. Anno 1561. Peter Martyr in the same conference gave of it and of whom * Vid. Hist de Beze ib. p. 599. Comment de stat rel p. 140. ad Ann 1561. Hospin pag. 518. Espensius one of the Popish delegates confess'd That no Divine of that time had spoken so clearly and distinctly concerning this Sacrament as he did And however ⸫ See Hospin of this whole matter pag. 520. Genebrard fasely pretends that the other Protestants dissented from him yet 't is certain they were so far from it that they all Subscribed the very same Paper out of which he read his Declaration But I will close this with the same words with which these Protestants did their final resolution in the Colloquy as to this matter Affirmamus nullam locorum distantiam impedire posse communicationem quam habemus cum Christi corpore sanguine quoniam Coena Domini est res coelestis et quamvis in terrâ recipiamus ore panem vinum vera scil Corporis sanguinis signa tamen fide spiritûs sancti operatione mentes nostrae quarum hic est praecipuè cibus in caelum elatae perfruuntur corpore sanguine praesente Et hoc respectu dicimus Corpus verè se pani conjungere sanguinem vino non aliter tamen quam sacramentali ratione neque locali neque naturali mode sed quoniam Efficaciter significant Deum illa dare fideliter communicantibus illósque side verè certo percipere Hospin l c. Comm. ibid. p. 142. Vbi sublicitur Haec est perspicua de Corporis sanguinis J C. Praesentia in Sacramento Caenae Ecclesiarum Beformatarum sentenria Beze Hist Eccles. pag. 615. where he adds that they reject not only Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation but also toute maniere de presence par laquelle le corps de Christ n'est colloquè maintenant reellemâ—nt ailleurs qu'au ciel And then adds why they thus use the word substance in this matter and what they mean by it See pag. 615. ad Ann 1561. We affirm that no distance of place can hinder the Communion which we have with Christs Body and Blood because the Supper of the Lord is a Heavenly thing and though upon Earth we receive with our mouths Bread and Wine viz. the true Symbols of his Body and Blood yet by Faith and through the Operation of the Holy Spirit our Souls of which this is the chief food being carry'd up into Heaven enjoy the Body and Blood present And in this respect we say that the Body do's truly joyn its self to the Bread and the Blood to the Wine but yet no otherwise than Sacramentally neither after a local or natural manner But because they do effectually signifie that God gives them to the Faithful Communicants and that they do by Faith truly and certainly receive them And thus far I have consider'd the forreign Divines produced by our Author and in which we find the very same Explication which our Church gives of the Real presence For our own Authors I shall insist the rather upon them both to take off any impression which the scraps here put together by those whose business it is to represent their own Sence not their Authors might otherwise be apt to make upon some Men and also to shew the exact concord there has been ever since the Reformation amongst us as to this matter Now for what concerns our Divines in King Edward vi ths time we have our Authors own confession that towards the latter end of the Reign of that excellent Prince they seem to have deny'd any such Real and Essential presence as he would fasten upon those of Queen Elizabeth's after For as the first days of this Prince 1 Treatise §. xxvi pag 19. says he seem to have been more addicted to Lutheranism so the latter days to Zwinglianism as appears in several expressions of Bishop Ridley and Peter Martyr And indeed the Articles agreed upon in the Convocation at London 1562. plainly shew it in the xxixth of which we find this express Clause Since the very being of humane Nature doth require that the Body of one and the same man cannot be at one and the same time in many places but of necessity must be in some certain and determinate place Therefore the Body of Christ cannot be present in many different places at the same time And since as the Holy Scriptures testifie Christ hath been taken up into Heaven and there is to abide till the end of the World it becometh not any of the faithful to believe or profess that there is a Real or Corporal
Presence as they phrase it of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist I shall therefore produce only a Witness or two of this King's Reign and so pass on to those that follow And 1st A. B. A.B. CRANMER Cranmer in his Answer to Gardiner Bishop of Winchester objecting to him That he deny'd the Presence of Christ in this Holy Eucharist replies That it was a thing he never said nor thought My book in divers places saith clean contrary Answer to Gardiâ—er Bishop of Winchester Fol. London 1551. That Christ is with us spiritually present is eaten and drunken of us and dwelleth within us although Corporally he be departed out of this World and gone into Heaven pag. 5. Pag. 5. As he giveth Bread to be eaten with our Mouths so giveth he his very Body to be eaten with our Faith. And therefore I say that Christ giveth himself truly to be eaten chawed and digested but all is spiritually with Faith not with Mouth pag. 9. Pag. 9. As the washing outwardly in Water is not a vain Token but teacheth such a washing as God worketh inwardly in them that duly receive the same so likewise is not the Bread a vain Token but sheweth and preacheth to the godly Receiver what God worketh in him by his Almighty Power secretly and invisibly And therefore as the Bread is outwardly eaten indeed in the Lord's Supper so is the very Body of Christ inwardly by Faith eaten indeed of all them that come thereto in such sort as they ought to do which eating nourisheth them unto Everlasting Life And in his Treatise of the Holy Sacrament Assertio verae Catholicae Doctrinae de Sacramento Corporis Sanguinis J. â—hristi Servaâ—â—ris nostri Liâ—â—ae 8 vo 1601. Lib. 3. where he sets himself particularly to state this very Question How Christ is present in this Holy Sacrament He declares Cap. 2. That whereas the Papists suppose Christ to be under the Species of Bread and Wine we believe him to be in those who worthily receive these Holy Elements They think him to be received by the Mouth and to enter with the Bread and Wine We assert that he is received only by the Soul and enters there by Faith. That Christ is present only sacramentally and spiritually in this sacred Mystery p. 116. That since his Ascension into Heaven he is there and not on Earth p. 118. and that he cannot be in both together 128. In short he gives us this Rule for interpreting the Expressions of the Fathers where it is said That we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ That we receive in the Holy Sacrament the very body that hung on the Cross c. cap. 14. p. 180. These says he and other Expressions of the like kind which speak Christ to be upon Earth and to be received of Christians by eating or drinking are either to be understood of his Divine Nature which is every where or else must be taken figuratively or spiritually For he is figuratively only in the Bread and Wine and spiritually in those that receive this Bread and Wine worthily But truly and as to his Body and Flesh he is in Heaven only from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead Thus did this Learned and Holy Martyr understand our Doctrine of the Real Presence Bp. RIDLEY and the same was the Idea which his Companion both in Doctrine and Suffering Bishop Ridley has left us of it In his Discourse of the Lord's Supper pag. 33. he tells us Ridlei de Caenâ Dominicâ Assertio Genevae apud Jo. Crispinum 1556. That the Substance of the Bread continues as the Matter of this Sacrament but so that by reason of its change as to Vse Office and Dignity it is turned Sacramentally into the Body of Christ as in Baptism the Water is turned into the Laver of Regeneration That the Humane Nature of Christ is in Heaven and cannot in any manner lye hid under the form of Bread p. 34. Then he enquires whether therefore we take away the Presence of Christ's Body from the Sacrament p. 35. And utterly denies that this is either said or thought by him The Substance of the true Body and Blood of Christ says he is always in Heaven nor shall it depart thence before the end of the World. Now this Substance of his Body and Blood being conjoyned to his Divine Nature has not only Life in it self but can and is wont to bestow it upon all those who partake of it and believe in his Name Nor is it any hindrance to this that Christ still remains in Heaven and that we are upon Earth For by Grace that is Life as S. John interprets it c. 6 and the Properties of it as far as may be profitable to us in this our Pilgrimage here below he is with us to the end of the World. As the Sun who though he never leaves his Orb yet by his Life Heat and Influence is present to us pag. 36 37. Hitherto then there can be no doubt but that both the Church and the Divines knew no other Real Presence than what has been before acknowledged to be still our Doctrine We must now go on to the times of tryal the days of Q. Elizabeth and her Successors I. Tract §. IV. pag. 4. when our Author supposes that Men of different Judgments had the Power Now for proof of this besides the Expressions of particular Men which we shall presently consider we have Two General Presumptions offer'd to us One That Dr. Heyliâ—â— and others have observed he says of this Queen that she was a zealous propugner of the Real Presence which may be very true and yet but little to the purpose if she propugned it in the same sense that her Brother King Edward the 6th and the Church of England had done before and not in the new Notion imposed upon her by this Author but without any manner of proof to warrant his suggestion The other That upon the Re-view made by her Divines of the Common-Prayer and Articles I. Treatise pag. 2. §. I. and again p. 22. §. XXXI they struck out of the One the Rubrick against the Adoration of the Sacrament and the Passage before mention'd being of the same temper as the Declaration in the Liturgy out of the xxixth Article and which has accordingly been omitted ever since And here I cannot but again take notice of the disingenuousness of this Author in dissembling the true Account that has so largely been given by our late accurate Compiler of the History of our Reformation of this whole matter only for the advancing so pitiful an Insinuation of what I dare appeal to his own Conscience whether he did not know to be otherwise I will beg leave to transcribe the whole Passage and shall then leave it to the indifferent Reader to judge whether a man so well acquainted with Books and so interested in this
matter could have lived so long in the world without hearing of so eminent a matter in our Church-History as this The Author is treating about the difference between the Article establish'd in King Edward the six's time Dr. Burnet's Hist of the Refomation Vol 2. Pag. 405. Ann. 1559. Edit 2. 1683. and those in Q. Elizabeth's In the Article of the Lord's Supper there is a great deal left out For instead of that large Refutation of the Corporal Presence from the Impossibility of a Bodies being in more places at once from whence it follows That since Christ's Body is in Heaven the Faithful ought not to believe or profess a Real or Corporal Presence of it in the Sacrament In the new Article it is said That the Body of Christ is given and received after a spiritual manner M S S. C. Cor. Christ Cant. and the means by which it is received is Faith. But in the Original Copy of these Articles which I have seen subscribed by the Hands of All that sate in either House of Convocation there is a further Addition made The Articles were subscribed with that precaution which was requisite in a matter of such consequence For before the Subscriptions there is set down the Number of the Pages and of the Lines in every Page of the Book to which they set their Hands In that Article of the Eucharist these words are added An Explanation of Christ's Presence in the Sacrament Christ when he ascended into Heaven made his Body Immortal but took not from it the Nature of a Body For still it retains according to the Scriptures the Verity of a Humane Body which must be always in One definite place and cannot be spread into many or all places at Once Since then Christ being carry'd up to Heaven is to remain there to the end of the World and is to come from thence and from no place else as says S. Austin to judge the Quick and the Dead None of the Faithful ought to believe or profess the Real or as they call it the Corporal Presence of his Flesh and Blood in the Eucharist But this in the Original is dash't over with minium yet so that it is still legible The Secret of it was this The Queen and her Council studied as hath been already shewn to unite all into the Communion of the Church And it was alledged that such an express Definition against a Real Presence might drive from the Church many who were still of that Perswasion and therefore it was thought to be enough to condemn Transubstantiation and to say that Christ was present after a spiritual manner and received by Faith. To say more as it was judged superflous so it might occasion division Upon this these words were by common consent left out And in the next Convocation the Articles were subscribed without them of which I have also seen the Original This shews that the Doctrine of the Church subscribed by the whole Convocation was at that time contrary to the belief of a Real or Corporal Presence in the Sacrament only it was not thought necessary or expedient to publish it Though from this silence which flowed not from their Opinion but the Wisdom of that time in leaving a Liberty for different Speculations as to the manner of the Presence SOME have since inferr'd that the chief Pastors of this Church did then disapprove of the definition made in King Edwards time and that they were for a Real Presence Thus that Learned Historian And here let our Adversary consider what he thinks of this Account and whether after so evident a Confutation from plain matter of Fact of his Objection before it appear'd we may not reasonably complain both of his Weakness and In-sincerity neither to take any notice of such a plain History of this whole Transaction or to imagine that so vain a Surmise of Q. Elizabeth's being a great propugner of the Real Presence would be sufficient to obviate so clear and particular an Account of this matter But though this might suffice to shew the continuance of the same Doctrine of the Real Presence in this Queen's that was before profess'd in her Brother's Reign yet it may not be amiss to discover a little further the truth of this matter and how falsly this Author has alledged those great Names he has produced I will therefore beg leave to continue my Proof with an Induction of the most Eminent of our Divines that I have at this time the Opportunity to consult to our own days And first for Bishop Jewel Bp. JEWEL though the part he had in the Convocation before mention'd may sufficiently assure us of his Opinion yet it may not be improper to repeat the very words of a Person of his Learning and Eminence in our Church In his Reply to Harding thus he expresses the Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Real Presence Vth Article of the Real Presence against Harding pag. 237. Lond. 1611. See also his Defence of the Apology of the Church of England pag. 219 c. Whereas Mr. Harding thus unjustly reporteth of us that we maintain a naked Figure and a bare Sign or Token only and nothing else He knoweth well we feed not the People of God with bare Signs and Figures but teach them that the Sacraments of Christ be Holy Mysteries and that in the Ministration thereof Christ is set before us even as he was crucified upon the Cross We teach the People not that a naked Sign or Token but that Christ's Body and Blood indeed and verily is given unto us that we verily eat it that we verily drink it that we verily be relieved and live by it that we are Bones of his Bones and Flesh of his Flesh that Christ dwelleth in us and we in him Yet we say not either that the Substance of the Bread and Wine is done away or that Christ's Body is let down from Heaven or made Really or Fleshly present in the Sacrament We are taught according to the Doctrine of the Old Fathers to lift up our Hearts to Heaven and there to feed upon the Lamb of God Thus spiritually and with the Mouth of our Faith we eat the Body of Christ and drink his Blood even as verily as his Body was verily broken and his Blood verily shed upon the Cross Indeed the Bread that we receive with our Bodily Mouths is an earthly thing and therefore a Figure as the Water in Baptism is likewise also a Figure But the Body of Christ that thereby is represented and there is offer'd unto our Faith is the thing it self and not Figure To conclude Three things herein we must consider 1st That we put a difference between the Sign and the thing it self that is signified 2. That we seek Christ above in Heaven and imagine not him to be present Bodily upon the Earth 3. That the Body of Christ is to be eaten by Faith only and none
very earnest against those who receive unworthily this Holy Sacrament and by consequence ties not Christs natural Body to the Bread and declares it to be after a Spiritual imperceptible and miraculous manner As for the term Corporaliter which he there uses and which Melancthon and some others had used before him that may be well enough understood in the same Sence Celess ii 9 17. as verè or realiter and is often so used both in Scripture and in the Holy Fathers As when St. Paul says of Christ that in Him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead Bodily that is really in opposition to the Shechinah or Presence of God in the Tabernacle And again The Body of Christ that is the substance See Hammend in Coloss 1. Annot. d. the reality opposed to the types and sigures of the Law. And so in the Hebrew Exposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often used for Essence as well as Body Arch-Bishop LAWD and applied to Spiritual as well as Corporal things Nor can I see any more reason to understand Arch-Bishop Lawd in any other Sence He asserts the true and real Presence of Christ in this Sacred Feast 1 Tract §. xiv pag. 8. but he do's not say that Christ's natural Body which is now in Heaven is also in this Holy Sacrament or in the worthy receiver nor have we any reason to believe that he understood it so to be * MONTâ—GVE Origeres Eccles. Tom. prior par postor p. 247 249 250. c. Panis in Sanaxi fit corpus Christi Sed et Corpus Christi CREDENIES nunt Ad eundem utrumque moduin mensuram sed non Naturaliter Itaque nee Panis ITA est Corpus Christi Mystice tantum non Pâ—â—sice vid. plur And the same must be said of †Bishop HALL Bishop Hall Bishop Montague and Bishop Bilson MONTAGVE BILSON in whose expressions as they are quoted by our Author I find nothing that proves the Sence he would impose upon them and whose works had I now by me I might possibly be able to give some better account of them Though after all should one of these in his violence against his Adversaries or the others in their pacifick design of reconciling all Parties as to this Point have said more than they ought to do I do not see but that it ought to have been imputed to the circumstances they were in and the designs they pursued rather than be set up for the measure either of their own or our Churches Opinion And now I am mentioning these things Bishop FORBES I ought not pass over one other eminent instance of such a charitable undertaking and which has given occasion to our Author of a Quotation he might otherwise have wanted in that excellent Bishop of St. Andrews Bishop Forbes concerning whose Authority in this matter I shall offer only the censure of one than whom none could have given a more worthy Character of a person who so well deserved it as that good Bishop did I do not deny Author of the Life of Bishop BEDEL in the Preface but his earnest desire of a general Peace and Vnion among all Christians has made him too favourable to many of the Corruptions in the Church of Rome But though a Charity that is not well ballanced may carry one to very in iscreet things yet the principle from whence thdy flow'd in him was so truly good that the Errors to which it carry'd him ought to be either excused or at lest to be very gently censured There remain now but two of all the Divines he has produced to prove his new fancy which he would set up for the Dâ—ctrine of the Church of England and those as little for his purpose as any he has hitherto mentioned Bishop TAYLOR Bishop Taylor and Mr. Thorndyke For Bishop Taylor I cannot acquit our Author of a wilful prevarication since it is evident that he has so plainly opposed his Notion and that in the very Book he quotes and which he wrote on purpose to shew our meaning of the Real Presence Polemical discourses p. 182. London 1674. that he could not but have known that he mis-represented him I shall set down the state of the Question as it is in the beginning of that Treatise The Doctrine of the Church of England and generally of the Protestants in this Article is That after the Minister of the Holy Mysteries hath rightly pray'd and blessed or consecrated the Bread and the Wine the Symbols become changed into the Body and Blood of Christ after a Sacramental i.e. in a Spiritual Real manner So that all that worthily communicate do by Faith receive Christ Really Effectually to all the purposes of his Passion It is Bread and it is Christs Body It is Bread in in Substance Christ in the Sacrament and Christ is as really given to all that are truly dispos'd as the Symbols are p. 183. It is here as in the other Sacrament for as there natural Water becomes the laver of Regeneration so here Bread and Wine become the Body and Blood of Christ but there and here too the first Substance is changed by Grace but remains the same in nature We say that Christs Body is in the Sacrament really but Spiritually They the Papists say it is there really but Spiritually For so Bellarmin is bold to say that the word may be allowed in this Question Where now is the difference Here By Spiritually they mean present after the manner of a Spirit by Spiritually we mean present to our Spirits only that is so as Christ is not present to any other Sence but that of faith or spiritual susception They say that Christs Body is truly present there as it was upon the Cross but not after the manner of all or any Body But we by the real Spiritual Presence of Christ do understand Christ to be present as the Spirit of God is present in the Hearts of the faithful by Blessing and Grace and this is ALL we mean besides the tropical and figurative presence Such is the Account which that Excellent Bishop here gives not only of his own but as he expresly terms it of the Church of England's and the Generality of the Protestants Belief in this Matter Our Author's dissimulation of it is so much the more inexcusable Treatise 1st p. 20th by how much the more zealous an Advocate he makes him of his Cause when all this that I have transcribed was in the very same Section and almost in the same Page with what he has cited For his little Remark upon the Title of the Bishops Book where he calls it of the Real Presence and Spiritual whence he would infer a difference between the two Terms and find something Real that is not Spiritual in this Sacrament it is evident that the Design of that Distinction was this There be several sorts of Real Presences the Papists the Lutherans the Church of England all
places at once till the Papists can demonstrate the possibility thereof by Testimony of Holy Scripture or the ancient Tradition of the Primitive Church or by apparent Reason We need not suppose that they said this doubting whether it implied a Contradiction but because the certainty of the Contradiction secured them against the possibility of any such Proof * This is evident in B. Taylor who thought that God could not do this because it implied a Contradiction Real Presence §. xi n. 1. p. 230. and Ibid. n. 27. He saith 't is utterly impossible So also Dr. White professes that according to the Order which God has fixed by his Word and Will this cannot be done Confer pag. 446 447. and before pag. 181. to this Objection That tho in Nature it be impossible for one and the same Body to be in many places at once yet because God is Omnipotent he is able to effect it We answer says he It implieth a Contradiction that God should destroy the nature of a thing the nature of the same thing remaining safe See 〈◊〉 p. 180 181. White 's Works Lond. 1624. And now I know but one Objection more that is or can be offered against what I have said and which having answered I shall close this Point For if this be all the Church of England understands when it speakes of a Real Presence viz. A Real Sacramental Presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Holy Signs and a real Spiritual Presence in the inward Communion of them to the Soul of every worthy Receiver will not this precipitate us into downright ‖ See 1. Treatise pag. 23. §. xxxii p. 24. §. xxxii p. 25. §. xxxvi xxxvii c. Zuinglianism and render us after all our pretences as very Sacramentaries as they Indeed I am not able directly to say whether it will or no because I find the Opinion of Zuinglius very variously represented as to this matter But yet First If by Zuinglianism he means that which is more properly * Smalcius de Coen Dom. p. 347. Id Disp 9. de Hypocr p. 289. Volkelius lib. iv cap. 12. p. 304 319 c. Socinus in Paraenesi c. iv Sclichtingius disp de Coeu Dom. p. 701. Socinianism viz. a meer Commemoration of Christ's Death and a Thanksgiving to God for it 't is evident it does not forasmuch as we positively confess that in this Holy Sacrament there is a Real and Spiritual Grace communicated to us even all the benefits of that Death and Passion which we there set forth And this or somewhat very like it I find sometimes to have been maintained by †Zuingl See de Provid Dei cap. 6 c. Zuinglius But now Secondly If by Zuinglianism he understands such a Real Prefence as denies only the Coexistence of Christ's Natural Body now in Heaven at the same time in this Holy Sacrament but denies nothing of that Real and Spiritual * And this our Author seems to insinuate See the places above cited And indeed others have alledged this as the true Opinion of Zuinglius See Calvin Tract de Coen Dom. Defens Sacram. Admonit ad Westphal Passim alibi Vid. insuper libr. de Orthod Consens c. 7 And especially Hospin p. 42 55 177 c. Hist Sacr. paâ—â— 2. Communion of it we have be fore mentioned this is indeed our Doctrine nor shall we be ashamed to own it for any ill Names he is able to put upon it But yet I wonder why he should call this Zuinglianism since if the common name of Catholick or Christian Doctrine be not sufficient he might have found out a more ancient Abettor of this Real Presence than Zuinglius and the truth is one of the most dangerous Opposers both of their Head and their Faith that ever was I mean St. Paul who has not only clearly express'd himself against them as to this Point of the Eucharist 1 Cor. x. 16. but in most of their other Errors left such pernicious Sayings to the World as all their Authority and Infallibility let me add nor all their Anathema's neither will not be able to overcome I shall close up this Discourse of the Real Presence acknowledged by us in this Holy Sacrament with a plain familiar Example and which may serve at once both to illustrate and confirm the Propriety of it A Father makes his last Will and by it bequeaths his Estate and all the Profits of it to his Child Vid. Cosens Hist Transubstantionis cap. v. §. 5. p. 57. He delivers it into the Hands of his Son and bids him take there his House and Lands which by this his last Will he delivers to him The Son in this case receives nothing but a Roll of Parchment with a Seal tied to it from his Father but yet by virtue of this Parchment he is intituled to his Estate performing the Conditions of his Will and to all the Benefits and Advantages of it And in that Deed he truly and effectually received the very House and Lands that were thereby conveyed to him Our Saviour Christ in like manner being now about to leave the World gives this Holy Sacrament as his final Bequest to us in it he conveys to us a right to his Body and Blood and to all the Spiritual Blessings and Graces that proceed from them So that as often as we receive this Holy Eucharist as we ought to do we receive indeed nothing but a little Bread and Wine into our Hands but by the Blessing and Promise of Christ we by that Bread and Wine as really and truly become Partakers of Christ's Body and Blood as the Son by the Will of his Father was made Inheritor of his Estate Nor is it any more necessary for this that Christ's Body should come down from Heaven or the outward Elements which we receive be substantially turned into it than it is necessary in that other case that the very Houses and Lands should be given into the Hands of the Son to make a real delivery or conveyance of them or the Will of the Father be truly and properly changed into the very Nature and Substance of them PART II. CHAPTER III. Of the Adoration of the Host as prescribed and practised in the Church of Rome WE are now arrived at the last Part of this Discourse in which I must thus far change the Method I pursued in the Other Subject as to consider First What the Doctrine of the Church of England as to this Point is and what our Adversaries Exceptions against it are Secondly What is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome and whether what this Author has said in favour of it may be sufficient to warrant their Practice as to this Matter For the former of these The Doctrine of the Church of England we shall need go no farther than the Rubrick we have before-mention'd wherein it is expresly declared with reference to this Holy Sacrament Rubr. at the end of the
Communion That no Adoration is intended or ought to be done either to the Sacramental Bread and Wine there bodily received or to any Corporal Presence of Christ's Body and Blood For that the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very Natural Substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all Faithful Christians and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at One time in more places than One. This then being sufficiently cleared let us see what this Author has to observe against it 1. He supposes that we will grant Treatise 1. Ch. 4. §. 39. p. 27. that if there were a Corporal Presence of Christ's Natural Body in this Holy Sacrament then Kneeling and Adoration would be here also due upon such an Account He means that were Christ himself here in his Body actually present He ought to be adored and this he need not doubt of our readiness to grant 2. Tho the Corporeal Presence of Christ's Body Ib. §. xl i.e. of its being there ad modum Corporis or clothed with the ordinary Properties of a Body be deny'd as it is not only by the English Divines but by the Lutheran and Roman Yet let there be any other manner of Presence known from Divine Revelation of the very same Body and Blood and this as Real and Essential as if Corporeal and then I do not see but that Adoration will be no less due to it thus than so Present Now to this I shall at present only say That the Supposition being absurd do's not admit of a rational Consideration Those who deny a bodily Presence of Christ's Body in the Eucharist and ask whether Adoration may not be paid to his Body which is confess'd not to be bodily present there supposing it to be there some other way ought to have no other satisfaction than this that they suppose an Impossibility a thing which cannot be and therefore concerning which no reasonable Answer can be given Some I know have been more free and allowing for the unreasonableness of the Supposal have resolved contrary to our Author But I think it very needless to dispute of the Affections of a Chimera and wrangle about Notions that have neither Use nor Existence 3. Treatise 1. p. 28. §. xli He observes lastly That the Church of England hath believed and affirmed such a Presence he means of Christ's Body in the Eucharist to which they thought Adoration due I presume it was then in the Times of Popery for since the Reformation I have shewn before that she has always held the contrary But our Author will prove it and that since the Reformation Ibid. For he says he has in his time met with no less than five of our Writers and those of no mean Account neither that have been of this Opinion This indeed is a very notable way of proving the Doctrine of our Church But what now if I should bring him fifteen Others that have deny'd it then I hope the Doctrine of the Church of England may be as fair for the contrary But we will examine his Evidence First Treatise 1. §. xlii p. 28. Bishop Andrews he says declares that tho we adore not the Sacrament yet we adore Christ in and with the Sacrament besides and without the Sacrament and assures the World that K. James looked upon Christ to be truly present and truly to be adored in it How this Bishop thought Christ truly present in the Sacrament we have seen before and may from thence easily conclude how he supposed he might be adored there viz. As in all other Holy Offices in which we confess Him by his Divine Power to be present with us but especially in this Sacred Mystery And thus we all adore him both in and with and without the Sacrament we confess him to be truly present and therefore truly to be adored by us But now for Christ's Natural Body of which and not of Christ himself our Dispute is if that be any otherwise truly present than as we before shew'd let it be remembred that according to this Bishop it must not be his Glorified Body See above his Body as it now is but his Body Crucified his Body as offer'd for us and in the State of his Death so He expresly affirms and this I believe our Author himself will confess in his sense to be impossible His next Witness is Bishop Taylor We worship Treatise 1. §. xliii p. 28. He means says this Author the Body or the Flesh of Christ in the Eucharist But is he sure the Bishop meant so If he be I am sure the Bishop thought we all of us committed Idolatry in so doing For being consulted as we have seen above whether without all danger of Idolatry we may not render Divine Worship to our Blessed Saviour as present in the Blessed Sacrament or Host See Polemical Discourses 5. Letter at the end p. according to his Humane Nature in that Host He expresly declares We may not render Divine Worship to Him as present in the Blessed Sacrament according to his Humane Nature without danger of Idolatry because he is not there according to his Humane Nature and therefore you give Divine Worship to a Non Ens which must needs be Idotry And indeed this our Author knew very well was his Opinion who himself in his next Treatise cites the xiiith Section of his Real Presence Treatise 2. p .9 §. vi n. 2. which was written on purpose to prove the unlawfulness of worshipping Christ's Body in this Sacrament But dissimulation of other Mens Opinions in matter of Religion is perhaps as lawful on some Occasions as if it were their own And why may not an Author prevaricate the Doctrine of his Adversary in defence of the Catholick Faith since I have read of a * The Story was publish'd in the Memoirs of Monsieur D'eageant printed with permission at Grenoble 1668. pag. 246 I will set it down in his own words Il'y avoit deja quelque tems que D'eageant avoit gagné l'un des Ministres de la Province de Languedoc qui etoit des plus employez aux Affaires meneés de ceux de la R. P. R. en l'Estime particuliere de Monsieur de Lesdiguiers Il avoit meme secrettement moyenne sa Conversion obtenu un Bref de Rome portant qu' en core qu' il eut etè receu au giron de l'Eglise il luy etoit permis de continuer son Ministere durant 3 Ans pourveu qu'en ses preches il ne dit rien de contraire à la creance de la vraye Eglise qu' il ne celebrât ponit la cene Le Bref fût obtenu afinque le Ministre pût estre continué dans les Emplois qu'il avoit decouvrir les
particular Sacrament had been a whole composed of the External Species whatever they are as the Sign and the Body and Blood of Christ as the inward part or thing signified Thus I am sure the Catechism of the Council of Trent instructs us First for the name it tells us Catech. ad Parach part 2. de Sacram. n. iii. v. p. 92. that The Latin Doctors have thought that certain Signs subjected to the Senses which declare and as it were set before the Eyes the Grace which they effect may fitly be called Sacraments And for the nature of them thus it defines a Sacrament from S. Austin It is the sign of a holy thing or more fully as I before said a visible sign of an invisible Grace instituted for our Justification So that neither then Symbols alone nor the invisible part or Grace alone can with any manner of propriety be called a Sacrament but the Sign referr'd to the Grace and as it is the Symbol instituted by Christ for the conferring of it This therefore can with no good reason be called a Catholick Assertion being neither general nor true But however since he seems content to allow it to be an impropriety of Speech and that I confess the * Catec Conc. Trid. part 2. de Euch. §. viii nota p. 144. Catechism of the Council of Trent does lead him into it let us see what use he can make of it †Pag. 15. §. xi And as Protestants much press so Catholicks Roman Catholicks willingly acknowledg a great difference between these two The worshipping of the Sacrament as this word is taken for the Symbols and the worshipping of Christ's Body in the Sacrament There is no doubt a great difference between these two but then they who tell us the Sacrament is to be Adored if they will speak rationally must mean neither the one nor other of these but the Host that is as Card. Pallavicini expounds it The whole of which Christ's Body is a part in the language of the Council of Trent the Sacrament IN WHICH they believe Christ to be present and for that Cause adore it as the Cardinal again argues * See above pag. 91 92. that To make a Whole Adorable it is sufficient that one part be so and therefore since the Body of Christ is adorable the Sacrament for its sake is to be worshipped It is therefore a meer shift to tell us that the Sacrament is to be adored i. e. Christ's Body in the Sacrament Nor will the remark of our Author help us out that tho the Chapter indeed calls it the Sacrament IN WHICH is Christ's Body Pag. 16 §. xiii yet the Canon speaks more precisely and calls it Christ in the Sacrament unless he supposes the Council to have been infallible in the Canons only and not in the Chapters as some have thought that they may be out in their Proofs but cannot be in their Conclusions But however since he so much desires it for my part I shall be content to allow them this too for I should be glad by any means to see them sensible of their Errors But yet so as that it be esteem'd only a private Opinion this not a Catholick Assertion Thirdly Catholicks he means the Papists still P. 21. §. xvii ground their Adoration not upon Transubstantiation as if Transubstantiation defeated Adoration is so too but on a Real Presence with the Symbols which in general is agreed on by the Lutherans together with them By which Assertion if he means only to make this Discovery That Christ's Real Presence together with the Substance of the Bread and Wine is in his Opinion as good a ground for Adoration as if he were there only with the Species of the Bread the Substance being changed into his Body I have no more to say to it But if he would hereby make us believe that 't is all one whether Christ be adored as supposed here by the Lutherans in this Holy Eucharist and as imagined there by the Papists I must then deny his Assertion and desire him to keep home to his own manner of Real Presence and which I shall presently convince him will leave them in a much worse condition than their Neighbours whom he would draw into the same Snare with them And therefore whereas he concludes Fourthly P. 22. §. xviii That supposing Transubstantiation to be an Error yet if the Tenent of Corporal or Real Presence as held by the Lutherans or others be true Catholicks he would say Papists plead their Adoration is no way frustrated but still warrantable I must tell him that the Adoration of those among the Lutherans who worship Christ in this Sacrament upon the account of his Real Presence in or with the Bread tho it be an Error yet is infinitely more excusable than theirs who suppose the Bread to be turned into Christ's Body and because it may not be thought that I speak this out of any prejudice against them I will here offer my Reasons for it 1st They that adore Christ as really present together with the Bread do no violence to their Senses They confess that what they see and taste and feel and smell is really Bread and Wine Whilst the Papist in denying the Bread and Wine to remain or that what he sees and feels and smells and tastes is what all the World perceives and knows it is contradicts his Senses and in them the Law of Nature that Means which God has given us to direct and lead us into the search of Truth and by Consequence errs against infinitely greater Means of Conviction and so is more inexcusable than the Other 2dly They who worship Christ as supposing Him to be together with the Bread in this Holy Eucharist are erroneous indeed in this that they take Christ's Body to be where really it is not but yet their Object is undoubtedly right and in that they are not mistaken But now for the Papist he adores 't is confess'd what he thinks to be Christ's Body and would not otherwise adore it But yet still 't is the Host that he adores the Substance that is under those Species which he sees and which if it be not Christ but meer Substance of Bread the Case is vastly alter'd between the Lutheran and Him. The former adores Christ only as in a place where he is not the latter not only do's this but moreover adores a Substance for Christ which is not his Body and Blood but a meer Creature of Bread and Wine Monsieur Daille therefore might rightly enough say of a Lutheran that his Adoration is mistaken P. 23. §. xix not in this that it addresseth it self to an Object not adorable but only that by Error it seeks and thinks to enjoy it in a place where it is not and so becomes only vain and unprofitable And yet our Author has no manner of Reason from thence to pretend that a Papist who terminates his Adoration
upon a Substance which really is not Christ's Body but only mistaken by him to be so shall be in the same Condition there being an apparently vast difference between worshipping Christ in a place where he is not and worshipping that for Christ which really is not Christ but only a created Substance And this in truth our Author seems to have been sensible of and therefore thinks to evade it by saying That they do not worship the Substance that is in that place Ibid p. 23. under such Accidents whatever it be which if Bread should happen to be there he confesses would make them Bread-worshippers but they worship it only upon supposition that it is Christ's Body and not Bread. Well be this so But what now if they are mistaken in their Supposition They worship he confesses the Substance that is under those Accidents supposing it to be Christ's Body but still mistaken or not that Substance which is under those Species whatever it be they do worship And if they have as he thinks a rational ground for this Supposition which we shall see by and by yet this will only excuse them from being formal Idolaters but will not hinder but that their Worship is still directed to an undue Object if that which is under the Species be indeed but Bread and not Christ's Body as they imagine And this then may serve to argue the falseness of what he lays down as his Fifth P. 22. §. xix Catholick Assertion That supposing both the Lutherans and Papists mistaken in their Opinion yet there can be no pretence why the One should not be as excusable as the others Since as I have said 1st They err more grosly in abandoning the conviction of their Senses which the Lutherans do not 2dly They worship a Substance for Christ which really is not To which if this be not enough I will add yet two other Reasons 3dly That they make the Consecration without which Christ is not present upon their own Principles to depend on such uncertainties as I shall more fully shew anon that they can never be sure that Christ is there which the Lutherans are free from And lastly They Anathematize those who dissent from them as to this Point and so make a Schism in dividing the Vnity of the Church which the Lutherans are so far from doing that they neither establish any Doctrine of Adoration at all nay many of them do not believe it and upon occasion freely communicate with those who dissent from them in their belief both of their way of the Real Presence and of the Adoration And for the same reason I cannot totally assent to his Sixth Assertion P. 25. §. xxi That supposing there be no such Real Presence as either of them believes yet that their adoration of Christ who is a true Object of Supreme Adoration and only by them mistaken to be in some place where He is not cannot be termed any such Idolatry as is the worshipping of an Object not at all adorable This as to what concerns those of the Lutherans who adore Christ in the Sacrament is true But for the Papist it is not He intends I allow it to worship Christ but he mistakes an Object for Christ which is only a piece of Bread. He worships his Host supposing it to be our Saviour's Body but his Error is gross and he not only mistakes Christ to be in a place where he is not but he mistakes that to be Christ which indeed is not but only a simple Wafer His Worship therefore is not like the Manichees worshipping of Christ in the Sun but rather as if the Manichee should from some mistaken grounds have fancy'd the Sun it self to be turned into Christ's Body and then in defiance of all Scripture Sense and Reason should have fallen down before it but with a good Intention not to adore the Sun but the Body of our Blessed Lord under the Species or Accidents of the Sun. This is the true Parallel only that herein still the Manichee would have been the more excusable of the two by how much the Sun is a more likely Object to be mistaken for Christ's glorified Body than a Morsel of Bread and less capable of being discovered by our Senses and Examination not to be so It remains then that these Lutherans only adore Christ where he is not the Papists not only do this but more-over they adore that for Christ which really is not but a meer created Substance Both the One and the Other are Erroneous but the Papist's Mistake renders him at the least guilty of material Idolatry whereas the Lutherans is only an undue Application of his Worship as to the Place but right as to the Person Let us see Seventhly How far their Mistake will excuse them P. 26. §. xxii in answer to his seventh Assertion That however a Manichaean may be guilty of Idolatry for worshipping Christ in the Sun and an Israelite for worshipping God as specially resident in the Calves of Dan and Bethel because it is adoring a Fancy of their own without any rational Ground or Pretence thereof and however meerly a good Intention grounded upon a culpable Ignorance can excuse none from Idolatry or any other Fault yet if Catholicks i.e. the pretended Roman Catholicks can produce a rational Ground of their apprehending Christ present in the Eucharist tho possibly mistaken in it they are to be excused from Idolatry Which Proposal is so just that I am very willing to allow it and shall be heartily glad that the Grounds of their Mistake may in the End prove to have been so reasonable as to excuse them But then it must be remembred too that he confesses if these Grounds be not reasonable but as he says of the Manichees their adoring of the Host be indeed an adoring a Fancy of their own without any rational Ground So that their ignorance in this Matter is culpable then by their own allowance they are Idolaters This therefore brings me to the last Thing to be enquired into III. What Grounds they have for this Adoration and whether they be such as should they be mistaken in it will be sufficient to excuse them And thus after a great deal of Preamble but very little to the purpose we are at last come to the main Question I have already so largely shewn our Reasons against Transubstantiation or that Real Presence on which this Adoration is built that I shall not need to insist here Yet because the stress of this Controversy depends principally on this last Part I will 1st Examine the strength of those Grounds which this Author has offer'd to warrant their Adoration 2dly I will propose an Argument or two upon their own allowed Principles against it But before we proceed to these Points we must yet have one touch more upon the old String Pag. 26. §. xxiii For the Lutherans he says being allow'd to have such a plausible Ground or Motive
c. Albertinus de Euch. lib. 3. p. 947. Authors have fully proved and this Discourser therefore ought to have answered III. Ground But now he says P. 29. §. xxvi if these Councils be declined as not being so ancient as some may expect i. e. not held before some Controversy happen'd in the Church touching the Point they decided They have yet another very rational Ground of their belief and that is the evident Testimony of the more Primitive Times It would have been more to the purpose if he could honestly have said of the most Primitive Times But however his Modesty is the greater now tho his Argument be not so strong As to the Point of Antiquity Treatise of Transubstantiation by an Author of the C. of R. I have already fully discussed it above and we are but very lately assured by one of their own Authors that Antiquity is of our side in this Point For the six or seven Fathers he has mentioned ‖ S. Ambrose de Sacramentis Euseb Emyssen de Paschate some of them are spurious others have been †Cyril Hierosol in the Relat. of the Conference at my Lady T. 1676. in the Paper sent my Lady T. p. 50 51 52. And for S. Ambrose de Sacr. allowing the Book yet see the Explication of what is there said given by himself l. 5. c. 4. See a late Treatise of the Doct. of the Trinity and Transubst compared Part 1. p. 46 47. expresly answered by us and all of them at large by Monsieur Aubertine Larrogue and others If this does not satisfy him he may shortly expect a fuller account in our own Language * Transubstantiation no Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers Cyrill 's Authority examined p. 13 14. Ambrose's p. 18 19. Chrysostom's p. 40. Greg. Nyssen's p. 48. a Specimen of which has already been given to the World in Earnest of what is suddenly to follow IV. Ground His next Ground is taken from the universal Doctrine and Practice of the later both Eastern and Western Churches till Luther's Time and at present also excepting his Followers To which I answer That this Ground is not certainly true and if it were yet certainly 't is nothing to the purpose 1. It is not certainly true Indeed that the latter Ages of the Western Churches before Luther that is from the time of the Council of Laterane did profess the belief of Transubstantiation is confess'd And that a great part of the Greek Church at this day do's the same since their new Colledge at Rome and their Money and Missionaries sent among them have corrupted their Faith I do not deny But that this was so before Luther is not so certain and whosoever shall impartially read over the long debate between the late Monsieur Claude and Monsieur Arnaud concerning this matter will I believe confess that this can be no rational Ground for their belief Hist Ethiop l. 3. c. 5. n. 48. Ludolphus tells us of the Ethiopian Church that at this day it neither believes Transubstantiation Ibid. nor Adores the Host and Tellezius confesses it because they consecrate with these words This Bread is my Body For the * De Eccles Graec. Stat. Hodiern D. Smith p. 116. Lond. 1678. Claude Reponse au 2. Traitte liv 3. c. 8. p. 434 c. Charenton 1668. Id. ult resp à Quevilly 1670. lib. 5. c. 1 2 3 4 5 6. Histoire Critique de la creance des Coutumes des Nations du Levant Voyage du Mont Liban Hemarques p. 302 303 c. Larrogue Hist de l'Eucharistie liv 2. c. 19. pag. 781. Edit Amst 12o. Albertinus de Eucharistiâ p. 988 989. fol. Daventriae 1654. Greeks the Muscovites the Armenians the Nestorians Maronites c. those who please to interest their Curiosity in a matter of so little moment as to their Faith may satisfy themselves in the Authors to which I refer them Tho now 2. To allow the matter of Fact to be true I pray what force is there at last in this Argument The Church both Eastern Western in these last Ages have believed Transubstantiation therefore the Papists have a rational Ground to believe it That is to say you Protestants charge us for believing Transubstantiation as Men that act contrary to the design of Christ in this Holy Eucharist that have forsaken the Tradition of the Primitive Ages of the Church that destroy the nature of this Holy Sacrament and do violence to the common Sense and Reason of Mankind Be it so yet at least we have this rational Ground for our belief tho it should be false viz. That we did all of us peaceably and quietly believe it till you came with your Scripture and Antiquity and Sense and Reason to raise Doubts and Difficulties about it nay more we all of us still do believe it except those that you have perswaded not to do so Spectatum admissi risum teneatis Amici V. Ground P. 31. §. xxviii Of no greater strength is his last Ground for their belief viz That since Luther's Time no small number of Protestants even all the Genuine Sons of the Church of England have proceeded thus far as to confess a Real Presence of our Lord's Body and Blood in the Eucharist and Adoration of it as present there For 1. If we did acknowledg this yet it seems we are mistaken in it and then what grounds can it be for a Papist to believe Transubstantiation that we Hereticks by a Mistake do not believe it but only a real spiritual Presence and as such are Anathematized by them for our Error 2. I have before shewn that were this a rational Ground yet it fails them too for neither do the Genuine Sons of the Church of England nor any other that I know of either believe Christ's natural Body to be substantially present in the Holy Eucharist or to be adored there I am sure if there be any such they cannot be the Genuine Sons of the Church of England in this Matter who believe so expresly contrary to her formal Declaration as this Author has himself observed And then for the Lutherans Ibid. Pag. 32. to whom he again returns it is hard to conceive what rational ground of Security they can derive from their practice that because they commit no Idolatry in worshipping what they know certainly to be Christ the Papist commits none for worshipping what he do's not know certainly is Christ in truth what if he pleased he might know certainly is not Christ And now after a serious and impartial Consideration of the Grounds produced in Vindication of this Worship tho I could have wish'd I might have found them as rational as our Author pretends them to be and shall be glad as they are that they may hereafter prove sufficient to excuse them from the Guilt of formal Idolatry in this Adoration yet I must needs say I do in my Conscience think 't is more an excess of
Charity P. 33. §. xxx than any necessity of Argument if our Writers do sometimes either not at all or but faintly charge them with Idolatry And the Testimonies he produces argue rather the candor of our Affections towards them even such as to hope almost against Hope for their sakes than give any security to them in their Errors And because I would willingly if possible convince them of it I will very briefly subjoin a Reason or two 2dly Why even upon their own Principles I am not satisfied that they have such a rational Ground for this Adoration as may be sufficient to excuse them For 1st It is granted by this Author P. 26. §. xxii That a meerly good Intention grounded upon a culpable Ignorance cannot excuse them from Idolatry So that if their ignorance then be really culpable their good Intention will not be sufficient to excuse them Now the ignorance upon which this practice is founded is their mistaken interpretation of those words This is my Body and whether that be a rational or culpable Mistake we shall best be able to judg by two or three Observations 1. It is confess'd by the greatest Men of their Church that there is no necessity to interpret those words in that manner that they do so that had not the Authority of their Church interposed they might have been equally verified in our Interpretation And this must be allow'd unless we shall say that all places of Holy Scripture must be understood in a literal sense whatever the Consequence be of so doing 2. Our Author himself confesses that if the taking of them in the literal sense do's involve a certain Contradiction then it cannot be right but we are bound to seek out some other Exposition to avoid a certain Contradiction 3. It is undeniable that their Interpretation of these words destroys the certainty of Sense and in that of the Truth of the Christian Religion which was confirmed by Miracles known only by the evidence of Sense and by Consequence of this particular Point that Transubstantiation is revealed to us by God or can be rely'd upon as coming from him Now from these Principles I thus argue If that sense of these words This is my Body upon which they ground their Adoration do's necessarily imply many plain and certain Contradictions then by their own Confession that cannot be the right sense of them But that it do's so and that without gross and culpable Ignorance they cannot doubt of but know it I thus shew He that believes these words in the sense of Transubstantiation must believe the same natural Body at the same time to be in ten-thousand several places upon Earth and yet still to be but one Body and that all the while in Heaven He must believe that the same natural Body is at the same time extended in all its Parts and yet continuing still the same Body without any change to be unextended and have no distinct Parts nor be capable of being divided into any He must believe the same Body at the same time to move and to lie still to be the Object of our Senses and yet not to be perceptible by any With infinite others of the like kind * See above Ch. 2. of Transubstantiation Pag. 32 33. as I have more fully shewn before But now all these are gross Contradictions contrary to the Nature of a Body and to the common Principles of Reason in all Mankind and no Man can without culpable Ignorance pretend not to know them to be so And therefore notwithstanding any such supposed Divine Revelation as may be pretended from those words This is my Body they cannot by our Author 's own Rule without culpable Ignorance not know that they are mistaken in this Matter Again No Papist can have any reason to believe Transubstantiation to be true but because he reads those words of Holy Scripture This is my Body That these words are in Scripture he can know only by his Senses If his Senses therefore are not to be trusted he is not sure there are any such words in Scripture If they are to be trusted he is then sure that the Interpretation which he puts upon them must be false Since then it is confess'd that there is no necessity to understand those words in a literal sense and that both upon the account of the Contradictions that such an Exposition involves to the common Principles of Reason and to the certain Evidence of the Senses of all Mankind it is necessary to take them in some other meaning it remains that without gross and culpable Ignorance they cannot pretend not to know that this could never have been the intention of our Blessed Saviour in those words and that such Ignorance will not excuse them our Author himself has freely confess'd But 2dly let us quit this Reflection and for once suppose the possibility of Transubstantiation Yet still it is confess'd by them 1. That there is no Command nor Example in holy Scripture for adoring Christ in the Eucharist 2. That infinite Defects may happen to hinder him from being there and then what they worship is only a piece of Bread. 3. That they can never be sure that some of these Defects have not happened and by consequence that what they suppose to be Christ's Body is indeed any more than a meer Wafer From whence I argue He that without any Command or Warrant of God pays a Divine Adoration to that which he can never be sure is more than a meer Creature can never be sure that he do's not commit Idolatry But whosoever worships the Host worships that which he can never be sure is more than a meer Creature and therefore he can never be sure that in so doing he do's not commit Idolatry Now concerning the former of these how dangerous it is for any one to give Divine Worship to what he can never be sure is any more than a meer Creature be it considered what jealousy God has at all times express'd of his Honour as to this Matter how strict he has been in the peculiar vindication of his Supreme Prerogative in such Cases How therefore he that will come to him must be very well assured that it is God to whom he approaches and therefore if he has but the least reason to doubt of it ought not to worship with a doubting Mind because he ought not to do that the omitting whereof can be no fault but the doing of which may for ought he knows be a very great Sin. And for the second Whether every Roman Catholick who adores the Host has not even upon his own Principles very great cause to doubt whether he adores Christ's Body or only a bit of Bread will appear from those infinite Defects which they themselves allow as sufficient to hinder a Consecration and which make it great odds were their Doctrine otherwise never so true whether yet one Host in twenty it may be in five hundred be
consecrated 1. With reference to the Holy Elements to be consecrated If the Bread be not all or at least the greater part of Wheat-flower See all this in the beginning of the Missal de defectibus circa Missam if it be not mix'd with pure Water if the Bread be corrupted or the Wine sour if the Grapes of which the Wine was made were not ripe if any thing be mingled with the Wine but Water or if there be so much Water mix'd with it that that becomes the prevailing Ingredient in all these Cases and many others which I omit there is no Consecration And of all this he who adores either the Bread or Wine can have no security But 2. Be the Elements right yet if the Priest being either ignorant or in haste or unmindful of what he is about should by mistake or otherwise err in pronouncing of the words of Consecration whether by Addition or by Diminution or by any other Alteration there is no Consecration The Bread and Wine continue what they were and of this too he that worships them can never be certain 3. Let the words be never so rightly pronounced yet if the Priest had no intention to consecrate if he be a secret Atheist or Jew or Moor If he be a careless negligent Man it may be do's not believe he has any Power to make such a Change as I have shewn that several of their greatest Men in this very Age have doubted of it If he consecrate a number of Wafers for a Communion and in his telling Mistakes intending to consecrate but twenty and there are one and twenty before him in all these Cases for want of a due intention in the Priest there it no Consecration but that which is adored is only a little Bread and Wine 4. Let the Priest have a good Intention See above in the Preface yet if he be no Priest if he were not rightly Baptized or Ordained if he were a Simoniac or Irregular or a Bastard c. Or if there were no defect in his Ordination yet if there was any in his who ordained him or in the Bishops that ordained that Bishop that ordained him and so back to the very Time of the Apostles if in the whole Succession of Priests to this day there has been but any one Invalidity whether by Error or Wilfulness or for want of a due Intention or by Ignorance or by any other means then he that consecrates is no true Priest and by consequence has no Power to consecrate and so all is spoiled and whosoever worships in any of his Masses adores only a piece of Bread instead of our Saviour's Body When therefore so many Defects may interpose upon their own Principles to hinder this Conversion that 't is exceeding probable nay 't is really great odds that not one Host in twenty is consecrated it must certainly be very hazardous to worship that for God which upon their own Principles they can never be sure is so nay which 't is twenty to one is not God but a meer inanimate Creature of Bread and Wine 'T is this has forced their most Learned Men to confess * See Bellarm. de Justif c. 8. that they can never be sure of a Consecration Pag. 23. and our Author himself to declare That they do not worship the Substance that is under the Accidents of Bread and Wine WHATEVER IT BE but VPON SVPPOSITION that it is CHRIST'S BODY Adr. VI. quodlibet Sect. 10. Suppos 2. Which is what Pope Adrian 6th following herein the Authority of the Council of Constance prescribed that they ought always to adore the Host with such a reserve See Gerson Tract de Exam doctr consid 6. The Council of Constance says he excuses those who in their simplicity adore an unconsecrated Host because this condition is tacitly implied if it be rightly consecrated And therefore he advises let them so adore the Host I ADORE THEE IF THOV ART CHRIST But now if as the Apostle tells us in another case Whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin and He that doubts is damned if he eats I shall leave it to any sober Christian to say what security there can be in such a Worship which is neither advised encouraged or commanded in Holy Scripture and which they themselves confess they can never be certain is addressed to a right Object and therefore are forced to such Shifts and Reserves as were they once admitted might make any other Creature in the World as warrantably adorable as their Host How much better were it for them to adore their Blessed Saviour in Heaven where his glorified Body most certainly is Where there can therefore be no danger to lift up our Hearts unto him Were his Sacred Body indeed substantially present in this Blessed Sacrament yet still it would be in a manner to us imperceptible in the state of his Death and by consequence of his Humiliation and we might therefore have some cause to doubt whether since we have received no Command concerning it it were our Saviour's Pleasure that his Body should be adored by us in that State So that there could be no Sin in the not doing of it But now amidst so many Doubts not only upon Ours but even upon their own Principles that they dare not themselves worship at a venture that which yet they do worship tho I shall leave them to their own Master to stand or fall at the Great Day yet I must needs profess I think there is very much hazard in it A great Sincerity and great Ignorance may excuse a poor untaught and therefore blindly obedient Multitude but for their Guides who lead them into Error for those to whom God has given Capacities and Opportunities as to those now among us he has done of being better informed I can only say Lord lay not this Sin to their Charge And this may suffice to have been said to the third Thing proposed of their Rational Grounds for this Worship Pag. 37. §. xxxiii For what our Author finally adds That to adore that which the Adorer believes not to be our Lord but Bread would be unlawful to be done by any so long as the Person continues so perswaded But then if we suppose the Church justly requiring such Adoration upon such a true Presence of our Lord neither will the same Person be free from sinning greatly in his following such his Conscience and in his not adoring I Answer It will then be time enough to consider this when either the Church to which we owe an Obedience shall require it of us or they be able to prove that in such a Case the Church would not sin in Commanding and not we in refusing to obey her But blessed be God there is no great danger of either of these Our Church is too well perswaded of the unlawfulness of such a Worship ever to require it of us And for that Church which has so uncharitably
meneés qui se faisoient dans le Royaume Protestant Minister who in the Troubles of France being brought over to the King's Interest was secretly reconciled to the Church of Rome and permitted so far to dissemble his own Opinion as not only to continue in the outward profession of the Protestant Religion but even to exercise the Functions of his Ministry as before and that by the express leave of his Holiness for three whole Years the better to carry on the Catholick Cause in betraying the Secrets and managing the Debates of his Brethren As for Bishop Forbes and the Arch-bishop of Spalatto it is not to be wondred if Men that had entertained the Design of reconciling all Parties were forced to strain sometimes a little farther than was fit for the doing of it And for Mr. Thorndyke we have seen that his Notion of the Real Presence was particular and widely different both from theirs and ours and therefore that we are not to answer for the Consequences of it But however to quit these just Exceptions against them Will he himself allow every thing to be the Doctrine or not of the Church of Rome which I shall bring him three of their Authors to affirm or deny If he will then Transubstantiation is not their Doctrine for I have already quoted above twice three of their most Learned Men against it To adore an Vnconsecrated Host by mistake is Idolatry for so S. Thomas Paludanus Catharine and others assure us To worship the Host supposing their Doctrine of Transubstantiation false a worser Idolatry than any Heathens were ever guilty of so several of their Writers confess But now if our Author will not allow this to be good arguing against them with what reason do's he go about to urge it against us Secondly We must in the next place consider what the Doctrine of the Church of Rome as to this Point is and whether what this Author has advanced in favour of it may be sufficient to warrant their practice of this Adoration For the Doctrine of the Church of Rome I find it thus clearly set down by the Council of Trent Concil Trid. Sess xiii cap. 5. p. 57. Nullus itaque dubitandi locus relinquitur quin omnes Christi fideles pro more in Catholicâ Ecclefiâ semper recepto Latriae cultum qui Vero deo Debetur huic Sanctissimo Sacramento in veneratione exhibeant Neque enim ideò minùs est Adorandum quòd fuerit à Christo D. ut sumatur institutum Nam illum eundem Deum praesentem IN EO adessâ— Credimus quem Pater aternus introducens in Orbem Terrarum dicit Et adorent eum omnes Angeli Dâ—i Hebr. I. There can be no doubt but that all the Faithful of Christ after the manner that has ever been received in the Catholick Church ought to give that Supreme Worship which is due to the true God to his Holy Sacrament For it is nevertheless to be adored because it was instituted by our Lord Christ that it might be received Forasmuch as we believe the same God to be present in it of whom the Eternal Father when he brought him into the World said And let all the Angels of God worship him That therefore according to this Council is to be worshipped which Christ instituted to be received and in which they believe Christ to be present But 't is no other than the Holy Sacrament as these Trent-Fathers here expresly and properly stile it which we all confess Christ instituted to be received and in which they suppose Christ to be present And therefore 't is the Sacrament which is to be adored Card. Pallavicino Istoria del Concilio di Trento parte seconda l. 12. c. 7. pag. 298. Ora è notissimo che accióche un Tutto s'adori con adorazione di Latria basta che una parte di quel rutto meriti questo culto Come dunque non douremo parimente adorare questo Sacramento il quale è un Tutto che contiene come parte principale il Corpo di Christo Which reasoning I find Card. Pallavicini thus improving in his History of this Council It is well known says he that to make a Whole Adorable with the Supreme Adoration it is sufficient that One part of that Whole merits such a Worship This he illustrates in the Example of Christs Humanity and thence concludes How then ought we not in like manner to adore this Sacrament which is a Whole that contains as its principal part the Body of Christ It is therefore as I conceive the undoubted Doctrine of the Church of Rome that the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist for the Reason here given is to be adored with that Supreme Adoration that is due to the true God. Now to warrant their Practice in this Matter our Authour thus proceeds in proof of it I. He premises some Propositions which he calls Answer to his second Discourse Protestant Concessions II. Some others which he stiles Catholick Assertions And then III. Goes on to shew what warrant they have for that Belief on which this Adoration is founded I shall distinctly follow him in every one of these In his first Part which he calls I. Part Protestant Concessions Protestant Concessions I will go on with him thus far 1st * §. I. pag. 1. That Supreme and Divine Adoration is due to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 2dly †Ibid. §. II. That where-ever the Body of our Lord now is there must also his whole Person be And therefore 3dly ‖ Ibid. §. III. That where-ever Christ's Body is truly and really present there his Divine Person is supremely adorable But now for his next Assertion * §. V. n. 1. p. 2. That it is affirmed by many Protestants especially those of the Church of England that this Body and Blood of our Lord is really present not only in Virtue but in Substance in the Encharist †See Treatise 1. p. 5. §. 7. If he means as in his former Treatise he explain'd himself that the very natural Body of Christ that Body that was born of the Virgin and crucified on the Cross and is now in Heaven is also as to its Substance truly and really present on Earth in the Holy Eucharist or to the worthy Receiver I have in the foregoing Chapter fully shewn this new Fancy to be neither the Doctrine of the Church of England nor the Opinion of those very Writers whom he produces for proof of it And as to the ‖ Disc 2. p. 8. §. vi n. 1. adoration of it upon any such account I have just now declared his Mistake of them in that Point too And I shall not follow our Author 's ill Example in repeating it all over again For his * §. vii p. 10. fifth Remark That the Lutherans affirm that Christ's Body and Blood are present not only to the worthy Communicants but to the Consecrated Symbols and