is proved And in such manifest wresting of an Authors clear sense it is Conscience only must confute such gain-sayers not an Argument And in such cases it concerns the Reader not easily to resign his Reason to anothers engagements nor suffer his Judgment to be figured with the impressions of every mans fancy especially when opposing Church-Authority nor to apprehend difficulty in every thing so long as he sees it to be contested This of M. Claude's Art in evading of such as seem very evident and indisputable Testimonies § 7 6. But 6ly Suppose such clear and express Testimonies produced as that no such answers can discountenance them nor no exceptions be made against them then especially out of the 1st and 2d Observations precedent he hath some at least against the Person Urge against him the Testimonies of the Modern Greek Writers such as will admit none of his Qualifications He tells us many of them are Greeks Latiniz'd and won over to Rome Or the writing quoted wants another testimony that it is not forged such as lived in the same times having in their writings not mentioned such a Piece thus he throws off Samonas and Agapius †l. 4. c. 3. Proceed in adding to these the testimonies of several Dignified persons of the present Greek Clergy and that in several Countries and Churches of the East distinct and averse from the Roman Communion By a diligent Collection of which his prudent Adversary hath done the Church Catholick great service * in manifesting that the doctrine and practice of the Greeks not only touching Real Presence and Transubstantiation but most of the other Controversies agitated in the West consents and agrees with the Church of Rome and * in representing to the more ingenuous amongst Protestants how singular they stand and divided in their Faith from the whole Christian world he tells us They are the Declarations only of Greeks Latiniz'd and corrupted by the Roman Missions Though the same persons still maintain their dissent from the Latins as to those Points formerly in Controversie between the two Churches and there is much less cause considering the repugnance to natural Reason for their corruption in this point of a Corporal Presence wherein they are made so easily to be won than in any other of those wherein they still stand out against Rome and cannot at all be tainted Lastly tho' the Testimony they give is not so much concerning their own particular perswasion as what is the Common Tenent and Profession of the Greek i. e. those no way reconciled to the Roman Communion or other Oriental Churches A matter wherein a false testimony as it would carry a greater guilt so lies too open to discovery Urge to him the testimony of the Orientals especially persons dignified in the Clergy that have travelled about some negotiations into the West He saith l. 5. c. 5. p. 594. There is little credit to be given to this kind of People who come not usually into the West but for their own Interest and who fail not to speak in such a manner as one would have them Urge to him the testimony of those of the Greek Communion inhabiting in the West and here indulged their own Service and Rites easily enquired into as for example the Greek Church in Venice See Respon 2. part 2. c. 8. his answer to what was urged out of Gabriel Arch-Bishop of Philadelphia the Prelate there That we are not to think it strange if one who had lived some forty years in that place suffered himself and so those under his charge to be wrought upon by the ordinary commerce they had with the Latins Urge the Oriental Liturgies which though not denied to be different in several Regions or perhaps several also used in the same as both S. Basil's and 9. Chrysostom's are by the Greeks yet have a great congruity and harmony both amongst themselves and with the Greek and Roman as to the Service and Ceremonies of the Eucharist His answer is †His last Answer l. 5. c. 5.606 608. That we have not any certainty that these Pieces are sincere or faithfully translated or some of them not corrected by the Missions As for the Liturgies and other witnesses produced for the Faith of the Jacobites of Syria the Armenians Cophtites or Egyptians Ethiopians or Abyssines agreeing in this Point with the Roman he thinks them all sufficiently confuted from Eutychianism being held by these Eastern and Southern Church For saith he †l. 5. c. 6. p. 604. What can one find more directly opposite than to maintain on one side that Jesus Christ hath no true Body that there is nothing in him save only the Divine Nature that all that which hath appeared of his Conversation in the World of his Birth Death Resurrection were nothing but simple appearances without Reality and on the other side to believe that the substance of the Bread is really changed into the proper substance of his Body the same he took of the Virgin Thus he for his advantage applying the extremities of that Heresie to all these Nations contrary to the Evidence of their publick Liturgies But Eutychianism taken in the lower sense as Eutyches upon the mistake of some expressions of former Fathers Athanasius and Cyrill Patriarchs of Alexandria which perhaps also induced the engagement of Dioscorus their Successor on his side maintained and the Ephesin Council i. e. above 90. Bishops under Dioscorus allowed it affirms no more than that the two Natures of our Lord the one Divine the other Humane Consubstantial with us and received of the Blessed Virgin after their conjunction become one yet this without any confusion or mixture or conversion of the two Natures into one another Now that these Nations adhere to Eutychianism only in this latter sense they not well distinguishing between Nature and Personality I refer him that desires further satisfaction to the Relations of Thomas a Jesu l. 7. c. 13 14 17. and Brerewoods Enquiries c. 21 22 23. and Dr. Field on the Church l. 3. c. 1. p. 64 c. and of the several Authors cited by them and to the testimony of Tecla Mariae a Learned Abyssin Priest cited by M. Claude †l. 5. c. 6. who saith They hold after the Union only Vnam Naturam sine tamen mixtione sine confusione i. e. of those two Natures of which the One afterward is compounded Which Testimony may serve either to expound or to confront one or two of the other he brings that seem to say otherwise Urge to him the Confession of Protestants Grotius Bishop Forbes and others though themselves of a contrary perswasion that the Modern Greek Church believes Transubstantiation for which they cite their late Writers the Reading of whom convinced them in this though it cannot Mr. Claude Of these two Grotius and Forbes he replies ‖ l. 4. c. 4. That they are persons who admitted themselves to be pre-possessed with Chimerical fancies and
THE Greeks Opinion TOUCHING THE EUCHARIST MIS-REPRESENTED BY Monsieur CLAVDE IN HIS ANSWER TO Mr. ARNOLD Printed in the Year MDCLXXXVI A DIGRESSION Reflecting on the Opinion of the Greek and other Oriental Churches holding a Real Presence of our Lord's Body and Blood whether by Transubstantiation or not much mis-represented by Mr. Claude a French Minister § 321. Whose various Artifices are detected in * Insinuating the Greek's Ignorance Poverty Imbecillity the Latin's Power Missions Industry to gain them n. 1 2 3 4. * Wresting the Greek's sayings to the Protestant's sense contrary to their plain expressions * Affirming the Greeks to retain their former church-Church-Doctrine as high as Damascen or Gregory Nyssen yet not freely declaring the ancient and modern Greeks to differ from or agree with the Protestant opinion n. 5. * Waving the main point viz. Real Presence which infers a Soveraign Adoration contending about Transubstantiation and that as an Article of Faith n. 6. * Barring all Testimonies save such as press Transubstantiation * Vsing the term Vertue unreasonably as excluding Substance and thereby making the Greek opinion contradictory absurd and indefensible and then leaving them to make it good whereas he ought to have confessed their holding a Presence as well in Substance as in Vertue n. 7 8. * Shifting all Testimonies against him by disingenuously requiring testimony upon testimony or by personal exceptions taken against them n. 9. The Greek Opinion concerning Transubstantiation if made good how prejudicial to the Protestant's Cause n. 10. 1. Concerning Transubstantiation M. Claude in receding from the Latins makes the Greeks fall short of their own Similitude and usual Expressions in three Particulars n. 13 c. That Vertue may be taken as well augmentatively adding to Substance as diminutively excluding it n 14. The Common Doctrine of the Greeks carrying further than their Simile to a total Transubstantiation Proved 1. From their holding the same numerical Body of our Lord born and crucified to be exhibited in the Eucharist present not by descending from Heaven but by a conversion of the Elements and by a multiplication of its local existence in more places than before n. 15 16. 2. From holding the Body thus present by Consecration to be Incorruptible and its Incorruption to depend on its Resurrection and so to relat◠to that numerical Body crucified and raised again Now the Bread remaining intire for its substance or its matter and qualities cannot be such a Body of our Lord as suffers no digestion or corruption Yet something in the Sacrament suffers this For the Greeks then whilst holding the Substance of Bread to remain to lay these changes only on the Accidents not the Substance eating bread fed only by the accidents were without a Transubstantiation to espouse the difficulties of it and therefore their opinion implies an entire change of the Bread as well its matter as form n. 17. 3. From holding this Body in the Eucharist whenever broken whole and entire in each piece to all distributed no way diminished The Lamb broken not impaired ever eaten yet not consumed Which things cannot be said of our Lords Body if the matter of bread still remain n. 18. Whereas Greeks and Latins former and later times may be accorded this Author to maintain the variance seems to fasten on the Greeks an opinion less eligible than Transubstantiation and to offer violence to the natural sense of their words leaving the Greeks to stand apart by themselves from Protestants as well as other Catholicks n. 20. The Greeks confessed by him not to have opposed the Latins for holding Transubstantiation the Latins never to have accused the Greeks as not holding it n. 21. 2. Concerning Adoration of the Eucharist 1. As to their Doctrine Granted 1. That the Greeks allow and pay to the Mysteries in the Eucharist an inferior relative Adoration 2. A Supreme Adoration lawful and due to our Lords Humanity where-ever present and given by Protestants in their Communion 3. No soveraign Adoration pretended by Greeks or Latins to be given to the Symbols venerable only with an inferior cult but to the Body and Blood of our Lord. 4. Real Presence not being contested but only Transubstantiation From such Presence granting its true consequences followes a lawfulness of Adoration n. 22. 2. As to their Practice 5. The Greeks adore after their mode by inclining the head and body Whether this be only relative or soveraign Adoration is understood from their Doctrine and Belief For not to allow the extent of their Adoration as far as their belief of the Presence of the Person adored and their Worship the same latitude with their Faith seems unjust and groundless as also to pretend only an inferior adoration given where the same Communicants hold a supreme due to the Person there present n. 22. More Devotions performed in the Western Churches than in the East from the Berengarian Errors here n. 23. M. Claude 's Concessions and their Consequences sufficient § 1. To diswade from a Communion opposed both by Greeks and Latins concerning the Eucharist 2. To perswade rather to the Roman Communion n. 24. For trying our Obedience God permits Evil with many Allurements Error with many Verisimilities yet hath always left evidence enough to clear all necessary Truth to the humble and obedient not to force the self-confident and interessed n. 25. In a Search by comparing Scriptures and Councils what endless labour and distraction in Obedience to Councils what peace and vacancy for better employments Besides that the rude and illiterate the most of men cannot search Must these believe a former Church now or submit to an inferior Church-Authority against a Superior But this is Schism in them both and he justly ruined by believing an Authority usurped that denies to believe one whereto he is bound n. 25. The Issue of Scripture-Trial long since was a double sense of Scripture that Sense was declared by one nay several Councils The Party condemned appealed to Fathers and Primitive Church whose sense as formerly that of Scripture being double was decided again by Councils but their Authority rejected And now it is desired that the Controversie begin anew and return to the Scriptures or that the Question determine the Controversie and whilst Protestants are the weaker party that all have liberty for when the stronger they too well discern the necessity of Synods for ending differences among themselves which tho not held infallible yet upon the Evangelical Promises of our Lord's assistance require on pain of Suspension subscription to their Decrees and excommunicate persons teaching the contrary Witness the Dort Synod n. 26. M. Claude's strange Method for exempting from Obedience to the Church those that pretend not to a Certainty of their new Opinions considered That if it prove valid it serves as well Catholicks against Protestants upon the same pretensions and affords both sides the same plea one against the other in any controversie arising amongst Protestants Ibid. If searching the
designs upon the matter of the Differences between the two Communions Catholick and Protestant which they pretend to accommodate and reconcile So he Censures Casaubon out of Spondanus †Levitatem animi Vacillantem eum perpetuo tenuisse cum his illis placere cuperet nulli satisfecisset Where indeed whose judgment ought sooner to be credited than theirs who appear more indifferent between the two contending parties So To Archbishop Lanfrank's words to Berengarius Interroga Graecos Armenios seu cujus libet Nationis quoscunque homines uno ore hanc fidem i. e. Transubstantiationis se testabuntur hahere cited by Dr. Arnauld He answers ‖ p. 361. That Pre-occupation renders his Testimony nothing worth Urge the Socinians because the Fathers oppose so manifestly their own opinions therefore more apt to speak the truth of them in their opposing also those of other Protestants and particularly in their differing from them in this point of the Eucharist He tells us they are not creditable in their Testimony because so much interested to decry the Doctrine of the Fathers in their own regard and thus they imagine Protestants will have less countenance to press them with an Authority that themselves cannot stand to Urge the Centurists confessing Transubstantiation found in some of the Fathers and in magnifying their new-begun Reformation more free plainly to acknowledge those they thought errours of former times He ‖ l. 1. c. 5. denies them fit witnesses in this Controversie because themselves holding a Real Presence they had rather admit a Transubstantiation in the Fathers than a Presence only Mystical And suppose such excuses should fail him yet how easie is it to find some other whereby a person may be represented never to stand in an exact indifferency as to whatever Subject of his Discourse With such personal exceptions M. Claude frequently seeks to relieve his Cause where nothing else will do it Whereas indeed such a common Veracity is to be supposed amongst men especially as to these matters of Fact that where a multitude though of a party concern'd concur in their Testimony they cannot reasonably be rejected on such an account either that their being deceiv'd or purpose to deceive and to relate a lie is possible or that what they say can be shewed a thing well-pleasing and agreeable to their own inclinations For as it is true that ones own interest if as to his own particular very considerable renders a Testimony less credible So on the other side almost no Testimony would be valid and current if it is to be decried where can be shewed some favour or engagement of affection to the thing which the person witnesseth and cannot be manifested an equal poise to all parties and so for Example in the Narration of another Country's Religion often made by all Parties none here can be believed save in what he testifies of them against his own Such things therefore are to be decided according to the multitude and paucity and the Reputation of the Witnesses rather than their only some way general interest and the Credibility of such things is to be left to the equal Reader 's Judgment § 8 But 7ly Should all that is said touching the later Greek's from the eleventh or the eighth to the present age their holding Transubstantiation be undeniably made good and all the Testimonies concerning it exactly true Yet he saith ‖ l. 2. c. 1. It will not follow that a change of the Church's former Faith in this Point is impossible or hath not actually happened and consequently that all M. Arnauld 's long dispute about it is vain and unprofitable I add and then so his Replies But here since the true sense and meaning of Antiquity on what side this stands is the thing chiefly questioned and debated between the Roman Church and Protestants unless he will throw off this too and retreat only to sense of Scripture I suppose to wise men it will seem little less than the loss of the Protestant cause and too great a prejudice to it to be so slightly yielded up if that not the Roman only but the whole visible Catholick Church besides themselves from the eleventh to the present age doth defend a Corporal Presence and a literal sense of Hoc est Corpus meum or also Transubstantiation and so consequently doth concur and Vote against them touching the sense of former Antiquity for this each side in their present Doctrine and Practice pretend to follow And I can hardly think M. Claude would seem to spend so great a part of his Book to defend a Post the loss of which he thought no way harm'd him Again thus it is manifest that in an Oecumenical Council if now assembled the Protestants would remain the Party Condemned § 9 8. After all these Defences wherewith he seems sufficiently guarded He proceeds l. 3. c. 13. thus to declare the true opinion of the Modern Greeks on this Subject which I will give you in his own words p. 310. They believe saith he That by the Sanctification or Consecration is made a Composition of the Bread and Wine and of the Holy Ghost That these Symboles keeping their own Nature are joined to the Divinity and That by the impression of the Holy Ghost they are changed for the Faithful alone the Body of our Lord being supposed either to be not present at all or to cease to be so in the particles of the Symbole received by the unworthy into the vertue of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ being by this means made not a Figure but the proper and true Body of Jesus Christ and this by the way of Augmentation of the same natural Body of Jesus Christ To which they apply the comparison of the nourishment which is made our own Body by Assimilation and Augmentation Again p. 237. more briefly The Doctrine of the Greek Church is That the substance of Bread conserving its proper Being is added to the Natural Body of Jesus Christ that it is rendred like unto it That it augments and by this means becomes the same Body with it By this also he saith p. 334. and see the same in his 4th l. c. 7. the Greeks would observe in some sort the literal sense of the words Hoc est Corpus meum which saith He we do not we understand them in this sense This Bread is the sacred sign or Sacrament of my Body Or which comes to the same pass The Bread signifies my Body They on the contrary taking the word is in some sort according to the letter would have that the same subject which is the Bread is also the Body of Christ. From preserving this pretended literal sense it is also That they would have it That the Bread is made one with the Body by its Vnion to the Divinity by the Impression of the Holy Ghost and by a change of vertue Or as he hath it in his 6th l. c. 10. That there is an Vnion of
thing with that of the Latins Substantia Panis mutatur in Carnem licet remaneant adhus accidentia Panis quae sub sensum cadunt And hence when upon an unusual expression happening in the Council at Constantinople under Constantinus Copronymus that the only Image adorable was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Corporis Christi in the Holy Sacrament the Real and corporal presence from a jealousie though causless as this Council explained it self that this expression might vary or derogate something from it began now to be more particularly insisted upon and explicated a curious Question arose among the Greeks as well as Latins Whether upon the Bread being thus changed and becoming our Lord's Body the Body of our Lord were digestible and corruptible which caused to some affirming it the imputation of Stercoranism But such odious name surely these could never have incurred no more than now Protestants do had they held at least as the opposite party understood them only a vivificating vertue of our Lords Body to reside in the Bread and not the very Substance of his Body to be present instead of it according to the then common Opinion This of the 2d thing wherein M. Claude's explication is deficient the change the Greeks held of the Bread into the Substance of our Lord's Body at least so far as our Nourishment is into the Substance of ours the principal reason of their using this similitude Yet wherein M. Claude deserts it though in some other things more advantagious to him as in the matter of the nourishment still remaining and that numerically distinct from the Body nourished he presseth it too far Now this 2d thing the Bread in the Eucharist its receiving such a change as our Nourishment once granted will be at least an half-Transubstantiation of it the Substantial Form of Bread being gone the former Qualities of Bread gone viz. from their any longer inherence in the Bread So that the Substance not of Bread but of Flesh is also under the former Accidents of the Bread The name also gone with the thing it being in truth now no more to be called Bread but the Flesh of our Lord. And so when the Bread is said by S. Damascen to be united to the Divinity it must be understood so as that in the Union it becomes another thing though still it remains a diverse thing from the Divinity Hence also the pretence of the Bread its being made our Lord's Body only in Vertue not in Substance gone and all M. Claude's quest after this word Vertue in the Greek Authors useless and his Descants upon it unsound of which enough hath been said already § 6. § 13 The 3d. If we may prosecute their similitude of nourishment to its utmost extent That there is a local Union of the Bread and Body of our Lord not by way of Accumulation and Addition or of Continuation only as a Leg and an Arm are joined in the same Body but by way of an interior reception one into the other and the most intimate commixtion and confusion of them as to the least natural parts that are divinble and capable of digestion one within the other So as the least part of one cannot be severed from the other or communicated without the other and as to any actual separation of them a thing not fecible they may be said to be numerically the same which comes also the nearest to a total transition even of its matter also into another Substance though as to this total Conversion we must permit the operation of Gods Omnipotency out of his infinite kindness to us in the Holy Eucharist to stand singular and unparallel'd by any work of Nature All these three therefore the Author in dealing ingenuously with the Greeks Comparison and their Expressions as it seems to me ought to have allowed But this probably he much dreaded as seeing he might as well nay in some respects better have admitted a total Transubstantiation of Matter as well as Form which would have avoided those many prejudices and indignities which an Impanation labours under But yet thus the Sentiment of the Greeks supposing no total Conversion is advanced far beyond not only M. Claude's and the Calvinists vertual presence but also the Lutherans Consubstantiation For whereas these hold only Bread and Christs natural Body joined in the Eucharist so that the Body and the Bread are two several things still this Opinion holds the one changed into the other so as that as Jeremy the Patriarch of Constantinople replied upon the Lutherans in his second Answer ‖ c. 4. and as Damascen also said long before ‖ De Fid. Orthod l. 4. c. 14. Non duo jam sunt i. e. as the Lutherans said Panis and Corpus Christi joined sed unum idem i. e. Corpus Christi only The Bread made his natural Flesh animated with his Soul Hypostatically united to his Divinity in fine the same with his Body as much at least as our Nourishment interiorly received and digested is with ours § 14 Thus far the Greeks usual Simile carries us But their Common Doctrine farther even to a total Transubstantiation as I think will appear from what follows 1. For 1st They hold that the same Numerical Body of our Lord 1. that was born of the Virgin and Crucified is exhibited to us in the Eucharist Present not by his descending from Heaven but by the Conversion of the Consecrated Elements into the self-same Body and by the multiplication of its local Existence in more places than before 1. Which appears 1st From this That the Identity of the Body Consecrated and that Crucified quoad suppositum or as both united to and filled with the same Divinity which well consists with a Real Substantial Numerical diversity between themselves is not sufficient that the one of them therefore may be denominated of the other or this said to be that nor yet sufficient that all the same things may be said of them both Some general things indeed may be predicated of them wherein both agree but their Properties individual as local presence Motion any particular Qualities or applications of them cannot Yet which Individual properties are usually applied by the Greeks to the Body Crucified and to that distributed in the Eucharist as one and the same Any Individual Properties of the one or the other I grant may always be truly denominated of our Lord's Body in general as we will But cannot be truly said of both or either of these the Consecrated and the Crucified as we please if these not numerically the same So we cannot say That ones Soul is his Body or a Leg an Arm or the one in the same place or motion or every way affected as the other is because that both are parts of one and the same Person or Body and both animated with one and the same Soul And for a Grecian Priest to tell his Communicants that he delivers them the same Body that was
sub sensum cadentium as Samenas ‖ In Mat. 26. Non Panis sed Corpus Domini sacrificatur and Si Panis manens ‖ Dialog cum Saraceno sacrificatus fuisset Panis esset Sacrificium non Agni Dei as Cabasilas Liturg. expositio c. 32. must all be understood of an entire change of the Bread as well its Matter as Form § 16 3ly They hold this Body that is present and distributed in the Eucharist to remain quoties frangitur totum integrum in unoquoque frusto And Omnibus distributum minime diminutum Frangitur Agnus Dei non comminuitur semper comeditur non consumitur saith their Liturgy ‖ Missa Chrysostom Not a several piece or part of our Lord's Body received in the several Particles but all Nor those receiving more of this Body that receive more of the Symbole In infinite places offered only the same Sacrifice viz. that one which was offered on the Cross to several Communicants distributed the self same Body and It to each entire A Tenent flowing from the former Its incorruptibility and by all the same persons maintained For what is so is no more capable of being parted or divided c. Now these things cannot sute to our Lord's Body if the matter of Bread be said still to remain and to make up an augmentative part of our Lord 's natural Body but this numerically and really distinct from it For so in several places will be offered Sacrifices but these really different from one another as also from that of the Cross Nor will the Communicants receive our Lord's Body entire but each apart and this part numerically differing from that Corpus quod traditum est which Communion of a parcel was a thing objected to the Stercoranists and those who held our Lord's Body corruptible See M. Claude's Concessions concerning this 2d Answer part 3. c. 2. and so his retreat to a Virtual presence to verifie these expressions of the Greeks of this Body every where the same and received by every one entire § 17 As for some speeches used by the Greeks in making application of their Similitudes none of which can exactly fit so high a Mystery that seem not to accord so well with a Total Transubstantiation The Bread said by them to be assumed by or united to the Divinity of our Lord The Bread and his Body by the Divinity to be made One An Augmentation of Christs Body to be made by the Bread consecrated as here on Earth by his Nourishment c. I see no Reason why this Person should not be contented with the former Explications given of them Such as 1. both free these Authors from contradicting themselves and 2. do render the sense of the Fathers unanimous and the Christian Doctrine to run all in one common Stream viz. the Real Presence and Exhibition in the Eucharist of that numerical Body that suffered for us on the Cross 3. and whereby also may be avoided those many gross absurdities concerning new Contracts and Unions and new Bodys of our Lord which being so unworthy these high Mysteries and very injurious to our Lord's Incarnation are all avoided by a total Transubstantiation See if you please these absurdities mentioned by Bellarmine De Euchar. l. 3. c. 13. 15. and by Suarez De Sacrament Disp 49. § 3. The Divinity of our Lord then may be said to assume or unite it self unto the Bread or to make the Bread one with his Body not by a meer joining it to Himself or to his Body whilst it remains still Bread but by this first converting and changing of it by his Divine Omnipotency into his Body and then his uniting Hypostatically his Divinity to it And his Body may be said in some sort to receive daily an Augmentation from these iterated Consecrations of Bread to be made his Body in as much as there is a daily multiplication of his Body as to its local Existence in more places than before according to the frequency of Communions whilst his Body in Heaven doth not descend but keeps its constant former residence there § 18 Thus Greeks and Latins former and latter times will be at some accord Whereas this Author to maintain a variance between the two Churches seems necessitated to fasten on the Greeks an Opinion which being taken in its just extent Transubstantiation seems much the more eligible and which he is forced many times also to pare and qualifie so that it may have some Conformity to the Doctrine of Protestants and keep a greater distance from the Roman as offers extreme violence to the natural sense of their words For Example He allows * an Union of the Divinity to our Lord's Body in the Eucharist as the Greeks say But no such Union Hypostatical * Christ's body in the Eucharist the same with that born of the Blessed Virgin as they say but in such a sense as mean-while to remain really essentially numerically diverse from it * The Bread the same body with that born of the Virgin but It not changed into Christs Flesh but remaining still Bread * Bread still not only for the matter as it was in our Lord's or is in our nourishment but for the same Substantial Form and Qualities still inhering in it as before * The Bread made the very and true body as they say But virtually only in having infused into it and inherent in it the vivificating virtue of Christs natural Body Where the Protestants leave the Greeks to stand by themselves allowing this Vertue communicated to the Believer only not to the Symboles * The Eucharistical body conjoined as our nourishment is to ours to Christs natural body as they say but the one only in Heaven the other on Earth * Our Lord's Body in the Eucharist by the same Divinity inhabiting in both made one and the same with that born of the Virgin as they say but Mystically and Sacramentally only For the same Divinity replenishing both doth not therefore render them really the same one with another * The same body thus with that but no Sovereign Adoration due or by the Greeks given to this as to that * This the same Body with that and this also as indivisible received entire by every Communicant as the Greeks say but this Body entire in vertue only not in Substance * The same Body of our Lord in all places where this Sacrament is celebrated but only in the former sense i. e. the vertue and the efficacy of it the same If such be their sense the Reader cannot but think the Greeks very unfortunate in their Expressions or if not their sense this person presuming he should meet with very credulous Readers This from n. 11. of the 8th Observation M. Claude's explication of the true Opinion of the Modern Greeks and the necessary consequents of it § 19 9ly After this He confesseth That it doth not appear that the Greeks have made any Opposition to the Roman Church about
That the Question should decide the Controversie and till this can do it That so long as the Protestants are the weaker Party all should have their Liberty For when they are the stronger they do well discern the necessity of Synods for ending such Differences and though not professing themselves infallible yet upon the Evangelical promises of our Lord's assistance to such Councils think fit to require all the Clergy under their jurisdiction upon pain of Suspension from their Function to receive and subscribe their Decrees for God's Truth and to teach them to the People as such and think fit to Excommunicate those teaching the contrary till they shall recant their Error Of which see before § 200. Witness such carriage of the Synod of Dort towards the Remonstrants who challenged the same exemption from their Tribunal as they had done from that of Trent but could not be heard As for that which follows in Answer to D. Arnauld's most rational challenging a submission and Conformity of so many Protestants as have no certainty of their new Opinions rather to the Church than to Innovators to me it sounds thus That every plain and simple Protestant 1st Thinks his Exposition or sense of Scripture in this Point of the Eucharist and so in others any way necessary to be clear and without dispute and the more simple he is the sooner he may think so because he is not able to compare all other Texts nor to examine the contrary senses given by others or the reasonable grounds thereof 2ly Next that every one who thinks his Exposition or Sense of Scripture clear in such Point is by this sufficiently assured that he hath a right Faith or from this sense of his knows what he ought to believe and forms a Judgment herein as certain as if one had discussed all the Controversies one after another a strange proposition but I see nothing else from which such person collects his faith to be right if any doth produce it 3ly That every such simple person now easily knows whether the Society wherein he lives be a true Church or otherwise viz. as they agree with or dissent from that right Faith of his already supposed or as he finds them to teach the things clearly contained in God's word i. e. in his clear Sense thereof 4ly Knowing thus from this his clear exposition or sense of Scripture what he ought to believe he needs not trouble himself what the Ancient Church hath believed which is very true nay he knows without reading them or M. Arnauld's and M. Claude's discourses upon them that the Fathers if of the number of the Faithful were of his Opinion by M. Claude's arguing fore-mentioned I desire the Reader to review his words or the 5th and 6th Chapters of his 1st Book and see if he can make any better construction of them Now if there be any Sense in this he saith How can he hinder but that a simple Catholick may use the self-same Plea Church-Authority being laid aside for a certainty of his Faith upon the same pretentions viz. his clear sense of Scripture quite contrary to the Protestants clear sense And in any Controversie amongst Protestants Suppose that of the Remonstrants and Anti-Remonstrants here both sides have the same Plea one against another namely the certainty of their Faith from their own Sense of the Scripture controverted between them And why doth not this certainty void their Synods For M. Claude saith The word of God contains nettement and clairement all that which is necessary to form our Faith and that the most simple are capable to judge of it c. Unless the Protestant Controversies be never about any thing necessary This is the way M. Claude thought on to leave no Doubters though never so unlearned among Protestants as to the Eucharist or other Points of their Faith But mean-while if after such Speculations of his any such Doubters there be I do not find but that he leaves so many wholly to D. Arnauld's disposal viz. that they return to and remain in the bosome of the former Church so long till they become certain of its errors and not follow strangers that have not entred by the door into Christ's Fold and I hope they will consider it As for the settling of our Conscience this person speaks of by resting our Faith immediately on God's Word I see not where the sense of the Scriptures is supposed the thing controverted how any one rests his Faith more immediately on God's Word by following his own Exposition or Sense thereof or the Exposition of a Minister c. for some persons exposition he must follow than he that follows that of the Church If we are then for a total application to the Scriptures and for searching things to the bottom Let us search there first this main Point that decides all other concerning our Lord's establishing a just Church-Authority for ending contentions Where we shall find also that he is not a God of dissension or Confusion in his House 1 Cor. 14.33 Eph. 4.11.14 1 Cor. 12.28 the Church but of Peace And That he hath given his Clergy in a certain Subordination that We should not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine as we must be when ever these disagree in expounding Scripture to us if we have no Rule which of them to follow The truth of this once found out by our search will save many other searches of which without it I see no end In vain do we endeavour with what-ever pains to discern God's Truth without the illumination of his Holy Spirit and Grace and since revelat parvulis in vain expect this without great Humility and self-dis-esteem and a reverent preference of and pious Credulity toward our just and lawful Spiritual Superiors Credendo first i. e. Ecclesiae saith S. Austin in his Tract De utilitate Credendi †c. 1. praemunimur illuminaturo praparamur Deo FINIS
Transubstantiation l. 4. c. 5. p. 390. In a word saith he the Greeks neither believe nor impugne Transubstantiation They believe it not for it hath no place in the Doctrine of their Church It is neither in the Confessions of their Faith nor Decisions of Councils nor Liturgies i. e. in such Language as he exacts Surely this main Point the Manner of our Lords Presence is not omitted in all these the Constantinopolitan the second Nicene Council the Liturgies speak of it Nor is Transubstantiation impugned in them according to him is clearly maintained by them according to Catholicks They do not impugne it For as far as appears they have not argued with the Latins nor formally debated it with them in their former Disputes Thus He. And as he grants the Greeks not to have quarrelled with the Latins because they held Transubstantiation So †the Latins never to have accused the Greeks ‖ p. 375. as if they held it not There seems therefore no great need of Missions distributing charities teaching Schools there c. to induce these Orientals to approve a Tenent which they never formerly contested and of an error in which though the main Point these two Churches never accused one another Nay the Greeks in some of their Confessions as in that of the Venetian Greeks to the Cardinal of Guise seem to have out-done the Latins and to go beyond Transubstantiation Mean-while the great quarrels the same Greeks make with the Latins about smaller matters in this principal part of the Christian Service and the chief Substance of its Liturgies the Eucharist as about the manner of the Consecration and about Azymes and on the other side the great Storms that have been raised between Catholicks and Protestants from the very beginning of the Reformation about this very Point of Transubstantiation do shew that if the difference between the Greeks and Latins were considerable and real herein there could not have been on both sides such a constant silence Though in some other matters of little consequence or at least of little evidence such as M. Claude instanceth in there can be shewed a silent toleration of the different Judgments as well of Churches as of private Persons § 20 10ly Hitherto from § 9. I have reflected on M. Claude's Explication of the Greeks Opinion concerning Transubstantiation Now to view the other Point Adoration Here 1st He denies not an inferior and Relative Adoration to be allowed to be due and paid by the Greeks to the Holy Mysteries in the Eucharist such as is given to the Holy Gospel and to other Sacred things Of which we find in S. Chrysostom's Mass that before his reading the Gospel Diaconus respondet Amen reverentiam Sancto Evangelio exhibet See M. Claude's last Answer l. 3. c. 7. p. 219. where he grants That the Greeks have much Devotion for Pictures for the Evangile and for the pain benit and for the Bread of the Eucharist before the Consecration 2ly A Supreme Adoration he grants lawful and due to our Lord's Humanity where-ever present and allows such an Adoration actually given even by Protestants at the time of their receiving the Eucharist to our Lord Christ and to his Sacred Humanity as in Heaven And to his Adversary urging some places of the Fathers for the practice of Adoration in the Communion he replies ‖ 2 Resp part 2. c. 8. p. 416. The Author deceives us in proving what is not controverted For the Question is not whether in the Communion we ought to adore Jesus Christ our Redeemer and his Flesh personally united to the Word represented by the Sacrament We practice it with an ardent and humble Devotion when we approach to the Holy Table And afterward Who doubts but that the Body of Jesus Christ is Soveraignly Adorable 3ly He cannot but know or else hath been very careless to inform himself that no Soveraign Adoration is pretended either by the Roman or Greek Church to be given to the external Species or Symbols of the Eucharist which they hold Venerable only with an inferior cult such as is due to all other Holy things but only to the Body and Blood of Christ contained under them as the Council of Trent allowing the Expression of adoring the Sacrament cultu Latriae yet explains it in their Canon thus †Sess 13. c. 6 Si quis dixerit in Sancto Eucharistiae Sacramento Christum unigenitum Dei Filium non esse cultu Latriae etiam externo adorandum Anathema sit And as Bellarmin †De Eucha l. 4. c. 29. also resolves the state of the Controversie Quicquid sit de modo loquendi status quaestionis non est nisi An Christus in Eucharistia sit adorandus cultu Latriae 4ly In the Fourth Observation precedent M. Claude saith he will not contest the Greek's holding a Real Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist Though he contends it is not by the Roman way of Transubstantiation Now from this Real Presence held by the Greeks even after that way he allows at least if he will but grant the true consequences thereof mentioned before § 11. viz. An Hypostatical or other Union to this Body offered and distributed in the Eucharist such as converts it into the Flesh of our Lord and renders it the Body of the same Person with that born of the Blessed Virgin non aliud ab eo quod sumpsit in utero Virginis by which the People seem sufficiently instructed not to distinguish in their Mode of Adoration between these two that they are taught to be personally the same I say from such a Real Presence held by the Greeks a lawfulness of adoring Christ's Body as there present must be held by them And then if it can be shewed by M. Claude they do not actually adore it must be reckoned a matter of neglect not of Conscience or denying such thing due 5ly But now to consider their Practice He denies not the Greeks to adore in their Mode of Adoration which is by inclining the Head and Body seldom kneeling when they receive the Communion their Liturgies have it often repeated and surely he will allow them herein as much Devotion as he doth to the Protestants and also them to give at least an external Relative Devotion to the Mysteries for such they give to the Evangiles and methinks the witnesses he produceth p. 216. should not in general deny simply any Adoration of the Greeks at all The Question then only is granting already an external Adoration given by the Greeks when they approach to the Communion whether this in their intention be a soveraign Adoration exhibited to Christ's Sacred Divinity and Humanity as there present Now the Greeks holding this Humanity there really present conceded before seems sufficient to determine this without more-ado And for one to pretend that this Adoration of the Greeks is given only to God or to Christ's Divinity as every where present or to the Humanity united to it but only