that are called Brethren which are assembled on purpose to Pray earnestly to God both for themselves and for him that hath been illuminated or Baptised and for all others in all places to the end that we may be worthy to be found Disciples to the Truth and Observers of those things that are commanded and to converse in all good Works for the obtaining of eternal Salvation When Prayers are ended we mutually Salute each other by a Kiss After that they present to him of the Brethren which doth preside Bread and a Cup of Wine mingled with Water he takes it and pronounces over it praises to the Father of all things in the Name of the Son and by the Holy Spirit Afterwards he inlarges much in Praises for that it hath pleased him to give us these things And when he hath finished his Prayers and Praises the people that are present concur by their acclamations saying Amen Now Amen in the Hebrew Language signifies so be it When the President hath finished his Praises and Thanksgivings and the people have said Amen those which amongst our selves we call Deacons distribute to every one that are present of this Bread that hath been blest and of this Wine and Water and they carry thereof to the absent And this Aliment is called among us the Eucharist It is not permitted to any one to eat thereof unless he receive our Doctrine as true and hath been partaker in the washing of Regeneration for the remission of sins and lives according to the appointment and Laws of Christ Jesus To conclude we do not receive this Bread as common Bread nor this Drink as common Drink But as by the word of God Jesus Christ our Saviour was made Flesh and took Flesh and Blood for our Salvation So we have been taught that this Aliment upon which have been pronounced Praises and Thanksgivings are the Flesh and Blood of that Jesus that was made Flesh Behold what was the Worship of the Ancients and the Ceremonies with which they Celebrated their Mysteries 1. They caused him that was to be Baptised to confess and own the Name of Jesus Christ and his Doctrine 2. They obliged him to Fast and Pray and they Fasted and Prayed with him 3. After that they carried him into a place in which there was Water appointed for Baptism 4. The place was separate because then Baptism was performed by immersion and that they might not expose the Nakedness of Men and Women to the view of other Believers 5. He that was Baptised was plunged in the Water and they pronounced over him the Invocation of the Father Son and Holy Ghost i.e. they Baptised him in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost 6. Afterwards they brought him back to the full Assembly and there he was gathered and received into the number of the Faithful 7. All the Assembly continued their Prayers in which they Prayed for the Church for the person Baptised for the Powers in general and in particular 8. When Prayers were ended they prepared themselves for the Communion by a Kiss of Charity which they mutually gave each other 9. They presented to the President and to him that had Prayed common Bread made after the ordinary manner and a Cup in which there was Wine mingled with Water 10. The President uttered or pronounced some Prayers to the Glory of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost 11. He adds some Prayers and Thanksgivings to God that he hath been pleased to give to us the pretious Gift of the Flesh and Blood of his Son at the Holy Table 12. When he finished his Prayers all the people said Amen 13. In consequence whereunto the Deacons distributed to the People the Bread and Wine that had been Consecrated by Prayer 14. They carried it to the absent they Collected the Alms of the People they dismissed the Assembly and finished the business and exercise Observe first that which seems added to the Practice of the Apostles 1. They mingled Water with their Wine We do not observe that it was either Practised by the Apostolick Church or that any such thing was appointed by them 2. They carried the Consecrated Bread to the absent It doth not appear that this was Practised in the first Age. These are indeed small changes but nevertheless they ought to be observed for the better knowledge of those that followed But on the other side observe that we see not here 1. Either Oblation or Sacrifice 2. He speaks nothing of any Altar 3. That there was no Elevation made 4. That no signs of the Cross were seen there 5. That no Prayers were made but to God and no Intercessions made use of but those of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit 6. That he speaks nothing of Adoration 7. That it doth not appear that they Communicated upon their Knees 8. That they gave to the People the Communion under both Kinds 9. That the Service was performed in a Language understood by the People for they answered Amen to the Thanksgivings 10. That all that were present did partake in the Mysteries and not the Priest only We Conjure you my Brethren to give attention to all this and so if there be any thing therein that hath the least tast or savour of Sacrifice What a prodigious change must have happened since that time to compose and frame such a Worship as they call the Mass where a Priest covered with extravagant Garments which they say are Mysterious heaps one upon another in a Language that the People do not understand a multitude of Prayers some good and some bad all without order and without reason make Oblations signs of the Cross Elevations where the people Adore and Prostrate themselves before the Sacrament when it is lifted up where the Priest eats alone after he hath made a hundred Ceremonies on the Bread and Wine Ceremonies that signifie nothing but render the Celebration of the Mystery ridiculous Do not insist pertinaciously on what remains viz. That Justin Martyr calls the Bread and Wine of the Sacrament the Flesh and Blood of Christ Jesus So we call them our selves and so have the Writers of all Ages called them So our Lord Jesus and S. Paul calls them And it signifies no more in Justin Martyr than those words of our Saviour This bread is my body this cup is my blood Theophilus of Antioch who lived in the same Age with Justin Martyr acknowledges that 't is a Denomination not a Transmutation When Jesus Christ saith he said This is my body he called his Body Bread which is made of many Grains 'T is not common Bread saith Justin Martyr 't is the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ But 't is such Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ as nourisheth our Flesh and Blood according to him That is to say which is changed into our bodily Nourishment and passes through our Veins Now no Man ever believed or can believe that the true Flesh of Christ passes into the
Elevate nor Adore we should have nothing to do but to produce a hundred places where it is clear that they gave the Communion under both Kinds without ever speaking of Elevation or Adoration This Communicating of Infants which is not disputed and by consequence we have no need to prove it is a thing worthy of observation for it is an addition of the third Age which makes it appear 1. That the Church is not Infallible by the confession of our Adversaries For the Church of the third Age and those that followed it hath erred according to them in judging that the Eucharist was necessary to little Children as well as Baptism therefore she is not Infallible in the interpretation of the Holy Scripture for the hath misinterpreted those Words If any one eat not my flesh and drink not my blood he cannot have everlasting life Since she hath believed that Children could not be Saved without Communicating 2. That Custom makes it appear that the Church is capable of introducing considerable Innovations and those Universal and of long duration Your Converters grant that it was no Apostolick Tradition that at the beginning it was not so nevertheless it was an important Innovation as it is clear for according to us It is no less than to prophane a Sacrament which requires self examination by giving it to persons that cannot prepare themselves and according to the Roman Doctors it is to expose the true Body of Jesus Christ to horrible indignities by putting it in the mouth of an Infant of some few days or months old And that which cannot fail to happen is that the Body of Jesus Christ was oftentimes spit out upon the floor For Children do not fail to reject whatsoever does not please their Palat. Moreover this important Innovation was so Universal that the whole Church embraced and entertained it and of so long duration that we find examples thereof many Ages after the fourth 3. Learn from this Custom that in those Ages they were not obliged to Adore the Sacrament before they cat it for Children could not perform any act of Adoration Therefore press your Converters vigorously with this Example and ask them if the Church cannot Innovate in other Articles of importance since it hath plainly Innovated in this and if we may not Correct Ancient and Universal Customs since the Church of Rome hath rescinded practices where were introduced but one Age after the Apostles Behold thus much for Worship and Practice As to Opinion do not suffer your selves to be persuaded that any change in Doctrine touching the Sacrament of the Eucharist did happen during the third Age. The proofs that your Converters bring thereof unto you are very pittiful For they are passages where the Fathers of that Age called the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist The Body the Flesh and the Blood of the Lord. Behold verifying proofs What is to be said concerning them since it is the language of Jesus Christ himself and of his Apostles The question is not what they said but that we are to know is in what sence and after what manner the Fathers of the third Age understood that the Bread of the Eucharist was the Flesh of Jesus Christ Now I do maintain that your Converters must be either Fools or Knaves beyond all imagination that dare to say that according to the Fathers of the third Age that the Bread of the Eucharist was the Body of Jesus Christ by way of Reality and Transubstantiation for the Fathers of that Age spoke as plainly and clearly concerning it as we do Hear then Tertullian who lived in the beginning of that Age among other Hereticks with a sort of impious Villains who said that our Lord Jesus Christ had no true Body Thus he reasons against them Our Lord having taken Bread and distributed to his Disciples made it his Body saying this is my Body that is to say the figure of my Body Now this had not been a Figure if he had not had a true Body That is to say if the Figure had no relation to the true Body For an empty thing as is a Phantasm is not capable of having a Figure Another Author of the same Age whose Work is ascribed to Origen Disputing against the same Hereticks called Marcionites says If as these pretend our Lord were destitute of Flesh and Blood of what Body of what Flesh of what Blood has he given us the Signs and the Images viz. The Bread and the Cup by which he has commanded his Disciples to preserve and renew his memory These Men had lost their Reason to speak in this manner if they believed the Real Presence above all in disputing against those which denyed that Jesus Christ had a true Body They say Jesus Christ was no Phantasm he had a true Body for he gave us in the Eucharist the figure and Image thereof Now Phantasms have no Images they themselves being Images and no more These Men say I had lost their wits for they should have said Jesus Christ was no Phantasm he had a true Body for he gives this true Body to us to eat every day Since at this day he has a Body and we eat thereof with great reason it may be affirmed he had one when he was upon Earth The first Reason taken from the Image and Figure is of some weight I do acknowledge But this taken from the Reality in the Eucharist had been a hundred time better and according to the Opinion of the Church of Rome is an argument altogether invincible So that we must suppose these Authors did betray and abandoned the Cause of the Church by making use of feeble Arguments against the Marcionites when she had furnished them with one that was utterly impregnable For after all it is not wholly true that Phantasms can have no Figures or Images It is a reflection that you ought to make to discover the vanity of the Sophistry wherewith your Converters serve themselves to answer to those passages and an hundred others without Hyperbole where the Fathers of the seven first Ages called the Eucharist the Figure the Type the Image the Symbols the Signs the Antitypes of the Body and Blood of the Lord it is say they because there are two things in the Eucharist There is Figure and Reality Figure because of the Accidents of Bread and Wine which are the Figures of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ Truth and Reality because of the Real Presence of the Flesh inwardly contained under the Species Now the Fathers sometimes respected the Sacrament on its external part that is to say by the Species in this respect they have called it Figure It it be so at least the Ancients ought not to consider the Sacraments on the side of the Figure when it was necessary for the Cause which they defended to consider it on the side of the Reality as it was in the disputes against the Marcionites Hear yet the same Tertullian to the end
That the Body of Christ which Believers receive doth not loose its sensible substance and remain inseperable from the intelligible Grace as Baptism being made intirely spiritual preserves the property of its sensible substance i. e. of Water This man had lost all sense to speak thus if he had believed Transubstantiation or unavoidably he believed that a Transubstantiation was made in Baptism In the same sixth Age Facundus Bishop of Hermiane doth very neatly express wherein this change consists (c) Lib. 9. We call says he The Sacrament of the Body and Bloud which is consecrated in the Bread and the Cup the Body and Bloud of Jesus Christ not that the Bread is properly his Body and the Cup his Bloud but because they contain the Mystery of his Body and Bloud and thence it comes to pass that the Lord himself did call the Bread and the Cup which he blessed and gave to him Disciples his Body and Bloud In what kind of frame of mind must a man be to say after this That Facundus believed Transubstantiation and the real Presence It must be confessed that we owe something to the Heresie of Eutyches who confounded the two Natures in Jesus Christ For 't is in refuting this Error and for the confutation of it that Theodoret Gelasius and Facundus made use of the example of the Eucharist and have explained the change which is made there with such clearness that our own Divines never did it more plainly 'T is in disputing against these Hereticks that Theodoret says this That a man would believe it had been transcribed from the Books of a Calvinist (d) Dialog 1. Our Saviour saith he did make a change of Names he gave to his Body the name of the Symbol and as he named himself a Vine so he also called the Symbol his Blood c. Tell us in good earnest whereof think you that the holy Element is a Sign and Figure Is it of the Divinity of Jesus Christ or of his Blood 'T is evident that 't is of those things whereof they take their names For the Lord having taken the Sign says not this is my Divinity but this is my Body and this is my Blood. My Brethren as a matter of Fact tell your Converters that those passages which we produce unto you are not the tenth part of what we are able to produce to the same sence and importance To conclude when the Ancients please to express plainly and without circumlocution the manner how we feed on Christ Jesus they say exactly the same things that we do 'T is a strange thing that being of such contrary sentiments as they are supposed they should have expressions so very much alike Behold a Calvinistical Paraphrase upon the sixth Chapter of St. John taken from Eusebius Caesariensis he makes Jesus Christ to speak thus * Theod. Ecclesiast contra Marcel lib. 3. cap. 12. Do not think I speak of the Flesh wherewithal I am enclosed as if it were necessary that you should eat it nor do not think that I appoint you to drink sensible Blood but know that the words which I speak to you are Spirit and Life For they are my Words and my Discourses which are this Flesh and this Blood in which whosoever does always partake shall be a Partaker of Eternal Life as being nourished with Bread from Heaven 'T is pitty that St. Athanasius so great a Defender to the Truth against the Arrians should have also been a Calvinistical Heretick After he had quoted these words of our Lord Doth this offend you c. He adds ‖ Our Lord ‖ Hom. On That whosoever shall speak a word against the Son c. speak of the one and of the other i. e. of his Flesh and of his Spirit And he distinguished his Spirit from his Flesh to the end that not beleiving only that which was visible in him but also that which was invisible in him they might learn that the things which he spake were not carnal but spiritual For to how many persons must his Body serve as Meat to become the Nourishment of all the World 'T is for that reason that he makes mention of the Ascention of the Son of Man into Heaven that he might withdraw them from all corporeal thoughts and learn them that the Flesh whereof he had spoken to them was a heavenly Meat and a spiritual Nourishment which He must give them from on High. 'T is a thing very surprizing that the Arrians who watched the steps of Athanasius so very warily and made faults of every thing did not accuse him for being estranged from the Faith of the Church As to St. Austine he is upon thâ— matter more a Calvinist than Calvin himself And if the Jesuites have degraded him because he is a Jansenist in the matter of Grace I know not why they should treat him with more civility in this Case 'T is he that saith ‖ Lib. 3. de Doct. Christiana cap. 16. That Jesus Christ seems to command a Crime when he says If ye do not eat my Flesh and drink my Blood you have no life in you but 't is a Figure which commands that we communicate in the Passion of our Lord and that we do gratefully and profitably remember that his Flesh was wounded and crucified for us 'T is he which saith also * Seâ—â— 33. de Verhis Domin Do not prepare the Throat but the Heart Why do you prepare your Teeth and you Belly Believe and you will eat him You Converters my Brethren are not ignorant that we could easily make a Book of like passages of this Father for he speaks often of the Eating of the Flesh of Jesus Christ and never speaks otherwise thereof He says that this eating is by Faith and that the Wicked the Unbelieving and Unworthy Communicants have no part therein I conjure you my Brethren to consider whether any thing solid can be opposed to Testimonies so plain and express What can the Harshnesses of St. Ambrose the Rhetorications of St. Chrysostome and the perplext Ratiocinations of St. Hillary do against this Can it hinder that the Testimonies which we have heard do not make a clear and convincing Deposition against the Real Presence I enquire of you Whether if we must explain one by the other it be just to explain those which speak simply clearly and without ambiguity by those who speak like Orators or in a mystick Stile that they may not be understood by Infidels and Catechumens Besides is it not just to explain an Author by himself Are not five or six passages of St. Chrysostome where he speaks in plain terms and discourses of things as they are in themselves more than sufficient to give the Reader a true understanding of the sence and spirit of this Author Where are the Christian Orators with whom a man may not find Heresies if he will thus take them at advantage And in the Books of Protestant Meditations may not a man
had that respect for the converted Pagans that they added as many innocent Ceremonies as they could to give to this Sacrament the appearance of a Sacrifice with the same intention they gave it the name with this intention to the first Oblation used in the second Age they added another And they began to present to God by Prayer the Bread and Wine they were about to consecrate and wherewith they made the Eucharist This is called Oblation and Sacrifice The Writings of the third Age are full thereof And 't is from thence that Popery would draw some advantage as if they found therein their Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Living and the Dead But this pretence is false for first of all it must be observed that the Fathers says expresly that 't is a Sacrifice of Bread and Wine we shall hear afterwards the Fathers of the fourth Age and those following At present we are to hear those of the third Clemens of Alexandria says that Melchisedec gave Bread and Wine as sanctified Provisions in Type of the Eucharist Which St. Cyprian explains in these words Our Lord hath offered to God the same Sacrifice that Melchisedec offered that is to say Bread and Wine viz. his Body and his Blood. We see says he farther the Sacrament of the Sacrifice of our Lord prefigured in the Priest Melchisedec according to what the Scripture testifies where it says Melchisedec brought forth Bread and Wine And a little below The Lord accomplishing and rendering perfect the image of his Sacrifice hath offered Bread and Wine Now who ever heard say that there were Propitiatory Sacrifices of Bread aad Wine All propitiation is in the effusion of blood and death of the Sacrifice 2. Moreover it is certain that the Fathers of the third Age called the Eucharist a Sacrifice because it is the commemoration of the Sacrifice of the Cross We make mention of the Passion of the Lord Jesus Christ in all our Sacrifices saith St. Cyprian 3. We have yet an invincible proof that the Fathers of the third Age did not look upon the Eucharist as a true Sacrifice from the manner in which they answered the Pagans upon the reproach which they continually offered to them because they had no Sacrifices In the second Age Justin Martyr said That the Prayers and Thanksgivings of Saints and Believers were the only Sacrifices which were perfect and acceptable to God and were the only Sacrifices which Christians have learnt to Offer even then when they celebrated the Eucharist In truth this Author had lost either his understanding or his memory if the Eucharist it self had been a Propitiatory Sacrifice Athenagoras who lived in the same Age answered also the Pagans after the same manner What have I to do with Sacrifices and Burnt Offerings since God cares not for them He demands an unbloody Sacrifice a reasonable Service Can any thing be more express and more lovely than that which Minutius Felix says in answer to a Pagan that objected to him The Christians have no Temples nor Altars do you think that we hide what we adore under pretence that we have no Temples nor Altars The Sacrifice that ought to be offered to God is a good Mind a pure Conscience a sincere Faith it is to live Innocently exercise Justice abstain from Evil and prevent his Neighbour from Perishing this is to Sacrifice a fat Victim these are our Sacrifices this is our Service Origen answers absolutely after the same manner to the Objection which was made by the Pagan Celsus If we read Clemens of Alexandria he expresses himself almost in the same words Arnobius producing the Objection of the Pagans How then will some say that you are under no obligation to offer Sacrifice And answers after a manner very exact We are not at all obliged thereunto Lactantius answers no otherwise than those which went before Now it is a prodigious blindness in these Men not to have answered the Pagans You deceive your selves we have a Sacrifice and the most glorious of all Sacrifices For we offer the Body of Jesus Christ as a Propitatory Sacrifice to God his Father I intreat you my Brethren press your Converters and demand of them whether they dare say to a Pagan we have no other Sacrifices than Prayers and Thanksgivings as for true Sacrifices we have no need to offer them To Conclude my Brethren give attention to this last proof that the Ancients of the third Age did not account the Eucharist a true Sacrifice It is that they Consecrated and Celebrated this Sacrament out of Churches in private Houses and at their Meals besides their solemn Communions which were made in publick Assemblies they Celebrated the Mysteries in private and among their Domesticks This we see in a Letter of St. Cyprian where he disputes against certain persons who out of Mortification and Abstinence from Wine especially in the morning will not Celebrate the Eucharist but with Water Let not any one says he flatter himself with this consideration that although in the mornings they offer with Water alone nevertheless when they come to Supper they offer the Cup mixed with Wine and Water For when we eat this Supper we cannot call together all our people to Celebrate this Sacrament in all its truth in the presence of all our Brethren His sence is these Water drinkers against whom he disputes did not satisfie the Commandment and Institution of Christ Jesus to Celebrate with Wine by these private Communions which were made in Houses in which they mingled Wine with Water because they ought to follow the Institution of Jesus Christ and to Celebrate the Sacrament in its purity and integrity in the presence of all the Brethren and in the midst of publick Assemblies It appears then from thence 1. That they Celebrated it in private Houses in the Evening when they Supped together 2. That they there Consecrated the Cup and that it was not brought from Elce where 3. That the Bread as well as the Cup was Consecrated at the same instant for why should they Consecrate the Cup if they had not power to Consecrate the Bread 4. To conclude these Communions were private amongst a few-persons and out of the presence of the people I do not doubt at all but it is of these private Communions whereof Tertullian speaks in Chap. 3. of his Book concerning The Soldiers Crown We take says he the Sacrament of the Eucharist at Meal-time as also at Morning Assemblies before day where we do not Communicate but at the hand of the Presidents It is a passage that Men do not or will not understand For the understanding of it we must know that Tertullian made this Book on the occasion of a Christian Soldier who would not set a Crown of leaves upon his Head because it was forbidden to Christians By this refusal he discovered he was a Christian and exposes himself to Martyrdom which he suffering many blamed him and said why did he refuse to bear his
of the Church did not change in the Point of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation This Article being long we shall divide it into two And we shall see at this time that the Fathers did believe as we do that the Sacrament of the Eucharist was nothing but an efficacious Figure of the Body and Blood of the Lord. As they persevered in the custom of calling the Sacrament of the Eucharist a Sacrifice and Oblation they continued also in a custom much more ancient since it descended from Jesus Christ and his Apostles that is to call the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist the Body the Flesh the true Flesh and the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said then that we eat the Flesh of our Lord Jesus that we really receive him that Jesus Christ hath given his Flesh to eat and his Blood to drink that it is truly his Flesh and truly his Blood that we may not doubt that Jesus Christ doth not give what he promised viz. his Flesh and his Blood nor that the Bread is not the Body of Christ that Jesus Christ who changed Water into Wine could easily change the Bread into his Body and the Wine into his Blood that we must communicate with a full certainty as in the Body of Jesus Christ that Jesus Christ who is the invisible Priest changes the visible Creatures into the substance of his Body and of his Blood. After all that which they quote unto you of most strength concerning the Article of the Eucharist for Transubstantiation and the Real Presence in the fourth and fifth Ages amounts to this But I pray you what doth all this signifie Is there any thing therein of more strength than that which Jesus Christ and his Apostles have said The Lord said My Flesh is Meat indeed and my Blood is Drink indeed this or this Bread is my Body St. Paul said The Bread which you break is our Communion in the Body of Jesus Christ That which is under debate is to know how they understood this and if we prove that Jesus Christ and his Apostles did understand that the Bread continueth Bread being nevertheless changed into the Body of Jesus Christ if we prove that they meant the Bread is the Body of Jesus Christ because it is the Sign the Sacrament and the Means by which the efficacy of his Death is applied unto our Souls it is certain that we have ruined all the advantages that can be drawn from these high Expressions In like manner if we can prove that the Fathers of the fourth and fifth Ages did understand that the Bread and Wine became the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and are changed into his Flesh and Blood because they are the Sacraments the Signs the Figures the Images and the Means by which God doth communicate the vertue of his Flesh and the efficacy of his Death without any change happening in the substance thereof if say I the Fathers of these Ages declare this plainly it is obvious that they cannot draw any advantage from all these Expressions how high soever they appear now I take it for granted that they could not declare themselves more plainly thereon than they have done as we shall hear hereafter And to the end that their Declarations may appear to us more express and significant it is necessary that you be acquainted with one thing of which your Converters are at an agreement with us and by consequence I need not prove unto you and 't is this in these Ages it was the custom to hide the Mysteries not only from Unbelievers but also from the Catechumens which had not as yet communicated This conduct had two Reasons or Foundations the first was the design to increase the respect which they desired Christians should retain for these Mysteries the second was an earnest passion to diminish the contempt which the Pagans had for a Mystery wherein nothing was seen but Bread and Wine These two Considerations obliged them never to speak of the Sacrament but in obscure and dark words They desired never to name the Bread and Wine as much as they could they served themselves of Periphrases saying sometimes that which you well understand sometimes that which the Priest takes sometimes the nourishment made of many Grains and the drink drawn from many Grapes or something of like sort This was in my opinion the meanest subtilty in the World. For in despight to all their Precautions every body knew that they took nothing but Bread and Wine in the Eucharist and they themselves said it oftentimes contrary to the design which they had of saying nothing concerning it But at last the design of hiding the matter of the Sacrament engaged them to speak nothing of it but in dark terms and always to serve themselves of the mystical terms of the Body the Flesh and the Blood of Jesus Christ and always to use these expressions and always to avoid those that were plain and without figure as much as they were able So that when it happens that they call the Signs by their name and to speak to things as they are indeed one only passage is more worth than a hundred where they speak figuratively and mystically For this mystical Language was among them a Language of necessity and duty which they had imposed upon themselves whereas when they spake of things plainly and nakedly 't was the Language of truth 't was the Language of the Heart and Soul which rescu'd it self from politick slavery and bondage It will not be therefore amazing if we find few passages in Antiquity where the truth of the opinion of the Fathers was plainly expressed Nevertheless we find so many of them and so plain that 't is not conceivable how prejudice hinders our adversaries from seeing the truth in this case First of all altho' we had no other passages of the Fathers but those where they call the Sacrament the Figure the Sign the Image the Symbols of the Body and Blood of the Lord these were enough Now of these there is almost an infinite number what other things do we say thereof than that the Sacrament is the Figure the Sign and the Symbol of the Body of Jesus Christ why did they say the same thing with us if they had not the same thoughts and conceptions with us St. Austin said (a) Cont. Ademas cap. 12. Our Lord made no scruple to say this is my Body The Author of the Book of Sacrament under the Name of St. Ambrose saith (b) Lib. 4. cap. 5. That the Oblation of the Eucharist is the Figure of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ St. Ephraim saith (c) Lib. De Nat. Dei non frut That our Lord taking Bread in his hands brake it and blessed it that it might be the Figure of his immaculate Body and that he blessed the Chalice and gave it to his Disciples to signifie his Blood. St. Cyril of Jerusalem from whom they bring you
the beginning of this Letter i.e. that you ought not to procure to your selves consolation by hearing the Word of God in Popish Churches where you will find it seasoned and tempered in a way mortal to your Souls It is necessary that you search it after the manner that our Brethren of which I have been speaking have done I know well that your Flesh hath many things to say to me concerning it Some will say they are a great People in that Country and we are here but a handful of Men. The more easily mâ—y you communicate together the fewer you are in number the less are your motions perceived Others will say these People are favoured by the situation of their Country we are in Cities where they watch us night and day Hath the situation of their Country hindered them from the danger of being discovered hanged and sent to the Gallies Have they been discouraged by having been discovered once yea twenty times I do declare to you on the behalf of God if you don't renounce this Spirit of Fear and put on the Spirit of Martyrs God will forsake vou you will not find a Man that will be able to comfort you yea you will not receive Letters to support you You are afraid of the shadow of danger God will be very much beholden to you you will love him and you will enquire after him when there shall be no danger therein But 't is at present that you ought to make it appear whether you yet love God in exposing your selves to all dangers and often as you search consolation for your Souls and edification for your Faith. I pray God to have pity on your state and that he will give you such sentiments as you ought to have The Grace of our Lord be given to you again Amen Octob. 15. 1686. The FIFTH PASTORAL LETTER THE Christian Purity of the Apostolick Church opposed to that of Popery Letters of some Confessors My well beloved Brethren in our Lord Jesus Christ Grace and Peace be given to you from our God. IN our third Letter we promised to give you a brief History of the changes that have happened in Christianity in the first five hundred years of the Church that from thence you may understand the-unfaithfulness of Monsieur de Meaux and your Converters which tell you with so much impudence that Christianity is come down from the Apostles to them without alteration We have been obliged to delay the performance of that promise that we might make some reflections upon an information that hath been given us concerning the Conduct of the new Converts This was the subject matter of our fourth Letter We will return again at this time to the matter which we have discontinued and give a short pourtraiture and description of the Christianity of the first Age that you may see the changes that have happened in the Ages following The first Age of the Church WE cannot know the opinions and practices of an Age with any certainty but by the Authors of that Age. We have no Authors of the first Age of the Church but the Apostles and Evangelists And though others should be found that may be referred to that first Age we shall leave them to the second to which also they do belong because it is certain that those i. e. the Apostles and Evangelists do suffice to teach us what was the Religion of the Apostolick Church It is above all things just that we see what was the Religion of that first Age and by consequence we must consult the Writers of it This is the more certain because they were Divinely inspired and are the only infallible Doctors that we have In so much that if the Romish Religion be founded in these infallible Writers we are content that you abandon and give up your selves to your Converters But on the contrary if nothing thereof be found there it is just that you believe that all that we reject hath been added to the Christian Religion It is a prodigy that surpasses all belief that Popery should be the Christian Religion and that the Founders thereof should not speak one word concerning it It is true the Evangelists and Apostles learn us to believe one God in three Persons and one Son of God made Man who dyed for the sins of Mankind Rose again Ascended into Heaven and will come again to judge the quick and the dead and to send one part of them into everlasting Torments and to give the other Rewards infinite for extent and duration But this is not Popery this is Christianity Popery is a Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of our Lord every day offered to God for the sins of the living and the dead It is a new Jesus made of Bread descending at all hours between the Hands of the Priest which they adore as the great God. It is the Worship and Invocation of a second sort of Mediator and Intercessor to whom they build Temples erect Images and Altars to whose honor they Sacrifice Jesus Christ by whose name they swear to whom they make Vows and in one word to whom they give all those divine Honors that are given to God himself It is an intermediate state betwixt Heaven and Hell called Purgatory in which for a time Souls endure the pains of fire and the torments of the damned Purgatory which is the foundation of a thousand other Worships Penances Prayers for the dead Masses indulgences Stations Jubilees Mortifications and human satisfactions To conclude for I will nor say all Popery is an institution of a new Head and Spouse for the Church into whole hands the Lord Jesus hath committed all his Authority and Rights to pluck up and to plant to build and to destroy to bind and to loose to make and unmake Kings and to keep the Keys of Heaven and Hell. Behold what Popery is and once more I will say it is a prodigy that God should give us Scripture to instruct us in his Religion and that he should not say one word of the greatest and most considerable parts of it there In the Name of God my Brethren be not taken in this unhappy snare into which I perceive that some of you are fallen The Scripture could not say all say they it hath left Commission to the Church to say the rest Now is it possible that persons can permit themselves to be taken by so gross an illusion If the thing under debate were small peradventure it might be conceded but it is about Adoration of the Sacrament that is to say a piece of Bread and giving religious Worship to Creatures and Images The thing debated is about Celebration of a Sacrifice the most important thing in the World in Religion yea about the Sacrificing of Christ himself the greatest Sacrifice that can be imagined And can it be believed that God will send us to Tradition concerning it It is to have renounced all honesty to advance such a proposition and to be
its Ceremonies were intirely unknown As to what appertains to other Sacraments as is that of Marriage and Penance he must have a mind blinded by prejudice beyond all imagination to believe they may be found in the Scripture Marriage and Penance are indeed found there but there is not one word which does establish them as sacred Ceremonies designed to seal the Covenant of Grace and to confer forgiveness of sins Confirmation is found there i. e. the custom of laying on of hands for the giving the Holy Spirit and that of Anointing the Sick to recover them from Diseases Some of the Proselytes of these Gentlemen make a great business of it and have said to us as a great reproach that we have taken away Confirmation and Extreme Unction It is a great pity that minds which seem inlightned should stumble at trifles And is it not clear that this Imposition of Hands and Extreme Unction was designed for doing of Miracles which are long since ceased But they say that the following Ages did nevertheless practise it That we shall see afterward The Invocation of the Holy Virgin and Saints the Worship of Relicks Adoring of Images and the Service of Creatures in Popery is an affair so considerable that it fills almost all Nevertheless the Scripture of the New Testament says nothing of it Nor is it possible that Men well Educated can persuade themselves that these are Apostolical Traditions when we see not the least footsteps of them in the Writings of the Apostles It is a blindness which cannot be understood As to matter of Fact we can have no dispute with Papists concerning it They must acknowledge that the Apostles and Evangelists speak not one word either of the Invocation of Saints and Angels nor of the Veneration of Relicks nor of the Adoration of Images As to matter of Right if the Church has power to introduce these new Worships let it be proved and put past doubt and Controversie for I do affirm that he must be smitten with a spirit of blockishness that maintains that we may Religiously invoke creatures without the Authority of God and order of his Apostles Plainly it will be said that the Apostles have appointed the Invocation of Saints and that they themselves have practised it but they have left nothing written concerning it I do affirm that he must have a Forehead made of Brass who shall say such a thing And the new Converts who can be persuaded of it make no use of their reason It will never enter into the mind of a reasonable Man that the Apostles have appointed Invocation of Saints and said nothing of it in their Writings Purgatory which they would have pass for a little thing is nevertheless a very great one For Prayers for the dead publick and private Masses and almost all the Roman Worship is founded thereon So that the Holy Spirit could not let it slip If there be a Purgatory it must be in the Scripture or there is none .. I take it for granted and 't is to scoff People to go search this pretended Fire in the prison whence we must not go out till we have paid the utmost farthing in the fire that ought to try all things at the end of the world in the prison where are the Spirits to which Noah preach'd If Heaven and Hell were no other ways revealed in the Scripture the profane would have a fair opportunity to laugh at us The Authority of the Pope is the last of those Articles of Popery that I have represented 'T is an Affair about which there can be no Controversie which has any foundation in the World. Ask your Converters where-is the Pope in the Scriptures they will quote to you the Words of Jesus Christ to S. Peter Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my church Call a Turk a Jew or any other Man that hath common sense and ask him whether he sees therein that God hath established a Man at Rome with full authority to guide the whole Church to damn to save to judge of all Differences to determine without Appeal to excommunicate Kings Princes and Sovereigns he will believe you laugh him to scorn The new Converts which see therein the Apostolick Chair from S. Peter to Innocent the Eleventh have very good Eyes I beseech you my Brethren take your Converters a little to those Texts of Scripture where S. Paul enumerates the Officers of the Church He has given some to be Pastors Teachers Apostles Evangelists Bishops Deacons Elders and Prophets in those places where he declares the Duties of those who enjoy the Offices of the Church Press them say I and demand of them whether they dare say that the Apostle hath omitted the first of all Offices an Office alone in its kind infinitely superior to all others Ask them if they do believe in good earnest that S. Paul declared the Duties of Bishops in general and that he said nothing for the Regulation of the Bishop of Bishops I am persuaded if you press them earnestly thereon they will blush in your Faces Behold I do maintain that I have said enough already for the History of the first Age. The silence of the Scripture about all the Articles of Popery is an indisputable proof that then it was wholly unknown But there is much more you have an hundred positive Proofs that then the Christian Religion was wholly opposite to Popery Against the Real Presence you have all those Passages where the Eucharist is called Bread and a Commemoration of the Death of our Lord all those where 't is said our Lord is on high and not here below Against the Sacrifice of the Mass you have all the Epistle to the Hebrews Against the Worship of Creatures you have the Decalogue and a thousand other Commandments which do appoint that you adore and invoke God alone Against the taking away the Cup and the Adoration of the Eucharist you have the History of its Institution Against Purgatory you have an hundred Texts which tell you that after this life Believers go to Heaven Against the Pope you have all those places where our Lord and the Apostles forbid the Domination of Church-Men both over their Flocks and one another This is not a place to engage in a long Controversie by the Scripture we compose a History not a Disputation Know therefore historically in the following Articles what was the Primitive Christianity Behold what was the form of the Apostolick Church 1. Christians having as yet no Churches assembled where they could for the Service of God and it was almost always from House to House This is apparent both in the History of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of S. Paul. 2. In the Assemblies they preached and declared the Word of God. This is also certain and read in divers Texts in the Book of the Acts. 3 They brake Bread from House to House the Sacred Scripture says so expresly that is to say
many passages to prove Transubstantiation says that (d) Mistagog 4. under the Figure of Bread is given to us the Body and under the Figure of Wine is given to us the Blood. And St. Gregory Nazianzen saith (e) Orat. 42. that we are made partakers of the Passover but always figuratively altho' our Passover be much more clear than that of the ancients for the legal Passover I dare say was a dark Figure of another Figure i.e. of the Eucharist St. Jerome saith (f) In Jerem. cap. 3. lib. 2. advers Jovin that the Figure of the Blood of Jesus Christ is made with Wine and elsewhere that Jesus Christ hath offered not Water but Wine for the Figure of his Blood. Theodoret saith (g) Dialog 3. 1. that the Eucharist is the Figure of the Passion and that the Sacred Nourishment is the Figure of his Body and his Blood. In these Passages the Ancients make use of the word Type which exactly signifies Figure They have also expressed the Nature of the Sacrament by the word Antitype which signifies an opposite Figure or a Figure that has respect unto the thing signified as one Pillar answers to another which is placed just over against it So the Author of the Constitutions attributed to the Apostles saith (a) Lib. 5. cap. 13. that our Lord gave to his Disciples the Mysteries which are the Figures answering to his precious Body and Blood and that we celebrate the Figures answering to the Body and Blood of our Lord. In the Liturgy ascribed to St. Basil 't is said (b) Lib. 6 29. we beseech thee by offering the Figures of the Body and Blood of thy Christ St. Cyril of Jerusalem saith (c) Mystag 5. that we taste the Figures answering to the Body and Blood of our Lord. Theodoret saith (d) Dialog 2. that the Divine Mysteries are the Figures answering to the true Body Can any thing be more express than all this unless it be what we see with our eyes In proper terms they tell us that the Sacrament in nothing but an Image Eusebius Bishops of Cesarea saith (e) Demonst lib. 8. That Jesus Christ commanded his Disciples to make the Image of his own Body Procopius upon Genesis saith (f) Cap. 49. that Jesus Christ gave to his Disciples the Image of his Body And Pope Gelasius or some Author of the same Age saith (g) Gelas de duabus nat certainly the Image or the Similitude of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is celebrated in the Mystery This therefore shews us plain enough what we ought to believe concerning Jesus Christ our Lord even that which we profess that which we celebrate and that which we receive in his Image I do not think that Zuinglius and Calvin have spoken more plainly and significantly To conclude they call the Bread and the Wine Symbols a word which every one knows signifies as much as the word Figure Eusebius saith * Demonst lib. 1. cap. 10. We have learnt to make a Memorial of this Sacrifice upon the Table with the Symbols of his Body and Bloud And St. Chrysostom ‖ Hom. 83. in Matth. If Jesus Christ be not dead of what are the consecrated things the Symbols And Theodoret * 1 Cor. c. 11. When we shall have the presence of our Lord we shall have no more need of the Symbols of his Body Nothing is so common in the Fathers as these Expressions To partake in the Symbols of our Lord to take the Symbols to burn the Symbols c. These same Fathers do give us the same Reasons of the Names Body and Bloud which are give to the Bread and Wine that we our selves give of them 'T is because they are the effectual Representations of the Flesh and Bloud of Jesus Christ If the Sacraments saith St. Austin †Epist 23. ad Bonifac. had no resemblance of those things whereof they are Sacraments they would be no Sacraments and 't is because of this Resemblance that they take the name of the things themselves as in the Sacrament of the Body of Jesus Christ the Sacrament of his Body and of his Bloud are in some sort his Body and Bloud It seems to me that a person must be prodigiously blind to believe that he which speaks thus does not think as we do The same St. Austin saith elsewhere * Serm. ad Infantes apud Bertram How is the Bread his Body and that which is in the Cup his Bloud My Brethren these things are called Sacraments because 't is one thing that is there seen and another thing which is understood that which is seen is a corporeal Species and that which is understood is a spiritual Benefit and Advantage To what end does he take this compass of discourse and why does he not answer without scruple 'T is because the Body of Christ Jesus is really there after the words of Consecration An Article of Controversie An Answer to the Prejudices which some persons have raised against our Separation from the Actions the Conduct and the Personal Qualities of the Authors thereof WE have finished our Answer to the Sophisms which they propose unto you on the subject of our Separation by making it evident to you that it does not hazard your salvation that it was necessary and that it was just But before we pass to other Questions which respect the Church we must say something concerning those who made this Separation for 't is the most fruitful Source and Fountain of Illusions and a Subject of perpetual Harangues and Declamations And this we owe especially to a Woman of Quality among those which are called new Converts who places the little Edification that our Reformers have given to the World or rather the Scandal which they have given to it by their Conduct and Divisions as one of the Reasons which hath most affected her and prevailed on her to embrace the Roman Religion 'T is a subject on which an infinite number of Books have been made to which I might send you were it not that Books are taken from you for the most part besides my designe being to spare you the labour of reading great Books I am to abridge and reduce what our Authors have said thereon to the compass and extent of a Letter Behold then the Accusations which they form against the Authors of the Separation which I have justified in my preceding Letters 1. That these pretended Reformers did no Miracles to support their extraordinary Mission and their new Gospel 2. That they led a scandalous life and such as had no conformity with the Spirit of a Reformed Gospel which they boasted to bring into the World. 3. That there appears in their Expressions a dark Malignity and an implacable Hatred against the Roman Church and that their Books are full of cruel Injuries both against the Roman Religion and against its Doctors a thing absolutely contrary to the Spirit of Charity 4.
Grief and Humiliation because so many men making themselves unworthy of his Clemency it was his will to leave them deprived of those good things which they would not have It was not therefore just that he should appear after a manner so manifestly Divine and absolutely capable of convincing all men but neither was it just that he should come after so secret a manner that he could not be known by those that sincerely search after him He communicates light enough for those that desire to see and obscurity enough for those that have a contrary disposition brightness enough to enlighten the Elect and darkness enough to humble them obscurity enough to blind Reprobates and light enough to condemn and make them inexcusable This is the true Key of Providence Light and Darkness throughout is exactly the Character of the Word of God of his Mysteries and of his Conduct 'T is not the Will of God that Babylon should fall all at a time * Revel 16. The great City must be divided into three parts Before it drink the last Cup of the Wrath of God †Revel 14. it must be reaped before it come to the Vintage The Latine Church before the full or entire Reformation was to be divided into Papists Lutherans and Reformed God to accomplish this design came to Reform the Church the first time by mixing darkness with light There is light enough to save humble minds and there is darkness enough to offend and scandalize the proud The Evidence of the Testimonies of the Word of God which the Authors of our Separation did discover the Ughliness of the Corruption of Popery which they did observe the Zeal with which they began this Work the admirable Success with which they carried it on the unanimous Accord in which they were to retain Christianity and reject Popery all this say I forms the light in this great Event but their Divisions private Quarrels humane Passions and the sad Schism found among them make that Obscurity that God hath permitted because his Design was not to throw Popery down to the ground all at once It is of necessity therefore that those who have any care of their Salvation give attention to the light to maintain and support themselves and that they serve themselves with the obscurities for their Humiliation and Abasement 'T is necessary that they admire the Finger of God in this great Work and that they admire it so much the more because he hath accomplished it by Instruments so weak and feeble If you give attention to all this I may assure you that you will find wherewith to satisfie yourselves in all those Scruples they put into your minds on the subject of the Authors of our Separation If you have at this time no matters of Fact 't is not because we have not those that are sufficiently considerable to communicate unto you but 't is because the Apologies for our Reformers could not well be divided into two Letters You may please to know only at this time That the Cruelties and Violences do continue but they dispense them after a manner that we little understand or can account for In some places there is some Abatement and Relaxation that which may be understood concerning it is that the Convertors are in some distress what course to take to carry on their great Work. The desertion and forsaking the Kingdom which is greater than at first makes them well see that as yet they have advanced nothing and that they will keep no more of the Reformed in it than those which they shut up in Prisons and send to the Gallies July 1 1687. The Twenty Second PASTORAL LETTER Testimonies of the Fathers of the fourth and fifth Ages about the Sacrament of the Eucharist Concerning the Communion under both Kinds An Article of Controversie Concerning the Visibility of the Church three false Consequences drawn from thence Dear Brethren in our Lord Grace and Peace be given to you from our God and Saviour Jesus Christ WE began in our last Letter to hear the Depositions of the Fathers of the fourth and fifth Ages about the Eucharist and against Transubstantiation at this time we shall hear them farther even as far as is needful to convince the Papists of being Innovators We have heard St. Chrysostome St. Austine Theodoret and Gelasius i. e. the chief Lights of the Greek and Latine Church who tell us more boldly and clearly than ever did Calvin and Zuinglius That the holy Symbols are Figures Images and Types of the Body and Bloud of the Lord Jesus Christ Nevertheless they did not deny that any change did happen in the Signs of Bread and Wine nor do we deny it neither But hear how they spake of this change 'T is true when they spake thereof before the Catechumens or before the People to whom they desired to give the greatest and most venerable Idea's of Sacraments there is nothing great and bold in the Figures of Rhetorick and Similitudes which they did not borrow to express this Change. From thence come those great and magnificent Expressions of St. Chrysostome which are abused that an Opinion might be ascribed unto him of which he never thought This St. Chrysostome oftentimes speaks as if the Bread and Wine had been really and actually changed into Flesh and Bloud and as if our Lips and Mouths were died and stained thereby But by one single passage of this Father learn what he understood and how he ought to be understood when it was intended to speak without Mystery and without Rhetorick of the Change which happens by Consecration this Author and others of the same Age speak of it as plainly as we ourselves can do St. Chrysostome says in his Epistle to Caesarius The Bread of the Eucharist is called Bread before it be sanctified but the Divine Grace having sanctified it by the Ministry of the Priest it bears no more the name of Bread but is thought worthy to be called the Body of our Lord although the nature of Bread remains And Theodoret a Dialog 1. Jesus Christ hath honoured the visible Symbols by the name of his Body and Blood not by changing their nature but by adding Grace to Nature And elsewhere b Dialog 2. The mistical Symbols after their Sanctification do not lose their proper nature for they continue in their first substance in their first Figure and in their first form and are visible and palpable as they were before The contemporary Author whom we have quoted under the name of Gelasius faith d De Duab. Natur. Certainly the Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ which we receive are a thing Divine from whence also it comes to pass that by them we are made partakers of the Divine Nature and nevertheless they do not cease to be a substance of Bread and Wine Ephraim the Patriarch of Antioch in the fixth Age says also the same thing (b) Apud Photiun m. l. 229.
15 1687. The Twenty Third PASTORAL LETTER An Article of Antiquity The Church of the fourth and fifth Ages did not Adore the Sacrament of the Eucharist And Article of Controversie An Answer to the Consequences which are drawn from the perpetual Visibility of the Church Notable Matters of Fact. Dear Brethren in our Lord Grace and Peace be given to your from our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. IN the two preceding Letters you have seen what the Ancients of the fourth and fifth Ages did think on the subject of the Eucharist You have seen that they acknowledge nothing there but Signs and Images of the Body and Bloud of our Lord and that they apprehended no other change there but a change of Grace which made no alteration in the nature of the species of Bread and Wine So the Faith of the Church was not changed therein there remains the Adoration concerning which it is also certain that there hapned no change in the Ages where we are They did not Adore the Sacrament in the three first Ages nor did they Adore it in these Suffer not your selves to be surprised my Brethren by five or six words which they quote to you from St. Ambrose or St. Austine who say That 't is necessary that we Adore the Flesh of Jesus Christ in the Mysteries and that we must not eat the Flesh of Jesus Christ when we have not Adored it We must not search the practice of an Age in rambling and extravagant Expressions as these are 'T is in History and in matters of Fact. There is not a person among us that does not acknowledge that we must Adore Jesus Christ in the participation of the Mysteries that is not the thing whereof we dispute It must be known whether they bowed the Knew before the Sacrament whether they lifted it up before the Communion that it might be Adored now we do maintain that this was not done And I do not know whether your Converters have the boldness to say the contrary at least they have not Ability enough to prove it They dazle your Eyes with a passage of Theodoret who says speaking of the Symbols of Bread and Wine (a) Dialog 2. That we conceive by the understanding that they are what they were made that we believe them and Adore them as being that which we believe them But observe 't is the same place where this Author tells us that which we have mentioned unto you before That the Mystical Symbols do not loose their proper Nature after their Consecration but that they remain in their first Substance their first Figure and their first Form they are visible and palpable as they were before He adds then immediately after the words which are abused to prove the Adoration of the Sacrament 'T is the same Author which hath told us after a very express manner that God in the Sacrament doth not change Nature but add Grace to Nature After this 't is unavoidable that he must have lost his Wits to say that we must Adore Bread and Wine which remain such and which have received no change in their Substance Who doth not see then that the word Adore is here taken for Venerate and in the same sense that we call the Mysteries of Religion Adorable and that we say we must Adore the Conduct of Providence In the sense that St. Isidore of Damietta calls the Gospels (b) Lib. 1. ep 136. Adorable That the Emperors were called (c) Conc. Calced part 1. Adorable by the Councils themselves And that the Table was called the Adorable Altar by the same Councils To conclude Theodoret must be understood as he desires to be understood for 't is he that says in the following Dialogue If the Body of Jesus Christ seems to you vile and of little value Why do you esteem its Figure whereof is Adorable and worthy of Honour can it self be abject and contemptible Behold again the Eucharist which is nothing but a Figure and a Figure opposite to the Body and which by consequence is not the Body But 't is nevertheless an Adorable Figure Judge whether Theodoret were so pitiful a Christian to believe we must Adore a Figure If we would find the practice of the Church in passages like these it were better to search it in passages of St. Austin where this Father says for example (d) Serm. 2. de diversis That that which he Adores is not a thing towards which he could stretch out his Finger and say Behold the God which I Adore Or rather in the place where he says (e) Serm. 74. de diversie Whilst we are in the Body we are absent from the Lord and if any one doubt or deny it and say to us Where is your God we cannot shew him Jesus Christ is always with his Father as to the presence of his Glory and Divinity as to his Corporeal Presence he is now above the Heavens at the right Hand of the Father but he is in all Christians by a presence of Faith. It must be professed that St. Austin is an inconvenient Author for these Transubstantiators we can't make him open his mouth but Thunders proceed from it against the now reigning Heresie and Idolatry It appears here that he neither adored the Sacrament nor lookt upon it as his God for he could not have found any difficulty in answering that question Where is your God It appear also that he had comprehended this admirable corporeal presence of Christ in the Sacrament for he reserves all the corporeal presence of Christ to the Heavens and leaves nothing to Earth but a presence of Faith. This poor man understood his Religion very ill We ought also to give attention to what St. Austin says speaking of sacred Signs that there are some of them subsist after the action as the Brasen Serpent * Lib. 3. de Trinit cap. 10. But others which cease after they have served the use to which they were designed as the Bread which we make expresly to be a sacred sign and is spent in the receiving the Sacrament But because these things being made by men are known to men they may well receive honour and give occasion for admiration as things miraculous What a poor man was this St. Austin and how many oversights in four lines 1. He would not have us worship the Bread we ought only to give it some respect as to a religious thing 2. He would not have us admire the Eucharist as a thing miraculous Of what did he think thus to speak of the greatest Miracle that ever was since the creation of the World Is it not a thing miraculous that the Body of Jesus Christ with all his substance should subsist in a point should be stript of all its Accidents and be in an infinite number of places at once I cannot tell then any more what will be called a thing miraculous 3. He supposes that 't is man that makes this Transubstantiation these things
being made by men Behold an admirable Divine which believes that a man can make a God and do a Miracle if I may so say that exhausts all the Divine Power To conclude to these three or four words of St. Austin That none eats the flesh of Jesus Christ before he hath adored it we ought to oppose what he says in the third Book concerning the Christian Doctrine †De Doctr. Christ lib. 3. cap. 9. That every one knows the Sacrament of Baptism and the celebration of the Body and Bloud of our Lord that 't is well known whereunto they have respect and that they are reverenced not by a servitude i.e. after a carnal manner but by a spiritual liberty Here St. Austin desires that we give to Baptism the same honour as to the Sacrament of the Eucharist We must confess if St. Austin did adore the Sacrament we ought to make no scruple therein we owe him this complaisance for that he hath spoken as absolutely concerning it as our selves For during the space of two hundred years past there hath not been either Zuinglian or Calvinist which hath spoken more boldly or more clearly against the Real Presence and Transubstantiation If this suffice not to know what kind of Worship was given to the Eucharist we must learn it from the History of matters of fact We learn from Mr. de Valois in his Notes upon Eusebius ‖ Euseb lib. 7. cap. 9. Hist Eccles That the Believers which were to communicate approached the Altar and there received the Body of Jesus Christ from the hand of the Priest standing upright and not on their knees as at this day The Author has passed for a good Roman Catholick he is learned and he is a Modern Writer so that he wants nothing to give him an authority in the hearts of the New Converts who refer themselves much more concerning Religion to what their new Authors speak of it then to what is said thereof by those that are more ancient And indeed how could they communicate otherwise than standing since they prayed standing on the Lords day and the fifty days which are from Easter to Whitsontide in memory of the Resurrection When they were ready to consecrate they put out the Catechumens i.e. well nigh half the Christians is it probable that they would deprive them of the comfort of adoring their Saviour if it had been then the custom of adoring him in the Sacrament In those Ages they did communicate Infants and how could they exact Adoration before the Manducation since Infants are not capable of performing an Act of Adoration I may also reckon amongst those Articles concerning which there was no change in the fourth and fifth Ages that of Purgatory For the opinion of a separate place where Souls were to be kept till the day of Judgment without seeing the face of God but without suffering any thing there was the Opinion of the greatest men of those Ages of St. Ambrose St. Chrysostom St. Hillary St. Jerome and under names so great it may not be doubted but it was the prevailing Opinion 'T was the third place of the Christians that then were but as yet there were but few footsteps of a fourth place seen 'T is true that in these Ages a man may shew you some passages of Gregory Nyssen and even some of St. Jerome which speak of a Purgation of Sins which ought to be made after death by the means of a Penal Fire But this is not the Purgatory of Popery 't is that of Origen according to whom we have seen that all intelligent Creatures without excepting Devils and wicked men who die impenitently ought to be recovered and re-established Originism did not die with Origen and many famous Fathers of the fourth Age were infatuated with it Those which know the History of the Quarrels between St. Chrysostom and Epiphanius are not ignorant thereof I think indeed that few men did then dare to maintain the Opinion of Origen crude as he left it touching the future salvation of the Devils and the damned But many endeavoured to soften and smooth it and said at least Christians who died in the profession of the Faith but without Holiness and Repentance would one day be recovered 'T is without doubt that this Opinion mitigated and softned was one step which made the Church fall into the Error of Purgatory For after they had restrained those that were to be purged by a Penal Fire to such as died without Holiness and Repentance by little and little they restrained them to such who dying without Repentance had not satisfied the Canonical Penances of the Church St. Austin was not of the opinion of those who believed that ill Christians dying without repentance were to be purged by fire nevertheless he thought it probable * Enchir. cap. 67 that those who had too much affection for temporal good things during the space of this Life after death would be afflicted with grief for the loss of them and that this would serve them for a Castigation Nevertheless he proposes this but as a doubtful conjecture It is not incredible says he †Enchir. cap. 69. but that something of like nature happens after death and it may be disputed whether it be so that some Believers shall be saved sooner or later by a purging fire according as they have more or less loved these perishing good things By this Purgative Fire or Purgatory he understands nothing but the grief of being deprived of these perishing things And this is that which he means in the same Book ‖ Enchir. cap. 109. That during the whole space of time between a mans death and the last Resurrection Souls are in hidden Receptacles according as they are worthy of repose or misery with respect to what they have been during this life A man cannot deny but this is Purgatory in its birth but it was not as yet believed and received of all the Church nor hath it been received nor perfected any where but in the Latin Church Behold that which I have to tell you concerning the changes happening in Doctrines and Worship I will not pass on to the following Ages because 't is not my design to give you a compleat History of all the changes which have happened in the Church for 1700 years I only desire to confound the boldness of Monsieur de Meaux and such-like which dare to affirm that Christianity in their hands is in the same estate in which it was when it passed from the Apostles to their immediate Successors and that time hath changed nothing that is essential in the Doctrine and Worship of the Church that insensible changes whereof some men speak to you are but Dreams Behold say I enough to ruine these rash affirmations of your Converters for from this short History which I have given you of the Doctrine and Worship of the Church for the space of 500 years it appears 1. That during these five Ages
up and formed neither have nor can have this priviledge of being always necessarily visible For Experience makes us see that God permits that they perish wholly For Example the great Churches of Africa of Carthage and Numidia c. where were the Cyprians the Augustines the Saintes Fulgentii that is to say the prime Lights of the Church These Churches say I are not at all therefore they are not visible and perpetual Visibility was not affixed unto them At present consider you that the defect of Visibility may be found in a particular Church for one of these two reasons either because she is no longer or because she is not yet the Churches of Africa are invisible because they are no more and the Protestant Churches were invisible two hundred years ago because they were not yet Understand I intreat you the folly of the Objection which they make unto you by this The true Church is always visible the Church of St. Austine and St. Cyprian is no longer visible therefore the Church of St. Cyprian and St. Augustine was not the true Church Can any thing be more foolish and ridiculous than this You very well understand what you ought to answer when the Church of St. Austine was in the World it was visible and it was then the true Church but after it was extinct and abolished by the Invasions of the Saracens and the Moors how can you wish or desire it should be visible So when they tell you The true Church is always visible now the Church of Luther and Calvin was not visible two hundred years ago therefore it is not the true Church You can answer that a man can say nothing more absurd and that a Church is far enough from being visible when as yet it is not Ah on that occasion they will say to you the novelty of your Church is a proof of the falseness thereof For a new Church cannot be a true Church Another Absurdity The Church of China erected by the Roman Missions is about a hundred years since I reason against that as they reason against us A new Church which was not visible a hundred years since cannot be a true Church for the Church is ancient and always visible now the Church of China is new and was not existent a hundred years ago therefore it is not a true Church I desire that they would tell me the difference unless it be that the Church of China newly came out of the bosom of Paganism and that ours is newly come out of the bosom of Antichristianism He must be a little cracked in the crown not to perceive by this example that the new erection of a particular Church ought to be no prejudice unto it Nothing can prejudice it but new Doctrine If a new Society which teaches a new Doctrine doth arise then in a new Church and in that case is worth nothing But they will say Behold exactly your own state and case you are a new Church that teach new things That 's the question that 's it which we deny and which must be examined to know whether we teach new things We must therefore come to the Foundation to see if we teach the ancient Religion of Christ and his Apostles and not ridiculously amuse our selves in wrangling about circumstances concerning a new Church of new Establishment of perpetual Visibility c. for if we teach the true and ancient Religion of Jesus Christ all that they say of these things are Illusions And if on the contrary our Doctrine be not that of Jesus Christ and his Apostles though we were as old as the World and had been always as visible as the Sun we should be nevertheless a false Church This is that therefore which I will stand to that we are not to search the character of perpetual Visibility in any particular Church forasmuch as it agrees only to Christianity in general and the Church Universal Before our Reformation the Church was not visible in our Society which did not yet exist but it was visible in the Greek Church in the Armâ—nian Cophti Abyssin and Aethiopian Churches because all these preserved Christianity intire in the three Creeds When we came into the World the Church became visible in our Society as it was before in others with this difference that the Church and Christianity were visible before our Reformation as the Egg whereof we have spoken was visible in the midst of that dirty unclean and filthy water in which it swam and that in our Church Christianity and the Church are there visible as the Sun dis-engaged from dark clouds and fogs My Brethren if you take pains to read and meditate deeply and more than once upon what I have said unto you I tell you frankly I shall no more fear on your behalf the Sophism concerning perpetual Visibility WHatsoever desire we have to give you the News of our Martyrs for this time they must give place to certain Prodigies more significant than any ever happened before The first shall be that which is come from St. Malo attested by a Letter from the Vicar-General of that Bishoprick The Copy of a Letter from Monsieur Simon Doctor of the Sorborn Arch-deacon of Rinan Channon Penitentiary and Vicar-General of the Bishoprick of St. Malo the sixth of July 1687. I Wrote to you the last Post my dear Monsieur but how can I forbear to tell you of a late Accident which you will hear of by the publique Relations Behold a small Extract of it which I draw in haste Upon Thursday last being the third of this Month the Thunder after a very small noise in the borders of this City fell upon our Church by the Steeple killed a young Man which toll'd the Bell in the Belfery fell into the Seat of the Quire or Singing-men broke all the lower part of the Crucifix in divers pieces and left the Image hanging by its hands it fell among the Musicians which sung and answered at a Mass in Musick that Monsieur de Sales celebrated at the Altar of St. Julien it smote down the said Sieur de Sales with the Deacons and Sub-deacons who were some time without knowledge overturned the consecrated Calice which stood upon the Altar on the Ground and on the Garments of the Priests The same thing happened at the Altar of St. Peter at the entrance of the Quire A Priest being at the Post-communion saw in an instant in a Chalice which fell not one part of the Blood of our Lord consumed the rest sprinkled upon the Ornaments of the Priests and upon the Linnen of the Altar Monsieur Lagons being at the Credo of the Mass at the Altar of St. Malo was thrown upon his back and there the Sacrifice ceased The Thunder broke many parts of the Vestrie burnt the Altar-cloaths and left a mark upon the Pattin as if it had been shot with a Pistol it left many other marks upon the edge of the Chalice In the Quire one named
whom we have spoken They caused them to go down into Caves full of Dirt Toads Serpents Excrements that had been long heaped together At length after they had passed through a succession of Cruelties whereof Phalaris himself was never guilty on the first of July 1675 they were ordered as others to be sent to the Gallies in hopes that some-body would buy them for the Vice-Roy and the Venetians absolutely refused to buy those miserable Creatures who on the one side were innocent and on the other were incapable of doing any Service by reason of the Afflictions that they made them suffer The Bishop of Newstadt that famous Persecutor put them under the conduct of one of his Hangmen and caused them to be conveyed to Tergeste a City scituated on the Borders of the Adriatick Sea There they shut them up in a Stable and because one of them escaped they cruelly scourged all the rest The Fugitive being pursued and taken they forced all the rest to whip their Companion twice a day Not content to satisfie their Rage on these unhappy persons they would satisfie their Avarice also they treated with them for their Ransome at a great sum of Money which they received and then delivered but two men In the month of October in the same year they carried them from Tergeste to Buccari to put them on the Gallies of Malta While they expected the coming of the Gallies they put them in a Vault which belonged to the Prison where Ordure Filth Urine and the Waters of the Prison ran there they cast unto them by a hole some morsels of Bread which they went on hands and feet to gather up in the midst of Man's Dung. They fastned them with Chains which came under their Throats and held the Chin raised up that they could not incline it downward They put Irons on their feet and they were bound cross their bodies with Irons besides They were thirty nine days in this posture and sometimes they carried them out into the Street to make them a Spectacle to the People Those who had endured a great many horrible Punishments fell under these Ten of them signed the Writing which had been required of them at first and that Subscription having done nothing towards their deliverance they abjured their Religion some time after being forced thereto by the length of their Torments Two of those which persevered died on the seventh of December and their Companions buried them in the Sand on the Sea-shore having scraped with their hands to make Graves for them There remained but six of those which were cast into this horrible Prison The one of these six being in an Agony on the Sand of the Sea after so many sufferings and being in no condition himself to return to Prison was drag'd by the Serjeants with so much violence upon the Stones and Stairs of the Vault that in all places where his Body passed there was left of the Bloud and pieces of the Flesh of this poor Sufferer who died within a few hours after and remained without burial in the stinking Sink They told the other five that they were appointed to die in the same place of Dung Misery and Corruption if they did not abjure their Religion God fortified them in these their last Combats in which they continued till the month of May 1676. at which time God sent them for a Deliverer the Embassadour of the Vnited Provinces who demanded them and they were granted to him When they drew them from their Cave they had no humane shape their Throats were putrified their Teeth were fallen out and they could not endure any Meat in their Mouths without feeling very sharp and pungent pains They put them in good Beds two famous Popish Physicians undertook their recovery one of the five died at Venice the 24th of May the four others escaped by Miracle and came into Switzerland where Mr. Heydekker says that he saw with horror upon their Bodies the glorious Marks of their long Confession so that 't is from themselves that he learnt the History of their Martyrdom I am very much perswaded that there are no honest Men in the Church of Rome itself which do not tremble at such a Report and I am unwilling to charge these Roman Catholicks with the infamy of such Cruelties which are not guilty of it nor capable of committing it But this does not hinder but that we may see therein the Spirit of Popery Behold what the Priests and Monks are capable of in whom this Spirit does properly reside 'T is the Spirit of Murder and Falshood and therefore 't is the Spirit of the Prince of Darkness If this be not a powerful Prejudice against Popery I think there can be none Let a Man look on Popery with its Cords Whips Gibbets its Racks its Wheels its Fires and Flames snarling and threatning like the Devil to tear Bodies shed Bloud torture Souls extend Sufferers upon Crosses tying them to Posts and casting them into Flames Let a Man behold it I say in this frightful Dress and horrible Employment and let him tell me if he finds any thing like it in the Character of the Christian Religion How can a Man fail to find therein the Babylon of the Revelations which makes herself drunk with the Blood of the Martyrs of our Lord Jesus These Two Histories are taken out of Mr. Jeurieu 's Prejudices against Popery Chapter the 27th and 28th of the Second Part. FINIS