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A34613 The history of popish transubstantiation to which is premised and opposed the catholic doctrin of Holy Scripture, the antient fathers and the reformed churches about the sacred elements, and presence of Christ in the blessed sacrament of the Eucharist / written in Latine by John, late Lord Bishop of Durham, and allowed by him to be published a little before his death at the earnest request of his friends. Cosin, John, 1594-1672.; Beaulieu, Luke, 1644 or 5-1723.; Durel, John, 1625-1683. 1679 (1679) Wing C6359A; ESTC R24782 82,162 188

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as though by these words Spiritually and Sacramentally they did not acknowledge a true and well-understood real Presence and Communication of the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament whereas on the contrary they do professedly own it in terms as express as any can be used CHAP. III. 1. What the Papists do understand by Christ being spiritually present in the Sacrament 2. What St. Bernard understood by it 3. What the Protestants 4. Faith doth not cause but suppose the presence of Christ 5. The Union betwixt the Body of Christ and the Bread is Sacramental 1. HAving now by what I have said put it out of doubt that the Protestants believe a spiritual and true presence of Christ in the Sacrament which is the reason that according to the example of the Fathers they use so frequently the term spiritual in this subject it may not be amiss to consider in the next place how the Roman Church understands that same word Now they make it to signifie That Christ is not present in the Sacrament Bell. De Euch l. 1. c ● §. 3. Reg. sequ either after that manner which is natural to corporal things or that wherein his own body subsists in heaven but according to the manner of Existence proper to Spirits whole and entire in each part of the Host And though by himself he be neither seen toucht nor moved yet in respect of the Species or accidents joyned with him he may be said to be seen toucht and moved And so the accidents being moved Ibid. Part. 1. the body of Christ is truly moved accidentally as the Soul truly changeth place with the Body so that we truly and properly say that the body of Christ is removed lifted up and set down put on the Patent or on the Altar and carried from hand to mouth and from the mouth to the stomach as Berengarius was forced to acknowledge in the Roman Council under Pope Nicholas Ibid. § 5. Reg. that the Body of Christ was sensually toucht by the hands and broken and chewed by the teeth of the Priest But all this and much more to the same effect was never delivered to us either by holy Scripture or the ancient Fathers And if Souls or Spirits could be present as here Bellarmine teacheth yet it would be absurd to say that bodies could be so likewise it being inconsistent with their nature 2. Indeed Bellarmine confesseth with St Bernard St. Bern. Serm de S. Martin That Christ in the Sacrament is not given to us carnally but spiritually and would to God he had rested here and not outgone the holy Scriptures and the Doctrine of the Fathers For endeavouring with Pope Innocent III. and the Council of Trent to determine the manner of the presence and Manducation of Christs body with more nicety than was fitting he thereby foolishly overthrew all that he had wisely said before denied what he had affirmed and opposed his own Opinion His fear was lest his Adversaries should apply that word spiritually not so much to express the manner of presence as to exclude the very substance of the Body and Bloud of Christ therefore saith he upon that account it is not safe to use too muck that of St. Bernard The body of Christ is not Corporally in the Sacrament without adding presently the above-mentioned explanation How much do we comply with humane pride and curiosity which would seem to understand all things Where is the danger And what doth he fear as long as all they that believe the Gospel own the true nature the real and substantial presence of the body of Christ in the Sacrament using that Explication of St. Bernard concerning the manner which he himself for the too great evidence of truth durst not but admit And why doth he own that the manner is spiritual not carnal and then require a carnal presence as to the manner it self As for us we all openly profess with St. Bernard that the presence of the body of Christ in the Sacrament is spiritual and therefore true and real and with the same Bernard and all the Ancients we deny that the Body of Christ is carnally either present or given The thing we willingly admit but humbly and religiously forbear to enquire into the manner 3. We believe a Presence and Union of Christ with our soul and body which we know not how to call better than Sacramental that is effected by eating that while we eat and drink the consecrated Bread and Wine we eat and drink therewithal the Body and Bloud of Christ not in a corporal manner but some other way incomprehensible known only to God which we call spiritual for if with St. Bernard the Fathers a man goes no further we do not find fault with a general explication of the manner but with the presumption and self-conceitedness of those who boldly and curiously inquire what is a spiritual presence as presuming that they can understand the manner of acting of Gods holy Spirit We contrariwise confess with the Fathers that this manner of presence is unaccountable and past finding out not to be searcht and pried into by Reason but believed by Faith And if it seems impossible that the flesh of Christ should descend and come to be our food through so great a distance we must remember how much the power of the holy Spirit exceeds our sense and our apprehensions and how absurd it would be to undertake to measure his Immensity by our weakness and narrow capacity and so make our Faith to conceive and believe what our Reason cannot comprehend 4. Yet our Faith doth not cause or make that Presence but apprehends it as most truly and really effected by the word of Christ And the Faith whereby we are said to eat the flesh of Christ is not that only whereby we believe that he died for our sins for this Faith is required and supposed to precede the Sacramental Manducation but more properly that whereby we believe those words of Christ This is my Body Aug. super Joh. Tract 25. which was St. Austins meaning when he said Why dost thou prepare thy stomach and thy teeth Believe and thou hast eaten For in this Mystical eating by the wonderful power of the Holy Ghost we do invisibly receive the substance of Christs Body and Bloud as much as if we should eat and drink both visibly 5. The result of all this is That the Body and Bloud of Christ are Sacramentally united to the Bread and Wine so that Christ is truly given to the Faithful and yet is not to be here considered with sense or worldly reason but by Faith resting on the words of the Gospel Now it is said that the Body and Bloud of Christ are joyned to the Bread and Wine because that in the celebration of the holy Eucharist the Flesh is given together with the Bread and the Bloud together with the Wine All that remains is That we should with faith
of the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Sacrament that stout Roman Champion applies to his Transubstantiation and then crows over his Adversaries supposing that he hath utterly overthrown the Protestants cause whereas there is such a wide difference as may be called a great Gulf fixed betwixt the true or real Presence of Christ in the Lords Supper and the Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into his Body and Bloud This last is such a Prodigie as is neither taught by Scripture nor possible to be apprehended by faith it is repugnant to right reason and contrary to sense and is no where to be found in Ancient Writers But the other is agreeable to Scripture and to the Analogy of faith it is not against Reason although being spiritual it cannot be perceived by our bodily senses and it is back'd by the constant and unanimous Doctrine of the holy Fathers For it makes nothing against it that sometimes the same Fathers do speak of the Bread and Wine of the holy Eucharist as of the very Body and Bloud of Christ it being a manner of speech very proper and usual in speaking of Sacraments to give to the sign the name of the thing signified And however they explain themselves in other places when they frequently enough call the Sacramental Bread and Wine Types Symbols Figures and Signs of the Body and Bloud of Christ thereby declaring openly for us against the Maintainers of Transubstantiation For we may safely without any prejudice to our Tenet use those Expressions of the Ancients which the Papists think to be most favourable to them taking them in a Sacramental sense as they ought to be whereas the last mentioned that are against them none can use but by so doing he necessarily destroys the whole contrivance of Transubstantiation it being altogether inconsistent to say the Bread is substantially changed into the Body of Christ and the Bread is a Figure a Sign and a Representation of the Body of Christ For what hath lost its being can in no wise signifie or represent any other thing Neither was ever any thing said to represent and be the Figure and Sign of it self But this is more at large treated of in the Book it self Now having given an account of the occasion of writing and publishing this Discourse perhaps the Reader will expect that I should say something of its excellent Author But should I now undertake to speak but of the most memorable things that concern this great Man my thoughts would be overwhelmed with their multitude and I must be injurious both to him and my Readers being confined within the narrow limits of a Preface But what cannot be done here may be done somewhere else God willing This only I would not have the Reader to be ignorant of That this Learned man and as appears by this constant Professor and Defendor of the Protestant Religion was one of those who was most vehemently accused of Popery by the Presbyterians before the late Wars and for that reason bitterly persecuted by them and forced to forsake his Country whereby he secured himself from the violence of their Hands but not of their Tongues for still the good men kept up the noise of their clamorous Accusation even while he was writing this most substantial Treatise against Transubstantiation John Durel CHAP. I. 1. The Real that is true and not imaginary Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is proved by Scripture 2 and 3. Yet this favours not the Tenet of Transubstantiation being it is not to be understood grosly and carnally but spiritually and Sacramentally 4. The nature and use of the Sacraments 5. By means of the Elements of Bread and Wine Christ himself is spiritually eaten by the Faithful in the Sacrament 6. The eating and presence being spiritual are not destructive of the truth and substance of the thing 7. The manner of Presence is unsearchable and ought not to be presumptuously defined 1. THose words which our blessed Saviour used in the institution of the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist Mat. 26.26 Luk. 22.19 This is my body which is given for you This is my bloud which is shed for you for the remission of sins are held and acknowledged by the Universal Church to be most true and infallible And if any one dares oppose them or call in question Christs Veracity or the truth of his words or refuse to yield his sincere assent to them except he be allowed to make a meer figment or a bare figure of them * As G. Calixtus writes in some place of his learned Exercitations and before him M. Chemnitius in Exam. Con. Trid. atque in locis Theol. we cannot and ought not either excuse or suffer him in our Churches for we must embrace and hold for an undoubted truth whatever is taught by Divine Scripture And therefore we can as little doubt of what Christ saith Joh. 6.55 My flesh is meat indeed and my bloud is drink indeed which according to St. Paul are both given to us by the consecrated Elements For he calls the Bread the Communion of Christs Body 1 Cor. 10.16 and the Cup the Communion of his bloud 2. Hence it is most evident that the Bread and Wine which according to St. Paul are the Elements of the holy Eucharist are neither changed as to their substance nor vanisht nor reduc'd to nothing but are solemnly consecrated by the words of Christ that by them his blessed body and bloud may be communicated to us 3. And further it appears from the same words that the expression of Christ and the Apostle is to be understood in a Sacramental and mystick sense and that no gross and carnal presence of body and bloud can be maintained by them 4. And though the word Sacrament be no where used in Scripture to signifie the blessed Eucharist yet the Christian Church ever since its Primitive ages hath given it that name and always called the presence of Christs body and bloud therein Mystick and Sacramental Now a Sacramental expression doth without any inconvenience give to the sign the name of the thing signified Exod. 12.21 1 Cor. 10.3 4. And such is as well the usual way of speaking as the nature of Sacraments that not only the names but even the properties and effects of what they represent and exhibite are given to the outward Elements Hence as I said before the Bread is as clearly as positively called by the Apostle the Communion of the body of Christ 5. This also seems very plain that our Blessed Saviour's design was not so much to teach what the Elements of Bread and Wine are by nature and substance as what is their use and office and signification in this Mystery For the body and bloud of our Saviour are not only fitly represented by the Elements but also by vertue of his institution really offered to all by them and so eaten by the faithful Mystically and Sacramentally whence
of theirs remains save some Citations in Lanfrank But it were to be wisht that we had now the entire Works of Berengarius who was a learned man and a constant follower of Antiquity for out of them we might know with more certainty how things went then we can out of what his profest enemies have said Concil Rom sub Hild. Papa A. 1079. 12. This Sacramental debate ceased a while because of the tumults of War raised in Apulia and elsewhere by Pope Nicholas the Second but it began again as soon as Hildebrand called Gregory the Seventh came to the Papal Chair For Berengarius was cited again to a new Council at Rome where some being of one opinion and some of another as it is in the g Excus cum Lanfran libro apud Binium Acts of that Council writ by those of the Popes Faction his cause could not be so intirely oppressed but that some Bishops were still found to uphold it Nay the Ring-leader himself Hildebrand is said to have doubted h Engilb Archiep. Trevir apud Goldast Imp. Tom. 1. Whether what we receive at the Lords Table be indeed the Body of Christ by a substantial conversion But i Bertold Const chron An. 1079. three months space having been granted to Berengarius and a Fast appointed to the Cardinals k Benno Card. in vita Hild. that God would shew by some sign from heaven which yet he did not who was in the right the Pope or Berengarius concerning the Body of the Lord a last the business was decided without any Oracle from above and a new form of retracttion imposed on l Habetur ista formula apud Tho. Wald ens Tom. ● c. 42. in Regest Greg 7. Berengarius whereby he was henceforth forward to confess under pain of the Popes high displeasure that the Mystick Bread first made m Brix Syn. Episc apud Abb. Usperg in Chron. ad An 1080. Magical and enchanting by Hildebrand is substantially turned into n Addit formula praescripta in proprietate naturae the true and proper Flesh of Christ which whether he ever did is not certain For though o De Gest Angl. l. 3. c. 58. Et post eum ab aliis Vide Bell. Chronol An. 1079. Malmesbury tells us that he died in that Roman Faith yet p Pegm Comment 31. ad 2. part direct inquisit there are ancienter than he who q Bertol. Const qui tempore Brengar vixit ad An. 1083. say that he was never converted from his first opinion And some relate that after this last condemnation having given over his Studies and given to the poor all he had he wrought with his own hands for his r Vincent in Spec. l. 26. c. 40. Baron ad An. 1088. §. 15 c. living Other things related of him by some slaves of the Roman See deserve no credit These things hapned as we have said in the year 1079. and soon after Berengarius died 13. Berengarius being dead the Orthodox and ancient Doctrine of the Lords Supper which he maintained did not die with him as the ſ Chron. Cassin l. 3. c. 33. St. Bern. An. 1120. Chronicus Cassinensis would have it For it was still constantly retained by St. Bernard Abbot of Clairvaux who lived about the beginning of the twelfth Century Serm. de Coena Dom. Joh. 6.56 63. In his discourse on the Lords Supper he joyns together the outward form of the Sacrament and the spiritual efficacy of it as the shell and the kernel the sacred Sign and the thing signified the one he takes out of the words of the Institution and the other out of Christs Sermon in the sixth of St. John And in the same place explaining that Sacraments are not things absolute in themselves without any relation but Mysteries wherein by the gift of a visible sign an invisible and divine grace with the Body and Bloud of Christ is given he saith That the visible Sign is as a Ring which is given not for it self or absolutely but to invest and give possession of an Estate made over to one Many things saith he are done for their own sake and many in reference to something else and then they are called Signs A Ring is given absolutely as a gift and then it hath no other meaning it is also given to make good an Investiture or Contract and then it is a Sign So that he that receives it may say The Ring is not worth much it is what it signifies the Inheritance I value In this manner when the Passion of our Lord drew nigh he took care that his Disciples might be invested with his grace that his invisible grace might be assured and given to them by a visible sign To this end all Sacraments are instituted and to this the participation of the Eucharist is appointed Now as no man can fancy that the Ring is substantially changed into the Inheritance whether Lands or Houses none also can say with truth or without absurdity that the Bread and Wine are substantially changed into the Body and Bloud of Christ But in his Sermon on the Purification which none doubts to be his Serm. de Purif B. Mariae he speaks yet more plain The Body of Christ in the Sacrament is the food of the soul not of the belly therefore we eat him not corporally but in the manner that Christ is meat in the same manner we understand that he is eaten Also in his Sermon on St. Martin Serm. de S. Mart. which undoubtedly is his also To this day saith he the same flesh is given to us but spiritually therefore not corporally For the truth of things spiritually present is certain also As to what he saith in another place that the Priest holds God in his hands it is a flourish of Oratory as is that of St. Chrysostom Lib. 3. de Sacerd. In comes the Priest carrying the Holy Ghost 14. About the same time Rupertus Rupert Abb. An. 1125. Abbot of Tuitium famous by his Writings did also teach that the Substance of the Bread in the Eucharist is not converted but remains These be his words a In Exod. l. 2 c. 10. You must attribute all to the operation of the Holy Ghost who never spoils or destroys any substance he useth but to that natural Goodness it had before adds an invisible excellency which it had not He hath b Ex quâ Consequabatur Panem esse Corpus Christi sed Corpus non humanum neque carneum sed Panaceum indeed an unwarrantable opinion of the Union of the Bread and Body of Christ into one Person but it came as some others as absurd in that Age from too great a curiosity about determining the manner of Christs Presence and of the Union of his Body with the Bread about which that learned man troubled himself too much However he neither taught nor mentioned Transubstantiation 15. Not