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A30335 A discourse concerning transubstantiation and idolatry being an answer to the Bishop of Oxford's plea relating to those two points. Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715. 1688 (1688) Wing B5775; ESTC R23015 24,041 38

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A DISCOURSE CONCERNING Transubstantiation AND IDOLATRY BEING AN ANSWER TO THE BISHOP of Oxford's PLEA relating to those two Points London Printed in the Year 1688. An ANSWER to the REASONS of the Bishop of Oxford c. THIS Author would perswade the World That Transubstantiation is but a Nicety of the Schools calculated to the Aristotelian Philosophy and not defined positively in the Church of Rome but that the Corporal and Real Presence of the Substance of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament was the Doctrine of the Universal Church in the Primitive Times and that it is at this day the generally received Doctrine by all the different Parties in Europe not only the Roman Catholicks and Lutherans but both by the Churches of Switzerland and France and more particularly by the Church of England So that since all that the Church of Rome means by Transubstantiation is the Real Presence and since the Real Presence is so universally received it is a heinous thing to renounce Transubstantiation for that is in effect the renouncing the Real Presence This is the whole strength of his Argument which he fortifies by many Citations to prove that both the Antient Fathers and the Modern Reformers believed the Real Presence and that the Church of Rome believes no more But to all this I shall offer a few Exceptions I. If Transubstantiation is only a Philosophical Nicety concerning the manner of the Presence where is the hurt of renouncing it And why are the Roman Catholicks at so much Pains to have the Test repealed For it contains nothing against the Real Presence Indeed if this Argument has any force it should rather lead the Rom. Catholicks to take the Test since according to the Bishop they do not renounce in it any Article of Faith but only a bold Curiosity of the School-men Yet after all it seems they know that this is contrary to their Doctrine otherwise they would not venture so much upon a Point of an old and decried Philosophy II. In order to the stating this matter aright it is necessary to give the true Notion of the Real Presence as it is acknowledged by the Reformed We all know in what sense the Church of Rome understands it that in the Sacrament there is no Real Bread and Wine but that under the appearance of them we have the true Substance of Christ's glorified Body On the other hand the Reformed when they found the World generally fond of this Phrase they by the same Spirit of Compliance which our Saviour and his Apostles had for the Iews and that the Primitive Church had perhaps to excess for the Heathens retained the Phrase of Real Presence But as they gave it such a sense as did fully demonstrate that tho they retained a term that had for it a long Prescription yet they quite changed its meaning For they always shewed that the Body and Blood of Christ which they believed present was his Body broken and his Blood shed that is to say his Body not in its glorified State but as it was crucified So that the Presence belonging to Christ's dead Body which is not now actually in being is only his Death that is to be conceived to be presented to us and this being the sense that they always give of the Real Presence the reality falls only on that conveyance that is made to us in the Sacrament by a federal right of Christ's Death as our Sacrifice The Learned Answerer to the Oxford Discourses has so fully demonstrated this from the copious Explanations which all the Reformed give of that Phrase that one would think it were not possible either to mistake or cavil in so clear a Point The Papists had generally objected to the Reformers that they made the Sacrament no more than a bare Commemoratory Feast and some few had carried their aversion to that gross Presence which the Church of Rome had set up to another extreme to which the People by a Principle of Libertinism might have been too easily carried if the true Dignity of the Sacrament had not been maintained by Expressions of great Majesty So finding that the World was possessed of the Phrase of the Real Presence they thought fit to preserve it but with an Explanation that was liable to no Ambiguity Yet it seems our Reformers in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign had found that the Phrase had more power to carry Men to Superstition than the Explanations given to it had to retire them from it and therefore the Convocation ordered it to be laid aside tho that Order was suppressed out of Prudence And the Phrase has been ever since in use among us of which Dr. Burnet has given us a copious account Hist. Reform 2 vol. 3d Book III. The difference between the Notion of the Sacraments being a meer Commemoratory Feast and the Real Presence is as great as the value of the King's Head stamped upon a Meddal differs from the current Coin or the Impression made by the Great Seal upon Wax differs from that which any Carver or Graver may make The one is a meer Memorial but the other has a sacred Badg of Authority in it The Paschal Lamb was not only a Remembrance of the Deliverance of the People of Israel out of Egypt but a continuance of the Covenant that Moses made between God and them which distinguished them from all the Nations round about them as well as the first Passover had distinguished them from the Egyptians Now it were a strange Inference because the Lamb was called the Lord's Passover that is the Sacrifice upon the sprinkling of whose Blood the Angel passed over or passed by the Houses of the Israelites when he smote the first-born of the Egyptians to say that there was a change of the Substance of the Lamb Or because the Real Faith of a Prince is given by his Geat Seal printed on Wax and affixed to a Parchment that therefore the Substance of the Wax is changed So it is no less absurd to imagine that because the Bread and Wine are said to be the Body and Blood of Christ as broken and shed that is his Death really and effectually offered to us as our Sacrifice that therefore the Substance of the Bread and Wine are changed And thus upon the whole matter that which is present in the Sacrament is Christ dead and since his Death was transacted above 1600 Years ago the reality of his Presence can be no other than a Real Offer of his Death made to us in an Institution and federal Symbol I have explained this the more fully because with this all the Ambiguity in the use of that commonly received Phrase falls off IV. As for the Doctrine of the Antient Church there has been so much said in this Enquiry that a Man cannot hope to add any new Discoveries to what has been already found out Therefore I shall only endeavour to bring some of the most Important Observations into a narrow