worthily receives his Absolution and Justification that is he that discerns and then receives the Lords Body as torn and his Bloud as shed for the redemption of the world But that Christ as the Papists affirm should give his flesh and bloud to be received with the mouth and ground with the teeth so that not only the most wicked and Infidels but even Rats and Mice should swallow him down this our words and our hearts do utterly deny 6. So then to sum up this Controversie by applying to it all that hath been said It is not questioned whether the Body of Christ be absent from the Sacrament duly administred according to his Institution which we Protestants neither affirm nor believe For it being given and received in the Communion it must needs be that it is present though in some manner veiled under the Sacrament so that of it self it cannot be seen Neither is it doubted or disputed whether the Bread and Wine by the power of God and a supernatural vertue be set apart and fitted for a much nobler use and raised to a higher dignity than their nature bears for we confess the necessity of a supernatural and heavenly change and that the signs cannot become Sacraments but by the infinite power of God whose proper right it is to institute Sacraments in his Church being able alone to endue them with vertue and efficacy Finally we do not say that our blessed Saviour gave only the figure and sign of his body neither do we deny a Sacramental Union of the Body and Bloud of Christ with the sacred Bread and Wine so that both are really and substantially received together But that we may avoid all ambiguity we deny that after the words and prayer of Consecration the bread should remain bread no longer but should be changed into the substance of the Body of Christ nothing of the Bread but only the accidents continuing to be what they were before And so the whole question is concerning the Transubstantiation of the outward Elements whether the substance of the Bread be turned into the substance of Christs Body and the substance of the Wine into the substance of his Bloud or as the Romish Doctors describe their Transubstantiation whether the substance of Bread and Wine doth utterly perish and the substance of Christs Body and Bloud succeed in their place which are both denied by Protestants 7. The Church of Rome sings on Corpus Christi-day This is not bread but God and man my Saviour And the Council of Trent doth thus define it Because Christ our Redeemer said truly that that was his Body which he gave in the appearance of bread therefore it was ever believed by the Church of God and is now declared by this sacred Synod that by the power of Consecration the whole substance of the bread is changed into the substance of Christs Body and the whole substance of the Wine into the substance of his Bloud which change is fitly and properly called Transubstantiation by the holy Catholick Roman Church Therefore if any one shall say That the substance of Bread and Wine remains with the Body and Bloud of our Saviour Jesus Christ and shall deny that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the Bread and Wine into the substance of the Body and Bloud of Christ the only appearance and outward form of the Bread and Wine remaining which conversion the Catholick Roman Church doth fitly call Transubstantiation let him be accursed The Pope confirming this Council defines it after the same manner imposeth an Oath and Declaration to the same purpose and so makes it one of the new Articles of the Roman Faith in the form and under the penalty following I. N. do profess and firmly believe all and every the singulars contained in the Confession of Faith allowed by the holy Church of Rome viz. I believe in one God c. I also profess that the Body and Bloud with the Soul and Godhead of our Saviour Jesus Christ are truly really and substantially in the Mass and in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and that there is a conversion of the whole substance of the Bread into the Body and of the whole substance of the Wine into the Bloud of Christ which conversion the Roman Catholick Church calls Transubstantiation I fully embrace all things defined declared and delivered by the holy Council of Trent and withall I do reject condemn and accurse all things by it accurs'd condemned or rejected I do confidently believe that this Faith which I now willingly profess is the true Catholick Faith without the which it is impossible to be saved and I do promise vow and swear that I will constantly keep it whole and undefiled to my very last breath So help me God and these Holy Gospels Afterwards he bravely concludes this Decree with this Commination Let no man therefore dare to attempt the breaking of this our Deed and Injunction or be so desperate as to oppose it And if any one presumes upon such an attempt let him know that he thereby incurs the wrath of Almighty God and of his blessed Apostles Peter and Paul Given at Rome in St. Peters Church the Thirteenth of November in the year of our Lord 1564. the fifth of our Pontificat Which is as much as to say That he had received this his Roman Faith from Pope Innocent the Third who first decided and imposed this Doctrine of the Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Bloud of Christ and made it an Article of Faith adding this new-devised Thirteenth to the ancient Twelve Articles for so we find it published in his Decretal propounded to the Assembly at Lateran in 1215. and proclaimed afterwards by his Nephew Pope Gregory the Ninth Thus We firmly believe and simply acknowledge that there is one only true God c. and that in the Sacrament of the Altar the Body and Bloud of Christ are truly contained under the accidents of Bread and Wine which are transubstantiated the Bread into the Body and the Wine into the Bloud To these definitions of Popes I will add only the Tenets of three Jesuits which are highly approved by the late followers of the new Roman Faith First Of Alphonsus Salmeron We must of necessity saith he hold Transubstantiation that the substance of Bread and Wine which Luther and some others admit may be excluded that the words of Christ which yet are most true without that may be verified that how few of these many are pertinent to their purpose will be seen hereafter many Testimonies of the Fathers concerning Conversion Mutation Consecration Benediction Transformation Sanctification for by all these names almost they have called Transubstantiation may stand firm and not be vain and insignificant and lastly that we may maintain a solid presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ Item as David changed his Countenance before Abimelech and then received the Shew bread
Christ 17. Let the Champions of Transubstantiation strut and vapour now with their two and thirty stout Seconds who have stood for them as they say before the time of Pope Innocent the Third For what Innocent the Third decreed and the Council of Trent defined that it was ever the perswasion of the Catholick Church that the Bread is so changed into the Body of Christ that the substance of the bread vanishing away only the flesh of Christ should remain under the accidents of the bread is so far from being true that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation not only as to the name but as to the thing it self is wholly destitute of the Patronage of Antiquity and left to shift for it self Alphonsus à Castro said that in ancient Writers mention was made very seldom of Transubstantiation had he said never it had been more true For so our Jesuites in England confessed That the business of Transubstantiation was not so much as toucht by the ancient Fathers which is very true as will appear more at large in the following Chapter CHAP. VII Of the Writers of the Eleventh and Twelfth Century from whom we may easily deduce and trace the History of Papal Transubstantiation 1. What manner of Popes they were in those times 2. The unhappy Age wherein Divines were divided about the Point of the Eucharist 3. The opinion of Fulbertus 4. Followed by his Disciple Berengarius who is opposed by others 5 6. The Doctrine of Berengarius defended 7. The roaring of Leo the Ninth against Berengarius 8. The Synod of Tours under Victor the Second which cleared Berengarius as free from Error 9. Pope Nicolas the Second gathers another Synod against Berengarius who is forced to make a wondrous kind of Recantation 10. The Authors of the ordinary Gloss censure the Recantation imposed on Berengarius 11. He saith that he was violently compelled to make it for fear of being put to death Lanfrancus and Guitmundus write against him 12. Of Pope Hildebrand and his Roman Council wherein Berengarius was again cited and condemned in vain 13. The Doctrine of St. Bernard approved 14. The Opinion of Rupertus 15. Lombard could define nothing of the Transubstantiation of the Bread and reasons poorly upon the independency of the accidents 16. Otho Frisingensis and those of his time confest that the Bread and Wine remain in the Eucharist 17. P. Blesensis and St. Eduensis were the first that used the word of Transubstantiation 18. Of the thirteenth Century wherein Pope Innocent the Third published his Decree of the Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Bloud of Christ 19 and 20. The wonderful pride of Innocent the Third The Lateran Council determined nothing concerning that Point 21. The cruelty of the same Innocent who by the Rack and the Fire sought to establish his new Doctrine 22. What Gerson said of the Roman Church in his time Many more Inventions proceed from Transubstantiation Inextricable and unheard of questions 23. New Orders of Monks and of the School-men 24. Of their fine wrangling and disputing 25. The Sacrament abused most grosly by the Patrons of Transubstantiation 26 and 27. Holkot Aquinas Albertus Magnus and other Schoolmen though sometimes they be not for Transubstantiation yet they wholly submit to the Judgment of the Pope 28. Of the Council of Constance which took the Cup from the Laity 29. Cardinal Cameracensis denies that Transubstantiation can be proved by holy Scripture 30. Of the Council of Florence and the Instruction of the Armenians by Pope Eugenius the Fourth 31. The Papal Curse in the Council of Trent not to be feared The Conclusion of the Book 1. WE have proved it before that the Leprosie of Transubstantiation did not begin to spread over the body of the Church in a thousand years after Christ But at last the thousand years being expired and Satan loosed out of his Prison to go and deceive the Nations and compass the Camp of the Saints about then to the great damage of Christian Peace and Religion they began here and there to dispute against the clear constant and universal consent of the Fathers and to maintain the new-started opinion It is known to them that understand History what manner of times were then and what were those Bishops who then governed the Church of Rome Sylvester II John XIX and XX Sergius IV Benedictus VIII John XXI Benedict IX Sylvester III Gregory VI Damasus II Leo IX Nicolas II Gregory VII or Hildebrand who tore to pieces the Church of Rome with grievous Schisms cruel Wars and great Slaughters For the Roman Pontificat was come to that pass that good men being put by they whose Life and Doctrine was pious being oppressed none could obtain that dignity but they that could bribe best and were most ambitious 2. In that unhappy Age the Learned were at odds about the presence of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament some defending the ancient Doctrine of the Church and some the new-sprung up opinion 3. Fulbert Bishop of Chartres was Tutor to Berengarius whom we shall soon have occasion to speak of and his Doctrine was altogether conformable to that of the Primitive Church as appears clearly out of his Epistle to Adeodatus wherein he teacheth That the Mystery of Faith in the Eucharist is not to be lookt on with our bodily eyes but with the eyes of our mind For what appears outwardly Bread and Wine is made inwardly the Body and Bloud of Christ not that which is tasted with the mouth but that which is relish'd by the hearts affection Therefore saith he prepare the palate of thy Faith open the throat of thy Hope and inlarge the bowels of thy Charity and take that Bread of life which is the food of the inward man Again The perception of a divine taste proceeds from the faith of the inward man whilst by receiving the saving Sacrament Christ is received into the soul All this is against those who teach in too gross a manner that Christ in this Mystery enters carnally the mouth and stomach of the Receivers 4. Fulbert was followed by Berengarius his Scholar Archdeacon of Anger 's in France a man of great worth by the holiness both of his life and doctrine as Platina Vincentius Bergomensis and many more Witness this Encomium writ soon after his death by Hildebert Bishop of Mans a most learned man is thus recorded by our William of Malmsbury That Berengarius who was so admired Although his name yet lives is now expired H' out-lives himself yet a sad fatal day Him from the Church and State did snatch away O dreadful day why didst thou play the Thief And fill the world with ruine and with grief For by his death the Church the Laws and all The Clergies glory do receive a fall His sacred wisdom was too great for fame And the whole World 's too little for his name Which to its
of St. Chrysostom In comes the Priest carrying the Holy Ghost 14. About the same time Rupertus Abbot of Tuitium famous by his Writings did also teach that the Substance of the Bread in the Eucharist is not converted but remains These be his words You must attribute all to the operation of the Holy Ghost who never spoils or destroys any substance he useth but to that natural Goodness it had before adds an invisible excellency which it had not He hath indeed an unwarrantable opinion of the Union of the Bread and Body of Christ into one Person but it came as some others as absurd in that Age from too great a curiosity about determining the manner of Christs Presence and of the Union of his Body with the Bread about which that learned man troubled himself too much However he neither taught nor mentioned Transubstantiation 15 Not long after that Algerus a Monk and some others had had some disputes about this subject Pet. Lombard made up his Books of Sentences in the fourth whereof he treats of the Eucharist and thinks that it is taught by some sayings of the Ancients That the substance of the Bread and Wine is changed into the Body and Bloud of Christ But soon after he adds If it be demanded what manner of change that is whether formal or substantial or of any other kind that I cannot resolve Therefore he did not yet hold Transubstantiation as a point of Faith Nay he doth not seem constant to himself in making it a probable opinion but rather to waver to say and unsay and to shelter his cause under the Fathers name rather than maintain it himself Of the accidents remaining without a subject and of the breaking into parts the body of Christ as Berengarius was bid to say by Pope Nicholas he reasons strangely but very poorly 16. Otho Bishop of Frisingen as great by his Piety and Learning as by his Bloud for he was Nephew to Henry the Fourth and the Emperour Henry the Fifth married his Sister he was also Uncle to Frederick and half Brother to King Conrade lived about the same time He believed and writ That the Bread and Wine remain in the Eucharist as did many more in that Age. 17. As for the new-coyn'd word Transubstantiation it is hardly to be found before the middle of this Century For the first that mention it are Petrus Blesensis who lived under Pope Alexander the Third and Stephen Eduensis a Bishop whose Age and Writings are very doubtful And those latter Authors who make it as ancient as the tenth Century want sufficient Witnesses to prove it by as I said before 18. The thirteenth Century now follows wherein the World growing both older and worse a great deal of trouble and confusion there was about Religion the Bishop of Rome exalted himself not only into his lofty Chair over the Universal Church but even into a Majestical Throne over all the Empires and Kingdoms of the world New Orders of Friers sprung up in this Age who disputed and clamoured fiercely against many Doctrines of the ancienter and purer Church and amongst the rest against that of the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ So that now there remained nothing but to confirm the new Tenet of Transubstantiation and impose it so peremptorily on the Christian world that none might dare so much as to hiss against it This Pope Innocent the Third bravely performed He succeeding Celestin the Third at thirty years of age and marching stoutly in the foot-steps of Hildebrand called a Council at Rome in St. John Lateran and was the first that ever presumed to make the new-devised-new-devised-Doctrine of Transubstantiation an Article of Faith necessary to salvation and that by his own meer authority 19. How much he took upon himself and what was the mans spirit and humour will easily appear to any man by these his words which I here set down To me it is said in the Prophet I have set thee over Nations and over Kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to throw down and to build and to plant To me also it is said in the person of the Apostle To thee will I give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven For I am in a middle state betwixt God and man below God but above man yea greater than man being I judge all men and can be judged by none Am not I the Bridegroom and each of you the Bridegrooms friend The Bridegroom I am because I have the Bride the noble rich lofty and holy Church of Rome who is the Mother and Mistris of all the Faithful who hath brought me a precious and inestimable portion to wit the fulness of things spiritual and the vastness of temporal with the greatness and multitude of both God made two great Lights in the Firmament of heaven he hath also made two great Lights in the firmament of the Vniversal Church that is he hath instituted two dignities which are the Papal authority and the Regal But that which governs the day that is spiritual things is the greater and that which governs carnal things the less so that it ought to be acknowledged that there is the same difference between the Roman High Priest and Kings as between the Sun and Moon Thus he when he was become Christs Vicar or rather his Rival These things I rehearse that we may see how things went and what was the face of the Latine Church when Pope Innocent the Third propounded and imposed Transubstantiation as an Article of Faith as is plainly and at large set down by a learned Author George Calixtus who deserves equally to be praised and imitated 20. This Innocent therefore who to encrease his Power and Authority wrought great troubles to the Emperour Philip stript Otho the Fourth of the Empire forced John King of England to yield up into his hand this Kingdom and that of Ireland and make them Tributary to the See of Rome who under pretence of a spiritual Jurisdiction took to himself both the Supreme Power over things temporal and the things themselves who was proud and ambicious beyond all men covetous to the height of greediness they are the words of Matthew Paris and ever ready to commit the most wicked villanies so he might be recompenced for it this I say was the man who in his Lateran Council propounded that Transubstantiation should be made an Article of Faith and when the Council would not grant it did it himself by his own Arbitrary Power against which none durst open his mouth For those Canons which this day are shewn about under the name of the Council are none of his but meerly the Decrees of Pope Innocent first writ by him and read in the Council and disliked by many and afterwards set down in the Book of Decretals under certain titles by
his Nephew Gregory the Ninth 21. The same Pope after he had pronounced them Hereticks who for the future should deny that the Body and Bloud of Christ are truly contained in the Sacrament of the Altar under the outward form of Bread and Wine the Bread being Transubstantiated into the Body and the Wine into the Bloud delivers them all of what office or dignity soever to the Secular Power to receive condign punishment that is to be burnt commands those that are suspected to be tried and examined and declares them infamous disabled from making a Will and incapable of any Office or Inheritance that should favour or entertain them and sets all other Christians against them Then he ordains that the Secular Powers shall be compelled by Ecclesiastick Censures publickly to swear that they will defend This Faith and endeavour utterly to destroy all whom the Church of Rome should note for Hereticks But saith he if the temporal Prince doth neglect this let him be excommunicated And if he slights to give satisfaction within a year let the soveraign Pontif be certified of it that he may absolve his Subjects from their allegiance and expose his Territories to be taken and enjoyed without any contradiction by any Catholicks Romans that destroy the Hereticks c. that is those who do not believe Transubstantiation Thus Innocent the Third by Excommunications and by Arms by Rebellions by Tortures and by burning alive was pleased to establish his new Article of Faith 22. And truly had he not used such means they themselves who did cleave to the Church of Rome would not have embraced this Doctrine For it did not find such acceptance but that many notwithstanding did now and then oppose it Nay not only Transubstantiation but even the Church or rather the Court of Rome which if we believe Chancellour Gerson was at this time wholly brutish and carnal without almost any sense of the things of God was rejected by many as it is well known For certain it is that Transubstantiation being once established there was a foundation laid to many Superstitions and Errors which could neither be suffered nor approved by those that feared God And among the Subscribers to Transubstantiation there grew a thicket of thorny and monstrous questions wherewith the Schoolmen were so busie that it may with great truth be affirmed that then came so light a Divinity concerning the holy Sacrament and the Adoration of it which was not only very new but very strange also and never heard of among the Fathers There grew also out of the same stock Illusions and false Miracles deceitful Dreams feined Visions and such like unchristian devices about the Corporal Presence of Christ as that some did see a Child in the Host some Flesh some Bloud any thing that could come into the idle fancies of idle and superstitious men One at the point of death durst not receive the Body of Christ because he could keep nothing in but as he drew nigh to adore it his Breast bare and his Arms open the Host leaping out of the Priests hand having made it self a passage entred of its own accord into the place where the dying mans heart lay bid and the hole being made up again without any thing of a scar the man lay down and then expired Another being ready to die begged that his side being washt and covered with a clean cloath the Body of Christ might be set on it Which being done the cloath by degrees gave place to the Body of Christ and soon after when that divine Body toucht the mans skin it penetrated to his very heart in the sight of all the by standers They also tell the Story or rather the Fable How that the Body of Christ for so they call the Consecrated Bread being set in a Bushel upon some Oats an Horse an Oxe and an Ass bowed their knees and adored their Lord in the Host These and such like Fictions were dayly invented without number by the Patrons of Transubstantiation and the impudence and boldness of coyning such Forgeries hath from them past upon their Successors This was observed by King James in the Writings of Bellarmine himself who reports of a certain devont Mare that worshipped the Host kneeling knowing doubtless that by a due Consecration it was Transubstantiated Cesarius the Monk who lived soon after Innocent the Third is full of such Miracles and yet he hath a History which shews that in his time Transubstantiation was utterly unknown to a learned Priest Canon of a great Church At Colen saith he there was a Canon in full Orders called Peter when on a certain day another of the Canons was sick and about to receive the Sacrament in his presence the officiating Priest asked the sick man Dost thou believe that this is the true Body of the Lord which was born of the Virgin He made answer I believe it Peter hearing and observing their words was amazed at them Afterwards he coming alone to Everhardus the Professor of Divinity who had been also present at the Communion he asked him Did the Priest question the sick man aright He answered yes and whoever believes otherwise is an Heretick Then Peter weeping and smiting his breast cried out Woe is me wretched Priest How have I hitherto said Mass For to this hour I thought that the Bread and Wine after the Consecration were only a Sacrament that is the sign and representation of the Lords Body and Bloud 23. I have already touched it that together with the new Doctrine of Transubstantiation there sprung up new Sects of Friers which indeed in a short time increased beyond belief For now to the Order of Dominicans whom Innocent the Third had made his Inquisitors to kill and burn Hereticks was added the Order of begging Franciscans and the Augustine Eremits and the Carmelites were set up again From these came the Schoolmen as we now call them whose studies as studies were in that time were all imployed about Commencing Peter Lombard Master of the Sentences 24. These men tired their brains as we said about unheard of questions touching Transubstantiation such as pious ears would abhor to hear For they ask 1. Whether that be the Body of Christ which sometimes appears in the form of Flesh or of a Child on the Altar and answer that they know not because such Apparitions happen often and are caused either by mens juggling or by the operation of the Devil 2. Whether the Mice who sometimes feast upon the Hosts when they are not well shut up eat the Body of Christ it self Or if a Dog or a Hog should swallow down the Consecrated Host whole whether the Lords Body should pass into their belly together with the accidents Some indeed answer other some being otherwise minded that though the Body of Christ enters not into the Brutes mouth as corporal meat yet it enters together with the appearances by
reason that they are inseparable one from the other meer nonsense for as long as the accidents of the Bread i. e. the shaâ—â— and taste and colour c. remain in their proper being so long is the Body of Christ inseparably joyned with them wherefore if the accidents in their nature pass into the belly or are cast out by vomiting the Body of Christ it self must of necessity go along with them and for this cause pious souls I repeat their own words do frequently eat again with great reverence the parts of the Host cast out by vomiting Others answer also That a beast eats not the Body of Christ Sacramentally but accidentally as a man that should eat a Consecrated Host not knowing that it was consecrated 3. They inquire about musty and rotten Hosts and because the Body of Christ is incorruptible and not subject to putrefaction therefore they answer That the Hosts are never so and that though they appear as if they were yet in reallity they are not as Christ appeared as a Gardener though he was no Gardener 4. They demand concerning indigested Hosts which passing through the belly are cast into the draught or concerning those that are cast into the worst of sinks or into the dirt Whether such Hosts cease to be the Body of Christ And answer That whether they be cast into the Sink or the Privy as long as the appearances remain the Body of Christ is inseparable from tâ—â—â— And for the contrary opinion they say that it is not tenable and that it is not safe for any to hold it because the Pope hath forbid it should be maintained under pain of Excommunication Therefore the Modern Schoolmen add That if any should hold the contrary after the Popes determination he should be condemned by the Church of Rome that is Nay they hold it to be a Point of Faith which none may doubt of because the contrary Doctrine hath been condemned by Pope Gregory the Eleventh 5. They ask concerning the accidents whether the Body of Christ be under them when they are abstracted from their subject This is against Logick Or whether Worms be gendred or Mice nourished of accidents And this against Physick 6. Whether the Body of Christ can at the very same time move both upwards and downwards one Priest lifting up the Host and another setting it down And I know not how many more such thorny questions have wearied and non-plust them and all their School and brought them to such straights and extremities that they know not what to resolve nor what shifts to make And truly it had been very happy for Religion if as the Ancients never touched or mentioned Transubstantiation so latter times had never so much as heard of its name For God made his Sacrament upright as he did Man but about it they have sought out many inventions 25. Likewise this Transubstantiation hath given occasion to some most wicked and impious Wretches to abuse and profane most unworthily what they thought to be the Body of Christ For instances may be brought of some wicked Priests who for filthy lucre have sold some Consecrated Hosts to Jews and Sorcerers who have stabb'd and burnt them and used them for Witchcraft and Inchantments Nay we read that St. Lewis himself very ill advised in that gave once to the Turks and Saracens a consecrated Host as a pledge of his Promise and an assurance of Peace Now can any one who counts these things abominable perswade himself that our Blessed Saviour would have appointed that his most holy Body should be present in his Church in such a manner as that it should come into the hands of his greatest Enemies and the worst of Infidels and be eaten by Dogs and Rats and be vomited up burnt cast into Sinks and used for Magical Poysons and Witchcraft I mention these with horror and trembling and therefore abstain from raking any more in this dunghill 26. No wonder therefore if this new Doctrine of Innocent the Third being liable to such foul absurdities and detestable abuses few men could be perswaded in the fourteenth Century that the Body of Christ is really or by Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Altar as it is recorded by our Country-man Robert Holkot who lived about the middle of that Century As also Thomas Aquinas reports of some in his time who believed that after Consecration not only the accidents of the Bread but its substantial form remained And Albertus Magnus himself who was Thomas his his Tutor and writ not long after Innocent the Third speaks of Transubstantiation as of a doubtful question only Nay that it was absolutely rejected and opposed by many is generally known for the Anathema of Trent had not yet backt the Lateran Decree 27. As for the rest of the Schoolmen especially the modern who are as it were sworn to Pope Innocent's determination they use to express their belief in this matter with great words but neither pious nor solid in this manner The common opinion is to be embraced not because reason requires it but because it is determined by the Bishop of Rome Item That ought to be of greatest weight that we must hold with the holy Church of Rome about the Sacraments now it holds that the Bread is Transubstantiated into the Body and the Wine into the Bloud as it is clearly said Extra De fide summa Trinitate Cap. firmiter Again I prove that of necessity the Bread is changed into the Body of Christ for we must hold that declaration of faith which the Pope declares must be held Thus among the Papists if it be the pleasure of an imperious Pope as was Innocent the Third Doctrines of Faith shall now and then increase in bulk and number though they be such as are most contrary to holy Scripture though they were never heard of in the Primitive Church and though from them such consequences necessarily follow as are most injurious to Christ and his holy Religion For after Innocent the Third the Roman Faith was thus much increased by the determination of Pope Gregory the Eleventh that if it so happens the Body of Christ in the Consecrated Host may descend into a Rats belly or into a Privy or any such foul place 28. In the fifteenth Century the Council of Constance which by a Sacrilegious attempt took away the Sacramental Cup from the People and from the Priests when they do not officiate did wrongfully condemn Wiclif who was already dead because amongst other things he had taught with the Ancients That the substance of the Bread and wine remains materially in the Sacrament of the Altar and that in the same Sacrament no accidents of Bread and Wine remain without a substance Which two Assertions are most true 29. Cardinal Cameracencis who lived about the time of the Council of Constance doth not seem to own the Decree of Pope Innocent as
that was a certain Type of the Eucharist so Christ in the Sacrament seigns himself to be bread and yet is not bread though he seems so to be most visibly Secondly Of Cardinal Francis Tolet The words of Consecration are efficacious instruments whereby to Transubstantiate the substance of the Bread into the true Body of Christ so that after they are spoken there remains in the Host none of the substance of the Bread but only the accidents of it which are called the properties of the Bread under which the true Body of Christ is present Thirdly and lastly Of Cardinal Bellarmine The Catholick Church ever taught that by the conversion of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Bloud of Christ which conversion hath been in after times called Transubstantiation it comes to pass that the Body and Bloud of our Lord are truly and really present in the Sacrament It would be to no purpose to bring the Testimonies of others of the Latine or Roman Church who give to the Pope an absolute power of defining what he pleaseth for they are but the same stuff as these but if any one hath a mind let him consult Gretserus his defence of Bellarmine or his Dialogue who first writ against Luther who both reduce the whole matter to the judgment and decree of the Pope 8. Now we leave inquiring what God is able to do for we should first know his will in this matter before we examine his power Yet thus much we say that this Roman Transubstantiation is so strange and monstrous that it exceeds the nature of all Miracles And though God by his Almightiness be able to turn the substance of bread into some other substance yet none will believe that he doth it as long as it appears to our senses that the substance of the Bread doth still remain whole and entire Certain it is that hitherto we read of no such thing done in the Old or New Testament and therefore this Tenet being as unknown to the Ancients as it is ungrounded in Scripture appears as yet to be very incredible and there is no reason we should believe such an unauthorised figment newly invented by men and now imposed as an Article of Christian Religion For it is in vain that they bring Scripture to defend this their stupendious Doctrine and it is not true what they so often and so confidently affirm that the Universal Church hath always constantly owned it being it was not so much as heard of in the Church for many Ages and hath been but lately approved by the Popes Authority in the Councils of Lateran and Trent as I shall prove in the following Chapters CHAP. V. That neither the word nor name of Transubstantiation nor the Doctrine or the thing it self is taught or contained in holy Scripture or in the Writings of the ancient Doctors of the Church but rather is contrary to them and therefore not of Faith 1. THe word Transubstantiation is so far from being found either in the sacred Records or in the Monuments of the ancient Fathers that the maintainers of it do themselves acknowledge that it was not so much as heard of before the twelfth Century For though one Stephanus Bishop of Autun be said to have once used it yet it is without proof that some Modern Writers make him one of the tenth Century nor yet doth he say that the bread is Transubstantiated but as it were Transubstantiated which well understood might be admitted 2. Nay that the thing it self without the word that the Doctrine without the expression cannot be found in Scripture is ingeniously acknowledged by the most learned Schoolmen Scotus Durandus Biel Cameracensis Cajetan and many more who finding it not brought in by the Popes Authority and received in the Roman Church till 1200 years after Christ yet endeavoured to defend it by other Arguments 3. Scotus Confest That there is not any place in Scripture so express as to compel a man to admit of Transubstantiation were it not that the Church hath declared for it that is Pope Innocent III in his Lateran Council Durandus said That the word is found but that by it the manner they contend for cannot be proved Biel affirms That it is no where found in Canonical Scriptures Occam declared That it is easier more reasonable less inconvenient and better agreeing with Scripture to hold that the substance of the Bread remains After him Cardinal Cameracensis doth also confess That Transubstantiation cannot be proved out of the Scriptures Nay the Bishop of Rochester saith himself That there is no expression in Scripture whereby that conversion of substance in the Mass can be made good Cardinal Cajetan likewise There is not any thing of force enough in the Gospel to make us understand in a proper sense these words This is my body Nay that presence which the Church of Rome believes in the Sacrament cannot be proved by the words of Christ without the declaration of the Roman Church Lastly Bellarmine himself doth say That though he might bring Scripture clear enough to his thinking to prove Transubstantiation by to an easie man yet still it would be doubtful whether he had done it to purpose because some very acute and learned men as Scotus hold that it cannot be proved by Scripture Now in this Protestants desire no more but to be of the opinion of those learned and acute men 4. And indeed the words of institution would plainly make it appear to any man that would prefer truth to wrangling that it is with the Bread that the Lords Body is given as his Bloud with the Wine for Christ having taken blessed and broken the bread said This is my body and St. Paul than whom none could better understand the meaning of Christ explains it thus The bread which we break is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Communion or communication of the body of Christ that whereby his body is given and the Faithful are made partakers of it That it was bread which he reacht to them there was no need of any proof the receiver's senses sufficiently convinc'd them of it but that therewith his body was given none could have known had it not been declared by him who is the truth it self And though by the divine institution and the explication of the Apostle every faithful Communicant may be as certainly assured that he receives the Lords Body as if he knew that the Bread is substantially turned into it yet it doth not therefore follow that the Bread is so changed that its substance is quite done away so that there remains nothing present but the very natural Body of Christ made of bread For certain it is that the bread is not the Body of Christ any otherwise than as the Cup is the New Testament and two different consequences cannot be drawn from those two not different expressions Therefore as the Cup cannot be the New Testament but by a
lest not only Hereticks but also stubborn Catholicks read the Book with the more greediness and cite it with the more confidence because it is forbidden and so it doth more harm by being prohibited than if it was left free What patch then will they sow to amend this in Bertram Those things that differ are not the same that Body of Christ which died and rose again and is become immortal dies no more being eternal and impassable But that which is celebrated in the Church is temporal not eternal is corruptible and not incorruptible To this last mentioned passage they give a very commodious sense namely that it should be understood of the corruptible species of the Sacrament or of the Sacrament it self and the use of it which will last no longer than this world If this will not do it may not be amiss to leave it all out to blot out visibly and write invisibly And this What the Creatures were in substance before the Consecration they are still the same after it must be understood according to the outward appearance that is the accidents of the Bread and Wine Though they confess that then Bertram knew nothing of those accidents subsisting without 〈◊〉 substance and many other things which thi◠latter age hath added out of the Scriptures wit◠as great truth as subtilty How much easier had it been at one stroke to blot out the whole Book And so make short work with it as the Spanish Inquisitors did i◠their Index expurgat Let the whole Epistle say they of Udalricus Bishop of Ausburg be blotted out cencerning the single life of the Clergy and let the whole Book of Bertram the Priest about the Body and Bloud of the Lord be supprest What is this but as Arnobius said against the Heathen to intercept publick Records and fear the Testimoy of the Truth For as for that which Sixtus Senensis and Possevin affirm That that Book of the Body and Bloud of the Lord was writ by Oecolampadius under the name of Bertram it is so great an untruth that a greater cannot be found 36. We are now come to the tenth Century wherein besides those many Sentences of Catholick Fathers against Innovaters in what concerns the Body and Bloud of Christ collected by Herigerus Abbas Lobiensis we have also an ancient Easter Homily in Saxon English which then used to be read publickly in our Churches out of which we may gather what was then the Doctrine received amongst us touching this Point of Religion but chiefly out of that part wherein are shewn many differences betwixt the natural Body of Christ and the Consecrated Host For thus it teacheth the people There is a great difference betwixt that body wherein Christ suffered and that wherein the Host is consecrated That Body wherein Christ suffered was born of the Virgin Mary consisting of bloud and bones skin and nerves humane members and a rational soul But his spiritual body which we call the Host is made of many united grains of corn and hath neither bloud nor bones neither members nor soul Afterwards The Body of Christ which once died and rose again shall die no more but remains eternal and impassible but this Host is temporal and corruptible divided into parts broken with the teeth and swallowed down into the stomach Lastly this Mystery is a pledge and a figure The body of Christ is that very truth What is seen is bread but what is spiritually understood is life There is also another Sermon of Bishop Wulfinus to the Clergy bearing the title of a Synod of Priests wherein the same opinion and Doctrine is explained in this manner That Host is the Body of Christ not corporally but spiritually not that Body wherein he suffered but that Body whereof he spake when he consecrate◠the Bread and Wine into an Host Which to this day in the Church of England we hold to be a Catholick truth 37. And so hitherto we have produced the agreeing Testimonies of Ancient Fathers for a thousand years after Christ and have transcribed them more at large to make it appear to every one that is not blind that the true Apostolick Doctrine of this Mystery hath been universally maintained for so long by all men some few excepted who more than eight hundred years after Christ presumed to dispute against the ancient Orthodox Doctrine of the manner of Christs Presence and of his being received in the Sacrament though they durst not positively determine any thing against it Now what more concerns this Point we refer to the next Chapter lest this should be too long CHAP. VI. Shews more at large that the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church is inconsistent with Transubstantiation and Answers the Romish Objections vainly alleadged out of Antiquity 1. MAny more Proofs out of Ancient Records might have been added to those we have hitherto brought for a thousand years but we desiring to be brief have omitted them in each Century As in the First After the holy Scriptures the Works of Clemens Romanus commended by the Papists themselves and those of St. Ignatius Bishop of Antioch and Martyr are much against Transubstantiation In the Second likewise St. Theophilus fourth Bishop of Antioch after Ignatius Athenagoras and Tatianus Scholars to Justin Martyr In the Third Clemens Alexandrinus Tutor to Origen and Minutius Felix a Christian Orator In the Fourth Eusebius Bishop of Cesarea Juvencus a Spanish Priest Macarius Egyptius St. Hilary Bishop of Poictiers Optatus Bishop of Milevis Eusebius Emissenus Gregorius Nazianzenus Cyrillus Alexandrinus Epiphanius Salaminensis St. Hierom Theophilus Alexandrinus and Gaudentius Bishop of Brixia In the Fifth Sedulius a Scotch Priest Gennadius Massiliensis and Faustus Bishop of Regium In the Sixth Fulgentius Africanus Victor Antiochenus Primasius Bishop and Procopius Gazeus In the Seventh Hesychius Priest in Jerusalem and Maximus Abbot of Constantinople In the Eighth Johannes Damascenus In the Ninth Nicephorus the Patriarch and Hincmarus Archbishop of Rhemes Lastly in the Tenth Fulbert Bishop of Chartres And to compleat all to these single Fathers we may add whole Councils of them as that of Ancyra of Neocesarea and besides the first of Nice which I have mentioned that of Laodicea of Carthage of Orleans the fourth of Toledo that of Bracara the sixteenth of Toledo and that of Constantinople in Trullo Out of all these appears most certain that the infection of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation was not yet spread over the Christian world but that the sound Doctrine of the Body and Bloud of Christ and of their true yet spiritual not carnal Presence in the Eucharist with the Elements still the same in substance after Consecration was every where owned and maintained And though the Fathers used both ways
Effiqies D. Joannis Corin Episcopi Dunelmensis c THE HISTORY OF POPISH Transubstantiation To which is Premised and opposed The CATHOLICK DOCTRIN OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE The Ancient Fathers and the Reformed Churches About the Sacred Elements and Presence of CHRIST in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist Written Nineteen years ago in Latine By the Right Reverend Father in GOD JOHN Late Lord Bishop of DURHAM And allowed by him to be published a little before his Death at the earnest request of his Friends LONDON Printed by Andrew Clark for Henry Brome at the Gun at the West end of St. Paul's 1676. To the Right Honourable HENEAGE Lord FINCH Baron of Daventry Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England My Lord THe Excellency of this Book answers the greatness of its Author and perhaps the badness of the Version is also proportioned to the meanness of the Translator But the English being for those that could not understand the Original that they also might be instructed by so instructive a Discourse I hope with them my good intent will excuse my fault only my fear is I shall want a good Plea wherewith to sue out my pardon for having intituled a person of the highest honour to so poor a labour as is this of mine My Lord these were the inducements which set me upon this attempt it being the subject of the Book to clear and assert an important truth which is as a Criterion whereby to know the Sons of the Church of England from her Adversaries on both hands those that adore and those that profane the blessed Sacrament these that destroy the visible Sign and those that deny the invisible Grace I thought I might justly offer it to so pious and so great a Son of this Church who own'd her in her most calamitous condition and defends her in her happy and most envied restauration I was also perswaded that the Translation bearing your illustrious name would be thereby much recommended to many and so become the more generally useful And I confided much in your goodness and affability who being by birth and merits raised to a high eminency yet doth willingly condescend to things and persons of low estate My Lord I have only this one thing more to alledge for my self That besides the attestation of publick fame which I hear of a long time speaking loud for you I have these many years lived in a Family where your Vertues being particularly known are particularly admired and honoured so that I could not but have an extraordinary respect and veneration for your Lordship and be glad to have any occasion to express it If these cannot clear me I must remain guilty of having taken this opportunity of declaring my self Your Lorships Most humble and most obedient Servant Luke de Beaulieu THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER IT is now nineteen years since this Historical Treatise was made by the Right Reverend Father in God John Cosin when in the time of the late accursed Rebellion he was an Exile in Paris for his Loyalty and Religion's sake for being then commanded to remain in that City by his gracious Majesty that now is who was departing into Germany by reason of a League newly made by the French King with our wicked Rebels he was also ordered by him as he had been before by his blessed Father Charles the First a Prince never enough to be commended to perform Divine Offices in the Royal Chappel and to endeavour to keep and confirm in the Protestant Religion professed by the Church of Englang his fellow-Exiles both of the Royal Family and others his Country-men who then lived in that place Now the occasion of his writing this Piece was this when his Gracious Majesty had chosen Colen for the place of his residence being solemnly invited he visited a neighbouring Potent Prince of the Empire of the Roman Perswasion where it fell out as it doth usually where Persons of different Religions do meet some Jesuits began to discourse of Controversies with those Noblemen and Worthies who never forsook their Prince in his greatest straights but were his constant Attendants and Imitators of his ever constant Profession of the Reformed Religion charging the Church of England with Heresie especially in what concerns the Blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper They would have it that our Church holds no real but only a kind of imaginary presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ but that the Church of Rome retained still the very same faith concerning this sacred Mystery which the Catholick Church constantly maintained in all Ages to wit that the whole substance of the Bread and wine is changed into the substance of the Body and Bloud of Christ and right-well called Transubstantiation by the Council of Trent This and much more to the same purpose was pronounced by the Jesuits in presence of His Majesty and the German Prince with as much positiveness and confidence as if it had been a clear and self-evident truth owned by all the Learned His Sacred Majesty and his Noble Attendants knew well enough that the Jesuits did shamelesly belie the Church of England and that their brags about Roman Transubstantiation were equally false and vain But the German Prince having recommended to the perusal of those Honourable Persons that followed the King a Manuscript wherein as he said was proved by Authentick Authors all that had been advanced by the Jesuits They thought it fit to acquaint the Reverend Dr. Cosin with the whole business and intreat him that he would vindicate the Church of England from the Calumny and plainly declare what is her avowed Doctrine and belief about the true and real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament Hereupon our worthy Doctor who was ever ready and zealous to do good especially when it might benefit the Church of God fell presently to work and writ this excellent Treatise as an Answer to the Prince's Manuscript that if those worthy Persons pleased they might repay his Highness kindness in kind Yet notwithstanding the solicitations of those that occasioned it and of others that had perused it he would not yield to have it made publick while a few months before he died because having composed it for particular Friends he thought it sufficient that it had been useful to them But the Controversie about the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist being of late years resumed with much vigour and even now famous by the learned and eloquent Disputes of Monsieur Claude Minister of the Reformed Church in Paris and Monsieur Arnold Doctor of Sorbon and others who moved by their example have entred the Lists The reiterated and more earnest importunities of his friends obtained at last his consent for the publication of this Work and the rather because he thought that the Error constantly maintained by the famous Doctor of Sorbon was by a lucky anticipation clearly and strongly confuted throughout this Book for whatever the Fathers have said about the true
indeed simply as it is flesh without any other respect for so it is not given neither would it profit us but as it is crucified and given for the redemption of the world neither doth it hinder the truth and substance of the thing that this eating of Christ's body is spiritual and that by it the souls of the Faithful and not their stomachs are fed by the operation of the Holy Ghost For this none can deny but they who being strangers to the Spirit and the divine vertue can savour only carnal things and to whom what is Spiritual and Sacramental is the same as if a meer nothing 7. As to the manner of the presence of the body and bloud of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament we that are Protestant and Reformed according to the ancient Catholick Church do not search into the manner of it with perplexing inquiries but after the example of the primitive and purest Church of Christ we leave it to the power and wisdom of our Lord yielding a full and unfeined assent to his words Had the Romish maintainers of Transubstantiation done the same they would not have determined and decreed and then imposed as an Article of faith absolutely necessary to Salvation a manner of presence newly by them invented under pain of the most direful Curse and there would have been in the Church less wrangling and more peace and unity than now is CHAP. II. 1 2 and 3 c. The unanimous consent of all Protestants with the Church of England in maintaining a real that is true but not a carnal presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament proved by publick Confessions and the best of Authorities 1. SO then none of the Protestant Churches doubt of the real that is true and not imaginary Presence of Christ's body and bloud in the Sacrament and there appears no reason why any man should suspect their common Confession of either fraud or error as though in this particular they had in the least departed from the Catholick faith 2. For it is easie to produce the consent of Reformed Churches and Authors whereby it will clearly appear to them that are not wilfully blind that they all zealously maintain and profess this truth without forsaking in any wise the true Catholick Faith in this matter 3. I begin with the Church of England wherein they that are in holy Orders are bound by a Law and Canon Never to teach any thing to the people to be by them believed in matters of Religion but what agrees with the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament and what the Catholick Fathers and Ancient Prelates have gathered and inferred out of it Vnder pain of Excommunication if they transgress troubling the people with contrary Doctrine It teacheth therefore that in the Blessed Sacrament the body of Christ is given taken and eaten so that to the worthy Receivers the consecrated and broken bread is the communication of the body of Christ and likewise the consecrated Cup the communication of his bloud But that the wicked and they that approach unworthily the Sacrament of so sacred a thing eat and drink their own damnation in that they become guilty of the body and bloud of Christ And the same Church in a solemn Prayer before the consecration prays thus Grant us gracious Lord so to eat the flesh of thy dear SonJesus Christ and to drink his bloud that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most precious bloud and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us The Priest also blessing or consecrating the Bread and Wine saith thus Hear us O merciful Father we most humbly beseech thee and grant that we receiving these thy Creatures of Bread and Wine according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution in remembrance of his Death and Passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and bloud Who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and gave it to his Disciples saying take eat this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me Likewise after Supper he took the Cup and when he had given thinks he gave it to them saying drink ye all of this for this is my bloud of the New Testament which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me The same when he gives the Sacrament to the people kneeling giving the bread saith The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life Likewise when he gives the Cup he saith The bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee preserve thy body and soul to everlasting life Afterwards when the Communion is done follows a thanksgiving Almighty and ever living God we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us who have duly received these holy Mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and bloud of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ With the Hymn Glory be to God on high c. Also in the publick Authorized Catechism of our Church appointed to be learned of all it is answered to the question concerning the inward part of the Sacrament that it is the body and bloud of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithful in the Lords Supper And in the Apology for this Church writ by that worthy and Reverend Prelate Jewel Bishop of Salisbury it is expresly affirmed That to the faithful is truly given in the Sacrament the body and bloud of our Lord the life-giving flesh of the Son of God which quickens our souls the bread that came from heaven the food of immortality grace and truth and life And that it is the Communion of the body and bloud of Christ that we may abide in him and he in us and that we may be ascertained that the flesh and bloud of Christ is the food of our souls as bread and wine is of our bodies 4. A while before the writing of this Apology came forth the Dialectick of the famous Dr. Poinet Bishop of Winchester concerning the truth nature and substance of the body and bloud of Christ in the blessed Sacrament writ on purpose to explain and manifest the Faith and Doctrine of the Church of England in that point In the first place it shews that the holy Eucharist is not only the figure but also contains in it self the truth nature and substance of the body of our blessed Saviour and that those words nature and substance ought not to be rejected because the Fathers used them in speaking of that Mystery Secondly He inquires whether those expressions truth nature and substance were used in this Mystery by the Ancients in their common acceptation or in a sense more particular
and proper to the Sacraments Because we must not only observe what words they used but also what they meant to signifie and to teach by them And though with the Fathers he acknowledged a difference betwixt the body of Christ in its natural form of a humane body and that Mystick body present in the Sacrament yet he chose rather to put that difference in the manner of presence and exhibition than in the subject it self that is the real body and bloud of our Saviour being it is most certain that no other body is given to the faithful in the Sacrament than that which was by Christ given to death for their Redemption Lastly he affirms according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers that this matter must be understood in a spiritual sense banishing all grosser and more carnal thoughts 5. To Bishop Poinet succeeded in the same See the right Reverend Doctors T. Bilson and L. Andrews Prelates both of them throughly learned and great defenders of the Primitive Faith who made it most evident by their Printed Writings that the Faith and Doctrine of the Church of England is in all things agreeable to the holy Scriptures and the Divinity of the Ancient Fathers And as to what regards this Mystery the first treats of it in his Answer to the Apology of Cardinal Alan and the last in his Answer to the Apology of Cardinal Bellarmine where you may find things worthy to be read and noted as follows Christ said this is my body in this the object we are agreed with you the manner only is controverted We hold by a firm belief that it is the body of Christ of the manner how it comes to be so there is not a word in the Gospel and because the Scripture is silent in this we justly disown it to be a matter of Faith We may indeed rank it among Tenets of the School but by no means among the Articles of our Christian Belief We like well of what Durandus is reported to have said We hear the Word and feel the motion we know not the manner and yet believe the Presence For we believe a Real Presence no less than you do We dare not be so bold as presumptuously to define any thing concerning the manner of a true Presence or rather we do not so much as trouble our selves with being inquisitive about it no more than in Baptism how the bloud of Christ washeth us or in the Incarnation of our Redeemer how the Divine and Humane Nature were united together We put it in the number of sacred things or Sacrifices the Eucharist it self being a Sacred Mystery whereof the remnants ought to be consumed with fire that is as the Fathers elegantly have it ador'd by faith but not searcht by reason 6. To the same sense speaks Is Causabon in the Epistle he wrote by order from King James to Cardinal Perron so doth also Hooker in his Ecclesiastical Polity Book 5. § 67. John Bishop of Rochester in his Book of the Power of the Pope R. Mountague Bishop of Norwich against Bullinger James Primate of Armach in his Answer to the Irish Jesuit Francis Bishop of Eli and William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury in their Answer to Fisher John Overall Bishop of Norwich and many others in the Church of England who never departed from the Faith and Doctrine of the ancient Catholick Fathers which is by Law established and with great care and veneration received and preserved in our Church 7. To these also we may justly add that famous Prelate Antonius de Domino Archbishop of Spalato a man well versed in the Sacred Writings and the Records of Antiquity who having left Italy when he could no longer remain in it either with quiet or safety by the advice of his intimate Friend Paulus Venetus took Sanctuary under the protection of King James of blessed memory in the bosome of the Church of England which he did faithfully follow in all Points and Articles of Religion But being daily vex'd with many affronts and injuries and wearied by the unjust persecutions of some sour and over-rigid men who bitterly declaimed every where against his life and actions he at last resolved to return into Italy with a safe conduct Before he departed he was by order from the King questioned by some Commissionated Bishops what he thought of the Religion and Church of England which for so many years he had owned and obeyed and what he would say of it in the Roman Court to this Query he gave in writing this memorable answer I am resolved even with the danger of my life to profess before the Pope himself that the Church of England is a true and Orthodox Church of Christ This he not only promised but faithfully performed for though soon after his departure there came a Book out of the Low Countries falsly bearing his name by whose title many were deceived even among the English and thereby moved to tax him with Apostacy and of being another Eubolius yet when he came to Rome where he was most kindly entertained in the Palace of Pope Gregory the Fifteenth who formerly had been his Fellow-student he could never be perswaded by the Jesuits and others who daily thronged upon him neither to subscribe the new-devised-Tenets of the Council of Trent or to retract those Orthodox Books which he had Printed in England and Germany or to renounce the Communion of the Church of England in whose defence he constantly persisted to the very last But presently after the decease of Pope Gregory he was imprisoned by the Jesuits and Inquisitors in Castle St. Angelo where by being barbarously used and almost starved he soon got a mortal sickness and died in a few days though not without suspicion of being poysoned The day following his Corps was by the sentence of the Inquisition tyed to an infamous stake and there burnt to ashes for no other reason but that he refused to make abjuration of the Religion of the Church of England and subscribe some of the lately-made-Decrees of Trent which were prest upon him as Canons of the Catholick Faith I have taken occasion to insert this narration perhaps not known to many to make it appear that this Reverend Prelate who did great service to the Church of God may justly as I said before be reckoned amongst the Writers of the Church of England Let us hear therefore what he taught and writ when he was in England in his Books de Repâ—b Eccl. Lib. 5. Cap. 6. Num. 20. For a thousand years together saith he the holy Catholick Church content with a sober knowledge of Divine Mysteries believed soberly and safely did teach that in the Sacrament duly Consecrated the Faithful did own receive and eat the Body and Bloud of Christ which by the Sacred Bread and Wine are given to them but as to the particular manner how that precious Body and Bloud is offered and given by that Mysterious Sacrament the Church
Bloud of Christ was truly presented given and received together with the visible signs of Bread and Wine by the operation of our Lord and by vertue of his institution according to the plain sound and sense of his words and that not only Zuinglius and Oecolampadius had so taught but they also in the publick Confessions of the Churches of the Vpper Germany and other Writings confest it so that the Controversie was rather about the manner of the presence or absence than about the presence or absence it self All which Bucer's Associates confirm after him He also adds That the Magistrates in their Churches had denounced very severe punishments to any that should deny the presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Lords Supper Bucerus did also maintain this Doctrine of the blessed Sacrament in presence of the Landgrave of Hesse and Melancthon confessing That together with the Sacrament we truly and substantially receive the body of Christ Also That the Bread and Wine are conferring signs giving what they represent so that together with them the Body of Christ is given and received And to these he adds That the Body and Bread are not united in the mixture of their substance but in that the Sacrament gives what it promiseth that is the one is never without the other and so they agreeing on both parts that the Bread and Wine are not changed he holds such a Sacramental Union Luther having heard this declared also his opinion thus That he did not locally include the Body and Bloud of Christ with the Bread and Wine and unite them together by any natural connexion and that he did not make proper to the Sacraments that vertue whereby they brought Salvation to the Receivers but that he maintained only a Sacramental Vnion betwixt the Body of Christ and the Bread and betwixt his Bloud and the Wine and did teach that the power of confirming our Faith which he attributed to the Sacraments was not naturally inherent in the outward signs but proceeded from the operation of Christ and was given by his Spirit by his Words and by the Elements And finally in this manner he spake to all that were present If you believe and teach that in the Lords Supper the true Body and Bloud of Christ is given and received and not the Bread and Wine only and that this giving and receiving is real and not imaginary we are agreed and we own you for dear Brethren in the Lord. All this is set down at large in the twentieth Tome of Luthers Works and in the English Works of Bucer 14. The next will be the Gallican Confession made at Paris in a National Synod and presented to King Charles IX at the Conference of Poissy Which speaks of the Sacrament on this wise Although Christ be in heaven where he is to remain until he come to judge the World yet we believe that by the secret and incomprehensible virtue of his Spirit he feeds and vivifies us by the substance of his Body and Bloud received by Faith now we say that this is done in a spiritual manner not that we believe it to be a fancy and imagination instead of a truth and real effect but rather because that Mystery of our Vnion with Christ is of so sublime a nature that it is as much above the capacity of our senses as it is above the order of nature Item We believe that in the Lords Supper God gives us really that is truly and efficaciously whatever is represented by the Sacrament with the signs we joyn the true Possession and fruition of the thing by them offered to us And so that Bread and Wine which are given to us become our spiritual nourishment in that they make it in some manner visible to us that the Flesh of Christ is our food and his Bloud our drink Therefore those Fanaticks that reject these Signs and Symbols are by us rejected our blessed Saviour having said This is my body and this Cup is my bloud This Confession hath been subscribed by the Church of Geneva 15. The Envoyes from the French Churches to Worms made a declaration concerning that Mystery much after the same manner We confess say they that in the Lords Supper besides the benefits of Christ the substance also of the Son of man his true body with his bloud shed for us are not only figuratively signified by Types and Symbols as memorials of things absent but also truly and certainly presented given and offered to be applied by signs that are not bare and destitute but on Gods part in regard of his offer and promise always undoubtedly accompanied with what they signifie whether they be offered to good or bad Christians 16. Now follows the Belgick Confession which professeth it to be most certain that Christ doth really effect in us what is figured by the signs although it be above the capacity of our reason to understand which way the operations of the Holy Ghost being always occult and incomprehensible 17. The more ancient Confession of the Switzers made by common consent at Basil and approved by all the Helvetick-Protestant Churches hath it That while the Faithful eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord they by the operation of Christ working by the Holy Spirit receive the Body and Bloud of our Lord and thereby are fed unto Eternal life But notwithstanding that they affirm that this food is spiritual yet they afterwards conclude That by spiritual food they understand not imaginary but the very body of Christ which was given for us 18. And the latter Confession of the Switzers writ and Printed in 1566. affirms as expresly the true presence of Christs body in the Eucharist thus Outwardly the bread is offered by the Minister and the words of Christ heard Take eat this is my Body drink ye all of this this is my Bloud Therefore the Faithful receive what Christs Minister gives and drink of the Lords Cup And at the same time by the power of Christ working by the Holy Ghost are fed by the flesh and bloud of our Lord unto eternal life c. Again Christ is not absent from his Church celebrating his holy Supper The Sun in heaven being distant from us is nevertheless present by his efficacy how much more shall Christ the Sun of righteousness who is bodily in heaven absent from us be spiritually present to us by his life-giving virtue and as he declared in his last Supper he would be present Joh. 14. 15 16. Whence it follows that we have no Communion without Christ Now to this Confession not only the Reformed Switzers did subscribe but also the Churches of Hungary Pannonia or Transilvania Poland and Lithuania which follow neither the Augustan nor Bohemian Confessions It was subscribed also by the Churches of Scotland and Geneva 19. Lastly Let us hear the renowned Declaration of the Reformed Churches of Poland made in the Assembly of Thoran
famous and so worthy a Father as Theodoret alledge that he was accused of some errours in the Council of Ephesus though he repented afterwards as they themselves are forced to confess Fain would they if they could get out at this door when they cannot deny that he affirmed that the Elements remain in their natural substance as he wrote in the Dialogues which he composed against the Eutychian Hereticks with the applause and approbation of the Catholick Church And indeed the evidence of this truth hath compelled some of our Adversaries to yield that Theodoret is of our side For in the Epistle before the Dialogues of Theodoret in the Roman Edition set forth by Stephan Nicolinus the Popes Printer in the year 1547 it is plainly set down That in what concern'd Transubstantiation his opinion was not very sound but that he was to be excused because the Church of Rome had made no decree about it 22. With Theodoret we may joyn Gelasius who whether he were Bishop of Rome or no as Bellarmine confesseth was of the same age and opinion as he and therefore a witness ancient and credible enough He wrote against Eutyches and Nestorius concerning the two natures in Christ in this manner Doubtless the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ which we receive is a very divine thing whereby we are made partakers of the divine nature and yet it doth not cease to be Bread and Wine by substance and nature And indeed the image and resemblance of the Body and Bloud of Christ is celebrated in this mysterious action By this therefore we see manifestly enough that we must believe that to be in Christ which we believe to be in his Sacrament that as by the perfecting vertue of the Holy Ghost it becomes a divine substance and yet remains in the propriety of its nature so this great Mystery the Incarnation of whose power and efficacy this is a lively image doth demonstrate that there is one intire and true Christ consisting of two natures which yet properly remain unchanged It doth plainly appear out of these words that the change wrought in the Sacrament is not substantial for first the sanctified Elements are so made the Body and Bloud of Christ that still they continue to be by nature Bread and Wine Secondly The Bread and Wine retain their natural properties as also the two natures in Christ Lastly The Elements are said to become a divine substance because while we receive them we are made partakers of the Divine Nature by the Body and Bloud of Christ which are given to us These things being so their blindness is to be deplored who see not that they bring again into the Church of Rome the same Error which Antiquity piously and learnedly condemned in the Eutychians And as for their thread-bare objection to this That by the substance of Bread and wine the true substance it self is not to be understood but only the nature and essence of the accidents it is a very strange and very poor shift There is a great deal more of commendation due to the ingenuity of Cardinal Contarenus who yielding to the evidence of truth answered nothing to this plain Testimony of Gelasius 23. Now I add Cyril of Alexandria who said That the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Sacrament are received only by a pure faith as we read in that Epistle against Nestorius which six hundred Fathers approved and confirmed in the Council of Chalcedon I omit to mention the other Fathers of this Age though many things in their Writings be as contrary to Transubstantiation and the independency of accidents as any I have hitherto cited 24. I come now to the Sixth Century about the middle whereof Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch wrote a Book which was read and commended by Photius concerning sacred Constitutions and Ceremonies against the Eutychians therein that he might prove the Hypostatical Union that in Christ there is no confusion of natures but that each retains its own substance and properties he brings the comparison of the Sacramental Union and denies that there should be any conversion of one substance into another in the Sacrament No man saith he that hath any reason will say that the nature of the palpable and impalpable and the nature of the visible and invisible is the same For so the Body of Christ which is received by the faithful remains in its own substance and yet withal is united to a spiritual grace and so Baptism though it becomes wholly spiritual yet it loseth not the sensible property of its substance that 's water neither doth it cease to be what it was made by grace 25. It is not very long since the works of Facundus an African Bishop were Printed at Paris but he lived in the same Century Now what his Doctrine was against Transubstantiation as also of the Church in his time is plainly to be seen by those words of his which I here transcribe The Sacrament of Adoption may be called Adoption as the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ consecrated in the Bread and Wine is said to be his Body and Bloud not that his Body be Bread or his Bloud Wine but because the Bread and Wine are the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud and therefore so called by Christ when he gave them to his Disciples Sirmondus the Jesuit hath writ Annotations on Facundus but when he came to this place he had nothing to say but that the Bread is no Bread but only the likeness and appearance of Bread An opinion so unlike that of Facundus that it should not have been Fathered upon him by a learned and ingenuous man as Sirmondus would be thought to be For he cannot so much as produce any one of the ancient Fathers that ever made mention of accidents subsisting without a subject called by him the appearances of Bread And as for his thinking That some would take the expressions of Facundus to be somewhat uncouth and obscure how unjust and injurious it is to that learned Father may easily be observed by any 26. Isidore Bishop of Hispal about the begining of the Seventh Century wrote thus concerning the Sacrament Because the bread strengthens our body therefore it is called the Body of Christ and because the Wine is made bloud therefore the Bloud of Christ is expressed by it Now these two are visible but yet being sanctified by the Holy Spirit they become the Sacraments of the Lords Body For the Bread which we break is the Body of Christ who said I am the Bread of life and the Wine is his Bloud as it is written I am the true Vine Behold saith he they become a Sacrament not the substance of the Lords Body for the Bread and Wine which feed our Flesh cannot be substantially nor be said to be the Body and Bloud of Christ but Sacramentally they are so as certainly as that they are
of speaking that is that the Bread and Wine are the true Body and Bloud of Christ and that their substance still remaining they are Signs Types Resemblances and Pledges of them Images Figures Similitudes Representations and Samplers of them yet there was no cantrariety or diversity in the sense For they were not so Faithless as to believe that these are only naturall Elements or bare Signs and they were not of so gross and so dull an apprehension as not to distinguish betwixt the Sacramental and Mystick and the carnal and natural presence of Christ as it is now maintained by the Patrons of Transubstantiation For in this they understood no other change than that which is common to all Sacraments whereby the outward natural part is said to be changed into the inward and divine only because it represents it truly and efficaciously and makes all worthy Receivers partakers thereof and because by the vertue of the Holy Spirit and of Christ's holy institution the Elements obtain those divine Excellencies and Prerogatives which they cannot have of their own nature And this is it which was taught and believed for above a thousand years together by pious and learned Antiquity concerning this most holy Mystery 2. There are also some other things whereby we may understand that the Ancients did not belief Transubstantiation or that the presence of the Body and Bloud of Christ is so inseparably tyed to the accidents of Bread and Wine that Christ must needs be present as long as those accidents retain any resemblance of Bread and Wine even when they are not put to that use appointed by divine institution For it is certain that it was the custom of many of the Ancients to burn what remained of the Bread and Wine after the Comunion was ended And who can believe that any Christian should dare or be willing to burn his Lord and Saviour in Body and Bloud though it were never so much in his power Doubtless it would have been as horrid and detestable an action as was that of the perfidious Jews for Christians if they believed Transubstantiation to burn that very natural body which the Jews Crucified and which was born of the Virgin Mary Therefore those Christians who used anciently to burn those fragments of the Bread and remains of the Wine which were not spent in the celebration of the Sacrament were far enough from holding the present Faith and Doctrine of Rome The same appears further by the penalty threatned by the Canon to every Clergy-man by whose neglect a Mouse or any other Creature should eat the Sacrifice that is the Consecrated Bread And who but an Idiot a man deprived of his reason could ever believe that the natural Body of Christ can be gnawed and even eaten by Rats or any brute Creatures This sorely perplext the first maintainers of Transubstantiation who would invent any thing rather than own it possible well knowing how abominable it is and how dishonourable to Christian Religion Yet this is not inconsistent with the now Roman Faith nay it necessarily follows from the Tenet of Transubstantiation that the Body of Christ may be in the belly of a Mouse under the accidents of Bread And the contrary opinion is not only disowned now by the Papists but under pain of Excommunication forbidden by the Pope ever to be owned so that they must believe as an Article of Faith what is most abhorrent to Faith 3. But yet at last let us see what props these new builders pretend to borrow from Antiquity to uphold their Castle in the air Transubstantiation They use indeed to scrape together many Testimonies of the Fathers of the first and middle age whereby they would fain prove that those Fathers believed and taught the Transubstantiation of the Bread and Wine into the natural Body and Bloud of Christ just as the Roman Church at this day doth teach and believe We will therefore briefly examine them that it may yet more fully appear that Antiquity and all Fathers did not in the least favour the new Tenet of Transubstantiation but that that true Doctrin which I have set down in the begining of this book was constantly owned and preserved in the Church of Christ 4. Now almost all that they produce out of the Fathers will be conveniently reduced to certain heads that we may not be too tedious in answering each testimony by it self 5. To the first head belong those that call the Eucharist the Body and Bloud of Christ But I answer those Fathers explain themselves in many places and interpret those their expressions in such a manner that they must be understood in a Mystick and spiritual sense in that Sacraments usually take the names of those things they represent because of that resemblance which they have with them not by the reality of the thing but by the signification of the Mystery as we have shewn before out of St. Austin and others For no body can deny but that the things that are seen are signs and figures and those that are not seen the Body and Bloud of Christ And that therefore the nature of this mystery is such that when we receive the Bread and Wine we also together with them receive at the same time the body and Bloud of Christ which in the celebration of the holy Eucharist are as truly given as they are represented Hence came into the Church this manner of speaking the Consecrated Bread is Christs Body 6. We put in the second rank those places that say that the Bishops and Priests make the body of Christ with the sacred words of their mouth as St. Hierom speaks in his Epistle to Heliodorus and St. Ambrose and others To this I say that at the prayer and blessing of the Priest the common Bread is made Sacramental bread which when broken and eaten is the Communion of the body of Christ and therefore may well be called so Sacramentally For the bread as I have often said before doth not only represent the body of our Lord but also being received we are truly made partakers of that precious body For so saith S. Hier. The body and bloud of Christ is made at the Prayer of the Priest that is the Element is so qualified that being received it becomes the Communion of the Body and Bloud of Christ which it could not without the preceding Prayers The Greeks call this To prepare and to consecrate the Body of the Lord. As S. Chrysostam saith well These are not the works of mans power but still the operation of him who made them in the last Supper as for us we are only Ministers but be it is that sanctifies and changeth them 7. In the third place to what is brought out of the Fathers concerning the conversion change transmutation transfiguration and transelementation of the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist wherein the Papists do greatly glory boasting of the consent of
that by that food which he gives us we become his flesh Such is that of St. Austin Let us give thanks not only that we are made Christians but also made Christ Lastly such is that of B. Leo In that mystical distribution it is given us to be made his flesh Certainly if any man would wrangle and take advantage of these he might thereby maintain as well that we are Transubstantiated into Christ and Christs flesh into the Bread as that the Bread and Wine are Transubstantiated into his Body and Bloud But Protestants who scorn to play the Sophisters interpret these and the like passages of the Fathers with candour and ingenuity as it is most fitting they should For the expressions of Preachers which often have something of a Paradox must not be taken according to that harsher sound wherewith they at first strike the Auditors ears the Fathers spake not of any Transubstantiated bread but of the mystical and consecrated when they used those sorts of expressions and that for these Reasons 1. That they might extoll and amplifie the dignity of this Mystery which all true Christians acknowledge to be very great and peerless 2. That Communicants might not rest in the outward Elements but seriously consider the thing represented whereof they are most certainly made partakers if they be worthy Receivers 3. And lastly That they might approach so great a Mystery with the more zeal reverence and devotion And that those Hyperbolick expressions are thus to be understood the Fathers themselves teach clearly enough when they come to interpret them 9. Lastly Being the same holy Fathers who as the manner is to discourse of Sacraments speak sometimes of the Bread and Wine in the Lords Supper as if they were the very Body and Bloud of Christ do also very often call them Types Elements Signs the Figure of the Body and Bloud of Christ from hence it appears most manifestly that they were of the Protestants and not of the Papists opinion For we can without prejudice to what we believe of the Sacraments use those former expressions which the Papists believe do most favour them if they be understood as they ought to be Sacramentally But the latter none can use but he must thereby overthrow the groundless Doctrine of Transubstantiation these two the Bread is Transubstantiated into the Body and the Bread also is the Type the Sign the Figure of the body of Christ being wholly inconsistent For it is impossible that a thing that loseth its being should yet be the sign and representation of another neither can any thing be the Type and the Sign of it self 10. But if without admitting of a Sacramental sense the words be used too rigorously nothing but this will follow that the Bread and Wine are really and properly the very Body and Bloud of Christ which they themselves disown that hold Transubstantiation Therefore in this change it is not a newness of substance but of use and vertue that is produced which yet the Fathers acknowledged with us to be wonderful supernatural and proper only to Gods Omnipotency For that earthly and corruptible meat cannot become to us a spiritual and heavenly the Communion of the Body and Bloud of Christ without Gods especial power and operation And whereas it is far above Philosophy and Humane Reason that Christ from Heaven where alone he is locally should reach down to us the divine vertue of his Flesh so that we are made one body with him therefore it is as necessary as it is reasonable that the Fathers should tell us that we ought with singleness of heart to believe the Son of God when he saith This is my body and that we ought not to measure this high and holy Mystery by our narrow conceptions or by the course of nature For it is more acceptable to God with an humble simplicity of faith to reverence and embrace the words of Christ than to wrest them violently to a strange and improper sense and with curiosity and presumption to determine what exceeds the capacity of Men and Angels Thus much in general may suffice to answer those places of the Fathers which are usually brought in the behalf of Transubstantiation He that would have a larger refutation of those objections fetcht from Antiquity may read Hospinianus his History of the Sacrament and Antonius de Dominis in his Fifth Book of the Christian Commonwealth Chap. 6. and in his detection of the errors of Suarez Chap. 2. 11. That place of Ignatius cited by Theodoret out of the Epistle to the Smyrnenses where now it is not to be found and objected by some of the Romish Faith That the Hereticks Simoniani and Menandriani would have no Eucharistical Oblations because they denied the Sacrament to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ makes nothing for Transubstantiation as Bellarmine himself confesseth For saith he those Hereticks did not oppose the Sacrament of the Eucharist so much as the mystery of the Incarnation and therefore as Ignatius shews in that place they would deny that the Eucharist is the flesh of Christ that is as Theodoret interprets it that the divine Mysteries of Bread and Wine should be the signs of a real Body of Christ truly existing because they would not own that Christ had taken flesh And so lest they should be forced to acknowledge the reality of the flesh of Christ they would wholly reject the Signs and Sacraments of it for the signs of the body being given the true body is given also because the substance and the type infer one another and a Phantasm or Illusion is not capable of a sign or representation 12. The words out of Justin Martyr whereby they would prove Transubstantiation do strongly disprove it For saith he as by the word of God our Saviour was incarnate so by the Prayers of Gods word the Eucharist is made whereby our bodies are nourished the Body and Bloud of Christ Now when Christ took humane flesh none could say without Heresie that he was Transubstantiated 13. Neither is that against the Protestants which is brought out of St. Cyprian though it be none of his of the bread changed not in appearance but in nature For he whoever it was took not the word nature in a strict sense or else he was contrary to Theodoret Gelasius and others above-mentioned who expresly deny that the bread should be thus changed But at large as nature is taken for use qualities and condition For by the infinite power of the Word the nature of the bread is so changed that what was before a bare Element becomes now a divine Sacrament but without any Transubstantiation as appears by what follows in the same period of the Humane and Divine Natures of Christ where the Manhood is not substantially changed into the Godhead except we will follow Eutyches the Heretick 14. The words of Cyril as the Roman Doctors fay are so clear for them that they admit
proper Zenith none can raise His merits do so far exceed all praise Then surely thou art blest nor dost thou less Heaven with thy Soul Earth with thy Body bless When I go hence O may I dwell with thee In thine appointed place where e're it be Now this Berengarius was not only Archdeacon of Anger 's but also the Scholasticus or Master of the Chair of the same Church which dignity is ever enyoyed by the Chancellor of the Vniversity for his Office is in great Churches to teach the Clergy and instruct them in sound doctrine All this I have produced more at large to manifest the base and injurious Calumnies cast upon this worthy and famous man by latter Writers as John Garetius of Lovain William Alan our Country-man and others who not only accuse him of being an Heretick but also a worthless and an unlearned man 5. Berengarius stood up valiantly in defence of that Doctrine which 170 years before was delivered out of Gods Word and the holy Fathers in France by Bertram and John Erigena and by others elsewhere against those who taught that in the Eucharist neither Bread nor Wine remained after the Consecration Yet he did not either believe or teach as many falsly and shamelesly have imputed to him that nothing more is received in the Lords Supper but bare Signs only or meer Bread and Wine but he believed and openly profest as St. Austin and other faithful Doctors of the Church had taught out of Gods Word that in this Mystery the souls of the Faithful are truly fed by the true Body and Bloud of Christ to life eternal Nevertheless it was neither his mind nor his doctrine that the substance of the Bread and Wine is reduced to nothing or changed into the substance of the natural Body of Christ or as some then would have had the Church believe that Christ himself comes down carnally from heaven Intire books he wrote upon this subject but they have been wholly supprest by his Enemies and now are not to be found Yet what we have of him in his greatest Enemy Lanfrank I here set down By the Consecration at the Altar the Bread and Wine are made a Sacrament of Religion not to cease to be what they were but to be changed into something else and to become what they were not agreeable to what St. Ambrose had taught Again There are two parts in the Sacrifice of the Church this is according to St. Irenaeus the visible Sacrament and the invisible thing of the Sacrament that is the Body of Christ Item The Bread and Wine which are Consecrated remain in their substance having a resemblance with that whereof they are a Sacrament for else they could not be a Sacrament Lastly Sacraments are visible Signs of divine things but in them the invisible things are honoured All this agrees well with St. Austin and other Fathers above cited 6. He did not therefore by this his Doctrine exclude the Body of Christ from the Sacrament but in its right administration he joyned together the thing signified with the sacred Sign and taught that the Body of Christ was not eaten with the mouth in a carnal way but with the Mind and Soul and Spirit Neither did Berengarius alone maintain this Orthodox and ancient Doctrine for Sigibert William of Malmesbury Matthew Paris and Matthew of Westminster make it certain that almost all the French Italians and English of those times were of the same opinion and that many things were said writ and disputed in its defence by many men amongst whom was Bruno then Bishop of the same Church of Anger 's Now this greatly displeaseth the Papal faction who took great care that those mens Writings should not be delivered to Posterity and now do write that the Doctrine of Berengarius owned by the Fathers and maintained by many famous Nations sculkt only in some dark corner or other 7. The first Pope who opposed himself to Berengarius was Leo the Ninth a plain man indeed but too much led by Humbert and Hildebrand For as soon as he was desired he pronounced sentence of Excommunication against Berengarius absent and unheard and not long after he called a Council at Verceil wherein John Erigena and Berengarius were condemned upon this account that they should say that the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist are only bare Signs which was far from their thoughts and farther yet from their belief This roaring therefore of the Lion frighted not Berengarius nay the Gallican Churches did also oppose the Pope and his Synod of Verceil and defend with Berengarius the oppressed truth 8. To Leo succeeded Pope Victor the Second who seeing that Berengarius could not be cast down and crusht by the Fulminations of his Predecessor sent his Legate Hildebrand into France and called another Council at Tours where Berengarius being cited did freely appear and whence he was freely dismist after he had given it under his hand that the Bread and Wine in the Sacrifice of the Church are not shadows and empty figures and that he held none other but the common Doctrine of the Church concerning the Sacrament For he did not alter his judgment as modern Papists give out but he persisted to teach and maintain the same Doctrine as before as Lanfrank complains of him 9. Yet his Enemies would not rest satisfied with this but they urged Pope Nicholas the Second who within a few months that Stephen the Tenth sate succeeded Victor without the Emperours consent to call a new Council at Rome against Berengarius For that sensual manner of presence by them devised to the great dishonour of Christ being rejected by Berengarius and he teaching as he did before That the Body of Christ was not present in such a sort as that it might be at pleasure brought in and out taken into the stomach cast on the ground trod under foot and bit or devoured by any beasts they falsly charged him as if he had denied that it is present at all An hundred and thirteen Bishops came to the Council to obey the Popes Mandate Berengarius came also And as Sigonius and Leo Ostiensis say when none present could withstand him they sent for one Albericus a Monk of Mont Cassin made Cardinal by Pope Stephen who having asked seven days time to answer in writing brought at last his Scroll against Berengarius The Reasons and Arguments used therein to convince his Antagonist are not now extant but whatever they were Berengarius was commanded presently without any delay to recant in that form prescribed and appointed by Cardinal Humbert which was thus I Berengarius c. assent to the holy Roman and Apostolick See and with my heart and mouth do profess that I hold that Faith concerning the Sacrament of the Lords Table which our Lord and Venerable Pope Nicholas and this sacred Council have