the Armenian Archbishops of Constantinople of Amasea and Adrinople Attestation of the Patriarch of Cis at number 10. Attestation of the Armenians of Cairo Attestation of the Armenians of Ispahan in Persia at number 16. For the Church of the Syrians Attestation of the Patriarch of the Syrians concerning the Faith of their Churches in matter of the Eucharist 12. Condemnation of the Calvinists by the Church of the Syrians at Damascus Extract of an Arabick Manuscript of the Kings Bibliotheck shewing the Belief of the Jacobites concerning the Eucharist in the Tenth Age. For the Nestorians Attestation of the Patriarch of the Nestorians of the Town of Diabeker Extract out of the Missals and Prayer-Books of the Nestorians For the Church of Cophtes Attestation of the Patriarch of the Cophtes Another Attestation of the same concetning the Eucharist In particular These Attestations are to be found at the end of the Third Tome of the Perpetuity of the Faith either at length or by citation of other places of these Books I know not if Mr. Sphanhemius Professor at Leyden will yet be so bold as to say as he did in his Strictures against the Bishop of Condom's Book that no regard is to be had to all these Attestations as being given by the miserable Greeks who can be made to say any thing one pleases for Money A quibus nihil non pretio extorqueas And so we have ground to think that they continued still in the Opinion of the Calvinists concerning the Eucharist even when they seem to condemn it with the greatest zeal But I perswade my self there is no honest man but will conceive indignation at an Answer so unreasonable which leaves us no moyen to be assured of the Religion of any People The least that those deserves who makes use of it is to doubt whether they be Christians Jews or Mahometans there being left them no way to hinder us from believing that they are in their heart any thing we please to suspect them of But to deprive them of all means of being able by their most unjust and extravagant Calumnies to brangle those who shall read this little Treatise I shall chuse one only of all these Testimonies which is the Book of the Orthodox Confession whereof the History is set down in the General Answer Book 1. Chap. 9. in these terms If one should set himself on purpose to contrive the Idea of an Act proper to decide the matter in question betwixt us he could not in my Judgment require other conditions and other circumstances than those I am going to speak of 1. That it be signed and authorized by the four Patriarchs and by the principal Bishops and Ecclesiasticks of the Eastern Church 2. That it appear that those who made and approved it had not any intelligence with the Latins and that they continue in all the particular Sentiments of the Greek Church 3. That it was made for the particular necessities of the Greek Church without that the Latins had any hand in it 4. That the terms thereof be peremptory and contain so clearly the Doctrine of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation that Mr. Claud cannot elude them by his ordinary subtilties Now all these circumstances are exactly found in the Act which I shall here set down whereof a Patriarch of Jerusalem named Nectarius has taken the pains to make the History in a Letter at the beginning of it and here it is Peter Mogilas who had been ordained Archbishop of Russia by Theophanes Patriarch of Jerusalem having assembled three of the most Learned Bishops his suffragants and the most pious Theologues of his Archipiscopal City to banish away the Errours and Superstitions of his People resolved with them by unanimous consent to draw up a Confession of Faith on the Articles of the Christian Doctrine and to cause it be received and approved by the Church of Constantinople and by the Synod which was there assembled To bring this to pass they composed a Book on the Articles of Faith which they entituled The Confession of Faith of the Russians And then they entreated the Church of Constantinople to appoint those they should depute into Moldavia in quality of Exarcks to examine it together with those whom they should send on their side The matter was executed as it was thus projected The Synod of Constantinople did depute into Moldavia Porphyrius Metropolitan of Nice and Meletius Syrigus Theologue of the Great Church to whose Piety and Learning the Patriarch of Jerusalem gives very ample commendation And the Deputies of the Russians being met there that Confession of Faith was examined with all exactness possible But yet they did not content themselves with this examination and to render this piece more Authentick they thought fit to send it to all the four Patriarchs of the Eastern Church and to submit it anew to their Judgment These Patriarchs then having received and examined it found it so conform to the Belief of their Church that not onely they approved it and signed it with their own hands with many other Bishops but they appointed moreover that instead of the Title it had before of Confession of Faith of the Russians it should be thenceforth called Confession of Faith of the Eastern Orthodox Church After the Letter of this Patriarch of Jerusalem containing the History above-mentioned we find at the very beginning of that Confession the Approbation and Subscription of four Patriarchs of nine Bishops and of all the principal Officers of the Church of Constantinople The Approbation of the four Patriarchs is dated in the year 1643 in the Month of March and that of the Letter of the Patriarch of Jerusalem which was prefixed only to the Print is only in 1662. This Confession no having been printed in Greek till long time after it was made and not being distributed before but in writâ— because the Turks permits no Printing in their Empire As to all the other Conditions we have pointed at they are likewise found in that Confession The Latins medled not in it any manner of way it was allenerly made for the utility of the Greek Church It was composed by the Greeks examined by all the Heads of the Estern Church These who composed it had no aim to gratifie any person It is now more than fourty years since it was made and more than twenty since it was printed Yea it appears the Hollanders were employed for the printing of it for certainly the Types are of Holland All the Doctrines controverted betwixt the Greeks and Latins are therein openly asserted and the Authors of this Confession can be no ways suspected to have had any sway or inclination for the Roman Church So that it 's hard to imagine or deny a Book less suspect more authorized more authentick and of which greater assurance can be had that it contains the true Sentiments of the Eastern Church There remains no more but to see what it contains And in this manner it begins to
of them on his side as he pleases himself and on the other the things remains still quite contrary to what he says of them The Question says he p 641. is not of the whole-World it 's onely of the Occident and of the Provinces subject to the Obedience of the Pope That is to say I will not have this to be the question I will not be at the pains to explicate how the Doctrine of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation was introduced in the East in the Patriarchates of Constantinople of Alexandria of Jerusalem and Antiochia in the Churches of the Armenians Nestorians and Jacobites I will not trouble my self to guess how it did penetrate into Ethiopia Muscovia Mesopotamia Georgia Mingrelia â—oldavia Tartaria and into the Ind a's I had better say it is not there I will have sooner done and by this means I will free my self of a great many difficulties Mr. Claud if he pleases will permit us to adverrise him that he is Man and nor God and consequently neither his Words nor his Wishes are operative He would not have the Doctrine of the Real Presence to be in all these great Provinces But it is and will be in them whether he would or would not the matter does not at all depend upon him And we have made it appear by Proofs which we judge himself will not gainstand So that notwithstanding of all his Wishes the question is to know how the belief of the Real Presence could be introduced in all these places if it had not still been in them Cerrain it is that it is there established and reigns and domineers absolutely There is no other known no memory that ever any other Doctrine was there All these Nations are perswaded they hold it by continual succession from their Forefathers It is manifest they have held always this Doctrine since the time the Berengarians were first heard of and that in this point they were still united with the Roman Church Mr. Claud must then tell us who has made them embrace this Doctrine But how can he do it since the reason why he would exeem himself from entring into this question is because he finds that not only solid Proofs but even Inventions and Fictions fails him all his Machines become useless to him He talks to us of Paschasius of Disputes of the Intrigues of Monks of the Violences of the Court of Rome And to render all this heap of Dreams and Visions ridiculous there needs no more but to oblige him to cast his eyes on two third parts of the World which knows neither Paschasius nor his Book and are so far from acknowledging the Pope that they are most passionately bent to contradict him in all they can Let Mr. Claud tell us therefore who did perswade them to a Belief which he pretends to be directly contrary to Scripture to Fathers to Reason and Sense What Preachers did produce so great an effect How comes it to pass that none of all these Nations did resist this Innovation How comes it to pass that all of them have forgot they changed their Perswasion and takes their present Doctrine for that which the Apostles established in the Church and which has descended even to them by the succession of their Bishops Mr. See pag. 2. of the General Answer Claud wearies his Imagination to invent an impertinent Fable of a young Monk who without going out of his Convent and without being heard tell of abroad yet changes the Faith of the whole Occident He torments himself to accompany this Fable with a thousand phantastical suppositions He exhausts all his Figures and all his big Words to dazle a little the eyes of the simple and to hide from them the absurdity of this Romance But he takes no heed that all his endeavours are in vain there remains more than two thirds of his Work to be done without which all the pains he takes are to no purpose he must yet find other Paschasius's to carry this Faith into all the Societies separate from the Roman Church and into remote Provinces All these Paschasius's must have the same success that no person contradict nor oppose their Enterprizes that no person perceive them renversing the ancient Faith and in a word they must all have accomplisht their work at the same time when Berengarius shall happen to start up to the end he might with some ground of reason say That the Church was perished and there was no more remnant of it than those who followed him Lanfrancus cap. 23. I see very well that Mr. Claud for all his stoutness succumbs under the greatness of this Enterprize It frights him he gives it over he asks pardon he would wish with all his heart that that this made no part of the Question The Question says he is not of all the World. But there is no moyen to be complaisant to him The Question is of the whole World whether he will or will not because that Belief is establisht throughout the World. This depends neither upon him nor me It is a necessary part of this great Question and which draws all the rest after it Wherefore since by a constrained confession of his inability he acknowledges he cannot say there was made an universal change of Belief in the whole Orient he must needs abandon all the rest and avow that all his moyens are ruined all his Engines shattered all his Projects renversed and all his Suppositions destroyed If he say it was Paschasius who invented this Doctrine and that it could never have fallen into the brain of another we shew him an infinite number of Christians who neither knows Paschasius nor his Book and who yet makes still profession of this Doctrine and here he is convinced of timerity and imposture If he tells us That the Popes did by their Authority and Violences concur to make it be received We shall let him see those great Nations over whom they have no Jurisdiction in which they are not acknowledged and amongst whom their Decisions have neither Credit nor Authority and who notwithstanding are no less tenacious of the Faith of the Real Presence as those People who are most submitted to the Holy See and this does farther point him out as a Deceiver of the World by groundless and improbable Fables If he talks to us of Cabals and imaginary Intrigues of Disputes of Philosophy by which he pretends this Doctrine was established we shall shew an infinite number of People who neither knows the School Philosophy nor never disputed of these matters and amongst whom even the imagination of Mr. Claud himself could never make the Intrigues of the Court of Rome active and who yet believes the Real Presence as we do And lo here also all his Reckonings and Fables annihilated This is what regards the third Circumstance which is that this Innovation should have been made at the same time in all the Churches of the World Which renders it so
King for justification of their Faith against the Calumnies of the Calvinist Ministers There was amongst these Attestations a Manuscript very sumptuously Bound which Mr. Panajotti made a Present of to his Majesty to be conserved in his Library and to serve for ever as a Testimony of the Faith of the Orâ—ental Church This Manuscript is one of the Originals of the Orthodox Confession it 's Subscribed by the Patriarch of Constantinople by many Bishops and by several Officers of the Church of Constantinople But whereas the Printed Copies are onely in Greek this Manuscript is in Greek and Latin the Latin being no less Original than the Greek There is prefixed to it a new Approbation of Dionysius bearing that M. Panajotti has caused â—et out a new Edition of it at the request of the Patriarch and that this Gentleman has distributed gratis Copies throughout the whole East Here follows that Attestation Dionysius by the mercy of God Arch-Bishop of Constantinople the New Rome and Oecumenical Patriarch THose who make the holy Books their daily study and applies themselves continually to them do certainly reap thence very great fruit for Salvation for it is as a way in which they cannot go astray which leads in a supernaural manner those who aim streight at eternal Glory and which procures them a happy end it being according to the Scripture that he is blessed who meditates day and night in the Law of the Lord. Wherefore considering that the reading of this Orrhodox Doctrine may be very profitable which having been Composed some years ago by the Orthodox Doctors approved received and confirmed by the Venerable Patriarchs our Predecessors and printed some time after by the care pains and expences of the most Wise and Orthodox Signior Panajotti first Interpreter of the Emperours of the East and West our Dearest Spiritual Son full of Piety and Divine Zeal with an extraordinary prudence has gratis distributed Copies thereof round about to Christians for the publick good And all the Copies that were Prinred being employed in this Distribution which was made of them several persons who earnestly demands so profitable a piece cannot have it we Judged it our duty to provide for this and to sollicite the same Signior by his accustomed bounry to supply this want and put remedy to it by a second Edition holding out to him that he would thereby aquite to himself Reputation not only equal to that he has already throughout the World and whereof no person is ignorant but a better and far surpassing it to wit that by which noble Actions becomes immortal And as he has a fervent zeal and passionate desire of the publick good so he has not neglected our Counsel but on the contrary has incontinently by Gods help putten it in execution and by a second Impression has given of new a great number of Books to the Faithful by so doing rendering a piece of important service to the Author of them in not suffering his Work to be buried in obscurity for M. Meletius Syrigus Doctor of the Great Church has by order of the Patriarch and Synod laboured most carefully to review and set the Book in order Therefore ye Orthodox Christians receiving favourably this Book of the Orthodox Doctrine as pious and profitable to Souls give thanks for it to the common Benefactor and keep it well without ever neglecting the reading of it for Life eternal is found in the Meditation of the holy Scriptures which I wish all of us may attain to in Jesus Christ our Lord to whom be Glory for ever So be it The year 1672. in the Month of July Indiction 5. Seal of the Patriarch Dionysius of Constantinople But this Original being in Greek and Latin I though that if it was needless to set down the Greek Text which being a strange Language would be understood by few it would be fit to insert here in the Latin Tongue what is there said of the Eucharist and which has already been cited in French in the General Answer QUESTIO 106. Quodnam sit tertium Mysterium EEt Eucharista sive Corpus Sanguinis Christi Domini sub specibus panis vini realis presentia Hoc Sacramentum excillit allâ—is magis conducit saluti animae nostrae in hoc enim Sacramento omnis gratiae bonis Christi fidelibus manifestatur praesentatur In the following Question ANimadvertendum est ut Sacerdos habeat talem intentionem quod ipsa vera substantia panis substantia vini Transubstantientur in verum Corpus Sanguinam Christi per operationem Spiritus Sancti cujus invocationem facit tum temporis ut perficiat Mysterium hoc orando dicendo Mitte Spiritum Sanctum in nos in haec proposita dona fac hunc panem pretiosum Corpus Christi tui quod autem est in hac calice pretiosum Sanguinem Christi tui transmutans per Spiritum Sanctum Statim enim ad haec verba fit Transubstantiatio Transubstantiantur panis in verum Corpus Christi vinum in verum Sanguinem Christi remanentibus solum speciebus visibilibus hoc fit secundum divinam dispositionem propter duo Primo ne videamus Corpus Christi sed credamus illud esse propter verba prolata à Christo Domino Hoc est Corpus meum hic est Sanguis meus plusquam sensibus nostris Siquidem pro hoc promisit nobis beatudinem dicens Beati qui non vident credunt Secundo quia natura humana abhorret usum vivae carnis quoniam debet homo uniri Christo Domino per communicationem carnis Christi Domini Sanguinis Christi Domini ne igitur abhorreret constituit Dominus dare carnem suam Sanguinem suum in esum potum sub specibus panis vini De quo diui Damascenus Gregorius Nyssenus fusius disputant De Exibendo Honore qui debetur kuic Mysterio tanquam ipsi Christo Quemadmodem sanctus Petrus de de ore omnium Apostolorum dixit Tu es Christus Filius Dei viventis ita nos dicimus cultu Latriae Credo Domini confiteor quod tu'es Christus Filius Dei vivi Est etiam id Mysterium Sacrificium pro vivis defunctis iis qui in spe resurrectionis mortui sunt quod Sacrificium ad extremum judicium non cessabit There is at the end of the Manuscript an Act of Legalization of the Ambassador who gives Testimony of the Truth of what I have related whereof the tenor follows WE CHARLES R FRANCIS OLIER of Nointel Counsellor of the King in his Councils in his Court of Parliament of Paris and Ambassador for his most Christian Majesty at the Ottoman Port do certifie and attest That the present Latin and Greek Manuscript entituled The Orthodox Confession of the Church of the East was consigned into our hands by the Signior Panajotti first Interpreter of the Port who having assured us that it would serve
together as like And there needs no more to overturn all what is considerable in Aubertins Book consequently the noble Victory which Mr. Claud sayes * Answ to the 2. Treatise ch 1. p. 50. that Book has obtained over the Roman School is no more but a meer illusion of this Minister Mr. Claud in his third Answer Book 5. Chap. 10. allows of this manner of discerning expressions and even things themselves by the impression and sentiment which they form no less than by an exact observation of the differences which distinguishes them But he would have us to let him see that in the first six Ages the expressions of the Fathers were taken in a Sence of reality and the others which the Ministers propose as like in a Metaphorical Sence and not to seek that difference of impression in the following Ages supposing that the Doctrine was changed in them He ought then to be content seeing we have satisfied his demaund how unreasonable soever it be for we have proved to him in the second Tome of the Perpetuity to which he could not answer that difference of expression of the Fathers as like to those which we produce and we have confirmed this Proof in the third Tome and in the general Answer in such a manner as he is beaten down under it in letting him see that all he could say to perswade the change he supposes in the Doctrine of the Eucharist is the most manifest Proof of his want of sincerity To this comes all he has written to maintain as he has done with an inflexible opiniatorness that fable on which he has employed all his Eloquence and his big Words There needs no more for his silence shews sufficiently that he is convinced SECT X. The figurative Explication which the Calvinists give to these words This is my Body renders them altogether incapable to prove their Belief concerning the Eucharist to those who deny it THere is no Errour which the Calvinists have taken more pains to vindicate themselves of than that of admitting no more but simple Signs and without efficacy For as the suspicion people had that they taught this Heresie confirmed by the reproach made them ordinarily by the Lutherians and even by some Catholicks rendered them very odious they used all their endeavours to take it away and shew it was a Calumny All their Writings all their Declarations all their Confessions of Faith are full of formal Condemnations and Anathema 's against that Errour that the Eucharist conrains no more but simple Figures * Apud Hospini hist Sacrament 2. part fol. 124 128 135 147. Afrer these express Condemnations they cannot refuse to avow that if this Errour they so earnestly condemn and which they charge upon the Socinians and Anabaptists be a necessary consequence of the Figurative Sence they give to the Words of Jesus Christ and if this Sence puts them into an absolute inability to prove their Belief concerning the Supper it follows necessarly according to their Principle that this sence is false and that their explication is erroneous Now there is nothing more easie to prove than this their inability to justify themselves of this Errour which they condemn and to prove their Belief to the Socinians and Anabaptists and all who will deny it for there needs no more but to propose what they teach in their Confession of Faith in their Catechisms and the Books of those who are Authors of them and then to require the Proof thereof from the Scripture which according to them is alone sufficient to ground their Faith. They say in their Catechism Sonday 51 where they speak of the Supper that Jesus Christ represents to them by the Bread his Body and by the Wine his Blood. And in the 37 Article of their Confession of Faith That in the Supper God gives them really and in effect that which he figurates therein In their 53 Sonday That Jesus Christ with whom their Souls are inwardly nowrished is in this Sacrament and that they are made participant of his proper Substance or as they speak in their own Confession of Faith That they are therein nourished and quickned by the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ. It 's according to this Perswasion and Belief that Calvin who is the Author of this Catechism says in the 4 Book of his Institutions Chap. 17 n. 11. That in the Supper Jesus Christ is really given us under the Signs of Bread and Wine yea his Body and his Blood by which he has purchased Salvation to us and thereby we are made participant of his Substance And his is conform to what Beza says in the conference of Poissy as he relates him self in his Ecclesiastical History Tom. 1. p. 496. That the thing signified in this Sacrament is offered and given us of the Lord as truly as the Signs of it that the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ which are truly communicated to us are truly present in the use of the Supper although they are neither under nor beside nor in the Bread and Wine nor in any other place but in Heaven And in the pag 515 that we are made participant only of the fruit of Christs death This is the Calvinists Doctrine concerning their Cene or Supper and for which we maintain they cannot give Proofs from the Scripture alone unless they renounce the figurative sence they give to the Words of Jesus Christ The question is nor here of the manner according to which they say they receive all these things whether it be by Faith or otherwise but of what they receive nor is the question here of Mr. Clauds analogical and metaphysical Arguments but of clear and precise Proofs from Scripture seeing they are solemnly bound to shew there all their points of Faith. If they alledge these words Take eat this is my Body a Socinian will answer them that they should not pretend to receive any other thing than what Jesus Christ has commanded to be taken but according to them he intended only to say Take eat this is the Figure of my Body therefore they receive only the Figure and not the Body If they reply that these Words contain a Promise and that Jesus Christ promised to give them his Body in giving them a Figure of it The Socinian will answer he sees not that Promise in the Words of Jesus Christ and he will oppose to them what Zuinglius says Tom. 2. f. 371. That these words of Jesus Christ contain no promiss at all Nihil in his nobis promissum est and on the margent Christi verba hoc est Corpus meum promissionem nullam continent And what Calvin says in his manner of reforming the Church pag. 122. second of his Opusc that he who seeks in the Sacrament more than the promises contain the Devil has bewitched him And he will conclude from the Principles of these two Reformers that one ought to seek no more in this Sacrament but a Figure unless he be
bewitched by the Devil So that holding to Zuinglius it must be said the Socinians have reason to laugh at the Promises the Calvinists think to find in these words This is my Body and in holding to what the Calvinists says of this Promise all the Anathema's they pronounce against the Socinians fall back on Zuinglius himself who agrees with them that there are no Promises in these words This is my Body That is already no small advantage that the chief of all the Sacramentarians he who is pretended to have been raised up by God to re-build anew the pretended Reformed Church is anathematized by those who call them selves his Disciples But lest the fancy take them to quite Zuinglius to preserve that promise I maintain moreover that Zuinglius reasons well according to their common Principles and it is only Calvin and his Sectators who reason ill For by what subtility can they discover in these words Take eat this is my Body taken in a figurative sence a Promise made by Jesus Christ to give truly his Body This is a Figure of my Body is that to say take eat I promise to give you really my Body Is this a reasonable Conclusion This is the Figure of the Body of Jesus Christ therefore this Figure contains or conferrs really the same Body Does not common sence dictate the contrary that it is not necessary that a Figure contain or confeâ—r the thing signified that they are two things altogether distinct and to use the Examples themselves alledges to prove their figurative sence when Joseph says to Pharaoh the seven Kowes are seven Years did he mean that the Kowes contained the seven Years When God said to Moses that the Lamb was the Passage he meant according to Protestants it was the Figure of the Passage but he meant not that the Lamb contained or conferred the Passage These Gentlemen who make so great use of Logick in all their Books should they not have acknowledged that the Conclusion depending on two Premisses or Propositions that which is in question viz. that the Eucharist contains or conferrs the Body of Jesus can have no connexion with that other viz. the Eucharist is the Figure of the Body of Jesus Christ but by an universal Proposition viz. all Figures contain or communicate the thing they signify from which it would follow that the Eucharist being the Figure of Jesus Christ's Body it should communicate his Body but as that Major is extravagant the connexion the Ministers would make of their consequence that the Eucharist communicats the Body of Jesus Christ or it is efficacious of the Body of Jesus Christ with that Explication that it 's the Figure of the Body of Jesus Christ is no less impertinent I find not in all the Calvinists Books but one Argument to support this absurdity which is that it is unbeseeming to God to feed us with an empty Spectacle and therefore we must certainly believe that when he establishes a Sign the verity of the thing signified is also present Whence they conclude that God having established the Bread as the Sign of his Body by these words This is my Body the verity of the same Body must be joyned to the Bread and it must be communicated to us by his Spirit for unless one will call God a deceiver says Calvin he dare not say that a vain Sign and void of the verity is proposed by him Just. book 4. chap. 17. n. 10. I protest hitherto it was not possible for me to find the least spark of common sence in this Argument and I can not enough admire how People who makes so solemn profession to admit nothing but Scripture or evident and necessary consequences drawn from it should take the boldness to propose under the name of Holy Scriptures such reaveries and dreams For what ground were there to accuse God of deceiving if commanding us to take no more but the sign of his Body he gave no more at the same time but the Figure of his Body Is it to cheat men to give them precisely what is promised them Why is it a vain delusory thing and unbeseeming God to establish a Figure of a thing absent Was it a vain and delusory thing to make the Paschal Lamb a Figure of the Angels passing by the houses of the Israelits when he destroyed the first born of the Egyptians And would it be to argue in any manner supportable to say according to Calvin's opinion that seeing the Paschal Lamb was a Figure of that passage of the Angel therefore that passage must always have been present otherwise God had been a deceiver in proposing false signs Mr. Claud in his Answer to Father Nouet pag. 320. compares that expression he attributes to the Jews when they celebrated their Easter This is the bread of affliction which our Fathers eated in Egypt to these words This is my Body and he says that Jesus Christ in substituting the memorial of the new Covenant to that of the Old he would retain the same form of expression and in stead of saying this is the bread of affliction c. he has said this is my Body which is broken for you so that according to this Minister this Bread of affliction are two Memorials the one of the Old Testament and the other of the New expressed after the same figurative manner * See the answer to this objection of Mr. Claud in the 2 Tome of the Perpet P. 196. in ascribing to the Sign the thing signified Now it were ridiculous to conclude and say that the bread the Jews eated in celebrating their Easter being the Figure and Memorial of the affliction their Fathers endured in Aegypt ought to have been accompanied with the thing signified and communicate to them the efficacy thereof lest it had been a deceitful sign It is no less absurd will a Socinian say to Mr. Claud to pretend to prove that the Eucharist would be a deceitful sign if the Body of Jesus Christ were not therein communicate and received The institution of Sacraments is an arbitrary thing depending wholly on the will of Jesus Christ he has made them the Instruments of his Graces in the New Testament to which he was not obliged he could if he had pleased have instituted among the Christians pure signs destitute of efficacy as he had instituted among the Jews these sigâ—s would neither have been vain nor false nor delusory they would have produced the Effect for which they should have been ordained by God which is to represent to us the things signified and this representation having nothing in it self but what 's lawful though God had not annexed any Grace to it there had been no ground to say that he had deceived men by a vain or empty show There must then be a promise of Grace joyned to the establishment of a sign to conclude rationally that the thing signified is joyned with it and consequently these words This is my Body taken in
upon any Point they have taken for pretext of their separation from the Catholick Church to conclude that their belief in point of the Eucharist is false How remote soever these particular consequences seem to be from these Principles the two general Maxims we have fixed That it 's impossible this Mysterie should be known only by Hereticks and yet the Sacramentarians only deny the Real Presence joyns and knitts them together by an indissoluble knot Wherefore all the Proofs of other controverted Points are convictions of the errour of the Calvinists in point of the Eucharist And this is what ought carefully to be remarked that it 's sufficient to convince them of errour upon any article of Faith whatsomever to conclude the same of their Doctrine of the Eucharist As this Mysterie supports the whole Catholick Religion so the same whole Religion supports it all the Proofs which establishes the several Points that divides us from the Calvinists meet and joyn in this and consequently forms such abundance of light and conviction that it 's impossible those who sincerely open the eyes of their Soul to look upon it to restrain themselves from crying out in a rapture with the Royal Prophet Testimonia tu a credibilia facta sunt nimis Psal 92. SECT XI The Conclusion Where once more the invincible Strength of this Argument is exposed I Can hardly perswade my self that the Ministers who have so high an esteem of reasoning as that they ground their Faith upon it seeing they cannot find it in the Scripture but by the help of their consequences can resolve so to overthrow the Rules thereof as that not being able to find any thing of falshood either in the Major or Minor of a Regular Argument will yet hazard to deny the conclusion of it And at the same time I can less understand what they can say to obscure the clearness and evidence of what was proved in the Major and the Minor. It seems then there is good ground to conclude that they will be forced to acknowledge that in the Book of the Perpetuity it 's most solidly proved that the Faith of the Roman Church concerning the Eucharist which is the same with that of all the Oriental Churches is the ancient and perpetual Faith of the Christians of all Ages and that consequently their opinion which is contrary thereto is a manifest Heresy Yet this is a thing we do not hope for unless it be of some particular person whom God may touch by his Grace But as to the generality of the Ministers we know their Genius better than to promise to our self that they will yeeld to the Truth how manifest soever it may be they are too much infatuate with their ridiculous Opinion of being come out of Babylon as to be able to resolve to return again to it That which will seem most convincing to them will pass in their conceit for a song of Tyre which imitats the Tune of the songs of Sion or for a crafty seducing of the Beast of the Apocalypse whose horns are like those of the Lamb. They will rather choise to put out their own eyes than to be attentive to it They will say Mr. Claud has given satisfaction to all that and it 's only an idle repetition of what has been confuted by their most Reverend Brother and deserves no answer Or if they make any it will not be in answering directly and precisely to every Article and in representing sincerely the Proofs which support all what is asserted by referring to the Books whence they are taken being for brevities sake we were obliged not to set them down at length but they will do nothing but confuse and ravel the Dispute by new incidents to break the threed of it and thereby hinder the simple People of their Party from seeing so easily the truth through the clouds wherewith they will endeavour to cover it But do what the Ministers will I can hardly believe that these who have Wit Conscience and Honour amongst the Protestants will not be perswaded by this Argument that what we believe of the Eucharist and what all those great Societies of the East believes with us is the common and perpetual Faith of the whole Church and consequently that of the Apostles For as to the matters of fact which shows the agreement of these Churches either in Beringarius his time or at this time they are too well grounded to be questioned in sincerity so it 's not like they can doubt of the truth of the Major which is proved in Sect. 1. and 5. And as to the impossibility of an Invisible Change these matters of fact being supposed it appears so easily of it self as it would seem we ought not to have sought Reasons to make it be better perceived if Mr. Claud's pertinaciousness had not obliged us to it But yet we needed no more but to lay open the incredible absurdities which are naturally included in the imagination of this insencible change to set the falsehood of this Fable upon the highest Point of evidence All I fear Gentlemen is that the adherence you have from your Infancy to a Religion you thought true hinder you in the middle of this enquiry and that by a mistaken humility you dare not contradict your Ministers for your Fathers did not adhere to the new Reformers in forsaking the Church but because they had inspired them with that criminal presumption that they ought not make account of the Fathers or Councils but every one could and ought to make himself Judge of the Fathers and Councils by the light he should imagine to have found in the Scripture after having invocated the Holy Spirit it is most just you make use of the same Priviledge in respect of your new Masters seeing hitherto they have not taken the boldness to say they were the only men who might be followed with all security and without any ground of fear of being misled This is all I ask of you your Ministers have so often told you that you must not believe men in matter of Religion because all men are lyars Begine at them with the Practise of this Rule and with judging of the Rule it self for perhaps it 's not so generally true as they pretend but making it general they cannot say it 's not true in respect of them I doubt not but you will confess they have still represented to you Transubstantiation which they call a Monster and the adoration of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament which they call Idolatry as two things unknown to the whole world save only to the Roman Church and that neither the Greeks nor the Arminians nor the Russians nor the Jacobits nor the Ethiopians nor generally any Christian beside those who submit to the Pope believes any thing of these two Articles These are Mr. Claud's words Preface of his answer to Mr. Arnaud pag. 759 and as they all look upon him as the great Defender of the pretended Reformed Churches