4.14 and 7.38 39. where the Spirit signified in both places by water is declar'd to be the fountain of life eternal And now it is high time to leave of to tire you with a Discourse the more tedious because entangling it self with the Writings of so many others Now to conclude I pray the good Lord To preserve you or any other that reads it from being moved or perswaded by any thing erroneous therein And may he make the shame of any thing that is said amiss here by me tho he knows unwittingly yet I may not say innocently to fall upon me and open your Understanding to see all my Defects that so if this my Endeavour in this History of the Eucharist intended chiefly to make men tho of another perswasion yet more charitable at least to the Doctrine of our Forefathers which they have left can do no good it may do no hurt but that Truth may ever prosper prevail triumph Blessed be his holy Name for ever Amen FINIS Appendix I. The Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the substantial Presence and Adoration of Our B. Saviour in the Eucharist asserted With a Vindication of Two Discourses on that subject Publish'd at Oxford from the Exceptions of a Sacramentary Answer Printed at London I. THE former Part of the Answer Combating Transubstantiation is foreign to the Oxford Discourses treating of the Real Presence and Adoration of our Lord in the Eucharist Therefore tho liable to material exceptions such are false and perverted quotations long since detected and expos'd Romantick Stories impertinent if true fallacious Arguings and wretched Calumnies industriously contriv'd to deceive and incense the Populace yet It shall be neglected and our Animadversions commence at Part 2. c. 2. where the Minister's Reflections are professedly applied to the Treatises II. Pag. 44. l. 14. All which the Doctrine of our Church implies by this Phrase is only a Real Presence of Christ's invisible Power and Grace c. A Presence of Grace and Power only i. e a real absence of our Lord's body and blood from both the Eucharist and worthy Communicant was indeed profest by the Puritan Party which exclaimed against Archbishop Laud Bishop Mountague and others for maintaining a substantial Presence From whose Clamour and Impeachment these Learned Prelates vindicated themselves not by that easie and complete way of disowning the Doctrine and interpreting their Expressions and Sentiments to intend a presence of Grace and Power only which obvious Reply would have silenc'd if not appeased the Faction but by justifying their Tenet to be what the Church of England held and prescrib'd A presence of Grace only can import no more than a bestowing of Grace or benefits without the thing beneficial or gracious But that the Church of England by her Heads or eminentest Members from Q. Elizabeth's time to the Return of Char. II. own'd this Zuinglianism for her Faith is from no authentick act that I have perus'd yet evident 1. Not evident from the XXVIII Article tho the Answerer affirms so much For that Article neither does nor was intended to contain any thing inconsistent with a substantial Presence tho it condemns Transubstantiation To ratifie this I need alledge against this Minister a Witness no better qualified then Dr. Burnet because produc'd as very credible in this case by this Man in p. 58. who says it was thought to be enough to condemn in this Article Transubstantiation c. 2. Not evident from the Communion-Office as the same Historian relates Hist Ref. Part 2. p. 390. It was proposed to have the Communion-Book so contriv'd that it might not exclude the Belief of the Corporal Presence For the chief Design of the Queen's Council was to Unite the Nation in One Faith and the greater part of the Nation continued to believe such a Presence thereupon the Rubrick is left out And indeed had we not this uncontrolable testimony out of that very Author who would fain have been set up in Churches as the Old Fox's Monuments yet as much might be collected from the Office it self that no-where excludes the substance or limits the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ to Grace and Power which it must do before it can countenance the Answerer's tenet Surely any Person not extreamly prepossest will sooner interpret these Passages The Communion of the Body c. We Spiritually eat the Flesh of Christ c. When the Minister delivers the Communion The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ c. omitted in the Answer Take eat c. We thank God that he doth vouchsafe to feed us with the Food of the most precious Body c. The Bread that we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ c. I say an unprejudic'd Man will sooner understand these expressions as including a substantial presence than a signifying only the power and grace of Christ's Body and Blood. How could they then take them otherwise who believ'd a corporal presence and till the last years of Edw. VI. scarce ever heard that the words were capable of any other sense 3. Not evident from the Catechism In which the Church of England is so far from teaching her Children a Presence of Grace only that she plainly instructs them to believe a substantial Presence Does she not as it were dissect the Eucharist into its parts acquainting them that it consists of an Outward part or sign Bread and Wine of an Inward part or thing signified the Body and Blood of Christ c. and then demands What are the Benefits or effects of these Parts whereof we are partakers thereby i. e. by the Body and Blood of Christ Now if she design by body and blood of Christ the benefits only of them then her Question runs thus What are the Benefits whereof we are partakers by the Benefits which are the inward Part of the Lord's Supper A Question too ridiculous to be proposed by any person of sobriety much less fit for a Church to put in her institution of Christians If then the Catechism may be explicated literally as one would imagin a Catechism ought the Church of England both believes and teaches a substantial Presence Agreeable hereto is Bishop Ken's Exposition licensed 1685 by Jo. Battely Chaplin to the Archbishop of Canterbury O God incarnate says the Bishop how thou canst give us thy flesh to eat and thy blood to drink how thy flesh is meat indeed c. How thou who art in Heaven art present on the Altar I can by no means explain but I firmly believe it all because thou hast said it and I firmly rely on thy love and on thy Omnipotence to make good thy word tho the manner of doing it I cannot comprehend Here in expressions very fervent and becoming a Christian Pastor he instructs the people of his Diocese to believe that God incarnate gives them his flesh to eat c. Next that tho in Heaven yet the same God incarnate is present on the Altar 3ly
the present Church of England in compliance with the black Rubrick this Minister's only publick evidence such as it is against both a Substantial presence and Adoration must be concluded to deny Adoration from its beginning it did not so and in 1660 it could not be said the Church of England by Law establish'd condemns Adoration no Test no Rubrick was then extant no Penal Laws whereto the establishment as well as original of their Church is to be ascribed constraining any man to subscribe with or without consent a villanous slander upon the whole Church of God upon the Lutherans and themselves too till the Return of King Charles II. and since the contrary hath bin both said printed and practised by the genuine Sons of the Church of England who regarded the Rubric no more than the rest of that communion do the Fasts and other ceremonies injoyn'd them by the same Liturgy Pag. 87 l. 27. Now to this I shall at present only say That the Supposition being absurd does not admit of a rational consideration c. Here he asserts it impossible for Christ's body to exist or to be present except in the circumstances and cloathed with all the ordinary properties of a Body and consequently must disbelieve not only that the bodies of Saints at the Resurrection shall neither marry nor be given in marriage not need nourishment c but be as the Angels impassible c. and so either deny a Heaven or admit a Mahometan Paradise but also question our Lord's resurrection the stone unrolled from the mouth of the Sepulcher and his entrance into the room the door being shut and besides censure St. Paul's Spiritual body as absurd Could our Lord's body rise from the Grave thro a Stone and enter a close Room ad modum corporis If not then this Answerer must either retract this passage as an affront to Faith or Socinian-like reject the Scripture testifying this because absurd to his low and impure conceptions but if it could and did then where are our Minister and his vain Philosophy If he has known some admitting the Supposition That our Lord's Body may be present and not after the ordinary sensible manner of Corporal presence and yet resolving against adoration of it such oppose what this man concedes in the first Supposition unless he grant adoration due to the corporeal manner of Christ's presence and not to Christ himself Pag. 88 l. 13. I presume it was then in the times of Popery for since the Reformation I have shewn before that she always held the contrary viz. That our Lord's presence in the Eucharist is not adorable In the most flourishing Protestant times an adorable presence was believed and profest by Bishop Andrews deputed by the Head of the English Church to declare her sentiment in this matter He is not therefore to be considered as a private Doctor or Bishop but as the mouth of the Church and presumed to know and neither to falsify nor oppose her Doctrine or practice How came this Man to more skill and authority in expounding the Doctrine of the Church of England than that very learned Bishop Did King James II. depute you to expound it What reason do you assign why I must discredit Bishop Andrews and acquiesce in your exposition I cannot foresee how you can prove your self more honest more able more authentick than that extraordinary Bishop was But what does that accurate Plenipotentiary publish Does he fence and seek subterfuges as dreading or blushing to tell his thoughts No his expressions are with assurance and perspicuity He proclaims to the world that the King James I. believed and adored our Lord truly present in the Eucharist and we Church of England-men with Ambrose adore the flesh of Christ in the mysteries and with Austin we do not eat the flesh without first adoring it Did Bishop Andrews speak true or did he not If he did then the Answerer speaks what 's false if he did not why may we not reject a Protestant Minister's testimony when such a Bishop's is so tardy What adoration Protestants render to the Divine Majesty in their other Religious offices we are not at leisure to enquire but that in this of the Eucharist the Bishop and King and consequently their Church adored the Flesh of Christ is to any one of modesty and candor undeniable They adored as St. Ambrose and St. Austin adored which was just in the same manner and in the self same degree as the Catholick Church adores at this day Those Fathers gave sovereign worship to the Flesh to the natural flesh of Christ substantially present in the Eucharist and Hypostatically united to his Soul and Divinity Our Dispute then with this Minister is about the adoration of Christ himself if about the adoration of his Flesh unless his Natures and Person be separable Pag. 89. l. 17. But is he sure the Bishop meant so i. e. that Bishop Taylor meant we worship the Body or Flesh of Christ Yes He is sure that Author meant the Flesh of Christ 1. Because the same Bishop Real Pres p. 144. says We worship the Flesh of Christ in the Mysteries exhibiting it to our souls 2. Because the Action it self is not adorable the words then must either intend the flesh of Christ or What do they signify What is it the Bishop worships in the venerable usages of the signs Not the signs yet Divine Honor is given given then either to nothing or to the flesh of Christ in the mysteries 3. Because the Bishop is considering St. Ambrose's testimony for adoring the flesh of Christ in the mysteries and waving the usual refuges of the testimony being spurious or a Rhetorical flight c. he acknowledges that his party worships as St. Ambrose did Certainly then they have the same object pay the same service and at the like solemn occasions i. e. sovereign adoration to the flesh of Christ in the mysteries for this St. Ambrose undoubtedly perform'd And what if this Bishop according to his native constancy in another book recede from this was it therefore none of his thought when this was written Can his dictating contrary elsewhere alter the sence of what was said long before Pag. 90. l. 6. Since I have read of a Protestant Minister c. Very faithfully translated The Minister was permitted says the Answerer to exercise the functions of his Ministry as before 'T is false says the Margent He was not to preach any thing against the belief of the true Church nor to celebrate the Supper Thus the Man's Margent confutes his Text and his Translation quarrels with the Original Ibid. l. 17. As for Bishop Forbes and the Archbishop of Spalato it is not to be wondred if men that had entertain'd the design of reconciling all Parties were forced to strain sometimes a little further than was fit c. An Answer very solid and very charitable For first is not this a concession that these Protestant Bishops allowed adoration
This thought so becoming a Creature doubtless instructed Dr. Taylor and others to promise their assents to a plain Revelation notwithstanding any pretended Contradictions from Sense or Reason Not because they fancy'd there could be no such Revelation but because they knew themselves incompetent Judges of possibility and believ'd God can do what man may conceit unfeasible whilst more conceited men what Pride is this will protest he cannot Pag. 83. l. 10. If by Zuinglianism he means c. a meer Commemoration c. Were we inclin'd to judge of this Minister's opinion concerning the Eucharist by his Jewish method of expounding the nature of it in general p. 1. he must pass with us for a Socinian One that believes the Eucharist to be a meer Commemoration Did the Passover contain or confer Grace Was it more than a memorial of the Israelites Deliverance out of Egypt And what Scripture does he produce that tells him clearly that the Eucharist contains or confers Grace or it only without our Lord's substance Nay further to convince him of his imprudence to speak no harsher in so heinous a miscarriage in preferring the Synagogue before the Church for his Guide in explicating a Christian Sacrament p. 5. l. 20. Does he not in plain terms conclude for this worse sort of the Sacramentary Heresie elsewhere disown'd His words are So was this Holy Eucharist establisht upon the Analogy which we have seen to the Paschal Supper whose place it supplies and whose Ceremonies it so exactly retains that it seems only to have heightned the design and chang'd the application to a more excellent Remembrance What is this else but the refinedst Zuinglianism but that very Socinianism which in this 83d page is not allow'd But if this Minister think such a collection from one period too rigorous and captious I may challenge him to shew any other sence can be put on it or on the whole parallel for six or seven pages drawn between the Paschal Lamb and the Lord's Supper We meet with no more than Remembrance Commemoration shewing the Lord's Death and not a syllable of grace or benefit and indeed his parallel without straining would not reach thither A Socinian might have composed and may subscribe that Introduction without any injury to his erroneous sentiments concerning the Eucharist These are the dreadful consequences of immoderate heats against a Doctrine which we confute because we hate Ibid. l. 14. If by Zuinglianism he understands such a Real presence c. nor shall we be ashamed to own it c. Why not seeing what he owns is at best but the Sacramentary Doctrine A Doctrine disown'd by the genuine Sons of that Church wherein he is a Minister and by the Church it self never countenanced till the Puritan Sect prevailed in it A Doctrine novel and therefore without Ground in either Scripture or Fathers A Doctrine said to begin with the curiosities of Erigena Sunt aliae quae vocum novitatibus desectantes unde sibi inanes comparant rumusculos contra fidei Catholicae veritatem dicunt viz. quod Sacramenta Altaris non verum corpus sanguis sint Domini sed tantum memoria veri corporis sanguinis ejus Hinâ—m in L. de Praedest a vagrant Buffoon in the 9th and revived and retracted by Berengarius in the 11th Age. Broacht again by Carolostadius or Oecolampadius as some say or by Zuinglius a Spirit black or white he knew not which suggesting it in a dream as himself says But surely 1 Cor. 10.16 is literally for this creditable Doctrine so far from being so that t is literally against it if Bishop Cosins cited below had the gift of interpreting This Answerer must not think himself able to conclude from that Scripture Our Lord's Body is communicated by Grace but with much more reason I will collect that its Substance is communicated also inasmuch as the communication of a Body is more likely to imply the communication of its Substance with the attendent properties than of these without it Pag. 84. l. 8. I will close this Discourse with a plain and familiar example A Father makes his last Will c. This familiar example does not accord with Bishop Cosin's Doctrine Hist Trans p. 43. where he writes We do not say that in this holy Supper we are partakers of the fruit only of the Death and Passion of Christ but join the ground with the fruits which accrue to us from it asserting with the Apostle 1 Cor. 10.16 The Bread c. yea in that same substance which he assum'd in the Virgin 's Womb and which he carried to Heaven in this only differing from the Papists that they believe this eating and conjunction to be made corporally we not in any natural or corporal manner but yet as truly as if we were naturally or corporally join'd to Christ How different is this Doctrine from what the Minister would inculcate by his Allusion tho indeed that allusion if pursued will convey us directly to a substantial presence for the Will is never perfectly accomplish'd nor obtain'd till the Son have Seisin and corporal possession of the Land bequeathed that is the substance as well as title of it Now the Promise of giving his Body is our Lord's Will or corresponds to the written Instrument but the actual giving of his Body to us as St. Gregory Nyssen Qui sua potestate cuncta disponit non ex proditione sibi impendentem necessitatem non Judaeorum quasi praedonum impetum non iniquam Pilati sententiam expectat ut eorum malitia sit communis hominum salutis principium causa sed consilio suo antevertit arcano sacrificii genere quod ab hominibus cerni non poterat seipsum pro nobis hostiam offert victimam immolat Sacerdos simul existens Agnus Dei ille qui mundi peccatum tollit Quando id praestitit cum corpus suum Discipulis congregatis edendum sanguinem bibendum praebuit tunc aperte declaravit Agni sacrificium jam esse perfectum Nam victimae corpus non est ad edendum idoneum si animatum sit quare cum corpus edendum sanguinem bibendum Discipulis exhibuit jam arcana non aspectabili ratione corpus erat immolatum ut ipsius mysterium peragentis potestati collibuerat anima in illis erat in quibus eadem illa potestas illam deposuit S. Greg. Nyss in prima Orat. de resur Dom. and St. Augustin Ferebatur enim Christus in manibus suis quando commendans ipsum corpus suum ait Hoc est corpus meum Ferebat enim illud corpus in manibus suis S. Aug. concione 1. in Ps 33. affirm he did it to his Disciples in the Institution of the Eucharist answers the entring on the Estate The former renders us but Heirs this Inheritors also Pag. 86. l. 15. For the doctrine of the Church of England against Adoration we shall need go no further than the Rubrick c. If
or what was the little further than was fit that they were forced to strain Next here 's another retreat to the Pacifick Humor to evade passages out of these Authors not proposed as terms of agreement or abatements to be yeilded or winkt at in order to an union but as certain truths justly maintain'd by the one side and perversly denied by the other the Quotations are true and they are conclusive but now the end and so the authority of the Authors must come into contempt and their design overthrow their evidence But what Is committing and defending Idolatry as they do if this man be in the right in them but straining a little more than is fit and in us a crime never to be sufficiently aggravated Pag. 91. l. 1. Will he himself allow every thing to be the Doctrine c. The Discourser allows that to be the Doctrine of the Catholick Church which she not which any private Doctor without her allowance declares to be so and supposes tho not Bishop Taylor yet Bishop Andrews and King James to be of like authority with the genuine Sons of the Church of England as a Council is with us The reason is because the Head of the English Church hath all that Spiritual Power any Ecclesiastical person or persons ever challenged or exercised in England and may delegate it as the King did to Bishop Andrews in this case If the Minister had told us where St. Thomas Paludanus and Catherine assure him 't is Idolatry to Adore an unconsecrated Host thro mistake we might have understood what species of Idolatry they had esteem'd it since Protestants have lately discover'd a damnable and a saving sort of Idolatry for if of the later kind the danger incurr'd by an invincible mistake is inconsiderable However this we may learn thence That those Doctors did not hold either the substance or accidents of the Host unconsecrated Adorable nor did Adore either of them in an Host consecrated but something else that by Consecration became present in the Eucharist unless we can imagine they had there two objects adorable or made Christ and what remain'd after Consecration but one thing The Minister had dealt more ingenuously too if he had nam'd the several of our Writers that make our Adoration a worse Idolatry than any Heathens were ever guilty-of because the Person to whom that is imputed is abus'd if all be true the Answer to Dr. More tells us p. 47. viz. That the Doctor mistook Costerus his Ground of confessing at such a rate and moreover foisted in Transubstantiation which is not there Costerus arguing only thus If the true Body of Christ be not in the Eucharist Christ has dealt unworthily with his Church fail'd of his engagements to lead her into all truth and holiness and on the contrary seduc'd her by his own words to a fundamental impiety whereupon he could not be a true Christ and she must have worshipt not only a true object where it is not but an Impostor also and an object absolutely incapable of such Honour because Christ must then be not only a meer Creature but as Mahomet or Satan one of the worst of Creatures Ibid. l. 8. For the Doctrine of the Church of Rome I find it thus clearly set down in the Council of Trent c. We understand why he chuses to give our Doctrine out of the Chapter rather than out of the Canon It is not his way to represent our Points with the right side outward but if He will be so equal as to accept of such answers as himself hath often give the mist he raises before his Reader 's Eyes will be quickly dispell'd For if the sixth Canon of the same Session may interpret the fifth Chapter the illusion is escap'd if it may not why has he so often vexed us with Replies of the same nature which he despises His translation too of the Chapter is not accurate and tho I discern no great advantage got by this ill version yet his whole carriage in this controversie is so unhandsom that I fear I ought to complain rather of his sincerity than Learning Is quin exhibeant render'd well ought to give Or Neque enim ideo minus est adorandum quod fuerit a Christo D. ut sumatur institutum done rightly into for it is nevertheless to be adored because it was instituted by our Lord Christ that it might be receiv'd This is not the sense of that Clause but rather thus It is not the less to be Adored tho it were instituted by our Lord Christ to be Received This to shew the Minister's Translating Talent Now for his Arguing That according to this Council is to be worshipp'd which Christ instituted to be receiv'd Right He instituted that his Body Sacramentally existing should be received and this the Council says may be worshipped And in which they believe Christ to be present False Not it wherein Christ is present but Christ present in it is that the Council says may be Ador'd But Sir to expostulate with you a while for your treacherous method Why did you pick out the chapter and not the canon to shew our undoubted Doctrine Were you not aware there was such a canon wherein our Faith was contain'd as undoubtedly and more precisely even above the cavil and misunderstanding of either the Malignant or those they seduce Was it because you would have been depriv'd of a convenience to delude your People the complex and ambiguous terms Sacrament or Host as you fondly express our Doctrine there affording you no fallacies The canon does exclude all your pretences that we Adore the symbols or species with Divine worship which you would insinuate by your calling our Adoration an Adoration of the Sacrament or Host Tho these terms as Mr. Thorndike observes suggest to such as make not cavilling their business no other than the adoration of our Lord in the Sacrament Did you not peruse what is written from § 11. to § 17. in the 2d Treatise on purpose to vindicate our Doctrine from Dr. Taylor 's and Dr. Stilling feeet's comments and prevent such tricks as you now play Will no Answers satisfy you no cautions retrench your exorbitances but still such wild and malicious and seigned notions must be repeated by every little smatterer in Theology as if never exposed by us and all this to ingratiate with the vulgar grow famous and obtain pluralities Sine-cures and Dignities for such service against Popery Are you ignorant that a Council may express it self less or more distinctly or obscurely concerning a point without derogating from either its authority or infallibility as serving in the one and failing in the other unless whatever is determined by authority or infallibility must be equally perspicuous is Scripture so and all their chapters as exact as their creeds When you remember the Canon are you remorseless for writing that this Assertion by adoring the Sacrament no more nor other is intended than adoring Christ
substance of the Bread and Wine is turn'd into that of Christ's Body and Blood and only the manner of that substantial conversion is in question with him as also with his commentators Scotus Durand and many others mis-quoted Pref. p. 7. of which falsities ignorance if it were in fault cannot excuse him since either the Authors themselves or the Letter printed 1665 discovering these amongst 150 false or wrested quotations in Dr. Taylor 's Disswasive might so easily have informed him As to the irreverent Descants on the Great Council celebrated at Lateran by the most learned and prudent Innocent 3. it is observed That when the deposing Power must be imputed to us as an Article of our Creed then that Council is obligatory and Mr. Dodwel has proved it so but when it defines Transubstantiation then the Canons are surreptitious and a Papal contrivance and Du Pin may be found in the Margen One while that Council enters the Stage conferring power on the Pope to dethrone Kings and on Priests as if there had bin no Priesthood before that Council to make God. Another while all this was forced upon the Fathers of that Synod or publisht as their Act without their privity by a pragmatical and intriguing Pope What would the man be at Is his Arrogance content with no less than confirming and rescinding General Councils arbitrarily Pag. 113. l. 23. As to the point of Antiquity I have already fully discuss'd it above c. I suppose he means from p. 24. to 32 where we may find indeed much passion against Transubstantiation but we are not so short-sighted as to confound it with corporal presence the thing here in discussing And for the Fathers referr'd to by the Discourser where shall we find the Protestant Answers to St. Ambrose de iis qui init Myst c. 9. to St. Hilary St. Cyril Alex Are these spurious too Are not those ascribed to St. Ambrose Eusebius Emisenus sermo de coena Domini the Epist of the Presbyt of Achaia concerning St. Andrew's passion much more ancient than either Paschasius in the West or Anastasius Sinaita in the East Were they ever excepted against as containing Doctrine disagreeable to that of the Church tho thro the negligence of Transcribers the true Authors of them be not very certain It is not a Book 's being attributed by a mistake to a wrong Author but its containing suspicious Doctrine or false Relations and being fathered on eminent Names to pass it with authority in the world that chiefly subjects it to the censure of Apocryphal But why should a doubt concerning the Author of such Books elude the testimony fetcht from them when St. Ambrose in a Book unquestioned and others more ancient coeval or not much juniors to the questioned pieces as St. Gandentius St. Remigius c write as fully for not only a corporal presence but also Transubstantiation Pag. 114 l. 9. This Ground the universal Doctrine and Practice of the later both Eastern and Western Churches till Luther's time is not certainly true and if it were yet certainly it is nothing to the purpose T is certainly true if the whole may be determined to be on that side where all the members of the Church are for whosoever denied this Faith of a corporal presence was ipso facto an Heretick in opposing an Article so weighty and so solemnly declared and required of all the faithful in at least ten Councils before Zuinglius dreamed But the Apostates from a corporal presence were indeed very few before and of those few scarce one was in being at Luther's revolt he also continuing a bitter enemy to the Sect that soon grew upon him If true t is certainly to the purpose whilst this is true That all Christians to a man cannot miscarry in such a considerable part of Religion as the Eucharist is which they daily frequented and the belief of which real Presence in it was by many ways continually inculcated and confirmed to them Such an unanimous and comprehensive Tradition does at least demonstrate the novelty and falshood of Zuinglianism What Article in our Creed can have a stronger external motive than universal consent And as to the perpetuity of it other Articles have bin sooner and longer and by more numerous Factions opposed than it For of those who have raised debates about the Eucharist the least part are they who denied a substantial Presence the other quarrelling either about Transubstantiation or Communion in both kinds or some other matter yet all the while confessing a real Presence Well to let the Reader understand more fully the seriousness and judgment of this Minister the Argument esteemed impertinent and ridiculed by him here is this The Authority equi-valent to that of any General Council is a solid Ground of Faith but the unanimous profession of all Christians in the last Ages is an Authority equivalent to that of a General Council therefore that unanimous profession is a solid Ground of Faith. The Major is own'd by all such Protestants as submit their judgments to the Authority of such Councils as condemned Arius Macedonius Nestorius Eutyches Origen and the Monothelites assenting to their Definitions as the true sense of Divine Revelations and reciting some of them even in their Creeds The Minor is founded on not only Protestant concessions but also their Definition of a true Church that it has the Word of God rightly preacht and the Sacraments duly administred according to this character then if all preach'd corporal presence it could not be an error in all and so not in any unless there were no true preachers and consequently no Church in some times extant Now if an unanimous profession cannot be erroneous t is doubtless equal to the Authority of any General Council and also very pertinently pleaded as a solid ground of Faith for whatever can declare a Divine Revelation infallibly is so Pag. 115. l. 30. If we did acknowledge this 5th Ground That since Luther's time no small number of Protestants c acknowledge a real and adorable Presence c yet it seems we are mistaken c. It seems rather that you are extremely conceited who contend against as well the first chiefest and best Protestants and the genuine Sons and eminentest Superiors in your own Church as the Catholick Church and all thro that proud pretence that your Sense Reason and expositions of Scripture and Antiquity how wild and unsound soever are absolutely certain and not as we know them to be meer presumptions Is not this an advancing of your self as a standard of truth and science and a requiring what you so vehemently decry in the Catholick Church and shun in your self submission of all judgments to your Fancies The Protestant owning of a substantial Presence is not said to be a ground for our believing Transubstantiation but yet it is an argument against other Protestants for that Faith of a corporal presence which is common to some of their party with us
somewhat may not be spoken there have bin opposed to these two Discourses an Answer printed at London and a Reply at Oxford neither of them taking much notice of the Author's intention but spending their learning chiefly about Transubstantiation I cannot say altogether from but not much to the purpose Both of them also declare their own opinions to be against the Real presence of our Saviour's body and blood in that holy Sacrament and thereby acknowledge themselves members of the modern or present Church of England and consequently minister another argument of the inconstancy and weakness of that Church And so let them do But that they should perswade us that the ancient Church of England and her best writers were of the same judgment cannot be performed it being both against their express writings and the judgment generally of their new Church as of Baily Prin Hen Hickman and as many as have written to justify the Puritans against the Church of England who all accused the Antipuritans as Heylin Laurence Pocklinton and the rest to have bin Popishly affected as also did the pretended Reformers in their Doctrine forsaking Calvin and embracing Zuinglius who upon this ground amongst some others refused to communicate with those of the Church of England tho of late they denied not to admit the Lutherans To these Reformers the new Church of England-men have bin pleased for reasons well enough perceived to joyn themselves Neither is there any thing considerable in the one which is not in the other of these writers The Answerer seems to have more learning the Replier is better at cavilling and mockery and had it not bin to shew this talent he needed not to have troubled the world with a new Book He saith indeed it is in defence of their quarters but for this who is bonae who malae fidei possessor we appeal to the judgment of our pious and munificent Founders who will one day declare whether they designed their bounties for them who hold it not lawful to pray for them who frustrate their chief intention count them Idolaters and members of a false Church It was long deliberated whether it were worth the labour to take any publick notice of these Pamphlets It was said that they were so crudely negligently and uncandidly written that no man of parts learning or true piety could be misled by them That the Discourses notwithstanding these oppositions remain not only unshaken and unviolated but much confirmed and justified when so many persons both at London and Oxford can find no other besides these weak and insignificant exceptions against them tho they take the liberty to say what they please even to the defamation of their own Church That every thing said against anothers writing as there is nothing more easie than to misrepresent change cavil c even against truth it self however called is not an Answer St. Austin complained of his Adversaries the Pagans who writ against his Books de civit Dei l. 5. c. 27. Facile est cuiquam videri respondisse cum qui tacere noluerit Quid est loquacius vanitate quia ideo non potest quod veritas quia si voluerit etiam plus potest clamare quam veritas c. The Vulgar for whose palats these discourses seem cooked who make themselves Judges of the most difficult controversies whereof they are least capable pronounce against him who replieth not speedily and is of his side who is not silent That our Author's writings carry with them such evidence and satisfactoriness by the perfection of their d sposition stile learning arguing c which every ingenious Reader sees by experience that we need not fear to suffer those already printed to pass without a vindication or to publish those which as yet remain with us without alteration But because care is also to be taken for young men for such as are doubting or weak in the faith and especially for such as in sincerity seek after the truth and may be deturned from it either by the craftiness or confidence of its Adversaries and because we would not be altogether wanting to our duty or leave the defence of the Truth to her self we have taken this course to print 1. A short Treatise many years ago written of the great controversy concerning the Eucharist wherein in a manner the whole opposition of the Answer and Reply is prevented and both the truth and diversity of Opinions concerning the presence of our Lord in the Sacrament plainly laid open to such as are desirous to know it 2. Two Appendixes the first against the Answerer proving copiously and manifestly That the Ancient and Learned Divines of the Church of England did acknowledge as their writings every where set forth some real and substantial presence of our Lord such as is ascribed to them by the two Treatises The second chiefly aims at as plain and easy an Explication of the Doctrine of the Church in this great mystery as we can and to remove the prejudices and offences which the Replier with others of the new Zuinglian Church of England pretend against it And tho the Doctrine of the Catholick Church hath bin so often manifestly proved against their exceptions yet do they continually repeat the old Objections insomuch that we have no hopes to do good to them nor to any such as take delight in insolence and scoffery the most obvious and trivial sort of wit the daughter of uncharitableness and mother of libels and all sort of scurrility against those who endeavour themselves to follow and manifest to others the true and undoubted Church of God and way of salvation And they who for this pious endeavour are mocked and scorned ought not to make returns in the same nature than which nothing is more easy to him that takes liberty of saying what he pleaseth but possess themselves in patience considering that their condition were very much to he suspected if they were not thus treated for these are Indices of a righteous cause and tracks of their Predecessors And indeed what less can they expect who according to their duty to the holy Catholick Church their Prince and Nation spend themselves and their time to reduce their countrymen for whose sake as S. Paul for the Jews they are ready to sacrifice their lives and all they have out of the most horrible and fatal sin of Schism to the Unity of the Church out of the dangerous principles of disobedience and sedition to a just and due submission unto their own Prince and out of popular and rebellious Perswasions and suggestions to an establishment of a firm and grounded peace a and unity of the Church and Nation § 1 1. Note that there is a Natural body and there is a Spiritual body Concerning the Real presence of our Lord in the Eucharist the same body under several proprieties and conditions The Natural we call that which enjoys the same qualities wherewith it was created and as the
them or he doth not know it and then why will he undertake to confute them whose Doctrine he doth not understand The same absurd error of local presence of our Lord he every where goes about to confute which the Catholicks disdain as well as the Zuinglians How impertinent to urge out of the Rubricks c. What new kind of answering is this so frequent in the Replier It is very unreasonable yet proper to and frequent with this Replier that he should teach his Adversary what to say It is an easy matter to answer what himself suggests but not so usual to propose what he would confute But to say somewhat to this also the Homilies are not quoted because they are of no authority having bin set on soot even as some of their own Bishops disputing against the Puritans have owned only pro tempore and to serve a turn And what say the Articles of them but that they contain wholsom and pious doctrine necessary for those times But do not they also contain some not pious wholsom or orthodox The authorized Catechism is clear enough for the Catholick Doctrine as is proved Appendix I. but he means Nowel's Puritanical Catechism as also Bradford and Hooper of whom we know nothing but what Fox a man of no authority reports from themselves He also is angry that Cranmer is not consulted a man whose character is truly set out in App. I. as may be shewed in due time For the present let it suffice that we think him of no authority as neither is Burnet But is not the Replier in difficulties when he can find no Patrons but such as these The Church of England hath always held a Real presence so far as a real participation implies one But if there be no real participation of his Body at all as this Replier afterwards every where confesseth but onely of the Benefits of his Sufferings then by his own confession there is no Real presence But this being the main point of the difference upon which this Replier insists let us search a little deeper I say then 1. That in the beginning of the pretended Reformation under Edw. VI. the Doctrine of the Church of England was That our Lord's Body and Blood were really by really I mean essentially substantially present in the Eucharist This is plain by the words of Consecration and delivery of the Sacrament where the very form of the Catholick Church was kept only with the addition of such words as more effectually concluded it The Catholick form is Corpus Domini Nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam The English was The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body and soul into everlasting life When the Common prayer-book was sent into Scotland this Form was re-introduced and the other addition refused which kindled a mighty flame in Scotland they apprehending it to be Popery as appears by Baily's Ladensium autocatacrisis Now it cannot be imagined that the Liturgy-makers should translate the words of the Mass and yet intend to give them a quite different signification without giving any notice of it to the people That the people who had bin brought up to understand the real body of our Lord by corpus Domini custodiat animam tuam the next day should hearing the same words in English understand only the real benefits of Christ's passion and not understand at all how these benefits could be eaten or given by the Priest or how they were given for rather than to the people as neither how they should preserve the Receiver's body Truly our Author and the Catholicks have too great a kindness for the Church of England than to impose upon her such an abominable prevarication sufficient to drive away all men from her communion But if the words were so to be understood and no alteration intended why should they in the next edition within so few years alter them after another manner and quite different intention But of this by and by 2ly I say that before the death of King Edw. VI. they altered their doctrine from a Real presence of our Lord's body to real effects or benefits of his Passion or somewhat like it if yet they acknowledged any benefits at all for in the first it was preserve thy body and soul c which was a real benefit but in the second is none but Do this in remembrance of Christ's sufferings and feed on him c but what benefit or benediction is received is not expressed for they altered all things in the Liturgy which might any way countenance the benefits of real presence They kept indeed the words of Consecration but gave over the handling the Chalice Patin c so that they left the words without application to any matter that every man might understand them as he pleased Which was also the reason why they omitted the words of delivery substituting Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving This what individuum vagum or perhaps nothing if nothing consecrated as it seems or perhaps something but they know not what as not being resolved of that point but only that it was not the real body of our Saviour This appears also by the Rubrick by the Articles and Declaration all which are set down plainly by our Author ch 1. The 3d Alteration was made by Q. Elizabeth at her coming to the Crown For she being as is noted zealous for the Doctrine of the Real presence and divers of the Clergy then Genevized against it they made another change leaving out many things as the second had done out of the first and some things established in the second particularly the Rubric and the Declaration in the Article but in the words of delivery joyning both forms together So that it was dressed for all palates whether according to the simplicity and sincerity of the Gospel I judge not But those of the Church of England who were less infected with Geneva considering these things broached a new opinion That the Body of our Lord was indeed really in the Eucharist but not with the Symbols but to the Receiver only and hereby indeed they salved the words of the form but whether effectively and according to truth I refer you to the first of these Appendixes In King James's time there seems not to be any considerable alteration save that there was added in the Catechism a few questions concerning the Eucharist entirely conformable to this Doctrine of the Church of England which distinguishing the benefits from the thing received they say that the Body of our Lord is there truly and indeed and translate it vere revera How realiter and revera differ I know not as neither why the Replier should applaud the Church of England for not using the word really which rather seems a confession of her guilt of Schism inasmuch as in those
A COMPENDIOUS DISCOURSE ON THE EUCHARIST WITH TVVO APPENDIXES OXFORD Printed in the Year M. DC.LXXX.IIX The CONTENTS A Brief Account of the Modern Doctrines concerning the Eucharist Four principal modern Opinions concerning the Eucharist 1. Virtual presence § 1. 2. Real presence aliquo modo § 2. 3. Real presence with the symbols by Consubstantiation § 3. 4. Real presence with the symbols by Transubstantiation Observations touching these Opinions § 4. 1. Observation That both the third and fourth Opinion hold an Oral reception of Christ's Body by all Communicants § 5. 2. Observation That the fourth Opinion affirms § 6. 1. A Symbol of Christ's Body remaining after consecration viz. all the sensibles of the Bread. n. 1. 2. These Symbols in the Church'es language not unusually to have had the denomination of Bread. n. 2. 3. These Symbols to have several things predicated of them not agreeable to Christ's Body 3. 4. These Symbols to be as signs of Christ's Body sacramentally present so of it as formerly broken on the Cross n. 4. 5. Christ's Body also as sacramentally present to be a 〈…〉 or memorial of the same Body as formerly on the Cross n. 5. 3. Obs That the difference between the third and fourth Opinion is not great § 7. 4. Obs That the third and fourth Opinion affirm not Christ's Bodily presence in the Sacrament after so gross a manner as is objected to them § 8. 5. Obs That no Argument drawn from sense or seeming contradiction can be valid against the third and fourth Opinion § 9. 6. Obs That those of the third Opinion and some also of the second condemn not the fourth as holding a thing impossible or unfeasible § 10. 7. Obs That Communion with the fourth Opinion is unjustly rejected whilst retained with the third § 11 8 Obs That the Doctrine of the second Opinion is very varying dubious and obscure § 12. Where is discussed § 13. 1. Whether they hold any real substantial presence of Christs Body in the Eucharist Several quotations out of them wherein they seem to maintain it Other quotations wherein they seem to retract it § 14 And divers Arguings of theirs against the third and fourth opinion which seem to overthrow it 2. Whether they hold such presence to the Symbols or only to the Communicant § 16. Several quotations wherein they seem to deny such presence to the Symbols Where Whether they hold Christ's Body present to the soul only or also to the body of the worthy receiver Some other sayings wherein they seem to imply such presence to the Symbols And the testimony of Mr. Thorndike expresly declaring for it An Aâ—count of the Doctrine of Antiquity touching Christ's presence in the Eucharist § 17. That the Arguments equally urged out of the Fathers for their not holding Transubstantiation disprove not their holding of a Corporal presence at least after some other manner with the Symbols § 18. As Theodoret. § 19. 1. Gelasius 2. Ambrose 3. St. Austin 4. Other quotations out of Blondel 5. And others 6. Arguments that they hold corporal presence § 20. Because they affirm a change of the Elements into Christs Body n. 1. A miraculous change n. 2. Offering the Body of Christ as a Sacrifice before communicating n. 3. Using Adoration before communicating n. 4. Holding an Oral manducation of Christ's body n. 5. Answers of the Reformed to these Arguments § 21. Concerning the change of the Elements n. 1. Concerning the miraculousness of the change § 22 Concerning its being a Sacrifice § 23. Concerning Adoration § 24. Replies to these § 25. The doctrine of the Fathers concerning it as a Sacrifice § 26. That the sacrifice on the Cross is the only sacrifice that by its own virtue takes away sins n. 1. Yet is the Eucharist a true and real sacrifice n. 2. Testimonies out of Card. Bellarmin C. Trent and Mr. Mede n. 3. 4. Of the Fathers that it is a sacrifice expiatory n. 5. Of Dr. Tailor n. 6. Digr The omission of the daâ—â—y Oblation in the Reformed Churches § 27. The Fathers say that it is an Oblation of the same Body which was crucified § 28. Reply concerning Sacrifice § 29. Reply concerning Adoration § 30. The Roman qualifications concerning Adoration § 31. Suppose Transubstantiation an error yet Adoration lawful if a corporal presence and if no corporal presence yet their Adoration no idolatry § 32. An account of the variance in the doctrine of the Eucharist in later times § 36. In the Eastern Church § 37. In the Western Church § 41. Reflections upon the former narration § 43. 1. Corporal presence then the common opinion 2. All Councils since the 2d of Nice unanimously deciding corporal presence with the symbols § 44. And that not by way of Impanation § 45. Councils excusable in so strictly determining the manner of Christ's presence in the Sacrament § 48. In what sense they impose it as an Article of faith § 49. Obedience due to such decisions § 51. The objection of a contrary perswasion of conscience considered § 52. Objection of non-certainty considered § 53. The objection of the fruitlesness of supposed corporal presence considered § 54. App. I. The Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Substantial presence and Adoration of our Lord in the Sacrament with a Vindication of Two Discourses on that subject printed at OXFORD App. II. Animadversions upon the Reply to the Two former Discourses A DISCOVRSE on the EVCHARIST Four principal Opinions concerning the Eucharist COncerning the Presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist there are Four chief Opinions among Christians The First That it is Present to the Worthy or Faithful Reeciver in all the Efficacy and Benefits thereof either as it suffer'd § 1 or was rais'd again by a communication to us of Christ's Spirit whereby we are vivificated united 1. Virtual Presence and incorporated into him Et nullus hic miraculo dandus locus est cum sciamus qua ratione Christus Caenae suae adsit nimirum Spiritu vivificante spiritualiter efficaciter ut ipsius divinitas possit nos vivificare in nobis habitare oportuit corpus ipsius pro nobis frangi in Cruce c. atque hanc fractionem effusionem fide a nobis apprehendi ut hac fide insiti corpori ipsius caro ipsius sanguis ipsius effecti possimus fieri participes justitiae vitae ipsius atque ita aeternum domicilium divinitatis Spiritus sanctus nos cum Christo conjungens etiam longissime distantia secundum locum copulat multo arctius propius quam in uno loco posita conjunguntur This opinion seems not to put any real or substantial Presence of Christ's very Body and Blood in the Eucharist or worthy Receiver but a real participation of all the benefits thereof by his Spirit communicated to the faithful Receiver of the consecrated
substantial change of the Bread into Christ's Body was not so rare an Opinion in the Church in ancient times They also use words very emphatical for to express such a change of the Bread see them set down in Blond p. 156. in Dr. Taylor p. 267. The Greek Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Latins conversio mutatio transitio migratio transfiguratio And they prove the possibility of such a change as they suppose made in the Elements from God's Omnipotency and from several instances of other changes but all such as they conceive miraculous done by the Power of God in the Old Testament and by our Saviour in the New. Among which instances these are very usual The Creation with a Word of all things at first out of Nothing Than which how much easier to change the Nature of things already in being The Rod of Moses chang'd into a Serpent The Water of Nile into Blood. The fetching Water out of the Rock The dividing of the Red Sea and of Jordan Eliah 's word bringing Fire from Heaven Elisha 's making the Iron to swim Our Saviours changing Water into Wine a frequent instance Our Saviour's preternatural Conception of a pure Virgin comparing this union of Christ and the symbols for the fourth Opinion also holds something of the Bread remaining with Christ's Body with the Incarnation with the change of the Bread that our Saviour eat into his Body by Nutrition with Angels appearing to men in bodily shapes with man's being regenerate made a new creature partaker of the Divine Nature Flesh of Christ's Flesh and Bone of his Bone by the Spirit Which last tho some Writers Blond c. 4. s 8. prop. 17. bring in as a Diminutive of the pretended change of the Sacramental elements yet St. Paul calls it a great mystery Eph. 5. and St. Austin a greater effect of Gods power than the Creation and Chrysostom in Joh. c. 3. v. 6. that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit saith Formatio primi hominis mulieris ex latere ejus Helisaei preterea miraculum qui ex sundo ferrum revocavit transitus Judaeorum per rubrum mare piscinâ—e ab Angelo commotio mundatio Naaman Syri a lepra in Jordanc haec omnia generationem purgationem futuram tanquam in figura permoustrarunt Lastly with the change of our Bodies that shall be at the Resurrection They urge some difficulties about it not incident to a change only of sanctification as for example Nyssen Catech. Orat. c. 37. Cum solum illud corpus quod Deum suscepit hanc gratiam acceperit ut per communionem immortalis nostrum factum sit particeps incorruptionis oportet considerare quomodo fieri queat ut cum unum illud corpus assidue per totum orbem tot fidelium millibus impertiatur totum cujusque per partes evadat in seipso totum permaneat Chrys l. 3. de Sacerdotio speaking of the Sacrament O miraculum qui cum Patre sursum sedet in illo temporis articulo omnium manibus pertractatur ac se ipse tradit volentibus illum accipere They forbid enquiring after the quomodo nunquam in tam sublimibus rebus quomodo aut cogitemus aut proferamus Cyr. Alexand. and frequently exhort the people to a firm belief without any doubting of the truth thereof Epiphan Anchorat p. 60. bringing it in for a simile How Man may be Gods Image saith of the Eucharist Videmus aequale illud non esse nec simile non susceptae carnis imagini non divinitati ipsi quae videri non possit non membrorum lineamentis ac notis Illud enim rotundum est sensus expers nihilominus ex gratia pronunciare voluit Hoc meum est hoc Neque quisquam est qui ei sermoni fidem non adhibeat for so in their giving It the Priest anciently said Corpus Christi and the Communicant answer'd Amen Ambr. de Sac. l. 4. c. 4. Apost Const l. 8. c. 20. Nam qui verum illum i.e. sermonem or Christum esse non credit a gratia salute prorsus excidit verum quodcunque tandem audierimus aut crediderimus ipsius esse credimus c. As B. Forbes also notes de Euch. l. 1. c. 1. s 27. That the Faith more properly requir'd at the receiving the Sacrament is ea fides qua creditur verbo Christi dicentis Hoc est corpus meum credere Christum esse ibi etiam carne-vivificatrice praesentem Of which S. Austin saith Crede manducasti Considering the foresaid passages in the Fathers methinks I miss some candor in Mr. Blondel if perhaps he intended to make a history of the Fathers opinions in this matter that whereas he is so punctual in the 8th propos of the 4th cap. he is so remiss in the 6th especially in not taking notice of the miraculousness the Fathers held in the change and their recourse to omnipotency for it as likewise of some other things I shall mention anon See for the truth of the things I have said in this Section the authorities quoted by Blond 4. c. 6. prop. and more at large in Bellarmin's whole 2d book de Euch. or in 4. sent 11. dist 1. 3. sect But if you desire more perfectly to inform your self because quotations are but short pieces dismembred from the context and glosses are made upon them according to the interest of the writer that selects them spend an hour or two in a publick library and read more specially these Ambros de myst initiand 9. c. De Sacr. 4. l. 4. and 5. c. where also you shall find the Canon of the Mass not differing from the present in any thing of those which the Reformed dislike in the present Mass save in one where the elements but before consecration are called figura corporis Christi See Cyril Hieros catech mystag 4. Chrysost Hom. 83. in Matt. Greg. Nyss orat catech 36 37. c. Euseb Emyssen or the supposed author quoted in Blond p. 69. serm 5. de Paschate de corpore Domini Now that you need not fear lest you should take in the testimonies of some age by the Reformed disallow'd know that Mr. Blondel holds no doctrine of Transubstantiation to be maintained till after the 10th age no alteration of doctrine about the Eucharist till after in the Eastern Church the 7th in the Western Church the 8th age no change of language and expression till in the Eastern Church the 6th in the Western the 7th So that any author for the first 600 years may be securely quoted and therefore in the present Canon of the Mass which is granted by Protestants to be the same as in Gregory the Great 's time all things are acknowledged conformable to the doctrine of uncorrupted Antiquity And whatsoever expressions concerning the Eucharist are made by that Constantinopolitan Council under Constantine Copronymus in the East and by that of Francfort under Carolus M. in the West are by Mr. Blondel held orthodox
eorum quae a nobis quotidie committuntur peccatorum applicaretur And so ch 2. Cujus oblationis cruentae fructus per hanc uberrime percipiuntur See Estius sent 4. d. 12. s. 12 13. Dum patres sacrificium crucis unicum singulare sacrificium Christianorune esse dicunt intelligunt quod propria virtute Deum placat quale non est sacrificium missae utpote habens vim suam omnem ex sacrificio in cruce peracto Nam incruenta seu mystica oblatione corporis sanguinis Christi ex doctrina Ecclesiae non hoc agitur ut per eam paretur precium quo redimantur peccata sed ut applicetur pretium unico illo crucis sacrificio comparatum nobis ad remissionem peccatorum ad caetera salutaria dona consequenda Quare sicut unicum illud sacrificium crucis non tollit vim baptismi altorum sacramentorum quibus renovamur sanctificamur a peccatis purgamur imo siâ—ut non derogat efficaciae illius oblationis orationis qua adhuc Christus in coeâ—is continuo semetipsum pro nobis sistit offert patri continuo pro nobis interpellat ita nec tollit incruentam oblationem sacrificii missae aut quicquid derogat ejus virtuti See the like said in Bellarm de Missa l. primo c. 25. Fatemur sacrificium crucis vim sempiternam habere ad sanctificandum c. atque inde non esse opus alio sacrificio crucis aut ejusdem sacrificii crucis repetitione Negamus autem inde sequi non posse sine crucis Christi injuria multiplicari sacrificia repraesentantia sacrificium crucis ejus fructum nobis applicantia Nam si ita esset Efficeremus omnia sacrificia testamenti veteris fuisse peracta in injuriam crucis Christi In hoc est totus error adversariorum quod sibi falso persuaserint nos tribuere missae vim remittendi peccata sine ullo ordine ad sacrificium crucis Or quod Missa vim habeat expiandi peccata sine crucis sacrificio sed sacrificium missae applicat fructum sacrificii crucis See Dr. Holden de Resol Fid. l. 2. c. 4. Propitiatorium quidem est hoc sacrificium sed non eo modo quo sacrificium crucis puta in redemptionem generis humani sacrificium enim crucis adeo sufficiens est abundans ut nec altero nec hujus iteratione nobis ullatenus opus sit in ratione redemptionis Quapropter vi solius missae sacrifien nihil meretur nobis Christus sed per illud nobis applicantur sicut per sacramenta fructus meritorum Christi per immolationem suam sanguineam acquisiti Haud igitur docet nos divina catholica fides sanctum hoc sacrificium missae ut distinctum si tamen absolute distinctum a sacrificio cru is de se peccata remittere gratiam augere justificationem afferre c. An autem sit hoc sacrificium absolutum an relativum solummodo nempe commemorativum representativum significativum est Theologicarum litigationum materia See Cassand Consult de Sac. Corp. Sang. Chr. de iteratione per totum Some places of which you may find quoted by Bishop Forb l. 3. c. 1. s 21. and many of the like out of other Authors set down in that Chapter to which I refer you for them Non igitur hic novum est sacrificium nam eadem hic est hostia quae in cruce oblata fuit i. e. the Body and Blood of Christ commemoratio in mysterio sacrificii illius in cruce peracti continuati in coelis sacerdotii sacrificii Christi in imagine representatio quo sacrificio non efficitur nova propitiatio remissio peccatorum sed ea quae semel sufficienter in cruce facta est nobis quoque efficax esse postulatur Christ making such an Offering unto the same purposes of his Body here on the Altar by his Substitutes as is by Himself now in Heaven made of the same Body It being victima perennis perpetua quae semel oblata consumi non potest So de iterat in sacra hac actione pro vivis mortuis c. offerri dicitur quando non solum pro iis oblata commemoratur verum etiam solenni prece pro iis omnibus efficax salutaris esse postulatur And after sacrificium non modo Eucharisticum sed etiam propitiatorium dici posset non quidem ut efficiens propitiationem quod sacrificio crucis proprium est sed ut eam jam factam impetrans quomodo Oratio propitiatoria dici potest See Fr. a Sanctae Clara on the XXXI Article of the Church of England sacrificium Missae non est propitiatorium primo quia hoc competit sacrificio in cruce licet bene per se quasi secundo per applicationem sacrificii cruenti per commemorationem ejus adeo ut ratio propitiationis originaliter sacrificio in cruce competat illinc seu illius virtute huic Ut etiam recte notavit Canus in locis l. 12. c. 12. ubi dicit Satis esse ut vere proprie sit sacrificium quod mors ita nunc ad peccati remissionem applicetur ac si Christus nunc moreretur ubi rationem propitiationis applicationi mortis Christi tribuit Et ad eundem sensum citat Gregorium in seipso immortaliter vivens iterum in hoc mysterio moritur mors igitur incruenta in altari virtutem suam derivat a morte cruâ—nta in cruce in hoc sensu hoe sacrificium est imago exemplar alterius in cruce unde omnis salus radicaliter emanavit Nulla prorsus hic erit difficultas cum doctioribus Protestantibus c. Thus he where also he saith that in the later words of the Article sufficiently vehement sâ—sobrie intelligantur nihil agitur contra sacrificia missae in se sed contra vulgarem vel vulgatam opinionem de ipsis scilicet quod sacerdotes in sacrificiis offerient Christum pro vivis defunctis in remissionem paenae culpae adeo i. e. in such a manner ut virtute hujus sacrificii ab iis oblati independenter a crucis sacrificio mererentur populo remissionem c. But this vulgata opinio as no Church maintains so neither can it without a high breach of Christian charity on any Church be charg'd See Champney de Vocat Minist against Mason cap. 17. pag. 704 c. of whom only delivering the common Doctrine of the Roman Church Dr. Fern acknowledgeth That he makes wide difference between the Sacrifice of the Eucharist and that of the Cross and indeed comes to that which we allow in the Eucharist as it is a Sacrament see his Exam. of Champney p. 324. but yet p. 346. he grants the Fathers to have Offer'd the Sacrifice of the Altar as they call'd it which was the representation of Christ's Sacrifice for the Dead for an Impetration of all that Mercy Redemption and Glory for them
is so § XXXV To conclude this point If we look upon the judgment of some Reformed writers concerning this Transubstantiatory idolatry it is either not at all or but faintly asserted by them See Dr. Hammond of Idol sect 64 65 66. where tho he doth not excuse it from being material tho perhaps not in them formal idolatry yet he grants it to come much short of the Idolatry of the Heathen contrary to the quotations he makes out of Costerus sect 62. and how far excusable ignorance and that founding it self upon the word of God mistaken may make it he saith he will not determine and that he will hope that it may be far from being irremissible to him who hath reformed his other known sins and for all known and unknown is truly humbled And indeed those writers must either allow it to be such a gentle Idolatry as that the practice thereof died in and it neither particularly confessed nor repented of yet excludes not from salvation or else they must damn all those who lived in the visible communion of the Church Catholick for five or six hundred years by their own confession Here the same Dr. Tailor that speaks so vehemently against it in Real Presence p. 341. parallelling there tho not proving it the grosness and culpableness of the Roman with that of the Heathen idolaters Yet in his lib. of Prophecy 20. s. 16 17 18. n. speaking on this manner That the Romanist giving worship to no undue object as the Heathen did and if they thought Christ not present being so far from worshiping Bread in this case that themselves profess it idolatry to do so this is a demonstration that their soul hath nothing in it that is idololatrical That idolatry hath so great a tincture and residency in the will that from thence only it hath its being criminal I suppose he means from the will as by its perverseness someway against reason blinding the judgment That the will of the Transubstantialist hath nothing in it but what is a great enemy to idolatry and nihil ardet in inferno nisi propria voluntas That a divine worship is given also by them only to Christ but they differ and mistake infinitely in the manner of his presence Whilst all agree that the Divinity and the Humanity of the Son of God is the ultimate and adequate object of divine adoration incommunicable to any creature whatsoever and they before they venture to pass an act of adoration believe the bread to be annihilated or turned into his substance who may lawfully be worshiped and that they who have such thoughts are as much enemies of idolatry as they who understand better c. For their motives to such opinion that they have a divine revelation whose literal and grammatical sence if that sence were intended he omits that they also gather this sence from Church Tradition would warrant them to do violence to all the Sciences in the circle that Transubstantiation being openly and violently against natural reason is no argument to make them disbelieve the Trinity c with as much violence to the principles of natural and suparnatural Philosophy as can be imagined to be in the point of Transubstantiation See Spalato Rep. Eccles 7. l. 11. c. Respondeo saith he me nullum idololatricum crimen adoratione Eucharistiae si recte dirigatur intentio agnoscere Qui enim docent panem non esse amplius panem sed corpus Christi illi profecto panem non adorant sed solum ex suppositione i.e. that his Body is under the species instead of the bréad licet falsa Bishop Forbes adds 2. l. 2. c. 9. s. non tamen haeretica aut impia vel directe pugnante cum fide Christi corpus vere adorabile adorant See Bishop Forbes 14. sect where shewing the Greek and Eastern Church as well as the Roman to use it he concludes Quis ausit omnes hos Christianos idololatriae arcessere damnare As for the concessions of Roman writers of the grosness of their idolatry beyond any heathen that is further than any of their adversaries will charge it upon them if the bread should happen to remain if this be their meaning and not rather that if they ex professo worship bread they labour to advance it the higher the more to shew the impossiblity that such an error for so many hundred years in the universal Church of Christ assisted by our Saviour to the end of the world and the pillar of truth should be entertained thinking the greatness of this if a crime a good argument of the Christians innocence therein whilst perhaps in some smaller matter she might be liable to a mistake § XXXVI An account of the variance in the doctrine of the Eucharist in latter times Thus much in answer to the former replies Now to shew you yet more fully the reasonable motives a Christian may have of submission to the doctrine decided by Councils concerning Transubstantiation or corporal presence of Christ's Body with the symbols and consequently to the practice of Adoration which Daille grants du droit to follow from the other so that that tenent being excusable this practice is nay the omission of the second in one perswaded of the first would not be blameless I will in the last place give you a short account of the progress of the doctrine of the Eucharist after the more primitive times and so conclude this Discourse § XXXVII 1. T is granted by Mr. Blondel that there was no difference in nor any alteration of this doctrine till in the Eastern Church after 700. A. D. in the Latin Church after 800. See 15. c. and 18. c. Therefore in Gregory the Great 's time who flourished Ann. 600. there was yet no change Now he it was that put the last hand to the Canon of the Mass which is now used in the Roman Church See Chemnit exam 2. part p. 828 and see Dr. Field of the Church Append. to 3. lib. p. 188. where out of Durand's Rationale he saith That Ambrose out of the ancienter Liturgies having in some things enlarged and perfected a form called afterward The Ambrosian Service and Gelasius Bishop of Rome likewise composed another Gregory and the Church of Rome entertained Gelasius his form Gregory having first added detracted changed some things therein where note that Bellarmin de Missa 2. l. 19.20 c. tells the story a little otherwise and saith out of Diaconus That Gregory Gelasianum codicem coarctavit and out of Gregory himself Ep. 73. lib. 7. se restituisse in Missa antiquas consuctudines sustulisse quaedam quae postea irrepserant but then he is noted by Diaconus and others to have added de novo to the Canon only those words diesque nostros in pace tua disponas and the other Western Churches still continued to use the Ambrosian Service that Charles the Great afterward forced these Churches to leave off the Ambrosian Service tho in
conc tho speaking somewhat more diminutively of the Eucharist than the other yet seems to say more than any Protestant will allow as is shewed before 2ly That it was an Assembly of Bishops called together by that Emperour that caused the Patriarch of Constantinople to be scourged assented to by no Patriarch which thing is objected against it by the Conc. Nice Act. 6. tom 1. in these words Quomodo autem magna universalis in quam neque omnes consenserunt reliquarum Ecclesiarum praefecti non admiserunt sed anathemate eam devoverunt Non habuit cooperarium ut haec quae nunc celebratur Romanum Papam neque illius Sacerdotes neque per Vicarios neque per provinciales literas quemadmodum fieri in Synodis debet Quinetiam neque concordantes habuit Orientis Patriarchas Alexandrinum inquam Antiochenum urbis sanctae suminos Pontifices neque cum illis etiam inystas sacerdotes Thus Conc. Nice But the same things are affirmed by the historians of those times as also that this Copronymus was opposed for demolishing images in Churches by the Constantinopolitan Patriarch whom he shamefully abused and his Father Leo Isaurus excommunicated for the same cause by Gregory the 3d Bishop of Rome Besides this to lessen the esteem which may be had of it by the reformed I might name the 15. and 17. Canons thereof Whereof the 15th runs thus Si quis non confitetur sanctam semper Virginem Mariam quavis visibili invisibili creatura superiorem cum sincera fide ejus intercessiones tanquam quae libertatem apud eum qui ex se genitus est Deum habeat non postulaverit Anathema And the 17th Canon not unlike Si quis sanctorum c. intercessiones non petierit utpote qui libertatem apud Deum habeant secundum Ecclesiasticam Traditionem pro mundo intervenire Anathema Which Canon tho 't is noted by the Second Nicene Council Act. 6. Tom. 6. post hanc editionem suam c. to have been left out in some later Copies of the Acts of this Council those times growing on after this Synod from opposing of Images to destroying of Reliques and denying of Saints Intercessions a thing not disallow'd by the Reform'd and of calling them also by the name of Saints See the Authors quoted by Mr. Mede Apostasie of later times p. 131 135 c. tho the Council is clear'd from any such Decrees both by Mr. Mede p. 137 and by the whole Body of their Acts examined by the Second Nicene Council their severe Antagonists Yet it is clear that it was one of the ultimate Definitions of that Council since it is found not in the first framing only as Mr. Mede would have it p. 135. but in that first Edition of their Acts which was subscribed by all the Council as appears in the Conclusion of Act. 6. Tom. 6. of the Second Conc. Nic. and which accordingly the Nicene Council undertook to refute as not the first Draughts but the Ratified Acts of that Synod 3. That the Council which revers'd its Doctrine of the Eucharist was General and Confirm'd by all the Patriarchs 4. And lastly That the Council of Francfort also tho it might in something mistake the meaning of the Council of Constantinople for which I will not contend with Mr. Blondel for so perhaps did they of Nice too misunderstand it yet perusing the Doctrine of Nice Censures not it at all a far greater if an error but almost in the same phrase with it Blameth the other of Constantinople saying The mystery of the Body and Blood of our Lord was not now to be call'd Imago but Veritas not Umbra but Corpus Which word and other expressions that they imported not less than those of Nice may be shrewdly presum'd from Mr Blondel's Concession c. 18. p. 415. That within a few years after this Council follow'd a Change in the eucharist-Eucharist-Doctrine in the West a change i. e. to this Tenent of Corporal presence Now all those things well weigh'd let any one judg between the Constantinopolitan Council and those two that follow'd who are more likely to be the Innovators or whose Determination a good Subject of the Church not so able in such high Mysteries to guide himself ought rather to adhere and submit to § XL Now to go on This opinion of Damascen and the Council of Nice The state of the Greek Church since these Councils hath been owned and embraced ever since even to this day by the Greek Church without any opposition to it and that not only as being theirs but the Tenent also of all the Greek Fathers before this Councll which also are frequently by them quoted for it See this confess'd by Mr. Blondel c. 16. p. 399 400. Le Concile de Nice 2. a imposê une tacite loy aux Grecs posterieurs Their adherence ever since to the Doctrine of Nic. Conc. 2 qui ont jusques a nos jours reverê ses decrets de parler a sa mode de renoucer so he is pleased to say but they pretend the contrary en imitant ses fautes au style de la plus venerable antiquité And then he reckons up their Writers since both ancienter and more modern concurring in this opinion naming amongst the ancienter Theophylact and Euthymius See Sandys West Relig. p. 233 234. who confesseth the Greeks to agree with the Romanists in Transubstantiation Sacrifice and the whole Body of the Mass See Dr. Potter Char. Mist sect 7. p. 225. where he saith In the opinion of Transubstantiation the later Greeks seem to agree with the Romanists and justifieth what he saith by many quotations in the Margent See Forbes l. 1. c. 4. s 2. who himself opposing Transubstantiation yet after many Authorities given concludes that Section Certum est recentiores Graecos a Transubstantiationis opinione non fuisse neque etiamnum esse omnino alienos hosce autem omnes Christianae pietatis cultores haereseos aut erroris exitialis damnare magnae profecto audaciae temeritatis esset So l. 2. c. 2. s 14. Graeci Venetiis viventes reliqui omnes Graeci etiam adorant Christum in Eucharistia quis ausit omnes hos Christianos idololatriae arcessere damnare To give you some of the Graecian expressions since this Council See Theophylact who liv'd in the Ninth Age in Mat. 26. Non enim dixit Hoc est Figura sed hoc est Corpus ineffabili enim operatione transformatur etiamsi nobis videatur panis And in 1 Cor. 11. expounding those words non dijudicans Corpus Domini he saith Si certiores essemus quisnam quantus sit ille qui nobis in conspectu adjacet i. e. in Altari nulla ferme rei alterius ope indigeremus c. So speaks Oecumenius on the same place Euthymius in Mat. 26. Quemadmodum supernaturaliter assumptam carnem deificavit si ita loqui liceat ita haec ineffabiliter transmutat
writings you may see at large in Foxes Martyrol Henr. 8.1540 quoted by Dr. Tailor p. 330. and by Archbishop Usher Jes chall p. 77. who there shews many passages of his to be verbatim translated out of Bertram whose expressions methinks are somewhat obscure of the bread being truly after its hallowing turned into Christ's Body ghostly or spiritual not into that in which he suffered Afterward in the 11th Age when the opinion opposing corporal presence as it was never very openly maintained so now was almost laid aside and sunk of it self without the interdict of any Council appeared Berengarius a stout reviver and open abetter of it who at first is said to have held the Lord's Body present in the Eucharist only ut res significata in suo signo but pressed by many adversaries and much persecuted for his doctrine was afterwards brought to recant it and to acknowledge a real corporal presence But then presently began to be agitated new controversies about this real presence whether it was together with the bread also remaining entire and unchanged and what mutation the Elements underwent by consecration When arose some who maintained only a conjunction of Christ's body with the bread others a kind of Impanation of Christ of which something is said before non quia panis vertatur in carnem Domini sed quia assumatur a verbo ex quo sequitur panem esse corpus Christi sed non humanum neque carneum sed panaceum longe diversum ab illo quod de Virgine sumptum est Haec duo corpora posse tamen dici unum quia unus Christus est qui utrumque assumpsit Others there were that held a mutation only of part of the bread into Christ's body namely that portion received by the worthy communicant not the rest lest the wicked also might seem to partake of it which they thought most improbable Of some of these opinions are named to be Berengarius himself after his first recantation or at least some of his followers of such also Rupertus and others and perhaps Aelfrick mentioned before might have such conceit of Impanation And Mr. Blondel in his 16. and 19. chapters would perswade us that this also was partly the opinion both of Damascen and Paschasius and others of the former times § XLII Opposites to all these tenents and to the maintainers of them were Lanfrank Archbishop of Canterbury Guitmundus Algerus and generally the writers following those times Anselm Peter Lombard Bernard Hugo and Richardus de Sancto Victore c who all writ before the Council of Lateran By these opposit Authors above-named is every corner of the ancient Fathers writings sought into the same places then quoted as now they are by the Romanists and Protestants one side pressing much their words of miraculous change c. The other those of image type figure c and the same answers as now returned then by both sides If you please to look into Bellarmin's 2d book de Eucharist he often makes use of the answers of these ancient Authors to what is urged by the Protestants and saith if they bring the arguments of their Forefathers Bertram Berengarius c we return the answers of ours Paschasius Algerus c. Amongst these disputes a corporal presence and also a substantial conversion of the elements prevailing yet some again there were also that allowed such a conversion in the form of bread only not the matter Durand's opinion and some others affirmed e contra a change of the matter but not of the form which opinions were opposed by the ordinary stream of writers Now as these controversies arose or grew to any height so several Councils since Nicen. 2. for the setling and preserving of the Churches peace and quiet have bin in several Ages assembled The corporal presence was decided against Berengarius by five several Councils see Blond 20. c. before that of Lateran under Innocent 3. A substantial conversion of the elements determined by the Lateran whether also by those before it more anon and many others following it A conversion of the whole substance of them stated more expresly in the Tridentine Council Notwithstanding which Synodal determinations from time to time there have not wanted those successively who have taught contrary to their decrees See Blond 20. c. p. 441. as Petrus Bruise and Henricus his disciple Petrus Waldo from whom the Waldenses and Albigenses John Wicklif whom John Hus his disciple followed not in this point c but these very rare and their disciples most what some vulgar not the learned until the times of Luther § XLIII Reflections upon the former narration Now concerning this narration of the passages of the times after 2. Conc. Nice and that of Franckfort observe 1. That tho the other doctrine was much easilier credible as more agreeing to humane reason yet that that of Paschasius and his followers was the common and the most prevalent not only in the Eastern shewed before but also in the Western Church 1. Corporal presence then the common opinion and this not only after but before and when Paschasius writ See what he saith lib. de verb. instit Sacramenti Quamvis ex hoc quidam de ignorantia errent nemo tamen est adhuc in aperto qui hoc i.e. Christ's corporal presence in the Eucharist ita esse contradicat quod totus orbis credit confitetur For Paschasius writ before either Johan Erigena or Bertram and when Bertram writ otherwise it was tecte admodum sine successu as Estius notes of him And Osbert quoted before saith only Quidam Clericorum seducti c. And this more appears in that when Berengarius afterward shewed himself afresh for that opinion all the Church-governours unanimously resisted him so that there is not one Bishop found to have consented to his opinion and the Authors who oppose him much object the singularity of his tenent to him Guitmund 3. l. Notissimum est hoc tempore priusquam Berengarius insaniisset hujusmodi vesanias nusquam fuisse And Laufranck in his last Book against him Interroga universos qui Latinae linguae nostrarumve literarum notitiam perceperunt interroga Graecos Armenios seu cujuslibet nationis quoscunque Christianos uno ore hanc fidem which he maintained against Berengarius se testabuntur habere and he himself as Lanfranck reports of him called the opinion opposed by him sententiam vulgi The Historians likewise of those times relate Berengarius his as a new and singular tenent See W. Malmsbury 3. l. de gestis Anglorum Observe likewise that no Councils after Nice and Franckfort determining any thing in this point for the space of about 300 years before the times of Berengarius argues the Church not much afflicted with open contentions in this matter that when they did determine any thing it was not before that the Fathers by several writers pro and con had bin much searched and examined that tho
these Ego Berengarius corde credo panem c. substantialiter converti in veram propriam vivificatricem carnem Domini c. In the former Roman Council an 1060. tho the words of the Recantation are Ego Berengarius anathematizo eam haeresin quae astruere conatur panem post consecrationem solummodo Sacramentum non verum corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi esse Yet that the Council meant the Bread to be Christ's Body not whilst being but by ceasing to be Bread methinks is sufficiently vindicated by what Lanfranck one of it and Guitmund and Anselm contemporaries say of this Council as I find them quoted by Bellarm. de Euch. l. 3. c. 21. Lanfran de Corpore Domini to Berengarius Nicolaus Papa comperiens te docere panem vinumque altaris post consecrationem sine materiali mutatione in pristinis essentiis remanere c. praecepti tradi scripturam tibi i. e. the Recantation nam'd before Guitmund l. 3. De Corpore Domini speaking of the same Council saith Panem in corpus Christi substantialiter converti non sicut delirat Berengarius corporis Domini figuras tantum esse umbras aut intra se latentem Christum tegere universalis Ecclesiae consensione roboratum est Anselm tho I grant 't is not necessary to understand this to be spoken of the former Council notwithstanding semper abhorruit some way involves it Panis substantiam post consecrationem in altari superesse semper abhorruit pietas Christiana nuperque damnavit in Berengario But Anselm dyed an hundred years before the Lateran Council Besides the force of these Testimonies 't is not probable that in the eighteen years space that interceded between these two Councils the Judgment of the Church in the later should be so much alter'd and that without any noise or opposition from the former § XLVIII 4. Concerning these Councils that have so strictly determin'd the manner of corporal presence Councils excusable in determination of the manner of Christ's presence in the Eucharist which many pious men have wished that the Church had rather left undefin'd permitting to every one the liberty of their private conjecture and only imposing silence on all to forbear curious disputes Yet we may consider That the same we say concerning this point of the Eucharist is said by Sectaries concerning Decisions of Councils in any other point wherein they differ from her Judgment So she is by several complain'd of for her too much curiosity and punctuality in the mystery of the Trinity in her addition a Filioque in concluding that hard and long-disputed point of Rebaptization c. That not private men but the Church her self is meetest to judg what is fit to be determin'd or not determin'd by her That curious disputes may indeed easily be prohibited but once on foot will never be actually laid but still multiply into new controversies till something most probable is setled by just Authority That as there were then on foot some opinions very destructive and diminutive to this ineffable Mystery as Berengarius his first Doctrine so others again very extravagant as that of Hypostatical union of the Deity to a new Breaden Body That these Councils did no more in this than other Councils from time to time have done in very subtle only if much controverted matters in not silencing the Disputants but as became a Judg confiding in the Holy Spirit 's assistance determining the point as seem'd to them truest That these Councils in this point after all things had been for a long time more exactly debated and sifted than in former Ages before giving any sentence thereon in their decision follow'd the words of our Saviour Mat. 26.26 in their simplest meaning and the commonest phrase of the Writings of Antiquity tho some Fathers in their judgment perhaps differ'd from the rest i. e. conversion or transmutation taken in the strictest sense That if we restrain the Church from determining any thing where Scripture seems ambiguous tho the testimony and exposition of Antiquity perhaps in the same point is not so her decisive Authority in matters once controverted will be made void because so often is Scripture ambiguous i.e. by several men severally understood And in matters not controverted 't is needless That there comes 〈◊〉 more Peace to the Church by such a definition and no danger to Christians from this thing defined if an Error supposing still corporal presence a truth from which also follows Adoration because 't is only a purely speculative mistake and no point of practice depending on it Lastly That in the general acknowledgment of so much obscurity and uncomprehensibleness of this mystery as the Church hath less light to judg of the exact manner thereof c. so have others less grounds to contradict her Judgment As for her making it an Article of Faith now which was not so heretofore which is much objected by some Reformed In what sence they impose it as an Article of Faith. see Chemnitius quoted before Sed quia transubstantiatio saith he pro articulo fidei sub paena anathematis proponitur necessario contradicendum est c. See Dr. Taylor p. 331. Before the Lateran Council saith he Transubstantiatio non fuit dogma fidei as Scotus saith and how it can be afterward since Christ is only the Author and finisher of our Faith and therefore all Faith was deliver'd from the beginning is a matter of highest danger and consideration Thus he I think it is sufficiently answer'd and the offence thereof taken away in my notes of Infallibility so that I need say little here Only this First They make this point of Transubstantiation no more an Article of Faith than their other Decrees to which they require assent under Anathema as they do to this For example 'T is made no more an Article of Faith by them than this is De Bapt. Can. 1. Baptismum Johannis non habere eandem vim cum baptismo Christi But if the Church may not be permitted to make thus new Articles of Faith she may not to make any new determination not formerly made nor to enjoin people to believe or assent to any thing which formerly was not enjoin'd nor believ'd But to explain the business a little We must know That all Divine Revelation any thing in God's Word whatever is eo nomine an Article or point of Faith and that as Article of Faith is taken for dogma verum and so credible for a divine truth which is creditable or which may be most surely believ'd So what Dr. Taylor saith is most true such it is not only after Decreed by a Council but at least from the time of our Saviour and the Apostles and nothing at any time thus an Article of Faith which is not so always And thus far doubtless was it from Scotus his thought That Transubstantiation at the Lateran Council began to be a divine truth when it was not so
That the manner of this Presence whether in or with the elements is inexplicable Lastly that the love and omnipotence of the same God are relied on to make good that Presence whereof the manner is incomprehensible Now if God incarnate were present on the Altar at the same time he is in Heaven by grace and influence only his flesh would be neither present on the Altar nor given us to eat No more mystery nor incomprehensibilitty could be discerned in his Eucharistical than in his Baptismal presence neither would there be such need of extraordinary love and omnipotence to perform his promised presence in this more than in any other Religious ceremony wherein all grant his presence to be only gracious Nay the whole paragraph were no better than a devout and solemn delusion Nor am I prevailed-on to alter my thoughts concerning this Bishop's present faith would he do himself his Order and Christianity that right as to profess it frankly and clearly by any retractation or correction published in the Edition of his Book 1â—86 That amounting to no more than a denyal of Transubstantiation not of a substantial Presence whereby I am perfectly confirmed that by inexplicable incomprehensible manner was intended the manner of the Flesh's being present not whether it were present or no and that it was this he could neither explain nor comprehend To proceed further in evincing affirmatively that the sense of the aforesaid Article Office and Catechism was a substantial presence the supremest and most authentic Interpreters that have appeared since the creation of the present Church of England may be produced 1. We begin with Queen Elizabeth the Parent of modern Prelatick Protestancy This Lady profess'd the Catholick Religion in her Sister's Reign and when she obtein'd the Crown was with difficulty perswaded to alterations in Religion as was long ago told the world from other intelligence and lately from Jewel's c Letters perused by Dr. Burnet in his Ramble In particular She own'd the Real presence to the Count of Feria and others and commended a Preacher for asserting it on Goodfriday 1565. A Real presence I say She patronized and such a one as was own'd by the ancient Fathers and had bin believed in the Church of England since the conversion of that Nation believed without either check or interruption till towards the setting of Edward the 6. when Zuinglianism seems to have bin introduced Now if She profess'd a substantial presence and if She that authorized the Liturgy and Articles did not do it till after she had fluxt them of whatever was malignant to a substantial presence to accommodate them to the majority of the Nation that with her self were so perswaded sure She intended they should be interpreted as her Self and the Most both thought and profess'd Can the genuine sense of the words be both a Substantial presence and a presence of Grace only Could a Nation in a moment believe by the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ spoke at the delivery of the Sacrament to them was meant on the one day that his Body was verily and indeed and in substance if this be more given to them and the next day understand by the same words that the Body of our Lord was not verily and indeed nor in substance but only in figure and benefit exhibited especially when they heard the imposer of such passages declare for the former sense saw her delete what opposed it and retain the self same language the Catholick Church their true Mother used in all times to convey her faith to their Minds Whereupon considering these things together with the miniated copy of Articles c seen by Dr. Burnet considering I say that the chief Pastoress had authority according to the Doctrine of Lay-Supremacy to impose and according to Dr. Burnet's deleted copy did impose her Judgment to be assented to and subscribed by the whole Clergy c. we may truly conclude not only as some have done that the chief Pastors of the Church but that the whole Church Head and Body Queen Clergy and People did then disapprove of or dissemble about the Definition made in King Edward's time and that they were for Real presence 2. Her Successor King James I. either understood the Article and Liturgy in the same sense according to the attestations of Bishop Andrews and Casaubon or where has the Church of England publish'd that she holds a substantial presence as those Learned Persons say she often has either no where if not here or with contradiction to what is here if elsewhere because the proper sense of the Article and Liturgy can't be both a substantial and but only a gracious presence But that Part of the Catechism which concerns the Sacraments and which was composed by Dr. Overal in this King's Reign determins the dispute as to this Prince's faith for tho the Catechism as almost any sentence may be wrested yet it cannot be rendred without absurdity and passing for a meer cheat in favour of any other than a substantial presence And Bishop Cosin's doctrine is some argument that Dr. Overal his Patron and Master did mean no other 3. As to King Charles the First if we may gather his judgment from either Books published by his command or Sermons preach'd before him He adhered to that Faith in this point which all his Christian Ancestors had profess'd Out of such Books and Sermons we present the Reader with two Instances so full to our design that if they can be eluded so may a Demonstration The former is in Archbishop Lawd's Conference with Father Fisher a Book highly esteemed by that Excellent tho calamitous King. And for the Church of England nothing is more plain than that it believes and teaches the true and real presence of Christ in the Eucharist unless A. C. can make a Body no Body and Blood no Blood but unless Grace be a Body and Benefit be Blood Dr. St. and the Answerer can make a Body no Body c. c. The other is in Dr. Laurence's Sermon before the King Charles I. p. 17 18. As I like not those that say He is bodily there so I like not those that say His Body is not there because Christ saith it is there and St. Paul saith t is there and the Church of England saith t is there and the Church of God ever said t is there and that truly and substantially and essentially c. For the Opinion of the Sons and Successors to this Prince concerning a substantial presence c t is out of question I presume What then we add is That either all these Heads and the Church of England believed the same or she has a miserable Faith wherein no Head since Queen Elizabeth produced Her durst either live or die It were a diffidence in this Proof or an affront to an intelligent Reader to offer him a Protestant nubes Testium as a further confirmation in this matter for then we must recount to
to pass over c. But why is Bishop Forbes's testimony past over so unconcernedly and instead of an Answer to his assertions an obloquy left on his Name involving the whole Family of Reconcilers Did he not in that passage write his thoughts Was his intention only a palliating or recommending of Error and Idolatry not a retrenching the opinions and unjustifiable aggravations of those that affect extremes and thro rage desert truth I always conceited the aim of that wise and moderate Person and of other Accommodators to have bin the undisguising of Doctrines and a representation of them in their proper lineaments and habit but not a betraying of truth to purchase a wicked peace Henceforward therefore if this Minister be regarded whenever we hear a man speak of reconcilement we must double our guards and apprehend treachery But where was the Bishop's conscience and respect to piety if according to this Minister to cement a rotten Union he condiscended not only to relinquish his Faith but also to establish an inexcusable Idolatry for his words assert both a substantial presence on the holy Table and an Adoration of our Lord's body there present The presence he means is such a one of which the more orthodox Protestants do not doubt which the Holy Fathers very often mention and which the Puritans grosly erring rejected but the rigider Protestants reject a substantial not a gracious presence so that the Bishop's sense will admit of no other evasion besides his being of the Pacifick tribe which is it seems with this Minister if not in maledictionibus of no authority Thus this impartial Friend to truth whilst he should weigh the arguments considers the personal qualities of an Author and is carried for or against those as these affect or displease him Pag. 66. l. 1. For Bishop Tailor I cannot acquit our Author of a wilful prevarication c. Nor I the Answerer of folly for medling with what he can no better discharge His business is to shew either that Bishop Tailor had written no such passage as was cited out of his works or that his words were perverted from their literal sense by the Discourser for to alledge out of the same or another Book sentences contradictory thereto will expose the Bishop indeed but satisfies not the difficulty for the Discourser no where undertook that Dr. Taylor has not said and unsaid acording to the custom of Protestants and Wits but that he has said what with any candor is incapable of any other meaning than is imposed in the Oxford Treatises Bucer's advice to P. Martyr ut Dogma sacramentarium ambiguis loquendi formulis involveret and Dr. Taylor 's boastings and practices are too notorious to be insisted-on or for us to expect from so inconstant artificial and confident a Writer other than that according as his humor or circumstances engaged he should sometimes deliver himself plainly sometimes in affected and intricate terms and never scruple contradicting himself so he might procure a present relief when reduced by his cause or indiscretions to a strait This Reply to this Minister's Answer to Dr. Taylor 's testimony will serve for what was return'd pag. 49. 50. to Calvin's and Beza's Authorities If other places contradictory can be pickt out of their Writings yet that will not manifest that they in the sentences cited intended not a substantial presence But where does Calvin say solum beneficium non corpus ipsum the proposition contradictory to neque tantum beneficium sed corpus ipsum Is it not of this Proposition that Archbishop Lawd says Nor can that place by any art be shifted or by any violence wrested from Calvin's true meaning of the Presence of Christ in and at the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist The Archbishop was a Puny in evasions and of a feeble spirit for what his acuteness could not contrive and his courage durst not attempt this Minister has discovered and adventured to perform even to shift off and wrest this place by some that say nothing different and by others that say nothing contradictory Pag. 69. l. 24. And now I am afraid his cause will be desperate unless Mr. Thorndike can support it The same course is taken to answer Mr. Thorndike as was followed to dismiss most of the precedent viz. endeavouring to oppose Mr. Thorndike to himself this practice how useful and how frequently used soever it be by the Answerer as wondrous sufficient yet is rejected by him in parallel cases and he takes that liberty he disallows to such as have equal right to it with himself Yet how will this rare controvertist vindicate Mr. Thorndike from approving Idolatry if he deny that learned Man to hold a substantial presence for what can be more express for Adoration of our Lord in the Eucharist than his words are I do believe that it adoration was practised and done in the ancient Church I know the consequence to be this that there is no just cause why it should not be done at present c. Whatever notion therefore Mr. Thorndike had of our Lord's presence certainly he maintained the presence of such a Body as was adorable and that the adoration practised in the Catholick Church was not Idolatry Having thus copiously discuss'd this Point Whether the Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Real Presence was from Queen Elizabeth 's days till the Restauration of the last King for a substantial or but gracious Presence and having amply demonstrated that a substantial Presence was its faith and that as well its Article Communion-Office and Catechism as its supremest Governors and most dignified and learned Doctors are peremptory and full in the case for which the Discourses contend one chief Design of them is secured and defended and by this Minister's confession several points are gain'd as 1. That of all men living the genuine Sons of the Church of England ought not to press us with such contradictions wherein their own opinion is equally involved pag. 41. l. 18. 2. That it is no less a contradiction for Christ's Natural Body to be in several places at the same time by the Church of England's mode of Substantial Presence than by the Church of Rome's which add's only the Manner of that Substance being present viz. Transubstantiation the repugnancy being in the thing it self not in the manner of it Therefore the Philosophical Maxim of the impossibility of one Body's being in many places at the same time must not by Church of England-men be relied-on nor urged in the Dispute between us pag. 44. l. 4. Besides we obtain 3ly That the genuine Sons of the Church of England ought neither to impeach Catholicks of Idolatry nor in taking the Test profess we are Idolaters since according to their faith our object is right and there where we believe it to reside Should they charge the whole Church with Idolatry for worshiping Jesus Christ substantially present in the Eucharist which they both believe and practise Does not
the same reason compel them to affirm Adoration follows their own Doctrine and therefore ours which forced Bishop Morton to say it followed the Lutheran 4ly Their deference to the certainty of sense must be adjusted with ours and Miracles must not be confined to its sphere 5ly Such language as this Minister uses must be forborn and his blasphemous Ironies receive the same detestation with them as they have with as For instance Pref. p. 6. l. penult That the Council of Lateran gave the Priests power of making their God for Church of England Priests if true Priests have the same power with the Catholick But neither pretend by Sacerdotal consecration to make the substance of Christ's Body but only to invoke the Holy Ghost to effect by its Almighty power that the substance of our Lord 's glorified body which now exists gloriously in Heaven may also exist Sacramentally on the Altar Is this making their God The Lateran Definition de Fide Catholica and the Council of Trent informed this Minister what part by Christ's institution not their gift as this man imposes the Priest has in the consecration if he had not bin willing to forget or mistake it for vile purposes Again p. 75. l. 8. That the Popish Real Presence is a meer figment and their Mass to be abhorred rather than adored Such putrid falshoods and conceited nonsense will be very indecent in a genuine Church of England man's mouth not only because of his Defender but of his Faith too For such a one to tell us of adoring the Mass and that He abhors it and accounts our Real presence a figment is both absurd and impious But this is the result of a Gallican vagary and of learning the Doctrine of the Church of England from Hugonotal conversation Tales and Fathers Pag. 72. l. 1. That the alterations which have bin made in our Rubric were not upon the account of our Divines changing their Opinions c. Tho it signify little whether the Alterations in the Article and Liturgy and the Disgrace of the Rubric were or were not from a change of opinions so long as the Doctrine of the Church was changed tho this I grant may well be and the other not according to the gloss of subscribing not with assent but for peace and tho too t is a strange casualty for Divines remarkable for resolution and famous for immutability to flit their sentiments as ordinarily as the Moon does her appearances yet the Proof brought that those Divines did not imitate Cranmer in compliance and submission of judgment to the present Possessor of White-Hall is no more than an heap of this Minister's conjectures stampt with the superscription of a Rational account when-as Dr. Heylin equal to Dr. Burnet in abilities and industry and incomparably more honest than that perfidious Fugitive reports that the changes were made lest in excluding a carnal Presence they the Divines sure might be thought to reject such a Real presence as was defended in the writings of the Ancient Fathers Nor is the design of reconciling Parties inconsistent with a change of opinions A comprehension-affair may be pursued by Real Presence-men as well as Zuinglians As to the Copy of Articles perused by Dr. Burnet and out of him mentioned pag. 58. we say again that it ought to be concluded from that rased Monument rather that the Divines did than did not change their Opinions for he that reverses a subscription voluntarily is likelier to have altered his resolution than to have retain'd it especially when induced to expunge what had bin agreed on by an Authority whereto by the Principle of Lay-Supremacy lately assumed by the Prince and submitted to by themselves their judgments were to conform and whose sentiments in Religion they were to believe and profess For Queen Elizabeth had by a dreadful example just then told the world as after she had like to have done in the Lambeth-Articles-Affair that She would not hear the Church but tho a woman be heard by it in matters of Faith and would neither consult with nor follow but controll and prescribe-to Convocations in causes of meer Religion Had She not refused to hear the voice of the whole Clergy in her first and the last Canonical Convocation In a Convocation acting agreeably not only to the institution of Christianity and rules of the Catholick Church but of all other Convocations that ever were in the Nation unless a few in Hen. 8. and Edw. 6. time in a Convocation acting according to all Laws Ecclesiastical and Civil then in force in this Kingdom and representing the Church of England by Law established How then could its Declaration be illegal as the Reflecter on the Historical Part of the Fifth part of Church-Government p. 82. will needs esteem it What could the Queen under a penalty justly prohibit them the use of that Authority both Christ and the Laws of the Land had setled on them alone If this were not tyranny where shall instances of it be found But that Reverend and Catholick Assembly understood both its own power and duty better than so and despising the temporal terrors that only a Tyrant in that case would threaten and a Persecutor execute discharged it self with constancy as became men entrusted with the souls of the Nation tho deprivation were the reward of their Confession Her new and parasitical Ministers understood then what they must do and that for that very end She had raised them up even to think and act at her appointment In return to the conjectures wherewith the Answerer strives to blanch o're a soul defection from the Catholick faith we will relate how we apprehend Religious affairs were managed At Edward the Sixths coming to the Crown the Doctrine of the Church of England was a substantial Presence the manner of that Presence was Transubstantiation but thro the Ambition and Avarice of Governing Parties some quickly began to contest and forsake this Faith vet by degrees rejecting first the manner and afterwards the Presence being assisted in this Apostasy by a few and opposed by most of the Clergy and Laity hence tho there were Assemblies and deliberations had yet no Canonical determinations pass'd or are extant unless such approbations may be deemed Synodical that were obtained by terrors and deprivations of many the most eminent Bishops and dignified Ecclesiasticks for relucting at what derogated from Christian Truth and Church Authority All was done by the conduct and influence of the evil Spirit and neither Scripture nor Antiquity rightly consulted or observed only herein the diligence and craft of those destroying Reformers must to their eternal infamy be own'd that they distinguished points immediately obstructing their gain and licentiousness from others more indifferent rejecting chiefly such as debarred them from spoiling the Church and gratifying their sensual appetites Thus as superstitious or idolatrous prayer for the Faithful deceased that Chanteries the Mass that the furniture of Altars c might be alienated
came to be reformed thus the Sacrament of Penance solemn Fastings and Celibacy of Priests c that both Clergy and Laity might indulge themselves as their lusts suggested in luxury and impenitence fell to the ground Not truth nor any consideration of Christians either at home or abroad but libertinism and filthy lucre were then the rule of this unjustifiable Reformation wherewith the majority of Christians as well of England as of the whole world could not choose but be and actually were scandalized But how should better come of Cranmer's intermedlings It was that Cranmer who for flattery lust inconstancy ingratitude treason and most damnable Hobbism utterly pernicrous to the being of a Church deserves the invectives and execrations of all Posterity But now under Queen Elizabeth other Circumstances are to be consider'd why some of the Godly innovations under Edward the Sixth were not revived For first She was rather of her Father 's than Somerset's Religion believ'd and practis'd Invocation of Saints approv'd of Images in Churches was no Admirer of Clerical Marriages nor yet very fond of her new Power of Supremacy given her by Protestants that she might requite them with a Church and a Creed much less of that foreign Drug Zuinglianism professing on all occasions her firm adherence to a Real Presence However to fortifie the weakness of her Title that had been Question'd by Catholicks and Condemn'd by Protestants she was perswaded to restore the Schism begun and assume the Supremacy extorted by her Father but for alterations in other points meerly Doctrinal Protestants do confess her somewhat resty resenting her tepid proceedings with warm Contumelies and most virulent reproaches which shews that her pleasure security or interest not their extravagances was the measure whereby Religion was setled and that Conscience did a little tho Policy more influence transactions She qualified the Title but not the Power or Use of Supremacy extending it as far as either her Father or Brother had done She did perhaps desire to unite the Nation but I suppose it was in that Faith she held and the majority of the Nation with her otherwise she was put upon a very odd method of Union it being easier to bring a few to close with what 's setled or least removed from it than to convert a majority from an old established Religion to embrace the contradictory novelties of a few Thus she setled her Religion and whatever like Jeroboam she devised out of her own heart and it continued without any visible alteration by Authority till the Return of Charles II. when Protestants being about to repair what their Brethren had endeavour'd to demolish the Puritans at the Savoy-Conference 1661 amongst other cunning demands whereby both the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England were undermin'd inserted the restoring of the Black Rubrick into favour but were answer'd that It was not in Queen Elizabeth's Liturgy nor confirm'd by Law nor needful However that wealthy Faction's obliging importunities or pretence of mighty satisfaction that it would give to Dissenters overcame if not the Clergy yet a potent Favourite and so with a few emendations too slight as some sufficient as others thought to save the Church's Doctrine this goodly Henoticon stole into the Liturgy Stole into it I say if with the connivance of any yet with the scandal of the best of the Clergy who on all occasions exprest their dislike of it as truly inconsistent with their Faith and without that effect either of gaining other Sectaries to their promiscuous Communion as was pretended or stilling their clamors and disgusts against kneeling at the Communion And this I am perswaded is the most impartial and exactest account that matter of fact yeilds of the English giddiness tossings and variations in matters of Religion Pag. 77. l. 21. Now these Exceptions against founding an Article of Faith on a Philosophical Maxim being most of them founded on the former mistaken Notion of the Real Presence c. That the Discourser's Notion of the Real Presence was the same the Church of England has asserted is evidenc'd the Minister's Replies therefore are unsatisfactory and it was rightly inferr'd from the high Expressions used by the Members of that Communion concerning the Eucharist as that 't is an ineffable Mystery full of Miracles incomprehensible to not to be measured by sense or reason c. that they believed something in it seemingly this word was omitted by the Transcriber opposite to humane reason But whether the word were omitted or no Not to be agreeable to human Reason to captivate the mind to be incomprehensible to men's wit to do violence to the Principles of Natural and Supernatural Philosophy Protestant language concerning this Sacrament and other Mysteries are not far short of opposite and coutradictory to human Reason So that a Revelation clear and evident must be submitted-to according to Calvin and Bishop Taylor tho it agree not with Reason tho it propose something incomprehensible and which does violence to it Neither is it a manifest contradiction that a Natural Body should be in more places than One at the same time but manifestly no contradiction as all that know the Rules of Opposition must confess That the same Body should be in a place and not in that place at the same time is a contradiction But this is a Proposition very wide from the other To be and not to be is not equivalent to that To be here and elsewhere too whereby the failure of what the Answerer writes against the second Observation p. 80. l. 14. is manifest For there may be such things as perfect contradictions known to us and yet all that seems to be so to some upon severer scrutiny may prove not so to them or to sharper Judgments The instance is before us Even to this very Minister that seems a contradiction which is none The utmost force of Nature much more of Omnipotence is not so easily comprehended as confident who commonly are the least experienc'd and adverting men boast The more we enquire into them the more sensible shall we be of the narrowness of our knowledg and shortness of our faculties especially when we reflect how modestly persons of vast experience of very capacious and improv'd intellects such as Bishop Forbes c. have spoken in the same case That we are unable in all oppositions to discern the true distance and whether it amount to a real contradiction or no and therefore God may do what may seem to us impossible as well by his ordinary as absolute Power Whereupon in points abstruse where there appears seeming contradictions on the one hand and a Revelation on the other this consideration attended by a just deference to infinite Power ought to move us to captivate our understandings and neglect the objections from nature and reason being joyful to exert the humility of our Minds and to demonstrate we measure not the immense Majesty of our Creator by our selves his worthless potsherds
in the Sacrament must pass for a private opinion not a Catholick assertion Where does the Discourser seem to grant the Church's expression improper Does he not on the contrary tell you that Soave and all humble Sons of the Church are obliged to take Ecclesiastical language as well as Christian sense from her i. e. that her expressions with her interpretations are proper tho in your mouth attended with your perversions they become a snare How many Ecclesiastical phrases has the Church bin constrain'd to proscribe thro this pravity of seducers that imploy her orthodox terms to maintain or convey their impieties That the Word is of like substance to his Father that our B. Lady is the Mother of Christ are sentences capable of a sound sense and might be used without suspicion or offence till the Arians and Nestorians mis-imploy'd them Thus it is with adoring the Sacrament or Host the Church and Catholick Doctors have rightly used these expressions and we all understand them accordingly but in England where they are wrested to purposes the Church never dream't of we justly except against them and choose to deliver our selves so as shall be most secure from calumny When therefore you contest with us either take our terms in our sense or you beat the air As to Cardinal Palavicini's words they amount to this only that we are not to withold Adoration to a while whereof onely out part is sovereignly adorable till the several parts exist separately for if so we shall never adore our Lord they do not import that in adoring the whole we give sovereign worship to the species or own them to have any motive for or to be the end of such Adoration for we do not allow so much to our Lord's Humanity abstractedly considered much less to his Garments or the Sacramental veils Wherefore if by Sacrament and Host this Answerer would mean what the Church does the res Sacramenti our Lord sacramentally existing we joyn issue with him that t is our undoubted Doctrine That the Sacrament or Host is adorable but if he intends otherwise as we have too much occasion to conclude he does the Council in the very chapter cited by him corrects his corruption of our Doctrine in adding to this purpose for her reason of adoring the Sacrament in the Sacrament That is adored wherein there is an innate motive or excellence why we should worship it and which therefore alone can be the object and end of our worship for at this it aims in adding For we believe the very same God present in the Sacrament of whom at his introducing into the world the Father saith Let all the Angels adore him So that this wise and ever to be received Synod as it were foreseeing that men would arise speaking perverse things prudently acquaints us with its sense of adoring the Sacrament as soon as it had declared that it may be done strait pointing to whom the worship is directed and on whom terminated on him that is in it non on it that signifies and conceals him Pag. 93. l. 28. I have fully shewn this new fancy to be neither the Doctrine of the Church of England nor c. Having granted the first three Protestant concessions he stands at the fourth upon a pretence that he has already refuted the Authorities whereon it is founded which is untrue as is manifest above where this Champion's atchievements are displayed and revers'd and besides to back this fourth Proposition new Authorities are annex'd from Bishop Cosins Archbishop Bramhal and Monsieur Daille to which he is mute retiring from them without the least notice or reflection Pag. 94. l. 32. So that then with this limitation his 5th Proposition that the Lutherans adore I presume may be admitted c. If the Answerer adhere to what he concedes p. 87.93 i.e. in the first Supposition and third Protestant concession in consequence of their opinion they all ought to adore if they do not and Chemnitius agrees as much saying No man denies it adoration but such as with the Sacramentaries deny or doubt of the Presence of Christ in the Supper Pag. 95. l. 12. We are ready to admit it the 6th Concession That the belief of a Real presence is not so criminal as to oblige them to break communion always supposing that the belief of it had not bin pressed c. Then the Protestants have generally mistaken their business in spending their raillery hitherto not on the mischief of imposition but chiefly on the erroneousness of our tenets and enormity of our practices as both very destructive to salvation and Dissenters do well to insist on the heinousness of injoyning as a term of communion what they can discern to be no better than humane inventions If the belief of a Real presence be no such pernicious corruption neither can Adoration that follows upon it how then can the imposition of such inconsiderable things outweigh in guilt a rupture of Catholick communion and a violation of charity together with all the deadly sins of Fanaticisin and enmity springing from division and loosness The points are almost harmless and indifferent our Adversaries confess but if imposed as a necessary Article of communion and the disobedient anathematized then the Church may be defied and the belief and practice become so criminal as to justify a separation suppose of one Minister from all Christians So that when the Faith and customs of the Catholick Church give no colour for a Schism the exercise of her Authority may and she becomes as an heathen or a publican for requiring such to hear her whom our Lord hath declared shall be accounted so for not hearing her and she must either relax her Discipline enlarge or contract the conditions of her Society as every individual shall demand tho they neither think nor live as she prescribes or become schismatical If private Christians must be Arbiters what shall or shall not be terms of Catholick communion why may not some as justly recede from the Church because she does not as others because she does impose terms whereat these have a pique and wherewith those are pleased the Novatian Donatist and Luciferian charge against the Church was That its communion was promiscuous and Latitudinarian The Accusation was false yet they were right in this that there are certain terms of Christian communion which are indispensably to be submitted to by all that will be members of the Catholick Church tho all the terms they accounted such were not so and not themselves but the Church was to distinguish But here the strictness of communion is our sault and comprehension would make either no Sectaries or them mexcusable However from Daille's granting that if the Church of Rome had obliged her children to worship Christ in the Sacrament she had not obliged them to worship a creature we conclude she did not impose Idolatry because t is certain she never obliged them to worship any thing in the Sacrament but
Christ's Body in the Eucharist we reply and as plain an one That the Eucharist is Christ's Body and that Bread is substantially absent and other thoughts cannot enter our minds till it appear to us possible and revealed that the same thing can remain perfect Bread and yet be truly the Flesh of Christ which resolves into being Bread and not being Bread at the same time His last Reason of the Symbols is of the same worth with the rest and the impertinent application of his own mistakes refuted in our note on p. 96. No Sacrament no substantial presence of Christ no sacerdotal Consecration are after all left to the Papists as He in his fret will needs interpose instead of Catholics To what straits does his petulant acuteness drive us In what a poor condition are we left by this meek and compassionate Minister What does he omit tho trifling foreign indecent false or impious that may detract from the excellence of our Religion and represent us inexcusably erroneous and wicked Pag. 108. l. 7. Does he believe the Corporal Presence in the way of Transubstantiation c. He does What then O then they must with him stand and fall together A terrible case For then he cannot Adore on the account of the Corporal Presence but he does on the account of Transubstantiation Wisely concluded His Argument runs thus If with Catholicks Transubstantiation and Corporal Presence stand and fall together then they Adore on the account of both But with Catholicks these stand and fall together Therefore they Adore on the account of both The Consequence is deny'd Ibid. l. 27. The first Ground why Catholicks believe Christ substantially present and Adorable in the Eucharist is Divine Revelation for which our Author offers the two usual Instances c. The same Instances are offer'd for Ours as the Lutherans produce for their corporal presence If they be not so defeated of them by Zuinglian Expositions as to be inexcusably culpable in their Faith and Worship no more are we were this first our only ground And did not this Minister confess p. 107 to this effect that the Lutheran Doctrine was deducible from our Lord's words Now their Faith and Ours is only circumstantially different that Text therefore that tells them must needs inform us of a substantial presence tho of both Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation it cannot As to his vapour That he has shewn above how false a foundation both the words of Institution and the 6th of St. John are to a corporal presence reviewing his first Chapter Part 1. I find him there raving against Transubstantiation as if those Scriptures did not countenance it and withall laying about him as such do who are in an Error with so much confusion impertinence rudeness absurdity and prevarication as if Pryn were transmigrated into him But as his performance against Transubstantiation is ridiculously weak and an often refuted Plea publish'd to swell a Pamphlet so t is either nothing at all to a corporal presence and Adoration or fights as fiercely against all Christians but the Sacramentaries as against us To what he adds about sense and reason certain contradictions Principles of Nature and Universal Sentiments of all Mankind 'T is an absurd cant and a detestable insolence for him to exclude us the most of Christians who preserved and propagated all Law and Learning for many Centuries from sense and reason from all skill in contradictions and principles of Nature and from the universal sentiments of Humanity What an amazing infatuation and transcendent pride possess this man He had had nor Letters nor Religion nor Liberty nor yet Being but for the Professors of our Faith and yet the ungrateful man repines even that we have the last and meanest of these Pag. 109. l. 30. These are great words indeed but I wonder who ever heard before that a few miserable Synods c. With such impotence and revilings are Councils treated by a Minister and thus the second Ground of our Faith and Service whereon the first also in some sort depends both as to which is a Revelation and what it is She being both the Promulger and Expositor of Revelations the Church's Conciliary Definition and Command is lighter than Air and as contemptible with this Protestant as is the most trivial act of the smallest Corporation The Dignities which he is not afraid to vilifie are Councils so numerous and comprehensive so lawful and accepted that for many Ages not one Bishop dissented from them in this case Was not the Doctrine of the 2d Council at Nice profest by that at Frankfort Went not the Nicene Fathers so far that the Answerer says they carried-on Transubstantiation Surely then they held a Real presence Pref. p. 6. Here we have then above six hundred Eastern and Western Bishops concurring in the Belief of a Corporal presence and Adoration in the Eighth Age And the Occasion of their declaring the Doctrine of the Church at that time was not that any one did really question that Faith for Erigena was then unborn but some new language had been used by the Iconoclasts in their discourses of the Adoration of the Eucharist that was both suspicious and dangerous Nor can one Prelate be nam'd who did not accept of the Declarations of these two Councils in this matter All Christians then believ'd a Real presence and all Adored What our Answerer means by particular Prelates I cannot penetrate for no Council consists of other Unless he would insinuate that there wanted Delegates from some National Churches or that some Patriarch or Pope did not concur with these two or the other held in the Eleventh Age against Berengarius all which yet were held by either the Pope in Person or by his Legates and were receiv'd by the whole Western Church and at length by Berengarius himself Councils these later were far greater than any Protestant Synod ever was or can be unless it were that at Dort consisting of at least two Bishops When ever did an Hundred Protestant Bishops convene in One Assembly as there did Catholicks against Berengarins A Convocation of a matter of Twenty-six at the most deserves certainly the character of a Miserable Synod better than a Council so much greater and wherein the Bishops not only of two 〈◊〉 but of many Kingdoms appear'd Nor were these 〈◊〉 any more Parties than was the First at Nice or the Apostolical One at Jerusalem To say they were is as gratis said as if Eutyches had spoken so of that at Chalcedon And whatever reason this Minister can give why the Councils against Berengar shall be esteemed Parties the very same shall the Judaizers Nestorius and Socinus as strongly urge to shew the Synods condemning their Opinions to be Parties also So he may seem to say something this Man heeds not what he writes tho what he publishes instead of enervating the authority of the Councils concern'd about a Corporal presence alone does as vigorously attack that of Councils in general
Answerer and others insisting so eagerly and obstinately on the Authority of Sense grows if it be not an Artifice perhaps from their taking the Maxim Nothing is in the Intellect which was not before in the Senses absolutely as if the only Conveyer of Notices to the Mind were the Senses or no thought had its birth there without an external promter whenas to omit the ill consequences c. of the later there are other means of acquainting the Intellect without the concurrence of the Senses as by Good and Bad Spirits c. Now these either convey always the same Notices as the Senses or they do not if they do then the Mind must ever judg with the Senses which is against experience If they do not how comes the Intellect to determine against the Notices of Sense e. g. in the Magnitude of the Sun Surely it neglects the information of Sense either upon some other more powerful motive and overruling remonstrance than Sense has given or arbitrarily but whether way soever it goes the Maxim is rejected and the Mind 't is clear does not find it self obliged to determine in all cases as Sense deposes Sense then is no Judg but only a conveyer of Intelligence to the Judg according to which Intelligence we confess that Judg is to censure and resolve except when better Intelligence from Reason or Revelation be interposed and arrest such a Judgment Now Sense informs a Catholick Mind that hath so much Learning as to read which Protestants think few have they are so ignorantly educated that the words of Institution are in that Book the Church tells him are the Gospels and neither Reason nor Revelation countervening this Notice a Papist judges with certainty according to the deposition of the Senses but when a Papist desires to proceed further and would understand not only that there are such words but also what is that very meaning not which may be put upon them wherein his sense and reason may assist him but which the Holy Ghost intended and the Church holds then he relies not on his senses or reason only because he knows the sentiments of Men to be very different as amongst themselves so from the Church's and Holy Spirit 's and if he might rely on his own so might others and consequently collect opposite truths from their discordant conceptions Wherefore he resorts to that hand which reacht out to him the words of Institution as Gods word to give him also their true meaning which he receives and professes without demur or fear And thus Papists arrive at all saving-truth thus they attain Unanimity and learn not only to think but speak the same thing whilst the minds and language of all Sectaries who pretend to follow sense and reason only in their Interpretation of Scripture are at wars and Babilonish For private Spirits are many and are Dissenters but the Church the Holy Spirit is but One and at Unity with it self And thus I suppose not our but the Minister's culpable ignorance is apparent Ibid. l 28. But let us quit this Reflection c. Content If he would not hasten to new untruths Where is it confess'd that we have neither command nor example in Holy Scripture for Adoring our Lord in the Eucharist If there he any command for Adoring our Lord at all there is for Adoring him in the Eucharist For once Adorable and he is always and every-where Adorable in what condition or circumstances soever and special injunctions or instances are not of necessity to warrant or oblige us to Adore St. Austin knew there was a command or he would not have said in Psal 98. Peccemus non Adorando Again tho we confess that Defects may possibly happen yet who grants them to be infinite or difficultly avoidable Is it not rather difficult considering the Caution of the Church that any defects should chance which are destructive to the Eucharist Can we not have a moral certainty the Priest has the Orders to which he pretends Do not our Senses inform us as to both the matter and Form of the Sacrament and the serious application of the one to the other As to the intention 't is true it is deem'd necessary will the Minister profess that none is needful to the performance of a Religious Action but what degree or sort of intention is a Question in the Schools some Divines requiring more some less Of the later kind if he please the Reader may view what Contenson writes of it Theolog. Mentis Cordis l. 11. p. 1. Diss 2. Append. § 2. c. It is undoubtlingly to be asserted says this Modern Divine that an Intention of seriously performing the External Rites amongst Christians counted Religious suffices for the validity of a Sacrament and that being observed no retention nor perverseness of the Minister's Intention doth void a Sacrament This Position he confirms by many Authorities and concludes them with that of the Council of Trent Sess 14. Cap. 6. Can. 9. where that Holy Synod declares the Sacrament not to be performed if a Priest act in Jest c. inferring thereupon that the Council understood by an Intention of doing what the Church does not as this Minister of doing what the Church intends but a doing with external seriousness what the Church prescribes Which inference he inforces by Cardinal Palavicini's Reflection on that Passage of the Council par 2. l. 12. c. 10. From these last words any one reading them may conjecture that the Opinion of Catherine and other Divines thinking a Will in the Minister to act seriously suffices for and that only Jesting which the Receiver of the Sacrament may discover does obstruct the accomplishment of a Sacrament was not expunged According to this Doctrine then the Consecration of the Eucharist does not depend on the Priest's believing Transubstantiation or secretly intending to Consecrate c. but only on an external intention to do seriously what the Church injoins which is very discernable to the Attendants by the Priest's exterior actions and deportment How many therefore of the Answerer's Dangers and Defects are blown away And if Adoration may at any time be paid to our Lord in the Eucharist it may ordinarily be so without any scruple by Catholicks Appendix II. ANIMADVERSIONS upon the Reply to the two Discourses concerning the Adoration of our B. Saviour in the Holy Eucharist SOME time ago were printed in OXFORD Two Discourses the one concerning the Alterations in the Church-Service of the Church of England the second concerning the Adoration of our Blessed Saviour in the Sacrament of the Eucharist The Design whereof was to shew the incertitude and inconstancy of the Church of England in her Doctrine and Practices Whence it will follow That none can trust or rely upon her Authority nor safely either believe or practise according to her directions Of both these the Author took these two Articles as a manifest and sufficient instance But because there is nothing so true against which
this is to be worshiped with Divine worship 2. For the signs species or visible accidents to which no other worship is due besides that reverence which belongs to the instruments of holy worship 3. For both the sign and thing signified together and thus understood the Sacrament is not properly said to be worshiped tho improperly it may because part of it the res Sacramenti is to be worshiped and that which belongs to the principal part is ordinarily attributed to the whole as a man understands thinks argues c tho these be only the actions of the Soul. The like distinction serves also for the word Hoast Hostia which these writers seem to lay as a stumbling-block before the ignorant For it is sometimes used for the outward signs species or whatever is visible before consecration and is not to be worshiped sometimes for the Lord himself as in Eph. 5.2 who alone in proper speaking is to be worshiped But having occasion by God's blessing in convenient time to speak more copiously upon this subject we shall here add no more § 5 Thus have we briefly set down what we conceive necessary to explicate the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this great mystery sufficiently also we hope to instruct them who intend their salvation who are not desirous a lye should be the truth nor prefer their own uncertain conjectures against God's Church Whom also we seriously admonish to beware of those teachers who debase and lower the great grace and mercy of God communicated to us by our Lord who is made unto us wisdom as well as justice and sanctification by debasing it to their own fancies which they call reason as did all the ancient Hereticks and Mahomet himself that great false Prophet To take away all mystery out of Christian Religion is to vilify it and to abolish the virtue of faith and advancement of the understanding and thereby also of piety and devotion For it is no wonder that those sublime and holy passions or operations experienced by devout persons are by such people ridiculed to say no worse For if the Heroical acts of Faith are denied and despised it must needs follow that those great favours bestowed by God upon his best servants must neither be enjoyed nor credited But omitting these matters let us proceed to examin some such few particulars in the Replier's Discourse as seem to contain something considerable For it would be too much abusing the Reader 's time and patience to discover or reprehend all the errors of that Pamphlet wherein I know not if there be any one period that is not obnoxious § 6 To omit the first Chap. containing nothing of consequence we will take notice of the second which seems to be to purpose Our Author 's chief design was to shew the Alterations of the Church of England after her departure from the Church Catholick both in Doctrine and Practice taking this one Article as an instance in both In this chapter the Replier takes notice of these alterations and tho he would gladly deny them yet is it a thing so manifest that he rather thinks fitting to diminish them and notwithstanding the alterations to affirm that the Church of England never changed Little alterations he calls them and yet saith they are the terms of her communion Nothing certainly is little in the Church'es forms especially in our most venerable and solemn worship and the very chiefest and most important service of God even the only holy sacrifice of our Religion and admitting us to and feeding us at his own Table not little that Article upon which they chiefly justify their departure from the Church and by which they continually keep their subjects in disobedience unto and alienation from Her not little which contains the terms of the Church'es communion so that he who assents not to these however differing in their several seasons i.e. he that did not believe the Real presence at the first setting forth the Common Prayer-book and he that did believe it at the second was holden as excommunicate Not little to the disobedience whereof such severe Penalties were imposed both by Acts of Parliament and Canons of 1603. Again if so little why would they for them change those of the Ancient Church except it were for an extreme itch of separating from God's Church the formality and essence of Schism Ib. This design is impertinent No it was the very primary intention of the Author as is plain enough But admit the Church of England hath wavered in her Doctrines as our Author proves irrefragably it follows that she disclaims the authoritative conduct of her subjects by whose doctrines except they submit to so many changes they can never be secure and they who do change cannot keep the unity of the faith which themselves alter but are more like to children unconstant uncertain hurried about with every new blast of doctrine as a powerful person of a different perswasion or interest pleaseth to command This is not the end for which our Good Lord ordained the Clergy his Successors In the beginning of King Edward VI. Reign at the framing of a new Common prayer-book was asserted the Real presence of the body and blood of our Lord in the Eucharist as hath already and by God's assistance shall be more shew'd by and by In his latter end this doctrine was changed to Zuinglianism In Q. Elizabeths time both were joyned in the form of the Liturgy but the declaration against Real presence was omitted which in the Rubric in 1661 was lick'd up again Likewise also the Catechism was changed In King Edward's time the Eucharist was expressed in Zuinglius's notions which in Q. Elizabth's time were omitted and in King James's time those for a Real presence inserted The Articles also were new modell'd the first that I can find were towards the later end of King Edward against the Real presence Q. Elizabeth altered them again leaving out those things seeming to her scandalous and against the Real presence And indeed the Articles were not framed to declare the true doctrine of Religion according to the word of God interpreted by the Catholick Church but for avoiding diversities of opinions amongst themselves establishing some sort of consent and healing the increasing ulcers amongst the teachers of the newly changed Religion Again why doth she punish Dissenters since her self dissents frequently from her self and consequently hath taught that which is false So who can have confidence that in believing her faith or obedience to her commands he endangereth not his salvation Even at this day the Replier and his party teach contrary to the former learned men of their own Church and by their own practice confirm this accusation against their Church Adore the Elements Either the Replier knows that all Catholicks declare which none but God and themselves can disprove that they detest the adoration of any creature and of the Elements in the Eucharist and then he voluntarily calumniates
doctrines wherein she agrees with the Catholick Church she chooseth to abstain from her terms The 4th Alteration was in King Charles I time in the Book of Common Prayer sent down into Scotland wherein most things were reduced to the first edition of King Edward VI. but was most barbarously defamed by the Presbyterians there for Popery But Arch-Bishop Lawd did not intend any Popery but vainly imagined to settle a Church neer to but not conformable with the Catholick Religion which was impossible it being not a plant planted by our Lord but of his own policy and therefore was to be rooted up or a branch torn from the Vine of the Catholick Church and therefore dead and unfruitful The last Alteration was at the Return of King Charles II. wherein was a contrary course endeavoured a complying with the Presbyterians a business somewhat plausible but not according to Religion Then was brought in the Rubrick against the Real presence And tho as I have heard the Clergy at that time made great opposition yet when by an Higher Power it was established they all submitted to and embraced it The Church hath always held a Real presence so far as a real Participation implies one It is most certain that if the Body of our Lord be really received it is also really present But the Replier owns not a real participation of the Body of our Saviour but a figurative one of the benefits of his Passion and those not really but by faith only which is only of things revealed and things not enjoyed besides the reception is oral only and not of the benefits or effects but of the bread and wine after which follows a feeding by faith which is properly spoken neither of the symbols nor the benefits That the Church of England never acknowledged any other presence is false as hath bin shewed both in the precedent Discourse and Appendix and if these testimonies be not sufficient he shall have as many more as he pleaseth But see his Instances p. 14. how a real reception may be of a thing really absent He that receives a Disciple receiveth Christ But this is not a really true but a figurative expression signifying that he who receives a Disciple shall be esteemed and rewarded as if he received Christ himself The Disciples received the Holy Ghost really if as some Doctors think the Holy Ghost descended upon them if only the graces of the Spirit as is more ordinarily said it was only a figurative speech and no real reception A man receives an inheritance when he receives the writings livery and seisin c. but here is nothing really received but the writings or some other thing whereby the inheritance is conceived to be given not properly but by common custom and vulgar manner of speaking grounded upon positive laws or mutual compact A Prince receiveth a Kingdom really if he be present in and to it but if any other way he receives it not really It is no news that the word receive is sometimes used figuratively and in divers manners but the word really is not figurative nor being applied to receive suffers it to be taken figuratively And so the Church hath always understood it i. e. both that receiving and the received were true and real and not figurative only and it is hard to conceive that our Lord in the last and most solemn mystery of his whole life should make use of so dilute and improper an expression Pag. 5. It is easie to assign good reasons for the Alterations Be it easie neither himself nor any else that I have seen have given such good reasons He refers us to Dr. Burnet Foxes and Firebrands c. dirty Pools which himself also had fished already and found nothing 'T is said first That it was not thought fit to cast off Superstition all at once Superstition then that ancient Form was which notwithstanding had remained so many hundred years already and the whole Church for all that time was guilty of Superstition But the new Form establish'd by a few partial or also ignorant persons was void of Superstition But if they chang'd the former because of Superstition what made them so often change the other Heresie But how came it to pass that they tolerated Superstition so long Must ill be done that good may come of it But why would Q. Eliz. introduce Superstition again when once ejected Again 't is said That the Alterations were lawful because not against Scripture and in that the Subjects ought to acquiesce not regarding the prudence of the Changes for which the true reasons are only guessed but political ones may be seen in Burnet c. It seems the Reformers guided themselves not by Religion but Policy an evil ingredient in Church-matters But neither indeed were they either political expedient or lawful For certainly it was not good policy 1. To introduce such a division into the Nation which at the beginning raised Commotions and Civil Wars in several parts of the Kingdom 2. To introduce Antimonarchical Principles and such Opinions as manifestly oppose the Kingly Government By unhinging their Consciences and diminishing the Power of the Clergy which as long as it was incorporated into the rest of the great Body of the Church did and would always have been able to maintain the Power of the King and setting up the Power of the People making them Judges of matters of Religion thereby exempting them from the Government of the Clergy by whom they might be and were kept in Obedience to God and their Soveraign Noâ— were the Alterations lawful because not made by the lawful Ecclesiastical Magistrates or agreeable to the rest of God's Church but an erecting an Altar against an Altar a Sacramentary Zuinglian Table against the Altar of God in his Holy Church and consequently made a breach upon the Unity of the Church and exposed those who consent to them to the great wrath of Almighty God and hazard of their own Salvation Another Argument of the Change of the Doctrine was the Omission of divers Ceremonies very significant of if not necessary unto the perfection of this Sacrament As first The omission of taking the Bread or Patten into the Hand of the Consecrator being in it self an application of the words of Consecration to the matter proposed To this the Replier saith That the Nature of the Action implies the Ceremony of the Handling the Patten and Chalice Therefore more the shame of them who made it not necessary but left it indifferent Then 1. The omitting of them denies a Consecration I say If that Ceremony was omitted or not enjoin'd 't is very probable that neither was Consecration intended or believ'd which secondly to be the intention of the Framers of the second Liturgy is very likely because they omitted the words The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ as also because they chang'd the Form into Take and eat this individuum vagum something or nothing Consecrated or not-Consecrated Tho
indeed our Replier's Opinion seems to dislike the word this and thinks it should rather be these Benefits which neither can be eaten nor consecrated nor require any symbols But he saith these Ceremonies were practis'd by divers but he instanceth only in Bishop Jewel Mr. Rastal's testimony he groundlesly denies For we know that in the late times till it was re-commanded by the Rubric few practis'd it or indeed regarded it as a thing of Consequence Which doubtless was the reason of that Command in the Margin it was recall'd into use because disused and the Replier's Reason insufficient P. 6. Gloria in Excelsis Deo and Benedictus qui venit are two Hymns the first plac'd in this part of the Mass as is commonly said by St. Telesphorus the Ninth Bishop of Rome from St. Peter and was the Congratulation of the Angels for the Lord 's coming into the world as the Benedictus was for his Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem both most properly applied to the beginning of this Office as rejoicing for his coming to be present upon the Altar Such universal ancient solemn parts of God's Service were not omitted by chance nor would they have been so had they not contain'd an Argument against the new-devised Absence of the Lord from his people The Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus was not anciently call'd the Trisagium but Hymnus Angelicus Victorialis The Trisagium was Sanctus Deus Sanctus fortis Sanctus immortalis not so much used in the Western as in the Eastern Church which was sung when the Priest approached the Quire v. Menardum To which some add after fortis some after immortalis Qui Crucifixus es pro nobis And they as most of the Asiaticks who apply'd the Hymn to our Saviour meant no harm but they who attributed it to the Trinity as the Constantinopolitans and the West generally condemned it But this only obiter as also that concerning the Receiver's answering Amen which as our Author proves by irrefragable testimonies were it worth the pains to vindicate them not to have been an answer to a Prayer but an acknowledgment of our Lord's Presence there We will add notwithstanding what we find in St. Ambrose's Works l. 4. c. 5. de Sacramentis Non otiose cum accipis dicis Amen Jam in Spiritu confiteris quod accipias corpus Christi Dicit Sacerdos corpus Christi tu dicis Amen i. e. verum est Quod confitetur lingua teneat affectus The omission of these words these Holy Mysteries might be purely accidental And might not be so For they have a signification contrary to the Opinion of the Reformers and all other deniers of the real presence of our Lord nor can they find any mystery in taking eating a Morsel of Bread and a Sup of Wine and remembring our Lord's death and sufferings and then by faith feeding upon him not receiv'd This perhaps is a mystery for I do not understand it P. 7. No fault with the second Form Faulty enough certainly because contrary to the former Book which to prove was the Author's chief intention and consequently from that of the Church of Christ 2. Because either non-sense or to most unintelligible either what is meant by this or by feeding on our Saviour's benefits by Faith. P. 8. These words that these thy Gifts and Creatures of Bread and Wine may be to us the Body and Blood of thy dear Son in the Reformation of the Liturgy were left out because manifestly owning a real change and were not restor'd in Qu. Elizabeth's Liturgy For She probably could not examine all the Alterations by her own self and her Bishops being inclin'd to Zuinglianism did not willingly restore any thing against their own Opinion Afterward Archbishop Laud restor'd it in the Scottish Liturgy For which he was severely censur'd by Baily's Laudensium Autocatacrisis This being as he saith a notable Argument for Transubstantiation at least for the real presence to the Receiver it was Tho it is most certain the Archbishop did not incline to defend Transubstantiation but only the real presence to the Receiver according to the Doctrine of the Church of England mis-understood by that Puritan Pag. 10. Dishonestly or ignorantly worded False They are natural Deductions or rather Propositions almost verbatim taken out of the Declaration whereas those the Replier after his new way of answering would rather have them modell'd into are Nonsense Pag. 11. Calvin and Beza are mentioned because by them were the English Reformers much directed tho our Author doth not ty himself up to speak only of the Church of England-men The Author makes use of Conciliators as being less biassed and therefore better disposed to understand the truth and obliged by their design to a more accurate examination of the Doctrines of both parties and a more strict declaration of them as being assur'd to be opposed by both parties Mr. Thorndike he saith had in this matter opinions of his own agreeable neither to the Catholick nor Church of England The like he saith of our Author p. 1. I am afraid the fault is not in the object but the organ his endeavour to blast so learned a person shews him to have bin rightly quoted by our Author But why should I spend more pains to vindicate the opinions of the Doctors of the English Church which is sufficiently performed in the discourse in the History of the English Reformation from § 148 and by the Discourse here newly printed and the first Appendix to it Pag. 12. The quotations out of Dr. Taylor are most true but if that Doctor was not constant to himself or his own opinion or if by forget fulness he speaks one thing in one place and otherwise â—n another or if he did not throughly understand the difference and therefore vented many undigested and incoherent notions as he seems to most men to have done what is that to us May not we make use of the good wheat because tares are mingled with it Yet I do not remember that he any where sustains as our Replier doth that the Protestants may use the same terms as the Catholicks and yet in a quite different sense But are we come in this great question to may use the terms of the Church in a quite different notion than Antiquity and the Church hath and doth still use them but let them use them as they please only they should give notice of their meaning and tell the world that their words are like Jacob's but their intention like Esau and so plainly confess their heresy and not seek to coyer it with such sorry fig-leaves Pag. 13. Of those to say no worse irreverent expressions of our receiving the dead body and dead blood of our Lord let the Replier and his Capernaits enjoy the honour we content our selves to believe and know that our Lord in this Sacrament is become to us a quickning Spirit How our Lord's body now glorified is received by us as representing his death and sufferings
is sufficiently declared in the precedent Discourse Let it suffice here that we receive it by the hands of his Priests united to him in this office as Himself offereth it to the Father the only true and acceptable sacrifice in the heavenly Temple and whereof we invited to God's own Table are partakers as of the Sacrifice of peace and reconciliation The same body which was immolated whilst upon earth remains tho now glorified till the end of the world when they that pierced or deny or disbelieve his words shall with shame and everlasting remorse look upon him Pag. 14. There is as great a difference especially concerning the real presence of our Lord as the Catholicks charge them with all Those truly called Protestants assert Consubstantiation The Zuinglians or Sacramentaries to whom our Replier joyns himself no real presence of our Lord's Body at all but of the benefits only of his Passion The Church of England and her Doctors say that the body and blood of our Lord are really and not only by the benefits and effects received by us These things are plainly said in the former Discourse What is the meaning of our union and communion with Christ's glorified body and how this is or can be performed or imagined according to our Repliers and the Zuinglian Scheme I confess I cannot understand how according to the Catholick doctrine is explained before Tho I know also the Zuinglians do pretend to such benefits and all others tho they do not expresly own a real presence Pag. 16. So much for the use of the word Really He hath blundred a long time upon the notion of Really how it signifies how used how it may be used by the learned c. as if the word used so many years by the Church should stand or fall to his may-bees and sorry conjectures at length he saith a thing may be really present two ways Physically and Morally Where ranks he a Divine presence a Spirtual presence besides many other sorts of presence A physical presence is a local presence Not if we speak of a spiritual body not if we speak of a miraculous presence effected by the power of Almighty God. A Moral presence is called Sacramental This is a confession of his own novel and therefore of a suspicious interpretation The Church used sacramental for real as opposed to receiving by faith as is said before But what is it to be morally present if not that a moral entity as grace holiness c are present The benefits of our Lord's Passion are present to and enjoyed by us but what is this to the real true presence of his Body But neither are these benefits given us in the Sacrament but only are apprehended of us by faith In summe this Replier seems to flutter as if he were fast limed partly by the constant doctrine of the Church and a desire to seem no Zuinglian Wherefore he heapeth up such a parcel of insignificant words and distinctions that it is lost time to examin them There is a real presence of a body which is always local This is false as is shewed before There is also a spiritual and virtual presence Distinct from real and moral Spiritual we acknowledge as before but this is real and not virtual only and what is virtual if not the effects of our Lord's Passion What are all these to the real presence of our Lord's body the only question Pag. 17. At last he sits down with this conclusion that if rightly understood it is not material what Adverbs we use we may say it is really essentially corporally present I had thought it had bin the custom and necessary to express the Church'es doctrine in her own words and not to have used the known words of the Church in an arbitrary signification This is facere quidlibet ex quolibet or a most horrible equivocation mental reservation or material elocution with which at another time he will raise much dust not remembring his own doctrine that we may put what signification we please upon usual words a salvo which at once takes away all veracity and the use of language I am weary of this confusion as well as himself and therefore he sums up all thus The Papists always acknowledge a local presence The contrary whereof is true For the Papists never acknowledge a local presence of the body of our Lord in the Eucharist And we Protestants whatever term we use mean only a spiritual and virtual presence and explain the term whatever it be we make use of to that effect Is not this making the real presence of our Lord only figurative and Zuinglianisme Answ No. Pag 18. For we do not hold that we barely receive the effects and benefits of Christ's body but we hold it really present in as much as it is really received and we put in actual possession of it Well then the Body of our Lord is really present and received Answ No. Whatever we say we mean only a virtual presence Which is indeed only a figurative presence and is owned by the Zuinglians and Figurativists and which the Replier seeking to avoid really condemns as the Church hath done in those two or three who in the course of so many centuries set abroach such or the like opinion Let the Replier also take notice that Zuinglius doth not deny eating by faith or in a mysterious and ineffable manner by which mist of words the Replier in vain thinks to pass for orthodox Pag. 20. Stumble No it is the Replier's cavil The Rubric saith not as he pretends a true natural body cannot be c but it is against the truth of a natural body to be c which is not very good sense we not knowing what a false natural body is except the meaning of it be that this Proposition A natural body can be in several places is not true which is the very same which our Author saith Ineffable mystery The Replier dare not deny that the Divines of the Church of England as well as those of the Catholick Church acknowledge the presence of our Lord in the Eucharist to be a mystery but saith they acknowledge our union with Christ to be a mystery which is not opposite to the other tho indeed it is too mysterious to know how this Union follows from his Doctrine Opposite and contradâ—ctory To perswade the Reader that our Author alloweth contradictions to he true he leaves out the word seemingly as also § 21. which seemeth to us to include a contradiction Take notice therefore that no Catholick affirms That God can make two contradictories to be true and that there is no contradiction in their doctrine of the Eucharist But they believe it to be plainly revealed by our Saviour's own words and St. Paul's v. foregoing Discourse p. 18. Pag. 21. The doctrine of the Trinity doth as much violence to Philosophy as Transubstantiation But Transubstantiation is a contradiction Pag. 25. Bishop Andrews's famous saying which the
Replier would falsly translate or interpret The real presence which we hold is as real as the corporal which the Papists hold Which Proposition is both false in it self and falsly father'd upon Bishop Andrews For they who believe only a figurative presence believe not so much as they who believe a real also For it is to say That he who believes a real absence believes a real presence Pag. 27. Marg. Christ was made in all things like to us In his Incarnation that we might be made like to him in his glorification In his Incarnation a natural body with the like imperfections sufferings c. in his Glorification a spiritual body The Heavens must contain him The word is not contain but receive him That his body which is not now endowed with natural properties but spiritual is in Heaven no Catholick denies for that would be against the Creed But they say that he is both in Heaven and in the Eucharist or else what needs all this discourse about his being in several places at once Pag. 28. Would he not wonder that St. Austin Our Author's quotation out of St. Austin de cura pro mortuis is true and pertinent Our Replier himself p 29. seems not to dare affirm that a Spirit cannot be in several places or ubi's but if it be a contradiction S. Austin needs not enquire if not a coutradiction neither is it for a spiritual body to be so So that it matters not whether the Martyrs bodies are spoken of by St. Austin Nor doth the quotations brought by our Replier out of St. Austin Ep. 57. ad Dardanum nor that of Tract 31. in Johan in the least contradict the doctrine of the Church But that in Tract 30. in Joh. is perfectly against the Replier For after that S. Austin had said that our Lord was in divers places in heaven and earth in his life time by the omnipotence of Almighty God he saith that homo indeed secundum corpus in loco est de loco migrat cum ad alium locum venerit in eo loco unde venit non est He speaks here of men in this natural state which is most true if no miracle interposed but concerning our Saviour he had said before that he was whilst upon earth in heaven also by the power of God. Pag. 29. A contradiction for a body to be locally in one place and really received in another What the Author saith is most true what the Replier substitutes is neither the Author's nor common sense But it is most certain that to say the real substantial body of our Lord is only in heaven and the same body to be really received upon earth is as much a contradiction as to say the natural essential body of our Lord is really in several places which is none at all Thus have I with very great taedium justified our Author against the Replier what remains is either repetition of what is said before or concerns the subject of Adoration concerning which if it please God to continue our strength we shall not be long in his debt Corrigenda Addenda Pag. line  11. 20. p. 54. 72. 18. 28. to body 28. 2. dele in the quotation set down above p. 50. 34. 35. Obs 3. p. 13. 51. 28. p. 49. 50. the places 52. 14. before p. 35. 54. 4. dele p. 123. 54. 23. opinion p. 69. 64. 13. Christus non jubet 71. 6. c. See p. 60. 71. 19. observation p. 19.  21. cross p. 75. 80. 17. taken passively 87. 23. quotation p. 48. 108. 19. of Suarez p. 105. 110. 24. above p. 102. 129. 33. there confuting it 133. 1. comes more peace 148. 13. Bishop Poinet
before But as Article of Faith is taken for dogma necessario credendum for a divine truth necessary when known to be so to be believ'd or not oppos'd So a divine truth may be an article or object of my Faith to day which was not yesterday So he who by what means soever knows that something is said in Scripture which he knew not yesterday may be said to have to day a new article of his Faith or a new point no way to be opposed or denied but assented to and believ'd by him § L When therefore a thing is said to be no dogma fidei before and at such a time to begin to be so the meaning is That is is now a dogma fidei or object of Faith necessary to be believ'd which it was not before necessary to be believ'd not for the matter thereof as if the actual knowledg and faith thereof were absolutely necessary to Salvation thus a few points only some think not all those of the Creed are necessary and nothing thus necessary at any time that is not always so but necessary ex accidenti because we have a sufficient proposal thereof that it is a divine truth Not that the error in or ignorance of such a point even after such proposal doth derogate from our having absolutely necessary faith any more than it did before nor that in disbelieving or dissenting from it we are more defective in the necessarily salvifical principles of divine truth but that we are defective in our obedience to and acceptance of divine truths made known to us by the Church as some way conducible to Christian edification to the peace of the Church or to some other good end Therefore the duty she requires to many of her decisions is not so much an actual knowing of them as the not denying opposing contradicting them when made known to us Therefore for example should any one after the definition of the Tridentine Council thereupon hold John's and our Saviour's Baptism to have in every thing the same virtue and effect such a one whilst not knowing this definition of the Council is excusable in his error supposing it be not contracted from any careless neglect or if it be so contracted yet he is not guilty thereby of a point of infidelity as concerning necessary faith but only of the sin of negligence Neither when the Church requires the belief of Transubstantiation hence doth it follow that she saith the belief thereof is necessary to salvation but that she thinks it fit for some good ends of Christian edification not to be opposed and therefore Suarez his confessing that to believe Transubstantiation is not simply necessary to salvation quoted by Archbishop Laud p. 287. methinks well consists with the Church's determining it tho the Archbishop there thinks according to the Roman principles it is otherwise And as Bellarmin saith there are many things in Scripture which tho they are necessario credenda quia scripta sunt yet are not scripta quia necessario credenda so may I say of Church definitions Neither upon this may we collect that she is tyrannical in abridging the liberty of mens judgments if the belief of the points she determins be not necessary for salvation but only if no way at all beneficial to be known For the wilful opposing of which if we afterwards incur her Anathema's which exclude from heaven thus we miss of salvation not for want of necessary faith but obedience she Anathematizing us not for an error but a vice i. e. a causlesly disturbing her peace and resisting her authority Should any one after the Apostolical Synod and Decrees Act. 15. some of which were about matter of small account yet not without good reason commanded for a season at least to be observed have resisted their Injunctions in the matter of blood and things strangled holding it still lawful notwithstanding such prohibition to eat those things such an one doubtless notwithstanding the levity of the matter would justly have incurred the Church'es censure and without repentance bin liable to damnation not for want of any faith necessary thereto but of due submission and obedience to the decrees of a just Authority § LI 5. Lastly concerning our obedience to these Councils in such their decisions Obedience due to such decisions see what I have said in my Notes concerning that subject and in those of the obligation of not acting against conscience where I think t is sufficiently evidenced that we are bound to submit at least to all such points where we are not certain of the contrary as especially in this by most-confessed ineffable mystery we can little pretend to it considering what hath bin said in this paper But indeed such a submission will be found either a duty to all the Churches decisions or to none For if we obey only so many of her Canons as we in our judgment think truth rejecting the rest our submission is not to her authority deciding but a yeilding to the verisimility of the thing decided Again such a submission is either a duty to all Councils I mean which are in their authority equal or to none upon the same reason For for us to judge first of the orthodoxness of a Council which is appointed to direct us what is orthodox what a preposterous thing is it And if we go to this play once to receive only so many Councils as we like of their doctrines then as the Lutheran only admits of six Councils the Calvinist of only four so the Eutychians now in Asia upon as good grounds I mean as to any obligation to their Authority do admit only of three Councils Again the modern Nestorian of two only lastly the modern Socinian of none at all The Objection that may be made here What if a man's conscience be perswaded that the contrary to the Councils decree is evident in the Scriptures The objection of contrary perswasion of Conscience considered as what if one think that the Church in the Tridentine Council enjoyns adoration not to Christ but to the Symbols or that the worshiping of Christ as corporally present in the Sacrament is flat idolatry which is much urged by Daille as a sufficient ground for a discession from the former Church see the latter part of 8. c. of his Apology p. 55. I have answered in those Notes before-named I will only here retort it Suppose an Eutychian Nestorian Ariam plead the same excuse for dissenting from the ancient Councils for I hope he will grant some of them may be perswaded in conscience as they profess If he answer such perswasion of a conscience wilfully misinformed and refusing the guides God hath appointed to instruct it better excuseth them not from the guilt of heresy I reply neither will it in this point excuse the other especially for the business of corporal presence if they be found to go against the stream of present and former Church from whom we ought in all
humility to receive the exposition of ambiguous Scripture and to make therefrom a causless division If the Church may enjoyn men nothing that is against their conscience and nor in these exact obedience all heresy must be tolerated and the Nicene Creed is a tyranny But if you say they may use their Anathema's in greater matters but in these smaller niceties may not thus domineer over mens consciences a thing Daille accuseth the Tridentine Council of 7. c. 40. p. I answer Who shall judge what is small what is great but those who decide also the matters both small and great But let him search Antiquity and see if small matters have not also undergone their Anathema's He confesseth they have and therefore is liberal to blame both 7. c. 38. p. § LIII But I find this objection advanced yet higher That men may not obey such a decree not only when it is against conscience Objection of non-certainty considered but when they have thereof so much as a doubting conscience especially in a matter of such high consequence as Adoration is which follows upon holding a corporal presence which to give to any object without certainty that it is adorable they say is utterly inexcusable Ce n' est pas assez d'en auoir quelque opinion Il ' en fault estre certain Daille 11. c. 94. p. Upon these premises no man can chuse but doubt quod dubitas ne feceris Tail. p. 340. 1. In answer to this also see what I have said at large in those notes Indeed the rule is good where doubt of sinning is only on one side not on both only on the side of doing but not on the side of omttting also and when we are certain in omitting the thing we sin not But the case is otherwise where-ever our Mother the Church enjoyns us the doing of a thing for here is no security of not sinning if we do it not Again if Christ be there corporally present as she saith He is Daille saith 'T is our duty to adore him and as to give adoration to an object not adorable so to deny it to one adorable is both sin I may retort then with more reason quod dubitas if you doubt only and are not certain of the contrary ne omittas where the Church and your lawful Superiors enjoin you to do it For as reasonable as this proposition is quod dubitas ne faciendo pecces ne feceris so reasonable is the other quod dubitas ne omittendo pecces ne omittas 2. Again Mr. Hooker's reason methinks hath as little force as any of these to encourage any in a non-submission to the Church's judgment who in his 5. l. 67. sect 363. p. discourseth thus That there being three several opinions in the matter of the Eucharist he joyning the Two first in this Paper in one we may safeliest cleave unto that which hath nothing in it but what the rest do all approve and acknowledge to be most true But you may find the Archbishop Laud sect 35. p. 286. in his refutation of a like argument brought by the Romanist namely that it is better to be of that Church in which all Churches agree salvation may be had mentioning this very argument about the Eucharist and rejecting it as insufficient And indeed were it any way valid it would follow when of divers opinions some affirm less some more a prudent man ought always to side with the least because this is affirmed by all which I think is a dangerous assertion especially in Religion To believe and do still with the least § LIV 3. Lastly neither do I think that a sufficient lett to keep any from assenting to a corporal presence Obj. of the fruitlesness of supposed corporal presence consider'd or substantial conversion because such Presence if it be is pretended to be utterly unbeneficial and fruitless and since Nature doth nothing in vain much less doth the Author of it See Mr. Blondel in his 10. c. and Dr. Tailor sect 3. p. 28 c. and p. 46. much pressing this upon these three reasons 1. Because any pretended effects of the Eucharist must be granted to be attainable without it by a spiritual reception of Christ c. See their writings 2. Because the unworthy receiver must be granted to be partaker of it the substance of Christ's Body as well as the worthy and this without enjoying the least benefit thereof 3. Because our Saviour hath decided this point John 6.63 declaring to the Capernaites mistaking his sayings as if he meant to feed them with his flesh by virtue of which once eaten by them they should afterward live for ever That his flesh if they should eat a piece thereof would profit them nothing for any such purpose 1. First note concerning this Objection in respect of the former reason that it presseth as much the second as the third and fourth opinion who affirm the worthy receiver to partake not only virtually as the first saith but really also Christ's Body but to what end this since the other i. e. Christ received by faith supplieth all the effect desired or pretended according to John 6.40 47. and St. Austin's saying crede manducasti 2. Now for an Answer to it in reference to both the reasons I might transcribe you Bellarmin's in Eucharist 3. l. 9. c. which to me seems very satisfactory Read it at your leisure The effects of the Eucharist such as are alledged by Blondel out of Peron Namely a more strict and entire union and conjunction of us to God the increase of grace and charity in us the sowing in us the seed of immortality and a resurrection of our decaying bodies c. are not affirm'd to be wrought in us by the corporal presence of our Saviour as after a physical or irresistible manner but as by a proper instrument appointed by God for such effects upon such a disposition of the receiver Therefore neither are these effects necessary to corporal presence i. e. that corporal presence cannot be without them for so it is in the unworthy communicant neither again is corporal presence absolutely necessary to such effects i. e. that they cannot be at all without corporal presence for so they are in the faithful before communicating at least in some imperfecter degree 3 But these concessions we have now made if this be all they contend will never argue the substantial or corporal presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist to be a thing superfluous or void of effect 1. Because in God's appointing several instruments for conveying the like benefits to us the arguing that one doth will never prove the other doth not the like 2. In the like effect being wrought by several means the one may produce it in a far more advanc'd degree than the other So Aquinas p. 3. q. 80. art 1. saith Plenius inducit effectum sacramenti ipsa sacramenti susceptio quam solum desiderium Yet sometimes the desiderium