Sunday before it and therefore must have been a Minister of the Church of England on the one Sunday and a Member of the Church of Rome on the next during the time betwixt which two Sundays I am certain you are far from being able to have considered and examined the Merits of the two Churches you are not so quick a Man pag. 2. for all your pretended discovering at first sight that all other Communions were evidently confusion But allowing that during this search you onely Ex hypothesi put your self in such a state without leaving actually our Communion till your Method and Reasons were over and satisfactory it was a very odd Method for a Man that had been so long a Minister and was so old a Man and would much handsomer have become you were you coming over from Paganism or Mahometism than from one Church that evidently hath the Catholick Faith to another Whichsoever of the two Senses was that which you designed I am certain that the first was fit onely for a Madman and the other almost as much unbecoming an old Clergy Man who after Threescore as I believe you are falls to abstracting and doubting and supposing as if he had been in a Dream all the rest and best part of his Days since he was in Orders and at last when others being to dote he begins to doubt to search and to make saving discoveries CHAP. IV. The Confusion of his search and the Absurdity of it shewn NOtwithstanding the Inconsistences in this your tale which are so many as would almost ruine any ones having the least value for your Book or for the Reasons and Arguments in it I must follow and see how dexterously you managed or how well you used this your wonderous Method pag. 2 3. Vpon a reserved Principle say you that Christ hath a Church upon earth in my inquiry amongst my Brethren of the Church of England who were as much your Brethren in this state and no more than they are Hobbes's or Spinoza's I gave most attention to those teachers or writers that had most reverence for Church Authority c. I appeal to any Man of sense whether this passage does not favour much more of a Man already a Papist than of a mere Seeker but to pass that Pray Sir what did you want or what was you inquiring for was it for the Catholick Church or for a particular Communion wherein you might be safe if for the Catholick Church you needed not to be curious whom you inquired of among our Teachers and Writers since the meanest of them could readily have told you that the Catholick Church is made up of all the Particular Churches planted in the four quarters of the World holding from Christ the onely Head of her the true Faith and Catholick Vnity so that if you intended to find where she was fixed that so you might in necessity tell her your grievances she is confined to no place pag. 5. being a Diffusive Body throughout the World. If you wanted a Particular Communion a true Member of the Catholick Church wherewith to communicate and upon which to trust your Salvation the Church of England Particular as to place Catholick as to Faith and Doctrine is such so that your inquiry might here have ended since if you were a true Member of Hers you were at the same time as true a Member of the Catholick Church Here I must take occasion to tell you that you seem by your Abstracting your self from your self to have wilder'd your self and thence to have confounded the Notions of the Catholick and Particular Churches while from our Saviour's promise that the Gates of Hell should never prevail against the Catholick Church you argue the Church must be one which no Body denies that it must have one Faith which no Body denies neither and that it must by virtue of Christ's promise perpetually abide in this one Faith nor is this denied any more than the other two by any of our Church and what have you got hence onely that Christ hath and will always have a true Church upon Earth which I know no Body ever denied But here is the grand pinch and what one may easily see you aim at and that is to have this Catholick Church and the Church of Rome to be all one and the same which we shall see how you prove by and by In the mean time I must return to you where I left you quarrelling with our Church-men and see whether I can make an end of the Quarrel You say that you found that those of our Church that had most Reverence for Church Authority meant onely their own c. You had done the World a great kindness if you had told who they were you inquired of and what were the Queries you put to them I hope if you asked after the Catholick Church they did not tell you that the National Church of England was the whole Catholick Church If you asked after a Particular Church surely you cannot blame them for asserting the Authority of their own Church When you put the same Queries to the Romish Teachers or Writers did they reject their own Church's Authority did not they mean their own when they would persuade you to their Communion as much as our Men did that of our Church when you inquired among them where then is the fault what would you have had 'em to doe to please you would you have had them to say that the Church of England is the Catholick Church which no one that hath any sense can say of Her any more than of the Church of Rome would you have had 'em to say that they had a Church indeed but that either she had no Authority or that no Body need to submit to it which none but a mere Ignoramus could say This Sir is perfect Trifling this is to write a Book and yet not to know what one wants or what he would have I wish to God you had reserved when you were abstracting your self a little Logick that a Man might have known what you meant here and where one might have you that so when a Reader thinks by your Words and by Connexion that you are talking of the Catholick Church you may not come off with a Pish the Man understands me not I was speaking of Particular Churches I wish you had licked this your confused piece into a little better Method and had bestowed on it a little thing called Intelligibility but perhaps you thought such a stile fittest for a Man that was going to write about Transubstantiation You are as little pleased with them when you say they held the Scriptures in high esteem you might without a falsity have added in far greater than the Church of Rome does of which you now are though under that Notion they understood no more pag. 3. than what themselves were pleased to allow to be Canonical admitting also some Traditions but taking and refusing as
particular Governour and here you prove that People must be dutifull to their Bishops pag. 8. Ay but say you St. Ignatius tells us there is but one Altar and one Bishop as also that there ought to be but one Church and one Faith which is in Christ c. and that surely is to the purpose This I utterly deny I grant indeed St. Ignatius in his Epistle to the Philadelphians not as you have mistaken it to the Philippians to which Church he wrote no Epistle tho' some have coined one for him doth speak of one Altar and one Bishop and you had done fairly to have cited the passage at large as you did the other two nothing to the purpose but this is a certain sign that runs almost through your Book that where you onely hint or quote half or put an c. in the middle of a Sentence there all things will not be found fair The passage then is this (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Ignat. Ep. ad Philadelph Edit J. Vossii Be carefull therefore saith he speaking to the Philadelphians to make use of this one Eucharist for there is but one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one Cup to Communicate to us or unite us to his Blood one Altar as but one Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons my fellow-servants that whatever ye do ye may act according to Gods appointment Now this passage is so far from proving what you would have it that there is but one Supreme Bishop who you say is he of Rome that it asserts the direct contrary for if it proves as you say it does that there is but one Altar and one Bishop I am as certain that it proves that one Bishop to be the Bishop of Philadelphia and that one Altar to be this Bishops since he exhorts these Philadelphians to make use and keep to that Eucharist that was to be received from that one Altar that did belong to that one Bishop and that one Bishop I am sure was the then Bishop of Philadelphia I will not urge upon you any place of Ignatius but will onely say and will be at any time ready to prove that he that cites Ignatius for a defender of a Monarchical Church under one Head on Earth either hath not read Ignatius or does not understand him What you urge from St. Cyprian is to no purpose since every one owns that every Member ought to keep the Vnity of that Church to which he doth belong and that no Man that is disobedient to the Church his Mother will ever have God for his Father Nor your long quotation from St. Irenaeus where your faculty of translating appears to be none of the best pag. 8. This Preaching and this Faith when the Church had heard spread through the whole World she diligently keeps as it were dwelling in one House to wit having one Soul and one Heart c. which give me leave to alter a little to St. Irenaeus his good sense and then you shall have my Answer about it The Catholick Church having received this Preaching and this Faith although she be dispersed over the whole World yet keeps and preserves them as diligently as if she were confined to or did Inhabit a single House and she doth believe them without any difference or disagreement as tho' she had but one Soul and but one Heart and accordingly doth both preach teach and deliver these things these Articles of Faith as if she had but one Mouth c. Of all the passages in Antiquity I wonder what ill Fate put this piece of St. Irenaeus in your way had you considered it well I am sure we should not have met with it in your Book since it does perfectly ruine the whole design of this part of your Book for whereas the benefit you intended from it was to help you to prove that the Church of Christ is Monarchical under a single head there is nothing less here and every thing contrary for as it speaks of the Catholick Church as one through this Vnity of Faith so it proves what we of the Church of England so much contend for that the Particular Churches of Germany Spain France Aegypt and the East of Lybia Jerusalem Rome and the rest do make up this Catholick Church without the least hint of a Head over them all or of any other Vnity than that of Faith the Light that doth like the Sun equally enlighten every where You will say perhaps that the Church of Rome is not expressly mentioned here and that probably it is because all these Particular Churches mentioned are the several parts of her Body which really is the same as the Catholick Church But to spoil this groundless Pretence neque haequae in Medio Mundi sunt constitutae not to insist on it that by the Churches constituted in the middle of the World in this passage She as well as Jerusalem and the Churches betwixt them is certainly intimated I desire you but to peruse the Third Chapter of his Third Book against Heresies Having in the beginning of this Chapter urged against the Hereticks that none of the Apostles delivered to the Bishops their Successours any such things as they impiously taught and that he could shew this from the Successions in all the Churches he thus addresses them b Sed quoniam valde longum est in hoc tali volumine Omnium Ecclesiarum enumerare Successiones Romae fundatae constitutae Ecclesiae Traditionem c. St. Irenaeus l. 3. c. 3. contr Haeres Edit Feuardent 1625. But because it is too tedious in such a Volume as this is to reckon up the Successions of all Churches c. he then reckons up that of the very great and very ancient Church founded at Rome by St. Peter and St. Paul c. If this passage do not prove the Church of Rome to be one of all those Churches and as Particular a Church as any of the rest I will for the future as you did abstract my self and deny my Eyes as well as my Reason What you quote from Clemens of Alexandria and Tertullian two of whose passages are part falsly pag. 9. and part lamely translated are nothing at all to your purpose they only speak of the Catholick Church as one through the Vnity of Faith not a word of the Church of Rome or of her being that one Church under one Head Bishop The same advantage and no more doth that from St. Chrysostom afford you pag. 9. which says The Apostle calls it the Church of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he may shew it may be reduced into one which with your leave I would express thus to shew or having shewed that it ought to be at Vnity c. All which is no more than what the Members of the Church of England have said a Hundred Thousand times that every Church as well as that at Corinth ought to be at Vnity You
Rome was from the beginning reckoned a particular Church I think is as plain as that Rome is in Italy I have proved it so fully above that I almost loath such a ridiculous subject of discourse pag. 17. And your Authorities from Pacian and Cyril of Jerusalem are not one jot to your purpose if you intend them to confirm that the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church all that they say or prove being that Catholick is the Sirname of true Christians and that every one should enquire for and unite with the Catholick Church into whatsoever place he comes Now what is this to the Church of Rome here is no mention of her here not a syllable to determine that she is the Catholick Church to unite with which these two Fathers are carefull to advise These things you tell us gave you some small encouragement to betake your self to that Communion that was both Christian and Catholick c. for which very reason you needed not have left the Communion of the Church of England which is both Christian and Catholick You ought to dislike Papist upon the same ground you dislike Protestant and if Christian was too large for you you needed not to leave the Church of England to be both Catholick and Christian the Church of England denominates her self from no particular Persons good or bad but is a True Church having lawfull Pastors and a Catholick Faith. You next say you cannot imagine why Protestants should so decline the Title of Catholick you mean or suffer it with so much silence to be laid aside unless it be pag. 18. because it imports a Faith spread throughout the World which they very well know would be utterly impossible to prove their Protestant Faith ever was c. Whether this passage is more ridiculous or false I must own that upon the sudden I cannot tell if you mean here as you ought the Church of England as you must to be consistent with your self having a good while ago cast off all the other Reformed Communions nothing can be more false and ridiculous since twice a Day we use it constantly in our Service and surely you will not be so extravagantly unreasonable to say we do not Mean or Pray for our selves when we Pray for the Good Estate of the Catholick Church So that our decling the Title and suffering it with so much silence to he laid aside must be put to the account of the grosser sort of Untruths And we need not wonder that you would offer a false reason for a false thing our Faith and the Faith of all the Reformed Churches having been already proved to be Catholick and therefore your utterly impossible to prove it to be a Faith spread throughout the World must be put up on the same account Nor is there ever a Member of the Church of England of any Learning that I ever met with or heard of that either declined the Title of a Reformed Catholick or was not ready onely to profess but also to prove that by being a Son of the Church of England he was a Member of a Catholick Church As to what you add about the other Adjunct in our ours I say of the Church of England as well as yours at Rome Creed Apostolical that you saw less reason for their claim to that and to give them their due they were more modest than much to insist upon it c. This Sentence is Brass every bit of it for if you mean the Church of England here I am astonished to think you should have so little Conscience or so little Modesty to publish such a gross untruth in the face of a Church that is so far from not insisting on the Title of Apostolical that it denounces every person excommunicate that shall dare to say the Church g Whosoever shall hereafter affirm that the Church of England by Law established under the Kings Majesty is not a TRUE and an APOSTOLICAL CHURCH teaching and maintaining the DOCTRINE of the APOSTLES let him be Excommunicated â—pso facto and not restored but onely by the Arch-Bishop after his Repentance and publick Revocation of this his WICKED ERROUR Can. 3. of the Synod in 1603. of England is not an Apostolical Church and calls such an affirmation an impious Errour But if you are resolved to carry things at this rate by brazening us down 't is to no purpose to contend with you I must needs tell you that you might as well have published to the World that the Church of England hath no Creed in her publick Service nor believes a Trinity nor hath any Bishops to preside ovâ—â— her as this of her neither having nor pretending to Apostolical Faith and Succession If you include also the rest of the Reformed Churches you might easily know that there is no thing they so much insist upon as the proving their Faith and Practices to be purely Apostolical and therefore their Churches to be such so that neither are they so modest as not to insist on their being Apostolical as to the want of Succession among them that you object against 'em and they do not deny you your self have furnished them with an answer to your Party from St. Ambrose's words Non habent Petri haereditatem qui Petri Fidem non habent de Poenit. l. 1. c. 6. that they enjoy not the inheritance or Succession of Peter who have not the Faith of Peter But here you have a mind to make the Church of England to be of your opinion that is that the foreign Reformed Churches have no true Ministers because those that come out of France with the Title of Ministers are not allowed to exercise their Ministry before they receive the Orders of the Church of England pag. 19. c. It is true they are not allowed to have a Cure of Souls here without the taking of Episcopal Orders because it is expressly provided by Act of Parliament among us that no one shall have such a Cure of Souls without Episcopal Orders which Act you know was fully designed against our home Dissenters who had opportunities of Episcopal Orders at home not against them who could not have them at home with whom also we had nothing to do But since no exception was made in the Act for them the Church cannot dispense with an Act of Parliament in their favour However that she allows theirs to be true tho' imperfect Churches is hence plain because her Members in their Travels communicate with those Churches which thing she would never permit had they no Ministry it was the Practice of our Exiles in France during the long Rebellion and Dr. R. Watson hath lately put forth the most Learned and most Religious Bishop Cozin who was one of those noble exiled Confessors his Defence of their communicating there with Geneva rather than Rome So that your Argument fails you also here CHAP. XV. More of his foul Aspersions on the Church of England exposed and
much a Madman as to believe S. N's Infallibility at Definitions and therefore now do wait for your proof of these two things First That this your espoused Definition is true that is that Christ his Catholick Church is Monarchical and governed supremely by one chief Pastor pag. 6. his Generalissimo a very fit Title in a literal sense for some of your Popes or Vicegerent here on Earth and Secondly That this Definition doth belong to the Church of Rome and not to the Church of England Do but prove me the first and I 'll forgive you the trouble of proving the Second and bestow it on you as a just reward for your pains about the first But before we begin I must desire you to remember not to confound Particular Churches with the Catholick Church and not to take that as said of the one which does certainly belong to the other You begin your Proofs with Scripture which a Man may easily see is not at all on your side you give us thence so few and those nothing to the purpose For as to the first out of Acts the Second pag. 7. Verse 1. how that which is onely an Historical Relation should be a Heavenly Representation I cannot imagine No Body will deny that they that meet as the Apostles then were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in one place not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you falsly quote it and as ill translate it at the same work should be as the Apostles then were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one accord or of one mind and which is more that every Particular Church over the World should be as to the Rule of Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one mind but I can never believe that for this reason they are can or ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always meet at the same place which your use of it would insinuate and must require the one as well as the other for your purpose But what this is to a Monarchical Church with a supreme Head I cannot guess nor your other from St. Pauls frequent Injunctions to his several Plantations that they should be all of one mind pag. 7. and speak the same things You had done well to have quoted some passages to have illustrated what you say or at least to have put down some references in the Margin but this alas was not convenient then even those that swallow what you say without examining could not avoid seeing the Fallacy for whereas St. Paul writing to Particular Churches exhorts them to be at Vnity among themselves you would fain turn it as if he should exhort them as to all particulars and circumstances to be at Vnity or to have the same with the other Churches as if writing to Ephesus for example he should exhort them to be of the same mind and to speak the same things with the Church of Corinth with the Church at Thessalonica c. Shew this and I 'll yield the point but remember that if you mean of the same mind and to speak the same things as to matters of Faith this as it need not be proved no Body gainsaying it so it does no ways serve what you cited it for to prove a Monarchical Church It cannot appear otherwise than very strange to all considering Persons that these People should generally with so much confidence affirm that our Saviour left his Church in such a condition with a Supreme Vicegerent over it and yet like you when they should come to make the thing apparent from the History of those first times penned in the Gospels Acts and Epistles are forc'd to drop the proof of it and to impose upon their Readers a scrap or two out of those writings not one jot to the purpose oftentimes You will easily find that I mean this of you and I must needs say that these your two useless proofs I mean Quotations for they are far from Proofs forced me upon this Remark CHAP. VII His Arguments for a Monarchical Church out of Antiquity refuted ONE comfort however you seem to promise us that you will make your Reader amends by your Testimonies out of the Fathers for your being so short and so destitute of 'em from Scripture You begin them in a quaint stile which I believe you took for a pretty fancy pag. 7. I followed say you I must confess a loof off her the Kings Daughter all glorious within Companions that followed her c. This passage is one of the pleasantest that I ever met with and the fullest of Figure I must profess till I saw your Book I always took St. Dennis Ignatius Irenaeus c. for Members of the Church and never in the least dreamed that these persons were her Companions or the Virgins that are her Fellows and I must own that it is the first time I ever heard of a Members being a companion to the Body or that a Man without the breach of common sense may say that his Hand or Foot is a Companion of his Body But you Sir had been contemplating just before the ravishing Beauty of the Kings Daughter all glorious within and the Virgins that be her Fellows and Companions did so run in your head that 't is no wonder you mistook Dennis the Areopagite and the rest you mention after him for the Queens Companions At present however we must let them pass as such whom you followed you tell us and lissened what they said of her and overheard First Dionysius the Areopagite St. Pauls Scholar Secondly Clemens Romanus c. 'T is commonly said it's ominous stumbling at the Threshold and a bad presage to trip at the first attempt and this truly is your very case for it is a great mistake you should overhear either of them two using those passages you mention since neither of them ever said the things St. Dennis having never left any thing writ at all nor St. Clemens any thing besides his two allowing the fragment of the Second to be his Epistles So that your two first quotations are pitifull Forgeries as I shall hereafter prove but granting the passages were true and as old as you would have 'em pag. 7. they are not one jot to your purpose The first of 'em saying onely that the Apostles desired their followers by their Instructions might be partakers of the Divine Nature the latter that Bishops should observe the Orders left by the Apostles pag. 8. both which are nothing to the purpose of a Monarchical Church but prove the contrary if it were worth the while to shew it Ignatius Saint and Martyr is the next you produce pag. 8. from him you tell us that People in all things should submit to their Bishop that no Man can be partaker of the Eucharist that abstains from the Bishops Altar A Man would guess by these passages that you had already forgot what you were about to prove You were to prove that Christ lest his Church under one
it is a pitifull forged nonsensical piece of stuff that you would here impose on us for the Venerable St. Athanasius To wave Dr. Cave and our own Writers who make and prove it to be a forgery your own great m De Scriptoribus Eccles in Athanasio Bellarmine and Baronius had the same opinion of it the latter of whom as you may see in Bellarmine de Script Eccl. in Gratiano hath quite ruined it And here I cannot but admire that you should offer to put off such pitifull obsolete stuff in a Nation that hath so vast a number of learned men and thereby to make your self ridiculous and contemptible when such learned men as Baronius and Bellarmine who had as much zeal as any for the Chair at Rome and more learning than 40000 had already baffled the forgery and caused it to be hist off the stage But such stuff it seems will down with you and so doth that which is as bad you may easily guess what it is I mean. CHAP. XII His Arguments from the Fourth Century for St. Peter's Supremacy refuted WHAT you wanted of evidence from the three first Centuries of the Church which are far from affording you any Practice of such a Supremacy or any hints of there being any such thing settled at Rome but all speak the direct contrary to it as I could very easily shew you think to make up from little scraps of Fathers of the fourth and fifth Centuries whose Rhetorical and honorary Expressions ought not to be taken in a strict literal sense because otherwise it were easie to make them contradict themselves nay altogether unavoidable to prevent it The Instance shall be in St. Hilary whom you first quote pag. 12. He tells us say you Christ gave St. Peter the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and that he built his Church upon him and yet in another part of his Works n Super hanc igitur Confessionis Petram Ecclesiae aedificatio est Haec Fides Ecclesiae fundamentum est Hilarius de Trinit l. 6. this Father makes the Confession it self as most of the Fathers doe the Rock on which our Saviour built his Church If you will then take the words you quote in a strict sense and I take those that I quote in as strict and literal St. Hilary I perceive is like to suffer betwixt us and be made directly to contradict himself As to the keys that I 'll answer anon As we served St. Hilary so we must Epiphanius about the Rock whom you quote making St. Peter pag. 13. the first of the Apostles the firm Rock upon which God's Church was built Him e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan adv Haeres L. 2. Tom. 1. p. 500. Edit Petav. I quote also making St. Peter's Confession not his person the foundation of the Catholick Church I must confess that it is purely necessity that forces me or any of our Church to shew these incoherences in the Fathers if taken in a rigid literal sense whereas allowing them a latitude befitting Homities not Controversies Rhetorical Amplifications not close inartificial Discourses they are consistent enough And so for St. Ambrose saying Christ left St. Peter as it were the Vicegerent or Deputy of his Love to us pag. 13. in another place He makes this very o Statim loci non immemor sui primatum egit primatum Confessionis utique non honoris primatum Fidei non Ordinis S. Ambros de Incarnat c. 4. Primacy a Primacy of Confession not of Honour of Faith not of Order which expressions of his together with the perfect silence of Scripture and Prime Antiquity as to the thing make me I must confess neither Proselyte to subscribe to pag. 13. nor an Admirer of what you quote from St. Hierome that although God's Church was not so altogether founded upon St. Peter but that the other Apostles also had a share with him in the Office with your leave from your own Margin I translate that all the Apostles were equal in the foundation did equally receive the power of the keys which expressions by the bye as they contradict your own Testimonies from St. Hilary and Epiphanius so they ruine your pretensions for the Papal Supremacy of Jurisdiction yet one is chosen amongst the Twelve that a Head being placed over all occasion of Schism might be taken away I will but urge one place of Scripture why I think I ought not to subscribe to it and that is Acts 8.14 Now when the Apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received by the Ministery of Philip the word of God they sent unto them Peter and John which had Peter been their Head their Prince their General as others call him would have looked just as well and not a jot less as if the College of Cardinals upon any important business into France should delegate and send the Pope and the Dean of their College thither But to pass these Objections and to admit St. Hierome's assertion pag. 13. it nor that from Optatus concerning the Prima Cathedra prove any thing more than a Primacy of Order which our Church I believe will not deny to the Bishop of Rome but that 's not the thing will or ever hath for these eight or nine hundred years contented them they are for a Supremacy of Jurisdiction as well as a Primacy of Order their chief ground for which pretension is as I take it the investing St. Peter their Predecessour with the power of the keys the thing I shall according to my promise undertake here the consideration of The dispute betwixt us about it is not whether the keys were given to St. Peter which no body of our Church did ever deny but whether he received them in his own person for his particular use and trust exclusively to all the rest of the Apostles That he did not receive them in his own person is plain from and the Judgment of Antiquity to you I need onely urge your own Testimony from St. p Cuncti claves regni coelorum accipiant ex aequo super eos Ecclesiae fortitudo solidetur L. 1. adv Jovin c. 14. Hierome who makes the Apostles equally to receive the power of the keys and to be equal in the foundation of the Catholick Church for others sake I might urge St. Cyprian q Vnus pro omnibus loquens Ecclesiae voce respondens S. Cyprian Ep. 59. Edit Oxon. who makes St. Peter the mouth of them all and to make that Confession upon which the keys were bestowed in the name of the Church St. Augustine r August Ep. 165. Edit Frob. who is of the same opinion and others but I had rather recur to Scripture it self where I think it is evident enough that he did in the name and for the use of them all receive those keys This I prove from St. Matthew who brings in our Saviour within two Chapters from that ſ
Matth. 16.13 14 c. wherein the discourse of our Saviour with his Disciples and his gift of the keys to Peter is recorded speaking to his Disciples as invested already with this power of binding and loosing t S. Matt. 18.17 18. And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen man and a Publicane verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound c. and whatsoever ye shall loose shall be loosed in heaven which place with me puts it past all doubt that the rest of the Apostles were equally concerned in that speech of our Saviour's to St. Peter and thereby had equal power But if they will not allow this place to suppose a power already given they will not dare to deny that it doth confer so that if he had the power given to him particularly in the Sixteenth Chapter of this Gospel they all have it now in the Eighteenth and thereby the same Jurisdiction and Authority in the Church which quite destroys all you have been hitherto about which was indeed to prove St. Peter had the same Supremacy invested on him by our Saviour which the Bishops of Rome do since from him exercise and enjoy But how little you have performed I dare appeal to any indifferent person to your own self if you will but compare your papers and mine together so that I might save my self the trouble to try what you say about that Primacy not dying with Peter but I will not lest you should say I left that part unanswered CHAP. XIII Arguments for the Primacy not dying with Peter answered the Proofs out of St. Chrysostome for St. Peter's Supremacy fully confuted YOUR Arguments for the Primacy not dying with Peter are few and which is worse nothing to your purpose pag. 13. since they are far from proving what you desire but you ought to have remembred that it is not onely your Task to prove that there was such a Primacy and that it was not to die with St. Peter but that it was to descend to the successive Bishops of Rome after his decease and not to any of the Apostles nor to the Bishops of Antioch But since I perceive we shall find the first to wit of proving the Primacy not to die with St. Peter too many for you it would be cruel to put you upon proving any of the other for as to that proof out of the Epistle of St. Hierome to Demetrias all it proves is that Innocentius was Anastasius's Successour in the Apostolical Chair at Rome now if you cannot prove hence pag. 14. either that this was the sole and onely Apostolical Chair or that it was always the chief and governing Chair of the Catholick Church every one will see that you alledged a place nothing to the purpose having not a word of St. Peter in it that you cannot shew either of them is what I to prevent your trouble of inquiring among your people about it will make appear in a very few words That the Apostolical Chair at Rome is not the onely Chair in the Church Catholick v Percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas apud quas ipsae adhuc Cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesidentur proxima est tibi Achaia habes Corinthum Philippos Thessalonicenses Ephesum Romam Tertull. de Praescript contr Haeret. c. 36. Edit Junii Franekerae 1597. Tertullian is demonstration Run over saith he the Apostolical Churches in which the very Chairs the Apostles used are to this day presided in by the Bishops in their several places and then he reckons Corinth and Philippi and Rome it self among the rest That it was not originally the chief or governing Chair is as plain from the account we have in Euscbius from x Pest servatoris Ascensum Petrum Jacobum Joannem quamvis Dominus ipsos caeteris praetulisset non idcirco de primo honoris gradu inter se contendisse sed Jacobum cognomine Justum Hierosolymorum Episcopum elegisse Clemens apud Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 2. c. 1. Edit Vales Clemens his Sixth Book of Institutions That after our Lord's Ascension Peter James and John tho' preferred not Peter alone by our Lord above the rest of the Apostles did not thereupon contend among themselves for the first place of Honour but chose James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem Whose Chair I am sure this passage makes Primus Honoris Gradus the chief Cathedra in the world Having thus spoiled this your proof your next will give me the less trouble pag. 14. wherein St. Hierome tells Damasus that in this miserable condition of the Eastern Churches being over-run by Heresies he would stick to St. Peter 's Chair and that Faith commended by St. Paul c. which passage would have cleared it self had you but been so just as to have translated the very next words which bring us St. Hierome's reason for this his resolution of slighting all Hereticks and communicating with the Apostolical Chair at Rome because he had in that Church been first made a Christian Inde nunc meae animae postulans cibum unde olim Christi vestimenta suscepi Hieron Ep. Damaso and therefore thence would receive the spiritual food for his Soul. Had you Mr. Scl. but made St. Hierome's resolution your own you had never fallen from the Catholick Apostolical and Orthodox Communion of the Church of England unto that of In the mean time remember that you have not proved either a Primacy or a Succession in it for the Bishops of Rome In the next place as tho' conscious to your self that you had done nothing hitherto and that your Arguments for the Supremacy and then for the Succession were too weak you fall again to the proving that St. Peter was Supreme O incomparable Method and are now resolved to doe it to purpose But how out of St. Chrysostome's Homilies and Comments There is no one that hath looked tho' but a little into that Father that will not smile at this your attempt However you tell us and no body will deny it that he gives St. Peter extraordinary and noble Titles pag. 15. that he calls him Prime Leader of the Apostles the head of Orthodoxy the great High-Priest of the Church the Pillar of the Church the Head of the Chorus of the Apostles and says that He took the charge of the whole Church throughout the World c. I have onely this question to put to you whether you take St. Chrysostome as to these passages concerning St. Peter the greatest as well as the clearest of which for your purpose I have here set down in a strict literal sense if you own it as you seem to do by placing them here for such a purpose I must then plainly tell you that you doe a very great wrong to this Holy and learned Father than whom no one perchance ever gave
himself a greater liberty as to Rhetorical flights in his Homilies since in other places he bestows Titles as high and as great as these on other Apostles which if I take in the same sense that you do these the Good Father is made inconsistent with himself and to preach down-right falsities and contradictions I 'll instance onely in St. John and St. Paul do but give your self the trouble to reade over his Preface to his Comments on St. John's Gospel and tell me then whether you do not find him among other large Elogies calling St. John the Pillar of all the Churches throughout the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tom. 2. p. 555. ad fin Edit Savil. and telling us that He had the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven But for St. Paul I am confident I can make even you confess that He mounts him above St. Peter himself concerning whom you have furnished a Catalogue of such glorious Titles Look but upon his Comment on that a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Tom. 3. p. 679. saying of St. Paul's 2 Cor. 11.28 about his care of all the Churches a passage by the bye that is more than all your whole Church can patch together for St. Peter how he advances our Apostle there he tells us that St. Paul had the care and charge not of a single House but of Cities and Countreys and Nations yea of the whole world b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 5. contr Jud. Tom. 6. pag. 364. in another place that he was intrusted with the charge and Government of the whole world which is the very same Commission and as full and clear as that great one which is your chief and best that you quote for St. Peter of his having the charge of the Church throughout the world And he does not onely make St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal in dignity to St. Peter but which is much more advances him above him as I undertook to prove c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 D. Chrys Orat. 9. Tom. 6. p. 97. Edit Savil. No one says he speaking of St. Paul is greater than he no nor equal to him neither c. By this time I hope I have made it evident that St. Chrysostome will not doe your business that he is as much nay more against you than for you and that you and I ought both of us to own our several Quotations for Rhetorical Flights since in another d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 D. Chrys Tom. 8. p. 115. Edit Savil. place if you and I be obstinate against any allowances for these passages He spoils all we have both brought when he tells us That the Apostles were appointed by God to be Rulers not Temporal Rulers to receive each his Nation or City but Spiritual Rulers intrusted in Common All together with the Care of the Catholick Church throughout the World. Therefore as all your Authorities from St. Chrysostome for St. Peter's Supremacy are out of doors pag. 15. so that from St. Augustine comes too late having the same fault as I could most easily shew but do not think I need to trouble my self with it pag. 15. or what the Popes Legates said at Chalcedon that being to make a Man his own witness Especially since that great Council had so little value for what they said that they did notwithstanding all the Pope's opposition decree that Constantinople should enjoy equal Privileges with old Rome and which is more did declare e Etenìm antiquae Romae Throno QVOD VRBS ILLA IMPERARET jure Patres Privilegia tribuere EADEM CONSIDERATIONE moti 150 Dei amantissimi Episcopi S. Sancto novae Romae Throno AEQVALIA PRIVILEGIA addixerunt c. Concil Chalced cap. 28. Edit Bever Oxon. that as well old as new Rome had such great Privileges bestowed upon them purely because they were successively the Imperial Cities of the world CHAP. XIV The ridiculous Vse of his Testimonies shewn and his foolish Aspersions upon the Church of England wiped off THese Testimonies say you I content my self withall as sufficient to shew pag. 15. I have not gone rashly on without the advice of ancient Councellors c. It had been one further happiness for your Testimonies could they but have contented others as well as you say they have done you but how can that be expected since they are as I think I have fully shewn far from being satisfactory because altogether insufficient for the design you gather'd them for In a word you have neither proved that Christ left his Church in a Monarchical State nor that St. Peter was made the sole Head and Dictator as you word it of the Catholick Church nor lastly that the Bishops of Rome have and do succeed him in such a charge Had you done these you had done your cause service to attempt and not to do it is but to tell the World that it cannot be done and what thanks you will have for that I can very easily guess All these Testimonies you sum up with St. Bernard pag. 15. but since he lived far too late to be admitted a Witness about these things and you might as well have quoted those two Monsters of Men Gregory the Seventh and Innocent the Third for those purposes I must set him aside No Body ought to wonder that you are pleased with what you have thus scraped together or that you think you have found something since every one likes his own best how little reason you had to flatter your self I think I have abundantly proved but on you go and now strongly imagine that the wise God and his Son could leave which is a little too bold with God did leave might surely serve you none other at his Ascension pag. 16. c. To be short Sir all this pleasant fancy is answered already and all you have so carefully been about hitherto proves but a Dream a Delusion proceeding from your examining things by false Measures and through a false Glass But for all this This must be the Church you called Catholick in your Creed and till now did not so well mind c. Alas Sir that a Man of your parts and years should not before this have minded what Catholick meant and where that Church was when there 's scarce a person of any tolerable sense in England that cannot with a great deal of readiness give a sufficient account of these things but here is the Mystery you have found that the Church of Rome is this very Church mentioned in our common Creed and that when we profess we believe the Holy Catholick Church we mean tho' we do not mind it the Church of Rome It is to no purpose to endeavour to reclaim such Men as you since you seem to have abandoned the common principles by which Mankind govern themselves for else how could you dream of a part being the whole a Member the Body That the Church of
confuted YOU are next resolved to have a little fling at the Church of England about her Orders which you say pag. 19. they of that Church very much endeavour to prove and fain would have confest to be received from undoubted Bishops of the Church of Rome But here your heart failed you and this is all you have to say against our Orders which is nothing at all since we are much abler and as ready to prove the Legitimacy of our Orders as you can those of your Pope himself this is to bark when you dare not come near to fasten but if you have a mind to shew your parts upon this subject do but undertake and answer Arch-Bishop Bramhals Confutation of the Nags-head Ordination c. and I 'll do as I hear you have renounce my Orders But Alas Sir I might as well put you upon carrying Westminster Abby to Putney as upon the Answering that Vnanswerable Book After the civil hint that the Church of England hath no true Orders you are for making her amends out of Reverence to her by proving that she is a very Nonsensical foolish Church which you attempt by two small you have a kindness still for her or else we might have had four perhaps ten great Observations Your first is That this reduces the Catholick Church into a narrow corner of the World Toto divisos orbe Britannos 1 Obs pag. 19. and as small a handfull in that narrow Corner c. But pray Mr. Sclater how are we got hither What is this This that reduces the Catholick Church c. Hath the Church of England denied the foreign Reformed Churches to be true Churches Pray shew us where But suppose she had this will not prove that the Catholick Church is reduced into this narrow Corner of the World except you shew that she hath also denied the Church of Rome and those Churches that submit to her to be true Churches Nor this neither will not confirm your Observation supposing the Church of England had rejected both the foreign Reformed and Vnreformed Churches out of the Catholick Church since you have surely heard of such a Church as the Large Greek Church under the Four Patriarchs of the Russian Church of the vast Aethiopian Church of the Armenian and of the Nestorians to omit others Have you or can you prove that the Church of England hath excluded all these also from being Parts or Members of the Catholick Church If you cannot how doth she confine the Catholick Church here or what contradiction is she guilty of that abhors the thought of such a thing as you would fasten upon her I cannot refrain shewing a just resentment here and therefore must tell you that this your Observation is the most disingenuous and the most foolish that I ever met with in my Life and that I could never have suspected that any Man that had common sense and pretended to Conscience could have been guilty of so foul a thing had I not met with it in this Book And just such stuff as this is the Remark in this Observation upon our Church that she is pleased in order to avoid the Word Catholick to call it an Vniversal Church c. Who would expect that a Man that hath been a Minister in our Church these Thirty Years that hath used our Service perchance a Thousand times should make such a strange Remark hath our Church as you say she hath in order to avoid the Word Catholick struck it out of that Translation of the Apostles Creed which she appoints in her Liturgy Hath she struck it out and put in Vniversal in the Four places it used to occur in in the Creed of St. Athanasius Is it gone out of the Nicene Creed she appoints Pray get some Body to look those Three Creeds for you A Man would believe you had not seen a Common-Prayer-Book these Thirty Years or pass a much severer Sentence upon you Doth not the Church of England command its Daily Vse in the General Collect which we daily put up for the good Estate of the Catholick Church And further she is so far from altering or endeavouring to avoid as you most falsly would observe she doth the Word Catholick See Bishop Sparrows Collection of Canons c. that whereas in the Injunctions of King Edward the Sixth 1547. the Form of bidding the Common-Prayers before Sermon begun thus You shall Pray for the whole Congregation of Christ's Church and c. in those of Queen Elizabeth 1559 and in the 55th of the Canons Ecclesiastical of the Synod under King James the First 1604. the Word Catholick is put in and every Minister is commanded to begin his bidding of Prayer in these very words Ye shall Pray for Christs Holy Catholick Church c. Nay you your self used the term Catholick while you continued and as a Member of our Church on last Palm-Sunday at Putney Church or else you broke our Church Laws So that I cannot now avoid the asking you your self what you now think of this your Remark and whether you had not saved your self a disparagement had you had the good fortune not to have put it down You have a Second Remark much akin to the First in which you profess you can no more tell how she can be the Catholick Church than she is able to find her self in the innumerable huddle of ten times Ten more Dissenters Dissemblers and Indifferents pag. 19. than her number is able to make c. How you come to know the number of those that hold Communion with the Church of England to be so very small is matter of wonder to me but if I should say that your Calculation is most intolerably false I am sure you cannot disprove me since I am certain I have truth and the common Judgment of all unprejudiced Men on my side that Calculating the numbers of the several Parishes thro' England there are one with another Ten I may I believe safely say Twenty times more that hold Communion with the Church of England than dissent from it As for Dissemblers and Indifferents how you come to know Mens Hearts so well is owing more to your new than old Religion which would have taught you more Prudence about such things After you have come off so wretchedly with your first Observation no Body will expect wonders from your second which is 2 Obs pag. 20. That you should have had the better Opinion of this handfull as you ridiculously call the Church of England if their Faith had been conformable to the Faith of those Bishops from whom their Bishops had their Mission c. That our Bishops have their Mission from Rome is what we utterly deny that they were some of 'em in the beginning of the most necessary Reformation ordained by those that held with the Church of Rome in her corrupt Faith and Practices is what we do not deny This however we say cannot prejudice our Reformation since
if there were Errours fit to be thrown out of our Church you your self I am sure your Learned Men will grant that no Ordination can prejudice or hinder such a Rejection of Errours That there were such Errours crept in which ought to be cast out and were at our Reformation is what our Church-Men a Hundred times over have invincibly proved As to the Rule you bring from St. Ambrose that they enjoy not the Inheritance of Peter pag. 20. who receive not the Faith of Peter we are very ready to join issue with you or any of your Church upon it and I question not before you and I part on this subject to ruine the Papal and Roman Succession by your own Rule to wit by proving that they have receded from the Faith of Peter and the whole Primitive Church We readily own that a true and Apostolical Mission pag. 20. Commission and Ordination are considerable particulars and are as ready any time to assert that our Church hath them and to prove it against you at any time if you have a mind to undertake this point against her CHAP. XVI The Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Eucharist put down Mr. Scl. 's Reasons from Scripture for Transubstantiation answered HAving traced you hitherto and found all your Attempts vain and your Reasons to no purpose which you took so much pains to scrape together to have proved that our Saviour Christ left his Catholick Church in a Monarchical State under a Particular Vicegerent and that that Vicegerent was the Bishop of Rome and his Church the Catholick Church And having shewn all your Attacks against and Remarks upon the Church of England to be very vain extremely abusive and extravagantly ridiculous I have now onely your last your great Reason to examine wherein you make an effort to prove that her Faith concerning the Eucharist is contrary to that of the Catholick Church If you could have proved this I must confess your forsaking our Communion would have been much more reasonable and therefore I question not but that as you have mustered up abundance of Authorities so you have done all you can to make them speak and declare against us but to how little purpose you have made all this noise and ado about this point also is what I shall quickly see Before I enter on your particular proofs I have a fresh complaint to make that you have not used herein that Ingenuity that would have become a Scholar one might very rationally have expected that as your Intentions were to prove against the Church of England that her Faith was as to the Eucharist false and corrupt so you would have set down what that her Faith is This would have looked like fair and ingenuous dealing first to have put down her Faith about the Eucharist and then to have shewn how contrary it was to Scripture and to the unanimous Consent of Antiquity If you reply to this my Complaint that her Faith is so well known that you needed not put it down together but that you have occasionally done it up and down these Authorities I must tell you that by the account you give of it occasionally one would be persuaded that it is far from being so well known I am sure that slender account or rather hints that you so often intersperse about it are utterly false and very foolish so that if any one should take an account of our Churches Faith from you and whom can they better take it from than one that was so lately a Minister among us they must believe that we hold the Eucharist to be mere figures mere representations and bare signs for that is the most you allow us to make of it that I can meet with in your Book all which how far it is from Truth I shall quickly shew you Well then since you had not the Ingenuity to put down an Account of the Church of England's Faith about the Eucharist I must that so I may the better examine the Proofs you bring and any one may compare the Authorities you quote and our Faith together and thereby more impartially judge and more readily discover whether Antiquity fairly laid down speak for or against us Concerning this Sacrament the Church of England in her 28th Article of Religion delivers her Opinion thus The Supper of the Lord is not onely a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death Insomuch that to such as rightly worthily and with Faith receive the same the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Bloud of Christ After which having declared her self against Transubstantiation as repugnant to plain Scripture and to the nature of a Sacrament and against any Corporal Presence of Christ's Natural Flesh and Bloud in the Declaration about kneeling at the end of our Communion-Service in our Liturgy she goes on in this Article to declare that The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper onely after an heavenly and spiritual manner and that the Mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith which last expressions exclude the wicked from partaking of Christ's Body and allow them barely the Sign or outward part of the Eucharist In the Publick Catechism in the Liturgy having taught her Catechumens that there are two things in each of the Sacraments the outward Sign and the inward spiritual Grace she teaches them to answer that the outward part of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is Bread and Wine and that the inward part or thing signified is the Body and Bloud of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithfull in the Lord's Supper These passages are sufficient to shew that our Church holds a real but not carnal a Spiritual and Heavenly but not Corporal Participation of Christ's Body and Bloud which tho' locally and naturally in Heaven is yet after a Mystical and Supernatural way communicated to the Faithfull not by the mouth of the Body but by that of Faith. Thus much for her Sentiment concerning this Sacrament pag. 20. now I must try your Reasons against it You tell us that you had been a long time greatly concerned for the Interpretation of but five small words of our Saviour c. The result of your concern I suppose was that those five words I doubt we shall find more than five or double five concerned in this business are to be taken in a literal sense and that which you offer for proof of it is this First Because this Sacrament was his last Will and Testament which ought not to be worded obscurely or doubtfully to prevent quarrels and divisions Secondly Because this Will is repeated by so many of his Apostles without the least variation or caution against the
guilty of such pitifull stuff look at it again Mr. Sclater fetch down your Dictionary and try again at it and see whether you that translate but at this rate be fit to set up for a Book-writer and a Manager of Controversies and a Balancer of the Merits of the two Churches I am ashamed that any Man our Church should either have so little brains or so little honesty but to let your Translation alone Rupertus does confirm my reason for the determining This to mean This Bread when he says This saith our Saviour that is This Bread is my Body or my Flesh CHAP. XVII His false Slander of our Church and his foolish Observation about Judas shewn I Must next consider what you have of Argument in your Preface where you would have us believe that the sixth Chapter of St. John's Gospel is to be taken in a literal sense but since you were not at leisure to offer any Proof for it I need spend no time to answer one thing I must examine there and that is the danger you said you must live and die in under the denial or but doubting of so great a Truth Pref. in Communion with those that said How can this Man give us his Flesh to eat And doth our Church say so that our Saviour cannot give us his Flesh to eat How is it then that in the Prayer We do not presume c. she orders her Communicants to pray to our Gratious Lord to grant to them so to eat the Flesh of his dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his Bloud that their sinfull Bodies may be made clean by his Body and their Souls washed through his most pretious Bloud c. That in the Prayer of Consecration the same Petition is put up to omit any more places This Sir is very provoking and highly unjust that a Man who hath perchance a hundred times used these very Prayers who did last Palm-Sunday use them reade them when he administred the Eucharist to the Parishioners of Putney should in the face of the Sun in our own Nation in our own Language publish so gross and Vntruth and affix so false a Scandal upon our Church as to say she affirms our Saviour cannot give us his Flesh to eat If these and such be the Fruits of your Conversion sit anima mea cum Philosophis rather than with such Christians Do not think to bring off your self with saying that our Church denies that any one can eat the Flesh of Christ in that sense which those people meant it that spoke these words that will not doe your business since that Church whereof you now are for all its belief of Transubstantiation abhors the Capernaitical sense of these words as much as we and are ready to say with us that our Saviour cannot and does not give us his Flesh to eat in that carnal sensual abominable manner that these Capernaites talked of Your next Observation in your Preface that Judas was one of the Disciples that went back and walked no more with our Saviour is I must confess a rarity which hath escaped I believe all our Commentatours but will your pretty and spitefull Observation hold Matth. 26.23 25. how is it then that we meet with Judas in our Saviour's dish the very night before he was Crucified I know no other fetch that you can have to save your ingenious Observation besides that of a Gentleman who in a dispute holding that Abraham was justified by Faith and being pressed by the Opponent with that of St. James that Abraham was justified by Works saved his bacon by saying that there were perhaps two Abrahams and so you may gravely say that there were two Judas Iscariots CHAP. XVIII His Authorities from Galatinus and the Spurious Liturgies for Transubstantiation rejected and the reason of it His railing and Absurdities about these and other Spurious Pieces examined and exposed NOW we are come to your main Battel where like as the Turks are said to have had a sort of Souldiers called as I remember Asaphi whom they set in the front of their Battel to dull and evigorate their enemies by their cutting down of these dull Souls so you have placed Galatinus and his Rabbins in your front to hinder your Adversaries falling with too much stomach upon your main Body You saw it necessary however in your Preface to bespeak your Reader in favour of Galatinus Preface that he was always accounted a very learned Man. You had done well to have quoted some people on your side here because your bare word will not pass with me nor with any one else that will take the pains to reade our two papers I am sure he shewed neither Learning nor Honesty in those passages you quote from him See Dr. Cave's Chartophylax in Galatino p. 336. since he stole them from Porchetus Salvaticus without owning in the least whence he had them and for the Passages and Rabbins themselves it is the Opinion of Learned Men that there were neither such Rabbins nor such Works of theirs as to these things but that they are the Pious Frauds of Porchetus and others So that I need not trouble my self but set aside this forged stuff your calling them Prophetick pag. 21. and abusing the place of St. John of the Spirits blowing where it listeth c. would in any other sort of People have been called Enthusiasm and downright Fanaticism And truly you put in as fair for a touch of the latter as your veriest Enemy could desire when instead of Argument you vent your Anger and instead of reasoning fall into downright railing against the Impious Ambition and unlimitted appetite of rule of the Private Spirit which would fain soar above the Heavens and make it self Lord even of the Writings of God also Her private Glosses imperious Sentiments and contradictory Interpretations like the Victorious Rabble of the Fishermen of Naples riding in Triumph and trampling under their feet Ecclesiastical Traditions Decrees and Constitutions Ancient Fathers Ancient Liturgies the whole Church of Christ c. But pray Sir if your Catholick fit be over who is it that hath or own this Private Spirit you have been venting so much Spleen against If you designed it for a Character of the Church of England which I believe you did I am obliged to tell you that it is a most impudent and a most false Slander Do but look into that Canon of our Church which you your self quoted See the Canon it self and the Remarks above p. 2. and those little Remarks I made upon it do but peruse again what I said above as to our Church tying up and obliging all her Members by her Articles without leaving any of those things to a Private Spirit and then look at what your bitter Pen hath here vented if it do not make you eat up these Cholerick Nonsensical Words and recant this Scandal upon an Apostolical Catholick Church I must then tell you
impertinent and how unjust your railing at our Church about these Books was and to expose your gross ignorance to your new Superiours that they also may see which perhaps they did not know before how unfit a man you were to meddle with this sort of learning and how wretchedly you have come off CHAP. XIX The Authorities from Ignatius Justin Martyr and Irenaeus for Transubstantiation answered I come now to examine as they come to hand your several Authorities for Transubstantiation the Liturgies as spurious are already dispatched The first of your Authorities from Ignatius which you needed not if you really did go to Theodoret for since it is now common in Ignatius himself from the Florentine Copy that the Hereticks that denyed Christ had a true Body abstained from the Eucharist because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the Flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ P. 30. c. does you no service because We of the Church of England who do not believe any Transubstantiation say with St. Ignatius that the Sacrament is the Body and Blood of Christ However as we say that it is figuratively such so there is nothing here to determine that St. Ignatius meant otherwise than we do since his Argument is as strong not to say stronger in a figurative sense against the Hereticks it invincibly proving as a Contr. Marc. l. 4. c. 40. Tertullian does upon the very same account that our Saviour had a true Body since none but such could have a figurative Body or Figure a Figure of a Figure or Phantome being perfect nonsense so that St. Ignatius is no help to prove a Transubstantiation and your reasoning upon it ridiculous since if the Hereticks had owned the Eucharist with Calvin or Zuinglius to have been the sign or Figure of Christs Body P. 30. they had quite ruined their own doctrine and had allowed Christ to have had a true Body since none but such could have a Sign or Figure but some Men are so fond of saying something that so it be but said they matter not whether it be for or against themselves which this your reasoning really is Your next Authority from St. Denys as spurious is to no purpose P. 30. nor your next upon the same account from your Andreas who methinks as an Apostle should have had the place of St. Denys and both of them before St. Ignatius but you I suppose either found them in this order or thought Ignatius fittest to be put first because he looked a little more to your purpose than either of them Tho' as to the latter of them your Andreas had you but shewn any ingenuity in what you cite from him he would have proved full as little to your purpose but you cunningly slip over in this short passage that which would have told you that the Sacrifice here spoken of could be no other than a figurative and representative Sacrifice since it is said to be offered in altari crucis upon the Altar of the Cross which you wisely tho' not over honestly leave out to make your Author speak something towards the purpose we meet him here for Your Note upon this Passage that truly eaten excludes eating in sign onely or Spirit does as much discover your Ignorance of the Sense of the Genuine Fathers as your Phrase in sign onely does your malice who cannot but know that the Church you have forsaken never said so to say that he which eats both in Sign and Spirit does not eat truely is to give the lye to a whole Tract of S. (b) Tractatus 26 in Joann Austins where among twenty other Confutations you may find that such Persons as Moses Aaron and Phineas who pleased God visibilem cibum spiritaliter intellexerunt spiritaliter esurierunt spiritaliter gustaverunt ut spiritaliter satiarentur did spiritually understand the visible Food the Manna did spiritually hunger after and tast of it that they might be spiritually filled and satisfied and that the true eating the Bread of Life so as not to dye does belong (c) Pertinent ad virtusem Sacramenti non ad visibile Sacramentum Qui manducat intus non foris qui manducat in corde non qui premit dente August Tract 26. in Joan to the virtue of the Sacrament and not to the visible Sacrament and that the true receiver is he who eateth inwardly not outwardly who eateth with the heart and not he who presseth it with his teeth Justin Martyr you next cite saying P. 31. 'T is not common Bread or common Drink we take how then Why as the Word of God Jesus Christ our Saviour was made Flesh so we are taught that our Nourishment by Prayer proceeding from him being made the Eucharist to be the Flesh and Blood of the same incarnate Jesus c. This Translation I accuse not onely of falshood and of perverting the plain sense of St. Justin but of direct Nonsense for first whereas St. Justin sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Just M. Apol 2. p. 98. Edit Morel Paris 1636. We do not receive these things the consecrated Bread and the consecrated Wine mingled with Water A S common Bread or common Drink you make him say that ' iis not common Bread or common Drink we take which is directly contrary to the true sense of his Words which are so far from denying that they evidently suppose and prove them to be still Bread and Wine after Consecration or else they could not be received in a different manner from that at common Meals Again whereas our Author goes on but as by the Word of God Jesus Christ our Saviour being incarnate had both Flesh and Blood for our Salvation you nonsensically translate him as the Word of God Jesus Christ our Saviour was made Flesh where you not only lame his sense and obscure it but quite pervert it you making the Word of God to be our Saviour himself the second Person in the Trinity whereas Justin means by it the Power of the Holy Ghost which over-shadowed the Blessed Virgin. I will give you but another touch of your nonsense and that is when you translate so we are taught that our nourishment by prayer to be the flesh instead of is the flesh I hate so mean an employment as to be thus taken up in ripping up your pitiful dealing or else I could expose you further from this very passage out of Justin but I think this enough to let you and your new Superiors see what wretched stuff we are like to be put off with and how vastly unfit you are to meddle about such things To leave then this miserable murthering of Justin I come now to see what you would have thence suppose you had known which you did not what the Author meant here You argue our Saviour was made Flesh therefore the Eucharist is Flesh or Justin could not say they were so taught I answer That as our Saviour was not Transubstantiated when
he took our flesh upon him so no more need was there that the Bread should be transubstantiated to become his Sacramental Body and Blood. Nay St. Justin directly supposes the contrary when he makes the Eucharist to be Bread tho' not received then as common Bread and proves it too when he says * Which words you suppress in your translation Was you afraid we should conclude from them that Just Mart. did not think the Accidents did subsist in the Eucharist without the Substance But let that pass that by this consecrated nourishment the Body and Blood of Christ our Bodies our Flesh and Blood are nourished which I am sure your learned men will grant to be impious to say of the natural very Body and Blood of Christ and impossible if no substance but that be there So that it is evident that by the Body and Blood of Christ in this passage must be meant Christ his Symbolical Body and Blood or the Sign or Figure of his Natural Body and Blood the substance as well as accidents of the Elements remaining As to the reason you add that Justin should have told the Emperor if he meant no more by it that by the Flesh and Blood of Christ he intended only the Signs of them since it was he knew objected to the Christians his Brethren that in the Mysteries of their Religion they did eat mans flesh I do retort it upon you and challenge you to shew where they ever pleaded guilty or where they ever made any Apology for or distinction about their eating our Saviours Natural Flesh and Blood tho' they abstained from the Blood of every thing else as any one that is but little conversant in the first Antiquity knows they constantly pleaded against the so often objected dapes Thyesteas upon this point b Nihil rationabilius ut quia nos jam similitudinem mortis ejus in Baptismo accepimus similitudinem quoque carnis ejus sumamus similitudine pretiosi sanguinis potemur ita ut veritas non desit in Sacramento ridiculum nullum fit Paganis quod cruorem occisi hominis bibamus Aug. apud Grat. de Consecr Dist 2. Sect. utrum p. 1958. Edit Taur St. Austin as quoted by Gratian is so express both against your reason and your opinion that I cannot omit it here he sayes Nothing is more reasonable than that as we have received the similitude of his to wit Christs death in Baptism so we should also receive the likeness of his Flesh and drink the likeness of his Pretious Blood that so neither may Truth be wanting in the Sacrament nor Pagans have an occasion of ridiculing us for drinking the Blood of one that was slain Which it seems Pagans would then have done had the Christians then talked of drinking literally Christs Natural Blood and the Jews and Mahometans do now do since some Christians took up an Opinion and talked of doing it in a literal sense witness that severe Observation and Reflexion of Averroes upon them sufficiently known Your first place from St. Irenaeus is not exactly translated eum panem in quo gratiae actae sint c. is not barely that Bread in the Eucharist is the Body of Christ but that that Bread which hath been consecrated is the Body of his Lord. This passage is so far from being for that it is directly against you that Bread which hath been consecrated is demonstration that he looked upon it as to the substance to be Bread still here you were forced to shew us a little of your Legerdemain or else I am sure this Chapter of Irenaeus had been secure enough from your quoting it there being that in the middle of this passage which you have slily left out which is perfect demonstration against Transubstantiation b Quomodo autem rursus dicunt carnem in corruptionem devenire non percipere vitam quae à corpore Domini sangaine alitur Iren. l. 4. c. 34. while St. Irenaeus argues for the immortality of our bodies from their having been nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ and as much against you is your next passage from him and as well translated by you for as that which is Bread from the Earth perceiving very wise Bread truly this same was the call of God or as I would say being consecrated now is not common Bread but the Eucharist consisting of two things one earthly i. e. the accidents and the other Spiritual so our bodies receiving the Eucharist are not now corruptible having the hope of the Resurrection What can be more plain against Transubstantiation than this place which still supposes it to be Bread when it sayes that after Consecration it is not common Bread had Irenaeus taught or believed a Transubstantiation here he must have said that after Consecration it is not Bread at all and not have talked of a terrestrial or corporeal thing or part in the Eucharist as well as a heavenly or spiritual but you say this earthly part is the accidents I would fain know what part of St. Irenaeus or the Ancients you learned this from I am sure you ought to be ashamed of talking at this ridiculous rate there is any Body scarce but knows that earthly and material or corporeal are Synonymous but you however contrary to all Reason and all Philosophy must be setting up material Accidents and you might as well have told us of incorporeal bodies and corporeal nothings as of earthly Accidents but such inconsistent ridiculous stuff will down it seems with a man that believes Transubstantiation Your talk about imposing a new signification upon the Bread and Wine is nothing to the purpose p. 31. since our Church makes the Elements not only to signifie but to communicate to us the Body and Blood of Christ after a spiritual and heavenly manner which thing requires an Omnipotent Power for the instituting it for such an effect and enduing it with such a virtue or power CHAP. XX. His several Proofs from Tertullian answered and his Falsification of that Author exposed TErtullian your next Author you have abused worse than St. Justin I must profess that when I first took your Book into my hand I did expect you would have had the prudence to have let him and Theodoret alone but it seems all the Fathers either are for Transubstantiation or you will make them so It is pleasant to see what shufling you make about your first quotation from him and how afraid you are of his p. 32. id est Figura Corporis mei that you durst not translate it and next how sillily or rather falsly you english nisi veritatis esset Corpus unless it had been the truth There needs nothing else to impeach your attempt of ignorance and a depraving Tertullian than the putting his own words together †Corpus suum illum fecit hoc est Corpus meum dicendo id est Figura Corporis mei Figura enim
reckons this that in the Church should be offered Bread and Wine Antitypes or Symbols of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and that those which eat of this Visible Bread should spiritually eat the Flesh of the Lord. This passage is so convictive of it self that it needs not help to inforce it against all literal eating of Christ's Body and Blood and against Transubstantiation I need say nothing to your last Testimony from him nor shall onely that your Translation of this short passage is very silly and very false too Do you or your new Superiours look at it again and then deny it if you can CHAP. XXII Arguments for Transubstantiation from Gregory Nyssen and Cyril of Hierusalem answered and a ridiculous Mistake of Mr. Sclater's observed GRegory Nyssen's Testimonies are the next you do produce to prove a Transubstantiation p. 40. and do indeed promise more in order to it than any you have hitherto produced while they say that the sanctified Bread is changed into the Body of the Word of God. However that Gregory Nyssen meant no change of the substance of the Bread and Wine or that they were annihilated and the Body and Blood of Christ substituted into their place but meerly a change in their Vse Office and Virtue is past all question evident since in another place he illustrates this change of the Elements of Bread and Wine by and compares it to that of the Altar which I hope you do not believe Nam Altare hocsanctum cuiadsistimus lapis est naturâ communis sed quoniam Dei cultui consecratum Altare immaculatum est Panis item panis est initio communis sed ubi eum Mysterium sacrificaverit Corpus Christi fit dicitur Eadem item Verbi vis etiam Sacerdotem augustum honorandum facit novitate Benedictionis à communitate Vulgi sâ—gregatum cum nihil vel corpore vel formâ mutatus ille sit qui erat invisibili quadam vi ac gratiâ invisibilem animam in melius transformatam gerens Ac simili rationum consequeâ—tiâ etiam aqua cum nihil aliud sit quam aqua supernâ Gratiâ benedicente ei in eam quae mente percipitur hominem renovat regenerationem Greg. Nyss in Baptismum Christi Oratio p. 802 803. Edit Paris 1615. or any of your Party dare say that upon its being dedicated to the Service of God it undergoes any change of substance but meerly a change of use it being now separated to God's Service which before was of common use and for the most common Services He compares it to the change in a Priest which is not of the Substance of his Body when he is ordained but of his Soul onely by an invisible Grace which qualifies him for the particular office of a Priest He compares it to the change of Water in Baptism which all the world will grant is not in the substance but in the virtue onely through the benediction of the divine Grace I could bring his Comparison of the change of the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist to that of Chrism but these I have brought I think are more than enough to prove that our Gregory Nyssen meant no other change of the Elements than a change of Vse of Office and of Virtue and that if your people are resolved that he shall mean a change of Substance we shall have Transubstantiations enough then the Water in Baptism is no Water though it seem such to all Senses but is transubstantiated into a divine Grace and you and I when we were ordained were really transubstantiated into the meer Office of a Priest and for all our eating and drinking are as meer Accidents as those in the Eucharist one thing I am puzled at and that is what the Stones of the Altar are transubstanced into These Sir as ridiculous as they be must be necessary Consequences of your making our Author teach Transubstantiation in the Eucharist and all the Arts of your whole Party cannot avoid them so that I suppose we have reason to deny you Gregory Nyssen his being a Teacher or Favourer of your Vpstart Doctrine I should before parting examine your translating Gregory Nyss but I am too much in hast to stay upon such wretched blundering onely one observation I must advertise the young Criticks of and that is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in all other authors signifies put to death in Greg. Nyss according to the sage Mr. Sclater signifies made immortal Cyril of Jerusalems Testimonies do promise at first view p. 40 41. as much or more than the last from Gregory Nyssen to prove all you intend them for to wit a Transubstantiation when they not onely say with Gregory Nyssen that the Bread and Wine after Consecration are made the Body and Blood of Christ but which is further that the Bread which is seen by us is not Bread although the tast perceive it to be Bread but the Body of Christ To which I answer first that St. Cyril is far from teaching Transubstantiation in these places since what he sayes first is not denyed by our Church that the Bread and Wine are made by Consecration the Body and Blood of Christ and are no longer common Bread and common Wine which very expressions sufficiently prove them to be as to their Substance Bread and Wine still tho' now hereby distinguished from common Bread and Wine And therefore upon this very ground Cyril advises his Catechumens to consider the Elements consecrated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyr. Myst Catech. 4. p. 237. Edit Paris 1640. not as bare Bread and Wine which certainly proves them to be so as to their substance tho' their Senses suggested to them that they were nothing else than bare Elements but as our Lord said they were his Body and his Blood. So that we hence give a good account of that other expression that seems the more favourable to Transubstantiation about the visible Bread being not Bread but the Body of Christ which we are as ready now as Cyril was then to say is not Bread bare Bread after consecration but the Body of Christ inasmuch as it is now honoured with the Title of the Body of Christ since it is made by Consecration the Instrument to make us Partakers of the Body of Christ as St. Paul sayes 1 Cor. 10.16 and after him Cyril himself in this Catechism advises his Catechumens to receive with all assurance the consecrated Elements as the Body and Blood of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Idem eodem loco upon this very reason because under the Type or Figure of Bread is given to the worthy Receiver the Body of Christ and under that of Wine is given his Blood. This Passage you or rather Grodecius for you do but translate him have endeavoured to make speak for you which is an easy thing to make any Authors do if you should serve them as you have done him for 1. you make
him say Let us take the Body and Blood of Christ whereas he hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here and faith let us take to wit the consecrated Elements AS the Body and Blood of Christ which is a trick you played St. Justin Martyr as well as Cyril and then you from Grodecius translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by species a word unknown to the Primitive Christians in the sense you Transubstantiatours use it in witness b Non valebit Christi sermo ut Species mutet Elementorum p. 48. ex Arubrosio your own Quotations out of St. Ambrose when as any one that knows but a little Greek could tell you it means a Figure But to rescue Cyril clearly out of your hands had you but turned one leaf backward you might have read that which would if you had any ingenuity in you have hindred your bringing Cyril on the stage for a favourer or teacher of Transubstantiation there in his Mystigogical Catechism about Chrism having spoken of the use and vast benefit of it he thus addresses his Auditors but take heed that thou do not think that Chrism to be bare Oyl 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyr. catechism Mystag 3. p. 235 Edit Paris 1640. for as the Encharistical Bread after the Invocation and illapse of the Holy Spirit is no longer ordinary Bread but the Body of Christ even so this holy Oyl is no longer bare or as one may say common Oyl after the Invocation of the Holy Spirit but Charisma Christi the Gift or Grace of Christ and a little after he sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idem â—odem loco the Body is anointed with the Oyl that is seen by us but the Soul is sanctified by the Holy and Quickening Spirit Here we meet with as high and as strange Expressions about the Chrism as in the next Cathechism about the Eucharistical Bread and Wine as there the Bread upon Consecration is said to be no longer common Bread just so it is said here about the Chrism that it is not common Oyl after Consecration as he talks there of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which you would have us to believe is no more than the bare appearance of Bread so here of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which upon the same reason must be onely the appearance of Oyl without any Substance In a word if St. Cyril proves a Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine there he as certainly proves a Transubstantiation of the Chrism-Oyl here if you say as all confess that he doth not prove this of the Oyl I must say upon equal grounds that he doth no more prove the other of the Bread and Wine so that St. Cyril is not for your purpose of proving Transubstantiation But before I pass to your next Author I have a question to ask you and that is why you put down the Text it self of Cyril here whereas your English if it be your own is word for word translated from Grodecius his Latin Translation of St. Cyril I appeal to your own Conscience whether what I say is not true but since you may be too peevish to tell me I will give an instance or two besides those already observed where you have both equally added to the Text of St. Cyril or grosly mistaken it St. Cyril sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which two last words you have altered into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this place you verbatim from c Aquam aliquando mutavit in vinum quod est sanguini propinquum in Cana Galilaeae sola voluntate Grodec Lat. Inter. Grodecius translate thus he sometimes changed Water into Wine which is neer to blood in Cana of Galilee by his onely Will whereas according to Grodecius his Greek there is not a Syllable of such an Expression as which is neer to blood and according to yours not a Syllable for by his onely Will and yet you two could nick it so exactly But that which is the pleasantest of all is that you not onely transcribe a Blunder of his but make it ten times worse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyril ex Luc. 5.34 Filiis Sponsi Grodecil Interpr Latina To the Sons of his Spouse Sclaters Engl. Translat Cyril in this Passage speaks of the Children of the Bride-chamber Grodecius hath made them the Children of the Bridegroom and you have made them the Children of the Bride when you call them the Sons of his Spouse by which you mean our Saviour's Spouse which I am sure is his Bride the Church This is translating with a witness and this it is to make a Man's self a slave to another Man's Translation which is guilty of such Blunders and Errours and yet by putting your Margin full of Greek to make the World believe you had been at the Fountain-head your self I must confess it is the first time I ever heard of a He-Bride or could have suspected that a Man that hath so much Greek and Hebrew in his head would have translated hic Sponsus our Saviour his Spouse I haue been so large upon these two Fathers St. Gregory Nyssen and St. Cyril not onely because they are always reckoned the chiefest Authors for Transubstantiation but because I might thereby very much shorten the Answers I am to make to your following Authorities which I shall consider if they speak any thing new if not refer to some of my Answers already made CHAP. XXIII Those from Epiphanius St. Ambrose and St. Chrysostom answered YOur Testimony out of Epiphanius proves nothing more than your Infirmity in translating P. 42. for he that believeth not that he is true you have ridiculously made it who believeth it not to be his very true Body But such dealing is not strange to me to find in you this Talent runs almost through your whole book You are very copious in the next place from St. Ambrose P. 42. your first Testimony from him proves nothing against the Church of England nor your second since in our Liturgy we use in the distributing the Consecrated Bread the same Expressions used then the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ and our People are taught to say Amen P. 43. Nor your third fourth and those which follow wherein this Father uses so much of Allegory and therefore is not to be confined to a literal Sense P. 44 45 46 c. Your last from him is your best one which however proves no more than what we never deny that the Nature of the Elements are changed as to their Virtue and Quality but as to a change of their very substance we do deny it upon reasons from Scripture and purer Antiquity nor doth this Father attempt the Proof of any such a Change. He proves the contrary p. 43. when in your first Testimony from him he speaks of the Elements Continuing What they were that is as to their Substance or Essence and yet being changed into another thing Quanto magis Operatorius est
another place that our Lord gave to his Disciples at his Last Supper the Figure of his sacred Body and Blood. CHAP. XXV Some Corollaries against Transubstantiation HAving hitherto sufficiently answered all your pretended Proofs for Transubstantiation and shewn in part the Sense and Arguments of the Fathers against it instead of wearying my self or rather our Reader with any more of your Authors which you very irregularly place and which you your self will grant to be produced to no purpose if the former Primitive Fathers were of a contrary Faith about the Eucharist I shall here adjoyn a few Corollaries to vindicate the Faith of the Catholick and Apostolical Church of England against Transubstantiation and will make it apparently clear that her Doctrine and Faith herein is both Primitive and Orthodox and exactly the same with that of the Fathers of the Catholick Church My first Corollary shall be 1 Coroll That the Fathers gave such Titles to the Consecrated Elements of Bread and Wine as utterly exclude a Transubstantiation It was sufficiently common with them to call the Elements a Tertullian con Marcion l. 4. c. 40. Beda Comment in 3. Psalm the Figure b August de Doctr. Christi c. 7. Origen Dialog cont Marcion p. 116. Edit Wets the Sign c Basil Anaphora Cyril Hierosol Col. 4. Cat. Mys the Type d Greg. Naz. Orat. 118. Macarius Hom. 27. the antitype e August in Gratiano the Similitude f Theodoret. Dialog 2. and the Symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ g Tom. 6. Concil Edit Cossart and a whole Oecumenical Council of 338 Bishops at Constantinople A. D. 754. declare them to be the true and onely Image of our Saviour's Body and Blood. These Expressions and the like I argue to be utterly inconsistent with the Elements being Transubstantiated into the very Body and Blood of Christ since it is impossible any thing can be the Figure of a thing and the thing it self or the thing it self and yet but the figure of it he that will affirm this may without an absurdity say that the Sign of the King at a Tavern door is the King himself that the Picture of the Ship in St. Paul's Church-yard is as real a true Ship as any on the River and that the Image of the King in the Exchange is really King James 2d in his very Person In short if any thing be the Figure it cannot be the thing if it be the thing it self it cannot be the Figure of it since nothing can be the Figure of it self And therefore if Christ's Natural Body be really on the Altar that which is there cannot be the Figure of it But if as the Fathers almost unanimously speak that which is there be the Figure the Sign of it then consequently our Saviour's Natural Body it self is not This is so evident See Tertullian's 4th Book against Marcion ch 40th I think I need not say any more upon this Point I might very easily else have shewn that the Strength of one of Tertullian's Arguments for our Saviour his having a true substantial Body against Marcion depended wholly on the Eucharist its being the FIGURE of his Body but I will wave it and conclude this Corollary with that of Facundus h Et potest Sacramentum Adoptionis Adoptio nuncupari Sicut Sacramentum Corporis Sanguinis ejus quod est in Pane Poculo consecrato Corpus ejus Sanguinem dicimus Non quod propriè Corpus ejus sit Panis Poculum Sanguis Sed quod in se Mysterium Corporis ejus sanguinisque contineant Hinc ipse Dominus benedictum Panem Calicem quem Discipulis tradidit Corpus Sanguinem suum Vocavit Facund Herm. pro Defens 3. Capit. Con. Chalced. Lib. 9. c. 5. p. 404 405. Edit Sirmond 1629. Bishop of Hermiana in Africa the Sacrament of Adoption may be called by the name of Adoption as we call the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ the consecrated Elements of Bread and Wine his Body and his Blood not that the Bread is properly his Body or the Cup his Blood but because they contain the Mystery of his Body and Blood upon which very account it is that when our Lord delivered the consecrated Bread and Cup to his Disciples he called them his Body and his Blood. One thing I must not forget here that tho' these Fathers and the Church of England with them look upon the consecrated Elements as Signs and Figures onely yet they and we believe that by the Institution of Christ they are the Means of conveying all the Virtue and Benefits of our Saviour's crucifyed Body of communicating the Blood and Body of Christ unto every worthy Communicant This I could not omit to let you see the silliness of your foolish Cant up and down of meer Signs of what meer figures c. such Expressions were designed against the Church of England or what do they in your Book against her if they were I must tell you that they are sottishly ridiculous and most intolerable from a man who was I am sorry I can say it a Minister of the Church of England and therefore must so often have seen her Articles and so often have used her Communion-Service My Second Corollary is 2. Coroll That such things are attributed to the Sacramental Body and Blood of Christ by the Primitive Fathers as do altogether exclude their being transubstantiated into the Natural Body and Blood of Christ I instance in that of the Sacramental Body and Blood of Christ their being said to Nourish our Bodies That the consecrated Elements do nourish our Bodies is very apparent from a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Apolog 2. St. Justin Martyr's saying that our flesh and blood are nourished by the consecrated Elements being changed into our Substance From b Quando ergo Calix Panis percipiunt â—erbum Dei fit Eucharistia Sanguinis Corporis Christi ex quibus augetur consistit Carnis nostrae Substantia S. Iren. c. Haer. l. 5. c. 18. Irenaeus and c Caro Corpore Sanguine Christi vescitur ut Anima de Deo saginetur Tert. de Resurrect c. 8. Tertullian that our Flesh is fed and nourished with the Body and Blood of Christ From d Ille Cibus qui sanctificatur per Verbum Dei perque obsecrationem juxta id quod babet materiale in ventrem abit in secessum ejicitur Orig. in 15 Matt. p. 27. Origen that the Eucharist as to its Material Part undergoes the common course of our common repasts From e Quia sicut visibilis Panis Vini substantia exteriorem nutrit inebriat hominem ita Verbum Dei qui est Panis Vivus participatione sui Fidelium recreat mentes Isidor Hispal apud Rathramni Lib. de Corp. Sang. D. p. 120. Edit Paris Boileau 1686. Isidore of Sevil that the Substance of the Visible Bread
and Wine do nourish the outward man that is our Bodies as the Word of Christ the Living Bread doth nourish the Souls of the Faithfull Communicants Rathramne or Bertram f Up and down the secod part of his Book from p. 127. uses this Nourishment of our Bodies by the Sacramental Body and Blood for an Argument to prove his distinguishing betwixt the Sacramental and the Natural Body of Christ to be just and necessary g Illa Eucharistia temporaria est non aeterna corruptibilis critque minutim divisibilis inter Dentes manditur in secessum emittitur Homilia Anglo Sax. apud not as Whelochi in Beda L. 5. c. 22. p. 472. Edit Cantabrig 1644. Our Saxon Paschal Homily which used to be read in our Churches in the Tenth Century follows Rathramn exactly in this point and teaches that the Sacramental Body is corruptible because it may be broke into several pieces grinded by the Teeth and being swallowed down into the Stomach is thence cast into the draught Having collected Passages enough that which I intend to prove from them is that the Natural Body and Blood of Christ into which you Transubstantiators say the Bread and Wine upon Consecration are transubstantiated cannot without the greatest impiety be thus said to Nourish our Bodies There is no one that understands what Nourishment means how that macerating by the Teeth Digestion in the Stomach Separation in the Guts of the impure and excrementitious which passes into the draught from the purer which passing through the Lacteals and other chanels falls into the Common Mass of Blood are all necessary in order to Nourishment but must at the same time abhor the very thought of our Saviours Natural Body undergoing such tortures and changes in order to the Nourishment of our Bodies Either it is Bread or Wine or the Natural Body and Blood of Christ that undergoes these several stages in order to our Nourishment Neither you nor we talk of any third Body for these purposes If there be no Bread and Wine upon Consecration left which you affirm then it is unavoidable that the Natural Body and Blood of Christ which are come into the others place must afford this Nourishment to our Bodies but if you dare not affirm this which it were most blasphemous to do it will of necessity follow that the substances of the Bread and Wine do after consecration continue in order to this Nourishment and therefore no Transubstantiation either is or could be believed by them who did attribute this power of nourishing to the Sacramental Body and Blood of Christ. My next Corallary is 3. Coroll That the Fathers speak such things of the Eucharist as are perfectly inconsistent with its having after Consecration the bare Accidents and Species of Bread and Wine The Proof of this Corollary depends upon the preceding which shewed that the General Doctrine of the Fathers was that our Bodies are nourished by the Sacramental Body and Blood of Christ. Now as I made it evident in the last Corollary that this Nourishment was infinitely inconsistent with the Nature of Christ his Natural Body now and for ever to continue in a glorified state so it is as easie to shew that such Nourishment is as inconsistent with your upstart ridiculous Doctrine of Accidents Since the bare Accidents and Species cannot nourish a Body and since it is impossible that That which hath neither Substance Matter Quantity nor Body should give or add to another both Substance Matter Quantity and Body every one of which are necessary to a corporal Nourishment from which we must conclude that the Fathers never so much as dreamed of bare Accidents after Consecration since They taught and wrote that which is utterly inconsistent with such things and consequently with Transubstantiation This Corollary I intended chiefly for your sake Mr. Sclater and the late Translator's of Bertram * Printed at Paâ—is 16â—â— Monsiâ—ur Bâ—ileâ—u the Dean of Sens. As you had a mind to iâ—â—ose upon us that Irenaeus his pars terrena of the Eucharist was the Accidents which consequently must nourish us p. 〈◊〉 notwithstanding their having nothing of Substance so †p. 89. §. 19. p. 118. §. 40. p. 152 126. §. 19 c. he very gravely up and down his Translation and his Remarks tells us of the Bodies being nourished by that which falls under the sense by which he onely means as he continually explains himself the meer figure and vail the meer Accidents of Bread and Wine with which the Natural Body and Blood of Christ are vailed I must acknowledge that I am astonished to see a man who hath doubtless a great deal of Learning write direct non-sense with such formal Gravity I durst appeal to his own Conscience and am perswaded that he does not believe himself that Figures Vails and Accidents which according to all mens notions of them are without any substance and are perfect nothings as to Body can give nourishment to or increase the Substances of our Bodies A man might as well write that people may dine at Church on the Ministers voice as that non-entities meer nothings can nourish our Bodies But if you two be resolved to believe so still I would desire no other Argument to make you both recant than that you two were the thing possible in Nature to separate the Accidents Qualities and Modifications of Bodies from the substances of the Bodies themselves might be put up and constrained to live but one fortnight upon these same Accidents and Vails and try how nourishing they are I am pretty certain that it would cure you of believing corporeal Accidents and him of ever writing again that Figures do or can nourish I will conclude this Corollary with a passage out * Quis concâ—sserit aut cui posse fieri videatur ut id quod in Subjecto est maneat ipso intereunte Subjecto Monstruosum enim à veritate alienissunum est ut id quod non esset nisi in ipso esset etiam cum ipsum non fuerit possit esse D. August Solioliq l. 2. c. 13. p. 536. Edit Basil 1569. of St. Austins Soliloquies which will abundantly confirm all that I have said in this Corollary Who can grant saith he or think it possible that that which is in and depends for its being upon a Subject can continue when the Subject it self is perished for it is a Monstrous thing and as far as can be from Truth that that which would have no Being but for the Subject in which it is can still have a Being when its Subject on which it depended hath none Before I pass to my next Corollary I must make a little Digression to expostulate with the French Dean about his Translation of Rathramn or Bertram and his Remarks upon it He must certainly think so much wrong could not be put upon so venerable a Writer and no body would speak in his behalf it was a strange attempt
have split into two Followers of Berengarius whenas They both lived two Hundred years before Him. Nay a man would believe almost from you that Berthram was at this present alive when you say that Berengarius's Opinion and Arguments are still urged by Bertram p. 76. lately reprinted in English You have a great deal more of such wretched stuff but I am so weary of it that I will but speak a word or two to you as to the Greeks and then pass to a sarewell request to you and your new Superiours That the present great Ignorance Poverty and Ambition of the Greek Church hath taught a great many of them leaving their own ancient Faith to embrace for lucre sake the Latin Doctrine of Transubstantiation is what we cannot now deny but that which we have to say upon this business is that those persons neither learned this new fangled Doctrine from the Fathers from their own Liturgies or from the antient Creeds or Ecclesiastical Constitutions See Dr. Smith of Oxford his Miscellanea that Gabriel of Philadelphia who studied and lived so long at Padua and Venice first broached Transubstantiation in their language since whom many Latinized Greeks have espoused it and the four Patriarchs at the Instance of Monsieur Nointel Ricaut his Preface to his Present State of the Greek Church or rather his French Mony as I hope a Gentleman who was then in Turkey will e're long make it sufficiently appear subscribed the Oriental Confession drawn up by one bred in Italy in the year 1672. not as you falsly tell us 1643. As their Ignorance which is so great that Sr. P. Ricaut says most Mechanicks among us are more learned and knowing than the Doctors and Clergy of Greece disposes them for any Doctrine whatever so their great Poverty which no body denies and their unaccountable and prodigious Ambition hurry them on to any thing for lucre sake The Dire effects of their extravagant Ambition are sufficiently seen in that they have thereby run their poor Church into such arrears with the Port that it will never be able to claw off Ricaut 's Prâ—sâ—nt State of the Greek Church Through their changing of Patriarchs whereof they a p. 102 102 c. p. 98. had six in eight years at Constantinople and their most unchristian shouldering of one another out the Poor Church was indebted in the year 1672. to the Grand Seâ—gnior three hundred and fifty thousand Dollars as Sr. Paul says he was informed by the Bishop of Smyrna This is enough to shew the miserable Humour as well as Condition of those People who to get monys to buy out the incumbent Patriarch and to place themselves tho' but for a month on the Patriarchal Throne at Constantinople would I question not subscribe a worse Doctrine than that of Transubstantiation since they have ignorance enough for any The behaviour of the Arch-Bishop of Samos to Doctor Smith of Maudlins makes me to have a very slender opinion of those sort of men See Dr. Smiths Preface to Miscellanea when he met with him in France then Children only received in the one kind and they could not digest Flesh but as soon as he had crossed the Water and breathed a little English Air then Children did undoubtedly partake in both kinds as he quickly wrote to Doctor Smith But enough of this Man and the Humour of that miserable People which is nothing to the purpose of a Consensus Veterum The Request I have now to make to you Mr. Sclater is that you would consider what a miserable mistake you have made about these things how grievously you have suffered your self to be imposed upon in leaving a Communion which is truly Catholick and Apostolical and hath not one unlawful Term of Communion and in falling to a Church which for all the Paints and Washes laid on it appears to be very deformed and hath a great many unlawful Terms of Communion If their Condition be dangerous that were bred in that Communion if they have any opportunities as all here in England have of knowing more and of better information what must be thought of yours who can pretend no want of Information have had so long a Tract of opportunities to have secured you even in old age from such a doleful Fall I do from my soul wish that you may before death surprizes recover your self and return to that true Faith from which you have swerved and that all that lye under the same guilt may in God's good time be again gathered into our Apostolical Church May God remove all Ostacles that do at present hinder such a Return And my request to your Superiours is that if ever they think fit to have another Convert appear in Print against us they would oblige us so far as to chuse one that hath a little more Modesty and a little more Learning one that can distinguish between the Presbyters of Achaia and St. Andrew between the Second General Council of Constantinople p. 72. and the reputed Seventh at Nice whence he quotes that impudent lye of Epiphanius the Deacon one that can translate what he is taught to borrow that so if ever any of our Church vouchsafe to answer him he may not have so many complaints to make as I have had in the Examination of Mr. Sclater's Book March 1st 1686 THE END
to make Bertram a good Catholick that is in your stile a true man for Transubstantiation at last when hitherto their Church had damned this Writer to the Pit of Hell and Mr. Sclater himself hath very chronologically put him among the followers of Berengarius who first disturbed the long peace p. 76. p. 75. and as long continued Faith of the Catholick Church of Transubstantiation This strange attempt was accompanied with Arts and Tricks as strange and unusual with all honest men that is with a violent perverting of the Authors sense and an unjust and most foolish Turn of the whole design of Bertram †In his â—emarks upon Bertram p. 207 208 c. Printed at the end of his Translation Paris 1686. This Gentle man makes Bertram to write his Book against some that held our Saviour's Natural Body was received in the Eucharist without any Vail or Figure that is to put it into downright English with the very same dimensions Skin Hair Flesh Head Feet and Armes that he had on the Cross But is it probable there ever were any such men No it is so far from it that it is impossible there ever could since this Opinion must be grounded upon their seeing it so which I am sure never was never could be this Gentleman thinks the very †Praes p. 21. knowing what stercoranism means is enough to confute it but is it not far stronger against this fancy of his for I dare not call it any mens Opinion since I am very well satisfied there never could be any men that held such a thing It is pleasant however to see how the Dean goes about to prove that there was such an Opinion and such men against against which our Author did write this Tract he tells us that one Abbaudus and one Gaultier Prior of St. Victor held that our Saviour's Natural Body was palpable and sensible in the Eucharist but since these men by his own Confession lived two or three hundred years at soonest after Bertram it is but a very odd way of proving that there were such men in or before Bertram's time because there were about three hundred years after Such proof is fitter for Children than Deans of Cathedrals to use and ought no more to pass from him p. 213 214. than if it came from them but to help himself and his ridiculous Authorities he tells us that it is not probable that they two were the first Authors of this Opinion now for brevity sake to set this aside which is pitiful begging and not proving were these two men after all the Abbaudus and Gualtier of this Opinion that our Saviour's Body is received in the Eucharist without any Vail or Figure This is so very false that I wonder how any man that hath common sense or any learning could have the face to assert it * Cogitavetam illis aliqua respondere qui dicunt ipsum Corpus non frangi sed in Albedine ejus Rotunditate aliquid factitari sed recogitans ineptum esse in Evangelio Christi de Albedine Rotunditate dispâ—tare c. Abbaudus p. 211. sensualiter non solum Sacramento sed etiam veriâ—ate manibus Sacerdotum tractari frangi fideliâ—m dentibus attèri Ecce Catholiâ—â— Eides Istâ— autem Scholasticus sic exponit vere quidem ait est sed in Sacramento tantum Gaultier p. 212. in the Remarks they say indeed that the Natural Body of Christ is palpable and sensible in the Eucharist but that they do not mean sensible to the Eye or visible is hence apparent because they talk of the Whiteness and and the Roundness which certainly are that which you call the vails of our Saviour's Body and all the intent of their Arguments was to prove that tho' our Saviour's Body was hid under the Accidents of Whiteness Roundness c. yet that it is palpable and subject to be broke since Whiteness and Roundness which are meer Accidents could not be broken or parted asunder So that now we find by this Dean's help at last that Rathramn's or Bertram's Book was writ against no body and about nothing since it is impossible there ever were such Persons or such an Opinion for any body to write against Certainly this Gentleman thought all the world asleep besides their own Party or he could never have had the courage to have writ such stuff and tho' I do not wonder at the French King 's giving his Royal Privilege to this Book and calling the Translator his dearly beloved because I suppose he does not desire to be thought to have read or examined the Book yet I am perfectly amazed to find the Approbation of the Sorbonne to this most ridiculous nonsensical Piece and can give my self no other reason for it than that those People are resolved to approve and license any thing against us tho' it be at the same time as much against common sense and reason I hope some one will do what I cannot have room or leasure to do here that is take this Dean Boileau's Translation and Remarks to task the very foundation of which I have perfectly ruined in that little I have said here But to return My fourth Corollary is 4 Coroll That the Illustrations and Comparisons by which the Fathers used to prove a Change in the Elements do prove their Opinions to have been opposite to Transubstantiation I will here instance in the several Comparisons (1) Greg. Nyssen Orat. in Bapt. Christi of the Water in Baptism (2) Ambros de Sacram l. 4. c. 4. of the Person baptized (3) Cyrit Hier. Catech. Mystag 3. of the Oyl in Chrism (4) Greg. Nyssen supra of the Ordained Person (5) Idem Ibidem and of the Altar These the Fathers made use of to prove such a change in the Elements of Bread and Wine Now there is no man of any learning or sense will say they taught any Transubstantiation of the Water of the Person baptized of the Oyl of the Stones of the Altar or of the Person ordained and therefore neither any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine They compare these several changes together and make them to be parallel and equal So that it is evident they meant an equal change in them and no Transubstantiation of one of them more than of the rest And farther all the change they attribute to any of these things the Water the Oyl the Baptized person c. is not at all as to their substance by removing it away but as to the Virtue Quality Office and Vse of them by the Accession or Influence of the Spirit of God as I have particularly shewed above in Gregory Nyssen Cyril of Hierusalem and St. Ambrose so that I may hence conclude that as the Primitive Fathers taught no substantial change of any of those things mentioned in order to the Effects they are dedicated to so they taught none of the Bread