abundance of his Grace on your Ladiship to make you still continue in the love and obedience of the Truth is the earnest Prayer of MADAM London Apr. 15. 1676. Your Ladiship 's most Humble Servants Edward Stillingfleet Gilbert Burnet A Discourse To shew How unreasonable it is To ask for Express Words of Scripture in proving all Articles of Faith And that a just and good Consequence from Scripture is sufficient IT will seem a very needless labour to all considering persons to go about the exposing and baffling so unreasonable and ill-grounded a pretence That whatever is not read in Scripture is not to be held an Article of Faith For in making good this Assertion they must either fasten their proofs on some other ground or on the words of our Article which are these Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation So that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation Now it is such an affront to every mans eyes and understanding to infer from these words That all our Articles must be read in Scripture that we are confident every man will cry Shame on any that will pretend to fasten on our Church any such obligation from them If these unlucky words Nor may be proved thereby could be but dashed out it were a won cause But we desire to know what they think can be meant by these words or what else can they signifie but that there may be Articles of Faith which though they be not read in Scripture yet are proved by it There be some Propositions so equivalent to others that they are but the same thing said in several words and these though not read in Scripture yet are contained in it since wheresoever the one is read the other must necessarily be understood Other Propositions there are which are a necessary result either from two places of Scripture which joined together yeild a third as a necessary issue according to that eternal Rule of Reason and Natural Logick That wherever two things agree in any Third they must also agree among Themselves There be also other Propositions that arise out of one single place of Scripture by a natural deduction as if Jesus Christ be proved from any place of Scripture the Creator of the world or that He is to be worshipped with the same Adoration that is due to the Great God then it necessarily follows that He is the Great God because He does the Works and receives the Worship of the Great God So it is plain that our Church by these words Nor may be proved thereby has so declared Her self in this point that it is either very great want of consideration or shameless impudence to draw any such thing from our Articles But we being informed that by this little art as shuffling and bare so ever as it must appear to a just discerner many have been disordered and some prevailed on We shall so open and expose it that we hope it shall appear so poor and trifling that every body must be ashamed of it It hath already shewed it self in France and Germany and the Novelty of it took with many till it came to be canvassed and then it was found so weak that it was universally cried down and hissed off the stage But now that such decried wares will go off no-where those that deal in them try if they can vent them in this Nation It might be imagined that of all persons in the world they should be the furthest from pressing us to reject all Articles of Faith that are not read in Scripture since whenever that is received as a Maxim The Infallibility of their Church the Authority of Tradition the Supremacy of Rome the Worship of Saints with a great many more must be cast out It is unreasonable enough for those who have cursed and excommunicated us because we reject these Doctrines which are not so much as pretended to be read in Scripture to impose on us the Reading all our Articles in these Holy Writings But it is impudent to hear persons speak thus who have against the express and formal words of Scripture set up the making and worshipping of Images and these not only of Saints though that be bad enough but of the Blessed Trinity the praying in an unknown tongue and the taking the Chalice from the people Certainly this plea in such mens mouths is not to be reconciled to the most common rules of decency and discretion What shall we then conclude of men that would impose rules on us that neither themselves submit to nor are we obliged to receive by any Doctrine or Article of our Church But to give this their Plea its full strength and advantage that upon a fair hearing all may justly conclude its unreasonableness we shall first set down all can be said for it In the Principles of Protestants the Scriptures are the rule by which all Controversies must be judged now they having no certain way to direct them in the exposition of them neither Tradition nor the Definition of the Curch Either they must pretend they are Infallible in their Deductions or we have no reason to make any account of them as being Fallible and Vncertain and so they can never secure us from error nor be a just ground to found our Faith of any Proposition so proved upon Therefore no Proposition thus proved can be acknowledged an Article of Faith This is the bredth and length of their Plea which we shall now examine And first if there be any strength in this Plea it will conclude against our submitting to the express words of Scripture as forcibly Since all words how formal soever are capable of several expositions Either they are to be understood literally or figuratively either they are to be understood positively or interrogatively With a great many other varieties of which all expressions are capable So that if the former Argument have any force since every place is capable of several meanings except we be infallibly sure which is the true meaning we ought by the same parity of Reason to make no account of the most express and formal words of Scripture from which it is apparent that what noise soever these men make of express words of Scripture yet if they be true to their own argument they will as little submit to these as to deductions from Scripture Since they have the same reason to question the true meaning of a place that they have to reject an inference and deduction from it And this alone may serve to satisfy every body that this is a trick under which there lies no fair dealing at all But to answer the Argument to all mens satisfaction we must consider the nature of the Soul which is a reasonable being whose chief faculty is to discern the connexion of things and to draw
not innovate any thing in the Doctrine of the Church But it is plain these they brought only as a confirmation of their Arguments and not as the chief strength of their Cause for as they do not drive up the Tradition to the Apostles days setting only down some later testimonies so they make no inferences from them but barely set them down By which it is evident all the use they made of these was only to shew that the â—aith of the age that preceded them was conform to the proofs they brought from Scriptures but did not at all found the strength of their Arguments from Scripture upon the sense of the Fathers that went before them And if the Council of Nice had passed the Decree of adding the Consubstantials to the Creed upon evidence brought from Tradition chiefly can it be imagined that S. Athanasius who knew well on what grounds they went having born so great a share in their consultations and debates when he in a formal Treatise justifies that addition should draw his chief Arguments from Scripture and natural Reason and that only towards the end he should 〈◊〉 us of four Writers from whom he brings passages to prove this was no new or unheard-of thing In the end when the Council had passed their Decree does the method of their dispute alter Let any read Athanasius Hilâ—ry or St. Austin writing against the Arrians They continue still to ply them with Arguments made up of consequences from Scripture and their chief Argument was clearly a consequenco from Scripture that since Christ was by the confession of the Arrians truly God then he must be of the same substance otherwise there must be more substances and so more Gods which was against Scripture Now if this be not a consequence from Scripture let every body judg It was on this they chiefly insisted and waved the Authority of the Council of Nice which they mention very seldom or when they do speak of it it is to prove that its Decrees were according to Scripture â—or proof of this let us hear what St. Austin says writing against Maximinus an Arrianâ—ishop â—ishop proving the Consubstantiality of the Son This is that Consubstanâ—ial which was established by the Catholick Fathers in the Counâ—il of Nice against the Arrians by the authority of Truth and the truth of Authority which Heretical Impiety studied to overthrow under the Heretical Emperor Constantius because of the newness of tâ—e words which were not so well understood as should have been Since the ancient Faith had brought them forth but many were abused by the fraud of a few And a little after he adds But now neither should I bring the Council of Nice nor yet the Council of Arimini thereby to prejudg in this matter neither am I bound by the authority of the latter nor you by the authority of the former Let one Cause and Reason contest and strive with the other from the authorities of the Scriptures which are witnesses common to both and not proper to either of us If this be not our plea as formally as can be let every Reader judg from all which we conclude That our method of proving Articles of Faith by Consequences drawn from Scripture is the same that the Catholick Church in all the best ages made use of And therefore it is unreasonable to deny it to us But all that hath been said will appear yet with fuller and more demonstrative Evidence if we find that this very pretence of appealing to formal words of Scriptures was on several occasions taken up by divers Hereticks but was always rejected by the Fathers as absurd and unreasonable The first time we find this plea in any bodies mouth is upon the Question Whether it was lawful for Christians to go to the Theaters or other publick spectacles which the Fathers set themselves mightily against as that which would corrupt the minds of the people and lead them to heathenish Idolatry But others that loved those diverting fights pleaded for them upon this ground as Tertullian tells us in these words The Faith of some being either simpler or more scrupulous calls for an authority from Scripture for the discharge of these sights and they became uncertain about it because such abstinence is no-where denounced to the servants of God neither by a clear signification nor by name as Thou shalt not kill Nor worship an Idol But he proves it from the first Verse of the Psalms for though that seems to belong to the Jews yet says he the Scripture is always to be divided broad where that discipline is to be guarded according to the sense of whatever is present to us And this agrees with that Maxim he has elsewhere That the words of Scripture are to be understood not only by their sound but by their sense and are not only to be heard with our ears but with our minds In the next place the Arrians designed to shroud themselves under general expressions and had found glosses for all passages of Scripture So that when the Council of Nice made all these ineffectual by putting the word Consubstantial into the Creed then did they in all their Councils and in all disputes set up this plea That they would submit to every thing was in Scripture but not to any additions to Scripture A large account of this we have from Athanasins who gives us many of their Creeds In that proposed at Arimini these words were added to the Symbole For the word Substance because it was simply set down by the Fathers and is not understood by the people but breeds scandal since the Scriptures have it not therefore we have thought fit it be left out and that there be no more mention made of Substance concerning God since the Scriptures no-where speak of the Substance of the Father and the Son He also tells us that at Sirmium they added words to the same purpose to their Symbole rejecting the words of Substance or Consubstantial because nothing is written of them in the Scriptures and they transcend the knowledg and understanding of men Thus we see how exactly the Plea of the Arrians agrees with what is now offered to be imposed on us But let us next see what the Father says to this He first turns it back on the Arrians and shews how far they were from following that Rule which they imposed on others And if we have not as good reason to answer those so who now take up the same Plea let every one judg But then the Father answers it was no matter though one used forms of speech that were not in Scripture if he had still a sound or pious understanding as on the contrary a heretical person though he uses forms out of Scripture he will not be the less suspected if his understanding be corrupted and at full length applies that to the Question of the Consubstantiality To the same purpose St. Hilary setting down the arguments of
IMPRIMATUR June 1. 1676. G. Jane R. P. D. Hen. Epis. Lond. a sac dom A RELATION OF A Conference Held About RELIGION At LONDON the Third of April 1676. By Edw. Stillingfleet D.D. and Gilbert Burnet with some Gentlemen of the Church of ROME LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Moses Pitt at the Angel against the little North-door of S. Paul's Church M DC LXXVI THE CONTENTS THE Preface The Relation of the Conference An addition by N. N. to what was then said An answer to that addition A Letter demonstrating that the Doctrine of the Church for the first eight Centuries was contrary to Transubstantiation A Discourse to show how unreasonable it is to ask for express words of Scripture in proving all Articles of Faith and that a lust and good consequence from Scripture is sufficient A Discourse to shew that it was not only possible to change the Belief of the Church concerning the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament but that it is very reasonable to conclude both that it might be done and that it was truly done ERRATA PAge 18. l. 3. said to to be read at the end of l. 4. p. 8. l. 11. after Baptism read Ethiop p. 23. l. 20. for cites read explains p. 26. l. 3. for sayes r. has these words p. 32. l. 26. after the Body of Christ these words are left out is after some manner his Body and the Sacrament of his Blood p. 72. l. 28. for must r. to p. 75. l. 19. for use r. prove p. 86. l. 26. for these r. the. p. 93 l. 7. for yet r. you p. 103. for History r. Heresy p. 135. l. 14. for remained r. appeared in the world p. 140. l. 22. for which r. who The rest the reader will correct as he goes through THE PREFACE TThere is nothing that is by a more universal agreement decried than conferences about controversies of Religion and no wonder for they have been generally managed with so much heat and passion parties being more concerned for Glory and Victory than Truth and there is such foul dealing in the accounts given of them that it is not strange to see these prejudices taken up against them And yet it cannot be denied but if Men of Candor and Calmness should discourse about matters of Religion without any other interest than to seek and follow Truth there could not be a more effectual and easy way found for satisfying scruples More can be said in one hour than read in a day Besides that what is said in a discourse discretely managed does more appositely meet with the doubtings and difficulties any body is perplexed with than is possibly to be found in a book and since almost all Books disguise the opinions of those that differ from them and represent their arguments as weak and their opinions as odious Conferences between those of different perswasions do remedy all these evils But after all the advantages of this way it must be confessed that for the greater part Men are so engaged to their opinions by interest and other ties that in Conferences most persons are resolved before-hand to yield to no conviction but to defend every thing being only concerned to say so much as may darken weaker minds that are witnesses and give them some occasion to triumph at least conceal any foil they may have received by wrapping up some pittiful shift or other in such words and pronouncing them with such accents of assurance and perhaps scorn that they may seem to come off with victory And it is no less frequent to see Men after they have been so baffled that all discerning witnesses are ashamed of them yet being resolved to make up with impudence what is wanting in Truth as a Coward is generally known to boast most where he has least cause publish about what feats they have done and tell every body they see how the cause in their mouth did triumph over their enemies that so the praise of the defeat given may be divided between the cause and themselves and though in modesty they may pretend to ascribe all to Truth and the faith they contended for yet in their hearts they desire the greatest part be offered to themselves All these considerations with a great many more did appear to us when the Lady T. asked us if we would speak with her Husband and some others of the Church of Rome as well for clearing such scruples as the perpetual converse with those of that Religion had raised in the Lady as for satisfying her Husband of whose being willing to receive instruction she seemed confident Yet being well assured of the Ladies great candor and worth and being willing to stand up for the Vindication and Honour of our Church whatever might follow on it we promised to be ready to wait on her at her house upon advertisement without any nice treating before-hand what we should confer about Therefore we neither asked who should be there nor what number nor in what method or on what particulars our discourse should run but went thither carrying only one Friend along with us for a witness If the discourse had been left to our managing we resolved to have insisted chiefly on the corruptions in the worship of the Roman Church to have shewed on several Heads that there was good cause to reform these abuses and that the Bishops and Pastors of this Church the Civil Authority concurring had sufficient authority for reforming it These being the material things in controversy which must satisfy every person if well made out we intended to have discoursed about them but being put to answer we followed those we had to deal with But that we may not forestal the Reader in any thing that passed in the Ladies chamber which he will find in the following account we had no sooner left her house but we resumed among our selves all had passed that it might be written down what ever should follow to be published if need were So we agreed to meet again three days after to compare what could be written down with our memories And having met an account was read which did so exactly contain all that was spoken as far as we could remember that after a few additions we all Three Signed the Narrative then agreed to Few days had passed when we found we had need of all that care and caution for the matter had got wind and was in every bodies Mouth Many of our best Friends know how far we were from talking of it for till we were asked about it we scarce opened our Mouths of it to any Person But when it was said that we had been baffled and foiled it was necessary for us to give some account of it Not that we were much concerned in what might be thought of us but that the most excellent cause of our Church and Religion might not suffer by the misrepresentations of this conference And the truth was there was so little said
which to some degree will again encourage the Reader and so I leave him to the perusal of what follows THE RELATION OF THE Conference Monday Afternoon the third of April 1676. D. S. and M. B. went to M. L. T 's as they had been desired by L. T. to confer with some Persons upon the Grounds of the Church of Englands separating from Rome and to shew how unreasonable it was to go from our Church to theirs About half an hour after them came in S.P.T. Mr. W. and three more There were present seven or eight Ladies three other Church-men and one or two more When we were all set D. S. said to S.P.T. that we were come to wait on them for justifying our Church that he was glad to see we had Gentlemen to deal with from whom he expected fair dealing as on the other hand he hoped they should meet with nothing from us but what became our profession S. P. said they had Protestants to their Wives and there were other Reasons too to make them with they might turn Protestants therefore he desired to be satisfyed in one thing And so took out the Articles of the Church and read these words of the Sixth Article of the Holy Scriptures So that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation Then he turned to the Twenty Eighth Article of the Lords Supper and read these words And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith and added he desired to know whether that was read in Scripture or not and in what place it was to be found D. S. said he must first explain that Article of the Scripture for this method of proceeding was already sufficiently known and exposed he clearly saw the Snare they thought to bring him in and the advantages they would draw from it But it was the cause of the Church he was to defend which he hoped he was ready to seal with his Blood and was not to be given up for a Trick The meaning of the Sixth Article was That nothing must be Received or Imposed as an Article of Faith but what was either expresly contained in Scripture or to be deduced and proved from it by a clear consequence so that if in any Article of our Church which they rejected he should either shew it in the express words of Scripture or prove it by a clear consequence he performed all required in this Article If they would receive this and fix upon it as the meaning of the Article which certainly it was then he would go on to the proof of that other Article he had called in question M. W. said They must see the Article in express Scripture or at least in some places of Scripture which had been so interpreted by the Church the Councils or Fathers or any one Council or Father And he the rather pitched on this Article because he judged it the only Article in which all Protestants except the Lutherans were agreed D. S. said It had been the art of all the Hereticks from the Marcionites days to call for express words of Scripture It was well known the Arrians set up their rest on this that their Doctrine was not condemned by express words of Scripture but that this was still rejected by the Catholick Church and that Theodoret had written a Book on purpose to prove the unreasonableness of this Challenge therefore he desired they would not insist on that which every body must see was not fair dealing and that they would take the Sixth Article entirely and so go to see if the other Article could not be proved from Scripture though it were not contained in express words M. B. Added that all the Fathers writing against the Arrians brought their proofs of the Consubstantiality of the Son from the Scriptures though it was not contained in the express words of any place And the Arrian Council that rejected the words Equisubstantial and Consubstantial gives that for the reason that they were not in the Scripture And that in the Council of Ephesus S. Cyril brought in many propositions against the Nestorians with a vast collection of places of Scripture to prove them by and though the quotations from Scripture contained not those propositions in express words yet the Council was satisfied from them and condemned the Nestorians Therefore it was most unreasonable and against the practice of the Catholick Church to require express words of Scripture and that the Article was manifestly a disjunctive where we were to chuse whether of the two we would chuse either one or other S. P. T. said Or was not in the Article M. B. said Nor was a negative in a disjunctive proposition as Or was an affirmative and both came to the same meaning M. W. said That S. Austin charged the Heretick to read what he said in the Scripture M. B. said S. Austin could not make that a constant rule otherwise he must reject the Consubstantiality which he did so zealously assert though he might in disputing urge an Heretick with it on some other account D. S. said The Scripture was to deliver to us the revelation of God in matters necessary to Salvation but it was an unreasonable thing to demand proofs for a negative in it for if the Roman Church have set up many Doctrines as Articles of Faith without proof from the Scriptures we had cause enough to reject these if there was no clear proofs of them from Scripture but to require express words of Scripture for a negative was as unjust as if Mahomet had said the Christians had no reason to reject him because there was no place in Scripture that called him an Impostor Since then the Roman Church had set up the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass without either express Scripture or good proofs from it their Church had good cause to reject these M. W. said The Article they desired to be satisfied in was if he understood any thing a positive Article and not a negative M. B. said The positive Article was that Christ was received in the Holy Sacrament but because they had as our Church judged brought in the Doctrine of the corporal presence without all reason the Church made that explanation to cast out the other so that upon the matter it was a negative He added that it was also unreasonable to ask any one place to prove a Doctrine by for the Fathers in their proceedings with the Arrians brought a great collection of places which gave light to one another and all concurred to prove the Article of Faith that was in controversy so if we brought such a consent of many places of Scripture as proved our Doctrine all being joined together we perform all that the Fathers thought themselves bound to do in the like case D.
S. then at great length told them The Church of Rome and the Church of England differed in many great and weighty points that we were come thither to see as these Gentlemen professed they desired if we could offer good reason for them to turn Protestants and as the Ladies professed a desire to be further established in the Doctrine of the Church of England In order to which none could think it a proper method to pick out some words in the obscure corner of an Article and call for express Scriptures for them But the fair and fit way was to examine whether the Church of England had not very good reason to separate from the Communion of the Church of Rome therefore since it was for truth in which ourSouls are so deeply concerned that we enquired he desired they would join issue to examine either the grounds on which the Church of England did separate from the Church of Rome or the authority by which she did it for if there was both good reason for it and if those who did it had a sufficient authority to do it then was the Church of England fully vindicated He did appeal to all that were present if in this offer he dealt not candidly and fairly and if all other ways were not shufling Which he pressed with great earnestness as that only which could satisfy all peoples consciences M. W. and S. P. T. said God forbid they should speak one word for the Church of Rome they understood the danger they should run by speaking to that D. S. said He hoped they looked on us as Men of more Conscience and Honesty than to make an ill use of any thing they might say for their Church that for himself he would die rather than be guilty of so base a thing the very thought whereof he abhorred M. B. said That though the Law condemned the endeavouring to reconcile any to the Church of Rome yet their justifying their Church when put to it especially to Divines in order to satisfaction which they professed they desired could by no colour be made a transgression And that as we engaged our Faith to make no ill use of what should be said so if they doubted any of the other Company it was S. P. his house and he might order it to be more private if he pleased S. P. Said he was only to speak to the Articles of the Church of England and desired express words for that Article Upon this followed a long wrangling the same things were said over and over again In the end M. W. said they had not asked where that Article was read that they doubted of it for they knew it was in no place of Scripture in which they were the more confirmed because none was so much as alledged D. S. said Upon the terms in the 6. Article he was ready to undertake the 28. Article to prove it clearly by Scripture M. W. said But there must be no interpretations admitted of M. B. said It was certain the Scriptures were not given to us as Pariots are taught to speak words we were endued with a faculty of understanding and we must understand somewhat by every place of Scripture Now the true meaning of the words being that which God would teach us in the Scriptures which way soever that were expressed is the Doctrine revealed there and it was to be considered that the Scriptures were at first delivered to plain and simple men to be made use of by all without distinction therefore we were to look unto them as they did and so S. Paul wrote his Epistles which were the hardest pieces of the New Testament to all in the Churches to whom he directed them M. W. said The Epistles were written upon emergent occasions and so were for the use of the Churches to whom they were directed D. S. said Though they were written upon emergent occasions yet they were written by Divine inspiration and as a Rule of Faith not only for those Churches but for all Christians But as M. W. was a going to speak M. C. came in upon which we all rose up till he was set So being set after some Civilities D. S. resumed a little what they were about and told they were calling for express Scriptures to prove the Articles of our Church by M. C. said If we be about Scriptures where is the Judge that shall pass the Sentence who expounds them aright otherwise the contest must be endless D. S. said He had proposed a matter that was indeed of weight therefore he would first shew that these of the Church of Rome were not provided of a sufficient or fit Judge of Controversies M. C. said That was not the thing they were to speak to for though we destroyed the Church of Rome all to nought yet except we built up our own we did nothing therefore he desired to hear what we had to say for our own Church he was not to meddle with the Church of Rome but to hear and be instructed if he could see reason to be of the Church of England for may be it might be somewhat in his way D. S. said He would not examine if it would be in his way to be of the Church of England or not but did heartily acknowledge with great civility that he was a very fair dealer in what he had proposed and that now he had indeed set us in the right way and the truth was we were extream glad to get out of the wrangling we had been in before and to come to treat of matters that were of importance So after some civilities had passed on both sides D. S. said The Bishops and Pastors of the Church of England finding a great many abuses crept into the Church particularly in the worship of God which was chiefly insisted upon in the reformation such as the images of the blessed Trinity the worship whereof was set up and encouraged The turning the devotions we ought to offer only to Christ to the blessed Virgin the Angels and Saints That the worship of God was in an unknown tongue That the Chalice was taken from the people against the express words of the institution That Transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass were set up That our Church had good reason to judge these to be heinous abuses which did much endanger the Salvation of Souls therefore being the Pastors of the Church and being assisted in it by the Civil powers they had both good reason and sufficient authority to reform the Church from these abuses and he left it to M. C. to chuse on which of these particulars they should discourse M. B. said The Bishops and Pastors having the charge of Souls were bound to feed the flock with sound Doctrine according to the word of God So S. Paul when he charged the Bishops of Ephesus to feed the flock and to guard against Wolves or Seducers he commends them to the word of Gods Grace which is the Gospel
said Now we are got into a contest of 1700. years story but I know not when we shall get out of it He confessed there was no Prescription against a divine right and acknowledged all Bishops were alike in their Order but not in their Jurisdiction as the Bishop of Oxford was a Bishop as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury and yet he was inferiour to him in Jurisdiction But desired to know what was in the Popes authority that was so intolerable D. S. said That he should only debate about the Popes Jurisdiction and to his question for one Particular That from the days of Pope Paschal the II. all Bishops swear obedience to the Pope was intolerable bondage M. C. said Then will you acknowledg that before that Oath was imposed the Pope was to be acknowledged adding That let us fix a time wherein we say the Pope began to usurp beyond his just authority and he would prove by Protestant Writers that he had as great power before that time M. B. said Whatever his Patriarchal power was he had none over Britain For it was plain we had not the Christian faith from the Roman Church as appeared from the very story of Austin the Monk S. P. T. said Did not King Lucius write to the Pope upon his receiving the Christian Faith M. C. said he would wave all that and ask if the Church of England could justifie her for saking the obedience of the Bishop of Rome when all the rest of the Christian world submitted to it D. S. said He wondred to hear him speak so Were not the Greek the Armenian the Nestorian and the Abissen Churches separated from the Roman M. C. said He wondred as much to hear him reckon the Nestorians among the Churches that were condemned Hereticks D. S. said It would be hard for him to prove them Nestorians M. C. asked why he called them so then D. S. answered because they were generally best known by that name M. W. said Did not the Greek Church reconcile it self to the Roman Church at the Council of Florence D. S. said Some of their Bishops were partly trepanned partly threatned into it but their Church disowned them and it both and continues to do so to this day M. W. said Many of the Greek Church were daily reconciled to the Church of Rome and many of the other Eastern Bishops had sent their obedience to the Pope D. S. said They knew there was enough to be said to these things that these arts were now pretty well discovered But he insisted to prove the Usurpations of Rome were such as were inconsistent with the supreme civil authorityâ— and shewed the oath in the Pontifiâ—â—le by which for instance If the Pope command a Bishop to go to Rome and his King forbid it he must obey the Pope and disobey the King M. C. said These things were very consistent that the King should be supream in Civils and the Pope in Spirituals So that if the Pope commanded a thing that were Civil the King must be obeyed and not he M. B. said By the words of the Oath the Bishops were to receive and help the Popes Legates both in coming and going Now suppose the King declared it Treason to receive the Legate yet in this case the Bishops are sworn to obey the Pope and this was a case that fell out often D. S. instanced the case of Queen Mary M. C. said If he comes with false Mandates he is not a Legate M. B. said Suppose as has fallen out an hundred times he comes with Bulls and well warranted but the King will not suffer him to enter his Dominions here the Bishops must either be Traitors or perjured M. C. said All these things must be understood to have tacite conditions in them though they be not expressed and gave a Simile which I have forgot D. S. said It was plain Paschal the second devised that Oath on purpose to cut off all those reserves of their duty to their Princes And therefore the words are so full and large that no Oath of Allegiance was ever conceived in more express terms M. B. said It was yet more plain from the words that preceed that clause about Legates that they shall be on no Counsel to do the Pope any injury and shall reveal none of his secrets By which a provision was clearly made that if the Pope did engage in any quarrel or war with any Prince the Bishops were to assist the Popes as their sworn subjects and to be faithful spies and correspondents to give intelligence As he was saying this L. T. did whisper D. S. who presently told the company that the Ladies at whose desire we came thither entreated we would speak to things that concerned them more and discourse on the grounds on which the reformation proceeded and therefore since he had before named some of the most considerable he desired we might discourse about some of these M. C. said Name any thing in the Roman Church that is expresly contrary to Scriptures but bring not your expositions of Scripture to prove it by for we will not admit of these M. B. asked if they did not acknowledge that it was only by the mediation of Christ that our sins were pardoned and eternal life given to us M. C. answered no question of it at all M. B. said Then have we not good reason to depart from that Church that in an office of so great and daily use as was the absolution of penitents after the words of absolution enjoins the following prayer to be used which he read out of their ritual The passion of our Lord Jesus Christ the merits of the blessed Virgin Mary and of all the Saints and whatever good thou hast done or evil thou hast suffered be to thee for the remission of sins the encrease of Grace and the reward of eternal life from whence it plainly follows that their Church ascribes the pardon of all sins and the eternal Salvation of their penitents to the merits of the blessed Virgin and the Saints as well as the passion of our blessed Saviour M. C. said Here was a very severe charge put in against their Church without any reason for they believed that our sins are pardoned and our Souls are saved only by the merits of Jesus Christ but that several things may concur in several orders or wayes to produce the same effects So although we are pardoned and saved only through Christ yet without Holiness we shall never see God we must also suffer whatever crosses he tries us with So that these in another sense procure the pardon of our sins and eternal Salvation Thus in like manner the prayers of the blessed Virgin and the Saints are great helps to our obtaining these therefore though these be all joined together in the same prayer yet it was an unjust charge on their Church to say they make them equal in their value or efficiency M. B. said The thing he had chiefly
excepted against in that prayer was that these things are ascribed to the merits of the blessed Virgin and the Saints Now he had only spoken of their prayers and he appealed â—o all if the natural meaning of these words was not that he charged on them and the sense the other had offered was not forced M. C. said By merits were understood prayers which had force and merit with God M. B. said That could not be for in another absolution in the office of our Lady they pray for remission of sins through the merits and prayers of the blessed Virgin So that by merits must be meant somewhat else than their prayers M. C. said That as by our prayers on earth we help one anothers Souls so by our giving almes for one another we might do the same so also the Saints in Heaven might be helpful to us by their prayers and merits And as soon as he had spoken this he got to his feet and said he was in great hast and much business lay on him that day but said to D. S. That when he pleased he would wait on him and discourse of the other particulars at more length D. S. assured him that when ever he pleased to appoint it he should be ready to give him a meeting And so he went away Then we all stood and talked to one another without any great order near half an hour the discourse being chiefly about the Nags-head fable D. S. apealed to the publick Registers and challenged the silence of all the popish writers all Queen Elizabeth's Reign when such a story was fresh and well known and if there had been any colour for it is it possible they could keep it up or conceal it S. P. T. said All the Registers were forged and that it was not possible to satisfy him in it no more than to prove he had not four fingers on his hand and being desired to read Doctor Bramhall's book about it he said he had read it six times over and that it did not satisfie him M. B. asked him how could any matter of fact that was a hundred years old be proved if the publick Registers and the instruments of publick Notaries were rejected and this the more that this being a matter of fact which could not be done in a corner nor escape the knowledge of their adversaries who might have drawn great and just advantages from publishing and proving it yet that it was never so much as spoken of while that race was alive is as clear an evidence as can be that the forgery was on the other side D. S. Did clear the objection from the Commission and Act of Parliament that it was only for making the ordination legal in England since in Edward the sixth's time the book of ordination was not joined in the record to the book of Common-Prayer from whence Bishop Bonner took occasion to deny their ordination as not according to Law and added that Saunders who in Queen Elizabeth's time denied the validity of our ordination never alledged any such story But as we were talking freely of this M. W. said once or twice they were satisfied about the chief design they had in that meeting to see if there could be alledged any place of Scripture to prove that Article about the blessed Sacrament and said somewhat that looked like the beginning of a Triumph Upon which D. S. desired all might sit down again that they might put that matter to an issue so a Bible was brought and D. S. Being spent with much speaking desired M. B. to speak to it M. B. turned to the 6th Chap. of S. Iohn verse 54. and read these words Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life and added these words were according to the common interpretation of their Church to be understand of the Sacramental manducation This M. W. granted only M. B. had said all the Doctors understood these words so and M. W. said That all had not done so which M. B. did acknowledge but said it was the received exposition in their Church and so framed his argument Eternal life is given to every one that receives Christ in the Sacrament But by Faith only we get eternal life Therefore by Faith only we receive Christ in the Sacrament Otherwise he said unworthy receivers must be said to have eternal life which is a contradiction for as such they are under condemnation yet the unworthy receivers have the external manducation therefore that Manducation that gives eternal life with it must be internal and spiritual and that is by Faith A person whose name I know not but shall henceforth mark him N. N. asked what M. B. meant by Faith only M. B. said By Faith he meanâ— such a believing of the Gospel as carried along with it Evangelical obedience by Faith only he meant Faith as opposite to sense D. S. asked him if we received Christ's body and blood by our senses N. N. said we did D. S. asked which of the senses his taste or touch or sight for that seemed strange to him N. N. said We received Christs body with our senses as well as we did the substance of bread for our senses did not receive the substance of bread and did offer some things to illustrate this both from the Aristotelian and Cartesian Hypothesis D. S. said He would not engage in that subtlety which was a digression from the main argument but he could not avoid to think it a strange assertion to say we received Christ by our senses and yet to say he was so present there that none of our senses could possibly perceive him But to the main argument M. W. denied the minor that by Faith only we have eternal life M. B. proved it thus The Sons of God have eternal life But by Faith only we become the Sons of God Therefore by Faith only we had eternal life M. W. said Except he gave them both Major and Minor in express words of Scripture he would reject the argument M. B. said That if he did demonstrate that both the propositions of his argument were in the strictest construction possible equivalent to clear places of Scripture then his proofs were good therefore he desired to know which of the two propositions he should prove either that the Sons of God have eternal life or that by Faith only we are the Sons of God M. W. said He would admit of no consequences how clear soever they seemed unless he brought him the express words of Scripture and asked if his consequences were infallible D. S. said If the consequence was certain it was sufficient and he desired all would take notice that they would not yield to clear consequences drawn from Scripture which he thought and he believed all impartial people would be of his mind was as great an advantage to any cause as could be desired So we laid aside that argument being satisfied that the Article of our Church which they had called
in question was clearly proved from Scripture Then N. N. insisted to speak of the corporal presence and desired to know upon what grounds we rejected it M. B. said If we have no better reason to believe Christ was corporally present in the Sacrament than the Jews had to believe that every time they did eat their Pascha the Angel was passing by their houses and smiting the first born of the AEgyptians then we have no reason at all but so it is that we have no more reason N. N. denied this and said we had more reason M. B. said All the reason we had to believe it was because Christ said This is my body but Moses said of the Paschal festivity This is the Lords Passover which was always repeated by the Jews in that anniversary Now the Lords Passover was the Lords passing by the Israelites when he slew the first-born of AEgypt If then we will understand Christs words in the strictly literal sense we must in the same sense understand the words of Moses But if we understand the words of Moses in any other sense as the commemoration of the Lords Passover then we ought to understand Christs words in the same sense The reason is clear for Christ being to substitute this Holy Sacrament in room of the Jewish Pascha and he using in every thing as much as could agree with his blessed designs forms as neaâ— the Jewish customes as could be there is no reason to think he did use the words this is my body in any other sense than the Jews did this is the Lords Passover N. N. said The disparity was great First Christ had promised before-hand he would give them his body Secondly It was impossible the Lamb could be the Lords Passover in the literal sense because an action that had been past some hundred of years before could not be performed every time they did eat the Lamb but this is not so Thirdly The Jewish Church never understood these words literally but the Christian Church hath ever understood these words of Christ literally Nor is it to be imagined that a change in such a thing was possible for how could any such opinion have crept in in any age if it had not been the Doctrine of the former age M. B. said Nothing he had alledged was of any force For the first Christ's promise imported no more than what he performed in the Sacramental institution If then it be proved that by saying This is my body be only meant a commemoration his promise must only relate to his death commemorated in the Sacrament To the second the literal meaning of Christ's words is as impossible as the literal meaning of Moses's words for besides all the other impossibilities that accompany this corporal presence it is certain Christ gives us his body in the Sacrament as it was given for us and his blood as it was shed for us which being done only on the Cross above 1600 years ago it is as impossible that should be literally given at every consecration as it was that the Angel should be smiting the AEgyptians every Paschal Festivity And here was a great mistake they went on securely in that the body of Christ we receive in the Sacrament is the body of Christ as he is now glorified in Heaven for by the words of the institution it is clear that we receive his body as it was given for us when his blood was shed on the Cross which being impossible to be reproduced now we only can receive Christ by Faith For his third difference that the Christian Church ever understood Christ's words so we would willingly submit to the decision of the Church in the first 6 ages Could any thing be more express than Theodoret who arguing against the Eutychians that the humanity and Divinity of Christ were not confounded nor did depart from their own substance illustrates it from the Eucharist in which the Elements of Bread and Wine do not depart from their own substance M. W. said We must examine the Doctrine of the Fathers not from some occasional mention they make of the Sacrament but when they treat of it on design and with deliberation But to Theodoret he would oppose S. Cyrill of Jerusalem who in his fourth Mist. Catechism saies expresly Though thou see it to be bread yet believe it is the flesh and the blood of the Lord Jesus doubt it not since he had said This is my body And for a proof instances Christs changing the water into wine D. S. said He had proposed a most excellent Rule for examining the Doctrine of the Fathers in this matter not to canvase what they said in eloquent and pious Treaties or Homilies to work on peoples Devotion in which case it is natural for all persons to use high expressions but we are to seek the real sense of this Mystery when they are dogmatically treating of it and the other Mysteries of Religion where Reason and not Eloquence takes place If then it should appear that at the same time both a Bishop of Rome and Constantinople and one of the greatest Bishops in Africk did in asserting the Mysteries of Religion go downright against Transubstantiation and assert that the substance of the bread and wine did remain He hoped all would be satisfied the Fathers did not believe as they did M. W. desired we would then answer the words of Cyrill M. B. said It were a very unreasonable thing to enter into a verbal dispute about the passages of the Fathers especially the Books not being before us Therefore he promised an answer in writing to the testimony of S. Cyrill But now the matter was driven to a point and we willingly underook to prove that for eight or nine Centuries after Christ the Fathers did not believe Transubstantiation but taught plainly the contrary The Fathers generally call the Elements Bread and Wine after the Consecration they call them Mysteries Types Figures Symbols Commemorations and signs of the body and blood of Christ They generally deliver that the wicked do not receive Christ in the Sacrament which shews they do not believe Transubstantiation All this we undertook to prove by undenyable evidences within a very few days or weeks M. W. said He should be glad to see it D. S. said Now we left upon that point which by the Grace of God we should perform very soon but we had offered to satisfy them in the other grounds of the Separation from the Church of Rome if they desired to be further informed we should wait on them when they pleased So we all rose up and took leave after we had been there about three hours The Discourse was carried on on both sides with great civility and calmness without heat or clamour This is as far as my Memory after the most fixed attention when present and careful Recollection since does suggest to me without any biass or partiality not having failed in any one material thing as far as my
and having given thanks said This is my c. Now we see it is not equal to it nor like it neither to his incarnate likeness nor his invisible Deity nor the lineaments of his Members for it is round and without feeling as to its vertue And this he says to shew how man may be said to be made after the Image of God though he be not like him Gregory Nyssen shewing how common things may be sanctified as Water in Baptism the Stones of an Altar and Church dedicated to God he adds So also Bread in the beginning is common but after the Mystery has consecrated it is said to be and is the Body of Christ so the mystical Oyl so the Wine before the blessing are things of little value but after the sanctification of the Spirit both of them work excellently He also adds that the Priest by his blessing is separated and sanctified from which it appears He no more believed the change of the substance of the Bread and Wine than of the consecrated Oyl the Altar or the Priest Ambrose speaking of Bread which was Ashers blessing says This Bread Christ gave his Apostles that they might divide it to the people that believed and gives it to us to day which the Priest consecrates in his words this Bread is made the food of the Saints St. Chrysostome on these words The Bread which we break it is not the Communion of the Body of Christ says What is the Bread the Body of Christ. What are they made who take it the Body of Christ. From whence it appears he thought the Bread was so the Body of Christ as the worthy Receivers are which is not by the change of their substance but by the sanctification of their natures St. Jerome says Let us hear the Bread which Christ brake and gave his Disciples to be the Body of our Lord. And he says After the Typical Pascha was fulfilled Christ took Bread that comforts the heart of man and went to the true Sacrament of the Pascha that as Melchifedeck in the figure had done offering Bread and Wine so he might also represent the truth of his Body and Blood Where he very plainly calls the Elements Bread and Wine and a Representation of Christs Body and Blood Saint Austin as he is cited by Fulgentius de Baptismo and divers others in his Exhortation to these that were newly baptized speaking of this Sacrament says that which you see is the Bread and the Cup which your eyes witness but that which your faith must be instructed in is that the Bread is the Body of Christ and the Cup is his Blood And then he proposes the Objection how that could be and answers it thus These things are therefore called Sacraments because one thing is seen and another is understood What you see has a bodily appearance but what you understand has a spiritual fruit and if you will understand the Body of Christ hear what the Apostle says to the faithful Ye are the Body of Christ and his members if therefore you be the Body and Members of Christ your Mystery is placed on the Table of the Lord and you receive the Mystery of the Lord. And at large prosecutes this to shew how the faithful are the Body of Christ as the Bread is made up of many grains from whence it appears that he believed that the consecrated Elements were still Bread and Wine And speaking of St. Pauls breaking Bread at Troas he says being to break Bread that night as it is broken in the Sacrament of the Body of Christ. He also says The Eucharist is our daily Bread but let us so receive it that not only our belly but our mind be refreshed by it Besides in a great many places St. Austin calls the Eucharist the Sacrament of Bread and Wine And speaking of things made use of to signifie somewhat else he adds for one The Bread that is made for this is consumed in our receiving the Sacrament He also says To eat Bread is in the new Testament the Sacrifice of Christians He likewise says Both Judas and Peter received a part of the same Bread out of the same hand of our Lord. And thus from Twelve Witnesses that are beyond all exception it does appear That the Fathers believed the Elements to be still Bread and Wine after the consecration We have not brought any proofs from the Fathers that are less known or read for then we must have swelled up this Paper beyond what we intend it One thing is so considerable that we cannot forbear to desire it be taken notice of and that is That we see those great Fathers and Doctors of the Church call the consecrated Elements without any mincing of the matter Bread and Wine but when they call it the Body and Blood of Christ they often use some mollifying and less hardy expression So St. Austin says Almost all call the Sacrament his Body And again says We call that only the Body Blood of Christ which being taken of the fruits of the earth and consecrated by the mystical prayer we rightly receive for our spiritual health in the Commemoration of the Passion of our Lord for us And he says After some sort the Sacrament of the Body of Christ is his Body and the Sacrament of his Blood is the Blood of Christ. And also says He carried himself in his own hands in some sort when he said This is my Body St. Chrysostome says The Bread is thought worthy to be called the Body of our Lord. And on these words The flesh lusteth against the Spirit among the improper acceptions of flesh says the Scriptures use to call the Mysteries by the name of Flesh and sometimes the whole Church saying She is the Body of Christ. Tertullian says Christ calls the Bread his Body and a little after he names the Bread his Body Isidore Hispal says We call this after his command the Body and Blood of Christ which being made of the fruits of the earth is sanctified and made a Sacrament Theodoret says In the giving of the Mysteries Christ called the Bread his Body and the mixed Cup his Blood And says He who called his natural Body Corn and Bread and also calls himself a Vine likewise honoured these visible Symboles with the names of his Body and Blood But now we go to bring our proofs for the next Branch of our first proposition in which we assert That the Fathers believed that the very substance of the Bread and Wine did remain after the Consecration By which all the proofs brought in the former Branch will receive a further evidence since by these it will appear the Fathers believed the substance of the Elements remained and thence we may well conclude that where-ever we find mention made of Bread and Wine after Consecration they mean of the substance and not of the
accidents of Bread and Wine For proof of this we shaâ—â— only bring the testimonies of four â—aâ—hâ—rs that lived almost within one age and were the greatest men of the age Their authority is as generally received as their testimonies are formal and decisive and these are Pope Gelasius St. Chrysostome Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch and Theodoret whom we shall find delivering to us the Doctrine of the Church in their age with great consideration upon a very weighty occasion So that it shall appear that this was for that age the Doctrine generally received both in the Churches of Rome and Constantinople Antioch and Asiâ— the less We shall begin with Gelasius who though he lived later than some of the others yet because of the eminence of his See and the authority those we deal with must needs acknowledge was in him ought to be set first He says the Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ are a Divine thing for which reason we become by them partakers of the Divine Nature and yet the substance or nature of Bread and Wine does not cease to be and the image and likeness of the Body and Blood of Christ are indeed celebrated in the action of the Mysteries therefore it appears evidently â—nough that we ought to think thâ—t of Christ our Lord which we profess and celebrate and receive in his image that as they to wit the Elements pass into that divine substance the Holy Ghost working it their nature remaining still in its own property So that principal Mystery whose efficiency and virtue these to wit the Sacraments represent to us remains one entire and true Christ those things of which he is compounded to wit his two natures remaining in their properties These words seem so express and decisive that one would think the bare reading them without any further reflections should be of force enough But before we offer any considerations upon them we shall set down other passages of the other Fathers and upon them altogether make such remarks as we hope may satisfy any that will hear reason St. Chrysostom treating of the two Natures of Christ against the Apollinarists who did so confound them as to consubstantiate them he makes use of the Doctrine of the Sacrament to illustrate that Mystery by in these words As before the Bread is sanctified we call it Bread but when the Divine Grace has sanctified it by the mean of the Priest it is freed from the name of Bread and is thought worthy of the name of the Lord's Body though the nature of Bread remains in it and yet it is not said there are two Bodies but one Body of the Son so the Divine Nature being joyned to the Body both these make one Son and one Person Next this Patriarch of Constantinople let us hear Ephrem the Patriarch of Antioch give his testimony as it is preserved by Photius who says thus In like manner having before treated of the two Natures united in Christ the Body of Christ which is received by the faithful does not depart from its sensible substance and yet remains inseparated from the Intellectual Grace So Baptism becoming wholly spiritual and one it preserves its own sensible substance and does not lose that which it was before To these we shall add what Theodoret on the same occasion says against those who from that place the word was made flesh believed that in the Incarnation the Divinity of the Word was changed into the Humanity of the Flesh. He brings in his Heretick arguing about some mystical expressions of the Old Testament that related to Christ at length he comes to shew how Christ called himself Bread and Corn so also in the delivering the Mysteries Christ called the Bread his Body and the mixed Cup his Blood and our Saviour changed the names calling his Body by the name of the Symbole and the Symbole by the name of his Body And when the Heretick asks the reason why the names were so changed the Orthodox answers That it was manifest to such as were initiated in Divine things for he would have those who partake of the Mysteries not look to the nature of those things that were seen but by the change of the names to believe that change that was made through Grace for he who called his natural Body Corn and Bread does likewise honour the visible Symboles with the name of his Body and Blood not changing the Nature but adding Grace to Nature And so goes on to ask his Heretick whether he thought the holy Bread was the Symbole and Type of his Divinity or of his Body and Blood and the other acknowledging they were the Symboles of his Body and Blood He concludes that Christ had a true Body The second Dialogue is against the Eutychians who believed that after Christ's assumption his Body was swallowed up by his Divinity And there the Eutychian brings an argument to prove that change from the Sacament it being granted that the Gifts before the Priests Prayer were Bread and Wine He asks how it was to be called after the Sanctification the Orâ—hodox answers the Body and Blood of Christ and that he believed he received the Body and Blood of Christ. From thence the Heretick as having got a great advantage argues That as the Symboles of the Body and Blood of our Lord were one thing before the Priestly Invocation and after that were changed and are different from what they were So the Body of our Lord after the assumption was changed into the Divine substance But the Orthodox replies that he was catched in the net be laid for others for the Mystical Symboles after the sanctification do not depart from their own nature for they continue in their former substance figure and form and are both visible and palpable as they were before but they are understood to be that which they are made and are believed and venerated as being those things which they are believed to be And from thence he bids the Heretick compare the Image with the Original for the type must be like the truth and shews that Christ's Body retains its former form and figure and the substance of his Body though it be now made Immortal and Incorruptible Thus he And having now set down very faithfully the words of these Fathers we desire it may be considered that all these words are used to the same effect to prove the Reality of Christ's Body and the Distinction of the two Natures the Divine and the Humane in him For though St. Chrysostom lived before Eutyches his days yet in this Point the Eutychians and the Apollinarists against whom he writes held opinions so like others that we may well say all these words of the Fathers we have set down are to the same purpose Now first it is evident that if Transubstantiation had been then believed there needed no other argument to prove against the Eutychians that Christ had still a real Body but to
we doubt not but we have brought proofs which in the judgment of all that are unprejudiced must demonstrate the truth of this our second Proposition which we leave and go on to the third which was That by the Doctrine of the Fathers the unworthy Receivers did not receive Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament For this our first Proof is taken from Origen who after he had spoken of the Sacraments being eaten and passing to the belly adds These things we have said of the typical and symbolical Body but many things may be said of the Word that was made Flesh and the true food whom whosoever eats he shall live for ever whom no wicked person can eat for if it were possible that any who continues wicked should eat the Word that was made Flesh since He is the Word and the Living Bread it had never been written whoso eats this Bread shall live for ever Where he makes a manifest difference between the typical and symbolical Body received in the Sacrament and the incarnate Word of which no wicked person can partake And he also says They that are good eat the Living Bread that came down from Heaven and the wicked eat Dead Bread which is Death Zeno Bishop of Verona that as is believed lived near Origen's time says as he is cited by Ratherius Bishop of Verona There is cause to fear that be in whom the Devil dwells does not eat the flesh of our Lord nor drink his Blood though he seems to communicate with the faithful since our Lord hath said He that eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood dwells in me and I in him St. Jerom on the 66 th of Isa. says They that are not holy in body and spirit do neither eat the Flesh of Jesus nor drink his Blood of which he said He that eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood hath eternal life And on the 8 th chap. of Hos. he says They eat not his flesh whose flesh is the food of them that believe To the same purpose he writes in his Comments on the 22 th of Jeremy and on the 10 th of Zech. St. Austin says He that does not abide in Christ and in whom Christ does not abide certainly does not spiritually eat his Flesh nor drink his Blood though he may visibly and carnally break in his teeth the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. But he rather eats and drinks the Sacrament of so great a matter to his judgment And speaking of those who by their uncleanness become the members of an Harlot he says Neither are they to be said to eat the Body of Christ because they are not his members And besides he adds He that says whoso eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood abides in me and I in him shews what it is not only in a Sacrament but truly to eat the Body of Christ and drink his Blood To this we shall add that so oft cited passage Those did eat the Bread that was the Lord the other he means Judas the Bread of the Lord against the Lord. By which he clearly insinuates he did believe the unworthy Receivers did not receive the Lord with the Bread And that this hath been the consâ—ant belief of the greek-Greek-Church to this day shall be proved if it be thought necessary for clearing this matter And thus far we have studied to make good what we undertook to prove But if we had enlarged on every particular we must have said a great deal more to shew from many undeniable evidences that the Fathers were strangers to this new Mystery It is clear from their writings that they thought Christ was only spiritually present that we did eat his Flesh and drink his Blood only by Faith and not by our bodily senses and that the words of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood were to be understood spiritually It is no less clear that they considered Christ present only as he was on the Cross and not as he is now in the glory of the Father And from hence it was that they came to order their Eucharistical forms so as that the Eucharist might represent the whole History of Christ from his Incarnation to his Assumption Besides they always speak of Christ as absent from us according to his Flesh and Human Nature and only present in his Divinity and by his Spirit which they could not have said if they had thought him every day present on their Altars in his Flesh and Human Nature for then he were more on Earth than he is in Heaven since in Heaven he is circumscribed within one place But according to this Doctrine he must be always in above a million of places upon earth so that it were very strange to say he were absent if they believed him thus present But to give yet further evidences of the Fathers not believing this Doctrine let us but reflect a little on the consequences that necessarily follow it which be 1. That a Body may be by the Divine power in more places at once 2. That a Body may be in a place without extension or quantity so a Body of such dimensions as our blessed Lord's Body can be in so small a room as a thin Wafer and not only so but that the whole Body should be entirely in every crumb and point of that Wafer 3. That a Body can be made or produced in a place that had a real Being before and yet is not brought thither but produced there 4. That the accidents of any substance such as colour smell taste and figure can remain without any Body or substance in which they subsist 5. That our senses may deceive us in their clearest and most evident representations 6. Great doubts there are what becomes of the Body of Christ after it is received or if it should come to be corrupted or to be snatched by a Mouse or eat by any vermine All these are the natural and necessary effects of this Doctrine and are not only to be perceived by a contemplative and searching understanding but are such as stare every body full in the face And hence it is that since this was submitted to in the Western Church the whole Doctrine of Philosophy has been altered and new Maxims and Definitions were found out to accustom the youth while raw and easy to any impression to receive these as principles by which their minds being full of those first prejudices might find no difficulty to believe this Now it is certain had the Fathers believed this they who took a great deal of pains to resolve all the other Mysteries of our Faith and were so far from being short or defective in it that they rather over-do it and that not only about the Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation but about Original sin the derivation of our Souls the operation of the Grace of God in our hearts and the Resurrection of our bodies should yet have been so
much in credit In those Ages the Civil powers being ready to serve the rage of Church-men against any who should oppose it it was not safe for any to appear against it And yet it cannot be denied but from the days of the second Council of Nice which made a great step towards Transubstantiation till the fourth Council of Lâ—teran there was great opposition made to it by the most eminent persons in the Latin Church and how great a part of Christendome has departed from the Obedience of the Church of Rome in every age since that time and upon that account is well enough known Now is it to be imagined that there should have been such an opposition to it these Nine hundred years last past and yet that it should have been received the former Eight hundred years with no opposition and that it should not have cost the Church the trouble of one General Council to decree it or of one Treatise of a Father to establish it and answer those objections that naturally arise from our reasons and senses against it But in the end there are many things which have risen out of this Doctrine as its natural consequences which had it been sooner taught and received must have been apprehended sooner and those are so many clear presumptions of the Novelty of this Doctrine The Elevation Adoration Processions the Doctrine of Concomitance with a vast superfaetation of Rites and Rubricks about this Sacrament are lately sprung up The age of them is well known and they have risen in the Latin Church out of this Doctrine which had it been sooner received we may reasonably enough think must have been likewise ancienter Now for all these things as the primitive Church knew them not so on the other hand the great simplicity of their forms as we find them in Justin Martyr and Cyril of Ierusalem in the Apostolical Constitutions and the pretended Denis the Arcopagite are far from that pomp which the latter ages that believed this Doctrine brought in the Sacraments being given in both kinds being put in the hands of the Faithful being given to the children for many ages being sent by boys or common persons to such as were dying the eating up what remained which in some places were burnt in other places were consumed by Children or by the Clergy their making Cataplasms of it their mixing the consecrated Chalice with ink to sign the Excommunication of Hereticks These with a great many more are such convictions to one that has carefully compared the ancient forms with the Rubricks and Rites of the Church of Rome since this Doctrine was set up that it is as discernable as any thing can be that the present belief of the Church of Rome is different from the Primitive Doctrine And thus far we have set down the reasons that perswade us that Transubstantiation was not the belief of the first seven or eight Centuries of the Church If there be any part of what we have asserted questioned we have very formal and full proofs ready to shew for them though we thought it not fit to enter into the particular proofs of any thing but what we undertook to make out when we waited on your Ladyship Now there remains but one thing to be done which we also promised and that was to clear the words of St. Cyril of Jerusalem We acknowledg they were truly cited but for clearing of them we shall neither alledg any thing to the lessening the authority of that Father though we find but a slender character given of him by Epiphanius and others Nor shall we say any thing to lessen the authority of these Catechisms though much might be said But it is plain St. Cyril's design in these Catechisms was only to posses his Neophites with a just and deep sense of these holy Symboles But even in his 4 th Catechism he tells them not to consider it as meer Bread and Wine for it is the Body and Blood of Christ. By which it appears he thought it was Bread still though not meer Bread And he gives us else-where a very formal account in what sense he thought it was Christ's Body and Blood which he also insinuates in this 4 th Cathechism For in his first Mist. Catechism when he exhorts his young Christians to avoid all that belonged to the Heathenish Idolatry he tells that on the solemnities of their Idols they had Flesh and Bread which by the Invocation of the Devils were defiled as the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist before the holy Invocation of the Blessed Trinity was bare bread and Wine but the Invocation being made the Bread becomes the Body of Christ. In like manner says he those victuals of the pomp of Satan which of their own nature are common or bare victuals by the Invocation of the Devils become prophane From this Illustration which he borrowed from Iustin Martyr his second Apology it appears that he thought the Consecration of the Eucharist was of a like sort or manner with the profanation of the Idolatrous Feasts so that as the substance of the one remained still unchanged so also according to him must the substance of the other remain Or if this will not satisfy them let us see to what else he compares this change of the Elements by the Consecration in his third Mist. Catechism treating of the Consecrated Oil he says As the Bread of the Eucharist after the Invocation of the Holy Ghost is no more common Bread but the Body of Christ so this holy Ointment is no more bare Ointment nor as some may say common but it is a gift of Christ and the presence of the Holy Ghost and becomes energetical of his Divinity And from these places let it be gathered what can be drawn from St. Cyril's testimony And thus we have performed likewise what we promised and have given a clear account of St. Cyril's meaning from himself from whose own words and from these things which he compares with the sanctification of the Elements in the Eucharist it appears he could not think of Transubstantiation otherwise he had neither compared it with the Idol-Feasts nor the consecrated Oil in neither of which there can be supposed any Transubstantiation Having thus acquitted our selves of our engagement before your Ladiship we shall conclude this Paper with our most earnest and hearty prayers to the Father of Lights that he may of his great mercy redeem his whole Christian Church from all Idolatry that he may open the eyes of those who being carnal look only at carnal things and do not rightly consider the excellent Beauty of this our most holy Faith which is pure simple and spiritual And that he may confirm all those whom he has called to the knowledg of the Truth so that neither the pleasures of Sin nor the snares of this World nor the fear of the Cross tempt them to make shipwrack of the Faith and a good Conscience And that God may pour out
out such Inferences as flow from that connexion Now though we are liable to great abuses both in our judgments and inferences yet if we apply these faculties with due care we must certainly acquiesce in the result of such reasonings Otherwise this being God's Image in us and the Standard by which we are to try things God has given us a false Standard which when we have with all possible care managed yet we are still exposed to fallacies and errors This must needs reflect on the Veracity of that God that has made us of such a nature that we can never be reasonably assured of any thing Therefore it must be acknowledged that when our Reasons are well prepared according to those eternal rules of Purity and Vertue by which we are fitted to consider of Divine matters and when we carefully weigh things we must have some certain means to be assured of what appears to us And though we be not infallible so that it is still possible for us by precipitation or undue preparation to be abused into mistakes yet we may be well assured that such Connexions and Inferences as appear to us certain are infallibly true If this be not acknowledged then all our obligation to believe any thing in Religion will vanish For that there is a God that he made all things and is to be acknowledged and obeyed by his creatures that our souls shall outlive their union with our bodies and be capable of rewards and punishments in another state that Inspiration is a thing possible that such or such actions were above the power of nature and were really performed In a word all the Maxims on which the belief either of Natural Religion or Revealed is founded are such as we can have no certainty about them and by consequence are not obliged to yield to them if our faculty of Reasoning in its clear deductions is not a sufficient warrant for a sure belief But to examin a little more home their beloved Principle that their Church cannot err must they not prove this from the Divine Goodness and Veracity from some passages of Scripture from miracles and other extraordinary things they pretend do accompany their Church Now in yielding assent to this Doctrine upon these proofs the mind must be led by many arguments through a great many Deductions and Inferences Therefore we are either certain of these deductions Or we are not If we are certain this must either be founded on the Authority of the Church expounding them or on the strength of the argu ms = ments Now we being to examin this Authority not having yet submitted to it this cannot determine our belief till we see good cause for it But in the discerning this good cause of believing the Church Infallible they must say that an uncontrollable evidence of reason is ground enough to fix our Faith on or there can be no certain ground to believe the Church Infallible So that it is apparent we must either receive with a firm perswasion what our souls present to us as uncontrollably true or else we have no reason to believe there is a God or to be Christians or to be as they would have us Romanists And if it be acknowledged there is cause in some cases for us to be determined by the clear evidence of Reason in its Judgments and Inferences then we have this Truth gained that our Reasons are capable of making true and certain Inferences and that we have good cause to be determined in our belief by these and therefore Inferences from Scripture ought to direct our belief Nor can any thing be pretended against this but what must at the same time overthrow all Knowledg and Faith and turn us sceptical to every thing We desire it be in the next place considered what is the end and use of speech and writing which is to make known our thoughts to others those being artificial signs for conveying them to the understanding of others Now every man that speaks pertinently as he designs to be understood so he chooses such expressions and arguments as are most proper to make himself understood by those he speaks to and the clearer he speaks he speaks so much the better and every one that wraps up his meaning in obscure words he either does not distinctly apprehend that about which he discourses or does not design that those to whom he speaks should understand him meaning only to amuse them If likewise he say any thing from which some absurd Inference will easily be apprehended he gives all that hear him a sufficient ground of prejudice against what he says For he must expect that as his Hearers senses receive his words or characters so necessarily some figure or notion must be at the same time imprinted on their imagination or presented to their reason this being the end for which he speaks and the more genuinely that his words express his meaning the more certainly and clearly they to whom he directs them apprehend it It must also be acknowledged that all hearers must necessarily pass judgments on what they hear if they do think it of that importance as to examine it And this they must do by that natural faculty of making judgments and deductions the certainty whereof we have proved to be the foundation of all Faith and Knowledge Now the chief rule of making true judgments is to see what consequences certainly follow on what is laid before us If these be found absurd or impossible we must reject that from which they follow as such Further because no man says every thing that can be thought or said to any point but only such things as may be the seeds of further enquiry and knowledg in their minds to whom he speaks when any thing of great importance is spoken all men do naturally consider what inferences arise out of what is said by a necessary Connexion And if these deductions be made with due care they are of the same force and must be as true as that was from which they are drawn These being some of the Laws of Converse which every man of common sense must know to be true can any man think that when God was revealing by inspired men his Counsels to mankind in matters that concerned their eternal happiness he would do it in any other way than any honest man speaks to another that is plainly and distinctly There were particular reasons why prophetical visions must needs be obscure but when Christ appeared on earth though many things were not to be fully opened till he had triumphed over death and the powers of darkness Yet his design being to bring men to God what he spoke in order to that we must think he intended that they to whom he spake it might understand it otherwise why should he have spoken it to them and if he did intend they should understand him then he must have used such expressions as were most proper for conveying this to their understandings
am fully perswaded that before that Council the Church did believe that the Son was truly God and of the same Divine substance with the Father Yet on the other hand it cannot be denied but there are many expressions in their Writings which they had not so well considered and thence it is that St. Basil observes how Denis in his opposition to Sabellius had gone too far on the other hand Therefore there was a necessity to make such a Symbole as might cut off all equivocal and ambiguous forms of speech So we have very good reason to conclude it was the Arrian party that studied under the pretence of not innovating to engage many of the holy but simpler Bishops to be against any new words or Symboles that so they might still lurk undiscovered Upon what grounds the Council of Nice made their Decree and Symbole we have no certain account since their Acts are lost But the best conjecture we can make is from S. Athanasius who as he was a great Assertor of the Faith in that Council so also he gives us a large account of its Creed in a particular Treatise in which he jusâ—ifies their Symbole at great length out of the Scriptures and tell us very formally they used the word Consubstantial that the wickedness and craft of the Arrians might be discovered and proves by many consequences from Scriptures that the words were well chosen and sets up his rest on his Arguments from the Scriptures though all his proofs are but consequences drawn out of them It is true when he has done that he also adds that the Fathers at Nice did not begin the use of these words but had them from those that went before them and cites some passages from Theognistus Denis of Alexandria Denis of Rome and Origen But no body can imagin this was a full proof of the Tradition of the Faith These were but a few later Writers nor could he have submitted the decision of the whole Controversy to two of these Denis of Alexandria and Origen for the other two their works are lost in whose Writings there were divers passages that favoured the Arrians and in which they boasted much Therefore Athanasius only cites these passages to shew the words of these Symbole were not first coined by the Council of Nice But neither in that Treatise nor in any other of his Works do I ever find that either the Council of Nice or he who was the great Champion for their Faith did study to prove the Consubstantiality to have been the constant Tradition of the Church But in all his Treatises he at full length proves it from Scripture So from the definition of the Council of Nice and Athanasius his Writings it appears the Church of that Age thought that consequences clearly proved from Scripture were a sufficient ground to build an Article of â—aith on With this I desire it be also considered that the next great Controversy that was carried on chiefly by S. Cyril against the Nestorians was likewise all managed by consequences from Scripture as will appear to any that reads S. Cyril's Writings inserted in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus chiefly his Treatise to the Queens and when he brought testimonies from the Fathers against Nestoâ—ius which were read in the Council they are all taken out of Fathers that lived after the Council of Nice except only S. Cyprian and Peter of Alexandria If then we may collect from S. Cyril's Writings the sense of that Council as we did from S. Athanasius that of the Council of Nice we must conclude that their Decrees were founded on consequences drawn from Scripture nor were they so solicitous to prove a continued succession of the Tradition In like manner when the Council of Chaâ—edon condemned Eutyches Pope Leo's Epistle to â—lavian was read and all assented to it So that upon the matter his Epistle became the Decree of the Council and that whole Epistle from beginning to end is one entire series of consequences proved from Scripture and Reason And to the end of that Epistle are added in the Acts of that Council testimonies from the Fathers that had lived after the days of the Council of Nice Theodoret and Gelasius also who wrote against the Eutychians do through their whole writings pursue them with consequences drawn from Scripture and Reason and in the end set down testimonies from Fathers And to instance only one more when St. Austin wrote against the Pelagians how many consequences he draws from Scripture every one that has read him must needs know In the end let it be also observed that all these Fathers when they argue from places of Scripture they never attempt to prove that those Scriptures had been expounded in that sense they urge them in by the Councils or Fathers who had gone before them but argue from the sense which they prove they ought to be understood in I do not say all their consequences or expositions were wel-grounded but all that has been hitherto set down will prove that they thought Arguments drawn from Scripture when the consequences are clear were of sufficient authority and force to end all Controversies And thus it may appear that it is unreasonable and contrary to the practice both of the ancient Councils and Fathers to reject proofs drawn from places of Scripture though they contain not in so many words that which is intended to be proved by them But all the Answer they can offer to this is that those Fathers and Councils had another authority to draw consequences from Scripture because the extraordinary presence of God was among them and because of the Tradition of the Faith they builded their Decrees on than we can pretend to who do not so much as say we are so immediately directed or that we found our Faith upon the successive Tradition of the several ages of the Church To this I answer First it is visible that if there be any strength in this it will conclude as well against our using express words of Scripture since the most express words are capable of several Expositions Therefore it is plain they use no fair dealing in this appeal to the formal words of Scripture since the Argument they press it by do invalidate the most express testimonies as well as deductions Let it be further considered that before the Councils had made their Decrees when Heresies were broached the Fathers wrote against them confuting them by Arguments made up of Scripture-consequences so that before the Church had decreed they thought private persons might confute Heresies by such consequences Nor did these Fathers place the strength of their Arguments on Tradition as will appear to any that reads but what S. Cyril wrote against Nestorius before the Council of Ephesus and Pope Leo against Eutyches before the Council of Chalcedon where all their Reasonings are founded on Scripture It is true they add some testimonies of â—athers to prove they did
person the most trifling and pitiful Objection that can be offered by men of common sense and reason And therefore it is hoped that all persons who take any care of their souls will examine things more narrowly than to suffer such tricks to pass upon them or to be shaken by such Objections And if all the scruple these Gentlemen have why they do not joyn in Communion with the Church of Eâ—glâ—nd lies in this we expect they shall find it so entirely satisfied and removed out of the way that they shall think of returning back to that Church where they had their Baptism and Christian Education and which is still ready to receive them with open arms and to restore such as have been over-reached into Error and Heresy with the spirit of meekness To which I pray God of his great mercy dispose both them and all others who upon these or such like scruples have deserted the purest Church upon Earth and have turned over to a most impure and corrupt Society And let all men say Amen A Discourse to shew that it was not only possible to change the Belief of the Church concerning the manner of Christ's Presence in the Sacrament but that it is very reasonable to conclude both that it might be done and that it was truly changed THere is only one Particular of any importance that was mentioned in the Conference to which we forgot to make any Answer at all which was spoken by N.N. to this purpose How was it possible or to be imagined that the Church of God could ever have received such a Doctrine as the belief of Transubstantiation if every age had not received it and been instructed in it by their Fathers and the Age that went before it This by a pure forgetfulness was not answered and one of these Gentlemen took notice of it to me meeting with me since that time and desired me to consider what a friend of N. N. has lately printed on this Subject in a Letter concerning Transubstantiation Directed to a Person of Honour In which a great many pretended Impossibilities of any such Innovation of the Doctrine are reckoned up to shew it a thing both inconceivable and unpracticable to get the Faith of the Church changed in a thing of this nature This same Plea has been managed with all the advantages possible both of Wit Eloquence and Learning by Mr. Arnaud of the Sorbon but had been so exposed and baffled by Mr. Claud who as he equals the other in Learning Eloquence and Wit so having much the better of him in the Cause and Truth he vindicates has so foiled the other in this Plea that he seeing no other way to preserve that high reputation which his other Writings and the whole course of his Life had so justly acquired him has gone off from the main Argument on which they begun and betaken himself to a long and unprofitable Enquiry into the belief of the Greek Church since her schisme from the Latine Church The Contest has been oft renewed and all the ingenious and learned persons of both sides have looked on with great expectations Every one must confess M. Arnaud has said all can be said in such a Cause yet it seems he finds himself often pinched by the bitter I had almost said scurrilous reproaches he casts on Mr. Claud which is very unbecoming the Education and other noble Qualities of that great man whom for his Book of Frequent Communion I shall ever honour And it is a thing much to be lamented that he was taken off from these more useful Labours wherein he was engaged so much to the bettering this Age both in discovering the horrid corruption of the Jesuits and other Casuists not only in their Speculations about Casuistical Divinity but in their hearing Confessions and giving easie Absolutions upon trifling Penances and granting Absolutions before the Penance was performed and in representing to us the true Spirit of Holiness and Devotion was in the Primitive Church But on the other hand as Mr. Claud leaves nothing unsaid in a method fully answerable to the excellence of that truth he defends so he answers these reproaches in a way worthy of himself or rather of Christ and the Gospel If those excellent Writings were in English I should need to say nothing to a point that has been so canvassed but till some oblige this Nation by translating them I shall say so much on this Head as I hope shall be sufficient to convince every body of the emptiness weakness and folly of this Plea And first of all In a matter of fact concerning a change made in the Belief of the Church the only certain method of enquiry is to consider the Doctrine of the Church in former Ages and to compare that with what is now received and if we see a difference between these we are sure there has been a change though we are not able to shew by what steps it was made nay though we could not so much as make it appear probable that such a change could be made To instance this in a plain case of the change of the English Language since the dayes of William the Conqueror that there has no such swarm of Foreigners broke in upon this Island as might change our Language One may then argue thus Every one speaks the Language he heard his Parents his Nurses and others about him speak when he was a Child and this he continues to speak all his life and his Children speak as they heard him speak Upon which a man of wit and phancy might say a great many things to shew it impossible any such change should ever have been made as that we now should speak so as not to understand what was said five or six hundred years ago Yet if I find Chaucer or any much ancienter Book so written that I can hardly make a shift to understand it from thence without any further reasoning how this could be brought about I naturally must conclude our Language is altered And if any man should be so impertinent as to argue that could not be for Children speak as their Nurses and Parents taught them I could hardly answer him in patience but must tell him it is altered without more ado If a Child were amused with such pretended Impossibilities I would tell him that Strangers coming among us and our travelling to parts beyond the Seas made us acquainted with other Languages and Englishmen finding in other Tongues some words and phrases which they judged more proper than any they had being also fond of new words there was an insensible change made in every Age which after five or six Ages is more discernable Just so if I find most of all the Fathers either delivering their Opinions clearly in this matter against the Doctrine of the Roman Church or saying things utterly inconsistent with it I am sure there has been a change made though I could not shew either the whole progress of
great opposition except what was made in Bohemia Next to this let us consider how naturally all men are apt to be fond of their Children and not to suffer any thing to be denied them by which they conceive they are advantaged Upon which one may reckon once we are sure it was the universally received custom for many Ages over the whole Latine Church that all Children had the Eucharist given them immediately after they were baptized And the Rubrick of the Roman Missal ordered they should not be suffered to suck after they were baptized before they had the Eucharist given them except in cases of necessity This Order is believed to be a work of the eleventh Century so lately was this thought necessary in the Roman Church All men know how careful most Parents even such as have not much Religion themselves are that nothing be wanting about their Children and it was thought simply necessary to salvation that all persons had the Eucharist How many imaginary difficulties may one imagine might have obstructed the changing this Custom One would expect to hear of tumults and stirs and an universal conspiracy of all men to save this Right of their Children Yet Hugo de Sancto Victore tells us how it was wearing out in his time and we find not the least opposition made to the taking it away A third thing to which it is not easie to apprehend how the Vulgar should have consented was the denying them that right of Nature and Nations that overy body should worship God in a known Tongue In this Island the Saxons had the Liturgy in their Vulgar Tongue and so it was also overall the world And from this might not one very justly reckon up many high improbabilities to demonstrate the setting up the Worship in an unknown Tongue could never be brought about and yet we know it was done In end I shall name only one other particular which seems very hard to be got changed which yet we are sure was changed This was the popular Elections of the Bishops and Clergy which as is past dispute were once in the hands of the people and yet they were got to part with them and that at a time when Church-preferments were raised very high in all secular advantages so that it may seem strange they should then have been wrought upon to let go a thing which all men are naturally inclined to desire an interest in and so much the more if the dignity or riches of the function be very considerable and yet though we meet in Church-History many accounts of tumults that were in those Elections while they were in the peoples hands yet I remember of no tumults made to keep them when they were taken out of their hands And now I leave it to every Readers Conscience if he is not perswaded by all the conjectures he can make of Mankind that it is more hard to conceive how these things that have been named of which the people had clear possession were struck out than that a speculative Opinion how absurd soever was brought in especially in such Ages as these were in which it was done This leads me to the next thing which is to make some reflexions on those Ages in which this Doctrine crept into the Church As long as the miraculous effusion of the Holy Ghost continued in the Church the simplicity of those that preached the Gospel was no small confirmation of that authority that accompanied them so that it was more for the honour of the Gospel that there were no great Scholars or Disputants to promote it But when that ceased it was necessary the Christian Religion should be advanced by such rational means as are suitable to the Soul of man If it had begun only upon such a foundation men would not have given it a hearing but the Miracles which were at first wrought having sufficiently allarm'd the world so that by them were inclined to hearken to it Then it was to be tried by those Rules of Truth and Goodness which lie engraven on all mens Souls And therefore it was necessary those who defended it should both understand it well and likewise know all the secrets of Heathenism and of the Greek Philosophy A knowledge in these being thus necessary God raised up among the Philosophers divers great persons such as Justin Clement Origen and many others whose minds being enlightned with the knowledge of the Gospel as well as endued with all other humane Learning they were great supports to the Christian Religion Afterwards many Heresies being broached about the Mysteries of the Faith chiefly those that relate to the Son of God and his Incarnation upon which followed long contests for managing these a full understanding of Scripture was also necessary and that set all persons mightily to the study of the Scriptures But it is not to be denied great corruptions did quickly break in when the Persecutions were over and the Church abounded in peace and plenty not but that the Doctrine was preserved pure long after that There were also many shining Lights and great Fathers in that and in the following Age yet from the Fathers of these two Ages and from the great disorders were in some of their Councils as in the case of Athanasiaus and the second Ephesin Council we may clearly see how much they were degenerating from the primitive purity Many Contests were about the precedency of their Sees great Ambition and Contention appeared in their Synods which made Nazianzen hate and shun them expecting no good from them These and such like things brought very heavy Judgments and Plagues on the Church and the whole Roman Empire in the fifth Century For vast swarms of Armies out of Germany and the Northern Nations brake in upon the Western Empire and by a long succession of new Invaders all was sackt and ruined The Goths were followed by the Vandals the Alains the Gepides the Franks the Sweves the Huns and in the end the Lombards Those Nations were for the greatest part Arrians but all were barbarous and rude and their hatred of the Faith joyned to the barbarity of their tempers set them with a strange fury on destroying the most sacred things And to that we owe the loss of most of the primitive Writings and of all the authentical Records of the first Persecutions scarce any thing remaining but what Eusebius had before gathered together out of a former destruction was made of such things under Diocletian Nor did the Glory of the Eastern Empire long survive the Western that fell before these Invaders But in Europe by the Impression of the Bulgars and in Asia by the Conquests made first by the Saracens then by the Turks their Greatness was soon broken though it lasted longer under that oppressed condition than the other had done Thus was both the Greek and the Latine Church brought under sad oppression and much misery And every body knows that the natural effect that state of
commixture of some Fear of God and Love of Sin both being disordered by much ignorance hence sprang most of the Idolatrous Rites of Heathenism and all people so tempered are fit for the like humour to work upon Thirdly The Interests of Church-men led them mightily to study the setting this Opinion on foot This alone set them as high as mortal Men could be and made them appear a most sacred sort of a Creature All the wonders of the Prophets and Apostles were but sorry matters to it What was Moses calling for Manna from Heaven and Water from the Rock Elija's bringing sometimes Fire and sometimes Rain from Heaven what were the Apostles raising the dead giving sight to the blind and feet to the lame To the annihilating the substance of Bread and Wine and bringing in their stead not some other common matter but the Flesh and Blood of the Ever-Blessed Jesus He who could do this no wonder he were reverenced enriched secure from all danger exempt from all Civil Jurisdiction and cherished with all imaginable respect and kindness So that it is no strange thing that Churchmen were much inclined to favour an Opinion that favoured their Interests so much Fourthly The Churchmen of these Ages were very likely to be easily drawn to any thing which might so much advance their designs that were grown very high especially from the days of Pope Gregory the Great They were struggling with the Civil Powers for dominion and pursued that for many years and spared neither labour nor the lives of Men to attain it And it is not to be thought but Men who did prodigally throw away many thousands in a quarrel would without very nice disputing cherish any opinion that might contribute toward that end And as this was of great use to them so they very much needed both it and all such like shifts for they had none of that sublime Sanctity nor high Learning or lofty Eloquence which former Churchmen had and by which they had acquired great esteem in the World Now the Churchmen in these days having a great mind to preserve or rather to encrease that esteem but wanting those qualities which on a reasonable account might have acquired it or preserved it must needs think of somewhat else to do it by and so found out many Arts for it such as the Belief of Purgatory the Priestly Absolution upon Confession together with the reserved Cases Indulgences and the Popes power of taking Souls out of Purgatory And if it be not full as unreasonable to think the Pope should be believed vested with a power of pardoning Sin and redeeming from Purgatory as that Transubstantiation should have been received let any Man judge Fifthly There was such a vast number of Agents and Emissaries sent from Rome to all the Parts of Europe to carry on their designs that we can hardly think it possible any thing could have withstood them In such Ages by giving some terrible name to any thing it was presently disgraced with the Vulgar a clear instance of this was the Fate of the Married Clergy Gregory the Seventh who as Cardinal Benno who knew him represents him was one of the worst Men that ever was born and first set on foot the Popes pretensions to the Civil Authority and the Power of deposing Princes and putting others in their places did prosecute the Married Clergy with great vehemency This he could not do on any pious or chaste account being so vile a Man as he was But being resolved to bring all Princes to depend on him there was no way so like to attain that as to have all the Clergy absolutely subject to him This could not be hoped for while they were married and that the Princes and several States of Europe had such a pawn of their fidelity as their Wives and Children therefore because the persons of the Clergy were accounted sacred and liable to no punishment that there might be nothing so nearly related to them wherein they might be punished as their Wives and Children he drave this furiously on and to give them some ill favoured Name called them Nicolaitans which are represented in the Revelation so vile and odious This was the most unjust thing in the World They might have called them Pharisees or Sadducees as well for all the ancient Writers tell us that Nicolas having a beautiful Wife was jealous and the Apostles challenging him of it he said he was so far from it that he was willing to make her common and thence some set up the community of Wives and were from him called the Nicolaitans But because Women and Marriage were in the case and it was a hateful word this was the Name by which the married Clergy were every where made so odious and though it was much the Interest of Princes to have had the Marriage of the Clergy to be left free yet the Popes were too hard for them in it Thus were the Agents of Rome able to prevail in every thing they set themselves to So the Opposers of this Doctrine were called by the hateful Names of Stercoranists and Panites Sixthly When all Religion was placed in externals and splendid Rites and Ceremonies came to be generally looked on as the whole business of Religion peoples minds were by that much disposed to receive anything that might introduce external pomp and grandeur into their Churches being willing to make up in an outward appearance of worshipping the Person of Christ what was wanting in their obedience to his Gospel And now I appeal to any honest Man if upon the suppositions I have laid down it be at all an unaccountable thing that a great company of ignorant and debauched Clergymen should set themselves to cherish and advance a belief which would redeem them from all the Infamy their other Vices were ready to bring upon them and they resolving on it if it was hard for them especially in a course of some Ages to get an ignorant credulous superstitious and corrupt multitude to receive it without much noise or adoe I believe no man will deny but upon these suppositions the thing was very like to succeed Now that all these suppositions are true to wit that both Clergy and Laity in those Ages chiefly in the Ninth Tenth and Eleventh Centuries were ignorant and vicious to the height is a thing so generally known and so universally confessed by all their own Historians that I hardly think any man will have brow enough to deny it But there are many other things which will also shew how possible nay feasible such a change may be First This having never been condemned by a formal Decision in any former Age it was more easie to get it brought in for no Council or Father could condemn or write against any Errour but that which was maintained or abetted by some man or company of men in or before their time Since then this had not been broached in the former Ages the promoters of it had
this advantage that no former Decision had been made against them for none ever thought of condemning any Heresie before it had a being Secondly This Errour did in the outward found agree with the words of the Institution and the forms used in the former Liturgies in which the Elements were said to be changed into the true and undefiled Body of Christ. A Doctrine then that seemed to establish nothing contrary to the ancient Liturgies might easily have been received in an Age in which the outward sound and appearance was all they looked to Thirdly The passage from the believing any thing in general with an indistinct and confused apprehension to any particular way of explaining it is not at all hard to be conceived especially in an Age that likes every thing the better the more mysterious it seem In the preceding Ages it was in general received that Christ was in the Sacrament and that by the Consecration the Elements were changed into his Body and Blood And although many of the Fathers did very formally explain in what sense Christ was present and the Elements were changed yet there having been no occasion given to the Church to make any formal decision about the manner of it every one thought he was left at liberty to explain it as he pleased And we may very reasonably suppose that many did not explain it at all especially in these Ages in which there was scarce any preaching or instructing the people By this means the people did believe Christ was in the Sacrament and that the Elements were changed into his Body and Blood without troubling themselves to examin how it was whether spiritually or corporally Things being brought to this in these Ages by the carelesness of the Clergy the people were by that sufficiently disposed to believe any particular manner of that presence or change their Pastors might offer to them Fourthly There being no visible change made in any part of the Worship when this Doctrine was first brought in it was easie to innovate in these Ages in which people looked only at things that were visible and sensible Had they brought in the Adoration Processions or other consequences of this Doctrine along with it it was like to have made more noise for people are apt to be startled when they see any notable change in their Worship But this belief was first infufed in the people and Berengarius was condemned The Council of Lateran had also made the Decree about it before ever there were any of these signal alterations attempted And after that was done then did Honorius decree the adoration and Urban the fourth upon some pretended Visions of Eve Julian and Isabella did appoint the Feast of the Body of Christ called now generally The Feast of God or Corpus Christi Feast which was confirmed by Pope Clement the fifth in the Council of Vienna and ever since that time they have been endeavouring by all the devices possible to encrease the devotion of the people to the Hoft So that Mr. Arnaud in many places acknowledges they are most gross Idolaters if their Doctrine be not true which I desire may be well considered since it is the opinion of one of the most considering and wisest and most learned persons of that Communion who has his whole life set his thoughts chiefly to the examining of this Sacrament and knows as well as any man alive what is the real sense of the Worshippers in that Church But to return to that I am about it is very unreasonable to think that the people in those dark Ages did concern themselves in the speculative opinions were among Divines so that the vulgar could not busie themselves about it but when this Opinion was decreed and generally received and infused in the Laity for almost one age together then we need not wonder to see notable alterations following upon it in their worship without any opposition or contest for it was very reasonable such Consequences should have followed such a Doctrine But that before that time there was no adoration of the Elements is a thing so clear that it is impudence to deny it there was no prostration of the body or kneeling to be made either on Lords dayes or all the time between Easter and Pentecost by the twentieth Canon of the Council of Nice None of the ancient Liturgies do so much as mention it but the contrary is plainly insinuated by S. Cyril of Ierusalem None of that great number of Writers about Divine Offices that lived in the seventh eighth ninth and tenth Centuries published by Hittorpius so much as mention it Though they be very particular in giving us an account of the most inconsiderable parts of the Divine Offices and of all the circumstances of them Honorius when he first decreed it does not alledge presidents for it but commands the Priests to tell the people to do it whereas if it had been appointed before he must rather have commanded the Priests to have told the people of their sacrilegious contempt of the Body of Christ notwithstanding the former Laws and Practice of the Church But it is apparent his way of enjoyning it is in the style of one that commands a new thing and not that sets on the execution of what was formerly used Yet this was more warily appointed by Honorius who enjoyned only an inclination of the Head to the Sacrament but it was set up bare faced by his Successor Gregory the ninth who appointed as the Historians tell us though it be not among his Decretals a Bell to be rung to give notice at the consecration and elevation that all who heard it might kneel and joyn their hands in adoring the Host. So that any passages of the Fathers that speak of Adoration or Veneration to the Sacrament must either be understood of the inward Adoration the Communicant offers up to God the Father and his blessed Son in the commemoration of so great a mystery of Love as appeared in his death then represented and remembred Or these words are to be taken in a large sense and so we find they usually called the Gospels their Bishops Baptism the Pascha and almost all other sacred things venerable And thus from many particulars it is apparent that the bringing in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is no unaccountable thing But I shall pursue this yet further for the Readers full satisfaction and shew the steps by which this Doctrine was introduced We find in the Church of Corinth the receiving the Sacrament was looked on but as a common entertainment and was gone about without great care or devotion which S. Paul charges severely on them and tells them what heavy judgments had already fallen on them for such abuses and that heavier ones might be yet looked for since they were guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord by their unworthy receiving Upon this the whole Christian Church was set to consider in very good earnest how to
doe not at all condemn them for that which is the chief testimony for us to wit That the Sacrament was still the substance of Bread and Wine and Damascene the zealous Defender of Images clearly insinuates his believing the substance of Bread and Wine remained and did nourish our Bodies Let it be therefore considered that when that Council of Nice was in all the bitterness imaginable canvassing every word of the Council of Constantinople they never once blame them for saying the substance of Bread and Wine was in the Sacrament It is true they condemned them for saying the Sacrament was the Image of Christ denying that any of the Fathers had called it so alledging that the Symboles were called Antitypes by the Fathers only before the consecration and not after in which they followed Damascene who had fallen in the same Errour before them But this is so manifest a mistake in matter of fact that it gives a just reason for rejecting the authority of that Council were there no more to be said against it For this was either very gross ignorance or effronted impudence since in above twenty Fathers that were before them the Sacrament is called the Figure and Antitype of Christ's Body and at the same time that Damascene who was then looked on as the great Light of the East did condemn the calling the Sacrament the Figure of Christ's Body The venerable Bede that was looked on as the great Light of the West did according to the stile of the primitive Church and in S. Austin's words call it The Figure of Christ's Body I shall not trace the other forgeries and follies of that pretended General Council because I know a full account of them is expected from a better Pen only in this particular I must desire the Reader to take notice that the Council of Constantinople did not innovate any thing in the Doctrine about the Sacrament and did use it as an Argument in the other Controversie concerning Images without any design at all about the Eucharist But on the other hand the second Council of Nice did innovate and reject a form of speech which had been universally received in the Church before their time and being engaged with all possible spight against the Council of Constantinople resolved to contradict every thing they had said as much as could be So that in this we ought to look on the Council of Constantinople as delivering what was truly the tradition of the Church and on the second Council of Nice as corrupting it About thirty years after that Council Paschase Radbert Abbot of Corbie wrote about the Sacrament and did formally assert the Corporal Presence in the Ninth Century The greatest Patrons of this Doctrine such as Bellarmine and Sirmondus both Jesuites confess he was the first that did fully and to purpose explain the verity of Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist And Paschase himself in his Letter to his Friend Frudegard regrates that He was so slow in believing and assenting to his Doctrine and does also acknowledge that by his Book he had moved many to the understanding of that Mystery and it is apparent by that Letter that not only Frudegard but others were scandalized at his Book for he writes I have spoken of these things more fully and more expresly because I understand that some challenge me that in the Book I have published of the Sacraments of Christ I have ascribed either more or some other thing than is consonant to Truth to the words of our Lord. Of all the Writers of that Age or near it only one and his Name we know not the Book being anonymous was of Paschase's opinion But we find all the great men of that Age were of another mind and did clearly assert that in the Sacrament the Substance of Bread and Wine remained and did nourish our Bodies as other meats do These were Rabanus Maurâ—s Archbishop of Mentz Amalarius Archbishop of Treves or as others say Metz Heribald Bishop of Auxerre Bertram Iohn Scot Erigena Walafridus Strabo Florus and Christian Druthmar And three of these set themselves on purpose to refute Paschase The anonymous Writer that defends him sayes That Raban did dispute at length against him in an Epistle to Abbot Egilon for saying it was that Body that was born of the Virgin and was crucified and raised again that was daily offered for the life of the World That is also condemned by Raban in his Penitential cap. 33. who refers his Reader to that Epistle to Abbot Egilon And for Bertram he was commanded by Charles the Bald then Emperor to write upon that matter which in the beginning of his Book he promises to do not trusting to his own wit but following the steps of the Holy Fathers It is also apparent by his Book that there were at that time different Perswasions about the Body of Christ in the Sacrament some believing it was there without any Figure others saying it was there in a Figure and Mystery Upon which he apprehended there must needs follow a great Schism And let any read Paschase's Book and after that Bertram's and if he have either honesty or at least shame remaining in him he must see it was in all points the very same Controversie that was canvassed then between them and is now debated between the Church of Rome and us Now that Raban and Bertram were two of the greatest and most learned men of that Age cannot be denied Raban passes without contest amongst the first men of the Age and for Bertram we need neither cite what Trithemius sayes of him nor what the Disciples of S. Austin in the Port-Royal have said to magnifie him when they make use of him to establish the Doctrine of the efficacy of Grace It is a sufficient evidence of the esteem he was in that he was made choice of by the Bishop of France to defend the Latine Church against the Greeks and upon two very important Controversies that were moved in that Age the one being about Predestination and Grace the other that which we have now before us He though a private Monk raised to no dignity was commanded by the Emperor to write of both these which no man can imagine had been done if he had not been a man much famed and esteemed and way in which he writes is solid and worthy of the reputation he had acquired He proves both from the words of Institution and from S. Paul that the Sacrament was still Bread and Wine He proves from S. Austin that these were Mysteries and Figures of Christ's Body and Blood And indeed considering that Age he was an extraordinary writer The third that did write against Paschase was Iohn Scot otherwise called Erigena who was likewise commanded to write about the Sacrament by that same Emperor He was undoubtedly the most learned and ingenious man of that Age as all our English Historians tell us chiefly William of Malmsbury He was in great
esteem both with the Emperor and our great King Alfred He was accounted a Saint and a Martyr his memory was celebrated by an Anniversary on the tenth of November He was also very learned in the Greek and other Oriental Tonguâ—s which was a rare thing in that Age. This Erigena did formally refute Paschase's Opinion assert ours It is true his Book is now lost being 200 years after burned by the C. of Vercel but though the Church of Lyons does treat him very severely in their Book against him and fastens many strange opinions upon him in which there are good grounds to think they did him wrong yet they no where chalenge him for what he wrote about the Sacrament which shews they did not condemn him for that though they speak of him with great animosity because he had written against Predestination and Grace efficacious of it self which they defended It seems most probable that it was from his Writings that the Homily read at Easter by the Saxons here in England does so formally contradict the Doctrine of Transubstantiation And now let the Reader judge if it be not clear that Paschase did innovate the Doctrine of the Church in this point but was vigorously opposed by all the great men of that Age. For the following Age all Historians agree it was an Age of most prodigious Ignorance and Debauchery and that amongst all sorts of people none being more signally vicious than the Clergy and of all the Clergy none so much as the Popes who were such a succession of Monsters that Baronius cannot forbear making the saddest exclamations possible concerning their cruelties debaucheries and other vices So that then if at any time we may conclude all were asleep and no wonder if the tares Paschase had sown did grow up and yet of the very few writings of the Age that remain the far greater number seem to favour the Doctrine of Bertram But till Berengarius his time we hear nothing of any contest about the Eucharist So here were two hundred years spent in an absolute ignorance and forgetfulness of all divine things About the middle of the 11th Cent. Bruno Bishop of Angiers and Berengarius who was born in Towrs but was Arch-Deacon and Treasurer of the Church of Angiers did openly teach that Christ was in the Sacrament only in a Figure We hear little more of Bruno but Berengarius is spoken of by many Historians as a man of great Learning and Piety and that when he was cited to the Council at Rome before Nicolaus the second none could resist him that he had an excellent faculty of speaking and was a man of great Gravity that he was held a Saint by many He did abound in Charity Humility and good Works and was so chast that he would not look at a beautiful woman And Hildebert Bishop of Mans whom S. Bernard commends highly made such an Epitaph on him that notwithstanding all the abatements we must make for Poetry yet no man could write so of an ordinary person This Berengarius wrote against the corporal Presence calling it a stupidity of Paschase's and Lanfrank's who denied that the substance of Bread and Wine remained after Consecration He had many followers as Sigebert tells us And William of Malmesbury and Matthew Paris tell us his Doctrine had overspred all France It were too long to shew with what impudent corrupting of Antiquity those who wrote against him did stuff up their Books Divers Councils were held against him and he through fear did frequently waver for when other Arguments proved too weak to convince him then the Faggot which is the sure and beloved Argument of that Church prevailed on his fears so that he burnt his own Book and signed the condemnation of his own Opinion at Rome this he did as Lanfranke upbraids him not for love of the Truth but for fear of Death which shewes he had not that love of the Truth and constancy of mind he ought to have had But it is no prejudice against the Doctrine he taught that he was a man not only subject to but overcome by so great a temptation for the fear of death is natural to all men And thus we see that in the ninth Century our Doctrine was taught by the greatest writers of that time so that it was then generally received and not at all condemned either by Pope or Council But in the eleventh Century upon its being defended it was condemned Can there be therefore any thing more plain than that there was a change made and that what in the one Age was taught by a grea number of writers without any censure upon it was in another Age anathematized Is there not then here a clear change And what has been done was certainly possible from whence we conclude with all the justice and reason in the world that a change was not only possible but was indeed made And yet the many repeated condemnations of Berengarius shew his Doctrine was too deeply rooted in the minds of that Age to be very easily suppressed for to the end of the eleventh Century the Popes continued to condemn his Opinions even after his death In the beginning of the twelfth Century Honorius of Autun who was a considerable man in that Age did clearly assert the Doctrine of the Sacraments nourishing our Bodies and is acknowledged by Thomas Waldensis to have been a follower of Berengarius his Heresie And about the eighteenth year of that Age that Doctrine was embraced by great numbers in the South of France who were from their several Teachers called Petrobrusians Henricians Waldenses and from the Countrey where their numbers were greatest Albigenses whose Confession dated the year 1120 bears That the eating of the Sacramental Bread was the eating of Iesus Christ in a figure Jesus Christ having said as oft as ye do this do it in remembrance of me It were needless to engage in any long account of these people the Writers of those times have studied to represent them in as hateful and odious Characters as it was possible for them to devise and we have very little remaining that they wrote Yet as the false Witnesses that were suborned to lay heavy things to our Blessed Saviour's Charge could not agree among themselves so for all the spite with which these Writers prosecute those poor Innocents there are such noble Characters given even by these enemies of their piety their simplicity their patience constancy and other virtues that as the Apologists for Christianity do justly glory in the testimonies Pliny Lucian Tacitus Iosephus and other declared Enemies give so any that would study to redeem the memory of those multitudes from the black aspersions of their foul-mouthed Enemies would find many passages among them to glory much in on their behalf which are much more to be considered than those virulent Calumnies with which they labour to blot their Memories But neither the death of Peter de Bruis who was burnt nor
the Decree runs chiefly against such yet there are two Clauses in it that go further one is in these words Saving alwayes the Right of the Principal Lord provided he make no obstacle about it nor cast in any impediment Whence it plainly follows that if the Soveraign such as the King of France in the case of Tholouse did make any Obstacle he forfeited his Right The other clause is in these words The same Law being nevertheless observed about those who have no principal Lords In which are clearly included all those Soveraigns who depend and hold their Crowns immediately from God Now it is apparent the Design of these words so couched was once to bring all Soveraigns under that lash before they were aware of it for had they named Emperors and Kings they might reasonably have expected great opposition from them but insinuating it so covertly it would pass the more easily Yet it is plain nothing else can be meant or was intended by it so that it is clear that the fourth Council of Lateran as it established Transubstantiation so did also Decree both Persecution and Rebellion Therefore the Reader may easily judge what account is to be made of that Council and what security any State can have of those who adhere to it Our Saviour when he states the opposition between the Children of God and the Children of the Devil he gives this for the Character of the latter that they did the works of their Father and these he mentions are Lying and Murdering We have seen sufficient evidence of the murdering Spirit which acted in that Church when this Doctrine was set up But to compleat that black Character let us but look over to the Council of Constance which decreed that bold violation of the Command of Christ Drink ye all of it by taking the Chalice from the Laity And there we find Perfidy which is the basest and worst kind of Lying also established by Law For it was Decreed by them That all safe Conducts notwithstanding or by what Bonds soever any Prince had engaged himself the Council was no way prejudiced and that the Iudge competent might enquire into their Errors and proceed otherwise duly against them and punish them according to Iustice if they stubbornly refuse to retract their Errours although trusting to their safe Conduct they had come to the place of Iudgment and had not come without it and Declare That whoever had promised any such thing to them having done what in him lay was under no further Obligation Upon which Sigismund broke his Faith to Iohn Hus and Ierome of Prague and they were burnt So that their Church having in General Councils Decreed both Perfidy and Cruelty it is easie to infer by what Spirit they are acted and whose Works they did If then they did the Works of the Devil who was a Liar and Murderer from the beginning they cannot be looked on as the Children of God but as the Children of the Devil If this seem too severe it is nothing but what the force of Truth draws from me being the furthest in the world from that uncharitable temper of aggravating things beyond what is just but the Truth must be heard and the Lamb of God could call the Scribes and Pharisees a Generation of Vipers and Children of the Devil Therefore if a Church be so notoriously guilty of the most Infamous Violation of all the Laws of Humanity and the security which a publick faith must needs give none is to be blamed for laying open and exposing such a Society to the just censure of all impartial Persons that so every one may see what a hazard his soul runs by engaging in the Communion of a Church that is so foully guilty for these were not personal failings but were the Decrees of an authority which must be acknowledged by them Infallible if they be true to their own principles So that if they receive these as General Councils I know not how they can clear all that Communion from being involved in the guilt of what they Decreed Thus far we hope it hath been made evident enough that there are no impossibilities in such a change of the Doctrine of the Church about this Sacrament as they imagine And that all these are but the effects of wit and fancy and vanish into nothing when closely canvassed I have not dwelt so long on every step of the History I have vouched as was necessary designing to be as short as was possible and because these things have been at full length set down by others and particularly in that great and learned work of Albertin a French Minister concerning this Sacrament In which the Doctrines of the Primitive Church and the steps of the change that was made are so laid open that no man has yet so much as attempted the answering him and those matters of fact are so uncontestedly true that there can be little debate about them but what may be very soon cleared and I am ready to make all good to a tittle when any shall put me to it It being apparent then that the Church of Rome has usurped an undue and unjust authority over the other States and Nations of Christendom and has made use of this Dominion to introduce many great corruptions both in the Faith the Worship and Government of the Church nothing remains but to say a little to justify this Churches Reforming these abuses And First I suppose it will be granted that a National Church may judge a Doctrine to be Heretical when its opposition to the Scripture Reason and the Primitive Doctrine is apparent for in that case the Bishops and Pastors being to feed and instruct the Church they must do it according to their Consciences otherwise how can they discharge the Trust God and the Church commit to their charge And thus all the ancient Hereticks such as Samosatenus Arrius Pelagius and a great many more were first condemned in Provincial Councils Secondly if such Heresies be spread in places round about the Bishops of every Church ought to do what they can to get others concur with them in the condemning them but if they cannot prevail they ought nevertheless to purge themselves and their own Church for none can be bound to be damned for company The Pastors of every Church owe a Charity to their neighbour Churches but a Debt to their own which the Stubborness of others canot excuse them from And so those Bishops in the Primitive Church that were environed with Arrians did reform their own Churches when they were placed in any Sees that had been corrupted by Arrianism Thirdly No time can give prescription against truth and therefore had any errour been ever so antiently received in any Church yet the Pastors of that Church finding it contrary to truth ought to reform it the more antient or inveterate any errour is it needs the more to be looked to So those Nations that were long bred up in Arrianism had
good reason to reform from that errour So the Church of Rome will ackowledge that the Greek Church or our Church ought to forsake their present Doctrines though they have been long received Fourthly No later Definitions of Councils or Fathers ought to derogate from the ancienter Decrees of Councils or opinions of the Fathers otherwise the Arrians had reason to have justified their submitting to the Councils of Sirmium Arimini and Millan and rejecting that of Nice therefore we ought in the first place to consider the Decrees and opinions of the most Primitive antiquity Fifthly No succession of Bishops how clear so ever in its descent from the Apostles can secure a Church from errour Which the Church of Rome must acknowledge since they can neither deny the succession of the Greek Church nor of the Church of England Sixthly If any Church continues so hardned in their errours that they break Communion with another Church for reforming the guilt of this breach must lie at their door who are both in the Errour and first reject the other and refuse to reform or communicate with other Churches Upon every one of these particulars and they all set together compleat the plea for the Church of England I am willing to joyn Issue and shew they are not only true in themselves but must be also acknowledged by the Principles of the Church of Rome So that if the grounds of controversy on which our Reformation did proceed were good and justifiable it is most unreasonable to say our Church had not good right and authority to make it It can be made appear that for above two hundred years before the Reformation there were general complaints among all sorts of pesons both tho subtle Schoolmen and devout Contemplatives both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks did complain of the corruptions of the Church and called aloud for a Reformation both of Faith and Manners even the Council of Pisa a little before Luthers days did Decree There should be a Reformation both of Faith and Manners and that both of the Head and Members But all these complaints turned to nothing abuses grew daily the interests of the Nephews and other corrupt intrigues of the Court of Rome always obstructing good motions and cherishing ill Customs for they brought the more Grist to their Mill. When a Reformation was first called for in Germany instead of complying with so just a desire all that the Court of Rome thought on was how to suppress these complaints and destroy those who made them In end when great Commotions were like to follow by the vast multitudes of those who concurred in this desire of Reforming a Council was called after the Popes had frequently prejudged in the matter and Pope Leo had with great frankness condemned most of Luthers opinions From that Council no good could reasonably be expected for the Popes had already engaged so deep in the quarrel that there was no retreating and they ordered the matter so that nothing could be done but what they had a mind to all the Bishops were at their Consecration their sworn vassals nothing could be brought into the Council without the Legates had proposed it And when any good motions were made by the Bishops of Spain or Germany they had so many poor Italian Bishops kept there on the Popes charges that they were always masters of the vote for before they would hold a Session about any thing they had so canvassed it in the Congregations that nothing was so much as put to the hazard All these things appear even from Cardinal Pallavicini's History of that Council While this Council was sitting and some years before many of this Church were convinced of these corruptions and that they could not with a good Conscience joyn any longer in a worship so corrupted yet they were satisfied to know the truth themselves and to instruct others privately in it but formed no separated Church waiting for what issue God in his Providence might bring about But with what violence and cruelty their enemies who were generally those of the Clergy pursued them is well enough known Nor shall I repeat any thing of it lest it might be thought an invidious aggravating of things that are past But at length by the death of King Henry the eighth the Government fell in the hands of persons well affected to the Reformation It is not material what their true motives were for Jehu did a good work when he destroyed the Idolatry of Baal though neither his motives nor method of doing it are justifiable nor is it to the purpose to examine how those Bishops that reformed could have complied before with the corruptions of the Roman Church and received orders from them Meletius and Felix were placed by the Arrians the one at Antioch in the room of Eustathius the other at Rome in Liberius his room who were both banished for the Faith and yet both these were afterwards great Defenders of the truth and Felix was a martyr for it against these very Hereticks with whom they complied in the beginning So whatever mixture of carnal ends might be in any of the Secular men or what allay of humane infirmity and fear might have been in any of the Ecclesiasticks that can be no prejudice to the cause for men are always men and the power of God does often appear most eminently when there is least cause to admire the instruments he makes use of But in that juncture of affairs the Bishops and Clergy of this Church seeing great and manifest corruptions in it and it being apparent that the Church of Rome would consent to no reformation to any good purpose were obliged to reform and having the Authority of King and Parliament concurring they had betrayed their consciences and the charge of Souls for which they stood engaged and were to answer at the great day if they had dallied longer and not warned the people of their danger and made use of the inclinations of the Civil Powers for carrying on so good a work And it is the lasting glory of the reformation that when they saw the Heir of the Crown was inflexibly united to the Church of Rome they proceeded not to extream courses against her for what a few wrought on by the ambition of the Duke of Northumberland were got to do was neither the deed of the Nation nor of the Church since the Representatives of neither concurred in it But the Nation did receive the righteous Heir and then was our Church crowned with the highest glory it could have desired many of the Bishops who had been most active in the Reformation sealing it with their blood and in death giving such evident proofs of holy and Christian constancy that they may be justly matched with the most Glorious Martyrs of the Primitive Church Then did both these Churches appear in their true colours That of Rome weltring in the blood of the Saints and insatiately drinking it up and our Church bearing the Cross of
Christ and following his example But when we were for some years thus tried in the fire then did God again bless us with the protection of the rightful and lawful Magistrate Then did our Church do as the Primitive Church had done under Theodosius when she got out from a long and cruel persecution of the Arrians under those enraged Emperours Constantius and Valens They reformed the Church from the Arrian Doctrine but would not imitate them in their persecuting spirit And when others had too deep resentments of the ill usage they had met with under the Arrian Tyranny Nazianzen and the other holy Bishops of that time did mitigate their animosities So that the Churches were only taken from the Arrians but no storms were raised against them So in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths reign it cannot be denied that those of that Church were long suffered to live at quiet among us with little or no disturbance save that the Churches were taken out of their hands Nor were even those who had bathed themselves in so much blood made examples so entirely did they retain the meekness and lenity of the Christian spirit And if after many years quiet those of that Religion when they met with no trouble from the government did notwithstanding enter into so many plots and conspiracies against the Queens person and the established government was it any wonder that severe Laws were made against them and those Emissaries who under a pretence of coming in a mission were sent as spies and agents among us to fill all with blood and confusion Whom had they blame for all this but themselves or was this any thing but what would have been certainly done in the gentlest and mildest government upon earth For the Law of self-preservation is engraven on all mens natures and so no wonder every State and government sees to its own security against those who seek its ruine and destruction and it had been no wonder if upon such provocations there had been some severities used which in themselves were unjustifiable for few take reparation in an exact equality to the damage and injury they have received But since that time they have had very little cause to complain of any hard treatment and if they have met with any they may still thank the officious insolent deportment of some of their own Church that have given just cause of jealousie and fear But I shall pursue this discourse no farther hoping enough is already said upon the head that engaged me to it to make it appear that it was possible the Doctrine of the Church should be changed in this matter and that it was truly changed From which I may be well allowed to subsume that our Church discovering that this change was made had very good reason and a sufficient authority to reform this corruption and restore the Primitive Doctrine again And now being to leave my Reader I shall only desire him to consider a little of how great importance his eternal concerns are and that he has no reason to look for endless happiness if he does not serve God in a way suitable to his will For what hopes soever there may be for one who lives and dies in some unknown error yet there are no hopes for those that either neglect or despise the truth and that out of humour or any other carnal account give themselves up to errours and willingly embrace them Certainly God sent not his Son in the world nor gave him to so cruel a death for nothing If he hath revealed his Counsels with so much solemnity his designs in that must be great and worthy of God The true ends of Religion must be the purifying our Souls the conforming us to the Divine Nature the uniting us to one another in the most tender bonds of Love Truth Justice and Goodness the raising our minds to a Heavenly and contemplative temper and our living as Pilgrims and strangers on this earth ever waiting and longing for our change Now we dare appeal all men to shew any thing in our Religion or Worship that obstructs any of these ends on the contrary the sum and total of our Doctrine is the conforming our selves to Christ and his Apostles both in faith and life So that it can scarce be devised what should make any body that hath any sense of Religion or regard to his Soul forsake our Communion where he finds nothing that is not highly suitable to the Nature and ends of Religion and turn over to a Church that is founded on and cemented in carnal interests the grand design of all their attempts being to subject all to the Papal tyranny which must needs appear visibly to every one whose eyes are opened For attaining which end they have set up such a vast company of additions to the simplicity of the Faith and the purity of the Christian Worship that it is a great work even to know them Is it not then a strange choice to leave a Church that worships God so as all understand what they do and can say Amen to go to a Church where the worship is not understood so that he who officiats is a Barbarian to them A Church which worships God in a spiritual unexceptionable manner to go to a Church that is scandalously to raise this charge no higher full of images and pictures and that of the blessed Trinity before which prostrations and adorations are daily made A Church that directs her devotions to God and his Son Jesus Christ to go to a Church that without any good warrant not only invocates Saints and Angels but also in the very same form of words which they offer up to God and Jesus Christ which is a thing at least full of scandal since these words must be strangely wrested from their natural meaning otherwise they are high blasphemies A Church that commemorates Christs death in the Sacrament and truly communicates in his body and blood with all holy reverence and due preparationâ— to go to a Church that spends all her devotion in an outward adoring the Sacrament without communicating with any due care but resting in the Priestly absolution allows it upon a single attrition A Church that administers all the Sacraments Christ appointed and as he appointed them to go to a Church that hath added many to those he appointed and hath maimed that he gave for a pledge of his presence when he left this earth In a word that leaves a Church that submits to all that Christ and his Apostles taught and in a secondary order to all delivered to us by the Primitive Church to go to a Church that hath set up an authority that pretends to be equal to these sacred oracles and has manifestly cancelled most of the Primitive Constitutions But it is not enough to remain in the Communion of our Church for if we do not walk conform to that holy Faith taught in it we disgrace it Let all therefore that have zeal
life brings over the greatest minds when there is no hope of getting from under it is to take them off from study and learning and indeed to subdue their Spirits as well as their Bodies And so it proved for after that an ignorance and dulness did to that degree overspread all Europe that it is scarce to be expressed I do not deny but there might be some few Instances of considerable Men giving an allowance for the time they lived in For the Laity they were bred up to think of nothing but to handle their Arms very few could so much as read and the Clergy were not much better read they could but in many that was all a corrupt Latin they understood which continued to be the vulgar Tongue in Italy a great while after They had heard of Greek and Hebrew but understood them as little as we do the Mexican or Peruvian Tongue They had scarce any knowledge of the Greek Fathers a few very ill Translations of some of them was all they had The Latin Fathers were read by some of the more learned but for any distinct understanding of Scriptures or the natures of things God knows they had it not I design a short Discourse and therefore shall not stay to make this out which every Body that has but looked a little on the Writings of these Ages knows to be true Another Effect of their Ignorance was that they were easily imposed on by supposititious Writings that went under the Names of the Fathers but were none of theirs Gelasius threw out a great many that were breaking out in his time but the Trade was prosperous and went on to that height that it cost the Criticks of these two last Ages much pains to distinguish true from forged and the genuine from what was interpolated And indeed the Popes were much beholden to the forgery of the Decretal Epistles in which Work a great many Epistles were published by Isidore in the eighth Century as the Epistles of the Popes of the first four Centuries after Christ By which they were represented as giving orders and making definitions over the whole Church in a full form and with the stile of an absolute Authority These were rejected by many but mightily supported by all the Flatterers of the Court of Rome So that they were in the end after some contest generally received and held Presidents to the succeeding Popes who wrote very skilfully after that Copy Many other Forgeries were also much cherished which I shall instance only in one other particular that relates to what is now in my eye A Sermon of Arnold of Bonneval which is now proved clearly to be his was published in St. Cyprian's Works as his Sermon of the Supper of our Lord though this Arnold lived about nine hundred years after him Now such a Sermon being generally read as St. Cyprian's no wonder it gave that Doctrine of Transubstantiation great credit These Writings are now discovered to be such forgeries that all considering Men of their own Church are ashamed of them and disown them So do Baronius and Bellarmin the Decretals and Sirmondus Launnoy and many more reject other forgeries Yet here is a high pitch of Impudence that most of all their Writers of Controversie are guilty of to cite these very Writings which are now universally agreed to be spurious still under those great Names which forgery gave them As the Author of that Letter about Transubstantiation cites a passage from St. Cyprian's Sermon De Coena Domini though it is agreed to by Sixtus Senensis Possevin Bellarmin Raynaud and Labbe to be none of his and the Publishers of the Office of the Sacrament in the Table at the end of it acknowledge it was written by Arnold of Bonneval a Friend of St. Bernard's After these Authorities it is indeed strange that such sophisticated stuff should be over and over again offered to us And it was no wonder such forgeries were generally received when that Church gave them such Authority as to take many Lessons out of the most spurious Legends and put them in their Breviary Of all these dark Ages the tenth was certainly the midnight of the Church We have scarce any Writer for that whole Age so that it is generally called the Iron Age an Age of Darkness and Wickedness and therefore a very fit time for Superstition and Errour to work in And thence we may well infer that in Ages that were so exceeding ignorant and in which Men scarce thought of Religion it was no hard thing to get any Errour received and established But this is not all These were also Ages of great licentiousness and disorder for though the barbarous Nations were afterwards converted to the orthodox Faith though by the way it were easie to shew these Conversions had nothing like the first Conversion of the World to Christianity in them yet their Barbarity remained with them and the Churchmen became so corrupt and vicious that they could not have a face to reprove them for those Vices of which themselves were scandalously guilty From the Sixth Century downward what a race of Men have the Popes been chiefly in the Ninth and Tenth Century And indeed any Religion that remained in the World had so retired into Cloysters and Monasteries that very little of it remained These Houses were Seminaries of some Devotion while they were poor and busied at work according to their first foundation but when they were well endowed and became rich they grew a scandal to all Christendom All the primitive Discipline was laid down Children were put into the highest Preferments of the Church and Simony over-run the Church These are matters of fact that cannot be so much as questioned nor should I if put to prove them seek Authorities for them any where else than in Baronius who for all his design to serve the Interest of that Church yet could not prevaricate so far as to conceal things that are so openly and uncontestedly true Now from the Darkness and Corruption of these Ages I presume to offer some things to the Readers consideration First Ignorance alwayes inclines people to be very easie to trust those in whom they have confidence for being either unwilling to trouble themselves with painful and sollicitous enquiries or unable to make them they take things on trust without any care to search into them But this general Maxim must needs be much more certain when subjection to the Church and the belief of every thing established was made a very substantial part of Religion or rather that alone which might compense all other defects Secondly Ignorance naturally inclines people to Superstition to be soon wrought on and easily amused to be full of fears and easie to submit to any thing that may any way overcome these fears A right sense of God and Divine Matters makes one have such a taste of Religion that he is not at all subject to this distemper or rather Monster begotten by the unnatural
prepare themselves aright for so holy an action and the receiving the Sacrament as it was the greatest Symbole of the Love of Christians so it was the end of all Penitence that was enjoyned for publick or private sins but chiefly for Apostacy or the denying the Faith and complying with Idolatry in the times of Persecution Therefore the Fathers considering both the words of the Institution and S. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians did study mightily to awaken all to great preparation and devotion when they received the Sacrament For all the primitive devotion about the Sacrament was only in order to the receiving it and that modern worship of the Church of Rome of going to hear Mass without receiving was a thing so little understood by them that as none were suffered to be present in the action of the Mysteries but those who were qualified to receive so if any such had gone out of the Church without participating they were to be separated from the Communion of the Church as the authors of disorder in it Upon this Subject the Fathers employed all their Eloquence and no wonder if we consider that it is such a commemoration of the death of Christ as does really communicate to the worthy Receiver his crucified body and his blood that was shed Mark not his glorified body as it is now in heaven which is the Fountain and Channel of all other blessings but is only given to such as being prepared according to the Rules of the Gospel sincerely believe all the mysteries of Faith and live suitably to their Belief Both the advantages of worthy receiving and the danger of unworthy receiving being so great it was necessary for them to make use of all the faculties they had either for awakening reverence and fear that the contemptible Elements of Bread and Wine might not bring a cheapness and disesteem upon these holy Mysteries or for perswading their Communicants to all serious and due preparation upon so great an occasion This being then allowed it were no strange thing though in their Sermons or other devout Treatises they should run out to Meditations that need to be mollified with that allowance that must be given to all Panegyricks or Perswasives where many things are always said that if right understood have nothing in them to startle any body but if every phrase be examined Grammatically there would be many things found in all such Discourses that would look very hideously Is it not ordinary in all the Festivities of the Church as S. Austin observed on this very occasion to say this day Christ was born or died or rose again in 〈◊〉 and yet that must not be taken literally Beside when we hear or read any expressions that sound high or big we are to consider the ordinary stile of him that uses these expressions for if upon all other occasions he be apt to rise high in his Figures we may the less wonder at some excesses of his Stile If then such an Orator as S. Chrysostome was who expatiates on all subjects in all the delighting varieties of a fertile Phancy should on so great a Subject display all the beauties of that â—avishing Art in which he was so great a Master what wonder is it Therefore great allowances must be made in such a case Further we must also consider the tempers of those to whom any Discourse is addressed Many things must be said in another manner to work on Novices or weak persons than were fit or needful for men of riper and stronger understandings He would take very ill measures that would judge of the future state by these Discourses in which the sense of that is infused in younger or weaker capacities therefore though in some Catechismes that were calculated for the understandings of Children and Novices such as S. Cyril's there be some high expressions used it is no strange thing for naturally all men on such occasions use the highest and biggest words they can invent But we ought also to consider what persons have chiefly in their eye when they speak to any point For all men especially when their Fancies are inflamed with much fervor are apt to look only to one thing at once and if a visible danger appear of one side and none at all on the other then it is natural for every one to exceed on that side where there is no danger So that the hazard of a contempt of the Sacrament being much and justly in their eye and they having no cause to apprehend any danger on the other side of excessive adoring or magnifying it No wonder if in some of their Discourses an immoderate use of the counterpoise had inclined them to say many things of the Sacrament that require a fair and candid interpretation Yet after all this they say no more but that in the Sacrament they did truly and really communicate on the Body and Blood of Christ which we also receive and believe And in many other Treatises when they are in colder blood examining things they use such expressions and expositions of this as no way favour the belief of Transubstantiation of which we have given some account in a former Paper But though that were not so formally done and their Writings were full of passages that needed great allowances it were no more than what the Fathers that wrote against the Arrians confess the Fathers before the Council of Nice were guilty of who writing against Sabellius with too much vehemence did run to the opposite extream So many of S. Cyril's passages against Nestorius were thought to favour Eutychianism So also Theodoret and two others writing against the Eutychians did run to such excesses as drew upon them the condemnation of the Fifth General Council The first time we find any Contestor canvassing about the Sacrament was in the Controversie about Images in the eighth Century That the Council of Constantinople in the condemning of Images declared there was no other Image of Christ to be received but the Blessed Sacrament in which the substance of Bread and Wine was the Image of the Body and Blood of Christ making a difference between that which is Christs Body by nature and the Sacrament which is his Body by Institution Now it is to be considered that whatever may be pretended of the violence of the Greek Emperors over-ruling that Council in the matter of condemning Images yet there having been no Contest at all about the Sacrament we cannot in reason think they would have brought it into the dispute if they had not known these two things were the received Doctrine of the Church The one that in the Sacrament the substance of Bread and Wine did remain the other that the Sacrament was the Image or Figure of Christ and from thence they acknowledged all Images were not to be rejected but denied any other Images besides that in the Sacrament Now the second Council of Nice being resolved to quarrel with them as much as was possible