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
all their Senses tell them is but a bit of Bread to the hinderance of whose Conversion so many things may interpose that were their Doctrine otherwise as infallible as we are certain it is false it would yet be a hundred to one that there is no Consecration in a word how they can worship that which they can never be secure is changed into Christ's Body nay when as the examples I have before given shew they have all the reason in the World to fear whether even the Priest himself who says the Mass does indeed believe that he has any Power or by consequence can have any intention to turn it into the Flesh of Christ And the same consideration will shew Thirdly How little security their other Plea of Concomitance which they so much insist upon to shew the sufficiency of their Communicating only in one kind viz. that they receive the Blood in the Body can give to the Laity to satisfie their Consciences that they ever partake of that Blessed Sacrament as they ought to do Since whatever is pretended of Christ's Body 't is certain there can be none of his Blood in a meer Wafer And if by reason of the Priest's infidelity the Host should be indeed nothing else of which we have shewn they can never be sure neither can they ever know whether what they receive be upon their own Principles an intire Communion And then Lastly for the main thing of all The Sacrifice of the Mass it is clear that if Christ's Body be not truly and properly there it cannot be truly and properly offer'd nor any of those great benefits be derived to them from a morsel of Bread which themselves declare can proceed only from the Flesh and Blood of their Blessed Lord. It is I know an easie matter for those who can believe Transubstantiation to believe also that there is no hazard in all these great and apparent dangers But yet in matters of such moment Men ought to desire to be well assured and not exposed even to any possible defects De defectibus cirea Missam De defectu panis Si panis non sit triticeus vel si triticeus sit admixtus granis alterius generis in tantâ quantitate ut non maneat panis triticeus vel sit alioqui corruptus non conficitur Sacramentum Si sit confectus de aqud rosaceâ vel alterius distillationis dubium est an conficiatur Et de defect vini Si Vinum sit factum penitus acetum vel penitus putridum vel de uvis acerbis seu non maturis expressiom vel admixtum tantum aque ut vinum sit corruptum non consicitur Sacramentum I do not now insist upon the common remarks which yet are Authorized by their own Missal and may give just grounds to their fears That if the Wafer be not made of Wheat but of some other Corn there is then no Consecration If it be mixed not with common but distill'd Water it is doubtful whether it be Consecrated If the Wine be sowre to such a certain degree that then it becomes incapable of being changed into the Blood of Christ with many more of the like kind and which render it always uncertain to them whether there be any change made in the blessed Elements or no * Du Moulin in the place above cited mentions one that in his time was burnt at Loudun for Consecrating a Host in the name of the Devil Thes Sedann Th. 97. n. 10. p. 846. Vol. 1. the Relations I have given are not of counterfeit Jews and Moors who to escape the danger of the Inquisition have sometimes become Priests and administred all the Sacraments for many years together without ever having an intention to Administer truly any one of them and of which I could give an eminent instance in a certain Jew now living who for many Years was not only a Priest but a Professor of Divinity in Spain and all the while in reality a meer Jew as he is now The Persons here mention'd were Men of undoubted reputation of great learning and singular esteem in their Church and if these found the impossibilities of Transubstantiation so much greater than either the pretended Authority or Infallibility of their Church certainly they may have just cause to fear whether many others of their Priests do not Live in the same infidelity in which these have Died and so expose them to all the hazards now mentioned and which are undeniably the consequences of such their Unbelief But these are not the only dangers I would desire those of that Communion to reflect on upon this occasion Another there is and of greater consequence than any I have hitherto mentioned and which may perhaps extend not only to this Holy Eucharist but it may be to the invalidating of most of their other Sacraments * Eugenii IV. decret in Act. Concil Florent Ann. 1439. Concil Labb Tom. 13. p. 535. Concil Trident. Sess VII Can. 2. It is the Doctrine of the Roman Church that to the Validity of every Sacrament and therefore of that of Orders as well as the rest three things must concur a due matter a right form and the Person of the Minister conferring the Sacrament with an intention of doing what the Church does Where either of these is wanting the Sacrament is not performed If therefore the Bishop in conferring the Holy Order of Priesthood has not an intention of doing what the Church does 't is plain that the Person to be ordained receives no Priestly Character of him nor by consequence has any power of consecrating the Holy Eucharist or of being hereafter advanced to a higher degree Now the form of conferring the Order of Priesthood they determine to be this †Ibid. pag. 5â—3 Catech. Concil Trid. de Sacr. Ord. n. xxii p. 222. Item n. L. p. 228. The Bishop delivers the Cup with some Wine and the Paten with Bread into the Hands of the person whom he Ordains saying Receive the Power of offering a Sacrifice in the Church for the living and the dead in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost By which Ceremony and words their Catechism tells us He is constituted an Interpreter and Mediator between God and Man which is to be esteemed the chiefest Function of a Priest So that then the intention necessary to the conferring the Order of Priesthood is this to give a Power to consecrate i. e. to Transubstantiate the Host into Christ's Body and so offer it as a Sacrifice for the Living and the Dead If therefore any of their Bishops for instance Cardinal du Perron or Monsieur de Marca did not believe that either the Church or themselves as Bishops of it had any Authority to confer any such Power they could not certainly have any Intention of doing in this case what the Church intends to do Having no such Intention the Persons whom they pretended to Ordain were no Priests
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
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
allow a Real Presence in the Sacrament but after different Manners it was therefore necessary to add somewhat more to shew what kind of Real Presence he undertook to maintain and he knew no word more proper to express it by than Spiritual which does not therefore imply a Distinction from but Limitation of the other Term Real And thus he explains it N. 6. and 7. of that Section Pag. 183. where he shews that the Spiritual is also a Real Presence and indeed more properly so than any other In short thus he concludes the State of the Question Pag 186. in the same Section between us and the Church of Rome so that now says he The Question is not Whether the Symbols be changed into Christ's Body and Blood or no For it is granted on all sides But whether this Conversion be Sacramental and Figurative Or whether it be Natural and Bodily Nor is it whether Christ be taken Really but whether he be taken in a Spiritual or in a Natural Manner We say the Conversion is Figurative Mysterious and Sacramental they say it is Proper Natural and Corporal We affirm that Christ is really taken by Faith by the Spirit to all real Effects of his Passion this is an Explication a little different from our Authors They say he is taken by the Mouth and that the Spiritual and the Virtual taking him in Virtue or Effect is not sufficient tho' done also in the Sacrament Hic Rhodus hic Saltus If this does not yet satisfie him that he has injur'd this Learned Man in the Representation of his Opinion directly contrary to his Sense I will offer him yet one Passage more taken from another part of his Works and which I hope will throughly convince him It is in the 5th Letter to a Gentleman that was tempted to the Communion of the Church of Rome He had proposed to the Bishop this Question Whether without all danger of Superstition or Idolatry we may not render Divine Worship to our Blessed Saviour as present in the Blessed Sacrament or Host according to his Humane Nature in that Host The Question is certainly every way pertinent to our present Purpose let us see what the Answer is that he makes to it See Pâ—lâ—mi◠〈…〉 â—ag 6â— 70 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 Idolatry Well Treat 1st Pag. 10. but still it may be the Bishop does not intend to exclude the Corpus Domini but only the Corporal or Natural Manner of that Body Let us therefore hear how he goes on For Idolum nihil est in mundo Saith St. Paul and Christ as Present by his Humane Nature in the Sacrament is a Nonâ—ens For it is not true there is no suchthing What not as Christ there no way as to his Humane nature No he is saith the Bishop present there by his Divine power and his Divine Blessing and the Fruits of his Body the real effective Consequents of his Passion but for any other Presence it is Idolum it is nothing in the World. Adore Christ in Heaven for the Heaven must contain him till the time of restitution of all things This then is Bishop Taylor 's Notion of the Real Presence and now I am confident our Author himself will remit him to the Company of those Old Zuinglian Bishops Cranmer Ridley and the rest who lived before that Q. Elizabeth had propugned the Real Presence of his new Model into the Heads of the Governours of the Church of England And now I am afraid his Cause will be desperate unless Mr. Thorndyke can support it Mr. THORNDYKE And how unlikely he is to do it he might have learnt from what has been answered to T. G. on the same Occasion ⸪ T. G. Vialogue 1st Pag. 21. T. G. Had in his first Dialogue quoted the same place which our Author has done since to prove his belief of the Real Presence His * Answer to T. G's Dial. Pag. 92. Adversary confesses this but produces another that explains his meaning †THORNDYKE Laws of the Church Ch. 4. Pag. 30. if it can any way be shew'd says he that the Church did ever pray that the Flesh and Blood might be substituted instead of the Elements under the Accidents of them then I am content that this be accounted henceforth the Sacramental presence of them in the Eucharist But if the Church only prays that the Spirit of God coming down upon the Elements may make them the Body and Blood of Christ so that they which receive them may be filled with the Grace of his Spirit then is it not the Sence of the Catholick Church that can oblige any man to believe the abolishing of the Elements in their bodily substance because supposing that they remain they may nevertheless come to be the instruments of Gods Spirit to convey the operation thereof to them that are dispos'd to receive it no otherwise than his Flesh and Blood convey'd the Efficacy thereof upon Earth And that I suppose is reason enough to call it the Body and Blood of Christ Sacramentally that is to say as in the Sacrament of the Eucharist Thus Mr. Thorndyke expresses himself as to the Real Presence But yet after all I will not deny but that this Learned Person seems to have had a particular Notion in this matter and which is far enough from what our Author would six upon him He thought that the Elements by Consecration were united to the Godhead of Christ much after the same manner as his Natural Body was by Incarnation and that so the very Elements became after a sort his Body See his Just Weights and Measures 4 to Lond. 1662. Pag. 94. The Church from the beginning did not pretend to consecrate by these bare words This is my Body this is my Blood as operatory inchanging the Elements into the Body and Blood of Christ but by that Word of God whereby he hath declared the Institution of this Sacrament and commanded the use of it and by the Execution of this Command Now it is executed and hath always been executed by the Act of the Church upon God's Word of Institution praying that the Holy Ghost coming down upon the present Elements may make them the Body and Blood of Christ Not by changing them into the Nature of Flesh and Blood as the Bread and Wine that nourished our Lord Christ on Earth became the Flesh and Blood of the Son of God by becoming the Flesh and Blood of his Manhood Hypostatically united to his Godhead saith Gregory Nyssene But immediately and ipso facto by being united to the Spirit of Christ i. e. his Godhead For the Flesh and Blood of Christ by Incarnation the Elements by Consecration being united
undertaken to Anathematize all those who will not own her Authority and receive her Errors tho never so gross as Articles of Faith We are so fully convinced of the unreasonableness of her Pretences and of our own Liberty that we shall hardly be brought to submit our selves to the Conduct of such a blind Guide lest we sall into the same Ditch into which she her self is tumbled And it would certainly much better become our Author and his Brethren to consider how they can justify their Disobedience to their own Mother than to endeavour at this rate to lead us into the same Apostacy both to our Religion and our Church with them The Conclusion AND thus by the Blessing of God and the Advantage of a good Cause have I very briefly passed through this Author's Reflections and I am perswaded sufficiently shewn the weakness and falsity of the most of them If any one shall think that I ought to have insisted more largely upon some Points he may please to know that since by the importunate Provocations of those of the other Communion we have been forced too often to interrupt those Duties of our Ministry in which we could rather have wish'd to have employ'd our Time for these kind of Controversies which serve so very little to any purposes either of true Piety or true Charity among us We have resolved thus far at least to gratify both our selves and others as to make our Disputes as short as is possible and loose no more time in them than the necessary Defence of our selves and the Truth do require I have indeed pass'd by much of our Author's Discourses because they are almost intirely made up of tedious and endless Repetitions of the same things and very often in the same words But for any thing that is Argumentative or otherwise material to the main Cause I do not know that I have either let the Observation of it slip or dissembled at all the Force of it It was once in my thoughts to have made some Reflections in the Close upon the Changes of their Rituals in requital for our Author's Observations on the Alterations of our Liturgie but I have insisted longer than I designed already and shall therefore content my my self to have given the Hint of what might have been done and shall still be done if our Author or any in his behalf desire it of me In the mean time I cannot but observe the unreasonableness of that Method which is here taken from the Expressions of some of our Divines and the Concessions of others whose profess'd Business it was to reconcile if possible all Parties and therefore were forced sometimes to condescend more than was fit for the doing it and even these too miserably mangled and misrepresented to pretend to prove the Doctrine of our Church contrary to the express Declarations of the Publick Acts and Records of it This has been the endeavour of several of our late Writers but of this Discourser above any Had those worthy Persons whose Memory they thus abuse been yet living they might have had an ample Confutation from their own Pens as in the very Instance before us has been given them for the like ill use made by some among them of the pious Meditations of a most Excellent and Learned Father of our Church and who might otherwise in the next Age have been improved into a new Witness against us I do not think that Bp Taylour ever thought he should have been set up as a favourer of Popery who had written so expresly and warmly against it Yet I cannot but observe a kind of Prophetick Expression in his Book of the Real Presence which being so often quoted by these Men I somewhat wonder it should have slipp'd their Remark Where speaking of their Shifts to make any One they please of their side Real Presence §. xii n. 28. pag. 261. he has these words And I know no reason says he but it may be possible but a WITTY MAN may pretend when I am dead that in this Discourse I have pleaded for the Doctrine of the Roman Church We have now lived to see some of those WITTY MEN that have done but little less than this tho how Honest they are in the mean time I will not determine But I hope this Design too shall be from henceforth in good measure frustrated And therefore since neither their New Religion nor their New Advocates will do their Business since it is in vain that they either misrepresent their own Doctrine or our Authors in favour of it may they once please either honestly to avow and defend their Faith or honestly to confess that they cannot do it Such shuffling as this do's but more convince us of the weakness of their Cause and instead of defending their Religion by these Practices they only encrease in us our ill Opinion of that and lessen that good One which we willingly would but shall not always be able to conserve of those who by such indirect means as these endeavour to support it FINIS Books lately printed for Richard Chiswell A Dissertation concerning the Government of the Ancient Church more particularly of the Encroachments of the Bishops of Rome upon other Sees By WILLIAM CAVE D. D. Octavo An Answer to Mr. Serjeant's Sure Footing in Christianity concerning the Rule of Faith With some other Discourses By WILLIAM FALKNER D.D. 4o A Vindication of the Ordinations of the Church of England in Answer to a Paper written by one of the Church of Rome to prove the Nullity of our Orders By GILBERT BVRNET D. D. Octavo An Abridgment of the History of the Reformation of the Church of England By GILB BVRNET D. D. Octavo The APOLOGY of the Church of England and an Epistle to one Signior Scipio a Venetian Gentleman concerning the Council of Trent Written both in Latin by the Right Reverend Father in God JOHN JEWEL Lord Bishop of Salisbury Made English by a Person of Quality To which is added The Life of the said Bishop Collected and written by the same Hand Octavo The Life of WILLIAM BEDEL D. D. Bishop of â—ilmore in Ireland Together with Certain Letters which passed betwixt him and James Waddesworth a late Pensioner of the Holy Inquisition of Sevil in Matter of Religion concerning the General Motives to the Roman Obedience Octavo The Decree made at ROME the Second of March 1679. condemning some Opinions of the Jesuits and other Casuists Quarto A Discourse concerning the Necessity of Reformation with respect to the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome Quarto First and Second Parts A Discourse concerning the Celebration of Divine Service in an Unknown Tongue Quarto A Papist not Misrepresented by Protestants Being a Reply to the Reflections upon the Answer to A Papist Misrepresented and Represented Quarto An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England in the several Articles proposed by the late BISHOP of CONDOM in his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church Quarto A Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the Exceptions of Monsieur de Meaux late Bishop of Condom and his Vindicator 4o A CATECHISM explaining the Doctrine and Practices of the Church of Rome With an Answer thereunto By a Protestant of the Church of England 8o A Papist Represented and not Misrepresented being an Answer to the First Second Fifth and Sixth Sheets of the Second Part of the Papist Misrepresented and Represented and for a further Vindication of the CATECHISM truly representing the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome Quarto The Lay-Christian's Obligation to read the Holy Scriptures Quarto The Plain Man's Reply to the Catholick Missionaries 24o An Answer to THREE PAPERS lately printed concerning the Authority of the Catholick Church in Matters of Faith and the Reformation of the Church of England Quarto A Vindication of the Answer to THREE PAPERS concerning the Unity and Authority of the Catholick Church and the Reformation of the Church of England Quarto