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
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
Transubstantiators It was not bread but meerly the accidents of bread which seemed to be bread 2. The Body of Christ is proved to be true by the figure of it which is said to be bread For the bread is fit to represent that divine Body because of its nourishing vertue which in the bread is earthly but in the body is heavenly Lastly The realty of the Body is proved by that of its figure and so if you deny the substance of the bread as the Papists do you thereby destroy the truth and realty of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament 10. Origen also about the same time with Tertullian speaks much after the same manner If Christ saith he as these men the Marcionites falsly hold had neither Flesh nor Bloud of what manner of Flesh of what Body of what Bloud did he give the Signs and Images when he gave the Bread and Wine If they be the signs and representations of the Body and Bloud of Christ though they prove the truth of his Body and Bloud yet they being signs cannot be what they signifie and they not being what they represent the groundless contrivance of Transubstantiation is overthrown Also upon Leviticus he doth expresly oppose it thus Acknowledge ye that they are figures and therefore spiritual not carnal examine and understand what is said otherwise if you receive as things carnal they will hurt but not nourish you For in the Gospel there is the Letter which kills him that understands not spiritually what is said for if you understand this saying according to the Letter Except you eat my Flesh and drink my Bloud the Letter will kill you Therefore as much as these words belong to the eating and drinking of Christs Body and Bloud they are to be understood mystically and spiritually Again writing on St. Matthew he doth manifestly put a difference betwixt the true and immortal and the Typick and Mystical Body of Christ For the Sacrament consisteth of both That food saith he which is sanctified by the Word of God and Prayer as far as it is material descends into the belly and is cast out into the draught this he saith of the Typick which is the figure of the true Body God forbid we should have any such thoughts of the true and heavenly Body of Christ as they must that understand his natural body by what Origen calls his material and Sacramental body which no man in his wits can understand of meer accidents 11. St. Cyprian Bishop of Carthage a glorious Martyr of Christ wrote a famous Epistle to Coecilius concerning the sacred Chalice in the Lords Supper whereof this is the sum Let that Cup which is offered to the people in commemoration of Christ be mixt with Wine against the opinion of the Aquarii who were for water only for it cannot represent the Bloud of Christ when there is no Wine in the Cup because the Bloud of Christ is exprest by the Wine as the Faithful are understood by the water But the Patrons of Transubstantiation have neither Wine nor Water in the Chalice they offer and yet without them especially the Wine appointed by our blessed Saviour and whereof Cyprian chiefly speaks the Bloud of Christ is not so much as Sacramentally present So far was the Primitive Church from any thing of believing a corporal presence of the Bloud the Wine being reduced to nothing that is to a meer accident without a substance for then they must have said that the Water was changed into the People as well as the Wine into the Bloud But there is no need that I should bring many testimonies of that Father when all his Writings do plainly declare that the true substance of the Bread and Wine is given in the Eucharist that that spiritual and quickning food which the Faithful get from the Body and Bloud of Christ and the mutual Union of the whole People joyned into one body may answer their Type the Sacrament which represents them 12. Those words of the Council of Nice are well known whereby the Faithful are called from the consideration of the outward visible Elements of Bread and Wine to attend the inward and spiritual act of the mind whereby Christ is seen and apprehended Let not our thoughts dwell low on that Bread and that Cup which are set before us but lifting up our minds by faith let us consider that on this sacred Table is laid the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world And receiving truly his precious Body and Bloud let us believe these things to be the Pledges and Emblems of our Resurrection for we do not take much but only a little of the Elements that we may be mindful we do it not for Satiety but for Sanctification Now who is there even among the Maintainers of Transubstantiation that will understand this not much but a little of the Body of Christ Or who can believe that the Nicene Fathers would call his Body and Bloud Symbols in a proper sense When nothing can be an Image or a sign of it self And therefore though we are not to rest in the Elements minding nothing else for we should consider what is chiefest in the Sacrament that we have our hearts lifted up unto the Lord who is given together with the signs yet Elements they are and the earthly part of the Sacrament both the Bread and the Wine which destroys Transubstantiation 13. St. Athanasius famous in the time and present in the Assembly of the Nicene Council a stout Champion of the Catholick Faith acknowledgeth none other but a spiritual Manducation of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament Our Lord saith he made a difference betwixt the Flesh and the Spirit that we might understand that what he said was not carnal but spiritual For how many men could his body have fed that the whole world should be nourished by it But therefore he mentioned his ascension into heaven that they might not take what he said in a corporal sense but might understand that his Flesh whereof he spake is a spiritual and heavenly food given by himself from on high for the words that I spake unto you they are spirit and they are life as if he should say My Body which is shown and given for the world shall be given in food that it may be distributed spiritually to every one and preserve them all to the Resurrection to eternal life Cardinal Perron having nothing to answer to these words of this holy Father in a kind of despair rejects the whole Tractate and denies it to be Athanasius's which no body ever did before him there being no reason for it 14. Cyril Bishop of Jerusalam of the same Age with St. Athanasius treating of the Chrisme wherewith they then anointed those that were Baptized speaks thus Take heed thou dost not think that this is a meer Oyntment only For as the Broad of the
did humbly and religiously acknowledge her ignorance The real thing with its effects she joyfully own'd and received but meekly and devoutly abstained from inquiring into the manner Item Numb 73. the true and real Body of Christ is most certainly and undoubtedly given in the holy Sacrament yet not carnally but Spiritually Again Numb 169. I doubt not but all they that believe the Gospel will acknowledge that in the holy Communion we receive the true nature of the flesh of Christ real and substantial We all teach that the body of Christ is present as to its reality and nature but a carnal and corporal manner of presence we reject with St. Bernard and all the Fathers And in Appen ad Ambrosium Numb 7. I know and acknowledge that with the Bread still remaining bread the true and real body of Christ is given yet not corporally I assent in the thing but not in the manner Therefore though there is a change in the Bread when it brings into the Souls of worthy Communicants the true body of Christ which is the substance of the Sacrament Yet it doth not follow that the Bread loseth its own to become the substance of the body of Christ c. These and much more to the same purpose agreeable to the Religion and Church of England and all other Protestant Churches you may find in the same Chapter and in a Treatise annext to the sixth Book against the famous Jesuit Suarez who had writ against King James and the Errors as he calls them of the Church of England In the second Chapter our Prelate proves clearly according to its title That those Points which the Papists maintain against the Protestants belong not in any wise to the Catholick Faith as Transubstantiation c. 8. As for the opinion and belief of the German Protestants It will be known chiefly by the Augustan Confession presented to Charles the Fifth by the Princes of the Empire and other great Persons For they teach That not only the Bread and Wine but the Body and Bloud of Christ is truly given to the Receivers or as it is in another Edition That the Body and Bloud of Christ are truly present and distributed to the Communicants in the Lords Supper and refute those that teach otherwise They also declare That we must so use the Sacraments as to believe and embrace by Faith those things promised which the Sacraments offer and convey to us Yet we may observe here that Faith makes not those things present which are promised for Faith as it is well known is more properly said to take and apprehend than to promise or perform But the Word and Promise of God on which our Faith is grounded and not Faith it self make that present which is promised as it was agreed at a Conference at St. German betwixt some Protestants and Papists And therefore it is unjustly laid to our charge by some in the Church of Rome as if we should believe that the presence and participation of Christ in the Sacrament is effected meerly by the power of Faith 9. The Saxon Confession approved by other Churches seems to be a repetition of the Augustan Therein we are taught That Sacraments are actions divinely instituted and that although the same things or actions in common use have nothing of the nature of Sacraments yet when used according to the divine institution Christ is truly and substantially present in the Communion and his Body and Bloud truly given to the Receivers so that he testifies that he is in them as St. Hillary saith These things taken and received make us to be in Christ and Christ to be in us 10. The Confession of Wittemberg which in the year 1552 was propounded to the Council of Trent is like unto this For it teacheth That the true Body and Bloud of Christ are given in the holy Communion and refutes those that say That the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament are only signs of the absent Body and Bloud of Christ 11. The Bohemian Confession also that is of them who by contempt and out of ignorance are called by some Picards and Waldenses presented to King Ferdinand by the Barons and Nobles of Bohemia and approved by Luther and Melancthon and the Famous University of Wittemberg teacheth that we cought from the heart to believe and to profess by words that the Bread of the Lords Supper is the true Body of Christ which was given for us and the Wine his true Bloud that was shed for us And that it is not lawful for any person to bring or add any thing of his own to the words of Christ or in the least to take any thing from them And when this their Confession was defamed and abused by some of their Adversaries they answered That they would ever be ready to refute the Calumniators and to make it appear by strong Arguments and a stronger Faith that they never were and by Gods grace never would be what their Adversaries represented them 12. In the same manner The Conciliation of the Articles of the Lords Supper and the mutual agreement betwixt the Churches of the greater and lesser Polonia in the Synod of Sendomiris We hold together say they the belief of the words of Christ as they have been rightly understood by the Fathers or to speak more plain We believe and confess that the substantial Presence of Christ is not only signified in the Lords Supper but also that the Body and Bloud of our Lord is truly offered and granted to worthy Receivers together with those sacred signs which convey to us the thing signified according to the nature of Sacraments and lest the different ways of speaking should breed any contention we mutually consent to subscribe that Article concerning the Lords Supper which is in the Confession of the Churches of Saxony which they sent to the Council of Trent and we hold and acknowledge it to be sound and pious Then they repeat the whole Article mentioned and set down a little before 13. Luther was once of opinion that the Divines of Basil and Strasbourg did acknowledge nothing in the Lords Supper besides Bread and Wine To him Bucerus in the name of all the rest did freely answer That they all unanimously did condemn that error that neither they nor the Switzers ever believed or taught any such thing that none could expresly be charged with that Error except the Anabaptists And that he also had once been perswaded that Luther in his Writings attributed too much to the outward Symbols and maintained a grosser Union of Christ with the Bread than the Scriptures did allow as though Christ had been corporally present with it united into a natural substance with the Bread so that the wicked as well as the faithful were made partakers of grace by receiving the Element But that their own Doctrine and belief concerning that Sacrament was that the true Body and
whereby they profess that as to what concerns the Sacrament of the Eucharist they assent to that opinion which in the Augustan Confession in the Bohemian and that of Sendom is confirmed by Scripture Then afterwards in another Declaration they explain their own Mind thus saying 1. That the Sacrament consisteth of earthly things as Bread and Wine and things heavenly as the Body and Bloud of our Lord both of which though in a different manner yet most truly and really are given together at the same time earthly things in an earthly corporal and natural way heavenly things in a mystick spiritual and heavenly manner 2. Hence they in fer That the Bread and Wine are and are said to be with truth the very Body and Bloud of Christ not substantially indeed that is not corporally but Sacramentally and Mystically by vertue of the Sacramental Union which consisteth not in a bare signification or obligation only but also in a real exhibition and communication of both parts earthly and heavenly together at once though in a different manner 3. In that sense they affirm with the Ancients That the Bread and Wine are changed into the Body and Bloud of Christ not in nature and substance but in use and efficacy in which respect the sacred Elements are not called what they are to sense but what they are believed and received by faith grounded on the Promise 4. They deny to believe the signs to be bare inefficacious and empty but rather such as truly give what they seal and signifie being efficacious instruments and most certain means whereby the Body and Bloud of Christ and so Christ himself with all his benefits is set forth and offered to all Communicants but conferred and given to true Believers and by them received as the saving and vivifying food of their Souls 5. They deny not the true presence of the body and bloud of Christ in the Lords Supper but only the Corporal manner of his Presence They believe a Mystical Vnion betwixt Christ and us and that not imaginary but most true real and efficacious 6. Thence they conclude That not only the vertue efficacy operation or benefits of Christ are communicated to us but more especially the very substance of his Body and Bloud so that he abides in us and we in him 20. Now because great is the fame of Calvin who subscribed the Augustan Confession and that of the Switzers let us hear what he writ and believed concerning this sacred Mystery His words in his Institutions and elsewhere are such so conformable to the stile and mind of the Ancient Fathers that no Catholick Protestant would wish to use any other I understand saith he what is to be understood by the words of Christ that he doth not only offer us the benefits of his Death and Resurrection but his very body wherein he died and rose again I assert that the body of Christ is really as the usual expression is that is truly given to us in the Sacrament to be the saving food of our souls Also in another place Item That word cannot lie neither can it mock us and except one presumes to call God a deceiver be will never dare to say that the Symbols are empty and that Christ is not in them Therefore if by the breaking of the bread our Saviour doth represent the participation of his body it is not to be doubted but that he truly gives and confers it If it be true that the visible sign is given us to seal the gift of an invisible thing we must firmly believe that receiving the signs of the body we also certainly receive the body it self Setting aside all absurdities I do willingly admit all those terms that can most strongly express the true and substantial Communication of the Body and Bloud of Christ granted to the Faithful with the Symbols of the Lords Supper and that not as if they received only by the force of their imagination or an act of their minds but really so as to be fed thereby unto Eternal life Again We must therefore confess that the inward substance of the Sacrament is joyned with the visible sign so that as the Bread is put into our hand the Body of Christ is also given to us This certainly if there were nothing else should abundantly satisfie us that we understand that Christ in his Holy Supper gives us the true and proper substance of his Body and Bloud that it being wholly ours we may be made partakers of all his benefits and graces Again The Son of God offers daily to us in the holy Sacrament the same body which he once offered in sacrifice to his Father that it may be our spiritual food In these he asserts as clearly as any one can the true Real and substantial Presence and Communication of the Body of Christ but how he undertakes not to determine If any one saith he ask me concerning the manner I will not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too high for my reason to comprehend or my tongue to express or to speak more properly I rather feel than understand it Therefore without disputing I embrace the truth of God and confidently repose on it He declares that his Flesh is the food and his Bloud the drink of my Soul And my Soul I offer to him to be fed by such nourishment He bids me take eat and drink his Body and Bloud which in his holy Supper he offers me under the Symbols of Bread and Wine I make no scruple but he doth reach them to me and I receive them All these are Calvins own words 21. I was the more willing to be long in transcribing these things at large out of publick Confessions of Churches and the best of Authors that it might the better appear how injuriously Protestant Divines are calumniated by others unacquainted with their opinions as though by these words Spiritually and Sacramentally they did not acknowledge a true and well-understood real Presence and Communication of the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament whereas on the contrary they do professedly own it in terms as express as any can be used CHAP. III. 1. What the Papists do understand by Christ being spiritually present in the Sacrament 2. What St. Bernard understood by it 3. What the Protestants 4. Faith doth not cause but suppose the presence of Christ 5. The Union betwixt the Body of Christ and the Bread is Sacramental 1. HAving now by what I have said put it out of doubt that the Protestants believe a spiritual and true presence of Christ in the Sacrament which is the reason that according to the example of the Fathers they use so frequently the term spiritual in this subject it may not be amiss to consider in the next place how the Roman Church understands that same word Now they make it to signifie That Christ is not present in the Sacrament either after that manner which
the condition use and office of the Bread is wholly changed that is of common and ordinary it becomes our Mystical and Sacramental food whereby as they affirm and believe the true Body of Christ is not only shadowed and figured but also given indeed and by worthy Communicants truly received Yet they believe not that the bread loseth its own to become the substance of the Body of Christ for the holy Scripture and the ancient Interpreters thereof for many ages never taught such an Essential change and conversion as that the very substance the matter and form of the Bread should be wholly taken away but only a mysterious and Sacramental one whereby our Ordinary is changed into Mystick bread and thereby designed and appointed to another use end and office than before This change whereby supernatural effects are wrought by things natural while their Essence is preserved entire doth best agree with the grace and power of God 2. There is no reason why we should dispute concerning Gods Omnipotency whether it can do this or that presuming to measure an infinite power by our poor ability which is but weakness We may grant that he is able to do beyond what we can think or apprehend and resolve his most wonderful acts into his absolute will and power but we may not charge him with working contradictions And though Gods Almightiness were able in this Mystery to destroy the substance of Bread and Wine and essentially to change it into the Body and Bloud of Christ while the accidents of Bread and Wine subsist of themselves without a subject yet we desire to have it proved that God will have it so and that it is so indeed For that God doth it because he can is no Argument and that he wills it we have no other proof but the confident Assertion of our Adversaries Tertullian against Praxias declared That we should not conclude God doth things because he is able but that we should enquire what he hath done For God will never own that praise of his Omnipotency whereby his unchangeableness and his truth are impaired and those things overthrown and destroy'd which in his word he affirms to be for take away the Bread and Wine and there remains no Sacrament 3. They that say that the matter and form of the Bread are wholly abolished yet will have the accidents to remain But if the substance of the Bread be changed into the substance of Christs Body by vertue of his words what hinders that the accidents of the Bread are not also changed into the accidents of Christs Body They that urge the express Letter should shew that Christ said This is the substance of my Body without its accidents But he did not say That he gave his Disciples a Phantastick Body such a visionary figment as Marcion believed but that very Body which was given for us without being deprived of that extention and other accidents of humane bodies without which it could not have been crucified since the Maintainers of Transubstantiation grant that the Body of Christ keeps its quantity in Heaven and say it is without the same in the Sacrament they must either acknowledge their contradiction in the matter or give over their opinion 4. Protestants dare not be so curious or presume to know more than is delivered by Scripture and Antiquity they firmly believing the words of Christ make the form of this Sacrament to consist in the Union of the thing signified with the sign that is the exhibition of the Body of Christ with the consecrated bread still remaining bread by divine appointment these two are made one and though this Union be not natural substantial personal or local by their being one within another yet it is so straight and so true that in eating the blessed Bread the true body of Christ is given to us and the names of the sign and thing signified are reciprocally changed what is proper to the body is attributed to the bread and what belongs only to the bread is affirmed of the body and both are united in time though not in place For the presence of Christ in this Mystery is not opposed to distance but to absence which only could deprive us of the benefit and fruition of the object 5. From what hath been said it appears that this whole controversie may be reduced to four Heads 1. Concerning the Signs 2. Concerning the thing signified 3. Concerning the Union of both and 4. Concerning their participation As for the first The Protestants differ from the Papists in this that according to the nature of Sacraments and the Doctrine of holy Scripture we make the substance of Bread and Wine and they accidents only to be signs In the second they not understanding our opinion do misrepresent it for we do not hold as they say we do that only the merits of the Death of Christ are represented by the blessed Elements but also that his very Body which was crucified and his Bloud which was shed for us are truly signified and offered that our Souls may receive and possess Christ as truly and certainly as the material and visible signs are by us seen and received And so in the third place because the thing signified is offered and given to us as truly as the sign it self in this respect we own the Union betwixt the Body and bloud of Christ and the Elements whose use and office we hold to be changed from what it was before But we deny what the Papists affirm that the substance of Bread and Wine are quite abolished and changed into the Body and Bloud of our Lord in such sort that the bare accidents of the Elements do alone remain united with Christs Body and Bloud And we also deny that the Elements still retain the nature of Sacraments when not used according to divine institution that is given by Christs Ministers and received by his People so that Christ in the consecrated bread ought not cannot be kept and preserved to be carried about because he is present only to the Communicants As for the fourth and last point we do not say that in the Lords Supper we receive only the benefits of Christs Death and Passion but we joyn the ground with its fruits that is Christ with those advantages we receive from him affirming with St. Paul That the bread which we break is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Communion of the body of Christ and the Cup which we bless the Communion of his bloud of that very substance which he took of the blessed Virgin and afterwards carried into heaven differing from those of Rome only in this that they will have our Union with Christ to be corporal and our eating of him likewise and we on the contrary maintain it to be indeed as true but not carnal or natural And as he that receives unworthily that is with the mouth only but not with a faithful heart eats and drinks his own damnation so he that doth it
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
sensible things are called by the name of those spiritual things which they seal and signifie But he speaks more plainly in his Epistle to Caesarius where he teacheth that in this Mystery there is not in the bread a substantial but a Sacramental change according to the which the outward Elements take the name of what they represent and are changed in such a sort that they still retain their former natural substance The bread saith he is made worthy to be honoured with the name of the Flesh of Christ by the consecration of the Priest yet the Flesh retains the proprieties of its incorruptible nature as the bread doth its natural substance Before the bread be sanctified we call it bread but when it is consecrated by the divine grace it deserves to be called the Lords Body though the substance of the bread still remains When Bellarmine could not answer this testimony of that Great Doctor he thought it enough to deny that this Epistle is St. Chrysostoms but both he and Possevin do vainly contend that it is not extant among the works of Chrysostom For besides that at Florence and else where it was to be found among them it is cited in the Collections against the Severians which are in the version of Turrianus the Jesuit in the fourth Tome of Antiq. lectionum of Henry Canisius and in the end of the book of Joh. Damascenus against the Acephali I bring another Testimony out of the imperfect work on St. Matthew written either by St. Chrysostome or some other ancient Author a Book in this at least very Orthodox and not corrupted by the Arrians In these sanctified vessels saith he the true body of Christ is not contained but the Mystery of his Body 19. Which also hath been said by St. Austin above a thousand times but out of so many almost numberless places I shall chuse only three which are as the sum of all the rest You are not to eat this Body which you see nor drink this Bloud which my Crucifiers shall shed I have left you a Sacrament which spiritually understood will vivisie you Thus St. Austin rehearsing the words of Christ again If Sacraments had not some resemblance with those things whereof they are Sacraments they could not be Sacraments at all From this resemblance they often take the names of what they represent Therefore as the Sacrament of Christs body is in some sort his body so the Sacrament of Faith is faith also To the same sense is what he writes against Maximinus the Arrian We mind in the Sacraments not what they are but what they shew for they are signs which are one thing and signifie another And in another place speaking of the Bread and Wine Let no man look to what they are but to what they signifie for our Lord was pleased to say this is my Body when he gave the sign of his body This passage of St. Austin is so clear that it admits of no evasion nor no denial For if the Sacraments are one thing and signifie another then they are not so changed into what they signifie as that after that change they should be no more what they were The water is changed in baptism as the Bread and Wine in the Lords Supper but all that is changed is not presently abolished or Transubstantiated For as the water remains entire in Baptism so do the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist 20. St. Prosper Orthodox in all things who lived almost in the time of Austin teacheth That the Eucharist consisteth of two things the visible appearance of the Elements and the invisible Flesh and Bloud of our Saviour Christ that is the Sacrament and the grace of the Sacrament as the person of Christ is both God and Man Who but the infamous Heretick Eutyches would say that Christ as God was substantially changed into man or as man into God 21. Upon this subject nothing can be more clear than this of Theodor. whence we learn what the Primitive Church believes in this matter Our Saviour in the Institution of the Eucharist changed the names of things giving to his body the name of its Sacrament and to the Sacrament the name of his Body Now this was done for this reason as he saith that they that are partakers of the Divine Mysteries might not mind the nature of what they see but by the change of names might believe that change which is wrought by Grace For he that called what by nature is his body Wheat and Bread he also honoured the Elements and Signs with the names of his Body and Bloud not changing what is natural but adding Grace to it He therefore teacheth that such an alteration is wrought in the Elements that still their nature and substance continues as he explains more plainly afterwards For when the Heretick that stands for Eutichius had said As the Sacrament of the Lords Body and Bloud are one thing before the Prayer of the Priest and afterwards being changed become another so also the Body of our Lord after his ascention is changed into the divine substance and nature according to the Tenet of the Transubstantiator this Eutychian Argument is irrefragable but Catholick Antiquity answers it thus Thou are entangled in the nets of thine own knitting for the Elements or Mystick signs depart not from their nature after Consecration but remain in their former substance form and kind and can be seen and toucht as much as before and yet withal we understand also what they become now they are changed Compare therefore the Copy with the Original and thou shalt see their likeness For a figure must answer to the truth That body hath the same form and fills the same space as before and in a word is the same substance but after its resurrection it is become immortal c. All this and much more is taught by Theodoret who assisted at the universal Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon It is an idle exception which is made by some in the Church of Rome as though by the nature and substance of the Elements which are said to remain Theodoret had understood the nature and substance of the accidents as Cardinal Bellarmine is pleased to speak most absurdly but the whole context doth strongly refute this gloss for Theodoret joyns together nature substance form and figure and indeed what Answer could they have given to the Eutychian Argument if the substance of the bread being annihilated after the Consecration the accidents only remain Or did Christ say concerning the accidents of the Bread and Wine these accidents are or this accident is my body But though we have not that liberty yet the Inventors of Transubstantiation may when they please make a Creator of a Creature substances of accidents accidents of substances and any thing out of any thing But sure they are too immodest and uncharitable who to elude the authority of so
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
mortal to save us mortals so he might by a thing visible fitly represent to us a thing invisible Some receive the Sacred Sign at the Lords Table to their Salvation and some to their Ruine but the thing signified is life to every man and death to none whoever receives it is united as a member to Christ the head in the Kingdom of Heaven for the Sacrament is one thing and the efficacy of it another For the Sacrament is received with the mouth but the grace thereof feeds the inward man And as the first is turned into our substance when we eat it and drink it so are we made the Body of Christ when we live piously and obediently Therefore the Faithful do well and truly receive the body of Christ if they neglect not to be his members and they are made the Body of Christ if they will live of his Spirit All these agree not in the least with the new Doctrine of Rome and as little with that opinion they attribute to Paschasius and therefore he is rejected as erroneous by some Romish Authors who writ four and six hundred years after him But they should have considered that they condemned not only Rabanus but together with him all the Doctors of the Primitive Church 32. Johannes Erigena our Country-man whom King Alfred took to be his and his Childrens Tutor and to credit the new founded University of Oxford while he lived in France where he was in great esteem with Charles the Bald wrote a Book concerning the Body and Bloud of our Lord to the same purpose as Rabanus and back'd it with clear Testimonies of Scripture and of the Holy Fathers But entring himself into the Monastery of Malmsbury as he was interpreting the Book of Dyonisius about the heavenly Hierarchy which he translated into Latine and withal censuring the newly-hatcht Doctrine of the Carnal Presence of Christ in the Eucharist he was stabb'd with Pen knives by some unworthy Schollars of his set on by certain Monks though not long after he was by some others numbred among Holy Martyrs 33. Walasridus Strabo about the same time wrote on this manner Therefore in that Last Supper whereat Christ was with his Disciples before he was betrayed after the solemnities of the ancient Passeover he gave to his Disciples the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud in the substance of Bread and Wine and instructed us to pass from carnal to spiritual things from earthly to heavenly things and from shadows to the substance 34. As for the opinion of Bertram otherwise called Ratramnus or Ratramus perhaps not rightly it is known enough by that Book which the Emperour Charles the Bald who loved and honoured him as all good men did for his great learning and piety commanded him to write concerning the Body and Bloud of our Lord. For when men began to be disturbed at the Book of Paschasius some saying one thing and some another the Emperour being moved by their disputes propounded himself two questions to Bertram 1. Whether what the Faithful eat in the Church be made the Body and Bloud of Christ in Figure and in Mystery 2. Or whether that natural body which was born of the Virgin Mary which suffered died and was buried and now sitteth on the right hand of God the Father be it self dayly received by the mouth of the Faithful in the Mystery of the Sacrament The first of these Bertram resolved Affirmatively the second Negatively and said that there was as great a difference betwixt those two bodies as betwixt the earnest and that whereof it is the earnest It is evident saith he that that Bread and Wine are figuratively the Body and Bloud of Christ According to the substance of the Elements they are after the Consecration what they were before For the Bread is not Christ substantially If this mystery be not done in a figure it cannot well be called a Mystery The Wine also which is made the Sacrament of the Bloud of Christ by the Consecration of the Priest shews one thing by its outward appearance and contains another inwardly For what is there visible in its outside but only the substance of the Wine These things are changed but not according to the material part and by this change they are not what they truly appear to be but are some thing else besides what is their proper being For they are made spiritually the Body and Bloud of Christ not that the Elements be two different things but in one respect they are as they appear Bread and Wine and in another the Body and Bloud of Christ Hence according to the visible Creature they feed the body but according to the vertue of a more excellent substance they nourish and sanctifie the souls of the Faithful Then having brought many Testimonies of holy Scripture and the ancient Fathers to confirm this he at last prevents that Calumny which the followers of Paschasius did then lay on the Orthodox as though they had taught that bare signs figures and shadows and not the Body and Bloud of Christ were given in the Sacrament Let it not be thought saith he because we say this that therefore the Body and Bloud of Christ are not received in the Mystery of the Sacrament where Faith apprehends what it believes and not what the eyes see for this meat and drink are spiritual feed the soul spiritually and entertain that life whose fulness is eternal For the question is not simply about the real truth or the thing signified being present without which it could not be a Mystery but about the false reality of things subsisting in imaginary appearances and about the Carnal Presence 35. All this the Fathers of Trent and the Romish Inquisitors could not brook and therefore they utterly condemned Bertram and put his Book in the Catalogue of those that are forbidden But the Professors of Doway judging this proceeding much too violent and therefore more like to hurt than to advance the Roman Cause went another and more cunning way to work and had the approbation of the Licencers of Books and the Authors of the Belgick Index expurgatorius That Book of Bertram say they having been already Printed several times read by many and known to all by its being forbidden may be suffered and used after it is corrected for Bertram was a Catholick Priest and a Monk in the Monastery of Corbie esteemed and beloved by Charles the Bald. And being we bear with many errors in Ancient Catholick Authors and lessen and excuse them and by some cunning device behold the good mens fidelity often deny them and give a more commodious sense when they are objected to us in our disputes with our Adversaries we do not see why Bertram should not also be amended and used with the same Equity lest Hereticks cast us in the teeth that we burn and suppress those Records of Antiquity that make for them And as we also fear
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
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
determined and imposed upon me by their Evangelick and Apostolick Authority to wit That the Bread and Wine which are set on the Altar are not after the Consecration only a Saerament Sign and figure but also the very Body and Bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ thus far it is well enough but what follows is too horrid and is disowned by the Papists themselves and that they the Body and Bloud are touched and broken with the hands of the Priests and ground with the teeth of the Faithful not Sacramentally only but in truth and sensibly This is the Prescript of the Recantation imposed on Berengarius and by him at first rejected but by imprisonment and threats and fear of being put to death at last extorted from him 10. This form of Recantation is to be found entire in Lanfrank Algerus and Gracian yet the Glosser on Gratian John Semeca marks it with this note Except you understand well the words of Berengarius he should rather have said of Pope Nicholas and Cardinal Humbertus you shall fall into a greater Heresie than his was for he exceeded the truth and spake hyperbolically And so Richard de Mediavilla Berengarius being accused overshot himself in his Justification but the excess of his words should be ascribed to those who prescribed and forced them upon him Yet in all this we hear nothing of Transubstantiation 11. Berengarius at last escaped out of this danger and conscious to himself of having denied the truth took heart again and refuted in writing his own impious and absurd Recantation and said That by force it was exterted from him by the Church of Malignants the Council of vanity Lanfrank of Caen at that time head of a Monastery in France afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury and Guitmundus Aversanus answered him And though it is not to be doubted but that Berengarius and those of his Party writ and replied again and again yet so well did their Adversaries look to it that nothing of theirs remains save some Citations in Lanfrank But it were to be wisht that we had now the entire Works of Berengarius who was a learned man and a constant follower of Antiquity for out of them we might know with more certainty how things went then we can out of what his profest enemies have said 12. This Sacramental debate ceased a while because of the tumults of War raised in Apulia and elsewhere by Pope Nicholas the Second but it began again as soon as Hildebrand called Gregory the Seventh came to the Papal Chair For Berengarius was cited again to a new Council at Rome where some being of one opinion and some of another as it is in the Acts of that Council writ by those of the Popes Faction his cause could not be so intirely oppressed but that some Bishops were still found to uphold it Nay the Ring leader himself Hildebrand is said to have doubted Whether what we receive at the Lords Table be indeed the Body of Christ by a substantial conversion But three months space having been granted to Berengarius and a Fast appointed to the Cardinals that God would shew by some sign from heaven which yet he did not who was in the right the Pope or Berengarius concerning the Body of the Lord at last the business was decided without any Oracle from above and a new form of retractation imposed on Berengarius whereby he was henceforth forward to confess under pain of the Popes high displeasure that the Mystick Bread first made Magical and enchanting by Hildebrana is substantially turned into the true and proper Flesh of Christ which whether he ever did is not certain For though Malmesbury tells us that he died in that Roman Faith yet there are ancienter than he who say that he was never converted from his first opinion And some relate that after this last condemnation having given over his Studies and given to the poor all he had he wrought with his own hands for his living Other things related of him by some slaves of the Roman See deserve no credit These things hapned as we have said in the year 1079. and soon after Berengarius died 13. Berengarius being dead the Orthodox and ancient Doctrine of the Lords Supper which he maintained did not die with him as the Chronicus Cassinensis would have it For it was still constantly retained by St. Bernard Abbot of Clairvaux who lived about the beginning of the twelfth Century In his discourse on the Lords Supper he joyns together the outward form of the Sacrament and the spiritual efficacy of it as the shell and the kernel the sacred Sign and the thing signified the one he takes out of the words of the Institution and the other out of Christs Sermon in the sixth of St. John And in the same place explaining that Sacraments are not things absolute in themselves without any relation but Mysteries wherein by the gift of a visible sign an invisible and divine grace with the Body and Bloud of Christ is given he saith That the visible Sign is as a Ring which is given not for it self or absolutely but to invest and give possession of an Estate made over to one Many things saith he are done for their own sake and many in reference to something else and then they are called Signs A Ring is given absolutely as a gift and then it hath no other meaning it is also given to make good an Investiture or Contract and then it is a Sign So that he that receives it may say The Ring is not worth much it is what it signifies the Inheritance I value In this manner when the Passion of our Lord drew nigh he took care that his Disciples might be invested with his grace that his invisible grace might be assured and given to them by a visible sign To this end all Sacraments are instituted and to this the participation of the Eucharist is appointed Now as no man can fancy that the Ring is substantially changed into the Inheritance whether Lands or Houses none also can say with truth or without absurdity that the Bread and Wine are substantially changed into the Body and Bloud of Christ But in his Sermon on the Purification which none doubts to be his he speaks yet more plain The Body of Christ in the Sacrament is the food of the soul not of the belly therefore we eat him not corporally but in the manner that Christ is meat in the same manner we understand that he is eaten Also in his Sermon on St. Martin which undoubtedly is his also To this day saith he the same flesh is given to us but spiritually therefore not corporally For the truth of things spiritually present is certain also As to what he saith in another place that the Priest holds God in his hands it is a flourish of Oratory as is that
so called But this he declares yet more clearly Lib. 6. Etymol cap. 19. For as the visible substance of Bread and Wine nourish the outward man so the Word of Christ who is the bread of Life refresheth the souls of the faithful being received by Faith These words were recorded and preserved by Bertram the Priest when as in the Editions of Isidore they are now left out 27. And the same kind of expressions as those of Isidorus were also used by Venerable Bede our Country-man who lived in the Eighth Century In his Sermon upon the Epiphany of whom we also take these two testimonies following In the room of the flesh and bloud of the Lamb Christ substituted the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud in the figure of Bread and Wine Also At Supper he gave to his Disciples the figure of his holy Body and Bloud These utterly destroy Transubstantiation 28. In the same Century Charles the Great wrote an Epistle to our Alcuinus wherein we find these words Christ at Supper broke the bread to his Disciples and likewise gave them the Cup in figure of his Body and Bloud and so left to us this great Sacrament for our benefit If it was the figure of his body it could not be the Body it self Indeed the Body of Christ is given in the Eucharist but to the faithful only and that by means of the Sacrament of the Consecrated bread 29. But now about the beginning of the Ninth Century started up Paschafius a Monk of Corbie who first as some say whose Judgment I follow not among the Latines taught that Christ was Consubstantiated or rather inclosed in the Bread corporally united to it in the Sacrament for as yet there was no thoughts of the Transubstantiation of Bread But these new sorts of expressions not agreeing with the Catholick Doctrine and the Writings of the ancient Fathers had few or no Abettors before the Eleventh Century And in the Ninth whereof we now treat there were not wanting learned men as Amalarius Archdeacon of Triars Rabanus at first Abbot of Fulda and afterwards Archbishop of Ments John Erigena an English Divine Walafridus Strabo a German Abbot Ratramus or Bertramus first Priest of Corbie afterwards Abbot of Orbec in France and many more who by their Writings opposed this new Opinion of Pascasius or of some others rather and delivered to Posterity the Doctrine of the Ancient Church Yet we have something more to say concerning Paschasius whom Bellarmine and Sirmondus esteemed so highly that they were not ashamed to say that he was the first that had writ to the purpose concerning the Eucharist and that he had so explained the meaning of the Church that he had shewn and opened the way to all them who treated of that subject after him Yet in that whole Book of Paschasius there is nothing that favours the Transubstantiation of the Bread or its destruction or removal Indeed he asserts the truth of the Body and Bloud of Christs being in the Eucharist which Protestants deny not he denies that the Consecrated Bread is a bare figure a representation void of truth which Protestants assert not But he hath many things repugnant to Transubstantiation which as I have said the Church of Rome it self had not yet quite found out I shall mention a few of them Christ saith he left us this Sacrament a visible figure and character of his Body and Bloud that by them our Spirit might the better embrace spiritual and invisible things and be more fully fed by Faith Again We must receive our spiritual Sacraments with the mouth of the Soul and the taste of Faith Item Whilst therein we savour nothing carnal but we being spiritual and understanding the whole spiritually we remain in Christ And a little after The flesh and bloud of Christ are received spiritually And again To savour according to the flesh is death and yet to receive spiritually the true Flesh of Christ is life eternal Lastly The Flesh and bloud of Christ are not received carnally but spiritually In these he teacheth that the Mystery of the Lords Supper is not and ought not to be understood carnally but spiritually and that this dream of corporal and oral Transubstantiation was unknown to the Ancient Church As for what hath been added to this Book by the craft without doubt of some superstitious forgerer as Erasmus complains that it too frequently happens to the Writing of the Ancients it is Fabulous as the visible appearing of the Body of Christ in the form of an Infant with fingers of raw flesh such stuff is unworthy to be Fathered on Paschasius who profest that he delivered no other Doctrin concerning the Sacrament than that which he had learned out of the Ancient Fathers and not from idle and uncertain stories of Miracles 30. Now it may be requisite to produce the testimony of those Writers before mentioned to have written in this Century In all that I write saith Amalarius I am swayed by the Judgment of holy men and pious Fathers yet I say what I think my self Those things that are done in the Celebration of Divine Service are done in the Sacrament of the Passion of our Lord as he himself commanded Therefore the Priest offering the Bread with the Wine and Water in the Sacrament doth it in the stead of Christ and the Bread Wine and Water in the Sacrament represent the Flesh and Bloud of Christ For Sacraments are somewhat to resemble those things whereof they are Sacraments Therefore let the Priest be like unto Christ as the Bread and Liquors are like the Body and Bloud of Christ Such is in some manner the immolation of the Priest on the Altar as was that of Christ on the Cross Again The Sacrament of the Body of Christ is in some manner the Body of Christ For Sacraments should not be Sacraments if in some things they had not the likeness of that whereof they are Sacraments Now by reason of this mutual likeness they oftentimes are called by what they represent Lastly Sacraments have the vertue to bring us to those things whereof they are Sacraments These things writ Amalarius according to the Expressions of St. Austin and the Doctrine of the purest Church 31. Rabanus Maurus a great Doctor of this Age who could hardly be matcht either in Italy or in Germany publisht this his open Confession Our blessed Saviour would have the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud to be received by the mouth of the Faithful and to become their nourishment that by the visible body the effects of the invisible might be known For as the material Food feeds the body outwardly and makes it to grow so the Word of God doth inwardly nourish and strengthen the soul Also He would have the Sacramental Elements to be made of the fruits of the earth that as he who is God invisible appeared visible in our Flesh and
Antiquity with them I answer that there is no such consequence Transubstantiation being another species of change the enumeration was not full for it doth not follow that because there is a conversion a transmutation a transelementation there should be also a Transubstantiation which the Fathers never so much as mentioned For because this is a Sacrament the change must be understood to be Sacramental also whereby common Bread and Wine become the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ which could not be did not the substance of the Bread and Wine remain for a Sacrament consisteth of two parts an earthly and a heavenly And so because ordinary Bread is changed by consecration into a Bread which is no more of common use but appointed by divine institution to be a Sacramental sign whereby is represented the Body of Christ in whom dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily and being thereby dignified having great excellencies superadded and so made what it was not before it is therefore said by some of the Fathers to be changed to be made another thing And truly that change is great and supernatural but yet not substantial not of a substance which substantially ceaseth to be into another substance which substantially beginneth to be but it is a change of state and condition which alters not the natural properties of the Element This is also confirmed by Scripture which usually describes and represents the conversion of men and the supernatural change of things as though it were natural though it be not so So those that are renewed by the Word and Spirit and Faith of Christ are said to be regenerated converted and transformed to put off the old man and put on the new man and to be new Creatures but they are not said to become another substance to be transubstantiated For men thus converted have still the same humane body and the same rational soul as before though in a far better state and condition as every Christian will acknowledge Nay the Fathers themselves use those words Transmutation Transformation Transelementations upon other occasions when they speak of things whose substance is neither lost nor changed For those words be of so large a signification that though sometimes a substantial change is to be understood by them yet for the most part they signifie only a moral change a change of qualities of condition of office of use and the like To this sense they are used by the Greek Fathers Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Origene Cyril of Jerusalem Basil Gregory Nazianzen Gregory Nyssene Cyril of Alexandria Chrysostom Theodoret Theophylact and Occumenius to express the Resurrection of the Body the efficacy of divine Doctrine the Sanctification of a regenerated person the immortality of the flesh after the Resurrection the repentance of sinners the assumption of the humane nature in the Person of Christ the regeneration of Saints the vertue of the divine grace the power of Baptism and the excellency of Charity and lastly the alteration for the better the greatness usefulness power and dignity of many things Neither are the Latine Fathers without such kind of expressions for they do not make the conversion of the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist more essential or substantial than in Baptism the conversion of man born again to a new life or as they speak whose humane natural condition is changed into a nobler a heavenly state which is a moral and mystick change and not natural or substantial The Ancientest of them Tertullian said That God had promised to man the body and substance of Angels and that men should be transformed into Angels as Angels have been transformed into men Now who would infer from hence that Angels have been essentially changed into men or that humane bodies should be so transformed into an Angelical substance that they should be no longer men nor humane bodies but properly and essentially Angels Which Tertullian himself is expresly against and saith That Angels were so changed into men that still they remained Angels without quitting their proper substance As others have spoken of the Bread in the Eucharist That it so becomes the body of Christ that still it is what it was as St. Ambrose That it looseth not its nature as Theodoret that the substance of the Bread remains as Gelasius affirms And doubtless the same meant all the Ancients who according to their way of speaking said any thing of the change of Bread and Wine For all the Vouchers brought by the Papists speak only of an accidental mystical and moral nothing at all of a substantial change Transubstantiation is taken by its defenders for a material change of one substance into another we indeed allow a Transmutation of the Elements but as for a substantial one we vainly seek for it it is no where to be found 8. To the fourth head I refer what the Fathers say of our touching and seeing the Body of Christ and drinking his Bloud in the Sacrament and thereto I answer That we deny not but that some things Emphatical and even Hyperbolical have been said of the Sacrament by Chrysostome and some others and that those things may easily lead unwary men into error That was the ancient Fathers care as it is ours still to instruct the people not to look barely on the outward Elements but in them to eye with their minds the Body and Bloud of Christ and with their hearts lift up to feed on that heavenly meat For all the benefit of a Sacrament is lost if we look no farther than the Elements Hence it is that those holy men the better to teach this Lesson to their hearers and move their hearts more efficaciously spake of the Signs as if they had been the thing signified and like Orators said many things which will not bear a litteral sense nor a strict examen Such is this of an uncertain Author under the name of St. Cyprian We are close to the Cross we suck the bloud and we put our tongues in the very wounds of our Redeemer so that both outwardly and inwardly we are made red thereby Such is that of St. Chrysostome In the Sacrament the Bloud is drawn out of the side of Christ the Tongue is made bloudy with that wonderful bloud Again Thou seest thy Lord saecrificed and the crouding multitude round about sprinkled with his bloud he that sits above with the Father is al the same time in our hands Thou dost see and touch and eat him For I do not shew thee either Angels or Archangels but the Lord of them himself Again He incorporates us with himself as if we were but the same thing he makes us his body indeed and suffers us not only to see but even to touch to eat him and to put our teeth in his flesh so