of them on his side as he pleases himself and on the other the things remains still quite contrary to what he says of them The Question says he p 641. is not of the whole-World it 's onely of the Occident and of the Provinces subject to the Obedience of the Pope That is to say I will not have this to be the question I will not be at the pains to explicate how the Doctrine of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation was introduced in the East in the Patriarchates of Constantinople of Alexandria of Jerusalem and Antiochia in the Churches of the Armenians Nestorians and Jacobites I will not trouble my self to guess how it did penetrate into Ethiopia Muscovia Mesopotamia Georgia Mingrelia â—oldavia Tartaria and into the Ind a's I had better say it is not there I will have sooner done and by this means I will free my self of a great many difficulties Mr. Claud if he pleases will permit us to adverrise him that he is Man and nor God and consequently neither his Words nor his Wishes are operative He would not have the Doctrine of the Real Presence to be in all these great Provinces But it is and will be in them whether he would or would not the matter does not at all depend upon him And we have made it appear by Proofs which we judge himself will not gainstand So that notwithstanding of all his Wishes the question is to know how the belief of the Real Presence could be introduced in all these places if it had not still been in them Cerrain it is that it is there established and reigns and domineers absolutely There is no other known no memory that ever any other Doctrine was there All these Nations are perswaded they hold it by continual succession from their Forefathers It is manifest they have held always this Doctrine since the time the Berengarians were first heard of and that in this point they were still united with the Roman Church Mr. Claud must then tell us who has made them embrace this Doctrine But how can he do it since the reason why he would exeem himself from entring into this question is because he finds that not only solid Proofs but even Inventions and Fictions fails him all his Machines become useless to him He talks to us of Paschasius of Disputes of the Intrigues of Monks of the Violences of the Court of Rome And to render all this heap of Dreams and Visions ridiculous there needs no more but to oblige him to cast his eyes on two third parts of the World which knows neither Paschasius nor his Book and are so far from acknowledging the Pope that they are most passionately bent to contradict him in all they can Let Mr. Claud tell us therefore who did perswade them to a Belief which he pretends to be directly contrary to Scripture to Fathers to Reason and Sense What Preachers did produce so great an effect How comes it to pass that none of all these Nations did resist this Innovation How comes it to pass that all of them have forgot they changed their Perswasion and takes their present Doctrine for that which the Apostles established in the Church and which has descended even to them by the succession of their Bishops Mr. See pag. 2. of the General Answer Claud wearies his Imagination to invent an impertinent Fable of a young Monk who without going out of his Convent and without being heard tell of abroad yet changes the Faith of the whole Occident He torments himself to accompany this Fable with a thousand phantastical suppositions He exhausts all his Figures and all his big Words to dazle a little the eyes of the simple and to hide from them the absurdity of this Romance But he takes no heed that all his endeavours are in vain there remains more than two thirds of his Work to be done without which all the pains he takes are to no purpose he must yet find other Paschasius's to carry this Faith into all the Societies separate from the Roman Church and into remote Provinces All these Paschasius's must have the same success that no person contradict nor oppose their Enterprizes that no person perceive them renversing the ancient Faith and in a word they must all have accomplisht their work at the same time when Berengarius shall happen to start up to the end he might with some ground of reason say That the Church was perished and there was no more remnant of it than those who followed him Lanfrancus cap. 23. I see very well that Mr. Claud for all his stoutness succumbs under the greatness of this Enterprize It frights him he gives it over he asks pardon he would wish with all his heart that that this made no part of the Question The Question says he is not of all the World. But there is no moyen to be complaisant to him The Question is of the whole World whether he will or will not because that Belief is establisht throughout the World. This depends neither upon him nor me It is a necessary part of this great Question and which draws all the rest after it Wherefore since by a constrained confession of his inability he acknowledges he cannot say there was made an universal change of Belief in the whole Orient he must needs abandon all the rest and avow that all his moyens are ruined all his Engines shattered all his Projects renversed and all his Suppositions destroyed If he say it was Paschasius who invented this Doctrine and that it could never have fallen into the brain of another we shew him an infinite number of Christians who neither knows Paschasius nor his Book and who yet makes still profession of this Doctrine and here he is convinced of timerity and imposture If he tells us That the Popes did by their Authority and Violences concur to make it be received We shall let him see those great Nations over whom they have no Jurisdiction in which they are not acknowledged and amongst whom their Decisions have neither Credit nor Authority and who notwithstanding are no less tenacious of the Faith of the Real Presence as those People who are most submitted to the Holy See and this does farther point him out as a Deceiver of the World by groundless and improbable Fables If he talks to us of Cabals and imaginary Intrigues of Disputes of Philosophy by which he pretends this Doctrine was established we shall shew an infinite number of People who neither knows the School Philosophy nor never disputed of these matters and amongst whom even the imagination of Mr. Claud himself could never make the Intrigues of the Court of Rome active and who yet believes the Real Presence as we do And lo here also all his Reckonings and Fables annihilated This is what regards the third Circumstance which is that this Innovation should have been made at the same time in all the Churches of the World Which renders it so
that it is no more a process to be instructed it 's all instructed already and they can do no more for their part to put it in a condition to be discerned on But who shall be the Judge of it It shall be every one of you according to the Principles of your own Religion For according to the Principles of ours there would be no question at all because on one hand our Church has all the marks by which it has been judged since St. Augustin's time that we ought to acknowledge it the true Church of Jesus Christ And on the other we believe that Jesus Christ has given to his Church an infallible Authority to which every particular person is bound to submit But your Church is grounded on another Maxim directly contrary and you are made to believe that every one of you have right to examine and judge after all your Ministers assembled in a General Synod could say unto you Make use then of the liberty which is given you even to the end you may be sure if they had reason or not to give it you Read and Judge but read with such attention and care as you would bring to comprehend an Affair upon which depended the Life of one of your best Friends and judge with that Conscience and sincerity of Heart with which you would desire to be judged if your Life or Death depended on the Judgment they were to make of you And indeed there is no less at the stake in this occasion only with this difference that these Men who should Judge you could not preserve your Life but for a little time nor condemn you but to a Death which sooner or later you could not eschew Whereas it is of far greater importance to you to discern in this process after the instruction that is given you of the same for in judging it aright and having nothing but God before your eyes you may eschew a Death which never ends a Death which all those will incur who have been made to look upon as a Damnable Errour the Ancient and perpetual Faith of the most sublime Mystery of our Religion and may put your selves in a condition to enjoy one day a Life eternally happy after having received the pledge thereof by the real and true partaking of the Worlds Saviour wherewith the Catholick Church nourishes her Children THE FAITH OF THE CATHOLICK CHVRCH Concerning the EUCHARIST Invincibly proved by the Argument used against the Protestants in the Books of Mr Arnaud entituled The Perpetuity of the Faith c. THere is no Christian can deny that a Doctrine regarding one of the principal Mysteries of Religion such as is the Eucharist * The Controversie of the Eucharist is one of the most important of those which makes the separation betwixt the Roman Church and the Protestants says Mr. Claud p. 1. of the Preface of his Answer to Mr. Arnaud The Article of the Eucharist in my Judgment is one of the most essential says M. de Larroque Minister at Rouen in his Preface to the History of the Eucharist which had been always believed in the Universal Church is a Doctrine taught by the Apostles to the first Believers We shall then have proved the Doctrine of the Real Presence such as the Roman Church now believes it to be the Apostles Doctrine when we shall have proved it to be that which has always been believed in all the Churches of the World. Now it 's impossible but it must have been always believed in all Churches If being certain it was universally believed in some Ages we can demonstrate that it could not proceed from an innovation or change of its ancient Faith that the Church of these Ages began to believe it The business will be compleatly done then if we can make out this And thus we make it out SECT 1. ARGUMENT All the Churches both of the East and West were found to be united in the Belief of the Real Presence towards the beginning of the eleventh Century and they are found to be yet united in the same Belief excepting onely some new Sects of the last Age. But it is impossible this Belief should have been established of new or by an innovation of their ancient Faith in all these Churches and yet no trace nor memorial of that Innovation appeared And it is certain there has appeared none at all neither from Paschasius his time to that of Berengarius nor from Berengarius his time even to this day Therefore it is certain that the Doctrine of the Real Presence is the perpetual Doctrine of the Church and consequently none can maintain the contrary without being an Heretick THe first Proposition which is called the major has two parts one that the Churches of the East were united in the same Faith concerning the Eucharist with the Roman Church in Berengarius his time The other that they are united with the same at this time The second Proposition which is called the minor has likewise two parts One that supposing the truth of the major as to Berengarius's time it 's impossible that the innovation pretended by the Calvinists to have been made in all Churches from Paschasius to Berengarius could be made in that time The other that if it was not made in that time in all the Eastern Churches it would be impossible it could have been made from Berengarius's time to this day SECT 2. The general Proof of the major in respect of Berengarius his time A Matter of fact unanimously asserted by contemporary Authors who cannot be suspected to have been deceived or intending to deceive and which has not been contradicted by those who were most concerned to contradict it ought to be held for most certain and undoubted But we have shewn from the very beginning of the first Treatise of the Perpetuity and in the first Tome 2 Book 7 Chap. and 9 Book 1 Chap. That all those who wrote against Berengarius Adelmanus who had studied under S. Fulbert Hugo Bishop of Langres Deodurnus Bishop of Leige Lanfrancus Archbishop of Canterbury Durandus Abbot of Troarn Guitmondus Archbishop of Aversa in Italy did all of them reproach to him That he had separated himself from the unity of the Holy Church that he scandalized the whole Church that none before him had dreamed of his Follies that his Heresie was so notorious that there needed not a Council assembled to condemn it that he impugned what the Church taught througbout the World That the Berengarians had not for themselves one sole Town nor so much as one Village And in a word that there needed no more but to ask the Latins the Greeks the Armenians and generally all the Christians of whatsover Nation and all would answer That they believed the change of the terrestical substance of the Bread and Wine by the infallible incomprehensible and miraculous operation of the Omnipotence of God into the essence or substance of the Lords Body We did likewise
concerning the Eucharist where they say it is contained They are not then there according to his principle Perhaps he will say that our preoccupation hinders us to perceive what seems to him so clear and natural but besides that we will say the same to him we will oppose to him so many millions of Christians of the East and West who for so many preceeding Ages believe the Real Presence and who never perceived that metaphorical and figurative sence We will oppose to him Luther whom Zuinglius considers as one Eye of the Protestant Church Vnum Corpus sumus Caput Christus est alter oculus Lutherus est Zuing. Tom 2. f. 359. who could not perceive this figurative sence be so much desired to incommodate the Papacy with and who was so far from being preoccupied against this figurative explication that on the contrary he had a violent inclination leading him towards it as he declares himself by these words which he adds in his Letter to those of Strasbourg Prohdolor plus aequo in hanc partem propensus sum Mr. Claud then must avow that his belief concerning the Lords Supper is not in holy Scripture seeing we do not perceive it there and seeing so many millions of Christians never found it there I conclude therefore that he is mistaken with all those who imagines as he does that there is nothing so clear and natural as his figurative sence in the Words of Jesus Christ So horrible a mistake in these Gentlemens measures should indeed convince them that all their Arguments must be false and all their ways deceitful And I see nothing more unreasonable than wilfully to continue to follow Guides who draws them so far away from the nature and true rule of Expressions For seeing that the true meaning of the Words of Jesus Christ is doubtless that which he intended to signifie by these words and that the sence in which they were to be taken was not unknown to him can it be doubted that he had the intention to express the meaning in which these words have been actually taken by all the Christians of the World for so many Ages by-gone rather than that in which they were understood by a small number of Berengarians in the Eleventh Age whose Ring-leader did thrice abjure his Doctrine as an Heresie and by a few Sects of the late Age who mutually condemn one another of Errour and Impiety viz. the Socinians the Anabaptists the Quakers the Independents the Calvinists c. I know well that Mr. Claud pretends that the Believers of the first eight Centuries which he calls the fair days of the Church Answer to the Treatise part 2. chap. 3. p. 295. during which he says errour durst not appear did understand the words of Jesus Christ in the sence those of his Religion understands them But we have now right to suppose the contrary as a matter beyond debate because we have proved it in so convincing a manner in the last two Tomes of the Perpetuity that he has not been able to answer to it and we have so secured the proofs of Catholicks from the Cavils and Subtilties of the Ministers that it is impossible they can obscure them But though we had not shewn as we have done in these Works that the Believers of these first Ages had no other Belief concerning the Eucharist but that which we have at present it is enough to have shewn by unquestionable proofs which are reduced to a compend in this Book the union and agreement of all Christian Societies for so many Ages in the belief of the Real Presence because that union and agreement decides instantly the sence of Tradition in letting us see that seeing this Doctrine could not be established by Innovation it must be the original Doctrine of the Church and consequently that the Believers of the first Ages had the same belief concerning this Mystery as those of the following Ages SECT 9. The Argument of the Perpetuity serves also to decide the Controversie concerning the meaning of the expressions of the holy Fathers in matter of the Eucharist THe Argument which proves the Agreement of all the Eastern Societies with the Roman Church in the Belief of the Real Presence for so many Ages does not only shew us Tradition concerning the literal sence of the words of Jesus Christ It also decides instantly the Controversie we have with the Protestants concerning the meaning of those expressions which are found so frequent in the Books of the holy Fathe 1. Tertul. contra Marc. c. 4. Euseb Caesar in Parall Damasc l. 3. c. 45 Cyrill Hierosol 4. Catech. myst Greg. Nyssâ— de Babâ— Chrâ—sti Aug Serm 87. de divâ—â—sis citat à Beda â—n Epist ad Corinth c. 10.2 Gaud. tract 2. in Exod. 3. Greg. Nâ—ss Orat. Catech. Amb. de init c. 4. Cyrill Catech. 4. myst Euseb emiss Sssrm 5. de Pasch 4. Justin Mart. Apol. 2. Iraen l. 4. c. 4. Theoph. Antioch 6. Chrys Hom. 83. in Matth. 7. Aug. Ep. ad Janua 2. Optat. That the Bread is made the Body of Jesus Christ 2. That of Bread and Wine are made the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ 3. That the Bread and Wine are changed converted and transelemented into the Body and Blood and in to the Substance of the Body of Jesus Christ 4. That they are the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ after the consecration 5. That we are made partakers of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ 6. That we touch and eat the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ himself 7. That the Body of Jesus Christ enters into the mouth of Believers 8. That his Body and Blood dwells upon our Altars That it is the proper Body of Jesus Christ That we receive truly his precious Body That it is truely the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ This Controversie consists to know if these words and innumerable others like them which are found in the Books of these holy Doctors ought to be taken in the proper and literal sence as the Catholicks maintain or if they are to be understood in a figurative and metaphorical sence as the Ministers pretend Now this Question is decided by the Agreement of all Christian Societies in the Article of the Real Presence since the Apostles it being they could not believe that Doctrine unless they had taken these expressions in a proper and literal sence I know that Aubertin strives to elude all these passages of the Fathers which the Catholicks make use of to prove their Doctrine by proposing other passages which seem like to them and which both in Scripture and in Fathers are taken in a metaphorical sence And I must avow that if in this point he shews no great exactness of Judgment at least he lets us see he is a man that has read very much for that collection he makes of Expressions seeming like to those he would explain could not have been done without a great deal of labour And I may say