that there is very little or scarce a jot of this usage nor of the mention thereof found in the first times of the Christian Church It is well known that the Fathers of the first three or four Centuries and some of the fifth it self had several Errours touching the state of souls after death which process of time hath taken away some having believed that the souls did abide in a place of refreshing near Heaven or under Heaven until the Day of Judgment Others that they did sleep and that they should arise the first time with their bodies to reign a thousand years upon earth with Jesus Christ and finally at the day of Judgement and of the last Resurrection all that were raised should pass as it were through a Sea of Fire which should purifie and cleanse them But never any of them did believe a place where the souls should suffer after the death of the body pains in some sort like those of Hell except for continuance as the Church of Rome teaches No more did the ancient Jews believe it neither do the Greeks yet at this day believe it though they pray for the dead after the same manner as the Fathers now mentioned did Dial. lib. 4. ca. 39 40 51 55. It may be made appear here that this Doctrine is onely an imitation of that of the Pagans and that even Pope Gregory himself who is the first that put this Doctrine in credit speakes in the same sense and the same terms as Virgil saying that the souls are purged some in the Fire others fann'd in the Air others washed and cleansed in Rivers and in Ice and lastly others in Baths and Stoves but we onely design to touch things here as in passe Indulgences If the Doctrine of Satisfactions and of Purgatory be evil that of Indulgences doth fall of it self because this as it is taught in the Church of Rome is but as consequent and dependant on the other If God hath not subjected us unto Works of Satisfaction and unto temporal punishments unto which the Church of Rome would subject us there is no need of her dispensations and we have no business to examine if she hath any power herein Few persons are ignorant of the great difference that there is betwixt the Indulgence which was formerly used unto publick penitents and the pardons which Popes give as well for the dead as for the living and we have shewed by the very confession of themselves of the Roman Church that this Doctrine is not grounded upon any authority in Scripture and that there is not found any practice nor mention of it in the five or six first Centuries Also every one knowes what interest the Court of Rome hath to maintain as well Purgatory as the power of the Keys as the Council speaks the great authority and immense riches which this Doctrine hath brought unto it and that it brings unto it daily the cases reserved unto the Holy See the Table of Sins rated Sess 25. de Indulg more or less according to the nature of Sins Lastly the crying abuses are too visible whereof the Council it self has been constrained to order a Reformation They are it may be something less in France where people have their eyes more open but they are so great in Spain beyond the Mountains and in the very place which is termed the Center of Religion that the sober persons of their Communion cannot forbear condemning of them This is what we had to say of Justification and of the Doctrines which depend upon it It may be believed that this may suffice to shew that the questions which separate us from the Roman Church upon this point are not of so small consequence as the Bishop of Condom would insinuate but that on the contrary herein is concerned the purest and if it may be spoken the most Christian part of Religion as hath been proved throughout upon this Article and that to conclude the Bishop of Condom doth not make any controversies to cease except perhaps in regard of those things which he hath suppressed and upon this particular point of Satisfactions upon which the Council of Trent Bellarmine and in a word the doctrine and general practice of the Roman Church formally take away what the Bishop of Condom would grant us THE FOVRTH PART The Process of the Bishop of Condom's Treatise IX The Sacraments in general doth call us to the matter of the Sacraments We will but little insist as neither doth he upon the name the number and the efficacy of the Sacraments in general and in like sort upon the greatest part of what he calls Sacraments in particular because the difficulties upon these points are not in reality so hotly agitated as the Bishop of Condom himself saith It may be believed that the time and patience of them who shall take the paines to read this Answer will be better imployed upon the matter of the Eucharist and upon the other articles which concern Tradition and the authority of the Pope which are more important and upon which we have most controversie In the first place as to the name of Sacraments Greg. in cap. 16. â—ib Reg. Tertul. de praesc c. Lib. 10 50. Tra. 80. 〈◊〉 Joan. Accedit verbum ad elementuÌ„ fit SacrameÌ„tum it were a thing indifferent to give them one name rather than another if we were agreed of the things or if the names would not by consequence draw in the things themselves The name of Sacrament may be taken in a double sense the one general and extensive to signifie any sacred act or ceremony as it is often taken in the Fathers the other proper less extensive as St. Augustine defines it in his Book of the City of God when he calls it a visible sign of an invisible grace the blessing of the Word being joyned as he saith elsewhere unto the matter of the outward Elements In the first sense they may if they please make not onely seven Sacraments Pierre de Damien Ser. 69. pa. 168. but twelve if they will as a Catholick Doctour did before the Council The Bishop of Condom doth in some sort accommodate himself unto this general sense when he uses this expression that in his communion there are received seven Signs or sacred Ceremonies The difficulty is that the Council being herein less equitable than the Bishop of Condom hath in this as well as in the matter of Justification made Articles of Faith of many particular Opinions which are nothing to the Essence of Sacraments which are good for nothing at all but for the Schools For the Council will have us expresly to believe not only seven Signs or sacred Ceremonies in a general sense but seven true Sacraments properly so called as it speaks and that we believe neither more nor less under pain of Anathema however it is plainly to be seen that at least in the ceremonies of Marriage of Pennance
of his love and the price of our Redemption The Bishop of Condom very far from acknowledging that to call to remembrance as our Lord requires supposes his absence turns the thing to the clear contrary so as to infer that this very remembrance should be grounded upon the real presence To this purpose he here brings in again the comparison of the sacrifices As saith he the Jewes in eating the Peace-offerings did call to remembrance that they were offered for them so in eating the flesh of Jesus Christ our sacrifice we ought to call to remembrance that he dyed for us and from thence he passeth unto a kind of Rhetorical rapture upon the tender remembrance which the Tombs of the Fathers excite in the childrens hearts First as to what concerns the comparison we have already said that it is not a proof and that upon the whole case the relation there is of the Law to the Gospel is no reason that we should take all according to the letter in the Gospel as we do for the most part matters in the Law that on the contrary it is sufficient that our spiritual eating of the body of Jesus Christ answers unto the Oral eating of the sacrifices which were the Figure of his sacrifice But there is yet more in it the Bishop of Condom onely speaks of Peace-offerings and remembers not himself of what he himself had said of the sacrifice offered for sins which is the true Figure of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the Cross May not his argument be returned back against himself that as the Jewes did not eat of this expiatory sacrifice and yet for all that failed not to remember that it was offered for their sins in like manner it is not necessary that we should eat the proper flesh of Jesus Christ our sacrifice to put us in remembrance of his death We have this advantage of the Jewes that they ate nothing instead of this sacrifice whereas we eat the holy Symbols which livelily represent unto us the body and bloud of Jesus Christ his body broken for us and his bloud poured out for the expiation of our sins Further what are our manners and our education that to put us in a tender remembrance of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ we must needs eat his proper flesh with our bodily mouth Or rather if it be true that the remembrance which is the thing in question be nothing else but an apprehension excited by the objects which affect the sense has the manner in which it is believed they eat this flesh in the Church of Rome any thing which doth more affect the senses than ours seeing that we eat it both one and the other under the same kindes or forms of bread and wine We will not here enquire whether it excite a real tenderness to conceive that we effectively eat the flesh which we love and adore or if on the contrary it be not by degrees that the Church of Rome it self is become accustomed unto this conceipt which of it self doth stir up contrary affections It will be onely needful to compare the manner how they administer the Sacraments in the Church of Rome with that wherein they administer them in our Churches to judge which of the two is most capable to entertain a true remembrance of the death of Jesus Christ The Church of Rome believes she holds the proper flesh of Jesus Christ under the sacred coverts of bread and wine as it were under a mystical Tomb or under dead signs but a living and vivifying flesh c. These be the terms of the Bishop of Condom which form a notion or Idea very perplext and contradictory as if we should say a dead body full of life and the fountain of life under the coverts of death Which is the very cause that this Idea being so confused is not without much difficulty received into the mind and that it there makes the less impression or at least doth not make so lively an impression onely of the death of Jesus Christ of which the main question here is whereas amongst us where we onely regard the bread broken and the wine poured out but as an image and representation of the body of Jesus Christ broken for us and his bloud shed for us This image doth give unto us a clear and distinct Idea of the death which Jesus Christ hath suffered for us which is properly the effect which our Lord would produce in the Sacrament In the Church of Rome the Priest that saith Mass or that consecrates often saith it alone most commonly very low and alwayes in Latine which is not at all the Language of the people The Consecration being done if he gives the Host for every one knows that there are infinite Masses without communicants he saith not unto them who do receive it that the body of Jesus Christ was broken for them which is properly what he ought to say unto them according to the words of our Saviour to imprint well in their minds the Idea of his death and to excite in their hearts a pure sense and such which becomes hearts engaged in love and acknowledgment of this Divine Saviour but it is onely said unto them by form of a Petition which is made for them the body of Jesus Christ keep or preserve their souls unto eternal life and though we do not here repeat this form of Petition to condemn it because it is good and of ancient use yet it may be said that it is a more self-interessed consideration which makes them not to reflect but onely upon their own profit and advantage and which is more the Priest sayes this it self in the same Latine Tongue which the greatest part doe not understand In very truth what sound remembrance or what true sense of love and thankfulness can this kind of setting forth the death of the Lord all in a low mumbling tone in general terms in a Language ill understood excite We speak of a sound remembrance of a love with understanding for as for an outward devotion or confused resentments of Holiness it is not denied but that the way of the Roman Church being full of pomp may excite as much as or more than ours which is more simple Amongst us to the end there may be no mistake in this matter behold in a few words what is our practice In the first place some dayes before the time appointed for administring the Sacrament there is an exhortation made to us to prepare our selves by acts of Repentance of Faith and of charity and by an holy life the day beâ—ing come after the usual exercises of devotion which consist in Prayers singing of Psalms and reading portions of the holy Scriptures most proper unto the subject there is ordinarily a Sermon made to us expresly upon the death of our Lord Jesus Christ or upon the Sacraments themselves The Sermon is followed with an excellent Prayer also upon the same subject
to proceed too far in the question What hath been here said which is onely taken from the nature of Sacraments the style of the Scripture may suffice to shew the Bishop of Condom that it is not without reason that we do understand these words This is my Body in a mystical and figurative sense let us now see what he will produce on his part for the proper and literal sense His discourse doth reduce it self unto two propositions the first is That it is the intention of Jesus Christ that we should effectively eat his flesh and the other that there is no natural relation betwixt bread and the body of Jesus Christ and that our Saviour having onely said these words This is my Body without explaining them as he did ordinarily other figurative expressions the law of discourse as the Bishop of Condom speaks doth not permit that they should be taken otherwise than in a proper and literal sense As to the first touching our Saviours intention it is a good principle provided it be well established for Jesus Christ can do what he will what he wills is done as he wills and the Bishop of Condom hath no need to inlarge upon the power of God as he doth in what follows nor to seek for reasons why Jesus Christ would not give us his flesh in its very Form but under the covert of Bread that so we might not conceive an horrour at the eating it These are the common places of the first inventors of this Opinion and of all those who have followed them and yet nevertheless all this hath nothing of solidity because on the one hand we concern not our selves to examine whether God is able to do the thing but whether this thing is possible in it self or if it doth not imply a contradiction and on the other if it be matter of horrour to eat true humane flesh the covert may diminish this horrour but it cannot quite take it away especially if a man were certainly perswaded that he did truly eat humane flesh and besides that such flesh for the which he should have a tender veneration But to conclude how is it that the Bishop of Condom proves that this is the intention of Jesus Christ that we should effectively eat his flesh As the Jewes did eat the victims which were offered for them Pag. 81 82 83 c. so saith he Jesus Christ our true sacrifice would that we should effectively eat his flesh c. The Jewes were forbidden to eat the sacrifice offered for sins to shew them that the true expiation was not made under the Law and for the same reason they were forbidden to eat bloud because the bloud was given for the atonement of souls but by a contrary reason Jesus Christ wills that we should eat his flesh to shew that the remission of sins is accomplished in the New Testament and that we should drink his bloud because it is poured out for our sins Thus it is that instead of giving us reasons the Bishop of Condom gives us onely comparisons relations agreeances as if it were not a known rule that comparisons and examples may serve well to illustrate things already proved but can never prove the things which are in question It is true that the sacrifices of the old Law were the figure of the sacrifice which our Lord Jesus Christ offered upon the Cross that is to say that as they offered up sacrifices which were types of Jesus Christ our true sacrifice to appease the wrath of God Jesus Christ offered up himself to reconcile us unto his Father This is the true accomplishment of the figures of the Law and the principal and true relation which there is betwixt the sacrifices of the Old New Testaments therefore also it is that our Saviour giving up the Ghost said these last and great words Joh. 19.30 It is finished The Apostle St. Paul which makes a parallel between the sacrifices of the Law and of Jesus Christ insists onely on this point that under the Law the sacrifices were to be reiterated every day whereas Jesus Christ offered himself onely once and we see not that the Holy Scriptures pursue any farther mystery in it To press further these sorts of relations and differences to make new doctrines and to bring all that is said of the sacrifices of the Old Testament to be said or denied of the sacrifice of the New this would be to make Articles of Faith Worships upon consequences wherein humane reason would have too much share But nevertheless if they will have it so that our Lord Jesus Christ intended there should be a relation betwixt all the circumstances of the sacrifices of the Old Testament and the Eucharist which is the representation of the sacrifice that he himself offered upon the Cross we are so far from thinking that all the relations and all the differences which are to be found betwixt the one and the other should be understood according to the letter that we know the intention of the Gospel is opposed to the letter of the Law of Moses that whereas the Jewes under the Law did servilely and carnally ty themselves to outward and material actions it concerns Christians under the Gospel to take all spiritually and lift up their souls hearts unto Heaven Jo. 6.63 The flesh profiteth nothing it is the spirit that quickneth The Jewes laid their hands upon the heads of their sacrifices and did eat of them to signifie the union which they had with them This is true we lay hold on Jesus Christ by Faith we eat him by Faith according to the speech of St. Austin Believe and thou hast eaten The Jewes did not eat the sin-offering nor did they ever eat of the bloud we eat the mystical body of our sacrifice and we drink his mystical bloud and as the expiation of our sins is actually made by his death upon the Cross so our Saviour sets before our eyes the sacred Symbols of his dead body as seals of his grace and of the remission of our sins See here how we might enlarge for our edification the relations and differences which we may find in this case betwixt the Old and New Testament betwixt the sacrifices of the Law and the divine sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ These considerations are right pious and conform to the spirit of the Gospel but as to the main that which is called a Doctrine and a Worship and an Article of Faith as is the eating of the proper flesh and bloud of Jesus Christ should not be founded upon relations and agreeances but upon a clear and positive revelation Pag. 84. But this eating saith the Bishop of Condom here ought to be as real as the expiation of sins is actual and effective under the new Covenant In the first place it must be observed here that the Bishop of Condom doth perpetually mistake himself upon the term of Real in the question of
the Eucharist he alwayes supposes that real and corporal are but one and the same thing and that a thing is not real if it be not corporal The eating or partaking of the body of Jesus Christ is very real according to us as real and effective as the expiation of our sins but it doth not follow for all that that there is a necessity that this participation be corporal that is to say that we must receive the proper flesh and the proper bloud of Jesus Christ with the mouth of the body according as in Baptism we doe agree both the Gentlemen of the Roman Church and we that we do partake of or that we are truly and really united unto Jesus Christ and unto his sacrifice and yet for all that this union is not corporal In fine there is a kind of incompatibility or of contradiction in the Bishop of Condom's arguing He would have it that as the Jewes did effectively eat of the sacrifice offered for their sins we also should effectively eat the body of Jesus Christ our sacrifice and he doth not consider that as the sacrifices which the Jewes did eat were dead so it would be necessary that the body of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament were in a state of death that it might be eaten as a sacrifice whereas the Church of Rome teacheth that he is there in a state of life that is to say living and not dead As to what is the Bishop of Condom's other proposition that there is no relation betwixt the bread and the body of Jesus Christ is it not openly to gainsay what hath been already alledged out of St. Austin and Theodoret that the Sacraments doe not take the name of the things whereof they are Sacraments but because of the relation which there is betwixt the Sacraments and the things themselves that without this relation they could not be Sacraments that it is formally because of this relation that the bread and the wine are called the body the bloud of Jesus Christ for these are St. Austin's own words and that to conclude Epist 23 ad Bonif. As Jesus Christ had said that he was bread and a vine he said afterward that the bread was his body and the wine his bloud giving as it were reciprocally the names of the one unto the other Dial. 1. as Theodoret speaks In summe our Saviour seeing his Disciples bent upon the things of this life taking an occasion by the miracle of the Loaves did himself strongly establish the resemblance which there is betwixt him and bread saying that he is the bread which came down from Heaven John 6.41.51 55. that this bread is his flesh that his flesh is meat indeed and his bloud is drink indeed shewing plainly that as the bread doth nourish our bodies Jo. 6.68 so his flesh and his bloud is the life and nourishment of our souls This word seemed hard to many who forsook him but the Apostles understood very well from that time the relation or similitude which made Jesus Christ say he was bread and that his flesh was this bread unto whom shall we go Lib. 1. de Offic. Eccl. cap. 18. Com. en Marc. 14 saith St. Peter thou hast the words of eternal life St. Isidore Bede and many others very far from saying that there is no relation betwixt the Sacraments and the body and bloud of Jesus Christ as doth the Bishop of Condom say on the contrary that the bread is called his body because bread nourisheth and fortifieth the body and that the wine is called his bloud because wine breedeth bloud in our flesh and rejoyceth the heart There is another resemblance also well known which the Fathers have explained not onely betwixt the bread and wine and the flesh and bloud of Jesus Christ Theoph. Antioc 1 Comment in 4 Evan. pa. 359. St. Cyprian Ep. 63. but betwixt the Sacraments and that other mystical body of Jesus Christ whereof he himself is head to wit the Church that as the bread is made of many grains and the wine of many clusters of grapes so the mystical body of Christ is composed of many Believers which are his living members So that we may plainly see so far is it from there being no relation betwixt bread and the body of Jesus Christ as the Bishop of Condom supposeth that we find on the contrary the two relations which he calls natural relation and relation of institution and of which he demands but one or the other that the sign may take the name of the thing and that it might be proper to bring down the Idea into the mind to wit a relation of the natural virtue of bread unto that of the body of Jesus Christ the body of Jesus Christ being the nourishment of our souls as bread is the nourishment of our bodies and the relation which Jesus Christ had established before in the minds of his Apostles Jo. 6.52 by the use which he had made of this likeness having accustomed them unto this manner of speaking even before the institution of the Sacraments and confirming or establishing anew this relation by the very words of the institution it self But there is here yet something else to be understood The Bishop of Condom doth curteil if I may so say the words of institution or rather the sense and secretly makes a kind of Sophisme in dividing the words and examining them in a sense separate the one from another instead of taking them altogether Here it concerned not to enquire the relation there is betwixt bread and the body of Jesus Christ barely this relation consists as it was said in that the one doth nourish our bodies and the other doth nourish our souls The likeness betwixt the bread broken and the body broken should have been searched into for Jesus Christ gives us not his body properly but in this regard and Jesus Christ sayes not onely this is my body he saith in the same breath my body which is broken for you And suppose that these first words had not clearly enough intimated the relation which there is betwixt the bread and the body of Jesus Christ these others which our Saviour adds are as a second touch of a pencil or a new colour which heighthens the draught and better expresses the resemblance betwixt the Image and the Divine Original that is to say that as the bread is broken in pieces to serve us for nourishment and as the wine is poured out to serve us for drink so the body of Jesus Christ was broken and his bloud was shed upon the Cross to be the spiritual nourishment of our souls Here we must observe the perpetual errour or the continual source of the errour of the Roman Church upon this point The Roman Church makes the Essential the Principal the force and virtue of the institution of the Sacrament to consist in these first words This is my body which are the onely ones she
is wont to call Sacramental It is by virtue of these words alone that the consecration is made one would think that the others signifie nothing or that they be nothing in comparison of the former whereas if we rightly take the thing according to the end which it is plain our Lord proposed to himself in this Institution these first words are onely the introduction the vehicle or the foundation of all that follows as in arguing the first propositions are onely a leading unto the conclusion and are far less considerable than the conclusion it self The true essence the force virtue of the Sacrament is without doubt in the sense of these other terms 1 Cor. 11. Luk 22.19 which is broken for you do this and do it in remembrance of me and to shew forth my death until I come which is the sense in which St. Paul explicates these latter words of our Saviours for Jesus Christ gives his body 1 Coâ— 11. onely as it was broken for us and his bloud as poured out for our sins This is properly the Mystery of our salvation the expiation of our sins the accomplishment of the Law These are the words properly which make the true likeness betwixt the Eucharist and the sacrifice of the Cross betwixt the Sacrament and the thing signified by the Sacrament We ought to take them altogether to form a true Idea of this Mystery and it may be truly said that it is onely for not taking them altogether that the Church of Rome is fallen into all these errours which make us separate from her If instead of insisting so much as she doth upon these first words this is my body she had weighed a little more the following words which is broken for you she would doubtless have acknowledged that Jesus Christ having not yet suffered death when he spake them and nevertheless giving his body as broken and in a state of death his intention could not be that his proper body was really in the Sacrament and less yet that it was there in a state of life such as the Doctrine of the Church of Rome doth suppose it If instead of insisting so much as she doth upon the first words she had also weighed a little more those other do this in remembrance of me she would have also understood thereby that the sense of these words imports that Jesus Christ kept aloof from and did not at all put himself in the place of the bread and to conclude if she had a little better weighed these last words drink ye all of this instead of insisting onely upon the former she had never proceeded so far as to take away the cup in the Sacrament But to return to the point on which we are here principally concerned what hath been now said doth not onely shew the relation there is betwixt the bread and the body of Jesus Christ but doth wholly overthrow the consequence of the Bishop of Condom's Argument to wit that Jesus Christ did not on this say any thing to explain himself as he was careful to doe in the other figures or in other parables For in the first place we know that Jesus Christ did not explain generally all the Figures he used whether it were that he would leave some exercise for our Faith and meditation or that he thought them sufficiently intelligible of themselves as we do pretend that this very passage is 2. If this Figure had not been so plainly intelligible of it self it hath been already shewed that Jesus Christ had prepared the Apostles to understand it having told them that these sorts of expressions were to be understood spiritually And to conclude John 6 63. how can it be said that Jesus Christ said nothing to explain himself If our Lord had said no more but these words this is my body as the Bishop of Condom onely frames his Argument upon these words it might seem somewhat less strange that they should dare to speak thus to us but Jesus Christ said all in the same breath this is my body which was broken for you doe this in remembrance of me 1 Cor. 11.24 Mat. 26.29 This is the New Testament in my bloud which is shed for many I will not any more drink of this fruit of the vine c. And the Apostle St. Paul who very well understood the words of our Lord doth add 1 Cor. 11.26 that as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew the Lords death till he come What greater explication or rather what greater clearness can be desired in a Mystery to give to understand that Jesus Christ leaving his Apostles and speaking to them as it were his last Farewel left them this Sacrament as an earnest a memorial and a seal of the death which he suffered for them and for us XI The explication of those words Do this in remembrance of me The Bishop of Condom passing over the first words of the Institution This is my body to those which immediately follow Doe this in remembrance of me is no longer the Traveller that those follows the great High way I mean words he no longer understands the words of our Lord according to the letter The literal and natural sense of these last words altogether Do this in remembrance of me is this that we should do what Jesus Christ ordained to put us in remembrance of him for it is Jesus Christ that saith in remembrance of me But the Bishop of Condom somewhat detorts this sense and would have it that the intention of our Lord should be only to oblige us to remember his death under pretence that the Apostle concludes with these words that we shew forth the death of our Lord. It is not difficult to comprehend what this the Bishop of Condom's little detortion tends to namely that if this be the sense of those words Do this in remembrance of me we ought to call to remembrance the very person of Jesus Christ This sense leads us naturally to believe that the divine person that we ought to call to remembrance is not really present For according to the manner of usual conceiving and speaking amongst men to call to remembrance is properly of persons absent Otherwise supposing the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament as the Church of Rome supposeth the sense and the Idea which these words carry Do this in remembrance of me is this Eat my proper body to call your selves to remembrance of me in my presence or as if I were present which makes but an odd and inconsistent sense In the mean time neither the nature of the thing that is to say Jesus Christ who was now about to leave the Apostles nor his expressions at all suffer us to doubt but that he requires precisely these two things to wit to call our selves to remembrance of him by an act of love and acknowledgment and that we meditate also on his death as an effect
those which he hath already accomplished for our Salvation Wherefore it is not to be wondred at if he gives unto every one of us the proper substance of his Flesh and of his Bloud he doth it to imprint in our hearts that it is for us that he took them and that it is for us that he offered them as a sacrifice And a little afterwards he adds Our adversaries have very well seen that simple figures and simple signs of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ would not satisfie Christistians accustomed to the bounty of a God which gives himself so really unto us therefore it is that they would not be accused to deny this real participation of Jesus Christ in their Sacrament Behold here the reason that he saith hath forced us to approach unto the Church of Rome but Christians are then either very ingrateful or very difficult to be contented if they are not satisfied that Jesus Christ died for them that these sacred signs assure them of it and that they serve them as an effectual and saving means to raise their hearts and their Faith unto Jesus Christ They have then the ears of their understanding close stopped if it be true that these sacred signes joyned unto the Word do not yet tell them plainly and loud enough that Jesus Christ became man for them that his body was broken for them and that lastly his bloud was poured out for the remission of their sins The Opinion which the Church of Rome adds that Jesus Christ is present being very far from better setting forth his death incumbers as I may so say the conception of it as hath been shewed before because it represents the body of Jesus Christ in a living state under dead signs and moreover the way of giving these signes in a language not understood or ill understood makes much less impression in the hearts than the way wherein it hath been shewed they are given amongst us But in fine where is the reason of this consequence The Love which Jesus Christ hath for us induced him to dye really for us therefore it is the part of this Love to give really unto us the proper substance of his flesh and of his bloud What bond or what necessary consequence is there of one and the other of these things From what time and in what place hath it been known or usual that it is a sign of love in any to give his proper flesh to eat to them whom he loves I do not say onely by morsels as some possibly may say the Capernaites understood the words of our Saviour but in any manner or under any coverts under which it may be put For although God doth testifie his Love unto us by incomprehensible effects though his ways are not our ways grace doth not for all that destroy nature his ways are above our ways and even contrary to what ours have of evil and irregularity but not at all to what they have that is good and right which proceeds from God himself What there is incomprehensible in the effects of his Love is nothing as to the manner as we may say but to the degree or rather the infinity of this Love it self For as to the other point we in some sort conceive all that this infinite Love makes him do for us by a comparison though very imperfect of what an intire Love doth make us doe one for another To pay for another is the true office of a Friend and to dye for another hath always passed for a true test of Love Joh. 15.13 Greater Love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his Friends To dye for an Enemy is a generosity that hath had no example amongst men before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ Jesus Christ dyed for us who were originally his creatures but were become his enemies This is that which this Love hath in it incomprehensible and nevertheless this Love which was foretold by the prophets was accomplished in the time that was foretold But neither prophesie nor reason nor humane manners ever yet taught us that Jesus Christ should give us his real flesh to eat with the mouth of our body as a token of the Love that he hath for us and when Jesus Christ said unto his Disciples John 6. That he would give his flesh for the life of the world and that whosoever did not eat his flesh had no life in him seeing that this word offended many it doth not appear unto us that our Saviour condemned their surprise but onely that he presently explained this speech unto them and that he made them understand that they should receive it spiritually The Gentlemen of the Roman Church do always fall into this error that although they do not directly deny that the communion which we have with Jesus Christ by Faith is very real of its self sufficing to salvation as they do confess in particular of the communion which we have with him either by the Word or by Baptism nevertheless always when there is any mention of the Mystery of the Eucharist they have this impression reigning in their minds which overbears all others that Jesus Christ cannot give himself really unto them but when they believe that he gives his proper flesh to be eaten with the mouth of their body It is from this apprehension that the Bishop of Condom faith here again that Jesus Christ makes as tast his bounty by things as effectual as those which he accomplished for our salvation as if the Faith which he gives as and the communion which we have with him by his Spirit even out of the Eucharist were not all of these effectual things and as effectual as it is true that he dyed for us Let us now come unto the Objections which the Bishop of Condom makes against some of our expressions to prove that we are approached nearer unto the Church of Rome pa. 146. In the first place he seems to contradict himself for he says afterwards that the more we explain our selves the Gentlemen of the Roman Church and we upon this Article the more contrary we find our selves one to another he gives also the reason for it which is that the more we consider the consequences of Transubstantiation the more we are discouraged with the difficulties which sense and reason discover in it This doth not import that we are approached nearer Besides there are very few persons who should hear him say that we are approached unto the Church of Rome but would believe that the reason is because some of our late Synods or some of our more famous modern Doctours had relaxed somewhat of our Doctrine either in the sense or in the expressions In the mean while there is nothing less than this All this accusation bears onely upon three diverse Expressions drawn from our Catechism which is as it is known the ancient explanation of our Doctrine The Bishop of Condom
received in the Gospel and in Baptism Now the manner in which he is received in Baptism and in the Gospel is by Faith Therefore it must needs be that there should be a real manner of receiving the body and bloud of our Lord in the Sacrament which is not by Faith By any the least Attention to his Argument it will at first sight be found faulty In summe it is certain there is in it a kind of sophism Of a thing which is onely true in some regards he draws consequences as if it were absolutely true and in all râ—gards He changes the terms of the Propositions as we speak in the Schools and he puts more in the conclusion than there is in the propositions whence the conclusion should be formed It is almost as if a man should say the manner of a mans going is upright and different from that of beasts the beast goeth upon his feet therefore men do not go upon their feet Or to make all more plainly to be understood by an example which hath nearer relation unto the subject here in question The Argument of the Bishop of Condom is much like unto this The Sun at Noon-day communicates to us objects or the sight of objects in a full manner and different from that in which he communicates them unto us at his rising or if you will in a different manner from that wherein Torches communicate them unto us in the night Now the Sun at his rising and Torches in the night do communicate objects onely by the light therefore the Sun at Noon-day doth not communicate the objects unto us by the light Or to form a conclusion upon the Bishop of Condom's very terms therefore it needs must be that there is something in the Sun at Noon-day which causeth a manner of communicating objects which is not by the light The Sophism lies herein that the difference of the manner whereby the Sun communicates the objects at Noonday from that whereby it communicates them at his rising or that whereby Torches communicate them in the night is in truth onely in the more or less of the light a difference in degree as we speak and not in kind in the means it self rather than in the effect because these divers manners fail not to communicate the same objects though with more or less clearness whereas it is plain that this argument concludes that there is in the Sun at Noonday something else than the light which makes this difference But leaving the form of the Argument to follow the thing it self if the Bishop of Condom would have pleased to have taken the sense of the Article of the Catechism intirely as it had been just he would have seen that he had not the least pretext to play with words as he doth Sunday 52. The Catechism having laid down that the communion which we have with Jesus Christ is not onely in the Sacrament but also in preaching the Word of God the Minister demands What is it that the Lords Supper adds unto the VVord or what have we more in the Lords Supper and what is its use This saith the Child that in the Lords Supper our communion is more fully confirmed and as it were ratified after which it immediately adds that though Jesus Christ be truly communicated unto us by Baptism and by the Gospel it is but in part and not fully These words taken together do most clearly give to understand that what the Sacrament of the Lords Supper adds unto the Word is not another manner of communion with Jesus Christ more real in substance or different in kind from that which we have with him by the Ministry of the Word or by Baptism for Jesus Christ being truly communicated by these three divers means as the Catechism it self layes down it cannot in any manner be understood that Jesus Christ can be as it were divided and more or less communicated Or that there is more union with him by the Lords Supper than by Baptism and by the preaching of the Word but onely that in the Lords Supper we have yet a new and more ample confirmation of our union with Jesus Christ and as it were a final ratification which are the words of the Catechism Baptism properly is instituted onely to shew our entrance into the Church and to let us understand that as the water doth cleanse our bodies so the bloud of Jesus Christ doth wash us from our sins and particularly from our Original sin without representing more expresly either the death of Jesus Christ or our spiritual union with him though upon the whole the operation of the Holy Ghost doth nevertheless thereby produce this spiritual union of the Faithful with Jesus Christ and the eternal happiness of them which are baptised The word doth very well represent unto us the promise of Salvation and all that depends thereon it is a very effectual means to work Faith and to unite us unto Jesus Christ when God is pleased to accompany it with his grace Rom. 10.17 for Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the VVord of God But whereas the Word onely works upon one of our senses the Eucharist speaks unto all our senses in general and we know that the sight in particular makes a greater impression upon our spirits than the hearing and whereas Baptism onely sets forth our entrance into the Church and onely applyes or communicates unto us the bloud of Jesus Christ by the form of washing the Eucharist doth yet more expresly represent unto us that the body of Jesus Christ was broken for us and that his bloud was poured out for the remission of our sins communicating both one and the other unto us by the form of meat and of drink In a word the Sacrament of the Eucharist gives us to understand that as bread and wine nourish our bodies so the body and bloud of Jesus Christ nourish and vivifie our souls and lastly that the bread and the wine are not more truly and really united unto our bodies then Faith doth really and spiritually unite us unto the body of our Saviour This is it as every one may see for which our Catechism saith that in the Lords Supper our communion with Jesus Christ is more amply confirmed and ratified unto us than in Baptism and in the preaching of the Gospel or that in Baptism and in the Gospel Jesus Christ is communicated in part unto us and in the Lords Supper fully for it is but one and the same thing in the sense of the Catechism The manner in which Baptism communicates Jesus Christ unto us in admitting of us into the Church may be compared if we please unto that wherein it was said that the Sun communicates the sight of objects at his rising the manner in which the Word also communicates Jesus Christ to us in declaring unto us the promises of the Gospel unto that of Torches communicating the same objects in the night and Lastly the manner wherein
the Eucharist communicates the same Jesus Christ unto us by form of nourishment that vivifies us unto that of the Suns communicating also the same objects at full Noonday especially if the Eucharist be considered as being added unto the Word and unto Baptism as the Catechism doth consider it These three manners of communicating Jesus Christ are different betwixt themselves because that these three exteriour means have each their proper way of working upon us to produce or to strengthen Faith in our hearts and to confirm our communion with Jesus Christ by the operation of the Holy Spirit But it is alwayes Jesus Christ whole and intire which is communicated unto us by each of these three means and it is alway by Faith and by the operation of the Holy Spirit which is the manner common to all those three as it is the sight of the same objects which is communicated by Torches in the night and by the Sun at his rising or at full Noonday always by the light which is the common mean to Torches and to the Sun to illuminate the objects But it is remarkable saith the Bishop of Condom here that how great a desire soever the Reformers had to equal Baptism and preaching to the Lords Supper in that Jesus Christ is therein truly communicated unto us they did not dare to say in their Catechism that Jesus Christ was given unto us in his proper substance in Baptism and in preaching as they have said in the Lords Supper But the reason of this difference may easily be gathered from what hath been said hitherto it is that when an Exposition is made of the meanes whereof God makes use to unite us unto him every one ought to be spoken of according to the proper use for the which it is known they are established Our Catechism doth not say that Jesus Christ spiritually regenerates us in the Lords Supper or that he washeth us from our sins as it doth speak of Baptism nor that Faith comes by the Lords Supper to use that manner of speaking that is to say that the Lords Supper produces in our hearts Faith as it is said that Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God for that the Lords Supper is not instituted to represent unto us our union with Jesus Christ under this notion but to represent it unto us under the notion of a substantial union such as is that of nourishment In like manner if the Catechism saith not that we are made partakers of the substance of Jesus Christ in Baptism or in the preaching of the Gospel as it saith of the Lords Supper it is not but that in these very actions we are really united unto Jesus Christ or that Jesus Christ doth not there spiritually nourish our souls with his substance as really as he doth in the Sacrament and the Bishop of Condom dares not say the contrary but so it is that although these divers means produce for the main the same effect yet the same expressions do not equally agree to the one and the other because the water of Baptism and the sound of the Word are not at all proper as the Symbols of bread and of wine to represent unto us as well the spiritual nourishment of our souls as the intimate union which is made betwixt us and Jesus Christ The third and last of our expressions upon which the Bishop of Condom strains himself more than upon the former is taken from an Article of our Catechism which follows that which we have now examined In the first Article it is said that in the Lords Supper we have a new and more ample confirmation of the communion which we have with Jesus Christ by the preaching of the Gospel here the Minister proceeds to demand VVhat is it then in summe Sunday 52. which we have by the sign of bread As if he should say On what in fine doth the use which we should make of this Sacrament terminate it self or what is the fruit of this confirmation which you say that we therein have of our communion with Jesus Christ The Child answers It is this that the body of Jesus Christ inasmuch as it was once offered a sacrifice to reconcile us unto God is given unto us to certifie us that we have part in this reconciliation This word certifie is a word of those very times which signifies to assure us fully or to make us certain or assured of our reconciliation with God and every one sees that the clear and intire sense of this Answer is that the union or communion which we have with Jesus Christ doth fully assure us that we have part in the fruit of his death pa 112. In the mean time what is the use that the Bishop of Condom would make of these words It is that by a long deduction of consequences he would conclude one way or other that besides the communion by which we doe partake spiritually of the body of our Saviour and of his spirit both together in receiving the fruit of his death there is yet another real communion as he speaks of the body of the same Saviour which is an assured pledge unto us that the other is secured for us Here again we may observe as we pass the effect of the errour of the Gentlemen of the Roman Church which makes them perpetually to oppose communion real to spiritual as if that which is spiritual or which is spiritually effected were not real But to return to what the Bishop of Condom proposes to himself upon this Article it may be said that this is one of those forc'd arguments the strainedness of which shews that there is in it no more truth than there is nature To answer unto it in such a manner as that we may understand something we must necessarily repeat his Propositions one after another in the same terms that he conceived them for putting them altogether and all in consequence they make such an entangled piece as will create no small difficulty to unravel If these words saith he pa. 1◠have any sense to wit those of the Catechism if they be not an unprofitable sound and vain amusement they should give us to understand that Jesus Christ doth not give us a Symbol onely but his true body to assure us that we have an interest in his sacrifice This is the first consequence which the Bishop of Condom 〈…〉 the words of the Catechism and it is true that thus far he keeps the sense and the expressions very exactly But on the other side this consequence is useless enough though made with such an ample and specious preface For we never brought into dispute in the least whether without the Symbols or with the Symbols Jesus Christ gives us not what is represented by the Symbols that is to say his body and bloud the sign and the thing signified both together and whether he gives us not both one and the other to assure us
that we have part in the fruit of his death Sunday 46 47. This is that which our Catechism says elsewhere in other terms to wit that the Sacraments are seales of the Promises of God in our hearts according to the doctrine of the Apostle that Jesus Christ gives himself unto us to the end we might enjoy him and that all that he hath may be ours and here the same Catechism saith that his body is given unto us to assure us that we have part in the fruit of his death so that this first consequence of the Bishop of Condom's is not a consequence at all for it adds nothing almost unto our sense nor unto our words He forgets even under this head to comprehend what we but now touched which is not in question neither but yet is thus far of this place as that it conduces to form a compleat sense of these words namely that not onely the body of Jesus Christ or the union which we have with him doth assure us of the part which we have in the fruit of his death but that the Symbols themselves also assure us after their manner or according to the use for which God hath appointed them For God makes use of these exteriour signs to affect our senses and to confirm our faith and our confidence The dispute is onely of the manner whereby Jesus Christ gives unto us his body with the signs and here the Bishop of Condom doth not at all engage in this first proposition In exchange he goes too far or strays too much in the second Now saith he if the reception of the body of our Lord pa. 110. assure us of participating of the fruit of his death it must necessarily be that this participation of the fruit be distinguished from the reception of the body because one is the earnest of the other Here is it that the intricacy and obscurity begins To reason right and more intelligibly it had been needful to have resumed as was begun If Jesus Christ not onely gives us the Symbol of his body but his body also or his proper body to assure us that we have part in his sacrifice and in the reconciliation of mankind we must then here distinguish the communion which we have of the body of Jesus Christ from the part which we have in the fruit of his death seeing that the one doth assure us of the other These are the terms of the Bishop of Condom's first proposition which agree with them of the Catechism now the Bishop of Condom changes them against the rule of disputation and this is it which creates not onely the intricacy but also the Sophisms for that when we pass from consequence to consequence how little soever one term imports more or less than another or expresses it with any difference in the sense or in the force of the word we divert or astray and this is called to take or give the change When the Bishop of Condom saith that the reception of the body is an earnest to us of the participation of the fruit of the death of Jesus Christ these three terms of Reception of Participation and of Earnest which were not in the first proposition though they seem to answer to them which are there being so imployed by opposition one to the other as they are here do not so little alter the sense but that this change alone is the sole foundation of this Argument and of all that there is captions in it If the Bishop of Condom resuming his first terms had onely said that the communion of the body of our Lord assured us of the part which we have unto the fruit of his death he had not had a word to say because that evidently imports but one and the same action which causes that we are united unto Jesus Christ in the Lords Supper and that being united unto him we hold our selves assured of having share in the fruit of his death Nothing is more simple and easie to be understood than this to have part in the fruit of the death of our Lord is not here properly an action it is properly but a right acquired But in substituting to these words those other terms of Reeeption of the body and of participation of the fruit as the Bishop of Condom doth it is a little colour by the sound of words for supposing two different actions in this communion and afterwards adding this expression that one is the earnest of the other this seems yet to make a greater diversity This foundation being once laid in a nimble manner and almost imperceptible to those who only read cursorily there is a long continuance of consequences to attain unto two different communions of the body of Jesus Christ The mind of him that reads perceives confusedly that he is led he knows not where nor how he onely findes that he is not led on evenly if it may be so said or that he is led amiss But let us not forget to resume the Bishop of Condom's consequences in the same terms that he hath conceived them for the better making known the defects If the reception saith he of the body of our Lord doth assure us of the participation of the fruit of his death then this participation of the fruit must necessarily be distinguished from the reception of the body In good time let the mind distinguish the communion which we have with the body from the part which we have in the fruit because it is true that the body of the Lord and the fruit of his death are two different things and may be conceived distinctly as an inheritance which is given unto us is different from the revenue which it brings us But it is not necessary for all that to distinguish the communion of the body from the part which we have in the fruit as if we had not both one and the other of these two things but by two different actions even as to make an inheritance and the fruits of the inheritance to be ours it is not at all necessary to have two Titles or two different contracts the one for the inheritance it self and the other for the fruits because that the same Title serves for one and the other He proceeds If we must distinguish the participation of the body of our Lord from the participation of the fruit of his death we must also distinguish the participation of this Divine body from all that participation which is made spiritually and by Faith for that the participation by Faith cannot accommodate two different actions by one of which we should receive the body of our Saviour and by the other the fruit of his sacrifice We have already seen that we must not separate the communion of the body of the Lord from the part which we have in the fruit of his death as if there were two different actions although there be two several objects which may be distinguished to wit the
body of the Lord and the fruit of his death So all this consequence hath no foundation In summe wherefore will the Bishop of Condom have two different acts of Faith for uniting us to the body of Jesus Christ and having part in the fruit of his death when it is evident that all is done or might be done by one and the same act of Faith Or wherefore may we not even assert two divers acts of Faith if they be conceived severally by one of which we unite our selves to Jesus Christ himself and by the other unto the fruit of his death without any need to imagine for all this two different communions one spiritual by Faith and the other with the mouth of the body or real as the Bishop of Condom speaks Lord draw us after thee lift up our hearts unto thee come dwell in our hearts by the operation of thy Spirit Behold here an act of Faith which unites us to Jesus Christ if the Faith be such as it ought to be and this union of its self suffices to effect that we should also have part in the fruit of his death by this one act of Faith Lord impute to us thy righteousness and grant that being united unto thee by a true and lively Faith we may have a share in all thy benefits and in particular in the fruit of thy death Behold here nevertheless a second act of Faith which regards directly the part that we have in the fruit of his death The difference of these two acts of Faith properly will be onely in the distinction of the objects which Faith doth propose unto it self in the one it proposes the body of the Lord and in the other the fruit of his death and in one and the other there is a real communion with our Saviour but spiritually and by Faith But no man adds the Bishop of Condom 〈◊〉 112. can conceive what difference there is betwixt participating by Faith of the body of our Saviour and to participate by Faith of the fruit of his death This is now the second or third time that the Bishop of Condom will conceive all Let us see if he will be of the same mind upon the Article of Transubstantiation which follows immediately after this But after all how can he say that no man can conceive any difference betwixt participating by Faith of the body of the Lord and participating by Faith of the fruit of his death for the body of the Lord and the fruit of his death are evidently two different things and there is no one who cannot easily conceive that there is great difference betwixt partaking of the one and partaking of the other whether it be that it is done by one act of Faith or by two though besides the manner of partaking of one and the other be always the same to wit spiritually and by Faith Nevertheless it is here that the Bishop of Condom cryes out again in finishing this Article Who can but admire the force of truth c. And afterwards How ingenuously do the Calvinists confess unto us the truth they would have been strongly disposed to acknowledge the body of Christ to be in the Sacrament in figure onely and the participation of his Spirit onely in effect laying aside these great words of Participation of proper substance and many others which express a real presence and which onely cause perplexities c. Let the Bishop of Condom also in his turn ingenuously confess the truth he has been very strongly disposed and many other intelligent persons in the Church of Rome it may be will be so with him to confess that there is onely in the Eucharist a true and real communion of the body of Jesus Christ as we do acknowledge that that which we there have spiritual is very real laying aside that great word of Transubstantiation as he had laid it aside in the first Edition of his Treatise that of concomitance by virtue whereof the Cup was cut off from the communion and many others which imply manifest contradiction and which cause much more perplexity That which is truly admirable in this place is that the Church of Rome teacheth as we do a spiritual communion of the body of Jesus Christ and the Bishop of Condom himself said the very same but now in express terms that in the Lords Supper there is a communion pa. 112. by the which we partake spiritually of the body of our Saviour and of his spirit altogether in receiving the fruit of his death which is properly the result of our Doctrine and these words of participation and of substance with which the Bishop of Condom pleaseth himself and which he useth for all that himself signifie nothing more The onely difference that there is betwixt him and us is that we stop here and that he besides this spiritual communion of the body of our Lord supposes another real communion as he speaks that is with the mouth of the body which we cannot allow of Here in another prospect he insults over us as if there could not be any other communion of the body of our Lord but that onely which is had by the mouth of the body and that without admitting of that there can nothing be acknowledged in the Lords Supper but the figure of his body and a participation of the Spirit excluding thus this other spiritual communion of the very body of Jesus Christ which he but now confessed Let it be judged by this and by all the rest which hath been said as well of our opinions as of his way of arguing who it is that creates perplexities or that contradicts themselves whether it is the Bishop of Condom or us that use equivocations about words And Lastly if he hath so much subject of Triumph upon this Article as he seemed to imagine to himself XIII Of Tran. substantiation of Adoration and in what sense the Bishop of Condom saith that the Sacrament is a sign The Bishop of Condom will slide along more sweetly upon the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and upon the Adoration of the Host than he did in opposing our Doctrine There he attacqued and attacqued Adversaries as he calls them to whom they hardly give the liberty to defend themselves We may say any thing against them they will answer but by halfs Here he must defend himself and he hath against him Scripture reason evidence of the senses and the common notions of Christianity imprinted in conscience which are other kind of Adversaries more terrible speaking malgre opposition each in his order and speaking so loud as they put the ablest to silence The Bishop of Condom when he speaks of our Belief though all things be very simple in it is not satisfied if he cannot conceive even the very manner whereby the Holy Ghost doth really unite us unto Jesus Christ notwithstanding the great distance which there is betwixt us and him which nevertheless the Roman Church doth perpetually teach
of the Eucharist Jesus Christ did onely speak to his Disciples and that that did not concern the people but they have at last sufficiently seen that it was needful to seek other excuses because that there as well as almost in all other places the Disciples did represent the body of the faithful and that Jesus Christ saying that his bloud was shed for many he intended that all those for whom it was shed should have part in this Sacrament Behold here what the Bishop of Condom puts in the place of it Jesus Christ saith he being really present in the Sacrament the grace and blessing is not tyed unto the sensible forms but unto the proper substance of his flesh which is living and quickning because of the Divinity which is united unto it Therefore it is that all those who believe the Reality ought not to be troubled to communicate under one kind onely because they thereby receive all that is essential to this Sacrament with a fulness so much the more certain in that the separation of the body and bloud not being real as it hath been said there is received intirely and without division him that onely is able to satisfie us We need onely to observe at the first view how these expressions are wrapped up to discern how wide this Doctrine is from the simplicity of the Gospel the Bishop of Condom would say in a word that the body is not without the bloud and that he that believes he receives the body ought to believe that he receives the bloud also under one and the same form by reason of what they call concomitance that is to say that the bloud doth accompany the body But in the first place this is constantly to suppose what is in question to wit that the body of Jesus Christ is really under the form of bread and by consequence the reasons which we have against the Doctrine of the Real presence do directly oppose this particular doctrine of taking away the Cup. 2. Who hath given this right to the Roman Church to seek for reasons to take away so considerable a part of the Institution of our Lord 3. And to conclude what ground hath the Bishop of Condom to conclude as he doth that the separation of the body and bloud is not real for our Lord doth separate them in the Institution he saith of the bread apart that it is his body broken for us and of the wine apart that it is his bloud shed for us and he also commands severally that we eat of the bread and drink of the Cup. The Bishop of Condom saith without any more ado that the separation of the body and bloud is not real and if any would know how he proves it he adds coldly pa. 132. as it was said That is elsewhere upon occasion then also he insinuated by the way that this separation is mystical and figurative without giving the least reason for it any more than he doth here and it is enough according to him to make this separation not to be real that he insinuate it without more ado with an as it hath been said Nevertheless if the bread and wine be really made the body and bloud of our Lord according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome by what reason can one part of the Institution be taken to be real and the other part pretended to be mystical and figurative Or rather if the separation of the body and bloud be onely in the mystery and figure wherefore will they not also grant that the bread and the wine also is but the mystery and the figure of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ for there is no more reason for the one than for the other Our Saviour hath said this is my body which was broken for you if these words this is my body ought to be understood in a proper and real sense there cannot any good reason be given wherefore these other words that follow to wit which is broken for you ought not also be taken in the same sense as those that went before but that the first should be understood in a proper sense and they that follow in a mystical and figurative sense is unreasonable For as our Saviour said that the bread is his body he saith that this body is broken it is the same Lord speaks that is in a word if it must be understood that the bread is really made the body of Jesus Christ it cannot be understood but that it is also made his body really broken I mean his dead body and his body really separated from his bloud So that what way soever we take the Doctrine of the Church of Rome it manifestly contradicts it self for either the bread is not really the body of Jesus Christ or if it be his body it is his body broken and in a state of death which cannot be said without impiety because our Lord is risen from the dead and death hath no more dominion over him And Lastly suppose that his proper body were in the Sacrament in a state of death and separate from his bloud this separation being real it could not be said as saith the Bishop of Condom that the Sacrament is received fully and without division under one kind onely nor by consequence that the Cup ought to be taken away The Bishop of Condom not being able to justifie this retrenchment uses two reasons to endeavour to make it indureable The first is that it is not at all through contempt that the Church reduces the Faithful to one kind onely but on the contrary that it is to hinder the irreverencies that the confusion and negligence of the people had caused in the last Ages reserving unto her self the re-establishment of the Communion under both kinds according as it should be most useful for increasing of peace and unity But is not this in some sort to say that our Saviour did not foresee these Irreverencies when he commanded we should all drink of the Cup or that foreseeing them he was so far from preventing them that he authorised them by this Commandment These Irreverencies were much more to be feared in the Apostles times and in the first Ages of Christianity than in the time when this innovation was made for in the first times the Christians were persecuted they communicated as they could from house to house and communicated at the holding the Feasts which they called Feasts of Charity The Apostle complains of disorders committed in those Feasts saying 1 Cor. 11.20 that was not to eat the Supper of the Lord and yet the Apostle never thought of taking away the Cup because of these Irreverencies They must be very much prejudicate who see not the true reason why neither Jesus Christ nor the Apostle nor the Church during the space of above a thousand years ever thought of taking away the Cup and that yet the Church of Rome at last be thought her self to take it away The
we receive not as such and that on the contrary we do receive the Epistle of St. James which the Lutherans receive not at least all of them as we do whatever conformity there may be in other things betwixt them and us Again as a proof that it is not the authority of the Jewish Church which determines the one or the other of us to receive the Scriptures of the Old Testament as Canonical we may take this that at this time the Jewes not receiving for such all that the Church of Rome receiveth she doth not think her self bound to acquiesce in their judgement The Bishop of Condom's second proposition touching the authority of the Church depends in a manner wholly on the former for he saith that as we receive the Scriptures from the hands of the Church so we learn Tradition of her and by means of Tradition the true sense of the Scriptures In good time Let the Church then be the Guardian of Tradition as she is of the Scriptures and let her make use of Tradition either for order and discipline to facilitate the understanding of Scripture but let her not make thereof a title to impose upon us Worships or Doctrines which do not accord with the Scriptures or to make the sense of the Scripture to depend absolutely upon the interpretation of the Church as in receiving the Old Testament from the Jewes the Church did not tye her self blindly to receive their Traditions which overthrow the Law nor their interpretation when it doth not accord with the true sense of the Prophets Errour as vice is for the most part in the extremes we owe respect teachableness and submission unto all those whom God sets over us to instruct us this is not contested but this is no reason to change this submission into a voluntary blindness Faith being a gift of God we ought not to change nor force the use of the exteriour means which God employes to work it in our hearts but we ought to use them according to his intention with a spirit of sweetness and of charity to perswade and not to constrain Otherwise a blind submission in matter of Faith is not submission but a spirit of servitude very unworthy of the liberty of the children of God and to require such a submission by what name soever it be called is to make an outward society of bodies of interest and appearance and not at all a true communion of spirit and of judgement pa 162. pa. 165. The Church saith the Bishop of Condom doth profess that she saith nothing now of her self that she inventeth not any thing anew in points of Doctrine and elsewhere very far from intending to render her self mistriss of her Faith as her Adversaries accuse her she hath done what she can to bind her self and that the means of innovation may be taken away seeing she not onely submits to the Scripture but to banish for ever those arbitrary interpretations which make mens thoughts to pass for Scripture she hath bound her self to understand them as to what regards Faith and manners according to the sense of the holy Fathers from which she professeth never to depart declaring in all the Councils and in all the professions of Faith which she hath published that she receives not any Doctrine which is not conformable unto the tradition of all the foregoing Ages The Bishop of Condom doth well to say that the Church of Rome professes that she invents not any thing for where be the Innovatours which do not profess the same thing But upon the main is it true that the latter Councils have alwayes exactly followed the Doctrine of the Fathers or of the very preceding Councils for not to speak of Transubstantiation of worshipping the Hoste and of private Masses which according to us are Doctrines and Worships unknown at least in the eight first Ages because the Gentlemen of the Roman Church do not agree to it it hath already been made appear in another place that the worshipping of Images was forbidden by the Councils of Eliberis of Constantinople and of Francfort and that the same Worship has been established or maintained by the authority of the second Council of Nice and in the last place by that of Trent It bath also been shewed upon the Article of Purgatory that that Doctrine with all its consequences was put in the place of the opinion which many of the Fathers of the first Ages had that after death the souls did sleep or did refresh themselves in a place separate from Heaven The case is the same as to Auricular confesssion and of Indulgences which have succeeded to the practice of publick pennance and generally as to all the Doctrines and all the practice of which we find no footsteps in the Fathers of the three first Ages nor in the first Councils and which we pretend to have been added at several times unto the Doctrine and Institution of Jesus Christ and of his Apostles And here to instance yet in two examples of alteration in Doctrine and practice which are quite out of all question Hath not the Council of Trent which is that the Bishop of Condom takes for the rule of his Exposition abrogated the doctrine and use of giving the Sacrament unto little children of which we have already spoken Hath it not also declared in express terms for confirming the taking away the cup which was before ordained by the Council of Constance that therein little weight could be laid on the Fathers for it is to no purpose so the Council decides to alledge the sixth of St. John for the communion under both kinds Sess 21. de com cap. 2. what way soever saith the Council it be understood according to the sundry interpretations of the holy Fathers We will not here examine whether all these divers changes are for the better or worse because it hath been already done heretofore and because we treat not here of the right but onely of the matter of fact which the Bishop of Condom hath averred to wit that the Church of Rome hath bound her self that she hath taken away the means of innovating that she submits her self through all to the sense of the Holy Fathers and that she doth not receive any Doctrine which is not conformable unto that of precedent Ages To conclude these Expositions seem to intimate that the Church of Rome is not so well assured of her infallibility but that it hath been acknowledged she had need to be secured against her self by tying up her hands and taking away the means of Innovation And nevertheless if we will be a little informed by themselves what hath been the success of all this precaution Let the Doctrines of the last five or six centuries be onely compared in general with the Doctrines and practices of the three first and even with the following Ages the Council of Trent with them that went before it without having any regard if they please to our